merlin_las

Black Tide At Midnight

Mordred’s voice is a knife in Merlin’s mind, cold and invasive, the chill of ice slicing his thoughts so that he cannot think or hear or see beyond that one command: ‘Come.’ He tosses and turns restless on his bed, hands pressed to his ears to hold back the crushing tide of soundless noise. He’s not sure whether he’s trying to block it out or keep it in – stop the resonance from bursting outwards and shattering his skull the way he feels it must if it doesn’t stop soon.

‘I don’t want to die,’ Mordred says, and the voice in Merlin’s mind is stripped down now, vulnerable; it crawls behind Merlin’s eyes. ‘Emrys,’ it begs, ‘Emrys, please.’ It sounds so heartbreakingly young and afraid, and his resolve wavers, but he can feel the taint sliding underneath, calculated and carefully pitched. He tucks his knees up against his chest and tries not to be sick.

Merlin is close, so close to falling before the onslaught – Mordred shows it to him, vivid and real: Arthur crouched low in the shadows, sword drawn, desperate as he waits for his own men to hunt him down, Mordred helpless behind him; Mordred makes him feel it: the sense of being caged in, trapped, no way out, death bearing down with dread inevitability, black panic rising up to choke him, scalding in his throat. It almost drives him off the bed – Mordred’s just a child, and there’s the look on Arthur’s face, scared and alone and beginning to realise that Merlin isn’t coming; Merlin has abandoned him.

Merlin groans aloud but he can’t, he can’t let it happen any other way. He remembers the dragon’s warning, the gleam in reptilian eyes, deep voice scraping and shuddering in Merlin’s bones. Mordred will not be a boy forever, and he will kill Arthur. He will murder him. As much as it pains him to see Arthur like this, cornered and betrayed, it is nothing compared to the thought of him cold and still and dead, so Merlin doesn’t go. He pulls his blanket round and over himself, wrapping it over his head like a funeral shroud to blacken his sight as he wishes he could silence his mind, and lies down, curled tight, body so tense it aches. He squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lip until it bleeds, savours the taste of blood in his mouth to distract himself from the horror in his head. Merlin knows when the guards come; Mordred’s shriek when they touch him, drag him away, makes Merlin want to dig his fingers into his eyes, tear at his skin, scream and writhe just to make it stop; he whimpers and fists his hands in the sheets instead.

Mordred doesn’t stop. He is never silent. He huddles in his cell and he works at Merlin, works at unravelling him thread by thread. All through the night Mordred begs, ceaseless and insistent. He whines, pleads, cajoles, rages like a vengeful storm, whispers like the wind through the reeds, threatens and entreats. All night long Merlin lies awake and shakes, breaking by slow degrees with each passing second, every word a nail twisting in his flesh, deep and raw and bright with pain. His thoughts become twisted in the darkness, Mordred’s voice his only companion and nothing there to anchor him. He fears to move because he knows that if he unbends even for one single moment he will answer the call and Arthur will die. Not now, not yet, but one day, too soon, Arthur will die; Merlin stays very still and hums to himself as the tears spill from his eyes and prickle on his skin.

All through the night Merlin holds, and the next day he watches as Mordred’s head is parted neatly from his shoulders; the crowd does not cheer, but inside, in the shameful depths of his heart, Merlin does. He has bought Arthur’s life with the blood of a child. The knowledge boils in his gut, venomous and smothering, and Merlin loathes himself because all he can bring himself to feel is relief.