Work Text:
He knew he was awake because everything hurt, because sleep had become a shallow puddle he kept slipping into only to claw his way back out again with another shiver that seemed to split his bones apart from the inside, and he could hear the castle somewhere beyond his room, muffled footsteps crossing corridors, doors opening and closing, voices swallowed by thick stone walls, life carrying on with such indifference that it almost offended him, because the world still expected mornings and duties and meals and laughter while he could not even convince his own hand to lift from the blanket that pinned him down with a weight that had nothing to do with wool and everything to do with the fever curling itself around every muscle he possessed.
The room had become impossibly large, the ceiling impossibly far away, every corner swimming whenever he dared open his eyes for more than a heartbeat, and he had long since stopped trying to sit up because the last attempt had ended with darkness swallowing the edges of his vision so quickly that he had barely managed to fall sideways onto the mattress instead of the floor, and now even turning his head seemed beyond him, his neck aching, while his arms lay useless beside him as though they belonged to someone else entirely, strangers attached to his body without permission, refusing every desperate command he sent toward them.
He wanted water so badly that he could think of nothing else, yet the cup on the little table beside his bed may as well have been sitting on the highest tower in Camelot, because he could see it without being able to reach it, and the distance between his fingertips and the wood might only have been inches but it stretched into something endless inside his fevered mind, and after several miserable attempts to drag his arm across the blanket, each one ending with nothing more than trembling fingers and another wave of dizziness so violent that tears sprang into his eye, he simply lay still again, listening to his own breathing scrape in and out.
Someone knocked.
He heard it, faintly at first, and he wanted to answer, truly he did, but his tongue felt thick, his throat burned raw, and even opening his mouth required more strength than he seemed capable of gathering, so the silence answered in his place, followed by another knock, sharper this time, and then a voice he recognized immediately despite the roaring in his ears.
"Merlin."
There was irritation there, of course there was, but beneath it something uneven, something Merlin only noticed because he had spent years learning every shade of Arthur's voice without ever admitting that he had.
"Merlin, if you're pretending to avoid work again, I swear..."
The latch clicked.
The door opened.
Merlin tried to turn his head toward him.
Nothing happened.
He heard Arthur's boots instead, confident at first, then slower, the rhythm changing as he crossed the room, because Merlin imagined he had expected to find him hiding beneath blankets with one of Gaius's books or asleep after staying up too late polishing armour badly to deserve another lecture.
"...Merlin?"
Merlin wanted to say his name.
He wanted to make one sarcastic remark, one weak complaint about him barging into his room, one joke that would let Arthur roll his eyes and call him an idiot before dragging him to his feet.
Instead, all that escaped him was a sound so quiet and broken that he barely recognized it as his own voice.
Arthur's boots reached the bed.
The mattress dipped.
A hand touched Merlin's forehead.
It vanished almost immediately, only to return more carefully, as though Arthur thought the first touch had lied to him.
His hand slid to Merlin's cheek, and Merlin could not even lean into it despite every aching part of him wanting to, because moving remained impossible, because his body had abandoned him so completely that he could only lie there staring at nothing while Arthur's fingers hovered against skin that felt unbearably hot even beneath the coolness of his palm.
"Merlin."
This time his name sounded wrong coming from Arthur, stripped of mockery, stripped of habit, carrying something raw enough to cut through the haze wrapping around Merlin's thoughts.
His eyes filled with tears from sheer frustration, because he had tried, because he had wanted to, because every tiny failure seemed enormous now, and he hated that Arthur was seeing him like this, hated that he could not hide behind clever replies or exaggerated sighs or another complaint about polishing his boots, hated that all he could do was lie there while his own body refused even the smallest kindness.
Arthur's hand closed around his.
Merlin could not return the grip.
Not even a little.
He felt Arthur freeze.
Very slowly, carefully, as though terrified of discovering something worse, Arthur lifted Merlin's hand a fraction above the blanket.
It fell straight back down.
Then Arthur inhaled sharply, the sound trembling despite every effort he made to control it.
"You can't move."
Merlin blinked once.
It was the only answer he had left.
Arthur's thumb rubbed slowly across the back of his hand, not absent-mindedly, not because he expected comfort from the gesture, but because he seemed unable to bear leaving Merlin untouched now that he understood, and when he spoke again his voice had gone very quiet indeed.
"Merlin."
Another pause.
"I'm here."
Three simple words.
Ridiculously simple.
Yet something inside Merlin unclenched despite the fever still raging, despite the pain still pressing against every inch of him, despite the exhaustion dragging relentlessly at his eyelids, because Arthur was many impossible things all at once, infuriating and arrogant and reckless beyond reason, but he had said he was here with the same certainty he used when promising victory before battles everyone else believed they would lose, and somehow Merlin's stubborn heart believed him without question.
He felt Arthur shift suddenly, heard him stand, heard drawers opening, cloth moving, water pouring somewhere nearby, followed by hurried footsteps leaving the room altogether, and panic flared through Merlin with surprising force because he could not follow, could not call after him, could not even raise his head enough to see the doorway, and for one terrifying stretch of moments he lay completely alone again with only the fever for company, every second stretching painfully until at last he heard voices racing back toward him, Arthur's unmistakable among them, stripped of every trace of royal composure as he barked orders at someone to move faster, while another voice answered just as urgently, Gaius sounding breathless, and then Arthur returned to Merlin's side before anyone else had crossed the threshold, his hand finding Merlin's again immediately, almost desperately, as though he feared Merlin might disappear if he let go for even a heartbeat.
"You stay with me," Arthur said, so close that Merlin could feel the warmth of each word against his temple, Arthur's fingers tightening carefully around his useless hand while Gaius hurried somewhere behind him with bottles and cloths and hurried whispers that blurred together beneath the pounding inside Merlin's skull, "do you hear me, Merlin, because I'm not going anywhere, and before you decide to be an even bigger idiot than usual, understand this one thing perfectly clearly, you're not facing this alone."
Merlin tried with everything he had to squeeze Arthur's hand.
Nothing happened.
Arthur did not let go anyway.