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lutelyre · 5 years

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Fic Drabble: Merlin

Prompt: After years of requests, H-bee has finally dragged a Merthur fic from me, and tbh I’m not mad about it. This also could have worked for Whumptober’s “Ransom” or “Numb” potentially! Fandom: Merlin -- AU “Rival Gangs” scenario (This was my first time ever writing this fandom and I haven’t seen a SINGLE episode, so what a wild ride...)

Everybody Knows That The Dice Are Loaded

Merlin feels himself break out in a cold sweat when he sees them drag Arthur inside, hogtied and blindfolded, his nose already broken and blood drooling from a torn lip onto his dumb rock band t-shirt, bruises blooming on his face like dark roses.

He’s spitting curses, struggling like the diehard hero he always tried to be, and Merlin feels his heart crack a little bit, a panic growing fizzily in his chest. Goddamn it—he’d told Arthur that Mordred would be patrolling tonight, he’d told him a hundred times. Why the fuck wouldn’t the man ever listen to him?

“We didn’t expect to pick up this fuckboy, when we went cruising, huh?” laughs Mordred, his eyes alight with triumph and maybe also a fresh line of coke. Mordred had never been good at keeping himself out of the goods. Behind him, Morgause gets tired of Arthur’s impressive litany of expletives and punches him in the stomach, hard. Author shuts up mid-swear, and instead groans in pain, long and low. They must have already broken a few ribs. Morgause reaches down to shove a rough wad of cloth into his mouth to gag him, clearly already over this shit.

Merlin’s fingers twitch involuntarily. “Great, you got us useful asset, but the Knights won’t pay for a beat-up piece of pulp, will they?”

Arthur’s head snaps up at his voice, a noise of recognition half-dying in his throat. Merlin’s stomach flips over. Mordred laughs, high-pitched and not really sane. He always was more aggressive when he was doped up.

“Who says we’re ransoming this little piece of shit?” He kicks Arthur’s back with his heavy black combat boot, hard, and Arthur twists awkwardly on the ground and grunts, gritting his teeth.

“I’m going to have a little fun with him, and then we’ll put his head on a spike for the Knights to cry over.” A switchblade catches the light, and then too quickly Mordred is kneeling down, gripping Arthur’s chin and already drawing a deep, red-seeping line with the blade down his forehead, smiling when Arthur tries to jerk from his hold.

Merlin’s own teeth feel tight in his mouth, buzzing. He tries to think fast. “You don’t want to ransom Pendragon’s kid? They’ll pay good money for him.”

Arthur makes another half-bit off noise, surprise but also an undercurrent of anger in the muffled sound.

Fuck, what was he doing? He had promised never to tell that secret—knew it would make Arthur a target more than anything else. But what the fuck else was he supposed to do? Mordred’s head had snapped up at his words.

“What d’you mean, his kid?” He looks slowly from Arthur lying on the ground to Merlin, whose fists are clenched. “Just how did you know that, man?”

Shit, shit, shit—

“Not all of us just spend our time testing the goods, Mordred.” He says, as casually as he can muster. “I’ve been doing research, I thought that was my job in this hellhole.”

Mordred chuckles under his breath. “Oh yeah? I wonder about that.” He brings his knife up to his mouth and licks the blood there, slowly.

“This little Knight ass-wipe seemed to know where he was going when we grabbed him, didn’t ya?” Mordred brings the blade back up to Arthur’s face, draws another line on his forehead agonizingly slowly, diagonal to the first. “Even seemed to know exactly what we were doin’. I wonder how he knew that, don’t you?”

Arthur hisses, face creasing in pain as the knife presses to his flesh, droplets of blood beading and dripping down to disappear under the blindfold. Merlin tries to look away but can’t tear his eyes from Arthur, his hands twitching spastically, the way his jaw tightens around the gag stuffed in his mouth.

Mordred brings his knife up again, and Merlin suddenly realizes he’s carving a letter into Arthur’s forehead, a bloody “M”. He feels sick, struggles not to choke, not to rip the knife from Mordred’s fist, not to scream bloody murder himself—why had Arthur been out, that blasted, brave-hearted—

“Look—does why he was there even matter?” Merlin licks his lips, tries to put enthusiasm in his voice instead of the dread he feels filling the his chest like water, fear churning in his lungs. “We should use this as an opportunity—we could make an example of him, that we’re willing to ransom, and make a fucking sweet load of cash.”

Mordred sighs, hums to himself softly. “Maybe you should use this as an opportunity, Merlin.“

Merlin opens his mouth to retaliate, to make some kind of fuss—anything to stop that knife from touching Arthur’s skin again—But in one quick movement Mordred reaches and pulls the now blood-soaked blindfold from Arthur’s face to pool loosely at his chin.

Arthur blinks hard against the sudden light, and one eyelid is swollen and puffy, his eyelashes dripping blood from the brand Mordred carved into his skin, but those eyes are still the bright blue Merlin knows so well; clear like a summer day, like a sky so hot you could burn just reaching up to touch it. Arthur’s gaze searches frantically and locks onto his own almost immediately, yearning and furious all at once, a muffled groan breaking his lips.

Suddenly Merlin can’t quite breathe.

“What d-do you mean?” Merlin manages to get the words out even though his mouth is cold, his tongue thick around the words, strangling. He doesn’t look away from Arthur for a moment, even though at this point he knows it’s a risk. Mordred is watching them both closely, watching everything like the scene in the dusty storeroom is a play put on just for him, but Merlin can’t fucking help it, he needs to let Arthur know he’s trying— needs to find some outlet for all the rage and fear and heartbreak that seems to be suddenly happening in his chest, water still steadily rising.

Mordred laughs again, sharp and incredulous. “C’mon man, I don’t need to be hyped on Morgana’s freshest powder to think that something is up with you. You’re acting funny, and it started right about when I dragged this bastard in.” Mordred draws his tongue slowly up his knife again.

Damn it all—of all the people in this sordid operation, other than Morgana herself, Mordred has always been the most perceptive, the most sly. Getting out of prison early last month had only made him worse. And doesn’t Merlin know that? He should have planned better for this—he should have made another plan, had a fucking back-up.

They’d always just written off the possibility that this could ever happen—believed themselves too good to be caught, too quick, too cunning. It was just laughably stupid.

Mordred’s other hand fists in Arthur’s hair, wrenches his head back to peer at his face, considering. “Pendragon’s son sure is pretty.”

Arthur makes another noise around his gag, like he wants to eat Mordred alive, murderous. Merlin struggles to pull it together, trying not to drown.

“I—I didn’t think he was really your type, Mordred.”

“What, you mean to tell me he’s more your kinda guy?” Mordred laughs again, elated. “I’m beginning to think you do. I’m even beginning to think maybe—“ He brings the switchblade up again to press the tip of the knife into the underside of Arthur’s chin, force his head back further. “—Maybe you’ve already established this pretty-boy is just exactly what you like to fuck.”

Merlin yanks his eyes away from Arthur, and he knows his face is too fearful, too honest. The dangerously hair-fine tension of the room has reached a breaking point. “You’ve been sampling too much snuff Mordred, and it’s finally gotten to your head—stop acting so crazy.”

Mordred’s laughter wipes off his face, and then he abruptly lets go of Arthur to let him hit the floor with a dull thud and a moan.

He knew that had been a bad move as soon as he’d said it. The last time someone had called Mordred crazy, that poor fucker had ended trussed up in the bathroom of a fast food restaurant way out on the turnpike, missing most his fingers.

There’s a pause, where Merlin wonders wildly if he has enough hand-eye coordination to kick the knife from Mordred’s hand and snap the ties between Arthur’s wrists and legs, like this was some kind of an action hero movie. It’s a frantic thought—He knows he doesn’t have that level of skill. He’s not exactly in this gang because of his brawn, and this knowledge sits heavy in his limbs, frustratingly resigned. It’s a shame he always thought riding off into the sunset was for sissies, anyway. His pulse thunders wildly in his ears, a hundred staccato beats a second.

Mordred considers Merlin, the obvious panic spiraling over his face, and then a beatific smile slowly crosses his lips, chillingly angel-like.

“Alright then, how about you prove me wrong?”

“Mordred, look, can we just slow down—“

Mordred extends the knife out to Merlin— gleaming wet with saliva, still tinged red at the edges. “I think you should put your money where your mouth is, man.”

“What?!—Fuck no!” The words fall from Merlin’s lips before he can stop them and he hurriedly backtracks. “You—you know I hate getting everything so—messy. You’re the one who gets his fucking rocks off lopping off bits of people, I— I do the tech and, I do the planning—“

“—and I’m the muscle. Yep, I know.” Mordred smiles wider, his faintly bloody teeth look horrifying in the dim light of their storeroom, tightly wrapped packets of Morgana’s best product around them wrapped up in paper and taped with red duct tape, ready to be shipped tomorrow. Merlin dimly notices that at some point Morgause must have left the room, to stand guard or to call for reinforcements, he’s not sure. The world has narrowed to himself, and Arthur on the ground, and Mordred suddenly knowing too much, seeing too much, everything being too much.

“But still, I think you should indulge me, just this once, don’t you?”

Mordred steps forward, leans in very close and Merlin feels a shiver slide through him. “You carve up that pretty face a bit more for me, Merlin, and maybe I’ll decide we should ransom him.”

In the dirt, Arthur jerks, twisting and fighting for leverage from his bindings, a low growl in his throat. His eyes have a desperate, pleading look to them as he meets Merlin’s gaze again, his hands fisting the air like he’s imagining them around Mordred’s throat.

“I think he’d look good with a little more of our color on him, huh?” Mordred murmurs the words softy, like it’s just a suggestion, but Merlin knows what he’s asking—he wants to carve another letter into Arthur’s cheeks, his forehead, maybe his neck. Mordred always did have a penchant for making sure their gang left a calling card. He’d do it to suppliers who turned traitor, new initiates who lost their steam and wanted to run home to mama. Hell, Mordred even slashed some random teens outside their local deli the other week, because they’d been ‘getting on his nerves.’

Merlin struggles not to choke on the bile rushing up his throat.

He wishes Arthur had fucking stayed indoors tonight, like he was supposed to. Merlin almost even wishes he could kill him and let that be the end of things, could cut him up him without feeling like this, without feeling anything. He wishes he’d never met him that sunny July day on the highway, wishes he was just some other piece of trash the crew was always pulling in to make their dicks feel better. He wishes he wasn’t drowning right now, his fingers numb and his ribs heaving, wishes—

“If you do this for me, Merlin, I promise we’ll just ask for a big ole’ wad of cash from the Knights, like you suggested. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mordred holds out the knife in an open palm, barely an inch away. Merlin realizes he’s loving this. Mordred always hated him, all the way from day one when Morgana brought him on to help organize the gang’s gigs and pay off his credit card debt, never liked being only the muscle. This realization pumps sluggishly through his head as though from another time, another century.

“Something tells me you’d like this guy to see another day quite a lot.”

When Merlin doesn’t move, Mordred sighs dramatically, as if this was all just wasting his time and starts to pull the knife back. “But if you’d rather, I’m happy to go ahead and slit his throat, man. It’s your call.”

Merlin swallows hard, closes his eyes.

For a second all he can see is Arthur’s laughing face the last time they’d stolen a breath of a moment together, far on the other side of the city where the feuding gangs usually don’t dare show their signs, and they’d stood in the glowing pool of light from a corner streetlamp and Arthur’s lips were soft and his breath was so warm—

He takes the knife.

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