FIC: Pull (1/4)

[corilannam]

Title: Pull
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 15,577
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Elements of mind control within a consensual sexual encounter

Summary: Merlin has spent his life running from the Pendragons, but destiny has other plans.

Notes: Written for reel_merlin Take 2. Based on the movie Push. I basically borrowed the universe and a couple of plot points and then went my own way with it. So for people who have seen the movie: don't expect this story to be like the movie. And for people who haven't seen the movie: don't expect the movie to be like this story.

Big thanks to chelseafrew for her usual thorough beta duty, to hanelissar for amazing Britpicking and beta work, to sheswatching for confirming it made sense. And of course, big thanks to anna_zee for helping me hash out the plot problems, betaing the whole thing, and persuading me this was a good idea in the first place.

Disclaimer: Merlin and Push are properties of BBC/Shine and Summit Entertainment respectively. This story is presented solely for entertainment value and has no monetary worth whatsoever.



Most people, whatever their beliefs or proclivities, are pretty much the same. Normal.

I'd give anything to be one of them.

Instead, I belong to the loose and fractious brotherhood of those born with certain psychic talents--telekinesis, mind control, prophecy, and so on. It seems to be genetic; you get one type of power per person, and like any other kind of talent, your ability develops from use as much as birth.

We even have silly names for ourselves. Telekinetics are called Movers, obviously because they can move objects with their minds. Watchers can see the future, tracking the inescapable results of every decision you make. Stitchers can heal--or unheal--any wound. Bleeders have a high-pitched screech that can quite literally liquefy your brain.

Sniffs are the literal trackers, psychic bloodhounds who never lose the trail once they have the scent of you. The only way to hide from them is to find a Shadow, someone who can shield you from psychic eyes. Shifters are our illusionists who can make you think a bottle cap is a diamond ring.

And there are the Pushers. The scariest bastards I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. They can push their thoughts into your head, make you believe or do whatever they want. If a Pusher tells you to jump off a cliff--you do it and you’ll never have a chance to wonder why.

So what am I? No one really knows. There’s never been anyone like me before, never anyone with more than one talent, let alone all of them. But here I am. I seem to have a little of every power, but none of it is strong enough to be worth much. I’ve worked hard to keep it that way.

You see, there’s Division. That’s the covert agency that exists in most countries to round up our kind and use us for their own nefarious purposes. Lord Pendragon has ruled the UK Division for longer than I’ve been alive. I have one goal in my life: stay away from Uther Pendragon and his flunkies.

My mother was a powerful Shadow and kept me hidden for years. Then Division came for her and I went on the run.

Until the day Division came for me. And nothing was the same again.

***

He was little more than one of London's many shadows as he slipped around the corner and up the filthy staircase. The door to his tiny bedsit swung open at his touch as it always did. It closed behind him and locked again with only a thought, so habitual he barely even registered the small flick of power.

A hint of relief eased the worst of the tension in his shoulders, though he didn't completely relax. He never did. He couldn't remember what it felt like, if he'd ever known at all. Being hunted since childhood by a covert government agency with busy dissection labs did not lend itself to a sense of peace and well-being. But now he was inside and not all the combined forces of Division and Her Majesty's armed forces could make him go back out again today.

"Merlin."

He spun around, hand out, sending a blast of power at the shadowy figure standing in the corner. It flew backward--and splintered into pieces.

He groaned. "Gwen, that was my coat stand. With my only coat on it."

"It was a plank of wood with nails in it." Gwen stepped out of his kitchen where she had actually been standing. "And your coat will probably survive. I don't think you'll actually notice much difference."

"You know, one of these days, I'm not going to fall for that anymore." The complaint was mostly good natured. Gwen was a Shifter, able to create an illusion over anything she touched. She also seemed to have some kind of strange power that kept people from getting mad at her for it.

She gave him a kind but dubious look. "I did your shopping," she said as she gestured to the canvas bags piled on his square foot of sideboard.

"And what did you pay for them with this time? Loo roll?"

"I still have a couple of fivers left." She tossed the notes onto the stove, since there was no sideboard space left. "They might last another half hour. If there's anything else you need."

He eyed her from across the room. Gwen often showed up with stuff he needed--Merlin's own shifting ability ended as soon as he stopped touching the object in question--but she didn't usually throw around extra cash.

"Okay, what is it?" He shook his head when she started to widen her eyes in the who-me? expression that had gotten her out of a lot of police stations. "You're buttering me up for something. It's not like I can't tell."

The eyes finished widening. Guilt set in almost instantaneously.

"Not that you aren't nice all the time, obviously! Of course you are," Merlin said hastily, then stopped backpedaling and narrowed his eyes as he realized just what--and who--he sounded like. "Are you sure you're not actually a Pusher?"

"Only one person we've ever heard of was born with multiple talents, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't me." Her teasing smile flared and faded almost in the same moment. "Actually, that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about."

Manfully, he kept himself from crowing. He crossed the two steps to the kitchen and dug into one of the bags until he found a nectarine. "You bribed me with food just to talk about my pathetic powers? We did that last night at the pub."

"I've a friend who needs help. Well, sort of a friend. And I think you're the only one who can. Help, I mean."

Merlin's abilities as a Watcher had always been vague at best, and as with most of his abilities, he'd made no effort to improve them. He didn't see so much as he felt, but his feelings rarely failed him. He always knew when trouble was coming.

An unexpected shiver went through him, along with a flurry of impressions, indistinct but upsetting. Sickness. Pursuit. Violent shock. Lust. And most bizarrely, a feeling of companionship and purpose, lighting him up from within. That was the most troubling of all.

"If your friend needs a Stitch, you'd be better off taking them to crazy old Gaius." He slurped down the overripe nectarine and flicked the pit at the sink. It almost made it. "I think I saw him digging through the bins behind Boots."

"Merlin--"

"You know I'm rubbish at stitching. Might break someone's arm as well as fix it."

"It's not his arm. And I don't just need a Stitch. I need you."

Dammit. She was doing the cow eyes now. He was going to have to go out again after all.

Merlin sighed.

***

Unsurprisingly, Gwen led him to a hotel in a neighborhood much like his own, where questions didn't get asked. The Camelot had been a wealthy man's townhouse a century ago and it looked like it hadn't seen much upkeep since the original owners. The stairs creaked a warning beneath his boots, but Merlin was just glad to be back in a building where his shadowing powers worked best.

"This way. I think." Gwen darted down a side corridor that seemed narrower than the others.

Merlin followed, disliking the lack of alternate exits, but trusting Gwen. Usually she was better than a Watcher at knowing how to avoid Division operations. She knew people who knew things, and that had always been good enough for Merlin.

She ran her hand along the shabby wallpaper as they walked, then stopped in front of what looked like a blank space until she touched it.

"Your friend has skills," Merlin commented, looking at the door that appeared out of the blankness.

"Resources," Gwen corrected, then knocked on the door.

There was a pause that felt oddly significant, as though they were being examined. Then the locks snapped on the inside and the door squeaked open a crack.

Another icy tendril of foreboding crept down Merlin's spine, and he tried not to give in to his instinct to turn around and walk the other way. Gwen would never do anything to hurt him, but he had no doubt that she was leading them both into trouble now.

"It's me," Gwen called softly. "Well, us. I brought him."

The door swung open enough to let Gwen through the crack if she turned herself sideways. Merlin slipped in behind her, then stopped dead when he saw the woman who was bent over a still figure on the bed across the room. Morgana Le Fey

"Oh, no." Merlin backed toward the door, but it swung abruptly shut behind him. "Great. I knew it was a trap. Dammit, Gwen."

"It isn't, Merlin," Gwen said, earnest and quiet. "I promise it isn't."

His attention stayed on the woman across the room as she straightened up and turned to face them. She was paler than Merlin had last seen her, eyes luminous and her voice weary. "I give you my word, we mean you no harm. I only need your help, and I knew you wouldn't give it if I were the one who asked."

"Why wouldn't I do a favor for Uther Pendragon's mistress? You asked so nicely the last time, what with the Bleeders and everything."

He pushed away the memory of lying on the pavement, hands clamped over his ears against the high-pitched screeching of the Division's most powerful Bleeders while their most powerful Watcher stood over him, looking at him like he was a dull rerun on the telly. The blood had trickled out between his fingers, drizzling onto the pavement before he managed to summon the last bit of his power to send the two men reeling with an invisible shove. The noise stopped just long enough for him to stagger to his feet and flee for his life.

She looked at him with an air of regret, if not apology. He turned his head, giving the rest of the room a quick assessing look. The figure on the bed behind her was a man in gray training clothes, dark skinned and dark haired and visibly too sick to be a threat. But by the window stood another man who practically radiated power.

Morgana nodded toward him. "Lancelot Dulac, my bodyguard. His job today is to protect all of us."

The man Lancelot nodded toward him. Something in his calm gaze reassured Merlin. Lancelot was a Mover, obviously powerful, and Merlin wondered what he was doing working freelance for Pendragon's woman.

"Well, that will be a nice change," Merlin commented, turning back to Morgana. "I don't think I've ever had Division on my side before. Usually you're just a blur as I flee for my life."

She had the grace to give a tiny wince in acknowledgement. "I've made my share of mistakes. But not all of us agree with Uther's ideas. At least, not voluntarily."

He couldn't argue, much though he wanted to. Everyone knew Uther Pendragon was the strongest Pusher on the continent, possibly in the world, and he ruled over the British Division with the iron force of his will--literally. The only time Merlin had met the man, only his own latent pushing talent allowed him to fend off that powerful mind for the few seconds he needed to run. He still occasionally woke in a cold sweat hearing the echo of Uther Pendragon's voice in his mind.

Morgana watched him for a moment, then nodded and turned back to the man on the bed. Part of Merlin wanted to turn around and get out of there while he still could. But Gwen had gone to stand next to Lancelot, and both of them were giving him identical looks of hope and expectation.

"So this is your inside source at Division?" Merlin said, and Gwen shrugged.

"Who better than our best Watcher to tell you where not to be?" Lancelot said with the first hint of a smile Merlin had ever seen from a Division agent.

With a sigh he stepped up next to Morgana and looked down at the figure on the bed. He'd thought the man was deathly still, but close up Merlin could see that he was shaking with fine tremors, brow beaded with sweat. "This guy doesn't look very good."

He actually looked a lot like Gwen's father in appearance and condition, only younger than Merlin had ever seen him and sicker than Tom had been, even in his final illness. Merlin had never been able to prove it to Gwen, but he knew who'd been responsible for the unidentifiable, fatal disease. But if another relative of hers had taken ill, surely she would have told him.

"What did Division do to him?" he asked quietly, though there was no way the sick man could hear him.

Morgana looked down in silence, and Merlin wondered who this guy was to her. "You heard about the Americans and their drug?"

"Yeah. Trying to make super-strong psychics, weren't they?" Gwen had told him about it, and now he knew who had told her.

"Uther decided he could do better. Instead of just making a psychic stronger, he wanted to make them...like you."

"Like me," Merlin repeated. That seemed ridiculous--Merlin had a lot of powers, but he couldn't do much with them.

"If he could combine all the psi powers into one person, then amplify all those powers, no one would be able to stand against him. Not even the Americans."

"And I suppose this poor sod was the first experiment."

"Far from it. Just the first who lived. But he won't for much longer unless you help him."

"I already told Gwen, I'm no Stitch. I can barely heal a paper cut on a good day. What makes you think I can help your super soldier?"

She reached into one of the deep pockets of her jacket and pulled out her ubiquitous notebook, like all Watchers carried. Hers was heavy and ornately bound with jewels embedded in the cover. A gift from her lord and master, no doubt.

The pages were thick and rustled as she turned them. The quality of the paper sounded too good for this shabby room, here in the underbelly of life. He wondered again why she was really here and how Gwen had even met her.

Halfway through the book, she stopped and held it up toward him. Across both open pages stretched a shadowy depiction of the hotel room they were standing in, the bed they were standing over, and Merlin himself with his hand outstretched over the sick man's head. Above them both, a crowned dragon breathed fire onto a spinning coin.

Merlin cast a glance over the whole sketch, but his attention came back to the drawing of his own slender fingers on the other man's brow.

He cast a sidelong glance at the Watcher. "I don't like this at all."

She arched one elegant eyebrow at him. "I thought it was an excellent likeness, actually."

Merlin looked back to the sweating man on the bed. He didn't like this, he didn't understand it, but he did know right from wrong. Whoever this man was, he obviously needed help.

The man moaned weakly, the first noise he'd made since Merlin came in. His forehead glistened with sweat that trickled down his cheek to his slack jaw. His dark skin had taken on a sickly undertone, reminding Merlin even more of Tom. He didn't look like he was going to last much longer.

Slowly Merlin stretched out his hand until he could feel the fever heat on his fingertips. "I don't know what I can do for you, friend, but--"

The instant his fingers brushed the hot skin, he felt a surge of pure power go through him. He couldn't tell at first whether it was the other man's power or his own. After another moment, it didn't matter.

It felt like someone had shoved them both into a small box, shaken it around, then set it on fire. Merlin felt the power rattle him down to his toenails before he managed to find himself in the maelstrom.

Just like Merlin, the man had a considerable number of the known psi abilities jumbled up in his head. Unlike Merlin, all his powers were augmented to a fever pitch and completely uncontrolled. In the scrap of attention he could spare, Merlin wondered that the man hadn't leveled the entire hotel already.

He could almost see the energy now. The man hadn't affected anything outside himself only because the power was caught in a strange tangle, feeding on itself and ripping through its host like a virus in an endless loop of slow destruction. His abilities were foreign to his body with no way to integrate themselves like natural talents.

The thought caused a flicker on the edge of his awareness. He grabbed at it as something to focus on to steady himself amidst the chaos. Instantly, he felt himself sucked into a deeper whirlpool of distress. Images swirled around him, tossing him from one to the other like a pinball.

...standing over a hospital bed, watching a young man writhe in agony, a friend dying while he stood helpless.

...a stern man, Pendragon looming, honor, duty, fear.

...clenching his fist, the needle approaching his skin, can't show his terror, his fury, his determination.

Merlin tore himself out of the nightmare memories, gasping with the empathic reverberation. This man had given himself over as a sacrifice to Pendragon's ambitions. He should feel only disgust, but something inside him hurt with the need to help.

He reached out hesitantly with a wisp of his own power. He had little conscious control over most of his abilities and he didn't want to accidentally blast the hell out of his erstwhile patient.

The light touch of power against power was all it took. He felt the other man's shock for a surprising instant. Then something clicked--as if his power had found a match, slotting into place as if it belonged there in that tangle of energy and was the key to untangling it.

And that was all it took. He had no more conscious control over his actions, but watched himself finding and fixing all the problems that were keeping the man's powers from settling naturally. His telekinesis held the man still while his previously unusable telepathic pushing ability reached into the man's mind to still his panic. Merlin tried to send a bit of his conscious thought with it. I'm sorry, I'm just trying to help. I think.

He had always thought his healing ability was minimal. But as the disorder of energy dissipated, he found himself fixing the man's flesh as well, until the fever of his sickness abated. All the powers the man should never have had now hummed peaceably within him as if he had been born with them. Merlin was almost jealous, except that he felt a similar well-being within himself.

When the outside world returned to his awareness, Merlin realized he was panting as though he'd been chased clear across the city. His eyes felt fuzzy and dry. He blinked to clear them and looked down at the man on the bed.

Who was looking back at him from muzzily blinking eyes, beneath a blond fringe, out of a pale, fine-boned face that was all too familiar from Merlin's days of actually being chased clear across the city.

"Arthur Pendragon. You brought me to Arthur fucking Pendragon?" Merlin took a hasty step back from the bed and realized he was shouting. He didn't much care.

"I'm sorry," Gwen said with a mixture of misery and relief. "We had to disguise him to get him here, and then--well, it just seemed easier not to tell you who he was at first."

The door, the disguise--all Gwen's delicate work, Merlin realized too late. He stared at her in bewilderment. "Why would you help the Pendragons? They'll just use you, and then one day you'll find yourself walking into traffic for your trouble."

"Arthur is a good man." The quiet words came from Lancelot and made Merlin start in surprise. "He is nothing like his father."

"Like enough." Arthur struggled to push himself upright. Merlin had never heard his voice before. The words sounded surprisingly bitter, but before Merlin could find any revelations in his face, Arthur scowled past him. "Morgana, what the hell is going on?"

"You're welcome, your highness," Merlin muttered, but worry elbowed out his disgruntlement when he turned and looked at Morgana.

She was stock still, eyes frozen wide and empty as though she had vacated the premises without notice. Lancelot crossed the room in a few steps and took her elbow.

"Morgana, what is it?" he said. "What do you see?"

Arthur finished his slow maneuver into a sitting position. "My father is coming for me," he answered for her as his legs finally swung over the side of the bed.

Lancelot cast him a sharp look. "You can see that?"

Arthur was doubled over with the exertion, but he managed to cast a wry look up at Lancelot. "I don't need precog for that. It's my father. I know."

Morgana gasped and shuddered. She looked down at her notebook in a daze and clutched at it, though she made no attempt to draw. "They're here. Arthur, run."

Lancelot made a move to grab Arthur, but Morgana stopped him with a delicate hand on his arm.

"We have to hold them off. Merlin, take him. Whatever you do, don't let them find you."

"Morgana," Arthur said sharply, but she waved him off.

"He won't hurt me, you know that. Now, go."

Gwen rushed to Arthur and wedged herself under his arm as support. Without thinking, Merlin did the same and together they got Arthur onto his wobbly feet just as they heard feet pounding down the corridor outside.

Lancelot turned his head toward the only window and the sash flew up. "Jump. It's only a story. I'll break your fall."

Arthur started to protest, but Merlin was already pulling him towards the window. It was hardly the first one he'd jumped out. "If you're going to run from your own people, better get used to it," he grunted as he contorted himself to get through the opening and then dragged Arthur after him.

Chapter 2

Comments

[i-slash-thee.livejournal.com]

Such an original story, what with the Watchers and Shadows and all that! I loved it.