Bad Week

This had to be some sort of magical curse, some kind of enchantment.

It had to be.

Because Merlin couldn't think of any other reason why this week was going so horribly. Ever since the first day of the week, he could remember bad events after bad events, coming at him in unexpected and surprising streams.

Like on the first day; when he tripped and fell face-first into horse dung, and horribly enough, some of it went into his nose and mouth as well. But he had to get Arthur's lunch soon after, and he knew he'd be extremely angry if he went late, so he had no choice but to suffer the smell and, gods help him, taste all the way. And then the cook smacked him with her enormous spoon for coming into a kitchen full of food in that state. Yeah, like her food smelt any better than that.

And then he served Arthur his food, and even though he managed to spare more time by not taking a bath after the horse-dung disaster, he still somehow got late, which made Arthur angry to the point where his face was becoming as red as the fresh apple on his plate, and the stink that was radiating off of him didn't help matters either, which led to some slightly hurtful words being yelled at him.

Then on the second day, he somehow came down with a fever (probably all the germs in the horse dung), and Arthur, bless him, remained completely oblivious to his suffering. And so, he had to do all his chores while feeling like there was a giant hammer pounding against his skill. And he skipped pretty much all of his meals on that day because of the consuming nausea continuously swirling in his stomach.

Then on the third day, he passed out from that lack of food the day before and fell down the stairs while carrying Arthur's armor, leaving bruises and cuts in all parts of his body. He didn't hit his head, which was the only good thing, and so he deemed himself fit to keep working. Arthur didn't ask, since it wasn't unusual for a bruise or two to be on a clumsy servant's face, and he sure as hell wasn't going to open up to him about his bad week, not like Arthur would really appreciate his complaining. So, he was forced to do his chores while feeling like there were tiny knives embedded into almost every inch of his body. And on top of that, he found the visiting prince from a kingdom somewhere in south to be a complete prat. Probably a bigger prat than Arthur, and he wasn't even sure if that was possible.

Because on the fourth night, he was smacked around quite a bit by said visiting prince after the celebratory feast of his arrival just because he refused to serve him more alcohol. He thought he was doing a good thing! He just didn't want the huge prat to die of too much alcohol.

And here he was, on the fifth day, torn at the seams and on the verge of nearing tears because he was just waiting for another thing to go wrong.

And, well, it did.

Arthur was yelling at him again about being late to work as usual. And he can't understand why he felt so hurt by that because it never bothered him before, especially when it was almost a daily occurence.

After Arthur left the room for the meeting he had today, Merlin was left to himself, feeling like a large bag of lead had been placed on his chest, and like he was one-more-thing-gone-wrong away from breaking down into tears.

.

He was carrying Arthur's cleaned laundry towards his chambers, and the door was right there, when he crashed into a servant carrying a plate of half-eaten food. They both fell down, the laundry basket rolling away into a corner and the large pile of Arthur's laundry now on the ground, stew smeared all over it. The servant rudely yelled at him to watch where he was going, and then stalked off, leaving Merlin on the ground and staring at his hands, on the verge of breaking down once again.

He sucked in a deep breath as tears burned in his eyes again, his bottom lip wobbling as he clenched his jaw to stop himself from crying. No, he won't cry over something as petty as a bad week.

He tried to pull himself together, told himself over and over that it was just another bad day and that it'll pass soon as his shaking hands slowly reached for the basket at the corner and took Arthur's dirtied clothes to put them back in.

He stood up on his feet and carried the basket back to the chambers, deciding to leave the laundry for a while until he got his head back together and, for the time being, do something easier such as polishing boots.

He nodded himself at the idea, swallowing almost dreadfully as he wondered, what could go wrong with that?

Merlin settled the laundry basket on the bed, and moved towards the pair of boots lying against the wall.

And tried his best not to cry at the several holes chewed in on them by the rats.

.

Arthur sighed out a huge breath of relief after he walked out of the room, glad that the meeting was over. It was too bloody boring and long, and so he barely paid much attention to what was going on. He was mostly just there to sit and provide them his presence, which he truly didn't understand the point of.

He pushed the doors of his chambers open and walked inside, stalking towards his bedroom. His lips parted, ready to order Merlin to grab all his gear for the training practice, when his eyes caught the laundry basket on the bed, his clothes, that should have been cleaned rather than even more filthier than before, had stew and pieces of meat all over them.

"MERLIN!" he roared, his fists clenching as he once again wondered why he even kept that useless oaf around if he couldn't even wash his clothes. What in the bloody hell was wrong with that idiot?

He was about to open his mouth again to yell for him when he heard a quiet and strangled sob, and his sharp hearing skills detected that the sound was coming from the corner.

Nobody else really spent a lot of time here except Merlin.

He looked at the direction of the sound, and hesitantly moved towards it.

The small, curled up ball of brown jacket and black trousers and boots came into view on the other side of the room, backed into a corner, just as he moved slightly forward and the sight was no longer obstructed by his large bed.

"Merlin?" he asked, his voice softer with confusion and worry as he saw his shaking shoulders.

He slid towards the younger boy and knelt before him.

"Merlin?"

He didn't look up, but his frozen muscles were a clear indication that he acknowledged his presence.

"Merlin, what's wrong?" he asked, his hand finding his thin shoulder.

There was a long pause, before he heard a broken croak emit from him. "N-nothing."

"Yes, because 'nothing' is obviously an understandable reason to curl up in a corner and cry," Arthur replied, sarcasm evident in his voice, but it was still oddly gentle.

Merlin swallowed and slowly held out the boot clutched in his hand, but still didn't look up from fear of mockery, which would most likely send him in another fit of tears. And he did not want that, especially after Arthur had already found him like this.

Arthur stared down at the boot in his hand, slightly amused. "You're...crying because there are holes in my boot?"

Merlin swallowed down another sob, feeling more fragile than ever. "I-If you're going to mock me, then just go away, Arthur. I... I can't deal with it, not... not now, please." His voice was muffled as he spoke into his arms.

"It's more than that, isn't it?" Arthur asked softly as he slowly slid towards his side, settling along with him and laying a consoling arm across his hunched shoulders.

Merlin tensed at the contact at first, but then instantly relaxed. He paused again, and then nodded.

"Well, what is it?"

He hesitated, wondering if Arthur's going to laugh at him for crying at such a stupid reason. "Bad week."

He could imagine Arthur trying to smother his laughter.

But then he felt his grip tighten around him, tugging him closer.

And he was so sick, so tired of suppressing all his emotions, all the pent-up feelings since Will's death, and Freya's and his father's, never giving himself time and space to grieve simply because he didn't want to face the pain of thinking about it, didn't want to accept the fact that they were gone and never going to come back. The bad week was just the last push.

And so he let go, he gave in. And in one swift motion, he turned and buried his face into Arthur's chest, clutching at him as his small fists curled into the back of his tunic and he just cried and cried and cried, tears soaking into the fabric of Arthur's clothes.

He held on to his friend as he let go of himself.

Okay, the ending, I'm not so sure about. But I hope you like it! This was for I love Merlin from THoC, love you girl!

This got posted a little late on FF. So if this story seems familiar, it was already posted on THoC a few months ago. *sheepish* And I apologize about any mistakes.

No flamers. Constructive criticism welcome though.