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archies-litterbox · 3 years ago

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Summary: Some times when Douxie called the castle his home, and one time Merlin realized his son saw the castle as his home whether he was ready to process that or not (and he wasn’t).

Words: 2000

A/N: I got this done! I actually challenged myself by making sure each little segment of the fic was EXACTLY 500 words, and I had a lot of fun! hope you like it <3

[CW: Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Nightmares (there’s way more softness in this than the CW makes it look I swear-)]

The typical chatter of the marketplace was overshadowed by Hisirdoux’s skipping steps, and those were overshadowed by the moppet humming a little tune to himself that Merlin couldn’t make sense of. It was one of many things about the little apprentice that didn’t exactly make sense, but when Merlin brought the boy along to finish an errand, what he truly dreaded was that the boy would be insufferable and get distracted at every turn. So, really, endearing -

- “Endearing to who?” Merlin asked in response to his own internal monologue, because the humming from the boy, a sure sign that his apprentice was content at the very least, was most certainly not endearing to him -

- So, really, definitely-not-endearing humming of silly, nonsensical tunes was a more-than-adequate alternative to that insufferability and distraction, Merlin was sure.

“Getting that potion ingredient was easier than I thought!” Hisirdoux said happily, the spring in his step ever-present, “The merchant wasn’t even cross with me, like usual - like when I come here by myself.”

“Have you considered,” Merlin started, “That she’d been cross because of your notorious slight-of-hand? And your pickpocketing and street tricks has rendered her wary of your possible antics?”

Hisirdoux shrugged, rubbed the back of his head in obvious sheepishness, and turned his gaze elsewhere, “Mayyyybe-”

His face lit up in excitement, his eyes widening as his mouth formed an “O” shape when he saw something off to the street’s side.

“Ooooh! Look!” He turned a little to the side, bringing his hands up as he started to wander to a stand selling some sweet treats, “They’re selling-”

Merlin put a hand on his shoulder to still the boy, who was already a handful without the added hyperactivity of sugar.

“Nothing of importance, Hisirdoux.”

He turned the boy forward again, put his hand on top of Hisirdoux’s head, and turned it forward again as well.

“Awwwh.” Hisirdoux whined.

“We have what we came down here for, and Wizards are many things, but they are not frivolous.” he said as he kept walking, a slightly-pouting moppet walking alongside him, “We’re heading straight back to the castle. There are better pastry bakers there, anyway.”

Hisirdoux’s disappointed pout left his face.

“Right, right.” he said, as if he were reminded of how happy he was just to be out here, on what he probably thought of as a beautiful day, although Merlin was rather impartial to the sunny weather.

“Let’s go home, Master!”

...Home?

Did he mean the castle?

Though he kept moving physically, putting one armor-plated foot in front of the other, Merlin’s mind froze as he looked down at the joyful, beaming moppet. To hear Hisirdoux refer to the castle as his home…

Well, Merlin knew he should have expected it at this point, considering the boy’s utter lack of a permanent roof over his head before, but he still didn’t know what to make of it, if there was anything to make of it.

So, he sighed.

“The castle isn’t that far away.”

The dark circles under the boy’s eyes looked darker in hue than usual today, but of course, that was only due to the contrast against the unusual paleness of his face. Said eyes looked up at Merlin with a rather lacking amount of cognizance as the Master Wizard stood over the moppet. Stripped of his bulky leather hooded vest in favor of keeping on only his trousers and tunic, so he didn’t overheat, Hisirdoux’s deep breaths through his mouth were only interrupted by a brief, pitiful sniffle of his nose.

“Mathter, ‘th thith… plague?” He was hoarse from coughing and nasally from his awful congestion. To this, Merlin only huffed - of course, leave it to his ever-dramatic apprentice to leap to the most dire conclusion possible, even though he couldn’t even rightly walk down to the throne room in this state.

“Not unless a rather nasty cold has become the new plague of Camelot.” he answered, “you should have come back sooner from your last errand, Hisirdoux, before it started to pour.”

Hisirdoux groaned, either out of his achy, miserable condition, or frustration with hearing the old man lecture him, or both.

“I know, I know-”

A wet cough cut him off, making him curl up before he flopped back down on the bed.

“Ugh, ithn’t there thome…” he swallowed, as if to clear his throat of sickly gunk as best he could without another hacking, “I dunno, “thickness begone-iuth” thpell, or thomething?”

“I won’t use magic to alleviate your sickness, if that’s what you’re implying.” Merlin denied, “Although unpleasant, your condition is far from serious, and your symptoms should alleviate in a few days, at the most. If I use magic on something so mere, your natural immune system will weaken, and a dependence on magic to maintain your health is dangerous, so-”

“But Mathter-”

“Don’t “But Mathter” me.”

Hisirdoux sighed, a shaky, ugly-sounding thing, too exhausted to even spare a laugh at how Merlin imitated him.

“Magic ithn’t a permithible shortcut…” he started, but he trailed off and punctuated the statement with another little sniffle.

It seemed, remarkably, Hisirdoux remembered a few of Merlin’s teachings, despite his low-grade fever.

Which reminded him…

The Master Wizard sighed and conjured a cold, damp rag, enchanted to not dry out or get tepid. Making sure it was properly folded, he laid it right onto Hisirdoux’s forehead.

“Oh, ‘th nithe…” he mumbled, “thank you…”

“Your plans for today are postponed, of course.” Merlin declared, “You’re to stay here and rest.”

“But-” Hisirdoux’s eyebrows furrowed, “I wath thupposed to go out and do that… that thing… and get the thing… from the plathe…”

Of course, it must have been harder for the boy to think sensibly and make sense than usual.

“And that will wait until your condition improves.” Merlin finalized, “Am I clear?”

Hisirdoux, resigned, nodded.

“Yeth, Mathter… thtaying home it ith, then.”

Before Merlin had anywhere near enough time to be surprised at that word, “home”, Hisirdoux fell right to sleep.

Merlin couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt like this before; when he couldn’t tell if he was more terrified or furious.

But he couldn’t be bothered to try to figure that out - not when, after hours of Hisirdoux being late coming back to the castle, a shoddily-written ransom note made its way to the desk of the Master Wizard’s study.

Thankfully, Hisirdoux’s familiar could trace it by it’s unpleasant scent. Merlin followed Archibald as the cat-dragon followed the scent trail to some disgusting hovel in a forest clearing, with some deplorable men hanging around it’s outside.

When Merlin laid eyes on them... he leveled them with any spells he could remember through his rage at them all; at their audacity.

Of course, it had been some incompetent group of bandits, but only a fool equated incompetency with harmlessness; just because these idiots didn’t know what they were doing didn’t mean that Hisirdoux was safe.

So, he shifted his focus on finding his apprentice, even if he had to reduce every board of this blasted cabin to splinters.

But it didn’t come to that; the second Merlin stepped in, he saw him.

Hisirdoux was curled up in a corner, sitting on his heels with his hands bound behind him, his arms bound steadfast to his torso, and a piece of cloth tied between his teeth. He was unharmed, but terrified.

Hisirdoux’s muffled cry that came out when he saw Merlin shattered the old man’s heart.

He never ran faster in his life.

A small, very precise blast from Archie made the bonds around Hisirdoux’s wrists and torso come loose, and when Merlin got to him, he pulled the cloth gag out as fast as he could without hurting him, letting it lay around his neck.

The instant his arms were fully free and Merlin was close enough, Hisirdoux hugged him, clinging to the Wizard for dear life and crying his heart out against his armored shoulder.

“Are you hurt? Did they do anything to you?”

Merlin felt Hisirdoux shake his head. He could tell he was swallowing to try to get some moisture back in his mouth. It had probably been dried out by that blasted gag, and who knew if they’d given him any water?

“No, just-” he gasped, “Scared.”

Those bandits would soon forget the very meaning of mercy.

For now, Merlin focused on rubbing soothing circles against the boy’s back, seeing that his ankles were bound. Merlin didn’t even notice before, and Hisirdoux was so hasty - so desperate for comfort that he didn’t even wait. He didn’t even seem to care.

Archie started cutting them loose.

“I-” Hisirdoux hiccuped, “I wanna go home.”

The shattered remnants of Merlin’s heart melted.

Home.

His son wanted to go home.

He sighed, moving one of his hands to cradle the back of the poor boy’s head, passing his fingers through his un-bunned hair.

“Please,” he whined, “take me home.”

Merlin nodded, the side of his head rubbing Hisirdoux’s.

“Right… right.”

It was long past nightfall, and the castle was quiet, so Merlin tried to tread the corridors lightly so his armored feet wouldn’t clank against the floor and wake anyone; the last thing he wanted was for any particular moppetish apprentices to stir.

That boy… he had already gone through so much he hadn’t deserved, and for what? To what end? Merlin presumed that before he’d found him in that alley, he’d been treated poorly for being not only a street rat, but a magical one at that. And now, even though he was the Wizard’s apprentice, that treatment hadn’t truly gone away; no, it only shifted onto new grounds: the grounds that... he was the Wizard’s apprentice. Now, much of the animosity sent his way was truly meant for Merlin; directing it at Hisirdoux merely amplified it. Strengthened the blow.

And that blow was strengthened today.

Merlin remembered the note’s creases under his fingertips as it trembled in his shaking hand; the door creaking open with a shriek in its hinges and showing Merlin his apprentice, bound and gagged and terrified in the corner of that hovel; Hisirdoux wailing against his shoulder; the trembling of his son in his arms. He remembered it all.

“Hisirdoux…”

He passed the sleeping boy’s door… and sensed magic from behind it. Unusual magic for this hour. In the little gap between the door and the floor, he could see the blue glow of his magic, too. Unmistakeable.

“...Hisirdoux?”’

He stopped at the door and pushed it open, only to be met with a fretful sight before him (not nearly as bad as the last time he’d pushed a door open to find Hisirdoux today, but it was rather close.)

The boy was thrashing in his sleep - tossing and turning in his blankets to the point where they’d started to tangle around him, which only made his obviously-nightmare-induced thrashing worse. Magic thrummed from his hands as he fought back against… something, and even Archibald, who had curled up on his abdomen to soothe him to sleep earlier tonight, couldn’t quell his night terror.

Merlin knelt down at the boy’s bedside and put a hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly, “Hisirdoux!”

“N-no! Stop!” he pleaded, thrashing harder to get the hand off him, “Get away! Leave me ALONE! Let me GO!”

Merlin shook him harder.

“HISIRDOUX!” he shouted.

Finally, the boy’s eyes snapped open, and he gasped.

For a moment, he just breathed as lucidity seeped back into him. After realizing he was in the realm of the conscious, he put his hands to the sides of his head.

“Master…” he squeaked, “Where-”

“It’s alright, Hisirdoux. You’re safe.” he assured, “You’re home.”

Honestly, the words just slipped out, for Merlin, shocked by himself, doubted that he would have ever said them otherwise.

And with now-even-wider eyes, Hisirdoux looked just as shocked.

… Well, no good rescinding it now. How could he, really?

“You’re home.”

Hisirdoux nodded, a shaky smile on his face.

“...Home.”

#fic: home #my writing #mine #douxie #hisirdoux casperan #merlin #merlin ambrosius #wizard dad #tales of arcadia #toa #wizards #toa wizards #moppet!douxie #hurt/comfort

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