Chapter Text
He was shaken awake, and Gwaine opened his eyes to find Lancelot bending over him.
"The sun will set within the hour," Lancelot said. "I've explored the near area, and I think there's a stream not far west."
Gwaine sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "The boy?" he asked.
Lancelot shifted out of the way, and Gwaine saw that the boy seemed to have just woken too, groggily watching them through half-lidded eyes. "Good then," Gwaine said, with a gentle smile for the boy's benefit. He stood and pulled his cloak off the branch it'd been drying on, carefully rolling it and stashing it in his saddlebag. While he'd slept, Lancelot had brought their horses to the clearing and loaded the rest of their gear.
Lancelot quietly approached the boy and knelt several feet away from him. "We're going to find a stream," he explained. "We need to refill our waterskins and let the horses drink. You can ride one of them, if you'd like to come."
The boy didn't answer. Gwaine hesitated in the background, unsure how to convince the boy to come with them, but Lancelot didn't seem to have the same uncertainty.
"You probably don't really remember what a stream is, either," he said softly. "I'd like to show you, if that's all right."
The boy's fingers tightened on the cloak still draped over his lap. "Can I have some more bread?" he asked, keeping his face down and mostly hidden behind his hair.
Lancelot smiled at him. "Of course. Once we get the horses some water?"
There was a small, almost imperceptible nod, and the boy’s eyes flickered up to look at them. Lancelot smiled again and shifted closer. The boy flinched, as if he expected to be hit, but he didn't release a powerful blast of magic, and in a moment, Lancelot had lifted him and carried him over to Gwaine. Together, they settled him back on Gwaine's horse. Gwaine draped the spare cloak over his scabbed, skinny little shoulders, took the reins, and followed Lancelot as he led his own mare into the forest.
Lancelot was right. It wasn't long before they could hear the quiet murmur of running water, and not much longer before they emerged on the low bank of a small stream. It ran larger and faster than it normally might have, swollen from the heavy rain the night before, and the water was clear and cold.
The horses immediately bent their heads to drink their fill. Hearing a small sound, Gwaine turned and looked up at the boy. He was hunched over the saddle, his hands gripping the pommel tightly and his eyes on the stream. There was a mixture of confusion and wonder on his face.
"It's pretty, isn't it?" Gwaine asked, without thinking.
The boy glanced at him timidly, then stared at the stream again. "Can I... touch it?" He sounded so young, and so innocent—once again wholly enamored with a normal part of nature.
It made Gwaine want to ride back to that castle and kill every last one of those evil, torturing bastards.
"Of course you can, lad," he said. He stepped closer and lifted the boy, careful to avoid the worst of the injuries, then deposited him gently on the bank.
Instantly, the boy leaned forward and plunged both hands into the water, then gasped and pulled his hands back. He stared at them for a moment. Slowly, he reached out again, putting one finger in the water, then lowering both hands in again, playing with the stream like a boy half his age.
Gwaine had to turn away, suddenly unable to bear the sight, and busied himself refilling their waterskins.
Several minutes later, he looked up from the task when he heard Lancelot speak.
"Can I ask you a question?"
Lancelot had settled next to the boy, who still sat on the bank, both hands and feet in the water as he leaned over his legs, his hands swishing back and forth slowly.
"I'd like to clean some of your injuries," Lancelot continued. "It will help them heal faster. It will help with the pain. Would you let me do that?"
There was no response. Lancelot turned and looked at Gwaine, looking unsure of himself for the first time. Gwaine was just as lost, but he stood up anyway and stored the waterskins in their packs before approaching the bank again. He sat on the other side of the boy, letting his boots settle in the water, and waited for a moment, watching the blood and dirt rinse slowly off the boy’s bony hands.
“I had a little sister, once,” he said at last. The words came out of nowhere, something he’d never shared, not even with Lancelot, and yet for some reason, he found himself continuing. “She was a lot younger than me. And small. She had dark hair, and she liked to braid it. I would bring her flowers, and she’d tie them in her hair, and nothing ever made her as happy as those flowers. Except water.”
He leaned over, cupped a handful, and lifted it to watch it slowly trickle away. “She’d play in the streams for hours, just like you,” he said. “Her name was Elaine.”
The boy sat up, still looking down into the stream, his hands coming to rest on his knees. “Water,” he whispered to himself. “‘A stream.’”
“What’s your name, lad?” Gwaine asked gently.
The boy stared down at his bruised toes. “Merlin.”
“Merlin,” Gwaine repeated, meeting eyes with Lancelot over the boy’s head. “All right, Merlin. If you’ll let us, Lancelot and I would like to use the stream to clean some of these wounds you’ve got there. What do you say?”
Merlin curled inward a little, his hands gripping his kneecaps, and he turned his head just enough to glance up at Gwaine quickly with his eyes. Gwaine could read the fear in them, and it made him lift his hand and place it softly on the boy’s back. Merlin shuddered slightly, and Gwaine almost did too: he could feel the bumps on his spine and the painfully sharp edge of his shoulder blade.
“Easy,” he said quietly, “I won’t hurt you. It’s only washing the blood away, nothing more.” With his other hand, Gwaine slowly loosened the fingers of one of Merlin’s hands, lifted it, and flipped it over, exposing a group of five partially healing cuts along the inside of his forearm. Whoever had forced him to create them had instructed a specific shape: they formed a starlike image. “We’ll start here, all right?”
Merlin didn’t answer, but he didn’t protest, and Gwaine bent to scoop another handful of water from the stream. He poured it over the wounds, and with his thumb, he brushed some of the dried blood loose to run off with the water. Merlin took a sharp, trembling breath, his entire body shaking slightly as he watched Gwaine continue to clean the cuts.
“There’s no infection,” Gwaine said, trying to provide a distraction by explaining what he was looking for. “That’s good. That means the skin is already healing, and it will heal faster now that it’s clean.”
Finished, he let go, and Merlin pulled the arm to his chest, curling inward again for several moments. Gwaine looked over his head at Lancelot again, and Lancelot nodded. He looked relieved.
“What do you think, Merlin?” Gwaine said, putting his hand carefully on the boy’s back again. “I’d like to clean your other wounds too, if you’ll let me.”
Merlin turned his head a little, looking up at Gwaine through his hair with another darting little glance. He ducked his head back down, giving a quick, scared little nod.
Gwaine smiled, and kept his voice soft as he bent down and cupped a handful of water to wash carefully over a gash on Merlin’s leg. “All right. One at a time now. It won’t take long.”