Work Text:
And if my life is like the dust
that hides the glow of a rose…
What good am I?
Heaven only knows.
Face half-hidden behind the screen of his laptop, Merlin was staring through the open door of the inn across the street. For the hundredth time in the last two weeks he told himself that this couldn’t be coincidence. He had seen a lot of them over the last centuries, but he had never, ever seen three of them at the same place, obviously knowing each other.
Quite obviously, Merlin thought while he watched Lancelot and Guinevere kissing each other with the ease of a couple who knew each other long and well. Lancelot’s name was now Will – a fact that gave Merlin the creeps- and Guinevere was called Mary, but nevertheless… they were Lancelot and Guinevere. And Gwaine was Gwaine, and he was even called Gwaine now, which was probably embarrassing for him but Merlin was kind of glad about it; things were already confusing enough. It was also glaringly obvious that neither of them recognized him; another thing Merlin was thankful for. The last time he had seen Lancelot, about 1820, the once-upon-a-time-knight had known Merlin… he hadn’t really remembered much of their history but whatever he had remembered had been enough for him to attack the warlock, and all had ended in a bloody disaster he could do without this time.
Guinevere had never recognized him, no matter how often they had met. And they had, far too often for Merlin’s taste. He sometimes wondered if she didn’t want to know him, if he maybe only came to her in her most hidden, secret nightmares. He hoped so. As back then, it made bile rise in his throat when he watched her and her fucking white knight. Mordred might have killed Arthur, Morgana might have given him the means to do so, Uther might have crippled Arthur’s soul, but after all these years, Merlin still hated Guinevere and Lancelot most. Arthur had loved both of them, and they had betrayed him in the most horrible way imaginable. Merlin knew, this had been Arthur’s downfall, not the insane search for the Grail, not the war against Mercia… it had been the deceit of his wife and his… well, best friend. Merlin hadn’t held this title at that time; his part of the blame. He hadn’t warned Arthur, tongue-tied and not sure how to approach the King about his cheating wife, and then it had been too late. He had fallen for the ruse of a woman he had thought he could trust; trapped in a cave by her for decades, stripped of almost all of his powers, he had been cursed to only watch Arthur’s last years, the struggling with his fate, without being able to help him, to console him.
Merlin took a deep breath and lowered his gaze to the keyboard. He knew none of that mattered now, hadn’t for a long time. These people across the street, two innkeepers and one of their waiters… they weren’t his enemies anymore. Actually, they were the reason for the bit of hope that had flared in his chest when he had found out about them. And as for the others… Morgana, Viviane and Mordred, wanderers like himself… they all ran for their lives whenever they felt Merlin closing in on them. Even if they weren’t hopelessly divided, they all knew they wouldn’t stand a chance against him, not after all these years while his powers had grown and theirs had weakened.
So… there he was sitting at the same table in front of this little Italian café, the last two weeks, every day in the same spot across the street, waiting for Arthur to arrive. He wasn’t even close to losing his patience; he would still sit here for years, if he had to. Something was different this time; he could feel it in the way his heart was stuttering in his chest. He hadn’t felt that way since he had last seen Arthur, in the royal chambers of Camelot, before he had left for Avalon.
Sighing, Merlin let his gaze wander down the street; by now, he knew almost everyone who lived or worked here. The huddled beggar in front of the boutique that never seemed to be open, the guy inside his flower shop who was selling roses and crack, the old woman who, quite like Merlin, did nothing besides staring down at this street from her window the whole day. And every time he looked around, he waited for a blond man to turn one of the corners, coming toward him, recognizing him.
Merlin leaned down and got a few newspapers out of his bag. While he was flipping through the pages, he shook his head. Wherever he looked, no matter the country, the only things to find where hate, war, lies, deception, murder, disasters… in his opinion, the world had twenty, maybe thirty years left before everything would end in a melt-down; the Earth was dying. Therefore, he had kept track on all the European royal families and he was trying to be on top of news about promising, young politicians all over the world. He hadn’t found Arthur so far, but still, he just knew the other man was close. And there was reason to believe somebody else knew about the Rise… Merlin reached for the envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket. For the nth time, he let his finger wander over the white surface, over the single name on it. Emerson, his alias. No stamps, no return address, no nothing. Only the name. It had appeared in his mailbox two weeks ago, a single picture in it. Guinevere, Lancelot and Gwaine standing in front of the Three Lions.
Merlin shook his head slightly; no matter what he had tried with the envelope and the picture, he hadn’t been able to find out where it had come from or who had sent it. That was troublesome; whoever had sent it must have known not only what finding out about the Three Lions meant to Merlin; no, this person also had had to know who Merlin was. And who would know about that, if not one of his old enemies… or one of Camelot’s Returners. But if in fact one of the old souls besides the three across the road had awoken and if that soul was well-meaning… then why had this person not approached him? The whole thing bothered Merlin; he wasn’t afraid, hell, it had been centuries since he had been afraid of anyone, but still… he wanted to know what this was all about. He hated riddles he couldn’t solve.
With a sigh, he pocketed the envelope again. Whoever, whatever, it wasn’t so important right now. Important was the flutter of his heart, the strange feeling of belonging in his soul.
Maybe… maybe it was time now, finally.
Later, Merlin wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him that Arthur would fuck things up. After all, the bloody Once and Future King had done so since Merlin had known him, and he had never really stopped doing so his whole life.
Merlin had just taken his usual seat and ordered a latte from the tiny, curvy and extremely sarcastic Italian woman who owned the café – “Please, believe me, I can’t eat tiramisu first thing in the morning, no matter how awesome it is” – when things in the street became very nasty very quickly.
Across the boutique, where the beggar was already arranging his tin box and unwrapping himself from various blankets, three neo-Nazis turned the corner, loudly brawling, and most probably on their merry way to the drug-selling florist of their choice. Merlin dimly remembered seeing them once or twice before, but then, they had come from the other end of the street. Obviously, the beggar had been lucky so far –he didn’t react at all to the three assholes- but sadly, his luck ended right before Merlin’s eyes. For whatever reason, maybe only due to the fact that the flower shop didn’t seem to be open yet –the owner was running late- the skins spotted the homeless guy, stopped for a second and then started to cross the street, yelling the first rude remarks.
“Jesus Christ!”
Merlin, in the very act of standing up, startled and stared at Mrs. Saratori beside him. Mrs. Saratori, who held his latte in one and a butcher knife in the other hand. Jesus Christ indeed. “Mrs. Saratori, do me the favor, let go of that knife and call the cops, would you?”
Merlin shoved her very cautiously toward the door, his eyes glued to the unfair fight scene developing not far away. The guy on the sidewalk had caught on to the danger he was in and tried to struggle to his feet. It was just a little too late for that because the first asshole had already reached him and lifted his white-laced boot –Merlin wondered why the guy even bothered with this dated accessory, the swastika tattoo on his neck was expressing his ideas quite nicely- and kicked the beggar in the stomach. Or better, he tried to… the pavement beneath him got slippery all of a sudden and he landed right on his ass before his foot could make contact with the guy still sitting on the ground. Merlin, on his way to them, hoped the police would show up quickly; otherwise, he’d have to find a way to explain his ability to beat those three overgrown monkeys to the ground on his own.
Only a few feet away now, Merlin would have given a lot for Lancelot or Gwaine coming around the corner; well, he would prefer Gwaine, to be honest. If the man still owned some of his old character traits, he would join the fight just because, “Hey! A Fight!”, but alas… Merlin arrived at his destination and nobody showed up, neither knights nor cops nor anyone else.
“Do tell me… do I have a chance to stop this when I say, ‘Cool it,’?”
Like doublemint triplets, all three of them turned in his direction. “Wha’ did ya say?”
“Yes. I thought as much.”
Taking advantage of the moment of surprise, Merlin swung his fist at the guy right in front of him. The second his hand made contact, the ass flew back and downwards as if Merlin had delivered a right cross, which he most certainly hadn’t. Sadly, if one didn’t have a brain in one’s head, it was next to impossible to knock one out, so Merlin wasn’t upset to see him getting onto his feet almost immediately again.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Merlin noticed movement coming his way, but before he managed to turn around fully, the second ass, who tried to attack him, stumbled against a parked car. The homeless guy had obviously decided to join the fight and had thrown his pillow, that turned out to be a backpack, at asshole number two. That earned him a punch from the third guy –the one with the tattoo-, and Merlin suddenly decided he had more than enough. Stepping quickly in front of the beggar who had tumbled down on his blankets again, he let his magic flare, showing them their worst nightmares.
Man-sized spider, man-sized spider -Gods, how boring can they get?- and a werewolf, so at least one of them had a bit of imagination. The results were, as always, spectacular. The fact that they were drunk out of their minds helped, of course; he doubted they had known they could run so fast. Merlin crouched down beside the homeless guy who, as if by a miracle, still had the hood over his head, and asked, “You’re all right?”
The guy looked up and Merlin’s whole world tilted sideways. Of course, this was the exact moment the cops finally showed up.
“So… you’re saying they just ran away?”
“I think I can look pretty dangerous.”
The officer behind the desk stared at him and Merlin stared straight back. This was getting old very fast. Right now, Merlin had better things to do than sitting in this old police station under flickering neon lights and answering stupid questions. Far better things. He looked over to the desk slightly behind him where… Arthur was sitting, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands and glaring defiantly at another officer.
“Mr. Emerson, guys like these don’t just run away.”
Merlin sighed. “Maybe they saw Mrs. Saratori coming down the street with that huge pan of hers? Listen, I have no idea why they turned tail and ran. Maybe you should go and look for them, instead of interrogating the victims?”
“Do you want to file charges?”
“Yes, of course. But I also think the DA should be interested in this as well? Such people are a public menace.”
The officer mumbled something Merlin wasn’t sure he wanted to know and began with the labored process of typing all the information he was able to get from Merlin into the old computer on his desk. After they were finished –sadly, this had also included a short interlude of “Oh, sir, I’m sorry… you’re that Mr. Emerson?” which led Merlin to the conclusion he’d have to change his current profession asap- Merlin stood up, took his coat and turned to the other desk where Arthur… had been sitting. The chair was empty now.
Thankfully, Merlin didn’t have to run all too far; Arthur was just outside on the steps leading up to the police station, smoking and apparently waiting for him. Putting on his coat and buttoning it up, Merlin slowly descended toward him. He had carefully blanked his expression because he had no idea how or if Arthur would react to him. So far, they hadn’t been alone and hadn’t exchanged a single word. Inwardly, he was shaking with nerves and also with disbelief… this wasn’t the way he had imagined them meeting again, and Gods… he had imagined thousands and thousands of possibilities.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Arthur answered, taking another drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke out and therefore obscuring his face behind it. “I guess I should thank you for rescuing me.”
Merlin just stared at him, becoming increasingly annoyed with himself. Now would be a good time so say something, like ‘You’re welcome’, if you don’t want to look like a complete idiot. And yes, his eyes are blue but that isn’t helping you right now. “Uh… it was either me or Mrs. Saratori’s pan.” Great. Brilliant, in fact.
Arthur narrowed his eyes a bit and then nodded. “Mhm. Okay, as I said, thanks.” With that he turned around and started walking, only to be stopped by Merlin’s hand that had grasped his upper arm. “What?”
“I just…” And again, words failed Merlin. He noticed that Arthur’s expression became angry and he still couldn’t let go of him.
“Hey, take your hands off me!”
It only took the span of a second to put two of his most powerful spells on Arthur, then Merlin released him. With a sinking feeling, he began to understand that the other man didn’t recognize him… and also didn’t react to the magic that had just flown all over and around him.
“I just wanted to ask you if… uh, you wanted to have a coffee with me?” Merlin wondered if he could sound lamer; he suspected he could… and would in no time, most probably.
Arthur snorted. The bastard actually snorted. “Man, spare yourself the time and trouble… I don’t go for things like that.”
“Things like what?”
“Aw, come on… do I have to spell it out for you, here, of all places?”
Merlin started to grind his teeth. The twit might not remember him, but he certainly sounded exactly like he had sounded centuries ago. “Oh, please, do me the favor and spell it out. Because I don’t understand a word you’re saying!”
Arthur lowered his voice and hissed, “I’m not a hustler!”
Again speechless, Merlin stared at the blond man. Then he slowly looked down at himself, at his expensive gray and black Pea Coat, the black turtle-neck under it, the worn jeans and black boots. “Huh. I didn’t think the ten golden chains I’m wearing were showing under this. What… you think I’m a pimp, or what?”
Pursing his lips, Arthur answered, “No. I think you’re a john. And again, slowly this time so you’ll be able to understand. Thanks, but no, thanks.” And then, he turned around and jogged down the street, leaving behind a 1500 years old, totally flabbergasted warlock.
With a sigh, Merlin turned over on his back and stared at the ceiling. It was no good, sleep didn’t come. There was no need to worry about Arthur; the protection and tracking spells were firmly in place. Merlin just had to reach out and Arthur, lying on the street in a sleeping bag, appeared in front of his eyes. Sleeping on a goddamn street. In a street where some sort of creepy Camelot gathering could very well take place. Giving up, Merlin got out of bed and started dressing. He deliberately shoved any thoughts about Arthur’s destiny -how the fuck could that happen now? - away, because… first things first. He had to find a way to get to know the other man, to get him to trust Merlin… and he already knew that this would be so much fun he wouldn’t be able to stand it.
Completely hidden from human eyes by magic, Merlin sat down carefully on the blanket beside Arthur. For a moment, he let his eyes wander over the meager possessions, then returned to Arthur’s face. The blond man -Man? Gods, he looks so young, how old is he?- wasn’t sleeping peacefully; a fine sheet of sweat covered his face, eyes behind closed lids were moving rapidly, brows were furrowed. Merlin watched him for another second, then raised his hand and let it hover over Arthur’s head. “Sleep,” he said quietly. Immediately, Arthur relaxed; the erratic breathing turned to deep breaths, and he seemed to sink deeper into the sleeping bag.
Merlin swallowed hard. Unbidden memories rose inside him; how often had he done the same for the troubled King of Camelot? He took a deep breath himself; he couldn’t succumb to the feelings he had for this man, not now, never. He had to remember that he was foremost a tool for Arthur, someone who had to help the Once and Future King, and not someone who fell head over ass for said king, like the fool Merlin was and always had been. And still, he was tempted, so tempted to touch him, like he had done in front of that police station. It was as if he couldn’t believe his eyes and had to touch, to make sure he had really found him. Releasing a silent sigh, he gave in and stroked tenderly over the blond hair.
When he drew his hand back, Merlin frowned. It was one thing to sweat while having nightmares, but Arthur seemed to be drenched in sweat. His hair was almost dripping wet, but he didn’t feel feverish. With a sudden bad feeling, Merlin opened the backpack Arthur was using as a pillow, and glimpsed inside as much as he could given the fact that Arthur’s head was lying on it. The only things he could see were clothing, another pair of sneakers, some toiletries and a few books. He closed the bag again, and then, fighting the feeling that he was actually creeped out by himself, he slowly unzipped the sleeping bag. Arthur mumbled something, turned a bit more onto his stomach and made it very easy for Merlin to spot the wallet sticking in the back pocket of his jeans. While he was drawing it out, Merlin kept a close eye on the sleeping man. He knew it was next to impossible for him to wake up, not after the sleeping spell, but one never knew with Arthur. The King had always had the uncanny talent of being unswayed by Merlin’s more ordinary magic tricks… and this meant he could not only wake up but also see him. And Merlin wasn’t keen on a suddenly awake Arthur who would find Merlin all over him in the dark, especially not after the whole ‘being a john’ thing Arthur had mentioned.
But he didn’t wake, and Merlin opened the wallet. There was no money in it, as expected, but Merlin was more interested in finding a driver license or an ID card. He got the card quickly and stared. John Smith. John Smith! Merlin bit on his lips to stop himself from laughing out loud. That was… funny, in more than one way. Then his gaze fell on the birth date and he groaned. He wasn’t even nineteen! Gods, he was younger than he had been when Merlin had met him the first time. Actually… he was as young as Merlin had been then. Great. A teenager.
There was nothing more of interest in the wallet, so Merlin shoved it back carefully into Arthur’s pocket and started to zip up the sleeping bag again. As if on cue, Arthur sighed and turned on his back again, and that was the moment Merlin noticed the pill bottle in his left hand. He gently pried open the grip Arthur had on it.
Lorazepam… and the bottle was half empty. Merlin closed his eyes. This was… well, ‘not good’ didn’t cover it, this was an actual disaster.
The next morning, Merlin sat down at ‘his’ table the moment the waiter had dragged chairs and tables out.
“You’re early today, sweetheart. The coffee machine isn’t hot yet.”
Merlin looked up at Mrs. Saratori and grimaced slightly. “I know, I’m sorry. Couldn’t sleep. Would you mind if I sit here or would you prefer I wait somewhere else until you… well, actually open up?”
The tiny woman laughed. “Yes, I want you to stand up and wait somewhere else, silly! Come on in and wait there, it’s still a bit cold out here.”
Merlin hesitated for a moment, looking at the sleeping man not far away, and then stood up and followed Mrs. Saratori into the her still sparely lit café. She was right after all; although summer wasn’t far away, it was still uncomfortably chilly and damp so early in the morning. He took a seat on one of the cozy sofas and watched her whirling around behind the bar, his thoughts still on Arthur. He had spent the rest of the night on researching anything he could think of on benzodiazepine use, addiction and withdrawal. What he had found had been distressing, to say the least. It was obvious Arthur couldn’t do a detoxication on the street. For some reason, Merlin suspected he wouldn’t get him into a hospital either, so… he had to get him off the street and into his house as soon as possible. Since Merlin knew Arthur only had half a bottle of the drug left, it had to be really soon; after all, Merlin had already made sure that Arthur wouldn’t be able to get a refill. Well, refill wasn’t the right name for this; it surely hadn’t been Arthur’s given name on that bottle.
Merlin startled out of his thoughts when Mrs. Saratori put a latte and a cinnamon roll on the table in front of him. “That should help a bit, sleepy head. And don’t start on me about that roll, you need the sugar.” Before Merlin could answer or thank her she was away again, grabbed a paper bag with probably more rolls in it and what looked like a huge thermos jug and left the café, turning to the left. Merlin waited for a moment, then got up and looked out of the window. As he had thought, she was just putting down both jug and bag beside Arthur without waking him. Merlin smiled; he had apparently missed this ritual because he had never been here so early before. So… Arthur had been adopted, and this also explained why that tiny woman had almost banged a pan over the head of one the assholes the day before.
When Mrs. Saratori came back, she saw Merlin peeking out of the window and smiled at him. “This boy is really impossible. You know how often I told him he should come in here to warm himself up? He’s worse than a stray cat… far too wary of anyone.”
“Do you know how long he’s been out there?”
“Well, I don’t know how long he’s living on the streets. I’ve asked him but he just shrugged it off. But the first time he came here… maybe a month?” She looked at him for a long moment, and then continued, “That was very brave of you, yesterday, to take on those fuckers alone.”
Reeling a bit from hearing the word ‘fuckers’ coming out of her mouth, Merlin didn’t know how to answer. He knew of course, that, thin as he was, he didn’t look like someone who had a chance against three musclemen. He glanced at her a bit helplessly, but she just smiled and shrugged. “Whatever you did, it worked. Though I would have really liked the chance to bash one of their heads in.”
Sighing, Merlin said, “I filed charges against them but…”
Mrs. Saratori interrupted him. “Forget it! I don’t know what’s going on in this world, but assholes like them? They get away. Even if the cops manage to catch them, and that would be a miracle because they probably don’t even look for them, they will get away with a slap on their wrists. Johnny on the other hand… Jesus. Did he tell you they almost arrested him for begging on the street?”
“What?”
“Yes. That’s how it works. And the ones responsible…” at this, her gaze wandered to the still closed flower shop, “… walk away.”
I wouldn’t be too sure about that guy, Merlin thought. Out loud, he said, “So, that’s the one then… the dealer?”
“You see a lot.”
“Sometimes.”
Mrs. Saratori sat down beside Merlin and started to turn the ashtray on the table around and around. “I feel so sorry for that poor boy. I don’t know what happened to him… to be honest, I didn’t dare to ask him, I was afraid he would take off immediately. But it’s obvious he has some terrible problems and every time I see that man walk over to him, throw a coin into that little tin box to cover for him selling drugs to that boy, I could…” She broke off for a second. Then, “But I know, I know, if I call the cops, they would find nothing on that ass and would arrest Johnny instead.”
“You’re probably right,” Merlin answered. Inwardly, he was filled with pleasant anticipation. It was true, that guy was very careful about his drugs; Merlin had looked around in the closed flower shop about an hour ago. But things had changed dramatically in that hour, and Merlin couldn’t wait for the spectacle to start.
Two hours later, Merlin sat on his usual seat in front of the café, drinking his third latte and enjoying the morning sun, among other things. Across the street, there were still cops carrying boxes of various sizes out of the flower shop; boxes filled with drugs of every kind that Merlin had planted carefully all over the shop’s basement in the early morning hours.
The last hour had been… satisfactory for Merlin. The moment the florist had unlocked the front door of his shop, it had been raining cops. Cops in uniforms, plainclothes cops and, if Merlin wasn’t very wrong, the whole Narcotics Squad had descended on that guy, arresting him immediately. They had waited until the dogs had found the first stash, then Mr. Drugs and Roses had vanished inside a police car, to be hopefully never seen again.
Everyone who lived here and was at home was hanging out of their windows and watching the drama evolving. The rest stood together, whispering, pointing.
Since he couldn’t resist, Merlin glanced over to Arthur again. The last time he had done this, Arthur had been sitting on his sleeping bag with a less than amused expression on his face. This time however, Arthur stared straight back at him, eyes narrowed. Shaking off the weird feeling that Arthur somehow knew that this had been Merlin’s doing –he couldn’t know that now, could he?- Merlin raised his eyebrows, trying for an innocent look, and pointed with his left hand to the empty chair beside his. Arthur stared at him for another moment, then turned away and started rummaging in his backpack. Merlin sighed with disappointment, and then his heart jumped and began to beat quickly, because Arthur had stood up and came his way.
At once, Merlin became annoyed with himself again. By the Gods, he was really too old to feel this way, but he couldn’t help it. His mouth went dry, his palms got clammy, the whole nine yards, as if he were also still a teenager. Taking a deep breath and trying to ignore his adrenalin ridden body, Merlin watched Arthur coming closer. Gods, he was so thin. Merlin knew that he himself was also very skinny, but with his slighter build, it didn’t show so much. Arthur still had the wide shoulders, the broader physique, and he looked… awful. Unhealthy. Almost starved.
“What now?” A deep voice asked.
Merlin swallowed, looked up and smiled. “Better view from here, don’t you think? I’d really like to invite you to a coffee. I swear I have no nefarious intentions towards your body.” That was an utter lie, of course. He had nefarious intentions; he just wouldn’t act on them.
“You’re a weird one, aren’t you?” Arthur stated.
“Yes, definitely.”
After he hesitated for another moment, Arthur finally sat down beside him, and before Merlin could even think of something to say, Mrs. Saratori shot out of her café, looking very excited.
“I don’t believe it,” she beamed. Arthur glanced up at her, smiling slightly, and Merlin had to look away. A glaring Arthur he would be able to handle, a smiling Arthur was too much right now. So he just listened to Arthur talking nonsense with her and ordering a tea, and continued to watch the ant hill across the street. Suddenly, he cocked his head to one side. One of the cops, probably one from the Narcotics Squad, looked familiar… very familiar. When the guy turned around fully, Merlin leaned back in his chair. Valliant. Awesome. No, this was beyond awesome. Merlin stared and did all he could to stay seated and not hex Arthur far, far away.
“You know him?”
Merlin’s head whipped around. “What?”
“Miller.” Arthur pointed with his chin to the cop. “You look like you know him.”
“No. He just… looks like someone I knew. Why? Do you know him?”
Arthur took his time responding, lighting a cigarette. “Well, I wouldn’t say I know him. He arrested me some months ago, made me spend the night in jail. That night, someone stole my coat. He is an asshole.”
“He arrested you? For what?”
Arthur didn’t answer; he was still looking at Valliant. Merlin turned around again, following Arthur’s gaze, and saw Valliant staring back at Arthur. He exchanged some words with another cop, and then made two steps towards them. And then, he noticed Merlin. He stopped his forward motion as if he had slammed headfirst into an invisible brick wall, stood still for a second, turned about and went back into the flower shop. Merlin lowered his eyes.
“You sure you don’t know each other?”
Merlin shook his head. “I’m sure.”
“Right.” Arthur threw another glance at the flower shop, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks for the tea.” With that he stood up, and Merlin was very proud of himself that he didn’t –again- grab one of Arthur’s limbs. He just hoped the other man hadn’t seen how badly his fingers were twitching. “Hey, wait a moment!”
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
“What… what’s your name?”
“Smith. John Smith.”
“Smith, huh?”
“Unfortunately. And yours?”
“Emerson.”
“And…?”
“… John Emerson.”
That got Merlin the first full-blown smile from Arthur. “Lots of Johns around here, it seems.”
“Seems so.”
Arthur nodded, then opened his mouth and hesitated again, biting his lower lip. “All right then. Take care, Emerson.”
“You do the same. Smith.”
Arthur smiled again and left.
Merlin entered the café far too early in the morning, as he had the last three days, and threw his backpack into a corner. “This man… can you believe it? He doesn’t even accept coins from me, never mind notes.”
Mrs. Saratori sighed. “That doesn’t surprise me. I can’t afford to let him work for me here full-time, but I did offer him to eat for free. He’s never done that. He always pays with what he’s gotten from the streets. And this isn’t much; he isn’t exactly sitting in a perfect spot there. And well, he’s spending a lot of money on… other things. Anyway, ice cream and cake isn’t enough to keep him alive either way. So, the only thing he accepts from me is free coffee in the morning and sometimes tea in the afternoon, and even that is a hassle.”
“What about the Three Lions over there? They seem to have quite a bit of cheap meals on their menu.”
“Oh these…” Mrs. Saratori let out a stream of Italian words that Merlin freely translated into ‘fucking bastards’, but he could be wrong on that. What was perfectly clear was that she held no love at all for Lancelot and Guinevere. Merlin smiled. He had known from the moment they had met that this woman was brilliant. “Can you believe they banned him from their inn? The owner, Will Whatshisname, claimed that John said something derogatory about his wife. Complete nonsense, if you ask me. Johnny is such a polite boy.”
Merlin sat back for a moment, swallowing his first reaction, which would have been probably too loud for his surroundings. Arthur had recognized Guinevere but not him? Things couldn’t get more perfect. “They didn’t start brawling or something, did they?”
“I wasn’t here when that happened. Their waiter came over here a few days ago because they ran out of coffee, and told me what I’ve just told you. He’s quite nice, far too nice to work for these… you know.”
“Mhm.”
“Sweetheart, can I ask you a question?”
Merlin nodded. “Of course, go ahead.”
“Why are you so keen on helping Johnny?”
Merlin glanced at Mrs. Saratori and tried to keep a smile from his face. Her look wasn’t exactly suspicious, but neither was it trustful. “He reminds me of someone I lost quite a while ago,” he answered truthfully. “And well, I kinda like him. He’s prickly like a cactus, an obvious prat, but he also intrigues me. He’s living on the streets, far too young to survive out there, but he still keeps his head up and he’s proud, and I…” Merlin broke off because he suddenly noticed what he was babbling. When he saw her amused expression, he was close to banging his head on the table. He could only take a guess on how he must be looking. Like a love-struck idiot, probably. Merlin didn’t understand why Arthur had never seen how head over heels Merlin was for him. Gaius had known… as had Guinevere. Not from the start, mind, but she had caught on soon enough. And now Mrs. Saratori, who barely knew him, seemed to be able to look right through him, if her knowing smile was any indication.
“Well, if you really want to do something nice for him…”
“Yes?”
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you look… wealthy.”
“I told you, he doesn’t take my money. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Oh, I know. But there is something he really wants, and I can’t help him. Not because I can’t afford it but…”
Merlin leaned forward. “Please, go on.”
At 11 a.m. Merlin stood in front of the gates to the town’s pet shelter and wondered what the hell he was doing.
Merlin looked down at the Golden Retriever puppy that was beside itself because someone was standing in front of its cage. In some ways, it reminded Merlin of Arthur –of how he had behaved around Guinevere in the early days, for example - but despite that he had actually asked for a Retriever or a Labrador, he wasn’t sure a puppy would be a good idea for someone who lived on the streets, not even for a few days; Merlin would –somehow- make certain that Arthur would be off the streets soon. The guy from the shelter, who was just as excited as the puppy since Merlin had shown him the papers that proved he owned a house with an actual garden, asked eagerly, “What do you think?”
“Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I want a puppy. I was looking for a dog that…” He got interrupted by a shriek, and then a little girl literally bounced off the cage, crying, “Mommy, Mommy, this one, this one!”
The puppy obviously agreed with her because it immediately lost any interest in Merlin and showed how real excitement looked. It was almost doing summersaults. A distressed looking woman, Mommy most probably, arrived beside her daughter and said, “Lynn, I’m not sure if it’s available.” She threw a worried glance at Merlin. The guy from the shelter, Ricky –Animal Care Team stated the tag on his shirt, Ricky wasn’t impressed by her pleading look, though. “I’m very sorry, but Mr. Emerson here…”
“No, no,” Merlin interrupted quickly before tears could appear in the girl’s eyes. “I’m really not looking for a puppy. It’s all yours, and it seems it already knows it.” He smiled down at the girl –not that she was looking at him, but her mother threw him a thankful glance- then he turned around to Ricky. “Maybe you handle them for now, and I look around a bit?”
“Mr. Emerson, it’s the only Golden Retriever we have right now.”
“So you’ve said.” The guy with his docile voice annoyed Merlin to no end. He was very sure that Ricky wouldn’t remember Merlin’s chosen surname if he was wearing ratty sneakers and an old jacket. Clenching his teeth, Merlin continued. “I will take a look at the other dogs now. On my own. I will call for you if I find myself another one.” With that, he turned around and left quickly toward one of the cage tunnels.
Merlin sighed and rubbed his forehead; all the barking and woofing had given him a headache. He was really, really a cat person; cats were quiet, independent, graceful creatures. Dogs were… loud. And they drooled a lot. By now, he doubted he would find a fitting dog for Arthur; there were only about three cages left and as far as he could see, there weren’t any dogs in them. He almost turned around to leave, when he saw something dark moving in the cage furthest from him. Dark and… huge. Merlin blinked a few times. This couldn’t be a dog; it had to be a pony. Intrigued, he slowly closed the distance between him and the most sordid cage he had seen so far, only to come to a halt a few steps away and stare at the biggest, blackest, most pathetic looking dog he had ever come across in his whole life. It was a Great Dane, but still… it was too big even for that breed. When Merlin’s glance fell on the huge paws, he had the uncanny feeling that this dog wasn’t even fully-grown yet, as unbelievable as it seemed to be. Merlin stepped a little bit closer to the bars, and the beast inside slowly raised its head to look at him. It didn’t wag or bark, nor did it move forward. It just stood in the middle of its not too clean cage and stared at Merlin out of sad eyes.
“Hey you,” Merlin said silently. “What’s your name, hm?”
“His name’s Prince,” a voice answered behind him, and Merlin needed all of his willpower to not jump out of his skin. He hated, hated, hated it if someone managed to sneak up on him. He turned around slowly to… Ricky, of course, and all of a sudden he caught up with what the guy had just said. “Prince?” he asked, then bit on his lips to stop the laughter rising in his throat. Prince. Very funny, Fates.
Ricky nodded gravely. “This isn’t the right dog for you, Mr. Emerson.”
Somehow, Merlin kept a thin smile on his face. 500 years ago, he would have cursed the idiot, but he had gotten over this phase. “What’s his story?”
Ricky shrugged. “About three months ago, the police found him chained to a guardrail beside a highway. He probably became a little too big for his owners.”
“Do you have any idea how old he is?”
“Not really, but… he isn’t fully grown yet, so maybe… about a year?” Ricky looked –again- severely at Merlin, his whole demeanor saying, Let’s move on to find you a nice dog, okay? Merlin’s smile got broader. “He doesn’t bite, does he?”
Finally it seemed to dawn on Ricky that there might be a chance to get this monster dog out of the shelter. He shook his head quickly. “No, no he doesn’t bite at all! It’s just that… that…”
Merlin raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“He… since we don’t know what happened to him before he was found… well, he doesn’t seem to… like people. As I said, he doesn’t bite, he doesn’t even growl or bark but… he just doesn’t connect with humans.”
“Hm.”
“And he isn’t neutered yet.”
Merlin glanced at the dog. “I can see that.” Lowering his eyes, he thought, This is insane. But hell, I want to see Arthur’s face when I show him that dog. And if he doesn’t like him… ah fuck it! Merlin realized that he already liked the dog. “Well, maybe you could unlock the door so I can go in and see if he connects with me?”
After Ricky had opened the cage, Merlin entered slowly. It was one thing to hear that Prince didn’t bite, it was another thing to test if it’s true, especially when he heard the clang of the cage door getting locked behind him again. Watching Prince nervously, he took a deep breath. Normally, Merlin would have crouched down to not spook the dog, but in this case Prince would be actually towering over him, so Merlin just stepped closer and raised his hand slowly, as he had done once with a unicorn. “Hey,” he said again, quietly.
Prince looked at him a bit suspiciously but he stretched his head in Merlin’s direction. Merlin took another step toward the dog, and swore to himself that if Ricky opened his mouth now, he would hex him after all. Prince looked at him for another moment, then he suddenly whimpered and came forward, tail between his legs but… it was wagging a bit. Merlin let him snuffle his hand for a while and then, feeling quite daring, he started to pet the silky black fur that covered Prince’s head. Gods, he thought, that head is as big as a calf’s would be.
“Wow,” Ricky’s voice floated over to Merlin, “I’ve never seen him do that.”
“Yes, well, he seems to…” Merlin broke off. Prince had apparently decided that he liked Merlin a lot and jumped upwards. Merlin, startled, straightened up, too, only to find out that –when Prince settled his front paws onto Merlin’s shoulders- the dog was exactly as tall as Merlin… maybe even a bit taller. Swallowing, he continued. “He seems to connect with me just fine.”
Some… long time later, Merlin parked his BMW X3 –and right now, he was really glad he had decided to buy this huge car and not the tiny sport coupé he had fancied at first- and rested his head on the wheel, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he squinted at the clock on the dashboard. Five hours. Five fucking hours. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see the stack of papers on the passenger seat and he wondered why anyone ever would think it was a good idea to get a dog. Then he remembered all the stuff in the trunk and closed his eyes again. He wasn’t sure yet what to do with it; after all, he couldn’t just dump all of it on Arthur’s sleeping bag. After banging his head on the wheel twice, Merlin sat up and turned around to look at the black monster lying on the backseat. “Was it as much fun for you as it was for me?”
Prince huffed silently, and Merlin nodded. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have liked that needle either. But hey, blame the vet, not me.” Prince huffed again. “So… you want to meet your new master? Because, sorry, that’s not me.” Prince looked at him and Merlin nodded again. “I know. I’ve lost it. I’m talking to a dog. It’s possible I’m procrastinating.” Merlin had really looked forward to seeing Arthur’s face while he had still been at the pet shelter. But now, hours later, hours filled with waiting in quite a few township corridors, he was tired. The visit at the vet and the shopping spree he had to do afterwards hadn’t helped either. Neither did the thought that he had –maybe- done something really stupid. Arthur might like to have a dog, but Prince wasn’t exactly an average dog. It could very well be that Merlin would go home with a Great Dane this night, and spend the next years with the dog and not with Arthur.
Merlin sighed. There was nothing to do about it anymore, so he should just get it over with. He stepped out of the car and opened the back door to let Prince out as well, fastening the very, very expensive leather leash on the very, very expensive collar. “I’m sure you will like him,” he said while leading the dog towards the corner of the street, “let’s just hope he will like you, too.”
“Wait… you did… what?”
Merlin was satisfied; finally it was his turn to smirk. “Someone told me you’d like a dog. There.” It was actually more than satisfying, Merlin decided. The expression on Arthur’s face when he saw Prince had been priceless; Merlin wished he had thought about bringing a cam. Though Arthur hadn’t said, “Thank you!” yet, there was clearly no reason to worry anymore. Arthur might be beyond being astonished, but he was also absolutely delighted, as was Prince. The way these two had pounced on each other, even before Merlin had mentioned that the dog was now Arthur’s, reminded Merlin a bit of the puppy and the little girl at the shelter. He was tempted to tell Arthur about them.
“But… I can’t.” Face falling, Arthur looked up at him. How he managed to move at all was beyond Merlin, Prince was sitting on top of Arthur.
“Sure you can. Officially, he’ll be my dog, but no worries. I have no intention at all to take him away from you again.” Merlin saw doubt creep into Arthur’s eyes, and he hastily continued. “If a cop or another official asks you about him, just tell them you look after him for me.” Merlin pulled his wallet out of his pocket and held up a hand before Arthur could utter one word. “Relax. No money.” He got out one of his cards and handed it to Arthur. “If something happens, call me, no matter what time.”
“But how…”
Merlin rummaged in his bag for a moment, then drew out a box and threw it on Arthur’s blanket. “Here.”
Arthur looked at the box, then up at Merlin again. “This… I can’t…”
“It’s a cheap prepaid cell! Of course you can!”
Arthur took the box and lowered his head; Merlin could see the tips of his ears becoming pink. Sadly, it was not the only thing he could see. In all the excitement over Prince, he hadn’t noticed until now how terrible Arthur looked. He was pale with dark circles under his eyes, and the hands that were still holding the cell phone box were shaking. Merlin took a deep breath. He knew he had pushed Arthur farther than he had thought possible with the dog, the card and the cell. If he now started on Arthur about his health, it was a good bet Arthur would shove back, hard, and Merlin would lose any progress he had made this day. And still…
“Hey… you don’t look so good. Everything okay?” he asked, knowing very well that nothing was okay right now.
Arthur’s head whipped up again, eyes narrowed. “I’m fine! I… I think I caught a cold or something.”
“Or something.”
Face turning an alarmingly shade of red, Arthur snapped, “Listen, Emerson, this is no concern…”
Merlin held up both hands. “I know. No concern of mine. As you wish. Smith.”
For a moment there was silence, then Arthur murmured, “Thank you. For… what’s his name?”
“Prince.”
Arthur swallowed, opened his mouth, and then obviously choked on his own spit and started coughing so badly, Merlin almost believed in the so called cold. After a few more coughs and splutters, Arthur managed to get out, “Prince?” while wiping away tears.
“Indeed. But I’m sure you can still choose another name, he’s very young, not even a year. Oh, he isn’t fully-grown yet, either.”
Not seeming to be bothered at all by the thought of Prince becoming even bigger, Arthur muttered under his breath, “Prince. Jesus.” He stroked over the dog’s head and then he smiled. “You don’t look like a prince, you almost look like…” the rest was said so quietly Merlin wasn’t sure if he understood rightly. But if he had understood correctly, that would mean…
“What did you just say?”
“Hm?”
“Did you just say he looks like Broch?”
“Broch? What’s that?”
It’s what you called your goddamn black war stallion, murderous beast that it had been! Merlin thought. Out loud he said, “I think it’s Gaelic and it means Anger.”
“You know Gaelic?” Arthur smiled in a very weird way. “But no, I said he looks like a horse.” He continued to smile.
Heart in his throat, Merlin asked, “Arthur?”
Arthur looked down at Prince again. “You think I should call him Arthur? No way.” When he glanced up again, the weird expression was gone, replaced by something close to fear. “Anyway, thank you. He’s awesome, really.”
Merlin tried to relax his posture; he was deeply suspicious now, but he knew he had to try and not let it show. But hell… if Arthur actually remembered him, then why the fuck didn’t he say something? He took another deep breath, deciding to let it go for now, somehow. Arthur was in trouble, badly so, and whatever was happening beneath the surface, it had to wait. “You’re welcome. Now, how about you show off your monster to Mrs. Saratori, have a tea, I drink a coffee… God, I need a coffee, believe me… and afterwards you accompany me to my car to get the dog food?”
Arthur looked completely confused again, and Merlin was fine with that. “Dog food?”
“You’ll see. Come on, I need that coffee.”
“ARTHUR!”
Awake due to his own shout, Merlin sat up in his bed, breathing heavily. After looking around wildly for a few moments, he finally came to completely and buried his face in his hands, trying to shake off this damned dream. Same fucking nightmare, he thought, rubbing his hands over his face. Why does it have to come back now?
Sighing, he pushed the bedspread away, got up and traipsed downstairs to the kitchen without bothering to turn on the lights. He pulled a bottle of mineral water out of the fridge and leaned back at the kitchen counter, drinking it right out of the bottle while still trying to get his breathing under control.
But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t get one image out of his head; Mordred raising the sword and Arthur going down in a spray of blood. Merlin knew of course why the dream had returned with such a vengeance these last nights. He combed through his hair with his fingers and told himself to stay where he was. It made no sense at all to spend every goddamn night standing guard over Arthur. He knew he could trust his own spells, for Gods’ sake. And still, he was anxious, unsettled; his instincts were screaming at him to be close to Arthur, while his brain ordered him to go back to bed. Merlin looked at the clock -5 a.m.- and then thought about going over to his desktop and writing on his next book, which had been stalling dramatically the last weeks, but then he dismissed it. He would only write nonsense anyway. How the hell should he concentrate on ghouls, when his mind was on Arthur and his slowly blooming withdrawal symptoms?
Merlin finished the water and straightened up, scratching his chest. All right then. He would take a shower –his skin was itching all over thanks to night sweat- and then he would make coffee… and then, he would arrive at Mrs. Saratori’s café just a bit earlier than usual. Merlin hung his head. He wondered how far he could push her. Usually, she opened up at 10 o ’clock in the morning, and in the last days he had shown up two hours before that. She had just smiled and told him it was relaxing to have him sitting on the sofa, typing away on his laptop. But if he showed up at an even earlier hour… Merlin didn’t even know if she would be there yet. No matter, then he would just sit in his car and wait… and watch Arthur sleep.
Decision made, Merlin switched the coffee maker on and went to the bathroom, ignoring uninvited memories of the past as well as frightening whispers about the future.
Suppressing emotions only goes so far, Merlin thought, staring down at the soaked empty blanket on the street. It was pouring; in fact, Merlin had felt while he was driving through the darkness someone was constantly throwing buckets full of water against the windshield. The wipers had barely managed the amount of rain. Merlin had worried the whole time about Arthur, not able to remember how big or small the roof overhang above Arthur’s sleeping place was. Now he knew; there was little to no protection for anyone sitting or lying here.
Merlin spun around, umbrella in the right hand, and tried to look for Arthur and Prince through the rain and the first hints of dawn. He couldn’t spot them anywhere, so he jogged around the next corner. He knew there was a roofed bus stop nearby but to his disappointment, they weren’t there either. Returning to the lost looking blanket lying on the street, he closed his eyes and reached. For one scary moment, he couldn’t get a grip on Arthur but then he realized he was reaching too far; Arthur was closer than he had thought. Merlin sprinted down the street a few yards and knocked on the locked glass door of the café. Inside, there were only the emergency lights on and Merlin couldn’t see any movement. He gritted his teeth; he knew Arthur was in there, but what he didn’t know was whether Arthur had managed some B&E and locked himself in afterwards, or if Mrs. Saratori was in there, too, somewhere. He was already raising his free hand to unlock the door, when he finally saw her coming toward him. One look at her face crushed any feeling of relief, though.
While Merlin watched her drop the keys not once but twice, he could see she was beside herself with worry. Her usually elegantly upswept blonde hair was in disarray, her white blouse wasn’t tucked into her black pants. When she opened the door at last, she grabbed his arm and practically dragged him inside. “Oh thank God, you’re here! So he did finally call you!”
Merlin threw bag and umbrella on the floor, his Pea Coat following. He almost asked her what she meant by that and stopped at the last minute. As long as she thought Arthur had called him, he wouldn’t have to explain why he was here so early this morning.
While he rolled up his sleeves, she continued rambling. “He didn’t want to give me your number! And when I said I would have to call an ambulance, he… he…” She was close to tears now. “I don’t know what to do! Please, you have to help him, he can’t go on like that!”
Merlin nodded and laid one hand hesitantly on her shoulder. For some reason, Merlin always felt strange when he touched her, even if he was just shaking her hand or brushing her fingers while taking a coffee from her. Granted, he had never been someone who liked to touch or be touched, but with Mrs. Saratori, it wasn’t about that. The longer he knew her, the more he felt some kind of aura around her, something almost… sacred. It was pathetic how much he wanted her to like him, for example, and how glad he was that she seemed to do so; he had no idea why she moved him in that way.
Finally realizing that Mrs. Saratori was staring at him, obviously waiting for some answer or him taking action, he rallied. Whatever was going on with him and her, it wasn’t something to be solved here and now. “Where is he? In the men’s room?” When she nodded, he said, “Stay here. I’ll see what I can do for him.”
He left her standing in the middle of the room, still wringing her hands, and raced the few steps downstairs to the toilets. He hadn’t even reached the door when he heard the sound of someone throwing up violently. The first thing he saw when he entered the white-tiled room was Prince who sat on his hind legs, looking anxiously at the toilet stall in front of him and then at Merlin. The whole room reeked of vomit and sweat. Merlin went over and knocked on the door.
“Ar…” He broke off immediately. Gods, can you maybe concentrate a bit? “John? Please open the door.” Merlin heard the sound of flushing, then Arthur coughing. Finally, “Go away.”
“I will most certainly not. Open up!”
“No.”
Merlin sighed. “Look… Open the damn door or I’ll call the cops and make them break it down!” Already cringing because of the threat, Merlin waited. After a few seconds of silence, the lock and door was opened by an extremely pale and at the same time pissed looking Arthur, who sat on the –thankfully clean- floor beside the toilet. Merlin tried to assess his constitution quickly; Arthur was sweating heavily, hands and legs were trembling, and the dark circles around his eyes made him look like a raccoon. When he looked into Arthur’s eyes though, Merlin flinched hard. There was a deep resentment there, close to hate, directed at him.
“Now what?” Arthur spat out, clearly struggling with his gag reflex.
Merlin crouched down and tried to appear as nonthreatening as possible. He knew that a cornered Arthur –and he was, literally and metaphorically speaking- was dangerous. “Look. I know it’s none of my business…”
“There you’re right!”
“… but you can’t do that here. You…”
“Do what? I have the flu!”
Merlin just continued to look at him until Arthur finally averted his eyes. And although Merlin had really wanted to win this staring-down fight, his heart still hurt for Arthur. As young as he was, it was perfectly clear that this Arthur shared one of the biggest character traits of the long dead King of Camelot… he was beyond being proud. It had to be killing him to be seen like that. And still… once Merlin had been the only one allowed to see the King when he was just a burdened man. He wanted that back, he wanted to be trusted again, more than anything else. You know the way. Honesty. He had always hated it if someone had lied to him. So be honest, as honest as you can be right now. “You don’t have the flu. You show every symptom of being in withdrawal. And you can’t do a detox here in this stall, let alone on the street. So let me help you.”
For a moment, Merlin thought he got through to him. Arthur hesitated; but then, with a sinking heart, Merlin saw blood rushing to his face.
“I don’t need you! I don’t want your help, not now! Where have you been when…” Arthur broke off, his eyes widening, and then he bent forward quickly and started retching again, mostly dry heaving. Merlin grimaced and laid a hand on Arthur’s forehead to help him keep his head out of the toilet. The skin under his palm was clammy and far too hot. Merlin bit hard on his lips; there was no way around it, Arthur belonged in a hospital. He couldn’t stay here or on the street, and Merlin wasn’t sure if he could help him through a detoxication at his home without endangering him. He waited until Arthur was through with throwing up, then he petted Arthur’s back slowly while Arthur leaned his forehead on the toilet seat, moaning quietly. “Try to relax, I’ll fetch you some water.”
Arthur nodded, and Merlin got up and out, jogging upstairs and trying to suppress the feeling that he was about to betray Arthur’s barely given trust.
After he had gotten a bottle of still mineral water and had told the scared woman upstairs to call an ambulance, Merlin returned to Arthur, only to find him in the same position he had been in when Merlin had left. The only thing changed was that now a Great Dane somehow had squeezed into the stall as well, licking Arthur’s neck and hair.
“Hey, Prince. Come on, get out of here.”
The huge black dog looked once again at Merlin out of upset eyes, licked a few more times over his master’s face and then finally trotted out of the stall, tail between his legs. Merlin knew exactly how Prince was feeling; if he had a tail, he would tuck it in, too.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “Here’s the water.”
Arthur opened his eyes, blinked a few times and finally reached out for the bottle. He seemed so out of it in that moment that Merlin’s worries increased tenfold. Arthur didn’t seem to mind his face was literally drenched in dog’s spit, or maybe he hadn’t even noticed Prince licking him all over. When Arthur took his first swallow of water, Merlin turned around and got a bunch of paper towels, wetted a few and returned into the stall. “Here.”
Arthur just looked at him inquiringly. Swallowing hard, Merlin leaned down and gently wiped over Arthur’s face, neck and hair; then he dried it just as gently with the rest of the towels. Arthur let it happen; he continued to gaze at Merlin out of big blue eyes, looking incredibly young. He was also very, very close to Merlin all of a sudden. Merlin swallowed again; he told himself that he was only imagining things, imagining that he knew that look, that he had seen exactly this look on Arthur in a hundred different situations, on battlefields, in Camelot’s laboratory, in the King’s chambers… whenever he had taken care of Arthur before.
He suddenly noticed that the towels had fallen onto the floor and he was still petting and combing through the matted blond hair; he couldn’t stop but Arthur didn’t seem to mind. To the contrary, Arthur had closed his eyes and was leaning into the touch. Helplessly, Merlin opened his mouth, the wrong –or better, the right- name hovering dangerously close on the tip of his tongue, when there was a knock on the door.
Arthur startled and shrunk back as if he had been slapped, and Merlin was up and at the door in a second, opening it a bit and instinctively blocking Arthur from anyone’s view. “What?” he hissed at Mrs. Saratori, for once not caring about behaving politely, let alone friendly. When Merlin met her surprised stare, he blinked a few times, cursing inwardly. He was sure his eyes weren’t blue anymore; another thing that hadn’t happened to him in decades. Mrs. Saratori blinked, too, and whatever she might have seen, she didn’t comment on it.
“There is a problem,” she whispered.
Merlin entered the dark hall and closed the door to the men’s room behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“The paramedics are here. But they want to know if Johnny has any insurance.”
“But of course.” Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please tell them I will cover any costs, cash in advance, if there’s the need for it. Just get them down here, please?”
She nodded and went back upstairs, and Merlin hesitated a few seconds before entering the men’s room again. Arthur’s eyes had become huge, but he relaxed visibly when he saw only Merlin coming in. Merlin, on the other hand, tensed all over. He was suddenly sure he had made a big mistake by letting Mrs. Saratori call the ambulance… but what the hell was the alternative?
“Hello? Someone in there?”
Merlin looked up, startled, and realized Arthur had been talking to him for some time, apparently, given the irritated expression on the other man’s face. “I’m sorry?”
“I’ve asked, if something’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“No. No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just that…” Merlin didn’t know how to go on. It turned out he didn’t have to. The door banged open, two bear-like paramedics came in, and all hell broke loose.
Great idea, Merlin thought bitterly while he cradled Arthur’s head in his lap. I couldn’t have fucked up things with him more if I’ve tried. It’s over.
“Here, take this,” Mrs. Saratori said, offering another wet towel. “I have a first aid kit in the kitchen… do you think you’ll need it?”
Taking the towel from her, Merlin shook his head without looking up. He knew she was still shocked by what had happened in the last minutes, but he didn’t want to see shock turning into something else when she remembered who had told her to call these bastards. But…
“Well, maybe I will need it anyway,” he said. “Is there an icepack in it?” When she didn’t answer, Merlin reluctantly looked up from Arthur’s slack face and concentrated on a spot above her left shoulder.
“This wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. In fact, you’ve stopped it. If you hadn’t been here…”
“If I hadn’t been here, none of this would have happened.”
“You’re wrong. Hey,” She laid a hand on his shoulder, and Merlin finally looked at her face. There was no anger in her blue eyes, only a touch of sadness and lots of sympathy. “I would have called them, too. I would have told them I’d pay for his treatment. And then? I wouldn’t have been able to stop them.”
“I don’t know,” Merlin said softly. “Anyone who can restrain the Hound of the Baskervilles has to be able to kick some asses, too.”
Her smile deepened a bit. “He really wanted a bite out of the guy with the Taser, didn’t he?”
“So did I,” Merlin granted, barely managing to not let his eyes change color again. Not that she seemed to have noticed it before, and neither had the bastard who had zapped Arthur into unconsciousness… right before the Taser had had a bad malfunction and zapped the asshole right back.
“Looked like you did,” she answered, and now there was a definite smile in her voice. She patted Merlin’s shoulder once more and then straightened up. “I doubt there is a cold pack in the kit but I’m sure I’ll find something useful in the freezer.”
“Mrs. Saratori?” Merlin called out. Already at the door, she turned around to him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart. And please, drop the ‘Mrs. Saratori’.”
Merlin felt immensely grateful. “Thank you again. It’s Linda, isn’t it?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Actually, it’s Sieglinda… but Linda is perfectly fine.”
Eyes narrowing, Merlin felt a shiver running down his spine. Sieglinda? Wasn’t Sieglinda the name of…?
“What’s your name? ‘Sweetheart’ must get old for you by now.”
“Um… no, it’s not getting old at all. I don’t think anyone has ever called me ‘Sweetheart’ before. Anyway, my name is…” Merlin paused for a moment, oddly reluctant to even tell her his alias. It’s official, I’m losing it. I’m starting to see ghosts everywhere. “My name is John, John Emerson.”
Linda nodded and smiled slightly. “So it’s John then. Another ‘John’.”
“Yes. And the moment he wakes up again,” Merlin looked down at Arthur, “I will try to convince him to call the dog ‘John’, too.”
“You do that.” Linda turned to leave and threw one last line over her shoulder. “By the way, my second forename is Johanna.”
Merlin waited until he couldn’t hear Linda’s footsteps on the stairs anymore and then concentrated on Arthur. Letting his fingers comb through the blond hair, he winced when he felt the big bump on the back of Arthur’s head, the exact place where it had hit the tile wall when Arthur went down thanks to that Taser attack. Merlin closed his eyes, and a second later the bump had vanished. Then he tried to get a feeling for Arthur’s general state. He knew by the absence of warning signals from the protection spell that Arthur wasn’t in a critical condition yet, but still… what he learned from a quick superficial magical examination was unsettling. Although Arthur was unconscious, his stomach was still cramping and close to vomiting again –a fact that brought even more disturbing images to Merlin’s mind-, his whole body was hurting and on top of that, Merlin felt the beginning of a monster migraine developing in Arthur’s thankfully non-concussed brain. And underneath it all, there was this weird feeling of craving, skittering around in Arthur’s body and mind, elusive like a wet bar of soap to Merlin’s attempts of gripping it.
Letting his left hand rest on Arthur’s chest, Merlin opened his eyes again and stared unseeingly at the white tiles in front of him. He thought hard about what he could do for Arthur and what he should do… and of all the things he wasn’t able to do to help him. Mind made up, he concentrated again and let healing magic flow over Arthur; while Merlin’s hand slid over Arthur’s body, the stomach settled and the hurt left limbs and spine. Merlin ignored the tiny voice in his head that told him nothing he was doing would be good for longer than a few hours; instead, he put his energy into removing the pain from Arthur’s head. He let his thumbs circle Arthur’s eyes repeatedly, and finally stroked the eyebrows with his fingertips, over and over again.
When Merlin felt the tickling sensation of eyelashes brushing against his fingers, he froze all over. He wasn’t ready yet to face Arthur.
“What are you doing?”
“Reiki,” Merlin deadpanned and then promptly bit on his lips to prevent the hysterical laughter he felt rising within coming out. He was pretty sure he would get punched in the face in no time, but there was no need to provoke an even fiercer punch.
“I’m sorry?”
“Reiki,” Merlin repeated. “It’s a Japanese healing technique, also known as palm healing.” Wondering if he sounded as insane as he felt, Merlin risked a quick downward glance. Arthur, whose head was still lying in Merlin’s lap, stared up at him, looking totally baffled. “Did it help?” Merlin asked.
“What?”
Worried now, Merlin leaned a bit closer. “Do you know who I am?” The words had barely left his mouth when he thought, Isn’t that the question of the century?
Arthur blinked twice, and then nodded. “Yeah, I do know who you are. What I don’t know is what has happened.”
“What do you remember?”
Making no move to sit up or throw a punch, Arthur licked his lips. “I guess… someone called an ambulance?”
Merlin winced. “Yes. That was my idea. One of my better ones, obviously.”
“Where are they?”
“Um. Well, one of them had a mishap. I think his partner is now bringing him to a hospital.”
“A mishap?”
“You remember the Taser?” When Merlin saw fear crossing Arthur’s features, he quickly continued. “Whatever it did to you, believe me, it hit him harder than you. At least, he flew further backwards than you did. Did some damage to the interior.” Merlin pointed outside the stall to the smashed mirror and sink.
“Wow.” Arthur sat up to take a better look, and then groaned quietly.
Merlin automatically reached out and steadied him. “Take it easy, man. You’re now in a worse shape than you were in before these assholes arrived.” Inwardly, he was still waiting for Arthur to lose it and yell at him, but so far, Arthur only seemed to be bemused by what had happened. Just wait, he thought, this will change the moment he comes out of the stupor he’s in.
“Funny that. I certainly feel better than before.” Arthur threw him a look. “Reiki, huh?”
Merlin’s scalp… contracted. There was no other word for it; it was the weirdest feeling ever. Because there was that look again, the look Merlin remembered. The I-don’t-know-if-I-should-throw-something-at-you-or-simply-fall-down-laughing look.
“What?” the exhausted question came.
Merlin shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just waiting for you to explode or something like that.”
Arthur looked at him for a while longer, then sighed and rubbed one hand over his face. “Nah. I’m not happy about it, but I know why you called them. Would have done the same, I guess. And I am feeling better. So whatever you did, thanks.”
With Merlin’s help, Arthur climbed to his feet only to sit down again on the toilet with another groan. “Shit, I’m dizzy as hell.”
“Probably from the jolt with the Taser. And you definitely should eat something, and…” Merlin broke off at the hoarse laugh coming from Arthur.
“Believe me, eating is not on my to-do-list right now.”
“I hear you. But then at least drink some juice… and you’re running a fever, so some Tylenol would be great, easier on the stomach than Aspirin. I have some in my bag up in the…”
“I have Tylenol.” Arthur hung his head for a moment, then looked up at Merlin with a pleading expression in his eyes. Merlin crouched down immediately, laying his hands on Arthur’s knees. “What is it?”
Arthur continued to look at him for a few more seconds, opened his mouth and shut it at once again. Merlin could see a faint blush creeping up Arthur’s neck, and suddenly he knew what Arthur wanted. Trying to swallow around the lump in his throat, Merlin said quietly, “I won’t give you any of the stuff you’re on.”
Arthur averted his eyes and nodded jerkily. “I know you won’t.”
“Hey. I know you don’t want to go to a hospital and now I totally understand why not. But… please, let me help you? Come home with me?” Merlin saw Arthur already shaking his head and gabbled on. “Aw come on, why not? It’s raining cats and dogs outside, you can’t go on the street with the fever you’re running! I can help you! Look, I know you don’t really know me but I promise you, I won’t hurt you. I just want to…” Merlin tapered off when Arthur looked back at him, open desperation in his eyes. What is that? That isn’t pride… what? “What is it?”
“You don’t know me.”
Ah, Gods!
“I know enough to…”
“No! I’m not… I’m not… I’m ill.”
“I know! That’s why you should come home with me.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m not…”
“What?”
“I’m not… sane.” Arthur stated it so desperately that Merlin didn’t even understand him at first; he only reacted to the emotion in Arthur’s voice. Leaning forward, his hands slid upward from Arthur’s knees to his arms, drawing him into a hug. For a glorious moment, Merlin felt Arthur hugging him back fiercely, and then Merlin’s brain caught up with what Arthur had said. Pulling his head back a bit to get a look at him, he asked, “What do you mean, ‘not sane’?”
Arthur tensed and leaned back so quickly, breaking the embrace, that Merlin had to grab Arthur’s arms again to not fall backwards on his ass. Standing up and making Merlin straighten up, too, in the process, Arthur shook off Merlin’s hands as if they were on fire. “What do you think it means? I’m crazy, insane, psychotic, take your choice!” He tried to get past Merlin, but Merlin stood right in front of him, not giving an inch.
“Dammit, you’re not crazy, you’re on…”
“I know fucking well what I’m on! And you know what, genius? There’s a reason why I’m on it! Believe me, you don’t want me in your house, and I don’t want to be there either! So, get out of my way and…” Arthur broke off, looking scared again. “Where’s Prince?”
“He’s in the ladies’ room and not liking it. Listen…”
“Do not take him away from me!”
Merlin’s head began to pound; it was his ‘Arthur-Headache’, not felt for a very long time but nevertheless recognized immediately. “I won’t take that fucking dog away from you; I’ve already promised you that!” Taking a deep breath, Merlin lowered his voice somewhat. “Look, you need help!” Merlin shoved away the ‘There’s a reason why I’m on it’ and ‘I’m crazy, insane, psychotic’ for later consideration. He’d gotten a first inkling about what was wrong with Arthur, but if he allowed himself to think about it now, he would bash his own head against the tiles for quite some time for not realizing it earlier. And right now, he had to win this fight with Arthur, nothing else mattered.
“If you don’t want to come with me, then at least let me ask Mrs. Saratori; I can help her with…”
“NO!”
Arthur’s yell hadn’t trailed off yet when the bathroom door opened and Linda came in. “It stopped raining,” she said quietly, addressing both of them. Then, turning to Arthur, she continued. “You could sleep a few hours on the couch in my office, rest a bit. When you wake up, I will make you some toast and tea and we all will take it from there. What do you say?”
Looking more exhausted than ever, Arthur leaned against the stall wall and finally nodded. “That sounds like heaven. Thank you so much, Mrs.…”
“Linda.”
“… Linda.”
Merlin watched her leading Arthur out of the bathroom and up the stairs, then he closed his eyes for a moment. Although he was glad that Linda was allowed to take care of Arthur, it still hurt like hell to see how quickly and easily Arthur had given in to her.
At last, he straightened up to get Prince out of the other bathroom; Merlin was sure that by now, the dog would need a walk and something to eat as well.
Fortunately, Prince didn’t mind Merlin’s company at all.
The ringing of the phone wakened Merlin rudely. Not that he had slept oh so peacefully after what had happened the day before, but still. “What the…” he groaned, fumbling blindly for the phone. “’llo?” With his other hand, he slapped at the lamp on the nightstand, and then glanced at the clock. Almost 3 am. “Hello?” He pressed the phone closer to his ear, but still, he couldn’t hear anyone speaking, just some weird rattling sound. “Hello?”
“… uh… I… I can’t…”
Merlin sat up. “Arth… John, is that you?”
“… uh, yes.”
Suddenly recognizing what that weird sound was –Arthur’s teeth were chattering- Merlin was already out of the bed, picking up his clothes. “What’s going on? Where are you?”
“P… Prince’s sick.”
Merlin, buttoning up his jeans, looked out of the window. It was pouring again. “Where are you?”
“I’m just… sitting here.”
“All right. Stay put! I’m there in a few minutes, okay? Just… stay where you are!”
Merlin barely could hear the “Yeah,” then the line cut off. He put on a long sleeved shirt, grabbed his coat and his wallet, and then stood still for a second. With all his might, he resisted the overwhelming need that told him to just go, appear right next to Arthur out of thin air and forget about hiding his magic. But he couldn’t. Not only because there was apparently a huge, sick Great Dane that had to be transported to a vet in the middle of the night, no, there was also the fact that the nagging feeling in his neck about Arthur had just turned into warning bells coming from the protection spell. Arthur’s condition had become so bad that he was now in actual danger, and that meant he really needed the car. He had read everything on withdrawal symptoms and he was sure he could help with some of them, but he didn’t know what to do with things like hallucinations. Merlin would not risk driving Arthur into a psychotic episode by suddenly using magic in front of him. So he got his car keys, but didn’t resist transporting himself right into his car. He floored it, driving like a bat out of hell through the empty streets at night.
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“I know. Doesn’t matter, I’ve already found a vet who’s on emergency call. No, stop, I’ll take him! You stay down there for a minute.”
Merlin heaved the dripping wet and badly coughing dog onto the backseat then rushed around the car, opened the trunk and got out two blankets. One he laid over Prince, the other was thrown on the passenger seat.
“Your seats…”
“My seats? Do I look like I care? And didn’t I just tell you to stay put?”
Damn the man! When Merlin had arrived he had found Arthur lying on top of his sleeping bag, rivulets of rain running over his face, eyes closed, dog in his arms. And for one terrifying second he had thought… Merlin bit so hard on his lower lip that he tasted blood immediately. In his mind, there was an endless circle going on, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Leave it to Arthur to make Merlin feel like the worst fuck-up ever, like a totally helpless fuck-up for the first time in centuries.
Seeing Arthur swaying badly, barely managing to stay on his feet, Merlin’s hands shot out and grabbed Arthur’s arms. “Come on, now…”
“Please, can I come with you? I don’t want to leave him al…”
Merlin suddenly decided he had enough, and simply exploded. “Who the fuck do you think I am? You think I would leave you here, so they can pick up your dead body from the street tomorrow?”
“I’m not dying so what are you...”
“You look like you’re dead already, man! And now get into the fucking car!”
“My bag…”
“I’ll get your bloody bag!”
Convinced that steam was coming out of his ears, Merlin manhandled Arthur onto the passenger seat, closed the car door violently, and then dashed over the slippery pavement to get the damned backpack. He threw it in the truck, the whole time trying to get a grip on his temper. The Fates are laughing at me, I just know it, he thought grimly. I feel like I’m eighteen years old again. And this was not good at all; just like then, his magic seemed to be resolved to come alive on its own -it had, without Merlin wanting to, dried up Arthur’s hair and clothes as well as Prince’s fur. Merlin could only hope that Arthur was feeling too sick and too out of it to notice anything amiss.
When Merlin climbed into the car, he threw a quick glance at Arthur and saw him shiver all over, no matter the already dry clothes, no matter the motor had been running the whole time or that the heat was turned on all the way, sending waves of hot air over them. Arthur didn’t notice Merlin at all; he just stared seemingly at nothing, shaking like a leaf. He was beyond pale now, and the alarm sounds from the protection spell –that for some reason always had sounded exactly like the warning bells in Camelot- reached a crescendo.
Muttering again “fuck, fuck” under his breath, Merlin dived for his bag and pulled out a bottle of water and two pills. “Here, take these,” he ordered, shoving the pills into one of Arthur’s hands and then opened the water bottle.
Arthur startled out of his state and looked at him, wide-eyed, asking, “What are these?”
“It’s just Tylenol,” Merlin answered and added inwardly, with a bit of magical oomph. “I won’t give you anything else, you know that.”
Arthur didn’t move a muscle, just continued to stare at him, and Merlin lost it again. “Goddammit, Arthur, for once in your life, do as I say and swallow them, or I swear to the Gods I will shove them down your throat myself!”
Staring some more, Arthur finally nodded, “Yeah, yeah, okay,” and swallowed the pills. Merlin barely waited until he saw Arthur’s Adam’s apple bobbing twice, then he reached over, took the bottle away and laid his hand on Arthur’s forehead. Losing consciousness immediately, Arthur sagged against the side window. Merlin drew him back close frantically and let his magic roam freely over and through Arthur’s body. He pushed down the rapid heartbeat and increased the too low blood-pressure as far as he dared, and also managed to calm down Arthur’s more than upset stomach and bowels. Merlin couldn’t do much against the fever at the moment; he needed his potions for that, so he hoped the magically enhanced Tylenol would do the trick, at least for a few hours.
Exhausted, more from being scared than anything else, Merlin slumped back into his seat for a minute, just to straighten up again at once when he heard the rattling coughs coming from Prince. He twisted around to pet the dog’s head, and Prince tried to lick his hand with a too hot and too dry tongue. “You will be fine,” Merlin croaked. “You both will be fine, you hear me?”
Turning back, Merlin started to drive into the direction of the vet’s office, and it wasn’t until he parked in front of it when he remembered that he had called Arthur ‘Arthur’, instead of ‘John’.
Totally drained, Merlin drove the car down into the underground garage of his house. He turned off the lights and pressed another button on the remote, hearing the garage door click shut behind him. Then he allowed himself to close his eyes in the utter darkness around him and to just breathe for a few minutes.
The last hour had been arduous, to say the least. Not that there had been any real problems; the lady vet had been very nice, once she had found out that it was indeed an emergency. Prince had pneumonia; he apparently had been already ill at the shelter, and the following vaccinations had lowered his immune system so the bronchitis had worsened into said full blown pneumonia. The vet had been quite angry about her colleague who had obviously administered the inoculations without examining Prince thoroughly. Anyway, Prince was now in good hands, hanging on an IV-drip at the vet’s office, getting the antibiotics and fluids he needed. He hadn’t been happy to be left there in a cage again; Merlin had reassured him a few times he could come home in a few days, much to the vet’s amusement and to Merlin’s utter mortification. Finally, he had said his good-byes to the vet and Prince and practically run back to his car. The whole time he had been in the office, Merlin had been afraid Arthur’s condition would worsen or he would wake up, leave the car and become road-kill. Fretting over Arthur, monitoring him and at the same time having a halfway intelligent conversation with the vet had taken everything out of him, so Merlin was beyond glad to be finally at home.
With a sigh, Merlin acknowledged that there wasn’t any true reason for relief yet. Not. At. All. Sighing once more, Merlin left the car and turned on the garage lights. Then he opened the door to the basement, turned the lights on there, too, and stared for a while at the very steep stairs that lead to the hall of his house. He wondered if he should just float Arthur up there into the living room or better straight to the bedroom on the second floor but then decided against it. No magic, not yet. It would be just his luck if Arthur woke up while hovering four feet above the ground. Well, that left him with the not so nice challenge to wake up the ill man down here and somehow drag him upstairs.
Merlin opened the passenger door as silently as possible, freed the limp body from the seat belt and laid a hand on Arthur’s forehead. Shit, he was still burning up. The rest of Arthur’s condition seemed to be… well, not all right but in manageable parameters; Merlin’s magic still had a good grip on his metabolism. But the same had seemed to be true yesterday, Merlin thought, So don’t get too complacent, old man. It was the truth, of course. The day before, Arthur had been feeling well, even good when Merlin had left him in the evening. Merlin had hoped his magic would be able to somehow heal Arthur on its own, maybe even completely; otherwise he wouldn’t have left Arthur at all. Hope and Foresight. You should know better by now.
Merlin’s hand slid down to Arthur’s left cheekbone, noticing the fine sheen of sweat covering his whole face. “Hey. Wake up, huh?” He said quietly, not wanting to spook Arthur. When he didn’t react, Merlin let a bit of magic flow through his palm, pushing a little. “Hey.” Dark blond eyelashes fluttered, then Merlin looked into confused blue eyes. “It’s all right now, you’re home.”
“Merlin?”
For a moment, Merlin thought he would go down, fall on his knees. The fingers on his left hand clawed at the roof of the car, desperately looking for something to get a hold on. He closed his eyes against the threat of tears and thought, Not now, not now! Later. Get a grip, don’t scare him! Blinking rapidly, Merlin smiled. “Yes, Arthur. You have nothing to fear now.” Arthur smiled back at him, a bit dopily, eyes still locked on Merlin’s face, and nestled his cheek against Merlin’s hand.
Merlin swallowed hard. He was of course aware of the fact that Arthur was not in his right mind. He didn’t need to see the wildly dilated pupils or feel the heat under his palm to know that Arthur would probably not even remember what had happened this night. But still, whatever might come, whatever might befall both of them in the next, so difficult days, this was the moment Merlin had lived for. Centuries, Ages waiting for this voice to call his name.
As thin as Arthur was, he was still damn heavy. The moment Merlin had managed to drag him up to the hallway, he gave up on the thought of getting him straight to the bedroom; he just pushed Arthur into the living room where both of them crashed onto one of the couches. Merlin closed his eyes for maybe a second, but the heat he felt coming from Arthur’s body got him moving again.
“Please stay here for a moment, all right? I’ll get you something for the fever.”
Arthur glanced up at him and nodded, but he didn’t look like he had understood what Merlin had said… he actually looked like he would fall asleep again in no time.
“Hold that thought,” Merlin said inanely and left for the kitchen, smiling a bit. So far, things had gone smoother than he had thought; the warning bells were silent, his magic seemed to do wonders for Arthur’s condition – as it always had back in Camelot.
Opening one of his freezers that held the more exotic ingredients he needed, Merlin was just about to prepare a potent, fever reducing potion that stank to high heavens but would make Arthur feel better in no time, when he was rudely reminded that The Fates loved to fuck with content souls. There was a sudden yelp coming from the living room, followed by a crash and the unmistakable sounds of retching. By a hair’s breadth, Merlin avoided dropping the cup with the half-finished potion in it; he sat it down quickly on the kitchen table, grabbed a bowl, a bottle of water and towels and ran back to Arthur. When he arrived, a pungent odor hit his nostrils and he almost puked right on top of Arthur, who still hung over the armrest, choking.
So much for having a grip on anything, Merlin thought, breathing through the mouth. Arthur had not only lost control of his stomach but also of his bowels, and, to top this, the horrified look on his face told Merlin that Arthur had come out of his stupor as well, which was really awesome timing. Keeping a tight hold on his powers that wanted to jump on Arthur immediately, Merlin got a bit closer to help, noticed the reason for the crashing sound he had heard –the glass table in front of the couch had toppled over and broken- and managed in the last moment to prevent Arthur falling amidst the shards when Arthur shrank back from him.
“Hey, hey, hey! Take it easy, okay?”
“I’m sorry! God, I’m so sorry and…”
“Nah. Couldn’t stand the table anyway… and I hated the rug. Now…”
“Please, don’t.”
Merlin crouched down beside the mess on the floor, setting down the bowl, towel and water –he wouldn’t need them anyway- to be able to look at Arthur and not down at him. “What?”
“Please, I… I can’t go to a hospital. I can’t. Please.”
“I promise you. Hey!” Merlin laid a hand on Arthur’s shoulder to get his attention; Arthur was looking anywhere but at him. “Listen to me: No hospital, okay? I promise you!”
“I… I…”
“I know. It’s all right; none of this is your fault. We’ll deal, okay? How’s your stomach now?”
He got his answer when Arthur’s eyes widened; the bowl was needed after all.
Merlin threw the ratty jeans and boxers into a plastic bag, knotted it up and took it out to the trash can. After some consideration, the socks went in there, too. He itched to also throw away the t-shirt, sneakers and jacket but knew he couldn’t just decide what happened to Arthur’s clothes. Going back inside, he flung shirt and jacket into the laundry basket, washed his hands and started on the potion again; the other one had gotten cold and therefore congealed. He tried to keep his thoughts on the rather mundane task, but had no luck. What he really wanted to do was to hit something… or someone.
By now, Arthur was clean and safe in Merlin’s bed, bowl and chamber pot at hand – and wasn’t that the joke of the century, that Merlin needed to deal with chamber pots again?- but what had happened in the bathroom before, had Arthur mortified and Merlin exhausted. It wasn’t a hardship for Merlin to clean up Arthur, neither was it disgusting. He had fallen back quickly in the mindset he had had while working as Gaius’ apprentice; and in Camelot, there had been much dealing with feces and other body fluids. What had been exhausting was trying to keep Arthur comfortable… which had been impossible. This wasn’t a new experience to Merlin either; Arthur had always hated it when he hadn’t been able to care for himself, no matter how sick or tired he had been. The difference now was that Merlin couldn’t just use magic to help and protect Arthur’s pride. Arthur hadn’t called Merlin by his name again, and even if he had… Merlin wanted Arthur lucid and he wanted to know Arthur’s story before he would show him who and what he was.
But Merlin had been really shocked when he had seen the state Arthur’s body was in. There were far too many scars for a guy that young, far too many bruises –and where the hell had he gotten these bruises? Merlin had been there the last week, hadn’t he?- and, the worst of it all, how goddamned thin Arthur was. The Arthur Merlin remembered, the older Arthur, had always whined about how much weight he gained by only looking at food… and how much he had resented Merlin for eating like a pig and staying lean. But this Arthur? Only bones. Ribs, collarbones, hipbones… everything was sticking out as if trying to poke through Arthur’s skin. Damn it to seventh hell, Merlin thought. I was never that thin, not even when I was fourteen and there hadn’t been a thing to eat in Ealdor thanks to crop failures.
Sighing, Merlin shook his head, took the cup with the potion and a pot with chamomile tea and carried it upstairs to the bedroom. It would be quite some time until he could feed Arthur solid food; it would be hard enough to make sure he kept the needed fluids down without being too overt in using magic. Maybe he’ll believe in that insane Reiki story again.
Merlin entered the bedroom quietly, not wanting to startle Arthur if he should be asleep, but one look told him that Arthur was wide awake and… agitated.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“The hell.” Merlin put down pot and cup quickly, and then took hold of Arthur’s arms… or he tried to. He managed to grab the left arm, but Arthur drew back his right one and swung his fist at Merlin’s face. Merlin blocked it and shoved Arthur back on the bed with both hands; then, he had to jump back fast to avoid a kick from Arthur’s legs.
“Stop that shit, dammit!”
“Let me go!”
“No. The only place you’re going is to the bathroom, if you think you can make it there. Apart from that, you’re staying in bed. You fever is up to 104, where do you think you’re going? To a cemetery?”
“I’m not…”
“What? You’re not ill, your fever is not up through the roof, you can stand on your feet without falling over? You’re all of that! You may be still able to kick me, but believe me, you wouldn’t even make it downstairs without breaking your neck! So calm down, okay?”
Arthur stared at him out of huge eyes, and Merlin relented immediately. “Look, I know you feel like shit right now. I can help you. Now, what you need are a few days to get over the worst of it and I need a bit of trust from you. Do you think you can manage that?”
“I can’t do this.”
Merlin sighed. “In my opinion, you…” he hesitated for a moment, then carried on, “… you can do anything you really want, Arthur.”
Arthur, looking even paler than before, shook his head. “That’s not my name.”
“I think it is your name.”
What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Merlin’s inner voice yelled at him. But for some reason –while Merlin was still sure he couldn’t tell Arthur now about who John Emerson was- he knew with all he was that being John Smith wouldn’t help Arthur now. It might not be the time for the whole truth, but a bit of truth couldn’t hurt.
“You’re crazy.”
“That is entirely possible,” Merlin answered and sat down on the bed, carefully watching Arthur. “Now, do yourself and me the favor, and drink this to get the fever down.” He held out the cup to Arthur and could see the exact moment when the odor of the potion hit Arthur’s sense of smell. Arthur reeled back, his face became actually green, and Merlin thought, Fuck it! His left hand shot out and landed on Arthur’s stomach; his magic, which had been almost impossible to hold back for quite some time, flew forward almost greedily. Arthur’s whole body jerked wildly under his hand, and then Arthur looked at him, eyes full of shock and wonder.
“What… what did you do?”
“I’m helping you. Now drink this.” Merlin held out the cup again.
Seemingly against his will, Arthur took a swallow and almost choked on it. “Jesus!”
Merlin nodded, hand still on Arthur’s stomach. “I know it’s awful. But drink it now; believe me, the colder it gets, the worse it tastes.”
“This can’t get worse.”
“Do you want to eat it with a spoon? It congeals.” He had to smile a bit at Arthur’s horrified look, and then his smile became broader when Arthur gobbled the whole thing down without stopping to breathe. Arthur gasped, hand on his throat, and for a moment, Merlin wasn’t sure if the brew wouldn’t come up again, magic or not, but after a few tense seconds, Arthur relaxed against the pillows behind his back. He looked down a bit nervously at Merlin’s hand that was still resting on his body. “Now what?”
“Now there will be tea,” Merlin answered, took the cup and filled it with the chamomile tea from the pot. Then he leaned down, got the salt shaker he had kept out of sight and sprinkled some salt into the cup and gave it back to Arthur. “Drink!”
“Did you just dump salt into… oh great… chamomile tea?”
“Yes, your body needs it. And it was only a little bit, you shouldn’t taste it. Drink it, please? If I can’t get enough fluids in your body, I’ll have to hook you up on an IV-drip, and I’d rather not.”
“I’m drinking, I’m drinking!”
Merlin watched Arthur swallow the tea, refilled the cup at once and then he slowly withdrew his hand. “How’s the nausea?”
“Better.”
“Good.” Merlin looked Arthur over one more time and then stood up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m just getting some water and towels. I’ll be right back.”
“Look, I… thank you.”
Merlin sighed. “Don’t thank me yet. I have the feeling you will really hate me in no time.”
“I can’t. I… I can’t! Please!”
“Of course you can. You will see.”
“Let go of me! Let… Oh my god, STOP THAT!”
“I’m not doing anything. Please try to relax.”
“GET THEM OFF ME!”
“Arthur, nothing is on you. You have to…”
“PLEASE!”
“Sleep.”
“Drink this.”
“No.”
“Arthur…”
“No! I will get sick again!”
“Drink it!”
“It will be all right. Shhhhh… I promise you, Arthur, you will be all right. I promise you.”
Merlin woke up being confused. He felt rested for the first time in days, and for a moment, he didn’t understand why that didn’t seem to be a good thing. He watched the morning sunlight streaming through the window, and then it hit him. He shot up, looked at the other side of his bed –empty- and then fell assfirst out of the bed in his hurry to get up without really freeing his legs that were still wrapped in the sheets.
Fuck, where is he?
Merlin didn’t stop to put on clothes; he ran down the hall clad only in his boxers, looked into the bathroom –also empty- and then somehow made it downstairs without breaking his neck. He rushed towards the kitchen, barely looked into the living room on his way and then stopped so suddenly that he almost landed on his ass again. There he was. Arthur was sitting on the couch close to the fireplace, Prince’s head in his lap, staring down at the dog. He looked up when Merlin entered the room, his eyes widening a bit by whatever he saw on Merlin’s face.
“What… how are you?” Merlin asked, trying not to wheeze like the maniac he was.
Arthur only nodded. “When did you get him? How is he?”
Taking a deep breath, Merlin toddled over and crashed onto the couch facing them. “Yesterday, when you were sleeping. He had pneumonia but he will be fine. He still has to take antibiotics but that doesn’t seem to be a problem; he eats anything you put in front of him.”
“But he will be fine?”
“Yes. He needs to take it easy, stay inside as long as possible, sleep a lot… actually quite like you. The only difference is that I will take him out in my garden so he can do his thing,” Merlin grimaced slightly at this prospect, “and you can go to the bathroom.”
“You have a garden?”
“Yes, behind the house. I hope I can keep him out of my herbs. You want to see it?”
“Not now, maybe later.”
Merlin nodded, watching Arthur closely. He certainly looks better, he thought. But something’s off again; he’s jumpy as hell.
“What’s going on?”
Arthur shook his head. “Nothing. Thank you for… everything. Thank you for not dumping me at a hospital.”
“I promised you I wouldn’t.”
“I know, I remember that. Still… it couldn’t have been fun for you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it fun but it wasn’t a hardship either. I’m just glad the worst seems to be over.” Merlin’s glance fell on Arthur’s hands that were trembling badly. “The worst is over, isn’t it? Please level with me… how are you feeling?”
“I’m…” Arthur bit on his lower lip. The tremor seemed to wander up and downwards from his hands, until he shook all over. Prince whimpered softly and looked at Merlin, but he was already on his way over to them.
“What’s going on with you?” Merlin repeated softly, laying a hand on Arthur’s back. Since he was now close to Arthur he could hear and feel how erratically Arthur was breathing.
“I… I don’t know. Give me a minute,” Arthur gasped.
Merlin frowned. Arthur was sweating heavily again, but he wasn’t feverish anymore. He slid his hand quickly up to Arthur’s neck, catching an incredibly fast heartbeat. “Hey… calm down. Nothing will happen to you.”
“A moment.”
“Arthur…”
“NO!” Arthur jumped away from Merlin, landing on the other side of the wide couch, and put his hands over his ears. “Don’t call me that; I can’t deal… I can’t…” Arthur broke off, obviously because he wasn’t able to talk anymore. He was beyond pale, still breathing far too quickly, and looked like he would pass out any second. Merlin realized that he would if Merlin didn’t act right now. He stood up and ran over to a cabinet in the hall, noticing absently that he was freezing his ass off. Getting the paper bag he had been looking for, he also grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that were lying on the floor near the hamper for whatever reason, and hopped back to Arthur, struggling with dressing himself on his way there.
Arthur was lying on the couch, feet drawn up almost into a fetal position, still wheezing helplessly. Sitting down, Merlin took hold of both of Arthur’s arms and pulled him slowly to his chest. He handed him the paper bag, and Arthur apparently knew the drill; he started breathing into it immediately. “Slowly,” Merlin murmured. “Try to breathe out longer than you breathe in.”
Arthur’s eyes were almost completely black and wide with fear; far too soon, he lowered the bag and gasped out, “I… it isn’t working! I need…”
“No, you don’t. Keep breathing into the bag, it will go away.” Arthur struggled and Merlin tightened the hold he had on him.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly well,” Merlin answered, bringing Arthur’s hand with the bag back to his mouth. “You’re having the mother of all panic attacks; but even the worst of those will go away on their own.” Merlin took Arthur’s free hand and was relieved when he felt Arthur clinging to him. “There is only so much adrenaline your body can produce until it gets too much and it stops,” he continued talking in what he hoped was a calming voice. “Just go on breathing, slowly.”
Finally, some color came back to Arthur’s face, and he relaxed slightly against Merlin. He let go of the paper bag and rubbed his face with one hand: the other was still holding Merlin’s tightly.
“Better?” Merlin asked, and Arthur nodded, averting his gaze.
“Hey.” Merlin saw shame written clearly over Arthur’s face. “Your mind and your body have been through hell the last days. Stop being so hard on yourself; I told you before, we’ll deal.”
“How?”
“Time. Right now, I can’t give you anything to calm you down, not even herbal stuff like valerian. So we keep paper bags close and I talk you through the attacks, if you can stand it. I don’t think the anxiety will stay around for long, but you know, the cravings…”
“Won’t ever stop, I know.”
“I wouldn’t say ever, but it will take time for it to get better. And you will have to be careful about what meds you take in the future; no benzos anymore, ever.”
Arthur nodded, head falling back against Merlin’s shoulder, and Merlin rested his cheek on it. They sat in silence for a while; then Merlin noticed Arthur was gearing up for something to say.
“Why are you… calling me that?”
Merlin considered the question for a moment, then answered. “I know you under that name.”
Silence again; Merlin felt the body in his arms trembling a bit.
“So… I am crazy. Oh God. This isn’t happening, right?”
“What isn’t?”
“This!” Arthur waved his hand around, pointing at the living room and at Prince. Then he raised their linked hands. “This. I will wake up in a hospital, chained to a bed.”
“I really doubt they chain people to beds nowadays.”
Arthur made a weird sound. “Oh they do. It has happened before.”
Clamping down hard on his reaction to this statement, Merlin answered calmly and –as he knew- futilely, “You’re not crazy, you’re not insane, you’re not psychotic. There is no hospital this time, this is real. I am real.” He hitched the body in his arms up and closer.
Suddenly Arthur started to laugh. Merlin tried to get a look at his eyes, but Arthur stared straight ahead. “So what… you’re a… wizard?”
Again, Merlin paused for a minute. “Well, wizard reminds me awfully of Harry Potter. It might be out-dated, but I still prefer the title Warlock.”
“Yeah, sure,” Arthur whispered.
Merlin took a deep breath. “What do you say… I make us breakfast, and you tell me what happened to you?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We have loads of time.”
It was immensely satisfying for Merlin to watch Arthur practically inhaling a huge breakfast. Eggs, bacon, toast, coffee and orange juice; all of it vanished inside Arthur with immense speed. Merlin just clung to a cup of coffee and tried to relax. He already knew that the coming day would be even more taxing on them than the last few had been.
Arthur finally pushed his plate away and leaned back on the couch, looking a bit queasy.
“Stomach okay?” Merlin asked.
“Yeah. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Merlin nodded and continued to watch Arthur carefully. He noticed that Arthur looked anywhere but him, eyes never settling on anything. The pressure of the silence between them grew until Merlin decided that he had to be the one to start this conversation if he wanted them to have it.
“So… you know who I am?”
Arthur jumped at that, threw a startled gaze at Merlin and immediately averted his eyes again. “I know nothing about you!” He hesitated for a moment. “Well, I do know your name is John Emerson and that you… are a writer. Horror novels.”
Surprised, Merlin sat down the cup he had been still clutching between his hands on the table. “You know my books?”
“I own one. Someone gave it to me.”
Merlin’s eyes narrowed. “Someone?”
“I don’t know who. It was there when I woke up one morning. I… I was in another state then. Uh…” Arthur looked around. “Did you… where is my backpack?”
“It’s still in the car. Wait a moment, I’ll get it.” Merlin stood up and then paused, looking at Arthur, assessing him.
“What?”
Merlin sighed. “Nothing.” He went out into the hall where the bag had already appeared, grabbed it and returned to Arthur.
“I thought it was still in the car?”
Merlin didn’t answer, just handed the bag over to Arthur and sat down again. He still wasn’t sure if he should openly use magic around the other man. Arthur wasn’t stupid, he had to have noticed some things by now but Merlin hadn’t put any magic on open display yet. He all too well remembered the panic attack one hour ago; an attack that had been provoked by him calling Arthur by his name.
“No answer?”
“You sure you want one?”
Arthur lowered and shook his head. Merlin saw him biting his lips for a minute, then he opened the bag and pulled out a well-known hardcover. Merlin winced. ‘Mirrors’. Great choice.
“Did you read it?”
“Yes, of course, it creeped the hell out of me. But you know what the creepiest thing was? This.” Arthur turned the book around in his hands, and Merlin could see his own face on the inner cover. “Well, this and… that.” He opened the book in the middle and drew two things out; one looked like a card and the other like… a ticket or something.
“Can I take a look at that?”
Arthur handed it over and Merlin glanced at the card. He took a deep breath. The typed name and address of Lancelot’s and Guinevere’s pub, and beneath it, in block letters, Here you will find what you’re looking for. “Subtle.” Merlin concentrated on the handwritten letters, letting his fingers stroke over them, reaching. For a second, a wave of dread washed over him, but before he could hold on to it, the feeling vanished again. Merlin frowned. This wasn’t possible; there was no one alive on Earth who would be powerful enough to elude him.
“What is it?”
Merlin shook his head and looked at the other piece of paper… it was a train ticket, issued to John Smith; a ride to this town, on a train that had arrived here five weeks ago. “That was in the book, too?”
Arthur nodded.
“Well, then I have to ask again. Do you know who I am?”
Mute, Arthur stared at him.
“It’s only a logical question… Arthur.” Merlin ignored the other man’s flinch. “Why would you have come here if not for me?”
Still deadly quiet, Arthur’s breathing took up speed again.
“You’re here, Arthur. Not in a hospital, and you’re not dreaming. I can pinch you if you don’t believe me.” And then, Merlin did exactly that. Without moving a muscle, he let his magic pinch Arthur in the arm, not too gently. Arthur jumped again, looking at him wide-eyed.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then Arthur whispered, “You weren’t there.”
“I know. You found Lancelot, Guinevere and Gwaine.”
“Will and Mary.”
“Lancelot and Guinevere.”
Arthur didn’t answer, so Merlin pressed on. “Did they recognize you?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you stay then?”
Arthur closed his eyes. “You weren’t there,” he repeated.
“No. My letter got… delayed, I guess.”
Eyes flying open again, Arthur asked, “Your letter?”
This time, Merlin stayed seated. He just raised his hand and kept a close look on Arthur while the letter flew out of his jacket’s pocket in the hall right into his hand. Arthur didn’t really react to it; he was pale anyway, he just looked wearier than he had before.
Merlin handed the envelope to Arthur and watched him look at the picture. When he saw the name typed on the letter, Arthur glanced at him. “This looks like…”
“Yes. I’m pretty sure it has been written on the same typewriter.” Merlin let his head drop on the backrest and sighed. “Someone is orchestrating all this; and it’s annoying the hell out of me that I can’t find out who that someone is.”
“Orchestrating what?”
“Us meeting again.”
Arthur shook his head slowly. “All right, who told you about me? Why are you playing me?”
“Excuse me?”
“Look, if you want me to accept that I’m not in some drug induced delirium, you have to tell me why you’re doing this. How did you do that with that letter? I don’t believe in magic!” Arthur stated quite desperately.
Merlin smiled. “You’re lucky I’m not a fairy. I might have dropped dead.”
Unbelievingly, Arthur asked, “What? Now you’re quoting movie lines to me?”
Merlin sighed again. “No, sorry. I’m just having a hard time to think of a way to convince you it’s true; you are Arthur Pendragon and I’m your long-suffering warlock, Merlin.”
“Do you know how insane that sounds?” Arthur yelled suddenly.
“Not for me, it doesn’t.” Merlin saw how hard Arthur worked on looking angry, to no avail. It was easy to read the fear underneath. “Look… why don’t you tell what happened to you?”
Huffing, Arthur spat out, “I don’t even know where to start.”
“At the beginning?”
Arthur rubbed his hands over his face. “Right. Okay, I’m an orphan. I have no idea who my parents are, nor what happened to them, if they’re still alive or not. I was raised in… quite a few institutions, since I was a baby.”
Merlin frowned. “What… you weren’t adopted? Why not?”
Shoulders drawn up, Arthur murmured, “I already told you why. I was… ‘round the bend.”
“You were a crazy baby?”
Arthur hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. Maybe there was something off about me even then.”
All of a sudden, a thought struck Merlin. He reached out towards Arthur and let his magic search for something he hadn’t considered before. Arthur reacted immediately; his eyes went wide and he shrank back as far as he could. “What are you doing to me? And your eyes…”
Merlin drew back; he learned what he had wanted to know. “I’m sorry. I really thought I had grown out of it, but for some reason… well, since you reappeared, I’m not as good at hiding my magic as I had been before. Therefore the color-changing eyes. About what I did… I wanted to know if you’re under a spell. You’re not.” But you have been, Merlin thought. God dammit! What the fuck is going on?
“Maybe you are the crazy one here,” Arthur said, staring at him.
Merlin managed a little laugh. “Well, I have to admit, since I found you on that damned street, as a beggar, I had quite a few moments of insanity. Whatever. Please continue.”
Arthur swallowed. “Uh… as I said, I grew up in treatment homes. Well, I was in one until I was ten years old. Then they started to move me around; to other places or… later in hospitals.”
“What happened?”
“Um. When I was five, actually exactly on my fifth birthday, I started to dream about weird things. A castle. Soldiers. Rooms I’ve never seen before. But mostly, I dreamt about… you.”
“You dreamt about me when you were five years old?”
“Yes. I dreamt about you every night. The other things changed, you were always there. I… even when I was awake, I saw you sometimes. I knew your name was Merlin. I knew you were my friend. And I waited for you to come and get me. You never did.”
Merlin felt like someone had punched him in the gut; he somehow swallowed around the lump in his throat and bit out, “I didn’t know.”
Smiling strangely, Arthur said, “Of course not. You weren’t real.”
“Arthur…”
“No! You can’t be real! I learned it the hard way, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I told the guys… the caretakers. About you, about who I really was…” Arthur shook his head. “I remember they were quite amused in the beginning. In hindsight, I guess they thought I’ve seen the Disney movie or some other stuff.” He buried his face in his hands. “God, that sounds so crazy. Anyway, they told me that it was okay to have an imaginary friend. I insisted that you were quite real. I kept dreaming, lots of stuff.”
Merlin interrupted him. “What stuff?” He was worried now; Camelot had never been a peaceful place and he wondered how the hell a little boy could cope with that.
“Oh, happy stuff.” Arthur huffed. “The hardcore dreams came when I was… I don’t know, fourteen, fifteen? I was already on medication then, so I’m not sure. When I was about nine, they started to try and talk me out of it; they said I was too old now to only live in my dream world. They wanted me to make real friends; I didn’t want to. I already had one and I was still waiting for him. As I said, when I was ten they moved me to another orphanage, one who cared for kids with special needs. Lots of shrinks there.” Arthur lowered his gaze. “They tried for two years… but I wouldn’t budge. They showed me lots of stuff; documentaries, stories, movies… they told me there wasn’t ever a King Arthur, no wizard named Merlin, that this was all a legend, a fairy tale. But I still insisted; I pointed out what the stories got right and what was wrong. Then… it got worse. I had real trouble separating reality from… my dreams. For example, I saw you standing in a corner in the public room, but when I ran there you vanished into thin air. And for the first time, I remembered… Uther. I hid from him. I pointed him out to others. That got them going. Shrink said I was showing symptoms of schizophrenic psychosis. They dragged me to a psychiatrist and before I knew what hit me, I found myself in a hospital.” Arthur was talking faster and faster. “I can’t remember what they gave me when I first arrived there, but it put me under for good. I… I lost lots of time then. When I woke up… I guess they lowered the dosage, well, I totally lost it. I didn’t know where I was. I kept screaming for… the dreams came back with a vengeance. I think that was the first time when I dreamt about dying. Over and over again. I was alone, you weren’t there.”
Arthur wasn’t looking at him, and that was the one thing Merlin was grateful for. He felt close to vomiting; he had to swallow the whole time to keep the bile rising in his throat down.
“I kept switching between being depressed and violent. I threw punches at everyone who came close, so they cuffed me to the bed. And, God, they stuffed me with drugs. They didn’t help anymore, though. To the contrary, I was flooded with images… and there were no happy images anymore. I can’t describe it… it was like… it’s not true, there were good things I remembered, even fun things but… the overall feeling was, I don’t know, pressure? Pressure and betrayal.”
Merlin couldn’t stay on his side of the table anymore. He jumped up and sat down again beside Arthur, reaching for him, but Arthur moved away at once. “No, don’t touch me!”
“Arthur…”
“No! I have to get this out now, don’t you understand?”
Nodding, Merlin settled down and leaned back.
“Okay. Finally, things became calmer. Oh, my mind was filled with all these… well, I thought memories… but… I was more lucid when I was awake and I realized I had to shut my mouth and stop attacking others or I would never get out of that damn hospital again. I somehow managed it. I started to give the right answers. They prodded at me for about a year, I think. I… developed a sleeping disorder. I didn’t want to sleep anymore because I didn’t want to dream. And I got those damn panic attacks. And then…” He broke off.
“Lorazepam.”
“Yeah. Ativan… well, the generic stuff.”
“With what dosage did they start?”
“Eight milligram.”
“What? That’s the maximum dose!”
“I know. I thought it was quite brilliant. I felt good. No dreams, no panics… I felt normal if a bit tired.”
“How long…”
“Until I was eighteen.” Arthur looked at Merlin and grimaced. “They didn’t care and neither did I. The stuff’s cheap… well, as long as you have a doctor prescribe it. They were all quite happy with the results. I was moved to another house then, one for very special kids and hell, I was the calmest one there, believe me. When I turned eighteen, they threw me out. That was real fun. It was winter; I had no idea where to go or what to do.”
“I can’t believe they didn’t help you… I don’t know, point you to somewhere.”
“Oh, they did. They gave me an address for a homeless shelter. Hey, I found out it wasn’t only me. Two days after I landed there, another guy from the house turned up. On his eighteenth birthday, too. I was already in trouble then. I only had a few pills left, and I cut them down to two a day. That barely took the edge off.” Arthur hesitated again. “You know… I wasn’t exactly only taking four a day before anymore. Anyway, the other guy had quite a few suggestions how I could earn money to buy my drugs.”
Merlin’s head whipped around, and he stared at Arthur, tensing all over.
Arthur smiled a bit, looking horribly young. “No, I didn’t do that. I think I would have rather… doesn’t matter. I tried to keep it together. I didn’t want to lose it so badly they could have sent me back to a hospital. I ate at the soup kitchen; when I was lucky and someone else got sick, I earned some money there. And I was on the streets, begging. I made enough to buy me some of the stuff. It wasn’t enough to keep the nightmares away, but I didn’t have any panic attacks while I was awake. And then, well… on the first night I slept outside the shelter, someone left the book. You know the rest.”
Pursing his lips, Merlin asked, “If you don’t believe I’m… real, why did you come here?”
“I wanted to get out of that godforsaken town anyway. So… free ticket, big city.”
Merlin raised an eyebrow and Arthur flushed. “All right. So I was… intrigued. I thought maybe you were… I thought you had left the book for me. You… how old are you?”
Merlin smiled. “A bit over 1500 years old.”
“You’re quite the comedian.”
“It’s the honest truth.”
“Right. That’s written on your ID card?”
“No. Let me think… according to that, I’m 34 years old.”
“You look a bit young for that.”
“I know. I have to decide soon what to do… either age up my appearance or start over as someone else again.”
“Do you even know how crazy you sound?”
“Yes.” Merlin nodded and then threw a speculating look at Arthur. “Can you maybe try to accept who I am? Who you are?”
Standing up, Arthur went over to the window and looked at the street below for a few minutes. Then he turned around again. “Look, there are two possibilities here. One, I’m hallucinating – and I so wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. Two…”
Merlin interrupted him. “Why? As far as you told me, you dreamt of Camelot, not of today.”
“I told you, I saw you around even when you weren’t…”
“Hm. How did I look? How was I dressed? Black from head to toe, with a cape? Or,” Merlin winced, “with a tunic, boots and some sort of hideous scarf?”
Arthur stared. “How do you know that?”
“Because it’s me! And I still can very well remember what I was wearing then.”
Arthur shook his head and Merlin sighed again. “What’s your second option then?”
“That you somehow found out… and… I don’t know… maybe…” He broke off, apparently realizing how insecure he sounded.
“Found out what, Arthur? Even if I had hacked myself into the hospital’s database and got access to your files… what, do you think there is a picture of me in it? No way to take a picture of a hallucination, right? And even if there would have been one, or some sort of picture you’d drawn… what, you think I had platic surgery to look like your ‘hallucination’? And anyway… how do you explain that you dreamt of someone looking like me when you were five years old? That was thirteen years ago.”
Arthur sat down again, head bent. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“Maybe we should try and break this down a bit. You’ve said you don’t believe in magic. Maybe that’s the key? I can surely show you enough magic to convince even someone as stubborn as you are.”
Arthur looked up at him. He talked so quietly, Merlin could barely understand him. “I wish I could believe you. Believe in you.”
Arthur watched the teapot hovering in the air, filling the cup beneath it, looked at the sugar cubes flying on their own through the air into the cup in front of him with an impossibly sad face. Merlin sighed; he knew tricks like this wouldn’t really help Arthur to believe, but he ran out of ideas hours ago. He had tried everything he could think of… growing plants, thunder and lightning, an earthquake, hell, even an eclipse of the sun and Merlin was very sure this would be the talk of the century for every astronomer on earth.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur whispered.
“No, don’t be sorry. I just don’t know how to prove to you it is true.”
“You can’t. It’s insane, a paradox. No matter what you do, I will never know…”
“It’s not insane. You are not insane. I wish I’d know a way…” Merlin paused. “Maybe this, Arthur?” He raised his right hand, and on his palm appeared a ball made out of blue light. It hovered there a moment, then the ball floated over to Arthur, who held his hand out just like Merlin. It nestled right into Arthur’s palm, as it had done a hundred times before. Arthur stared at it, then looked up at Merlin, tears in his eyes. “How… I never told anyone…” he hesitated. “Merlin?”
“I tried so hard, Arthur.” Merlin felt a tear sliding down his own cheek. “I tried so hard to send it to you. To let you know I was still there, even if I couldn’t be with you. But… it didn’t work. Her spell was too powerful. I couldn’t…” He broke off, choking.
“What happened to you? Gods, Merlin, what happened? You were supposed to be gone for two days and then… I searched for you; we all searched for you. I never stopped, my whole life I never stopped, but I couldn’t find you.”
“Viviane called to me…”
“Viviane?”
“Freya.” Merlin smiled through his tears. “You remember Freya, right? There was quite a bit of name changing going on, even then. So she wasn’t Freya, the shape-shifter, anymore, she was Viviane, the Lady of the Lake. Sounded better, I guess,” Merlin said bitterly.
“You loved her.”
“Loved her? Gods, Arthur. I was nineteen when I met her. I fell in love with a scared girl who lived under a terrible curse someone put on her and who dreamt of… I don’t know, a place, a home, where she didn’t have to be scared anymore. Then, I wanted so badly to save her, to share her dream. I failed her, of course. Believe me, Viviane had nothing to do with that girl anymore.”
“You still went.”
“Guilt. She called out for help, and I went to her. Every time. Arthur, she played me for years. She told me fairy tales about creatures who were threatening her, and I taught her my magic.” Merlin huffed. “Ah, I was never able to see through women. Show me a warlock, and I can tell you what he wants, how powerful he is. But witches? There is something about female magic… it’s more in the shadows. Anyway, that day? I knew something was off. I waited at the lake for the ferry, and for a moment, I thought I had seen Mordred’s face in the water. I should have run for my life in that second, but you know how arrogant I was then.”
“Mordred? He was there that day?”
“I don’t know. Some part of me tells he must have been there, but when I’m honest… in hindsight, I think it was a warning for me. But you also know that the Sight was never my greatest gift, let alone actually acting on something I’ve foreseen. So I stayed, arrogant, full of belief that nothing, no one could hurt me, conquer me. I was wrong. Before I even knew what was happening, Viviane threw me into that cave and put a spell on it and me.” Merlin leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes. “I have to give it to her, she totally surprised me. First I was pissed off, but soon enough I found out that my magic didn’t work in that godsforsaken cave. For years, I didn’t believe it. I raged against it. I… I was stuck in time. I didn’t get older, I wasn’t hungry or thirsty.” He opened his eyes again and looked at Arthur. “She showed me things.”
A pale and worried looking Arthur leaned forward. “What things?”
“You.” Merlin swallowed. “It was all about you. I saw you searching for me. I saw you getting older. And then… Lancelot. Guinevere. The Grail. Mercia.” His voice became quieter and quieter. “Camlann. Mordred.” Merely a whisper now.
When he felt a hand on his back, Merlin startled badly. He hadn’t even noticed Arthur standing up and sitting down beside him on the couch; he had completely forgotten his surroundings, overwhelmed by images from the past. Arthur began to rub circles over Merlin’s back, and Merlin tried to withdraw, to no avail. “I failed you.”
“Merlin…”
“I did! I didn’t listen, either to those who knew better or to my own instincts! I let you die, alone, on that filthy battlefield!”
Arthur still looked at him and for the first time since they’d met again, Merlin felt the power shifting between them. Arthur’s body might be eighteen years old, but his eyes certainly weren’t; his eyes belonged to the king he once had been. Merlin on the other hand, was scared all of a sudden and felt too young.
“How did you escape?”
“What?”
“The cave. How did you escape?”
Gods, even his voice is deeper now. “Years later. I was quite insane then.” Arthur huffed and Merlin tried to smile without really managing it. “After I don’t know how many years, they finally came together again, all three of them. They celebrated your death every year, you know? And that year, they did it right in front of my cave. Viviane let me see them, but then, she made a mistake. Morgana wanted to take a look at me, and Mordred,” Merlin barked out a laugh, “I don’t know, I guess he wanted to piss on me. Viviane didn’t want to open the way, but the others told her they could easily overpower me. Big mistake.”
“You killed them?”
Feeling ashamed, Merlin shook his head. “No. But I hurt them, I still do. As I said, I was completely insane then.”
“They are still around?”
“Oh yes. That night, I put my mark on them. They will never be free of me.”
“What does that mean?”
Merlin licked his dry lips. “There are some things you don’t want to know, believe me.”
“You know as well as I do that this isn’t true.”
“Arthur, I’m not the man…” Merlin broke off when he was suddenly jostled. Before he could do more than squeak, he was dragged back almost on top of Arthur and put into a half-serious headlock. He heard Arthur laugh above him.
“Merlin, spare me the cliché, all right? I’m not an idiot, I know you’ve changed! But under all that bluster, you’re still the same twit you were all those years ago.”
“Arthur!”
“Keep your secrets for now, old man. But know I will drag them out of you in no time.”
Merlin, still in a most undignified position half on Arthur’s lap and half on the couch, stared up at Arthur’s laughing face and something inside him shattered. Unable to stop it, he started to cry and watched Arthur’s smile vanish. In the next moment he was crushed to Arthur’s chest, dragged completely onto his lap, and found himself in one of those bear hugs Arthur always had been so good at.
“Don’t you cry, don’t you cry, Merlin, you hear me?”
“I failed you,” Merlin croaked. It was the utter truth; a truth Arthur had never understood.
“Ah Gods, Merlin. You were the only one, the only one, who has never failed me. Never.”
“I always have.”
“Never.” The hug got impossibly tighter, and Merlin gave up, turned his face into Arthur’s sweater and cried for only the Gods knew how long on Arthur’s chest, until he finally passed out.
When he woke up again, Merlin was lying on the couch, covered by one of the patchwork quilts. Groaning, he sat up, rubbed his hands over his face and then combed his fingers through his hair. He felt like death warmed over. Blinking wearily, he looked around; the only living being besides him in the room was Prince who slept peacefully in his basket in front of the fireplace. But there were sounds coming from the kitchen, so he stood up to investigate. He wasn’t really keen on facing Arthur after that crying fit he had had, but there was nothing for it; he couldn’t exactly hide under the couch.
About to enter the kitchen, Merlin stopped on the threshold. Right in front of him was Arthur’s sweatpants covered ass, while the owner of said ass hung his head over in one of Merlin’s chest freezers, searching for only the Gods knew what.
“What are you doing?”
Arthur jumped a bit, turned around quickly and smiled dazzlingly at him. Merlin leaned on the doorframe; he still wasn’t used to a smiling Arthur.
“I’m looking for something to go with the green stuff in your fridge. And while there are many interesting things in here… interesting and disturbing things, I may add- there isn’t any meat. At least, no meat I want to eat. Please tell me you don’t eat the things in here either?”
“You’re in the wrong freezer.”
“I’m in the wrong freezer? I’m not in it; I’m just looking into it.”
“You’re looking into the wrong freezer. Take a look at that one,” Merlin pointed to the other side of the kitchen, “and stay out of this one.”
“Will do!” Arthur banged the open freezer door closed, bounced over to the other one, and exclaimed, after opening it, “That’s what I call a freezer!”
Merlin still stood at the door, not being able to move a muscle. He didn’t know what to say, hell, he didn’t know what to think. Arthur seemed completely changed; gone was the depressed, ill young man, as well as the suddenly older and wiser man who had appeared so briefly at Merlin’s break-down. This Arthur Merlin was not familiar with; he had never known a care-free behaving Arthur.
“What about some roasted pork?” Arthur asked, turning around with a big piece of pork in hand, waving it like some kind of prize.
“Pork’s fine. Arthur? Er… how are you feeling?”
Arthur put the meat down on the counter; his face became serious. “Don’t worry, I’m not losing it. I feel… okay, I guess. Pins and needles like crazy in my arms and legs, and for some weird reason in my nose, and I can imagine all too well finding me some pills, but… I don’t really want any, you know? Not anymore. Not with what I know now. I don’t know what will happen when the nightmares or panic attacks come back but right now? No.” Arthur threw a glance at him and grimaced slightly. “You don’t look exactly convinced.”
Merlin shook his head. “No. No, it’s not… it’s just… you were… you are…”
“Jittery, I know. And my damn hands are still shaking. But I do my best to ignore it; nothing I can do against it. But…” Arthur smiled again and Merlin immediately had trouble breathing properly, “… I’m just really… I don’t know. I never saw so much food in one place in my life. At least, in this life. And I’m hungry as hell all of a sudden.”
Merlin swallowed, wincing at the clicking sound his throat made. “Then roast pork it is. With carrots and potatoes?”
“Sounds great!” Arthur unwrapped the frozen meat and put it in a bowl, then he looked around. “Do you have a microwave?”
“I don’t need one.”
Arthur looked confused for a second, then his glance fell on the already thawed out meat. “Ah, of course.” He grinned. “Handy as always.”
“Need some help with the carrots and potatoes?”
“Please! Oh and… please tell me there is nothing human in the other freezer.”
“You knew about Lancelot and Guinevere from the beginning, didn’t you?”
Merlin, who was just about to cut up the peeled potatoes, tensed and put down the knife. Turning around, he glanced warily at Arthur who leaned on the fridge. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When, Arthur? When? When you were a prince and I was your manservant? When you were King and I was still your manservant? On your wedding day, when I was still your manservant?”
“Wow, touchy. Merlin, you know as well as I do, you were never really my manservant!”
Merlin stared at Arthur a few more seconds, and then lowered his gaze. “I don’t know. I… I didn’t want to hurt you. You were so in love with her and at the beginning, I’d have never thought that they really…” He broke off when he heard humorless laughter coming from Arthur.
“Yes, I was so in love.” Arthur shook his head. “And so stupid. You know, Gwen was safe. When I think about the princesses my father had thrown at me… Gwen wasn’t demanding.”
“Gwen wasn’t demanding?”
This time, Arthur’s laugh was for real. “Yeah, I know what you think of… she was bitchy as hell, I give you that, especially after the wedding. But I didn’t mean it that way; she loved to discuss things and get into fights with me, but I never minded that. No, she was very undemanding when it came to romantic things, like taking strolls under the moon in the rose garden, you know? Or later, when it came to sex.” Arthur huffed. “As I said, I was stupid. Loving someone because they’re safe, that’s settling, right? And maybe she couldn’t say no to me, either, for the same reasons. Merlin, I don’t think she really believed she would someday marry me. And then, when my father died far earlier than anyone would have thought, I had managed to back both of us into a corner where I couldn’t see a way out. I couldn’t go back on my word, and apparently, neither could she. The marriage was doomed from the start.”
Arthur went over to the table, sat down and helped himself to a cup of coffee. Getting a beer out of the fridge, Merlin wished for something stronger but doubted the wisdom of drinking vodka while having this conversation. In fact, he didn’t want to have this conversation at all, sober or not.
“I mean, I’m not an idiot. I knew there was something between them; I just didn’t think they would ever act on it… which probably makes me an idiot, in hindsight. Hell, Merlin, you knew how it was back then. Today I would get a divorce and wish them luck but then? I tried, I really did.” Arthur sighed. “No, I didn’t. I was glad she wanted her own chambers. I was glad she didn’t feel so well so often, so I didn’t have to… you know. Not that ‘not feeling well’ meant that she couldn’t race through the castle, or make visits or take a ride… on whatever.” Arthur grinned a bit, then threw a glance at Merlin. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know, maybe some input on the matter? Or maybe you could tell me why you look like you wanted to kill someone?”
Merlin flinched badly at that. Seeking for a distraction, he said, “You’re taking this pretty well. Linda said something about you badmouthing Gwen in front of Lancelot not so long ago.”
Arthur laughed out loud and sputtered at the same time, somehow swallowing the coffee and not spitting it out again. “Aw man, how does she know about that?”
“Gwaine told her.”
“Ah shit.” Arthur shook his head. “Honestly? When I said that she wasn’t even there; I wanted to provoke him into a fight with me… I really wanted to punch him in the nose, I still do.”
“Not Gwen?”
Arthur looked horrified. “Firstly, I would never hit a woman and secondly… nah. It was more my fault than hers…” Merlin bit on his lips hard while hearing this, “… but hell, Lancelot? You know how he was… all noble and knightly and whatnot. He should have kept his hands off her, or at least, he could have come to me with it and just told me, you know?”
“You’re joking, right? He could have come to you? He was your best friend! You’re right about one thing, he should have kept his hands off her but you know what? She should have kept her hands to herself, too! I will never understand why you…” Merlin broke off when Arthur shook his head.
“My best friend? Are you mad? He was never my ‘best friend’. You were.”
“I wasn’t there anymore,” Merlin croaked.
“And that would change what exactly? You still were my best friend. Merlin, you were the only one I could really talk to, ever. What changed was that I closed up after you vanished.”
Merlin narrowed his eyes. “Viviane showed me what had happened after you found out and they ran away. Excuse me for saying so, but I don’t exactly buy your cool attitude… you totally lost it then.”
“Of course I lost it! What… they cuckolded me! In front of the whole fucking kingdom! Everybody knew about it! How do you think I should have reacted? Bid them farewell and suppressed a few tears?”
“You started a war over them!”
“No!” Arthur held up a hand and then pointed at Merlin. “I did so not start a war over them, I started a war because they ran to… hey, hold on. What is this really about?”
Merlin stood up, got another beer and threw the fridge door closed so violently everything in it rattled for some time. So he wasn’t heartbroken and hurt, it was just about his fucking pride. Gods, what have I done?
“Merlin?”
“What?” Merlin asked reluctantly, sitting down.
“What aren’t you telling me? And don’t even try to bullshit me, I know that look! Spit it out!”
Merlin hugged himself, pretending to only cross his arms. Looking at Arthur, he saw him raising his eyebrows. Honesty, my ass. He will leave me over this, I know he will leave me.
“Merlin…”
“I killed them.”
Arthur stared. “You… what?”
“I killed them.” Merlin got up again, turned away and closed his eyes. His hands grabbed the edge of the sink; he could feel potato peel under them. Roasted pork, potatoes and carrots… He felt like throwing up. Behind him, he heard Arthur standing up and his heart took a nose-dive. That’s it, then. He jumped badly when a hand landed gently on his back.
“Merlin, sit down again, all right? Sheesh, you look like you really should sit down!”
Merlin let Arthur drag him back to the table and push him onto a chair. Then, Arthur sat down right beside him, shoved the cup of coffee aside and took a swallow from Merlin’s beer. “Now… slowly please. You killed them? What happened?”
Merlin stared down at his hands on the table; he didn’t dare to look at Arthur. He felt like he wouldn’t ever be able to look at him again. “I told you how I escaped. When I was… finished with them,” he swallowed and then tensed when Arthur interrupted him.
“You know, I wanted to ask you before… why the hell is Mordred still alive? I’m not exactly sure anymore about everything that had happened at Camlann but I know I killed the bastard before I keeled over myself.”
“Either he faked his death or it was one of his facsimiles he had running around… and he only shortly possessed the body of it.”
“Oh lovely. Zombies. Sorry, I’ve interrupted you.”
Merlin thought for a short moment about just continuing with what happened to Mordred and the others –suddenly, that seemed far easier to tell than the other story- but he knew Arthur wouldn’t go for it, not now.
“Well, I… I searched for Lancelot and Guinevere. I found them in Scotland.” Merlin paused again; he could see what had happened then all too well before his inner eye. “They were quite the cozy couple. And when they saw me, Lancelot…” Merlin stopped and shook his head. He couldn’t tell this to Arthur. He listened to his heart hammering in his ears and Gods! He didn’t want to be here right now. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Arthur leaning close, and then his hand settled again on Merlin’s back. “Lancelot did what?”
“Lancelot smiled at me. He smiled at me as if he was really happy to see me.” Merlin made a choked sound. “Gwen didn’t. She knew. She knew all about me and why I was there. I descended on them like… it was over in seconds. Lancelot couldn’t even draw his sword.”
Silence. Merlin gritted his teeth and waited for the verdict. “What do you mean… Gwen knew all about you?”
Freezing, Merlin thoughts raced back to what he had said. Oh no. I didn’t… His eyes were now glued to the tabletop; he didn’t answer.
“Merlin?”
He didn’t have to answer, did he?
“Merlin, look at me.”
Yeah, sure.
He didn’t have to answer, and he surely didn’t have to look at this man right now. Then Merlin saw Arthur’s left hand, the one that was still free and not resting on his back, moving toward his face. Now, that was even worse than looking at Arthur, Merlin couldn’t stand more touching. He leaned back and looked up…. and saw Arthur’s eyes widen.
And all of a sudden, Merlin knew, he knew that everything he had ever felt for Arthur was written all over his face. The rather impressive flight impulse he had suppressed for some time broke free, and he jumped up, dodged Arthur’s hands and ran.
Sadly, it turned out that while he could run really fast, Merlin had as good as no brain cells left at all. Instead of running out of the house or transporting himself to the other side of the Earth he landed on the hall on the second floor, a barking Great Dane and Arthur hot on his heels. Merlin got stuck between the choice of either locking himself into the bathroom or the bedroom, and Arthur was already close enough to touch when he finally made a dash for the bedroom and tried to close the door behind him. Too late. Arthur and Prince piled in after him, and Arthur managed to take hold of one of his arms. Totally freaked, Merlin lashed out at Arthur with his magic and… nothing happened. Oh, Arthur hesitated for a moment –probably because Merlin’s eyes had changed color again- but then, he raised an eyebrow. “Interesting,” he said, grabbed Merlin around the waist and shooed Prince out of the room, closing and locking the door behind him.
“Let go of me!”
“Make me!” Arthur grinned at him.
“This isn’t even remotely funny!”
“You’re right about that.”
And then Arthur’s face came closer and closer, and before Merlin could remind himself that he was far too old to be so scared and before he found enough of the few brain cells he still had left to stop this, Arthur’s lips met his and Merlin simply folded under the kiss. Clutching Arthur’s arms to stay upright, he thought he heard the voice of reason in his mind screeching something at him, but then Arthur’s tongue swept slightly over his lips and he couldn’t even remember what reason was. He made a pathetically gurgling sound and opened his mouth; Arthur’s tongue immediately moved in to stay there. Merlin held on to Arthur for dear life; he could feel Arthur’s fingertips sliding under his shirt and running slowly up on his spine. Shuddering all over, Merlin tried to get some, at least some grip on the sensations raking over his body, to no avail. The moment he started to draw back a bit, Arthur tightened the hold he had on his waist and deepened the kiss even more. He tasted like coffee and beer and for some inexplicable reason like something close to cardamom. And he was warm, so warm.
Finally, Merlin simply let his head fall back to get some air into his lungs. He gulped in some, but found out that there didn’t seem to be enough air left in the room; at least not enough to feed his brain some much needed oxygen. Since they were close in height, and Arthur still hadn’t let him go, they were pressed together from chest down to their legs and this was really more than enough for him to… suddenly, Merlin felt Arthur’s hands shifting on his back and for one moment, he wondered dimly what would happen if Arthur actually let him go. He would probably drop like a rock. But Arthur didn’t release him; to the contrary, he turned both of them around, one hand sliding into Merlin’s hair, dragging him into yet another kiss, while he steered them slowly in the direction of the bed. And this was the moment when all kinds of warning bells started to ring in Merlin’s head, and this time, they didn’t sound like Camelot’s warning bells; the noise was so loud that Merlin had the feeling of standing directly under Emmanuel at Notre Dame while it was tolling.
Ripping his mouth away, Merlin somehow managed to bring one hand up to Arthur’s cheek, shoving him back a little. “Wait. Stop. This isn’t a good idea.” Even the still screeching voice of reason fell silent in awe when it heard this most intelligent sentence.
Arthur nodded sagely. “I know you think that,” he answered, took another step and let both of them drop onto the bed. The last bit of breath Merlin’s lungs still held whooshed out of him due to Arthur’s weight on top of him.
Merlin wheezed, Arthur straightened up a bit but not to say anything or let Merlin take a breath, no, he started to unbutton Merlin’s shirt.
“Arthur, what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m undressing you.”
Merlin had always hated it with a passion when Arthur decided to play dumb and answered rhetorical questions. He almost asked, “Why?” but in the last moment, he stopped himself. He really didn’t want to hear the answer, not spoken in that voice. So he merely shook his head, not knowing what to do.
Eyes narrowed, Arthur suddenly looked at him. “Did I misread things?”
“What?”
“Well, this,” Arthur rolled his hips against Merlin’s erection, “tells me you do want it. If you don’t, tell me.”
Merlin stared up at him. The problem was he wasn’t able to look away from Arthur’s eyes. Under his hands, he could feel that the body in his arms was far too thin, too young for him. But Arthur’s eyes… they were the same they always had been. He knew he should stop this, but again, he tried to avert his eyes and couldn’t. It was as if Arthur had him spell-bound.
“Merlin?”
Merlin decided to just continue wheezing.
A slow smile spread on Arthur’s face. “All right then. Can you maybe try and, for once, just… go with the flow?”
Merlin wheezed again.
“I take this as a yes,” Arthur murmured, lowered his head and pressed a damp kiss on Merlin’s neck. Groaning embarrassingly loud, Merlin let his head fall to the side, baring even more of his throat, giving in. Just this once, he told himself. One time. Something inside his head snorted loudly at that thought but Merlin ignored it.
His shirt had completely fallen open by now, and Merlin wanted to even the field a bit. He took hold of Arthur’s sweater and t-shirt under it and dragged it over Arthur’s head, moaning with Arthur when their naked chests collided. Things became a bit hazy for Merlin then; the room swayed a bit from time to time and he was sure that it kind of changed… in some moments he could see a canopy, Camelot-red, over his head. Arthur seemed to want to devour him, and Merlin didn’t do anything besides lie under him, like a complete moron. Clothes vanished and Arthur chuckled a bit, which probably meant Merlin’s magic was running wild again; he certainly didn’t do a thing… he wasn’t able to cast even the simplest spell. And every time Merlin’s brain tried to surface Arthur seemed to know it and slid upwards again, kissing him, drowning every thought Merlin might have had until the only thing he could hear or think of was the whooshing sound in his ears.
One thing Merlin did notice on some level was that Arthur wasn’t exactly sure what to do with him; but that thought and what it meant let him tumble even faster to the edge. He somehow managed to move a bit; he let his arms wander up Arthur’s arms until they landed on his bony but still broad shoulders. Then he combed through the blond hair above him. He had always been fascinated by the blond locks, from the first moment he had laid eyes on the man. Arthur began to shift erratically over him, breathing heavily. His hips moved up and down quickly, pressing their erections together. Stretching out under him and spreading his legs wide, Merlin’s hand twisted in Arthur’s hair; he wanted another kiss, he wanted Arthur’s lips swallowing the embarrassing sounds Merlin made, but Arthur just moaned loudly, swerving, and then his mouth found Merlin’s neck again. He bit down, not too gently, and that was it. Crying out, Merlin came, head thrown back so far it hurt. About a second later, Arthur froze above him, almost growling, and came apart, too. He said something, but Merlin couldn’t understand him, couldn’t even see him; the only thing he did manage was clinging to the sweat-covered body lying on top of him. His magic swirled around them, the room and even Arthur seemed to change again and again until Merlin wasn’t sure anymore where he was and who the man in his arms was; the King of Camelot with longer hair and beard or the young, homeless Arthur he had found on the streets a week ago. His fingernails were digging into Arthur’s back like talons, not willing to let go. Arthur raised his head from Merlin’s shoulder, asking “Merlin?” but even that didn’t help, his voice sounded off, too.
Almost sobbing, Merlin lifted his head and thankfully, Arthur seemed to understand. He kissed him, deep and surely, anchoring him, until Merlin finally stopped shaking. Then Arthur slid off him without releasing him, wiped them down cursorily with the blanket, and crushed him into the next bear hug while dragging Merlin’s head onto his chest. Merlin thought he heard Arthur mumbling about things being all right, and really, he should have said something but couldn’t because he was fading too fast. The last thing Merlin noticed was Arthur wrapping the sheets around them, then he was out like a light.
Merlin woke up, face down in the pillow, and wondered if summer had arrived yet; he was feeling goddamn hot all over. The next sensation he became aware of was a weight lying on his back… a hairy and hot weight which obviously had drooled on his back quite a lot. And for one blessed second he thought Prince had somehow managed to get into the bed with him… them. Them.
Opening his eyes, even full of horror, wasn’t really useful when one’s face was literally pressed onto a pillow, Merlin found out. He also noticed that he could not move, not even a bit. Arthur was sleeping on top of his back, snoring slightly, drooling immensely, and he had both of his arms clamped around Merlin’s waist. Merlin felt like Audrey II had gotten hold of him.
All right, Merlin mused. What you shouldn’t do now is freak out. Seriously. What’s done is done. What you DO need is a good reason to tell him why this never can happen again. You also need a good reason to get up and out of this room right NOW. Images of the last night flitted around behind his closed eyes. Arthur… Gods! This should never had happened, what kind of demented asshole are you? And then Merlin did exactly what he promised not to do; he freaked. He reared up, threw Arthur off and shot out of the bed… or he tried to. The rearing up worked, but already the throwing Arthur off thing didn’t really work; Arthur’s body seemed stuck to him like crazy glue. And as for leaving the bed at top speed and without any dignity at all… it was hard to do so if one found himself captured by two strong arms, rolled over and plastered against the wall.
“Stop that shit,” a gravelly voice grumbled.
“Let go of me!”
“Oh please,” Arthur said, yawning. “Don’t tell me this will be your standard response whenever I take you in my arms.”
Take you in my arms… Ruthlessly, Merlin stamped down on his stupid, stupid emotions. He had a very clever answer to that on the tip of his tongue –some nonsense about not wanting to be there- when Arthur rolled on top of him again, this time face-to-face, and said, smiling, “Good morning.”
Merlin stared up into blue, blue eyes and swore he could feel every thought in his brain vanishing. “Uh…”
“Mhm.” Arthur lowered his head and began to gnaw slightly on Merlin’s throat.
“We have to… talk… we really have to… Arthurrrrrr…”
“We really don’t. Not yet,” Arthur murmured, licking a path downwards over Merlin’s collarbone to his left nipple.
Okay, Merlin thought hazily, one more time. Only one more time. For once, his inner voices neither snorted, nor laughed nor screeched. There was only a stunned silence.
Prince finally saved the last shreds of Merlin’s sanity; while Arthur had –again- fallen asleep on top of him, Merlin had done nothing except comb through the blond hair on his shoulder for what felt like hours, refusing to think of anything. But when a Great Dane felt the need for a walk and was probably also hungry as hell, well, no one could ignore it. Not if one wanted the door to the bedroom to stay intact. Merlin cautiously slid out of Arthur’s embrace… only to find himself captured again. This time, Arthur actually snarled.
“Arthur… you have to let me go now, okay? Otherwise, Prince will build himself a doggie door… a doggie door of his size right in the bedroom door. I’m fond of this door as it is, I really am.” The arms around him didn’t give an inch. “Look, I will let him out in the garden –the herbs are dead anyway- give him his meds, feed him and then start on breakfast. Aren’t you hungry yet? You have to be hungry; we ate almost nothing yesterday.” Merlin wondered when and where he had picked up the amazing ability to talk so quickly.
For a moment, Arthur didn’t move. Then he sat up, sighed and shook his head. “No… well, yes I am but I’d still like a couple of hours of sleep better.” He let himself fall back again, thankfully on the bed this time, not on Merlin. “Just please make sure there is coffee when I get up.”
“Will do.”
Merlin was almost at the door, when Arthur spoke up again. “Merlin?”
“Yes?” Merlin turned around to look straight into Arthur’s eyes.
“Don’t… please promise me you will be here when I wake up.”
“I promise. Arthur, I won’t go anywhere. Ever.”
Arthur closed his eyes, and Merlin opened the door, only to be jumped by a not amused looking monster dog. “I know. No! Come on, let him sleep, I’ll let you out.”
Downstairs, Merlin opened the patio doors, leaning against it and not watching the havoc Prince most certainly was wreaking on the garden. He also steadfastly refused to think about the man upstairs in his bed or what had happened between them. After a few minutes of staring into the morning sun and contemplating the consequences of a Once and Future King with a juvenile record, a career as a drug user and the fact that said king was at least bisexual if not gay and involved with a much older man, he noticed the damn good job he did of not thinking about Arthur. Sighing, he called Prince in –he had what looked like the rest of Merlin’s lavender in his snout- led him into the kitchen for the antibiotics and a huge amount of food in his dish, then Merlin left the gorging dog behind to take a much needed shower.
He was just rubbing his hair dry with a towel, when he first heard Prince barking once and then the doorbell. Swearing, Merlin grabbed his black bathrobe and hasted downstairs again. The doorbell rang again. “Coming,” Merlin yelled and dashed across the hall to where Prince was already waiting, tail wagging like crazy. Merlin looked through the viewer and paused. Linda. What the… Merlin hadn’t even known she knew where he lived. Whatever. He opened the door wide, one hand on Prince’s collar to prevent him from jumping the tiny woman and smiled widely. “Good morning, Linda!”
The blonde woman smiled back, a bit tentatively. “Good morning. Merlin.”
“Sit down,” Merlin hissed out between clenched teeth and pointed to one of the yellow kitchen chairs. Then he turned around and hit the button on the coffee maker with such force that the poor thing slithered back a few inches; thankfully, he didn’t kill it. Merlin leaned back at the counter and looked at… Linda or whoever she really was. His magic swirled around her, but as so often happened with women, he learned nothing. The only thing of importance was that Linda was obviously aware of the magic around her, but she didn’t look frightened, only a bit wary.
“I mean no harm, Merlin.”
“That’s so?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you?”
“I think you know who I am.”
“No, I really don’t.” In truth, Merlin began to suspect who that woman was -Sieglinda, indeed- but he didn’t want it to be true. Because if it were true, he would have reason to hate her and he still didn’t want to do that.
“I’m his mother,” Linda said quietly.
Merlin swallowed hard; his magic crackled in the air between them. He ripped the half-full pot of coffee out of the machine and filled two cups without really looking away from Linda. “Sieglinda, huh? The mother of Siegfried, the German and Norwegian Arthur. Cute.”
“I was born under the name Maria Johanna Saratori. I changed it to Sieglinda a few years ago…when I… well.”
“Why not change it to Ygraine? That’s your true name after all.” Merlin was angry, sad and worried at the same time, deeply worried about the man in his bed. Arthur didn’t need another upheaval right now. And Merlin was also infuriated… because all this meant she had known… she had known for a long time and hadn’t told him. All the things Arthur had been through, all these years alone in that godsforsaken orphanage…
“I didn’t want you to find me then.”
Merlin banged the cups on the table and sat down opposite to her. “Oh, that’s great reasoning! I’m sure Arthur will be delighted to hear that.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know yet, Merlin.”
“Oh, I’m sure. Everybody’s got a sob story, right? But you know, I only want you to tell me one thing… why didn’t you come to me years ago? Huh? Why? I could have…”
“What?” Ygraine snapped. “What, Merlin? Adopted him? Been his father? Become a new Uther? You want that role in his life?”
Merlin was beyond angry now, in fact he was so filled with rage that he couldn’t even answer her; the only thing he was able to do was to hold on with both hands to the tabletop and not hex her into a neat pile of ashes where she sat. Not that the woman across the table seemed to be any less furious; dark blotches of red high on her cheekbones, blue eyes glinting and narrowed, she looked as if she would attack him any minute now. She also looked… a lot like Arthur suddenly.
“That wasn’t for you to decide,” Merlin finally hissed.
“Quite the contrary. It was my decision, I’m his mother!”
“Awesome job you did!”
Ygraine recoiled, becoming pale, and Merlin immediately regretted his words. And then he wished he wouldn’t… but he did. He didn’t know her story yet -and maybe you should have listened to her first before condemning her, his inner voice helpfully added- but he had seen how she was behaving around Arthur. It had been there for him to see the whole time – she loved Arthur.
“I’m sorry,” he bit out. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Ygraine looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap, and then whispered, “I wanted to. Tell you I mean. But… someone told me not to, and her arguments were good. Still, I often thought I should go to you but now, in hindsight,” she looked up at Merlin, her gaze lingering on Merlin’s face and neck, “I know, I know she was right.”
Merlin stared at her. “Someone, some woman told you not to?” Two names were blazing through his mind. “Please don’t tell me it’s either Morgana or Viviane.”
“You think,” Ygraine hissed, “that I would let one of them come near my son? They killed him!”
“Mordred killed him.”
“He couldn’t have done it without their help!”
Merlin leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms. “You know, you know a lot about things that happened after you had been dead. How come?”
“My sister was alive.” Ygraine lowered her head and sighed. “She still is… just like you, Merlin.”
Merlin was stunned into silence for a minute. “Your… what? That’s the first time I heard about this. You… you have a sister, obviously a sorceress, who survived the Purge? And no one has ever mentioned that before?”
“When you came to Camelot, the only ones to know were Uther and Gaius. Uther would have never said a word and Gaius…” Ygraine swallowed, “… I guess he thought it wasn’t important anymore.”
“What are you talking about? Why would he have thought…?” Merlin broke off when an inconceivable thought fluttered through his mind. “That… can’t be. I killed her. I KILLED HER!”
By now, Ygraine looked ready to flee any second. “No,” she answered. “You didn’t.”
“NIMUEH?!”
Ygraine only nodded.
“You’re kidding me, right? She… she tried to kill me, she tried to kill ARTHUR!”
“No! She never tried to kill Arthur… I can’t say the same for Uther, though. And you… I guess she wanted to teach you a lesson about who’s more powerful. She found out.”
“I saw her die.”
“No. You saw an explosion of light and heard her screams. She vanished, wounded but alive.”
“That can’t be. Gaius came alive afterwards; if she hadn’t died, he would have stayed dead.”
Ygraine shook her head. “Nimueh told me about it. She said you brought him back to life. Barely of age, you were more powerful than any other being she had encountered before, and you didn’t even know it. That’s why she stayed hidden all the time… well, that and… she found out what you did to the other three.”
“She told you about them?”
For the first time since she had entered his house, Ygraine smiled. “Yes. Very impressive… and fitting.”
Merlin ignored that. “Where is she now?”
“No. I won’t tell you, not as long as you look like you would kill her on the spot.”
“She is a dark sorceress.”
“No, Merlin, she isn’t. She is one of the most good-hearted and friendliest women you can imagine.”
“Friendly? She almost let my mother and Gaius die!”
“When you met her, she was beside herself for years, insane with rage and grief.” Ygraine hesitated for a moment, then continued. “But you know how that feels, don’t you?”
There wasn’t anything to say to that, after all.
“Where is Arthur?”
“He’s asleep, upstairs,” Merlin answered, eyes still covered by his right hand; he wondered how long he could hide behind it. For centuries, he had been proud of his brilliant mind, of his ability to deal with anything. The moment the Pendragon, no, the Pendragons were back, everything went to hell.
“Do you think it is… too soon to tell him?”
Merlin let his hand fell back on the table. “I don’t know. Really, I… I don’t know. It’s been a few hard days… the sick dog, the detox, him telling me his story and then… er. I don’t know. He’s not Mr. Stable right now and…” Merlin paused at the guffaws coming from his inner voice. All right then. “To be honest, Arthur’s been remarkably stable… I’m the one who’s not.” He looked up at Ygraine and saw nervousness and hope in her eyes. “And I can’t really tell you what I think because –as you’ve said- I don’t know many things yet.”
“But he does know who you really are now, doesn’t he?”
“Great. Nimueh’s been spying on us?” Every time Merlin mentioned that dreaded name, he felt his stomach churning. Oh what he would give to get his hands on her right now.
“No, she isn’t. She can’t. The only thing she has managed is keeping tabs on your whereabouts; she didn’t ever want you to stumble over her. As far as she told me, even that was difficult; your shields seem to be very dangerous, she compared them to magical flypaper. And the moment Arthur entered your house, she lost her connection to him as well. But… she said there was a ripple on the surface of the Old Magic a few days ago. In her opinion, that meant that… uh… you two… reconnected?”
To his horror, Merlin felt himself blush all over, so he hid again, behind both hands this time. Reconnected… now that’s a word for it. “Um… a few days ago? Well, Arthur kinda recognized me then, but he was feverish and still in the middle of withdrawal. Only yesterday, we… he… uh… well, he started to believe in his own memories again. We talked about Camelot and what had happened then…” Merlin sighed. “So yeah, if you call that ‘reconnecting’, I guess we did.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
Wondering if it was possible to turn into the color of a ripe tomato, Merlin laid his head on the table and refused to answer.
Ygraine was blessedly silent for a few moments, then she laughed quietly. “You know, for someone who’s been around for so long, you’re kind of bashful.”
Groaning, Merlin mumbled, “You’re his mother! So excuse me for not wanting to have this conversation with you.”
“My sister told me about the elaborate mating dance that was going on in Camelot between you two. So much in love with each other, and still neither of you did any…” She broke off when Merlin sat up quickly.
“Stop. I have no idea what’s going on in Nimueh’s head but she’s wrong. Arthur was never in love with me, nor is he now.”
Ygraine frowned for a moment, then raised both eyebrows. She looked creepily like Arthur. “So… these love bites on your neck… you made them appear by magic?”
Merlin’s head went back on the table. “You’re talking about sex, not love. Arthur’s eighteen; he would jump a goat if he could.”
While Ygraine started laughing, Merlin thought longingly about disappearing. He knew he couldn’t, not with Arthur up there, his mother down there and Nimueh the Gods knew where. But still.
They were on their second cup of coffee, and Merlin had begun to wonder what would happen when Arthur finally crawled out of bed and came downstairs, when Ygraine started to speak, quietly.
“I got pregnant when I was seventeen. I was… pretty wild when young. Not sure why; my parents weren’t exactly warm people, but nothing really bad had happened to me.” Merlin wondered for a moment what Ygraine considered ‘really bad’.
“Anyway, I didn’t know who the father was; I had lots of one-night stands. When I found out, I didn’t want it; I had already made an appointment for an abortion. But then…” she sighed, “… the dreams started. First, I saw Arthur as a newborn baby, and this image had such an impact on me… now I know why of course. It’s the only true memory I have of him. I cancelled the appointment. My parents weren’t delighted, but they gave in and told me they would help me raise the child. It didn’t work out that way, though. The dreams became worse and worse. I saw him as a man, wounded, crying, sad, damaged, dying… not one happy image of him. And I felt all this was my fault somehow. I saw other things, too… dragons, burning stakes, a husband of mine I didn’t recognize, my sister… you know. The dreams bled over into my real life as well; I thought I had lost my mind. My parents and my doctors thought the same. When I was seven months pregnant, I was committed to a hospital; they couldn’t do much because of the pregnancy… no medication, only therapy.” Ygraine hung her head. “I once mentioned to my therapist that I didn’t think my baby should live… that I thought his life would be horrible. I guess that was it. After giving birth to him, they didn’t even let me see him. I was ill for a long time, maybe history trying to repeat itself, I don’t know. When I re-surfaced… he was gone. I can’t even remember signing the contract to give him away for adoption.”
Merlin closed his eyes. “What happened then? Did… Nimueh help you?”
“I wish. No… I recovered slowly from the birth, shut my mouth and stopped talking about the weird dreams and was finally released from the hospital. I was eighteen then and I moved out of my parents’ house. Unlike Arthur, I didn’t get dependent on psychotropics; my drug of choice was alcohol.”
“Gods.”
“I drifted around for years… I can’t remember much of that time; I was constantly drunk. It did help, you know? I mean, the dreams didn’t vanish but they became endurable. And that was all that I wanted then. I didn’t want to think of my child, I didn’t want to think of anything. I guess I wanted to die. And then… on Arthur’s fifth birthday, Nimueh appeared.”
“His dreams started then.”
“Yes, that’s why she became aware of him. And me.”
“Now why didn’t I?”
“I don’t know. Nimueh doesn’t know either; she told me she was waiting for you to come to get him but you didn’t.”
Merlin barked out a laugh. “Yeah, sure.”
Sighing, Ygraine shook her head. “I know you don’t believe me but Nimueh isn’t your enemy, Merlin. She did shield him from the others, though. And she tried to help him with the dreams from afar, but it didn’t work. She finally managed to help me stay clean and convinced me that I wasn’t insane; that took some time. And then we talked a lot about the things that happened in Camelot and about Arthur of course. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t claim him and I had no chance of adopting him but Nimueh could have pulled it off. I didn’t…”
“Why the hell didn’t you come to me? I understand that your sister didn’t want to, but you could have come. You’ve told me, Nimueh knew who and where I was. So why? I could have helped Arthur.”
“After I understood everything, I wanted to. But Nimueh, she insisted not to. She has the gift of the Sight and…”
“GODS! The Sight is…”
“A fickle gift, yes I know. I heard it often enough.”
“Not only a fickle gift! It’s not reliable, never! No matter what, the Sight depends on who’s playing with it! People who are using the Sight are projecting themselves into what they see! Believe me, I know all about it.”
“Everything she saw came true.”
“Yes, of course!” Merlin stood up and began to pace. “Don’t you see? She led the way!”
“It wasn’t only that, Merlin. There were other reasons as well, reasons that meant more to me than anything Nimueh foresaw.”
“What?”
“She said you would only burden Arthur with your idea of his destiny. That you would turn into another Uther; maybe treating Arthur better on the surface but nevertheless pushing him into a role he might not like or choose for himself. Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but… it makes sense. And I had all these memories of him, images of a deeply unhappy man… please!”
Merlin, leaning on the window sill, felt cold all over, inside and out. “I don’t believe a word of this.”
“Merlin…”
“No, hear me out. I don’t think you’re lying to me; I’m sure you believe all this is true. But your sister has been lying to you, for what reason, I’m not sure yet.”
“She hasn’t…”
“But of course she has. There are far too many things that don’t make sense. Firstly, I am sure she had known about you even before you gave birth to Arthur. She must have put a spell on him at once; not only for hindering me finding him, but also for everyone else… did you never wonder why he hadn’t been adopted within a month after arriving at the receiving home? A healthy, blond, beautiful baby boy? And secondly… you’ve said it yourself, Nimueh could have easily adopted him and raised him with you. Why didn’t she?”
Ygraine stared at him, pale, and didn’t answer.
Merlin smiled bitterly. “You know, I really wanted to keep you out of this, to see you only as a victim. But I can’t. Nimueh was afraid to keep him close to you or her, afraid I would –despite her spell- find out and kill her or worse. And you, you chose your sister over your son.” Tasting bile at the back of his throat, Merlin swallowed hard. “Tell me, how did it feel… having all these memories of Arthur, of a time where you hadn’t been able to help him… and at the same time living with the knowledge of a boy you could help, but choose not to?”
“It wasn’t like that, it…”
“Ygraine. You have a head on your shoulders and a brain in it. I’m not saying you should have immediately taken action after Nimueh appeared. But when she came to you, Arthur was five years old. You had thirteen years to make the right choices, and yet, you’re sitting here and you’re still defending the ones you made.”
Crying, Ygraine whispered, “I love him.”
“I know. I’m also aware of the fact that Nimueh orchestrated all this; the book, the letter. And if I acknowledge this, I also must believe that her intentions weren’t evil. I even give her that… she might have been right about me. I don’t know what would have happened if I had raised Arthur… I just don’t know. But the fact remains that all these decisions led to eighteen years of hell for Arthur.”
“But what would have been right, then?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Merlin yelled.
Before Ygraine could answer, Merlin saw out of the corner of his eyes sudden movement at the door. Whirling around, he was relieved to see only Prince standing on the threshold. The relief didn’t last, though; Prince wasn’t looking at him or at Ygraine, he was staring at something –or better at someone Merlin realized with a sinking heart- in the hall. The huge dog whimpered and then raised a paw as if to nudge said someone.
Merlin didn’t even stop to think. He ran over to the door, startled Prince into jumping out of the way and saw Arthur sitting on the floor right beside the kitchen door, knees drawn up, arms around them, face buried between them.
Merlin sank down on his knees close to Arthur, not knowing what to do or say. While he was still staring helplessly at the huddled man in front of him, he noticed Ygraine coming through the kitchen towards them. He didn’t know what to do with her, either. His magic decided. The kitchen door closed with a bang a moment before she reached the threshold, and although the door didn’t have a lock, Ygraine tried in vain to open it again. For a second, Merlin could hear her voice, then the sound cut off, too. Prince, who was just about to lick Arthur’s neck, looked at Merlin and retreated quickly to the other side of the hall, tail between his legs.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
Arthur looked up at him but didn’t answer. His hair was a mess, eyes red-rimmed and again far too wide. Merlin didn’t hesitate; he framed Arthur’s face with his hands, leaned close and rested his forehead against Arthur’s. “Look,” he whispered, “you don’t have deal with this right now. Go upstairs, I’ll send her away.”
Arthur shook his head. “No. I… I’m not sure what to think right now, but I want to talk to her. Alone.”
Feeling an unpleasant twinge of something he didn’t want to examine at the moment, Merlin nodded. “Okay. I’ll go and get us some fresh bagels for breakfast, all right?”
Arthur spread his knees, wrapped his arms around Merlin’s waist and drew him closer. “No, please don’t go. I just want to talk to her for a moment; I can’t really go into this now. And I really, really don’t want you out of the house. Not after what I heard. She could be out there and…”
Laying two fingers over Arthur’s lips, Merlin smiled softly. “You don’t have to worry about me. Even if Nimueh is standing right in front of the door, prepared to kill me, she wouldn’t be able to.”
“Viviane…”
“I’m much, much more powerful now than I was then. Remember, Nimueh stayed away the entire time… would be pretty stupid to go to so much trouble getting us together and now try to harm or kill me, right?”
“Maybe,” Arthur answered. He looked tired, worried and not at all capable of dealing with his mother right now, at least in Merlin’s opinion.
“How are you? The truth, please.”
“Not so good,” Arthur said quietly, tightening the embrace further. “But I’ll manage. Just… please stay close.”
“All right.” Merlin gently pulled back a bit, stood up and helped Arthur onto his feet as well.
Merlin paced through the huge living room, Prince close on his heels. He was tempted, oh so tempted, to listen in. It would be easy, he wouldn’t even have to enhance his hearing magically, he could just lay his ear against the wall. But as much as he wanted to know everything, as much as he thought he needed to know everything to protect Arthur, he didn’t do it. He could all too well imagine Arthur’s reaction if he found out. And whatever else was happening, Merlin didn’t want to hurt Arthur in any way. He would have to trust that Arthur would tell him later.
Merlin took a deep breath. Trust had never come easy to him, not after what had happened so long ago. He had led a solitary life, never wanting to get too close to others, and while it was of course impossible to keep that distance from Arthur, Merlin was still almost scared about his own behavior, about his inability to hold on to any boundaries at all. He was worried about the long-term consequences of his actions, but he also had no idea how to draw back now without hurting Arthur again.
With a sigh, he let himself fall on one of the couches and buried his face in his hands. Nothing, nothing was going according to plan. He had somehow failed to take the Arthur-Factor into account; this man had always messed up any plan ever made by Merlin. And he had also turned a blind eye to the power of his own emotions. He was so used to being stuck in an unrequited love mode that Arthur’s willingness to tumble into a physical relationship had totally overwhelmed him. And now? While he had been truthful when he told Ygraine that he knew Arthur wasn’t in love with him, he couldn’t help the traitorous hope rising again; hope he had felt a few times in Camelot and which had always been crushed within hours. Things were different now of course; Guinevere was out of the picture.
Merlin lowered his hands and stared unseeingly at the cold fireplace. For a few seconds, he allowed himself to think about it; Arthur was young, apparently inexperienced… it would be so easy to manipulate him… suddenly flames flared wildly in front of him and Merlin grimaced and shook his head. The thought was madness, no, worse, it was perversion. Arthur deserved far better than him, and Merlin would do well to remember that. He had to be very careful, had to keep things casual at all costs, even if it killed him. Arthur had to be able to walk away from this one day easily, and that meant he mustn’t ever find out how deeply Merlin’s emotions ran.
Prince whimpered silently, and when Merlin looked at him, he saw the dog’s head cocked to one side, regarding him. Merlin smiled a bit; if he didn’t know better he would have thought Prince looked skeptical.
“You don’t believe me, hm?” Merlin petted Prince’s head. “I admit it won’t be easy, but it’s for the best… for him and for me, in the long run.” The dog huffed and Merlin’s smile deepened; he ruffled the dark fur a bit more. “Come on, I’ll let you out in the garden; you can dig it over once more.”
No sooner said than done, Merlin observed Prince running around excitedly for a few moments, when behind him the kitchen door opened. Arthur and Ygraine entered the hall, both of them looking shaken to the core. When Ygraine saw Merlin, she came over to him and hesitantly laid a hand on his forearm. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Merlin asked coldly.
“Well, for…” she floundered for a minute, and then smiled unsurely. “I guess for not killing me on the threshold?”
“Tell your sister to stay away from this threshold. Good-bye, Ygraine.”
Ygraine hesitated again and finally nodded. “Good-bye, Merlin.”
The moment the door closed behind Ygraine, Arthur vanished again into the kitchen. Merlin waited a few seconds and then followed him slowly, wondering why every difficult conversation had to happen in there.
Arthur was sitting on a chair, huddled, arms wrapped around himself, head hanging down. Putting a hand on his neck and squeezing slightly, Merlin asked, “How bad is it?”
Without looking up, Arthur just shook his head. Merlin tried to take one of his hands, only to find they were clawed in his waist –which suddenly explained the bruises. “Hey, let go. You’re hurting yourself.” When Arthur didn’t react at all, Merlin cupped his chin and brought it up until he could finally look into Arthur’s eyes. They were dark and filled with panic; Merlin swallowed. “Paper bag?” he asked softly, although he could clearly see that Arthur wanted something else.
Arthur grimaced, showing clenched teeth, and then his right hand shot out and grabbed Merlin’s arm. “Please,” he croaked, “please, you have to help me.”
“Let’s get a bit more comfortable, okay?” Merlin gently pried Arthur’s fingers open, took his hand and led him into the living room. “Lay down on the big couch, please.”
Arthur’s eyes became even wider. “What… I thought you would give me…”
“Arthur, I told you I can’t you give you anything right now. You have the choice between a paper bag, chamomile tea, talking… or we could try using magic. In Camelot, my magic always worked for you. Maybe I can…”
“No! Please…”
“Trust me?”
Arthur hesitated, and Merlin could see his hands were shaking again, but finally, he nodded once. “Yes.”
Concentrating, Merlin laid his hands carefully on Arthur’s chest, and this time, he let his eyes change color purposely, not into the aggressive almost red but into a soft silvery glow. He skipped the ‘Please relax’ speech altogether and just let his magic flow forward. What he tried to do wasn’t without risk, Merlin was aware of that. While he had often treated Arthur medically in Camelot, he had next to no experience with psychological illnesses. But still, he had helped him get some sleep, and he was very sure that he –or better his magic- had often calmed down the burdened king. He let his absolute need to protect Arthur mingle with the magical flow; but then, after he slid one hand upwards to Arthur’s face, he abruptly hesitated. By now, Arthur had already relaxed somewhat, his eyelids were drooping, his breathing became slower. He was trembling badly yet, and although his eyes were almost closed, his gaze was still locked on Merlin’s face. Whatever he saw there made him ask, “What is it? Are you all right?”
No, I’m not, Merlin thought, a bit panicky himself now. The moment his one hand had touched Arthur’s face while the other one was still resting above his heart, his surroundings had become hazy. Mixing emotions with magic was obviously not the best idea he had ever had. He hadn’t only projected the protectiveness, but also the love he felt for Arthur -which made sense, because those feelings were closely related to each other- but Merlin suddenly wondered what Arthur was feeling… and if he was able to recognize the emotions for what they were.
“Merlin?”
“I’m all right,” Merlin lied. “What about you? How are you now?”
Arthur smiled. “I’m fine. Whatever you did… I feel good.”
“Great.” With that, Merlin yanked his hands off Arthur and at the same time, cut off the magic flow. Bad idea. Arthur gasped and flailed wildly, going from relaxed to freaked out in one second. And Merlin couldn’t help him; he dropped to the floor, black spots were appearing before his eyes, and with a sinking feeling he realized he was about to lose consciousness. He didn’t understand what was happening –he had never experienced something like this before- and with all his power, he tried to shake it off, whatever it was, but he had no luck. Darkness was about to swallow him, when he felt strong hands grabbing his arms, and then he was pulled up on top of Arthur and into a crushing embrace. Arthur clutched him so tightly that Merlin groaned a bit; then he put his face into Arthur’s neck and held on.
A few moments later, Arthur combed his fingers through Merlin’s hair and asked, “You’re still with me?” Merlin nodded, and after two shaky breaths, Arthur continued. “Okay… what’s going on? I have the strangest feeling you’re now in worse shape than I am.”
Arthur was right; Merlin’s pulse was going through the roof, he was trembling all over and worst of all, he was scared to death of… something. He dug his fingers deeper into Arthur’s back, sure that not even a crowbar could get him away from the body beneath him.
“Fuck. Merlin… that’s not a solution, you know? You can’t just… hell, whatever it was you did! Take on my problems, my angst? Are you mad?”
Merlin couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell Arthur that this had not been his intention at all, simply because he couldn’t catch his breath; he was panting as if he had just run a marathon. Finally, Arthur turned them both to the side, pressing Merlin against the back of the couch, and looked him over, eyes full of concern.
Merlin wheezed, “Paper bag.”
Instead of getting up, Arthur leaned in closer and kissed him carefully, lips moving gently over Merlin’s. Merlin changed his mind immediately; this was far better than breathing into a bag. His hands left Arthur’s back and he threaded his fingers through the blond hair, preventing Arthur from pulling away again. Not that Arthur seemed to think of stopping any time soon; his kisses were slow and deep and soft. Merlin gave himself over to them, just as he had done last night and a few hours ago, dimly wondering how someone as young as Arthur could be so completely in charge here. But he was, and Merlin surrendered willingly when Arthur’s hand wandered down the short distance to Merlin’s buttoned jeans and undid them with one gentle tug. Ripping his mouth away to take a breath, Merlin moaned and Arthur laughed quietly.
“You were in a hurry getting dressed, weren’t you?”
“What?” Merlin rasped and then looked down while Arthur took off his jeans completely. Oh. Right, he had skipped the boxers in his haste to return to Ygraine. He started to speak and stopped immediately when he saw Arthur leaning in. Was he… oh Gods, he was.
Arthur’s mouth wrapped around the head of his cock, and Merlin gave a muffled shout, trying with all he had to not buck up and choke him. Shivering, he felt Arthur hesitating for a moment and hell, the knowledge that he had never done this before was just as arousing as the actual act. Again, Merlin opened his mouth to say something… profoundly stupid, he was quite sure of that, but Arthur suddenly got over the crisis or thinking process or whatever he had going on down there, and started to suck tentatively. Moaning, Merlin stared down at the blond head moving up and down for a minute, then he threw his own head back, eyes closed tightly. Feeling the sensations was overwhelming enough, actually watching Arthur going down on him was… impossible. He fisted his hands on parts of the couch, moving them restlessly in the need to keep them away from Arthur’s head, until Arthur seemed to notice what he was doing and thankfully grabbed both of them, their fingers intertwining. How Arthur managed this without breaking his rhythm or faltering even a bit was beyond Merlin. Then Arthur decided to become inventive; he bestowed tiny, flicking licks upon the head, swirled his tongue around it and went down again. Merlin made a desperate sound; it had been a definite mistake to open his eyes so soon again. His hips started to lurch and he whined, “Arthur… stop… s… stop…”
Merlin could see Arthur’s damn eyebrows going up, and his mouth took him in deeper, a tiny bit deeper than before, and Merlin stiffened, clutched the hands in his even tighter, his hips arching upwards as he came. Violent convulsions rocked his body; from afar, he heard Arthur coughing but even that didn’t stop his hips jerking again and again.
Finally, Merlin calmed down a bit; after a few deep breaths, he managed to loosen the grip he still had on Arthur’s hands –Gods, his fingers were hurting- and drew Arthur upwards, away from his sensitized cock and into his arms. Arthur looked at him, teary-eyed, and smiled apologetically. “I guess I need a bit more practice.”
“Mhm. Let me show you?” Merlin asked and flipped them over magically, startling Arthur into a moan.
“God, you’ll have to hurry.”
“Good thing you’re only wearing sweat pants, then.”
“Far better as drugs… but just as addictive.”
Merlin groaned quietly. “You just had to say that, right? Wasn’t it you who told me to avoid clichés?”
“Sorry, but you have to admit it’s… ACK! Prince!”
“OW!” Cursing, Merlin sat up as well, cradling his nose which had just gotten a bonk from Arthur’s elbow with his left arm.
“Oh god, I’m sorry. Are you all right? PRINCE! DOWN!”
“Yeah, yeah. Just get that monster off me, will you?” Merlin watched Arthur wrestling the dog who obviously wanted to join them on the couch away. “I guess we’ll have to have him neutered,” he mused and then had to laugh when he saw the horrified look Arthur threw at him. “I was talking about the dog, not about you.”
“Oh, ha-ha, very funny. We will most certainly not have him neutered! He isn’t a stray cat, you know?”
“You will change your mind when he starts humping you. Because he won’t just hump your shin or knee, he will hump you.”
Arthur stared at Merlin for a minute, then he started laughing helplessly, the first belly laugh Merlin had heard from him so far. Grinning himself, Merlin grabbed the jeans that lay at the end of the couch and got dressed again. Then he threw the sweat pants in Arthur’s direction. “Come on, let’s get some breakfast.”
Merlin watched Arthur picking at a sesame bagel and sighed inwardly; the mood had changed dramatically in the last hour. And as always, Arthur would probably rather die than start a conversation on his own. Just as well. “So… anything you want to share with me?”
Arthur shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I… I wonder why I didn’t recognize her, you know? I mean…”
“She was younger then. And hey, you saw her for what? A few seconds? I didn’t recognize her either.”
“Still. Man, I don’t know. The whole thing… it’s kind of surreal. I mean, I was alone the whole time, and now, I not only find out that you and all the… other stuff is real, no, I suddenly have a mother and an aunt and… Jesus. It’s really hard for me to… to believe all this is really happening, you know?” Arthur looked up at him and his eyes went big. “Whoa… how mad are you?”
Merlin blinked a few times. “This isn’t about me.”
“Isn’t it? You were affected by their decisions, too.”
“Arthur, I… I’m not sure if Nimueh wasn’t right. I…”
“Oh stop that shit! You’re nothing like Uther. But still…” Arthur smiled sardonically, “…I’m kinda glad you didn’t adopt me. Things would be beyond awkward now.” Before Merlin could as much as sputter one word, Arthur continued, serious again. “I wish she could have raised me, you know? I mean, I understand her reasons but…”
“I don’t!”
“Come on, Merlin, think about it. I know how it is… how the dreams totally threw me for a loop. And I was a kid when they started, so I had –at least in the beginning- a way to cope with them. Even I can’t imagine what they would do to someone almost adult, and pregnant on top of everything. No, I’m not angry at her.”
“Nimueh…”
“Yeah, okay. But even that… Merlin, be honest. What would you have done if you had found out?”
“She put you under a spell! I wasn’t able to find you!”
“Shows how scared she is of you. I got that you thought you killed her and she got away. But it sounds like there is more to it… what I overheard sounded like she avoided you like the plague because what you had done to the others. What’s that about?”
Merlin kept his mouth shut tightly. The problem wasn’t so much what he had done; the problem was that he was still doing it, and he didn’t quite know how to explain it to Arthur. While Arthur could hold a grudge like no one else, too, this was different and Merlin was ashamed of it, but couldn’t stop anyway. Another sort of addiction, he thought bitterly.
“Still no answer? That bad, huh?”
Merlin took a swallow of coffee and changed the topic. “What do you want to do now? Concerning your mother, I mean.”
Arthur looked at him, frowning, and Merlin could easily see how torn he was between demanding an answer and letting it go. To Merlin’s surprise, Arthur decided to let him off the hook. “I want to get to know her. Spend time with her. I know you don’t like it but she is my mother.”
Sighing, Merlin shook his head. “That’s not true, Arthur. I admit, I am angry at her, but I do like her. I liked her a lot, even before I knew who she really was. And I can see that she loves you. I just… please, stay away from your aunt, at least for now. Let me handle Nimueh. I don’t trust her with you.”
Arthur smiled. “As you very well know, I always let you handle anything that has to do with magic. And to be honest, the one encounter I had with her didn’t endear her to me at all.” He shuddered. “I still remember those damn spiders. I know my mother told you that Nimueh didn’t want to kill me, but hell, from where I was standing… or better, clinging, it certainly seemed as if she tried to do exactly that.” His smiled deepened. “I do remember something else, though.” Arthur held out his hand, and a second later, a blue ball of light nestled into his palm.
Merlin spent the next weeks in some kind of haze. They did lots of stuff together, buying new clothes for Arthur –which felt awesome because it was definitely revenge on Merlin’s part for the hours Arthur had made him spend with a tailor in Camelot to get him the right robes for his new job as Royal Warlock-, setting up a bank account for ‘John Smith’ –Merlin put so much money in it Arthur stopped speaking to him for the rest of that day- and of course visiting Ygraine at her café or having her over for dinner in Merlin’s house. He had warned Ygraine; he didn’t want to meet Nimueh and he wanted even less Arthur to meet her accidentally and so far, Ygraine had agreed and Nimueh hadn’t shown up anywhere.
Merlin was torn between happiness and anger. Happiness because Arthur got along so well with his mother –they loved each other dearly, it was written all over them- and anger because… well. Somewhere, deep inside his soul he wished Arthur hadn’t been so forgiving. Merlin understood, he really did, but he was still feeling resentful; he thought Ygraine got off far too easily. In the end though, he couldn’t really begrudge Arthur the sheer joy of reconciling with his mother.
They also spent lots of time talking; they had long conversations about Camelot, with and without Ygraine. Arthur and he got closer and closer, both emotionally and… physically. Merlin was still in the same state of mind he had been in the first time they had made love. Filled with equal parts of right and wrong, Merlin metaphorically closed his eyes and went with everything Arthur wanted to try. Inwardly, he waited for it to end, for Arthur to come to his senses. Merlin knew it couldn’t last; he just hoped they would survive the awkwardness that was sure to follow. With all his might, he had managed to swallow the dreaded L-word whenever it had threatened to come up, moaned out loud or trying to escape in a hiss between tightly clenched teeth. The last thing Arthur needed was to be –how did he call it?- backed into a corner again, as he had been with Guinevere. Merlin knew Arthur; a declaration of love from Merlin would trap him and he wouldn’t allow himself to move on. And while a selfish part of Merlin wanted nothing more than to keep this, keep Arthur as a lover, he knew very well it wasn’t meant to be.
He had started to come up with weird plans to stop this thing between them on his own time; the weirdest idea he had had so far was aging himself up until he fitted the image everybody had of his fairy-tale self. Long white hair, long white beard, maybe even a gnarled walking stick as an accessory. Not that he had ever looked that way, except for the one instance before Arthur had even become king. It was quite funny to think that his legendary appearance had been responsible for so many figures in modern literature; the most recent being Gandalf and Dumbledore. Anyway, it was a crazy plan; Arthur would hurt himself laughing if Merlin should ever try that.
But something had to be done, Merlin was aware of that. Already, a silent, stealthy and very comfortable routine had sneaked up on them; they went to bed together, they got up together… hell, they even took showers together. But every time Merlin tried to distance himself, even the tiniest bit, Arthur was all over him; and every time he tried to talk about the future, the same thing happened. Of course, Merlin knew he wasn’t trying very hard; he clung to this dream as tightly as Arthur had as a child to his dreams. Still, something had to give… soon.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Merlin stated while staring into the mirror.
“No, really? I would have never guessed that,” Arthur answered, rolling his eyes.
Merlin threw him a short look, then glanced back at the mirror. His irises were almost red and seemed to stay that way, no matter what he had tried. His hair stood up on end, literally; it looked like he had stuck his fingers into a socket.
“God, Merlin, can you try and calm down a bit?”
“No, I really can’t. And I won’t, not as long as this bi… witch is in my house.”
“She isn’t even here yet.”
“Your aunt and your mother will arrive any minute. I can already sense her.”
“And I can already sense that this will turn out to be a really nice evening.”
Merlin huffed. “Your idea. You wanted to meet her, okay, you will meet her. And what would be better than a nice family dinner to set the mood for further encounters, right? Sadly, you will have to live with the fact that I neither trust nor like her.”
“I could have met her alone.”
“Over my dead body,” Merlin muttered, as he had mentioned quite a few times before. The thought of Arthur meeting Nimueh without his supervision made his hair stand up even higher, and the air started to crackle around him ominously.
“Great. At least promise me you won’t kill her tonight.”
“That will depend on how she behaves.”
Before Arthur could respond, the doorbell rang. Arthur made two steps and was stopped by Merlin’s hand. “I will open the door; you will go into the living room.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed but thankfully, he didn’t say anything, just turned around and left the hall. Merlin took one last deep breath and then yanked the door open, glaring at the two women standing before him. Two very beautiful women, one blonde, one dark; one smiling nervously, the other one smirking. Or trying to smirk. Merlin smiled dangerously. “Please… why don’t you come in?”
“Yes, why don’t we?” Nimueh answered.
Merlin took a step backwards and opened the door wide. Satisfied, he watched Ygraine entering immediately while Nimueh hesitated on the threshold. Merlin’s smile became broader. “It’s too late now anyway, my dear. You may just as well come in.” All of a sudden, there was lightning flashing across the sky above them. Nimueh flinched and Merlin continued smiling. “You should know better than to stay out in weather like that.”
With a huff and a glare, she swept past him and tried to catch up with her sister, only to be stopped by Prince, who stood in her way and growled.
“Prince!” Arthur’s annoyed sounding voice came from the living room, and the dog turned about and dashed into the room right after Ygraine.
“What… you hexed the dog?” Nimueh asked, eyebrows almost meeting her hairline.
“I would never do such an evil thing,” Merlin answered lightly. “But you know what they say about animals… they have good instincts. Be glad I don’t own a cat.”
“You’re both still alive out there or should I come and wipe the blood from the floor?” Arthur yelled.
Nimueh took one step, and Merlin said silently, “You try anything, Nimueh. Anything with Arthur and you are dead.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Nimueh asked, just as quietly. Then she smiled and raised her voice. “You know, Merlin, it was never Arthur I was attracted to.” With that, she entered the living room and only Arthur’s muttered, “Oh God,” startled Merlin out of his stupor and into following her.
Merlin’s stomach churned again; while the other three had been chattering about nonsense the whole time they were having dinner, Merlin had found out how difficult it was to eat while simultaneously trying not to hex some people within an inch of their lives. He had also remembered how much he hated dealing with sorceresses. All this and Arthur’s naiveté as the cherry on the top –he got along quite nicely with his aunt- had led to an enormous, constant heartburn for Merlin.
“Merlin?”
“Huh?” He looked up and saw all three looking at him expectantly. “Excuse me, what?”
“We wanted to know if you two will come to the Summer Party next Saturday? There will also be the first exhibition in the new gallery across the street… you know, where the flower shop had been?” Ygraine asked.
Merlin looked at Arthur. “What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything yet,” Arthur answered, smiling slightly. As before, Merlin was thankful for Arthur’s willingness to go along with him, to let Merlin take the lead. He wasn’t sure why Arthur hadn’t mutinied yet, but he was immensely grateful.
“That’s not quite true,” Nimueh needled. “He said, and I quote, It depends on Merlin. Interesting, isn’t it? What kind of relationship do you…”
Merlin interrupted her immediately. “If I were you, I wouldn’t finish that sentence.”
“What, now I’m not allowed to talk anymore?”
“I told you before to tread carefully.”
“No, you told me to not try anything with Arthur. I won’t. He’s a bit young for me, you know?” Nimueh smiled like a cat. “Would be too easy to always get my way.”
Arthur sighed and muttered, “Well, at least we have eaten in peace.”
Merlin ignored him. “And you’re quite used of having things happen your way, aren’t you?” He looked from Nimueh to Ygraine and back.
“Oh look, the pot is calling the kettle black.” Nimueh’s eyes flickered. “I must admit, I was surprised by how… quickly you made your move, Merlin. In hindsight, this makes me even happier that I hadn’t allowed you to adopt him.”
Merlin recoiled as if she had slapped him across the face. Before he could even think about how to react, Arthur’s hand crashed down on the table.
“Enough of that shit!” he hissed at Nimueh. “Merlin’s right; you keep your nose out of our relationship, you hear me?”
“Arthur…”
“No! You should listen to me carefully, Nimueh.” Merlin noticed with something close to awe how deep Arthur’s voice became again. “One more remark in that direction, and I will kick you out of this house and straight up to the moon! And one other thing,” he looked at Ygraine who had gotten pale in the face and then continued, “I have promised my mother that I won’t get into this discussion tonight but do not think for one second that just because I haven’t said anything I agree with the decisions you made for my life, do you understand me?”
For a few moments, Nimueh just sat on her chair, saying nothing, and stared at Arthur. Merlin actually hoped she would keep her mouth shut; she might think she knew Arthur but she didn’t. She wasn’t exactly dealing with an eighteen year old boy here. But then he saw her eyes narrowing and sighed inwardly.
“Oh but of course, Arthur, I do understand. Of course you don’t agree with things you don’t know shit about. After all, Merlin doesn’t agree… and you aren’t even able to go to a party without his permission, are you?”
Arthur nodded and smiled, a smile that made Merlin cringe, then he stood up. “Get out.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, get out. You will leave this house, now.”
Nimueh stood up, too, red in the face, and Merlin watched her carefully. Thanks to the heavens, she didn’t reach for her magic; she just glared at Arthur and left the table. A few seconds later, Merlin heard the outer door banging closed.
Ygraine sighed and rose. “Well, it was worth a try.”
Taking her arm, Arthur smiled a completely different smile. “We will try again, mother. I’m sure it will get better.”
“If you say so.” Ygraine turned to Merlin. “I’m sorry, I really am. I told her to keep her temper but…”
Merlin raised both hands. “Hey, no one’s dead. I’m fine with that.”
“Good night, Merlin.”
“Good night, Ygraine. Arthur, you might want to offer your mother an umbrella.”
Arthur looked at him, frowning. “Why? It isn’t…” He was interrupted by the sound of rain splattering against the windows.
Merlin smiled innocently. “It just started raining.”
While Merlin listened to Arthur handing his mother not only one but two umbrellas, he sat down on the couch in front of the fireplace, turned the wine glass in his hand around and watched the red wine glinting in the firelight. He tried to consciously relax mind and body and found it close to impossible. There was a reason why he had always mistrusted women; they didn’t need magic to hit a man to the marrow.
“What a stunning success.”
Merlin looked over his shoulder at Arthur who leaned on the doorframe. “Hey, it’s family. Just wait for Christmas.”
“Are you all right?”
Merlin looked back at the fire. “I’m fine.”
Silence from behind, then Arthur’s footsteps came closer. He sat down on the armrest directly beside him and asked, “Are you sure?”
Looking up, Merlin smiled. “Yes. You know, you’re pretty hot when you go all protective on me.”
Arthur laughed. “Pretty hot, huh? Don’t tell me that this evening still has a chance for a happy end?”
Musing for a moment if he could pull it off, just let it go and –how had Arthur called it some time ago? Go ‘with the flow’- Merlin finally sighed. “We have to talk.”
“Oh wonderful! That has to be the scariest sentence in the world.” Arthur stood up again and stretched. “No way, Merlin. Not tonight. I’m going to bed.” With that, he left, whistling for Prince. Merlin heard the door to the garden open, and then Arthur rummaging around in the kitchen, probably preparing dinner for the dog. He wondered absently how much magic cleaning the garden could take before everything in it died a gruesome death.
After some minutes, Arthur was apparently finished with Prince and trampled upstairs, right into the bathroom; the shower went on immediately. Merlin drank up and watched the glass filling itself again, then he drew his legs up onto the couch and took another swallow. It was definitely a night for getting drunk.
Merlin woke up when the ground beneath him moved. Bemused, he opened his eyes and saw Arthur at his side who drew him up into a sitting position. “What are you doing?”
Sighing, Arthur slid his right arm under Merlin’s legs, his left arm under his waist and finally lifted him up. “I’m getting you into bed. It’s two a.m. and I’m tired of waiting for you.”
Merlin mulled over that for a while. “Arthur?”
Arthur stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “What?”
“You shouldn’t carry me.”
“Why not?”
“… because.”
Arthur’s face came so close to his that Merlin’s eyes started to cross.
“Jesus! What did you drink? That doesn’t smell like wine.”
Merlin thought hard for a moment. “Cognac.” He paused. “I think. Among other things.”
“Jesus,” Arthur repeated and went up the stairs. In what seemed like a second to Merlin, he was laid down on the bed and Arthur begun to undress him, starting with his shoes.
“Don’t try anything.”
Arthur rolled his eyes and wrestled him out of his jeans. “Do you think you’ll need a bucket in the night? Oh hey, do you have something like a Pepper-Up potion?”
Groaning, Merlin tried to crawl over the mattress, toward his pillows and away from Arthur. “I told you, I’m not fucking Harry Potter.” He heard Arthur’s laugh and just before his head could fall onto said pillows, he was pulled back from them.
“I’m glad you’re not cheating on me,” Arthur said while he was drawing Merlin’s shirt over his head.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Merlin grumbled.
“Never mind. What about the bucket?”
Merlin looked up at the slightly swaying ceiling above him. “Might be a good idea.”
“Yeah. Try to not throw up until I’m back.”
Merlin closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, Arthur sat on the mattress beside him, taking off his socks. “Where’s the bucket?”
“Right here on the floor. You fell asleep again. Here, drink this.” Arthur handed him a huge glass, obviously filled with water.
“If I drink this, I will puke.”
“If you don’t, you will regret it in the morning. Come on.”
He managed half of it and then dove for the bucket; if not for Arthur who grabbed him by the shoulders, he would have fallen out of the bed. Merlin hated puking. With a vengeance.
“God, you’re shot. Why the hell did you drink so much?”
Head still hanging over the edge of the bed, Merlin wheezed, “I hate my life.”
“I bet you do. Now answer the question.”
“That was the answer.” With Arthur’s help, he straightened up only to let himself fall backwards on the pillows.
“Why?”
Merlin looked up at Arthur’s serious face and groaned again. “What, now you want to talk?”
“Yes. Maybe now I have the chance to actually hear the truth.”
So Merlin talked. And then, he talked some more. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he had the feeling he was still talking while falling asleep. The only thing he was sure of was the look in Arthur’s suddenly dark eyes.
The piercing morning light shot right onto and through Merlin’s closed lids and hit his brain which promptly exploded with pain. Groaning, Merlin turned over and pulled a pillow over his head. Gods, it had been ages since he had such a gruesome hangover. On further thought he reconsidered. He had never had such a hangover before. “Arthur? Could you please shut the curtains?” he whimpered. “And then, you can save my life by getting me some aspirin.”
No answer.
“Arthur?”
Merlin squinted cautiously out from under the pillow to the other side of the bed which was empty. Wonderful, he thought grumpily. Fucking morning people. With a groan and tightly closed eyes, he heaved himself up and over to the windows, drawing the curtains closed. The problem with hangovers was that they left him a bit powerless. Oh, he could work magic if he had to -which he had proven quite a few times in history- but it made his head and eyes hurt like a son of a bitch. Cursing under his breath, he groped around until he found the door, entered the hall and immediately cursed some more. Since when was the hallway so damned bright?
“Arthur? I could use some help here!”
The house sat silent.
“Arthur?”
Where the fuck is... Merlin paused and opened his eyes; all of a sudden the morning sun didn’t bother him anymore. From afar, he could hear his own voice, stammering words. You have to understand… won’t ever work… you have a mission… I have a mission... I have done things… maybe, a new identity for you… adoption is still possible… I love you so fucking much… but don’t you understand? This can’t ever be…
Merlin blinked. He had… he had… Racing into the bathroom, he still barely made it to the toilet.
There was no letter, no message at the fridge, no nothing. Arthur’s new jacket and sneakers were gone, as was his wallet. Of course, Prince had left with Arthur, too.
Merlin sat on the stairs and stared at his hand in which he held the one thing that had destroyed the last bit of hope Merlin still had had left while he had been searching the house from top to bottom. Arthur’s keys; Merlin had found them on the kitchen table. Arthur had left his keys, and that meant he wasn’t coming back. Leaning shoulder and head at the wall to his left, Merlin stroked with his thumb over the little silver, dragon-shaped pendant. He ignored his still pounding head and he also ignored the tears running down his cheeks. He wasn’t entitled to cry, after all.
And there I was, thinking I’ve made mistakes before. Merlin smiled bitterly. How could I have been so stupid? Drinking myself into a stupor with him around, blathering out all the things he should have never heard. By now, Merlin remembered everything he had told Arthur the night before. About the curse he had laid on Morgana, Viviane and Mordred, how he was still sucking their life-force and magic out of them from afar, how he was sucking them dry like a goddamn vampire; about all the times he had destroyed Guinevere’s and Lancelot’s lives over the centuries, unable to stop no matter how often he did it; about the plans he had made for Arthur’s life, and that he, Arthur, had no say in all of this, like a puppet to which Merlin held the strings. And then, worst of all, on top of everything else, he had told Arthur that he loved him.
I wonder if he puked his guts out as well after I fell asleep.
Merlin thumped his head against the wall, pondering if he should reach out for Arthur, looking for his whereabouts. He was scared to death that Arthur would turn to drugs again; Merlin had certainly given him the means to do so. He owned so much money now that he could spend a lifetime on drugs if he chose to. Still, if Merlin searched for Arthur magically, the other man would know it immediately; Arthur was just as sensitive to Merlin’s magic now as the King of Camelot had been. Merlin was sure that Arthur would become even madder if he noticed Merlin’s presence so soon after he had left… and this could lead him right to Merlin’s second worst fear; Arthur could turn to Nimueh.
It would make sense, of course. Arthur wasn’t alone anymore, was he? He had a mother, an aunt, a family. A family who would take him in with open arms. For a moment, Merlin wondered if this had been Nimueh’s plan from the start, then he dismissed it. No one, not even Nimueh, could have foreseen the magnitude of Merlin’s stupidity. No, the only thing left to do for Merlin was to wait, maybe a few days, a week. If he hadn’t heard from Arthur by then, he would go looking for him, at least to make sure he was all right. Everything else… well. He had lost Arthur’s trust again, and no one knew better than Merlin how long Arthur could hold a grudge. But he was young, barely a man, and if Merlin managed to rein himself in and keep his head down, there might be a chance for reconciliation.
Feeling exactly as old as he was, Merlin contemplated getting up and making coffee; the kitchen seemed to be very far away, though. While he was still staring straight ahead, he suddenly heard the sound of a key being inserted in the front door, and then said door opened and Prince bounced inside, prancing like a pony and shaking an apparently new stuffed toy in his snout, followed by a flushed looking Arthur. Closing the door behind him, Arthur threw what looked like Merlin’s bunch of keys into the little dish right beside the coat rack. Prince jumped him; Arthur laughed and tried to wrestle the stuffed animal away from the dog, walking backwards toward Merlin’s direction. The moment Prince saw Merlin, he let go of the toy and stared at him; Arthur, obviously surprised by his sudden victory, stumbled back a few more steps and then followed the line of Prince’s gaze until he glanced at Merlin, too.
Even though he could imagine all too well how horrible he must be looking, Merlin wasn’t able to say a thing or to move a muscle.
Arthur regarded him for a long moment, then he swung his backpack around and opened it, pulling out a big paper bag from the bakery around the corner.
“Breakfast?”
Merlin sat in the kitchen, clutching a cup of coffee in both hands, and watched Arthur setting the table. He wasn’t sure if he could eat something; Arthur had bought bagels and muffins and cinnamon rolls… still scared, Merlin wondered if they were awaiting company.
“It’s a bit much for just the two of us, don’t you think?”
“Well, I’m very hungry and I thought you would be, too. My mistake.” Arthur sat down on the chair right beside Merlin.
Merlin didn’t answer, just nodded. As so often in the last weeks, whenever they had been alone, he averted his eyes, looking down at the cup of coffee in his hands.
“You thought I had left for good, didn’t you?”
Merlin nodded again.
“Why?”
Biting his lips, Merlin hesitated, and then took the easy way out. He got Arthur’s keys out of his jeans pocket and laid them on the table. “That’s why.”
“Oh, there they are! I couldn’t find them, so I took yours.”
“They were here, on the table.”
Silence for a moment, then, “Merlin? Would you please look at me?”
Merlin huffed; he remembered all too well a very similar scene some time ago… they were even seated at the same place. He breathed out and looked up, right into Arthur’s absolutely serious eyes. “What?”
“I guess you were right yesterday; we really have to talk.”
“Yeah, we do. Though I already did quite a bit of talking last night.”
Arthur smiled. “I wondered if you would remember; I’m kind of glad you do. So you won’t mind now if I tell you what I think?”
“No, I don’t mind. I’m surprised that you want to, though.”
“Merlin…”
“After all, I told you who I really am. What I’ve done. So yes, I am surprised, really surprised you’re still here.”
Arthur leaned back on the chair and crossed his arms, shaking his head. “What, you think I give a fuck about what you’re doing to Mordred and the others? I don’t. Neither do I care about Lancelot and Guinevere. Although I do hope that you will stop this. Again, I don’t really care but I don’t want them in our lives. Maybe that’s a habit you could break?”
“I guess.”
“Great.” Arthur sliced up a bagel and began to spread marmalade over it.
Merlin stared at Arthur, speechless for a second. This couldn’t be true; the Arthur he knew would never let something like this just go. “What… that’s all you got to say to this?”
Sighing, Arthur answered, “Merlin, I was never under the illusion that all there is to you are rainbows and unicorns, you know? The important thing is and always had been that you were and are the only one loyal to me.”
Merlin barked out a bitter laugh. “Loyalty, huh?”
“Whatever the reason.”
At once, Merlin looked back at the table. He didn’t want to discuss this, he didn’t want to talk about his reasons and he didn’t want to know Arthur’s opinion of these reasons. Tensing all over, he waited for Arthur to continue, but to his total bewilderment, Arthur changed the topic.
“The one thing I have a real problem with is your plans for the future, for my future.”
Merlin’s head whipped around and Arthur started to laugh. “God, you should see your face! A mule has nothing on you!”
“Arthur…”
“No. No, Merlin.” Standing up, Arthur got a bottle of spring water out of the fridge, and instead of returning to the table, he leaned back on the counter, eyes narrowed. “You really think I am stupid, don’t you? In the last weeks, while you were pussy footing around this damn destiny you think is mine… and around a few other things as well, I thought long and hard about it. The answer is no. I don’t want to. I won’t be the savior of the world, Merlin. I don’t want such a responsibility… again. And most of all…” Arthur laughed quietly, “… I don’t want to be adopted by you. Jesus. So please stop with all your schemes and plans and ruses. I know you know me. But you always forget that I know you, too. I… well. I can see it in your eyes. I always could. Stop it, please.”
To say Merlin was confused would be an understatement. He had noticed of course that Arthur wasn’t keen on their destiny or about anything that had to do with the Arthurian Legend. Whenever he had mentioned anything in this regard, Arthur had either left the room or, more often, kissed Merlin into the ground, cutting off any conversation immediately. But Merlin had never expected Arthur to talk so calmly, so surely about it. He had thought there would be yelling, lots of yelling, fights… and finally, Arthur giving in. He had no idea how to handle the stranger looking at him.
“The world…”
“The world can take care of itself. Merlin, please listen to me and accept it. I don’t want this.”
“What do you want then?”
Arthur took one swallow of water, put the bottle down on the counter and then, all of a sudden, smiled like a shark. “You know, I have been waiting for this question.”
He sauntered over to Merlin and sat down on top of his lap, facing him. The chair beneath them creaked ominously due to the additional weight. Merlin stared again, cross-eyed, but at least he managed to not start wheezing right away.
“I want you,” Arthur said quietly. “I want a life with you.” Smiling, he stroked a thumb over Merlin’s lips. “You weren’t the only one wrongheaded these last weeks. I heard what you told my mother the first day she came here. You said I’m not in love with you. You’re wrong. You’re all I want, Merlin. I didn’t say anything because I noticed how badly you wanted to avoid talking about feelings. I thought you would figure it out in time. But after what you told me yesterday… and when I came home earlier and saw your face, I knew you wouldn’t. So… brace yourself.” Arthur’s smile deepened. “This is not a crush, and I would never, ever jump a goat. I love you, I’m in love with you, and whatever you might think and whatever you might do… this won’t change. Ever.”
Merlin looked up at Arthur’s flushed face and stroked the sweaty blond hair back from his forehead, returning his smile. Then he drew him back into another kiss; a kiss far more gentle than the ones before. He felt Arthur smiling while he was kissing him, and again, Merlin wondered why he wasn’t feeling insecure or uncomfortable anymore. What he was feeling was peacefulness, safety, happiness and… love. How Arthur had managed that was a…
“Stop thinking, would you?” Arthur whispered. “I’m kissing you… you’re giving me a complex.”
“No need for that. I was just thinking about how lucky I am.”
“That makes two of us, then.” Arthur tightened his arms around him and rolled them over, so Merlin was now looking down at Arthur. He still hadn’t made up his mind what position he preferred best.
He stroked a fingertip over Arthur’s nose, bewitched by the beautiful blue eyes watching him. Eyes, which suddenly started to roll.
“You’re doing it again!”
Merlin started to laugh. “Hey, I was just wondering. What do you want to do with your life now that… destiny flew out of the window?”
Regarding him closely for a moment, Arthur relaxed again. “I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll go back to school, get a degree.” He shrugged and then grinned. “Or maybe I’ll take cooking lessons… and become a house husband!”
Merlin snorted. “The poor house.” And then, because he couldn’t resist, “The poor world. Maybe I should start looking into buying a remote island before the world as we know it goes down.”
Pursing his lips, Arthur nodded. “Maybe you should; then we could run around all day naked. And if you’re so worried about the world, maybe you should write a book about its state. Share some of your knowledge.”
“I write horror novels.”
“Well, if you write a book about the end of the world… if that’s not a horror novel, what is?”
Epilogue – Eight years and five books later
Merlin opened the door and stumbled into the dimly lit hallway. Feeling stupid, he just stood there some time, petting but otherwise ignoring the tail-wagging Prince. “Arthur?” he finally called out.
“In here, I’m making bread!”
Merlin dazedly turned to the right, following Arthur’s voice and then squinting when he entered the sun-streamed kitchen. “Gods, it’s bright in here.”
“You just came home… isn’t the sun shining on the other side of the street?” Arthur grinned, turning around to him, then started to frown. “Hey… are you all right?”
“They want me to… run for office… the Governor’s office.”
Arthur leaned back against the fridge, crossed his arms and grinned. “That’s so?”
“Yes.” Merlin wondered if he sounded as flabbergasted as he felt. “They’re all crazy.”
Arthur’s grin became broader. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
“What do you mean? Get what?”
“Merlin… you’re a totally stupid twit. You never catch on with things that are happening around you, you know that? As I told you years ago, it’s not me who will save the world. It never had been me. God, you just have to think about how my reign ended. It’s you, Merlin.”
“What?”
Arthur smirked some more and then went over to him, taking him into his arms. “The world will be saved by an idiot warlock with big ears,” he stated. “And I think that’s exactly what the world needs.”
