Sacrificial Limits

Summary: Merlin's put his life on the line for Arthur countless times before. But maybe this is one too many… Is there a limit to what you can sacrifice to save a friend's life? Contains: a reveal (or two); bromance; Gwaine and Lancelot; and plenty of angst.

Set: After season three.

Warnings: Near-death experiences. Angst, angst, angst. More angst. Did I mention the angst?

Prologue

Arthur was dying.

There was no question to it. He was definitely dying.

And Merlin was almost panicking. If only he'd been conscious before, if he hadn't been shot by the bandits who also got Arthur, he could have done something - slowed the bleeding, prevented infection - anything.

But he'd been knocked out, and that left only Gwaine and Lancelot - the only knights with them on this trip - to tend to both men's wounds. Luckily, Merlin's was almost superficial - the cross-bolt had only scraped his arm, though he'd lost a fair amount of blood - but he'd fallen head-first onto a rock and been knocked unconscious as a result. He had only heard Arthur's cry of pain and a brief flurry of movement and shouting before succumbing to the darkness.

When Merlin came to, a few hours later, the first thing he became aware of was the searing pain at the back of his head. Then he remembered the previous events and bolted upright with a gasp. What happened to Arthur?

"Whoa, Merlin, calm down," a voice next to him said, and then a hand was carefully pushing him back down. But Merlin resisted. He looked around wildly to see Gwaine's concerned face.

"Where's Arthur? What happened to him?" he demanded, still struggling to sit up even though his throbbing head protested. He had a growing sense of foreboding; something telling him that a terrible thing had happened to the prince.

Gwaine rolled his eyes skyward, like 'What am I going to do with this guy?', but decided to just let Merlin sit up. He kept a watchful eye on him, though.

"He... got hit," he finally said shortly, casting an anxious glance backward.

The pit of dread in Merlin's stomach grew at those words and he slowly turned his gaze, almost fearfully, over to where Gwaine had looked.

There was the prince, lying unconscious close to the fire. Lancelot was kneeling by him, using his hunting knife to shred some cloth into strips for the wound on Arthur's abdomen. And the wound... Merlin's insides iced over, looking at it.

The cross-bolt had struck him in the side, just below his right ribs. There was a wrap-around bandage covering the mid-section of his upper body, but the right side of it was heavily staunched in blood. Contrasting that, Arthur's face was stark white, and scrunched up in obvious pain.

It definitely was not a pretty sight.

Lancelot stopped and looked up when he heard Merlin's voice, and his face broke into a relieved - albeit rather strained - grin upon seeing his friend sitting up. "Good to see you up. Make sure he doesn't move too much," he added to Gwaine. "Just in case he's concussed." Lancelot turned back to his task, his face returning to its previous troubled look.

"Yeah, yeah. Hear that, Merlin? No mov- Merlin!" Gwaine cut off loudly, grabbing the younger man's shoulder to keep him down. Merlin glared at him - he'd been just about to get up.

"Like heck I'm staying here!" he reiterated hotly, throwing off the knight's hand and getting unsteadily to his feet. Gwaine sighed heavily and left him to it, knowing it would be a lost cause trying to stop him. Merlin stepped rather haphazardly towards Arthur, ignoring Lancelot's reprimanding glare, and dropped to his knees next to the prince.

He stared down at his wounded friend. His condition looked pretty damn critical. He looked like he'd lost a lot of blood, and his chest was rising and falling terrifyingly slowly. Each breath he took was more ragged than the previous, and his pained and discomfited expression didn't fade.

Merlin needed to do something. He had to.

"How long has he been like this?" he asked Lancelot quietly.

"They attacked us about four hours ago," he replied with a grimace. "He was losing blood very quickly at first, but we managed to slow it down a little. I don't know, but... He's had a fever going on and off for the past hour... It doesn't look good, Merlin."

Merlin didn't reply. He put a hand on Arthur's forehead and almost recoiled at the heat radiating from him. It might have been infected, he thought suddenly, and moved to undress the wound so he could check it.

"What are you...?" Gwaine started to ask from beside him, but a look at Merlin's determined face stopped him.

The warlock drew in a sharp breath upon seeing the definitely infected injury. It was still bleeding slightly, and the skin around it was an unhealthy shade of green and purple, like a bruise gone wrong. His mind swirled with thoughts of what Gaius had told him about treating infections. He pulled back and turned to his friends. "Get my rucksack, I've got some herbs that might help. And some fresh cold water too. It's infected; we need to stop it from spreading."

Gwaine nodded and ran off to the horses to get Merlin's things. Lancelot paused and looked at his friend solemnly. "Can't you do anything to heal him? A spell?"

But Merlin shook his head in frustration. "No, healing spells never work with me. I don't want to waste time." He might not have much left, was the thought trailing in his head after that sentence, but he didn't need to say it. By the dark look that passed over Lancelot's face, he'd thought of it too.

So Merlin spent the next near-hour working on tending to Arthur's gash while the two knights got some well-earned and much needed rest. He'd forgotten all about his own headache, all other thoughts pushed aside except for one: Save Arthur. It wasn't even about destiny any more, that instinct. Destiny was about as far from his mind as it could be right now. Destiny might as well not exist, if Arthur didn't make it. But he would. Merlin would make sure of that. Because Arthur... no matter how much of a prat he was, no matter how absolutely blind he could be sometimes... was Merlin's friend. Is his friend. And he wasn't about to let his friend slip away from them - not now, at least; and not for a long time, if he had anything to say about it.

Merlin worked tirelessly. After about two hours, he sat back, tossing aside the empty vial that he had gotten the unconscious prince to drink from. From what he could guess (and he hoped he was right, at least to some extent), the infection hadn't set in too deeply, though it had already done some damage. The fever was his main problem, right after the amount of blood he'd lost. Merlin figured that by morning his fever would break. It should break. It better. Or else... he didn't know.

He felt his eyes drooping as he sat there, mulling over whether he should have applied some more of the ointment to the wound or not. Eventually, he slipped into a restless sleep, sliding slowly to the ground.

His dreams were disturbed and broken. He couldn't make out all the images. There was blood, and lots of it. A gloomy darkness had taken hold of him; he couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Voices surrounding him... panicked and loud and why were they shouting? And... was that Arthur's voice? But Arthur was dying... wasn't he? But no... there he was... and he was laughing and healthy and calling Merlin's name...

"Mer...lin?"

Merlin jerked awake. He pushed himself up and shook his head to clear it before looking around for ...

"Arthur?" He stared anxiously at the prince, who was moving fitfully in his sleep. The dressings were redder than before - the wound had started bleeding again. Merlin worriedly felt his forehead and winced; his skin was cold and clammy, and definitely not sweating as he'd hoped he would be. Arthur was murmuring now, looking seriously distressed, and Merlin didn't know what he was dreaming of, but he knew it couldn't have been very pleasant. One thing he did know, though - Arthur was most definitely worse.

And Merlin didn't know what to do. He took a deep breath and went for his last resort, praying to the gods that it would work, before placing a hand over the wound and whispering, "Purhaele dolgbenn". His eyes flashed gold at the use of the spell and his fingers tingled, but to no avail. The wound was as bad as before. He grimaced and tried again; "Gehalge". Still nothing. He stubbornly tried again, louder and more forceful, but it seemed to be a lost cause.

He felt himself slowly starting to panic. What use were his powers if he couldn't even save his friend from certain death? What could heal him, when he was almost useless at healing spells? Arthur was... he was dying. Merlin's breathing hitched for a moment as he stared at the pained prince, as though he could heal him through willpower alone. He couldn't even bring himself to talk to him... not that he'd be able to hear, but still. He couldn't stand the thought that, out of all wounds and places, Arthur might die out here from a normal mortal wound made by bandits. It just seemed so... odd. He thought that, when they died, they'd die fighting. They'd go down together, not separately, where one had a serious injury and the other was helpless to do anything useful…

But - no. Wait. Merlin sat up suddenly, filled with hope at his inspiration. He could save Arthur. He had the power to Mirror Life and Death, didn't he? He could... He could save him. He would save him.

And so Merlin held his hands over Arthur's body and let the words spill out of him, almost subconsciously, letting the magic do its work. A gold sheen seemed to hover over the prince, brighter around the wounds, and though Merlin could feel his own energy draining, he felt a slimmer of joy. He's going to live, was his final conscious thought as the last of his energy left him and he slumped to the ground, unconscious. The prince's breathing immediately grew steadier, while Merlin's became uneasy. He'd done his job.

.:`:.

A/N – Thought I'd try my hand at one of these fics. I have no idea how I went, so… care to enlighten me? The next chapter's half done, but I thought I'd see the response to this one first. Don't know how long this fic will be. Most likely it'll be a reveal!fic, and I'm really excited about that. It's my first reveal, so I hope I do it justice. And I'll try not to sound cliché or unoriginal, though that would be difficult, seeing as this type of thing has been done countless times, but yeah. This is my take on it. And this has Gwaine! Yay! :D And Lancelot, who's gunna face some conflict next chapter…

But anyway, review, please? I'd like to hear if I did any good or if I should do anything to fix this up before continuing on with chapter two (which will be Arthur's POV, yay!).

Cheers. :P (or maybe not… seeing as this isn't exactly a cheery fic and all…)

~izzy