Merlin- Bleeding Hearts

Locked Lips

After much resistance, the knights managed to pull Merlin's shirt, scarf and jacket off, and restrain him enough so Gaius could clean the already bandaged cuts on the brunettes back. Merlin kept his head bowed and his mouth shut the entire time, he wouldn't say a word. Gaius looked at the cuts on Merlin's back, then to Arthur and said,

"Sire, these are definitely lashing marks." Arthur set his jaw and looked at Merlin, who still hadn't said a word. The knights loosened their grip on Merlin's arms and he violently ripped his arms from their hands. He turned, showed the cleaned lashing cuts to everyone and stormed off to his room, slamming the door behind him. Arthur looked at Gaius,

"What did you mean, you haven't seen Merlin in days? He's come to work everyday this month!" Gaius raised and hand to his face and set his jaw,

"This is extremely peculiar." Merlin appeared again, he was pulling on his light purple shirt. Gaius tried to stop him,

"Merlin stop it, you'll bleed through another shirt and the wounds could get infected." Merlin rolled his eyes slightly and pulled his shirt off again. He sat down at the table and allowed Gaius to bandage and re-bandage all the cuts and bruises. Merlin would wince every once in a while but other than that, he didn't react to the probably excruciating pain. After a few minutes, Gaius finished bandaging everything, Merlin shot up and pulled on the purple shirt. Merlin started to pull on his jacket but Arthur stopped him.

"What, Arthur?! Im a manservant so why should you care if I was tortured and attacked?!" All the knights looked at him,

"You were tortured? When?!" Merlin visibly bit his tongue and scoffed,

"Forget it." He stormed from the chambers, Arthur looked at Mordred,

"Follow him but keep a good distance." Mordred nodded and followed after Merlin.