Merlin- Bleeding Hearts

Why?

Merlin opened his eye and immediately realized, he was shirtless, bandaged and laying in Arthur's bed. The brunette shot upwards suddenly, using his scrawny and pale arms to brace himself and gasped suddenly, his ribcage and chest burning in pain, his arms were a fuzzing blurring pain. When he tried to leave the bed, he saw his shirt on the table, along with his coat and Arthur, asleep in a hard chair, the chair facing the bed.

'What the hell.. Did Arthur really help me?!'

Merlin tried to sit up but his arms gave out under him, he plopped onto the bed with an excruciatingly painful wince. Merlin slammed his eyes shut and tried to recall what had happened. Arthur suddenly stirred and Merlin froze. After a few minutes, Merlin stood up and, once he was positive his legs wouldn't give out from under him, he stood up ripped the bandaging off from his arms and grabbed his blood soaked shirt. He pulled on the shirt slowly, trying to get used to the feeling of the cold, wet blood drenching his freshly bandaged skin. He pulled on his jacket and turned on his heels, he quietly opened the chambers door and slipped out, careful not to wake up the sleeping prince.

Arthur opened his eyes and was almost positive everything that had happened was a peculiar dream, until he saw the bloodied bandages on the floor. Arthur picked then up and judged from the length, they were the bandages from his arms.

'Of course, people would get suspicious if they saw the bandages on his arms.' Arthur ran out of his chambers, only to almost crash into Mordred and Gwaine. Gwaine asked,

"Is something wrong sire?" Arthur looked at Gwaine then to Mordred and said,

"Find Merlin. Take him to Gaius, forcibly if you have to. I'll explain everything I know later, just do it." Both knights were confused but the turned on their heels to go and tell the other knights the orders.

Merlin's back was burning, but so where his arms and wrists. He had to keep the wounds hidden though. Arthur had probably noticed that Merlin was gone and had probably told the knights to grab the brunette. He grabbed some weapons and some armor, winced weakly when the armor came into contact with his injured shoulder, but trudged his way to the knights training area. After about 10 minutes, both Mordred and Gwaine appeared and called Leon and Percival over. Merlin couldn't hear what the knights were saying, all he knew was, the four knights were looking right at him. Leon yelled,

"Hey Merlin, could you come here for a minute? We have to ask you something." Merlin nodded weakly,

"Yeah hold on, let me just.."Merlin didn't finish his sentence, he took off sprinting in another direction. His speed startled the knights but they began to follow yelling Merlin's name in an attempt to stop him. After several minutes of chasing and running, Mordred and Leon had managed to grab him. Thy grabbed his upper arms and he howled in pain, they didn't know why but they dragged the resisting Merlin to Gaius's chambers.

Gaius spun around and saw Merlin, then saw the knights. He walked forward,

"Merlin where have you been? I haven't seen you in days!"All the knights looked at Merlin, when Arthur appeared.

"Gaius, I need you to take a look at Merlin's wounds." Gaius's face darkened,

"Wounds? What wounds?" Arthur walked over and rolled up Merlin's sleeves, revealing the cuts and bruising to everyone in the room. Arthur didn't look Merlin in the eye but he continued speaking,

"He's got the cuts and bruises on his arms but he also has lashing like marks on his back and torso." Gaius looked at Merlin, who's head was now bowed.

"Merlin?"