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“I notice on your CV, Mr. Emrys, that throughout university, you worked mostly in retail. I see you waited tables, and you worked in a bookstore. Did you try to seek out employment opportunities in your field at all? Perhaps a job in the computer lab?”
Merlin shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. He knew applying for this job was a bad idea. Why had he let Will talk him into this?
“Well, I had worked at that bookstore since I was fifteen. Um… my uncle owns it, and he needed some help, you know, in the afternoons, after school.” Merlin cleared his throat again. This was not going well. “And then later after he sold the place, I just sort of fell into the waiter thing. My friend worked at the restaurant already, and she told me they had an opening.”
The woman conducting the interview (what had she said her name was?) simply peered at him as if waiting for him to continue, and Merlin realized that he hadn’t actually answered her question.
“Um, yeah… so, I guess I just sort of thought of the restaurant thing as a way to pay the rent.”
The interviewer looked down and started jotting notes on the side of Merlin’s application with a giant crease in her forehead.
“I mean, I learnt a lot about responsibility and customer service, and I developed skills in time management and, um, a good work ethic.”
Oh, perfect. Merlin was starting to sound like a How To pamphlet for Your First Job Interview. But he took a deep breath and sat up straighter. He couldn’t let his nerves and the interviewer’s disapproving eyebrows mess up this opportunity for him.
“I actually did quite a bit of programming outside of my classes, just not for an actual job. My mate Will and I developed a game that became quite popular among gamers at our university. It wasn’t a terribly complicated game, as we didn’t have any funding, but, I guess word started to spread, and soon students from around the world were asking for a download.”
The interviewer glanced up at Merlin, slightly interested now, so he continued.
“It’s called Dead Professors. We had the idea when we were freshers. Will had created a model of our university in Minecraft, and it was a lot of fun exploring the campus in that virtual world, but we were getting a bit tired of the same old crafting and killing monsters over and over. We wanted more of a story with some quests to complete, but in a similar university setting.”
As Merlin talked about his beloved game, his nerves eased. He almost forgot he was in a job interview, just enjoying sharing some background about the game that had encompassed most of his free time through university and had almost made up for his complete lack of a social life beyond gaming.
“Will’s the artist, so he was in charge of the visuals. He created all the backgrounds and 3D animations for the game using the art department’s software. That’s one of the great things about doing indie games when you’re at uni — you don’t have to buy the software yourself!” He chuckled but noticed the woman across the table from him did not even smile.
“Um, so, I did all the programming. I originally used Visual3D Game Engine and .NET, but when the game started gaining popularity and more people wanted to be able to play it, I decided we should migrate to Microsoft XNA. We just finished that last month and submitted the game to Xbox LIVE Indie Games. It’s being tested right now, but we’re hoping it’ll be released soon.”
The interviewer sifted through some papers to pull out one that looked like a more detailed job description than the one Merlin had found online. She glanced at the page and then looked up at him.
“What languages and programming environments did you say you have experience with?”
“Don’t bother answering that, Mr. Emrys.”
A man’s voice spoke up behind Merlin. He turned toward the sound, and his breath caught in his throat as he found himself looking at an actual Sun God. The man standing in the doorway was looking down at a file folder, but something about him caused Merlin’s heart to flutter and his mouth to water. He had never had such a visceral reaction to another person before. The man was wearing a plain white shirt with a deep red tie, but Merlin could tell he was all muscle. His sleeves were partway rolled up to show a fine dusting of blond hair over forearms that were so sharply defined, they could have been carved from stone. Even beneath the button-down shirt, his taut chest spoke of hours in the gym. The man’s blond hair and tanned skin seemed to shine, even under the unflattering florescent lights of the HR office. His face, although Merlin could only see it in profile, somehow displayed characteristics of strength and determination but also compassion.
Damn. Merlin’s skin seemed to tingle as he looked at this man. He could not understand why he felt so drawn to him. Yes, the man was stunningly attractive, but he was also a complete stranger who had stepped into the room mere seconds ago.
“I don’t know why we even bother having HR interview programmers.” Thankfully, the man did not appear to have noticed Merlin’s staring. “Helen, it doesn’t matter what languages he knows. What matters is that he has a degree in computer science. Language is just syntax. Programming is programming. Doesn’t matter what platform you’re using.”
Merlin smiled. The Sun God knew what he was talking about. Merlin had a talent for logical thinking, and programming just seemed to come naturally for him. His courses had taught him the basics he needed to develop software in any environment.
The HR woman, however, was agitated at having her opinion dismissed so quickly. “Mr. Pendragon, the interview started fifteen minutes ago. You’re late.”
“Conference call ran long.” He still hadn’t looked up from the papers he was examining, and he hadn’t moved from the doorway. “University of Birmingham. You have Meadows for Database? He used to teach at my…”
The man finally looked up from the papers and met Merlin’s eyes. And Merlin could not look away. The air around him seemed to crackle with electricity as he stared into the piercing blue eyes that were pulling at him like a magnet. Merlin registered that the man had asked a question, but he had no idea what that question was. Although the man was staring back at him in a way that made Merlin think he didn’t really care about getting an answer.
“You can start Monday.” The man’s eyes widened as if he couldn’t quite believe he had just offered Merlin a job without any further discussion.
“Excuse me?” The woman who had been interviewing Merlin seemed just as shocked. “I don’t think that’s entirely your decision. Mr. Emrys doesn’t have any experience, and we have several more applicants to interview.”
Finally tearing his eyes from Merlin’s, the gorgeous blond man that Merlin fervently hoped would win this argument nearly spat back at her, “You feel free to keep interviewing until you find someone satisfactory to join your glassy-eyed coders downstairs. I want Mr. Emrys on my team.”
He turned back to Merlin. “It’s not the job you were interviewing for, but the salary’s the same, and I promise you’ll find the work more challenging and far more interesting. You in?”
How could he possibly say no? Merlin nodded rapidly, feeling like he was in a dream.
“Mr. Pendragon.” The HR woman’s voice was low, clearly seething. “May I have a word out in the hall?”
“No, you may not.” Mr. Pendragon’s voice was equally low. “It’s my team, Helen. My budget. My decision.”
He spun on the spot and stalked out the door, calling behind him, “Merlin! Are you coming or not?”
Heart pounding, Merlin jumped up from his chair so quickly, he almost knocked it over. He snatched up his copies of his CV and references, his notepad and his pen and shoved them all messily into the briefcase he had borrowed from a friend, nearly tripping over his own feet in his hurry to follow Mr. Pendragon out the door. He remembered his manners before he stepped into the hall and turned back to the HR woman.
“Thank you for your consideration.” He managed a polite smile that she did not return.
“Merlin!” Mr. Pendragon shouted from near the lifts, so Merlin trotted to catch up.
“I’m Arthur, by the way.” He barely turned to glance Merlin’s way as he pressed the button for the lift. “I’ll be your supervisor. And I’m expecting you to work quite a bit of overtime in the next few weeks.”
Confused by this seemingly out of nowhere demand, Merlin stammered, “Uh… overtime?”
As the lift door opened, Arthur stepped in and turned to face Merlin with a broad grin. “You owe me for the hundreds of hours I’ve wasted tracking down zombified professors in that ridiculous game of yours.”
*****
After six months of planning and conceptualization, programming for A Land of Myth was finally underway. When Merlin originally applied at DragonVision, Inc., he hoped for a job as a tool programmer. Fresh out of uni, he assumed he would have to pay his dues coding for a while before he advanced to software planning and game design. But Arthur had taken Merlin under his wing and allowed him to tag along on all aspects of the planning process for DragonVision’s new RPG about the legends of King Arthur.
His colleagues joked that Arthur allowed him this freedom simply because his name was Merlin. Having him shadow Arthur in meetings at every level of the development process was a way of flying in the face of the traditional role of Merlin as King Arthur’s advisor. Arthur just laughed this off, claiming he hired Merlin because of his talent and abilities, not his name. Although Merlin had quickly noticed a definite Arthurian theme amongst the employees of DragonVision. Particularly the ones on the team for A Land of Myth.
The art director was Arthur’s half-sister, Morgana, and on her team were Lance, the environment artist, and Gwaine, the character artist. Lance’s fiancé, Gwen was the technical artist, providing a bridge between the art team and the programming team. Merlin enjoyed getting to know the artists during the conceptualization stage, but with his background in computer science, now that game development had begun, he worked primarily with lead programmers, Elyan and Percy, and with Leon, the software planner.
“Do you think he’s seen it yet?”
“I hope not! I want to see his reaction.”
“He’s going to kill Gwaine!”
Merlin heard Elyan and Percy laughing as they came down the hall toward the programming office. He spun his chair around just as they entered the door.
“Who’s going to kill Gwaine?”
His officemates just looked at each other and burst out laughing again. Merlin had a sneaking suspicion they were talking about him.
Elyan cleared his throat and did his best to put on a straight face. “Oh, I guess Gwaine wasn’t happy with the concept art he created for the prototypes. So he’s completely redone some of the characters. He just put them up on the server this morning.”
A sense of trepidation crept over Merlin, because Elyan was pursing his lips hard to keep from smiling, and Percy had turned his back to Merlin, his broad shoulders shaking with barely contained laughter. So returning to his computer, Merlin opened a new window to access the art server. Somehow already knowing what he would find, he double clicked the file called Merlin_new.psd and found himself looking at… well, himself.
Now cackling with glee, Percy and Elyan came to look over Merlin’s shoulder. The character was wearing a blue tunic over brown trousers with brown boots. He had a red kerchief around his neck and ridiculously short hair for a medieval character. But he most definitely had Merlin’s own face.
“He really captured your essence, mate.” Percy clapped Merlin across the shoulders. “Especially your ears.”
Yes, Merlin had noticed the ears. His own protruding ears had been the source of a large portion of his adolescent embarrassment, and he was always careful to choose hairstyles that covered them well. But Gwaine’s drawing of the character Merlin seemed to emphasise both his ears and his lankiness. He felt like he was looking at a caricature of himself. Fortunately, he had grown out of the extreme self-consciousness of adolescence, so once he got past the initial shock, he simply shook his head, chuckling.
“Handsome devil, isn’t he?” Merlin nodded with mock self-satisfaction. “Shame he’s going to take the focus away from the main protagonist of the game.”
When Elyan and Percy started cackling again, Merlin narrowed his eyes and double-clicked KingArthur_new.psd, again with an odd prescience about how the new Arthur character would look.
“Gwaine.” Merlin muttered through gritted teeth as he pushed away from his desk. Leaving the howling laughter of his fellow programmers behind, Merlin stalked down the hall toward the art department. He found Gwaine leaning back in his chair with his hands locked behind his head as if he had been waiting for Merlin to arrive.
“Saw the new art, did you?” His face split into an enormous grin. “What do you think?”
“You certainly are proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Merlin rolled his eyes at Gwaine, but he couldn’t help smiling.
Gwaine threw his hands up. “Hey! You’re the one who said, ‘Why don’t we make Merlin young, instead of the bearded old guy everyone expects?’”
“True.” Merlin shrugged.
He was still amazed that Arthur had agreed to that. After months of meetings and after most of the characters and storylines for the game had been finalized, Merlin had a dream one night where King Arthur and his warlock were about the same age. Over coffee in the break room the next morning, Merlin had told Arthur about it, joking that they should change the game to reflect his dream. Then that afternoon in a meeting with Leon and Morgana, Merlin had nearly fallen out of his seat in shock when Arthur informed his staff that they would be making the character of Merlin a young man, like Arthur and the knights.
“And come on!” Gwaine exclaimed. “We’re making a game about Arthur and Merlin, and we’ve got two gorgeous lads named Arthur and Merlin right here in the office? How could I resist?”
Merlin was certain his ears were bright red, but fortunately they were hidden by his hair, unlike poor Game Merlin. He stammered a bit, unable to form a comeback. Gorgeous was not a word he usually associated with himself. Arthur, on the other hand…
“Has Arthur seen the new character art, yet?” Merlin felt certain Arthur would not allow his image to be immortalized as a video game character.
“Why, yes, he has.” Arthur stepped into the office behind Merlin. “And he thinks it’s brilliant!”
“You do?” Merlin spun to face Arthur, incredulous.
Flashing a dazzling grin, Arthur flung an arm around Merlin’s shoulder. “What’s not to like? Gwaine, you’re not the first to notice my regal features. Since you’ve captured this face so marvellously on the screen, I might as well cancel the bust a local artist insisted on sculpting upon spotting me at a café.”
Merlin snorted and received a jab in the ribs from a smirking Arthur.
“I was going to place it in your office, Merlin, so you might gaze at me in admiration all day long.”
Arthur presented his profile to Merlin with a flourish of his hand, and Merlin couldn’t help smiling. “Oh, darn. If I was getting a bust of your face, I could place it by the door to scare away intruders.”
Throughout their exchange, Gwaine simply watched them quietly, a knowing smile widening on his face, causing Merlin’s ears to burn again, but finally he spoke up. “So you’re good with the new look of the characters, Arthur? Shall I go ahead and start with the animation?”
“Absolutely.” Arthur gave a firm nod. “Make sure you save plenty of extra pixels to capture Merlin’s magnificent ears.”
Giving Merlin’s ear a slight tweak, Arthur turned to leave the office, and Merlin shrugged and rolled his eyes at Gwaine, hoping for a similar response to their ridiculous boss, but Gwaine just smiled and winked at Merlin before returning his focus to the computer screen. Merlin returned to his own office, blushing deep red, embarrassed that he had flirted so openly with the boss in front of a co-worker.
*****
Merlin was on fire. His face was drenched with sweat and felt like it was about to burst into flame as he writhed in his bed. He wanted to crawl out of his skin. He wanted to roll into a cool bath. But Arthur needed help.
“Arthur!”
Arthur perched on a small ledge in a cave, stretching one arm toward a group of yellow flowers rooted amongst the rocks, just out of his reach. Meanwhile dozens of giant spiders skittered along the wall, working their way closer and closer to Arthur.
“Leave them, Arthur.” Merlin was focused entirely on protecting his prince. “Go! Save yourself.”
Scaling the wall a bit farther, Arthur leaned and stretched until he could pluck a stem from the plant growing out of the cave wall.
“Faster! Go faster!”
The spiders approached ever closer as Arthur climbed as fast as he could, finding finger and foot holds to raise himself out of the cavern. Just as he reached the surface, Merlin awoke with a shout, T-shirt clinging to his damp chest, heart racing. He took a few deep breaths to calm down, reminding himself that it was only a dream.
Sitting up and reaching for the glass of water on his bedside table, Merlin decided he had clearly spent too many hours buried in code that day. He had been programming a scene similar to his dream, in which Arthur was on a quest to retrieve a rare plant needed for a potion to save the Lady Guinevere from a dire illness. The quest was to be the first gesture in their potential romance, if the game player chose that path. Otherwise, it was simply an act of heroic nobility.
Merlin downed the water in two gulps and climbed out of bed to refill his glass and to change his now drenched T-shirt. Strange. His dream had felt so real, as if he had actually been in that cave urging Arthur on. He tossed his sweaty shirt into the hamper and reached for a new one. No, that wasn’t quite right. In the dream he wasn’t actually in the cave. He was in bed, dying. In his dream, Arthur was on a quest to retrieve a flower not to save Guinevere, but to save Merlin, who had been poisoned.
Weird. Merlin chuckled as he pulled the fresh T-shirt over his head. Definitely too many hours staring at a computer screen writing too many if statements and while loops. He crawled back under the covers and rolled over, drawing his left arm up underneath his pillow. Tomorrow, he would have to make an effort to take more breaks. Visit with his colleagues in the break room. Take a brisk walk around the building. Merlin drifted off thinking about how he’d visit the café down the street rather than packing a lunch from home the next day.
*****
“Merlin! Could I have a word?” Leon called to Merlin as he walked past his office on his way in the next morning.
“What’s up?” Merlin leant against the doorframe of the office, but Leon gestured for him to come sit in the chair beside his desk.
As soon as Merlin sat, he looked up at Leon and was surprised to see a stern, rather disapproving look on his face. “The scene you finished programming this week… Why did you deviate so far from our storyline?”
“Um…” Merlin quirked his head to the side. “I didn’t think I did. I guess the code might still be a little buggy, but—“
“Buggy?” Leon gaped at Merlin. “You changed the entire story! King Arthur was meant to be saving the Lady Guinevere, not Merlin.”
“Okay, so maybe I accidentally typed my own name into the database instead of Guinevere. It is weird dealing with a game that has my name in it!” Merlin laughed. “But that’s an easy fix.”
Merlin started to get up, but Leon spoke again, this time with a harsher tone than Merlin had ever heard him use. “No, Merlin. It wasn’t just the name. You changed the whole story! Guinevere was ill, and you wrote Merlin as poisoned. We storyboarded Arthur traveling to the White Mountains to find Elderberry flowers, and you have him going to the Caves of Balor to find a Mortaeus Flower.”
Merlin felt a sudden chill run through his body.
“Lance swears he had not yet done the artwork for the Caves of Balor or any caves at all.” Leon continued, not seeming to notice that all the blood had left Merlin’s face, and he had stopped breathing. “And none of the artists will admit to designing the spiders you have chasing Arthur.”
The room was spinning. Merlin stared unblinking at Leon, not quite processing anymore what he was saying. How was this possible? Arthur in the cave reaching for the flower was just a dream.
“Merlin?” Leon leaned forward, raising his voice slightly. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Merlin just shook his head, mouth open. “I didn’t.”
“Clearly.” Leon snapped, misunderstanding Merlin’s denial to mean he didn’t think rather than he didn’t change the storyline of the game.
“Look, I know you’ve been working hard these last few weeks, and up until now, you’ve done great work, but I’m going to have to report this to Arthur.” Leon leaned forward, voice suddenly regretful. “I don’t know which artist you worked with, but you’ve wasted hours of company time creating a scene that is unusable.”
Still unable to wrap his mind around Leon’s accurate description of his dream from last night, Merlin stared toward the floor shaking his head in confusion. He simply could not understand why Leon believed the scene he had spent dozens of hours programming had changed overnight.
“Why don’t you go ahead to your office and start working on the scene as we originally planned it. Arthur’s in a meeting with some investors right now, so perhaps if you can make some progress toward fixing this mistake before he gets back, it will help lessen his anger.”
Merlin felt his head nodding, but he was still so confused by Leon’s accusation, he was barely aware of getting up and walking to his office. Without even removing his jacket, he went straight to his computer and opened the file to play through the scenes he had completed the day before.
The moment the introduction scene began to play, Merlin’s hand flew to his mouth and his heart leapt into his throat. Everything had changed.
He watched, eyes wide, as Game Merlin declared that a cup meant for Arthur had been poisoned. The court was in an uproar, and the screen displayed characters that Merlin had never even seen, much less programmed for. Then the player was given a choice either to have Game Arthur insult Merlin or to defend him.
Still in shock, Merlin clicked to defend Game Merlin and watched as he was forced to drink from the cup. After a series of choices that Merlin had most certainly not programmed, Game Arthur was in the cave, reaching for the flower just as he had been in Merlin’s dream last night.
After Arthur returned to Camelot, and Merlin had been revived, the two characters had a conversation where Merlin thanked Arthur for saving his life. The player was given three choices for how to respond.
Game Arthur could say, “It was nothing. A king’s duty to his subject.”
Or, “Well, a half-decent sorcerer is hard to come by. I trust you’ll be back to work tomorrow.”
But the final choice made Merlin’s mouth drop open again. King Arthur could respond to Merlin with, “I care about you, Merlin. I couldn’t bear to lose you.” And beside that option was the little heart symbol that indicated flirting or romance.
Numbly, Merlin clicked the last option and watched, heart racing, as Game Merlin responded in kind, indicating that his deep devotion to Arthur had motivated him to drink the poison in his place. The scene ended with the two men staring at one another — one might even call it gazing at one another — for several long moments before Arthur turned to leave the room.
After the scene faded to black and the screen returned to the program’s code, Merlin simply stared in shock at his screen. His entire sequence had been changed, just as Leon said. How was this possible? How had his program changed to match his dream? Even if another programmer had tried to sabotage his code, how could they have known the story he dreamt just the night before?
This made no sense.
And instead of initiating a romance between King Arthur and the Lady Guinevere, the game was somehow creating a romance between Merlin and Arthur? What the hell? Merlin felt his face flush as he remembered several previous dreams he’d had about the real Arthur, some of which had also resulted in his having to change clothes in the middle of the night. But how on earth did his highly inappropriate feelings for his boss end up in the game?
No matter what had happened, Merlin knew that the only chance he had of keeping his job was to follow Leon’s advice and recreate the sequence he had spent the last few weeks programming as it was originally planned, with Arthur saving Guinevere. He saved the current code in a separate directory, because he still wanted to study the program and try to decipher what had happened, but for now, he opened a new file and started the Guinevere storyline from scratch.
*****
Merlin had not gotten far in his rewrite when Arthur stepped into the programming office. He saved his work and spun his chair around to face Arthur and accept the consequences of his supposed waste of company time.
“Elyan, Percy, I hate to interrupt your work, but would you mind stepping out for just a few minutes?” Arthur’s face was serious but not angry. Nevertheless, Merlin’s palms began to sweat.
After Merlin’s officemates had left the room, Arthur pulled Percy’s chair over to Merlin’s desk and sat beside him, looking right into Merlin’s eyes with concern.
“So, Leon tells me that you have rewritten a section of the game and, in essence, changed the entire storyline.”
“Arthur, I don’t know how—“
Merlin started to explain that he wasn’t sure how the code and graphics had changed, but Arthur interrupted. “He also tells me that, although you deviated from our plan, the new scenes you created are impressive work. Leon was quite assertive that you are one of the best programmers and game designers he’s ever worked with, and he doesn’t think I should sack you over this.”
At these words, Merlin’s mouth snapped shut, and his head jerked back in shock. From his conversation with Leon earlier, he had the impression that he was angry and disappointed with Merlin.
“And although I personally know you to be completely incompetent and lazy,” Arthur continued with a smirk, “I trust Leon.”
Merlin couldn’t help letting out a sigh, relieved that Arthur was teasing him as usual. He smiled gratefully at his boss. “I should be able to rewrite the code back to the original storyline in just a few days. I’ll stay late if I need to.”
Arthur just stared back at Merlin for a moment, head tilting quizzically. “I’d like to see the new section you wrote.” He gestured toward Merlin’s computer screen. “Open it up and let me play.”
Now Merlin’s palms started tingling again. He opened the file and anxiously slid the mouse over to Arthur, unsure what his boss would make of Merlin supposedly creating a romance between the characters who shared their own names and likenesses.
He watched, leg jiggling up and down, as Arthur played through the entire section without comment or outward reaction. Merlin’s heart was in his throat when Arthur got to the final scene where the conversation between Game Merlin and Arthur showed the possibility of their story taking a romantic turn. Finally cracking a smile, Arthur clicked the dialogue option with the heart beside it.
When the screen faded to black, Arthur turned toward Merlin and looked at him silently with the same quizzical look from before. Merlin just stared back, hesitant to speak, wondering what was going through Arthur’s mind.
“You know what?” Arthur’s gaze shifted from Merlin’s face, and his eyes looked a bit unfocused and even slightly confused for a moment. Merlin waited for Arthur to speak again to clarify his odd reaction.
“I like it.” Arthur let out a surprised chortle, the corner of his lip raising in a crooked smile. “It’s different. I mean, these legends have been around for centuries, and everyone puts their own little spin on them. We’ve already changed things up by making Merlin and Arthur the same age. Why not make them fall in love?”
Merlin thought for a moment that his eyebrows would fly right off the top of his head. “Are you serious?”
With a laugh, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying, Arthur nodded. “I think so. Yeah. I mean, there have been a few options for gay and lesbian relationships in RPGs for the last few years, but there’s usually a choice, right? In most games, you can choose whether to play out a gay relationship or just play it straight, so to speak.”
Merlin shrugged. “I guess.”
“Let’s make it our only option.” Arthur still looked a little shocked by what he was saying. “Let’s just have Guinevere be a supporting character, and let’s give our gamers a romance between King Arthur and his Court Sorcerer.”
They both laughed at this, and Merlin felt both shock and delight that his boss was willing to change up the ancient legends so much. The butterflies in his belly that always got excited when Merlin harmlessly flirted with his boss were suddenly going crazy as Merlin wondered whether part of Arthur was excited to see a romance play out between their counterparts in the game.
“But think about it, Merlin.” Arthur sobered quickly. “What it will mean to the LGBT gamer community. For us to have representation in a game like this? With legendary characters like Arthur and Merlin?”
Merlin nodded, seeing Arthur’s point. “That’s big.”
“Yeah.” Arthur whispered, gaze unfocused again as the reality of what he was proposing seemed to sink in. “It is.”
He stood suddenly and walked toward the door muttering to himself. “I’ll need to set up meetings with Leon and Morgana. We need to throw out some of our storyboards from before.” He stopped briefly mid-step. “And what will the investors think?”
Merlin watched as Arthur continued into the hall, still murmuring under his breath. Unable to drop the smile from his face, Merlin turned back toward his computer to play through the new scenes once again. He was already trying to decide how the new romance might change the fight sequence he had planned to start coding today.
“Actually, Merlin?” He spun around to see Arthur poking his head around the door. “Have lunch with me today. Let’s toss around some ideas or just talk about something completely different… I don’t know. I’m all wound up, now. This is huge! Just… have lunch with me, okay?”
Chuckling at Arthur’s completely uncharacteristic nervousness, Merlin nodded. “Sure.”
With a firm nod, Arthur turned and strode briskly down the hall. Merlin turned back to his computer and scrunched up his face, pulling his arms tight around his stomach. He knew Arthur only wanted to discuss the new direction of the project. This would be a working lunch. However, the butterflies in Merlin’s tummy were in full swing trying to convince him that Arthur had just asked him out for a date.
*****
After the excitement of receiving Arthur’s approval and lunch invitation died down, Merlin decided to investigate exactly how his dream from the previous night had wound up as fully programmed and animated scenes on the server this morning. If the scenes had been created by someone else and their similarity to Merlin’s dream was mere coincidence, he certainly didn’t want to steal credit for the work.
When he discovered that the files had all been saved with his own user ID, Merlin called down to the IT department to have someone from network security check that his account had not been compromised. Merlin felt a little uneasy when he saw Kilgharrah step into his office. No one seemed to know Kilgharrah’s first name or how long he had worked for DragonVision. Merlin had seen the older man around the building a few times, but had never spoken directly to him. He knew Kilgharrah’s reputation, though, was that he knew his stuff, but he was rather difficult to work with.
“What seems to be the problem, young programmer?” Even his voice was harsh and raspy, and Merlin grimaced at being addressed by his job rather than by his name. It felt patronizing, somehow.
“Um… I just need to know whether someone hacked my account or used my computer to change some of my files on the server.”
Kilgharrah looked over the top of his glasses at Merlin. “And what makes you think anyone has been messing with your files?”
“Well, a lot of work was done that I don’t remember doing, although…” Merlin frowned. “I imagined it, somehow.”
With a grunt, Kilgharrah approached Merlin’s computer. “Up,” he commanded as he almost pulled the chair out from under Merlin. Taking over Merlin’s spot, Kilgharrah opened a command prompt window and started typing rapidly.
Merlin tried to keep up, but the old man really was an expert at his work. His fingers flew over the keyboard, and lines of commands and responses disappeared from the top of the window faster than Merlin could read them. Within two minutes Kilgharrah closed the window, stood and walked toward the door without a word.
“Well?” Merlin called after him. “What did you find?”
“Nothing, Mr. Emrys. No one accessed any of your files. No one touched your account. And no one logged in while you were not here.” With a chuckle that could only be described as enigmatic, Kilgharrah stepped out the door, but he called back over his shoulder, “Perhaps you were programming in your sleep!”
He continued chuckling until he rounded the corner at the end of the hall.
“Well, thanks.” Merlin muttered. “That was very helpful.”
But he did wonder… he hadn’t mentioned his dream at all, but Kilgharrah had joked about him programming in his sleep. And the work had appeared mysteriously overnight. Could he have actually gotten up in the night and accessed the server from home and coded new scenes without realising? But then who created the graphics? Merlin was no artist. None of this made sense.
The logical side of Merlin was still itching to know what had happened, and yet a small part of him seemed to whisper that he needn’t worry about how. He just needed to focus on the result: that he was now part of creating an RPG with a gay protagonist.
And he had a lunch date with his super hot boss.
*****
“So tell me, Merlin.” Arthur had just taken a large bite of his sandwich, and he spoke out the side of his mouth, tongue darting out to catch a dollop of mustard sliding down his lip. “What gave you the idea to set up a romance between Arthur and Merlin in the game?”
Merlin tore his eyes upward from Arthur’s lips, but that was a mistake. Arthur’s eyes were twinkling with glee, and his eyebrows quirked upward suggestively. Was Arthur flirting with him?
With an overdramatic shrug, Merlin drawled. “I don’t know. I was thinking a lot about gay rights and what I could do to contribute to the cause, so I thought ‘Hey, why not make the Once and Future King gay?’ And then I thought ‘Naturally, the king would be drawn to the hottest, cleverest, most powerful man around.’ So…” Merlin held up one hand to emphasize himself as the obvious choice.
Merlin felt a surge of triumph when Arthur laughed out loud, spitting crumbs onto his plate. He reached quickly for a napkin to wipe his face, but Merlin could see a pink tint rising in his cheeks.
“No, but honestly?” Merlin chuckled slightly. “It came to me in a dream.”
A flash of recognition appeared in Arthur’s eyes for a moment, but his face shifted quickly back into a smirk. “So you’ve been dreaming about me, have you?”
“Not you.” Merlin rolled his eyes. “King Arthur.”
“And what exactly do you and King Arthur get up to in these dreams of yours?”
Arthur leaned forward with another suggestive smile, and the butterflies in Merlin’s stomach did an “I told you so” dance. Arthur was most definitely flirting with him.
Encouraged by Arthur’s boldness, Merlin bit his lower lip. “Mmm. Wouldn’t you like to know?”
For a moment, Arthur stared at Merlin’s lips, mouth slightly open but not speaking. Merlin leaned back, smirking victoriously, and then Arthur shook his head slightly, cleared his throat and promptly changed the subject.
“So, have you finished the new Final Fantasy, yet?”
They spent the rest of lunch talking video games and movies, and by the time they were walking back to the office, Merlin found that his attraction to Arthur was growing beyond just physical. He found they shared a lot of the same interests and views, and conversation was so easy and comfortable with Arthur. They teased each other, sure, but it was always light-hearted and with a smile.
As they got into the lift, Arthur turned to Merlin, a look of confusion darkening his features. “There’s one thing I still don’t get. … Who did the artwork for the new scenes you created? Morgana didn’t know anything about it.”
Merlin shifted back and forth on his feet, pretending to brush something off his jacket to buy a little time. Should he tell Arthur the truth? That he actually had no idea how all the programming, graphics and animation were completed? That he seemed to have dreamed an entire section of software into existence? He could lie and say Will had done the artwork for him, but that might get Will into trouble. Plus Merlin still felt a bit uneasy taking credit for programming he hadn’t actually done.
Deciding that the truth, no matter how bizarre, was probably his best option, Merlin took a deep breath and met Arthur’s eyes. “I don’t know who did the artwork.”
Arthur narrowed his eyes, but Merlin plunged ahead. “I don’t even know who did the programming. According to the logs, I’m the only one who accessed those files, but I don’t remember doing it.”
“Merlin.”
“I know! It makes no sense.”
They arrived at their floor and the lift doors opened, but Arthur just grabbed Merlin’s sleeve to pull him into the hallway. He shoved him against the wall and stepped close, lowering his voice.
“Were we hacked?”
“No!” Merlin shook his head adamantly. “I checked. Kilgharrah from the IT department checked. And you know he knows his stuff. We weren’t hacked.”
“Then how?” Arthur was still standing quite close to Merlin, almost whispering.
“I dreamed it.” Merlin whispered, too. “Last night, I had a dream where I was poisoned, and you went on a quest to save me. Everything was in my dream. The Mortaeus Flower. The spiders. It felt so real.”
Arthur’s eyes widened as he stared at Merlin, unblinking.
“And then when I came to work this morning, it was all there on the server.” Merlin swallowed. “Leon pulled me into his office to talk about the changes I had made to the code, but Arthur… I didn’t make those changes. I dreamed them.”
Arthur was still staring at Merlin, but now his forehead was creasing, and he began to nod slowly.
“Okay.”
Merlin jerked back, bumping his head against the wall. “Okay?”
Still nodding slowly, Arthur took two steps back and pressed his lips together in concentration. “Thank you for telling me the truth, Merlin.”
Arthur turned and walked down the hall toward his office, leaving Merlin still leaning against the wall, head spinning. Did Arthur believe him? Did he think Merlin was crazy? Even more confused than he had been all morning, Merlin returned to his office, but he spent most of the afternoon staring blankly at the new code, trying to remember whether he had actually written it.
He didn’t hear from Arthur at all that afternoon, so as he ate his dinner that night and got ready for bed, he wasn’t quite sure what he would be doing at work the next day. Should he move on and start programming the fight scene that was originally supposed to come next in the game? Should he help with storyboarding the new romance, because it had apparently been his brainchild, whether consciously created or not?
He took a couple of paracetamol before getting into bed, because his head was throbbing after such an eventful and confusing day. It took him a while to get to sleep, his mind still going in circles trying to figure out what had happened, but he finally drifted off well after midnight.
And then he had another dream.
*****
Camelot was under attack. A griffin that had terrorized villages across the countryside was now wreaking havoc on the castle. Arthur was unconscious on the ground, and Merlin stood, shaking, hands extended, chanting an incantation over and over as Lancelot charged the griffin on his horse. Merlin’s spell took hold of the knight’s lance and enabled him to plunge it deep into the creature’s belly, finally killing it and ridding Camelot of the dangerous menace.
Once again, Merlin awoke, shaken and sweating, but this time, rather than changing shirts and going back to sleep, he got dressed and headed into the office, although it was still several hours before dawn. He had to know whether this dream would also show up in the game.
As soon as he opened the file, his suspicions were confirmed. A new sequence had appeared featuring Arthur and the knights fighting off a griffin that was attacking Camelot, and this time, mid-fight, the game player could choose to control either Arthur, Merlin or Lancelot.
Merlin still did not understand how his dreams were becoming part of the game, but as bizarre as it was to have these stories appear without him having programmed them, what shook him even more about today’s new scenes was the sudden changes in appearance of two of the characters.
“Merlin!” Gwen surprised him later in the break room as he poured his third cup of coffee that morning. “Everyone is talking about your new scenes in the game. The fight with the griffin is really intense.”
Gwen pressed her lips together, hesitating before she continued. But Merlin knew what she really wanted to talk about.
“So I guess you’ve seen them?”
“You mean myself and my fiancé?” Gwen laughed but still seemed to be holding back.
Merlin leaned forward, almost whispering, still unable to explain how these scenes were appearing in the game. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how Guinevere and Lancelot ended up with your faces.”
“Yeah, that’s what people have been saying: that you seem almost as surprised by the new scenes as the rest of us.” Gwen opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water and then motioned for Merlin to join her at the table.
“I can change the parts with you in it. And Lance, too.” Merlin stammered quickly. “I don’t know how they got there, but I can change the code, and I think Gwaine still has the old files of—.”
Gwen cut him off, placing a hand on his arm, reassuringly. “You don’t have to do that, Merlin. I don’t mind us being in the game. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t working with an outside artist. Because we could get in trouble for that. Not paying them properly and all.”
Merlin let out a sigh of relief. He hated to think that Gwen was angry with him.
“It’s kind of exciting, actually.” Now Gwen’s face lit up. “Being a character in a video game. And Queen Guinevere! Although, I guess in this story, I might not get to be queen.”
She giggled conspiratorially, and Merlin felt his cheeks warm. “No, it doesn’t look that way, does it? I guess you’ll have to settle for Sir Lancelot.”
“Settle?” Lance exclaimed as he walked into the break room with Gwaine. “I think she’s taking a step up, myself.” He planted a kiss on the top of Gwen’s head before turning to the counter to pour himself a coffee.
“What gives, Merlin?” Gwaine shoved Merlin’s shoulder as he pulled out the chair next to him, spun it around and sat astride it, leaning forward onto the chair back. “Everyone else gets to be in the game! Where’s the brave and handsome Sir Gwaine?”
“Well, I considered adding you in,” Merlin quipped. “But then I remembered that we want heroes in the game that the players will actually like and root for.”
Gwaine groaned and mimed pulling a dagger out of his chest. Lance laughed and joined them at the table, and Gwen leaned toward her fiancé, hooking one arm under his.
“Exactly.” She grinned at Gwaine. “Heroes like Sir Lancelot, here. Noble and clever and fit as hell.”
She ran her hand up and down Lance’s ample bicep and then raised her eyebrows at Gwaine, in challenge. Gwaine smirked in response and leaned across the table to grab Lance’s bicep, giving it an experimental squeeze. Then he squeezed his own bicep in comparison and shrugged as if to say the difference was negligible.
“Fit and clever, I’ve got taken care of, but noble?” He hummed, wavering his hand back and forth. “You may have me there, mate.”
With a snort, Merlin chimed in. “Oh, yes, I’m sure there are several fair maidens down at the local tavern who would question your nobleness, Gwaine.”
“Oi, watch it!” Gwaine shoved Merlin defensively. “I’ll have you know that I am always a perfect gentleman with the ladies. Unless of course, they ask me not to be!”
He winked and clicked his tongue. Gwen groaned, and Merlin rolled his eyes, but then Lance spoke up.
“Seriously though, Merlin, is Arthur okay with all the changes you’ve been making in the game?” Lance could always be counted on to redirect meandering conversations back to the important issues.
Merlin shrugged and tilted his head, still a bit baffled by Arthur’s reaction to his admission that his dream seemed to have created new scenes in the game.
“Yeah, he is.”
“You don’t sound so sure.” Gwen pointed out.
“No! I mean, he liked it.” Merlin nodded rapidly. “He thought it would be great for LGBT gamers to see King Arthur and Merlin get together.”
Gwaine snorted, knocking his fist against Merlin’s arm. “I bet he did.”
With a tight-lipped smile, Merlin rolled his eyes again. “He likes it.” He reaffirmed. “It just surprised me, is all.”
He didn’t want to get into the details of how the new scenes had been created with everyone. Actually, he was surprised they weren’t questioning it more themselves. Other than Gwen double-checking that Merlin hadn’t brought in outside help, his colleagues seemed to accept that he was able to create complicated code overnight. Not to mention graphics and animation that he had neither the talent nor the training to develop.
As his friends got up from the table to return to work, each one congratulated him on the new stories and action they believed he had added to the game. And Merlin sat quietly for several minutes just staring toward the door, wondering why no one but him seemed to be questioning how all the new scenes came to be.
*****
Each night that week, Merlin had another dream in which he helped to serve Camelot — mostly by protecting Arthur. And each morning, Merlin came to work to discover that the scenes from his dreams had been fleshed out into fully formed stories of Arthur and Merlin working together to serve their kingdom and, in the process, falling deeper in love.
Friday night, Merlin dreamt that Morgana was working with another sorceress to take over Camelot. He and Arthur returned from fighting the Knights of Medhir to find that everyone in the castle had fallen asleep. Except Morgana. Merlin discovered that the only way to break the curse was to kill her. He woke up trembling, unable to shake the image of Morgana looking at him, eyes wide as she choked to death, terrified and completely betrayed. In the dream, the other sorceress whisked her away to save her from the poison Merlin had administered.
But the dream left Merlin with an uneasy feeling. An unsettling sense of impending danger. For some reason, Merlin felt that everything might be better if he had stopped the sorceress and just let Morgana die.
He rubbed his hands over his face. How could he think such a thing? It was so confusing having these dreams that felt so real about people he actually knew. Sitting up and wrapping his arms around his knees, Merlin took a deep breath to clear his head. No matter how real these dreams felt, they were still only dreams. He didn’t really wish Morgana dead. He liked Morgana. They didn’t get a chance to work together often, but she was always kind to him, and she always joined him in poking fun at Arthur.
On Saturday mornings, Merlin would normally have a lie in and not even think about work until Monday, but after that dream, he wanted to go into the office to check out how this new storyline would play out in the game. He was certain at least a few people would be working, so he knew he could get into the building, but he didn’t feel the need to dress in his usual business casual attire. Still shaken from both the contents of his dream and his uneasy feelings about Morgana, Merlin was anxious to discover what his subconscious had created in the game, so he skipped his shower, threw on his comfortable jeans and a T-shirt and pulled a cap over his unruly hair on his way out the door.
He was not surprised to find that Morgan le Fay, the villainess in the game, was now named Morgana and looked exactly like the game’s real-life art director, but he was a bit surprised to see that whatever power was creating coding and graphics based on his dreams had apparently decided the time was right for Merlin and Arthur to kiss.
The pair was leaning against the door of the council chamber — Arthur preparing to go into the hallway to fight off the Knights of Medhir and Merlin trying to convince him that going out there was suicide — when the curse started to gain control. Arthur was falling asleep on his feet.
“Get me a pillow, could you?” he murmured.
Merlin chuckled slightly. “Don’t mess around.”
But Arthur wasn’t messing around; he was actually dozing off, so Merlin had to slap him awake. After a bit more banter, the sound of the knights’ roars on the other side of the door seemed to shake the whole chamber.
“Is that your knees again?” Arthur joked, and he and Merlin shared a laugh before Arthur reached out to grab Merlin by the back of the neck. He pulled him close and planted a quick kiss right on his lips.
Pulling away slightly, he pressed his forehead to Merlin’s. “Do what needs to be done, Merlin.”
The game player followed Arthur into the hallway to fight the knights, so Merlin did not have to relive the horror of poisoning Morgana, although even in the game her choking sobs echoed through the passageways, filling Merlin with a haunted sense of déjà vu. Trembling with strangely out of place guilt, Merlin’s fingers kept slipping on the keyboard as he played, and he accidently allowed Game Arthur to be killed by the knights.
Rather than start the scene over to find out what happened if Arthur won his fight, Merlin stood and stretched his arms over his head. Almost a week of getting very little sleep was catching up with him. He walked to the break room to get a bottle of water from the fridge.
He sat at the table to sip the cool water, but he kept thinking about that kiss. It was brief, but the sight of his game counterpart receiving a kiss from Arthur’s game counterpart still managed to send a thrill through Merlin’s body. Arthur had been so understanding, even excited, about the romance between the characters in the game, and Merlin could not help wondering if Arthur would feel the same thrill at seeing that romance in action.
Groaning inwardly, Merlin allowed his head to fall into the crook of his elbow on the table. He really needed to stop hoping for anything to happen with Arthur. He was Merlin’s boss. And gorgeous and fit and way out of Merlin’s league. With a deep sigh, Merlin closed his eyes. The cold water wasn’t helping. Maybe he would just rest his eyes here for a bit before going back to his office.
For a moment, Merlin felt like he was weightless, floating above the table, and then he realized he was actually soaring through the air on the back of a dragon. Wind whipped around him. Trees, rocks and fields passed rapidly below, appearing miniature from the air. Merlin had never felt so free! Stretching his arms and calling out his carefree abandon, Merlin felt the wind catch his jacket, making it flap behind him like the cape of a superhero in flight. The illusion of freedom disappeared, however, the moment the dragon landed, and Merlin slid to the ground. Once again, he felt the weight of his destiny pressing in all around him. Flying through the air, he had felt like a superhero, and now he needed to put those feelings into action. Arthur needed him. Camelot was under attack. Merlin would have to join his prince in battle. The future of Albion depended on him.
“Arthur! What is Merlin doing to our game?”
Merlin jolted awake, almost knocking over his water bottle. He looked around the break room in a confused haze. He had just been sword-fighting with a skeleton. His heart leapt when heard Morgana’s voice from down the hall. Morgana! He had to stop her!
Or… wait. Merlin shook his head, bewildered. Another dream, he supposed. Again, it had felt so real, and now as he heard the muffled voices coming from Arthur’s office, Merlin trembled, still unable to shake his feeling of apprehension. He almost felt like he needed to rush in to protect Arthur from his half-sister.
Instead, he walked to the doorway so he could listen to what they were saying.
“He’s made me the baddie!” Morgana’s voice was high-pitched and whiney.
But Arthur was ready with a calm retort. “Hey, I suspect Merlin just calls them like he sees them.”
“No, but seriously, Arthur. How is he doing this? He put Morgause in the game.”
Merlin’s heart flipped. When he played the game earlier, he discovered that Morgause was the name of the other sorceress who was helping Morgana.
“So what?” Merlin could imagine Arthur giving a half-hearted shrug. “Morgause is in all the legends. We actually talked about putting her in the game back before I hired Merlin, remember?”
“I know that, Arthur.” Now, Merlin could picture Morgana rolling her eyes. “But she looks exactly like my friend, Morgause. And Merlin’s never even met her!”
Morgana had a friend named Morgause? What was it about the Pendragon family that made them want to surround themselves with people who shared names with characters from the Arthurian legends?
Arthur just laughed. “Please, Morgana! You’ve got pictures of yourself and Morgause plastered all over both your Instagram and your Facebook. I’m sure Merlin just saw those pictures and used her face because of her name.”
Merlin hadn’t seen the pictures. He had never visited Morgana’s Instagram or Facebook pages. He didn’t follow any of his co-workers on social media, as he mostly used his accounts for keeping up with gaming news.
“I don’t think so.” Morgana’s voice was hushed, almost sounding frightened. “I’m not friends with Merlin, and I’ve never seen him on any of those sites. Arthur, you know there’s something weird about how he’s creating all these new scenes so quickly. The programming and the graphics for scenes like that usually take weeks to complete. His code is flawless, and he’s not using any of our artists.”
Merlin shook his head. Of course Morgana would be the one to question Merlin’s updates to the game. She sounded like she trusted him even less than he trusted her, although Merlin was unsure why he suddenly felt so suspicious of her. There were a few moments of silence from Arthur’s office, and Merlin moved a couple of steps closer in case they had simply lowered their voices.
But then Arthur responded with a sigh. “I’m not exactly sure how he’s doing it, Morgana. But I’ve just got this feeling that it’s okay. This game... Merlin’s new scenes… They just feel… right.”
Merlin smiled. He knew Arthur wasn’t talking just about the developing relationship between Merlin and Arthur in the game. He meant, of course, the quests and the battles as well as the stories of the characters. Everything from Merlin’s dreams that kept showing up in the game did have a strange feeling of familiarity. Which made no sense, as even though the settings and the characters were taken from the classic tales, so far everything Merlin’s dreams had added to the game were such a departure from the legends.
Especially the romance between the Once and Future King and his Court Sorcerer, Merlin thought as he felt a thrill in his stomach.
“Well, I suppose making me the villain would feel right to you.” Morgana’s tone sounded decidedly like she was humouring her little brother. “That, and another prominent aspect of this new game.”
“Shut up. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Merlin could hear the smile in Arthur’s voice, despite his rude words, and Merlin’s heart quickened at the implication of Morgana’s comment and Arthur’s amused reaction, but before he could dwell too much on what their exchange might mean, he saw Morgana backing into the hallway, so he retreated quickly into the break room, narrowly missing bumping into the table.
“Oh, I’d be careful if I were you, Arthur.” Morgana’s voice was getting closer, so Merlin tried to look occupied by pulling the box of coffee filters from the cupboard. “I might put you under a sleeping curse. Apparently that’s something I can do!”
Hands shaking, Merlin pulled a filter from the box and placed it in the top of the coffee maker. He felt Morgana moving closer to the break room, and he was nervous that she’d be angry with him for eavesdropping, but when she got to the door, she simply chuckled. Merlin turned to face her, and she gave him an understanding smile.
“Don’t worry, Merlin. I’m on my way out.” Her smile broadened, and she quirked her eyebrows suggestively. “You and Arthur will have the whole floor to yourselves.”
She swept down the hall, tossing a “Have fun!” over her shoulder. Merlin stood frozen for a moment, but then hastily shoved the coffee filter back into its box. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself to go talk to Arthur. Morgana’s quip seemed to imply that she thought he had a chance with him, and he found himself wanting to take advantage of this time alone to bond with Arthur as a friend, if nothing else. He turned toward the door, ready to go flirt like mad with his boss, and he found Arthur leaning against the doorframe smirking at him.
“Never once have I seen you here on a Saturday morning, Merlin.” Arthur folded his arms across his chest and looked Merlin up and down, taking in his rumpled clothes and uncombed hair. “Rough night?”
Merlin took a few steps forward and swallowed hard, unable to find his voice for a moment, because although Arthur was dressed casually, he still looked like he just stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine. He was wearing skinny jeans that showed off his muscular thighs and a V-necked T-shirt that emphasized the firm shape of his chest and stomach. Merlin realized he had never seen Arthur wearing anything but his usual business clothes. His eyes were drawn to Arthur’s bare arms. He had always liked Arthur’s arms. He liked to imagine running his fingers up and down the muscles of those arms as they wrapped around him from behind, pulling him close, pressing him flush against Arthur’s warm body.
“Um…” Merlin forced his eyes back up to Arthur’s face and tried to remember the question he was supposed to answer. Arthur was smirking even more, clearly having noticed the in-depth mental exam Merlin just gave him. Merlin blinked. “I had another dream.”
“I noticed.” Arthur laughed. “That is, Morgana noticed and called to wake me up, demanding I come to the office on a Saturday morning to see the havoc your dreams are wreaking on her self-image.”
“Huh?” Merlin was far too tired and distracted to follow Arthur’s logic.
Shaking his head, Arthur reached out and grabbed Merlin by the back of his neck, pulling him toward the door. “Apparently, you’ve made my sister a villain, and she’s not too happy about that.”
Merlin would have responded that he had no control over his dreams and their bizarre power to create code and graphics, but Arthur now had his arm thrown around Merlin’s shoulders and was guiding him down the hall toward the programming office, and Merlin’s throat seemed to be constricting as his entire being was focused on the fact that Arthur’s bare arm was draped across his back and his fingers were gripping Merlin’s upper arm.
“I just barely got to check out the new bits before Morgana showed up to yell at me. Those magical knights are tough to beat! Come on.” Arthur released Merlin and motioned for him to sit and then pulled Elyan’s chair over to sit beside Merlin. “Show me what happens next.”
So Merlin started the game where he left off earlier, just as King Arthur stepped into the hall to face the Knights of Medhir. He beat the knights this time and watched as the castle reawakened. Just as he was about to close the game, however, another new scene started. Merlin immediately recognized the events on the screen. They resembled the dream from which he just awakened, hunched over on the break room table. A patrol returned from near the border with bad news for the court. A familiar-looking knight announced that an army was marching on Camelot.
“I estimate they will reach the city within two days.”
Arthur nudged Merlin. “Hey! You put Leon in! He’ll be thrilled.”
Merlin just nodded. He had been woken up in the middle of the dream, and the details were hazy in his head. All he could remember was that Morgana had raised an army of the dead, and the knights of Camelot were unable to fight both the army attacking the citadel and the skeletons fighting from within the castle. He wondered how this would play out in the game, because its scenes weren’t always exactly like his dreams.
On the screen, Leon informed King Arthur that the army was marching under Cenred’s banner.
“How many men?” The king asked.
A shock swept through the chamber when Leon declared, “Twenty thousand. Maybe more.”
Some on the council recommended appeasing Cenred with offers of land, but Arthur thought that would make Camelot look weak. The game player was offered the choice between making a deal with the attacking king and preparing for a siege.
“Please. No army can take the citadel of Camelot. The castle’s their strongest weapon.” Arthur tapped the back of Merlin’s hand on the mouse. “Pick siege.”
Merlin clicked the option to prepare the castle for an attack, and King Arthur moved to sit in his throne and echoed almost exactly the words Arthur had just spoken.
“The castle is our strongest weapon. No army has ever taken Camelot.”
“That was…” Merlin whispered as he and Arthur exchanged a disconcerted look.
Arthur nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
The game continued, allowing the player to make several choices about setting up defences and protecting subjects from the surrounding villages. Each time, Arthur encouraged Merlin to make the choice that would protect the most innocent people, even if it meant spreading their resources thin. Merlin smiled. Arthur seemed to share the same noble spirit as the legendary king.
As the time for the battle neared, King Arthur and his Court Sorcerer stood atop the battlements surveying Cenred’s army. Even on the computer screen, the army looked impressive and daunting. Beside Merlin, Arthur drew a sharp breath, as if facing this massive army would put him and Merlin in actual danger.
The scene changed, and now Merlin and Arthur were standing in Arthur’s chamber. Merlin waved his hand and Arthur’s armour lifted from the table, one piece at a time, and fastened itself to Arthur to prepare him for battle. As the vambrace slid over Arthur’s wrist, Merlin turned toward the window, distracted by the drums on the other side of the castle wall, and the vambrace slipped.
“Sorry.” Merlin whispered, shaking his head with chagrin.
“It’s not like you to get nervous, is it, Merlin?” Arthur reached for the vambrace to fix it himself.
Merlin looked up at Arthur, and his expression shifted. His hesitancy was gone, admiration for his king making his face shine like a beacon. “I’m not nervous, because I trust in your destiny.”
King Arthur smirked and looked for all the world like the Arthur sitting next to Merlin had just minutes before in the doorway of the break room.
“Have you been on the cider?”
Forgoing magic for the moment, Merlin drew the king’s sword from its sheath on the table. “It is your fate to be the greatest king Camelot has ever known. Your victory today will be remembered by every age till the end of time.” He handed Arthur the sword and leaned close, lowering his voice. “Just trust in yourself.”
With a half-smile, Merlin nodded affirmation of his absolute faith in Arthur and started to back away, but Arthur reached out with his free hand to grab Merlin’s arm and pull him in for a kiss. Unlike their first kiss, this was no mere peck. The moment their lips met, both men let out a moan and stepped closer, Merlin wrapping his arms around Arthur’s waist and Arthur doing his best to pull Merlin toward him with a sword in one hand.
As the two men embraced on the screen, Merlin was suddenly hyper aware of Arthur sitting right next to him. Their legs were not quite touching, but Merlin could feel the heat radiating in the inch or so of space between their knees. He was very conscious that his arm, perched on the edge of the desk, near the mouse, was overlapping into Arthur’s space, and if he dropped his hand, it would land on the inside of Arthur’s thigh. Merlin was actually afraid Arthur would hear his heart pounding, as he had stopped breathing, and the pulse of blood through his veins was the only sound Merlin was aware of.
For his part, Arthur was also staring straight ahead at the screen, and Merlin noticed, not moving or making a sound. Was he also feeling the combination of embarrassment, excitement and arousal that Merlin was feeling, watching the passion between the characters who bore both their names and their likenesses?
The kiss ended, and slowly Merlin breathed easier and focused once again on the events of the game. In the next sequence, the battle started, and Merlin had to focus completely on controlling King Arthur and his knights as they fought off Cenred’s army. Before long, the screen shifted to show Morgana entering the vault below the castle to summon the dead from their graves to join the fight against Camelot. At some point during the fight with the skeletons, Merlin realised that his and Arthur’s knees were now touching. He wasn’t certain whether he had moved his leg or whether Arthur had. Maybe they both moved, and their legs met in the middle. But once Merlin had noticed the contact, he found it difficult to focus on the battle.
“Switch control to Merlin!” Arthur smacked Merlin’s arm repeatedly. “Will it let you do that? Switch to Merlin and use magic to get rid of the skeletons.”
Once Merlin switched to controlling the warlock, he felt more focused, more at ease. He knew exactly what he needed to do to turn the tide of the battle. After Merlin on the screen had fought off Morgana and destroyed the Rowan Staff, the game automatically shifted focus back to King Arthur. With the skeletons out of the way, Arthur and the knights could more easily fight off Cenred’s army, until Cenred signalled for them to retreat.
After the battle was won, the screen went blank again, and Merlin leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh. Arthur turned toward him with a huge grin on his face, and Merlin’s heart leapt, irrationally hopeful that Arthur was as excited as he was about the huge step forward in the romance storyline.
“That was amazing!” Arthur’s eyes were gleaming. “That battle! The army on one side and the skeletons on the other? So intense! This game is incredible, Merlin!”
Heart plummeting as he realized that Arthur was more excited about the action of the battle scene than the kiss, Merlin shrugged. “I guess.”
“You guess?” Arthur gaped at him. “Come on! We just had two fantastic battle scenes in a row. Our players’ hearts will be racing. They won’t want to stop.” In his excitement, Arthur was waving his hands about almost violently. “The action in this game just never lets up!”
“Well, not much, I suppose.”
In spite of the action-packed battle he had just fought on screen, Merlin could not stop thinking about that kiss. He felt like the game was actually providing a nice balance between action and character development, but maybe Arthur didn’t want to mention the kiss. Maybe seeing the characters of Merlin and Arthur kiss in the game had made him feel awkward, and focusing on the battle was his way of avoiding having to talk about the in-game romance.
Merlin felt foolish for hoping that something might happen between him and Arthur. Arthur was his boss, and although they enjoyed teasing and flirting now and then, he probably didn’t even think of Merlin in that way. Merlin shifted in his seat and avoided Arthur’s eyes by reaching for the mouse to close the game and open the code.
“You’re not changing anything, are you?” Arthur sounded a little panicked.
“No.” Merlin shook his head, still not looking at Arthur. “I just want to take a look at the code. See how that battle was handled.”
“Oh. Sure.” Arthur got up, sounding a bit baffled by Merlin’s sudden mood shift. He put one hand on Merlin’s shoulder, but now, instead of feeling a thrill at Arthur’s warm touch, Merlin almost wanted to pull away, ashamed that he had let his crush on his boss affect him so deeply. When Arthur spoke again, his voice was tender, and Merlin had to close his eyes to hold back the rush of affection he felt. “Listen, I don’t care if you didn’t actually write the code yourself. All of this, the battles, the quests, the characters’ stories… They all came from you. You created this whole game, Merlin, whether consciously or not. And it’s wonderful.”
With a last gentle squeeze of Merlin’s shoulder, Arthur pulled away and left the office. Merlin spent the next ten minutes staring at the code on his screen, but not really seeing it, as he wallowed in self-pity over misreading his relationship with Arthur. He did this once at uni, too. He completely fell for his partner on a project for Software Engineering. All the late nights in the computer lab getting punchy from exhaustion had felt like flirting to Merlin, so after they presented the project, he suggested they go out on a date to celebrate finishing, but his partner had gently declined, saying he had enjoyed working together, but Merlin wasn’t really his type. It seemed Merlin was doomed to fall for incredibly hot guys who saw him as nothing more than a friend.
Finally giving up on accomplishing anything, Merlin locked his computer and stalked out of the office without even saying goodbye to Arthur. However, when he stepped out of the building into the blinding sunshine, he realized that he had left his cap on his desk. He started to walk toward the train, but the sun was so bright, and he was self-conscious about his dishevelled hair, and, frankly, he just wanted to pull his cap down over his eyes and hide out from the world for a while, so, reluctantly, he veered back to return to his office.
He had grabbed his cap from the side of his desk and was about to head toward the lift, when he heard a swell of music from Arthur’s office. He was playing the game, and he was at the scene in King Arthur’s chamber where he and Merlin kissed. A wave of curiosity, or possibly self-destructiveness, overtook Merlin, and he edged closer to Arthur’s door so he could peek in to see Arthur’s reaction to the scene. He knew Arthur’s computer was positioned in a way that he was facing a window on the side of the office, so if Merlin stood in the hallway, he should be able to see Arthur’s profile without Arthur noticing him.
Arthur was leaning slightly forward, watching the screen intently as King Arthur pulled his warlock in for a kiss. Merlin couldn’t tell whether Arthur was pleased with the scene until, the moment the kiss ended, Arthur exited the game and ran the program again, starting at the beginning of the kiss scene. A cautious smile spread across Merlin’s face. If Arthur was watching the scene over and over, surely that meant he was at least not repulsed by the idea of kissing Merlin.
Merlin was about to step into the office and make a deliberately suggestive remark about how thrilling it must be to kiss the most powerful sorcerer in the land, when his mouth suddenly went dry and his heart seemed to skip a beat. As the couple on the screen gripped at each other passionately, Arthur had let out a strained grunt and pressed the heel of his palm against his groin as though his jeans were suddenly too tight.
Eyes widening, Merlin backed slowly away, allowing Arthur his privacy, but he could not stop grinning. He practically floated back to the lift, laughing silently and rolling his eyes at his tendency to spiral into self-pity, when obviously, his crush on Arthur was not as one-sided as he thought. As he rode the train out to his flat, he was glad he had gone back for his cap, both because of what he had seen, and because he could now pull it down to hide the goofy grin on his face as he fantasized about going on a date with Arthur. And about what they might do on that date. And about what they might do after that date.
*****
Saturday night, Merlin had a dream where he and Gwaine joined Arthur on a quest for the trident of the Fisher King. Merlin didn’t even bother going to the office afterward. He knew exactly what he would find, and he knew Gwaine would be thrilled that he finally made it into the game.
Sunday night, Merlin dreamt that Morgana took over Camelot and declared herself queen. The round table made an appearance, and Arthur knighted several commoners to help in the fight to regain control of his kingdom. When Merlin woke up, he just smiled, rolled over and went back to sleep. It seemed he was getting used to these dreams, and they didn’t shake him up as much as they used to. As he drifted off, Merlin realized that his two officemates would be celebrating along with Gwaine when they saw the newest scenes.
Merlin arrived at work early Monday morning, because he wanted to see Percy and Elyan’s reaction when they played the new section of the game, but when he unlocked his computer, he was surprised to find that a message from Kilgharrah had popped up on his screen.
It simply said, “Merlin? Merlin?”
He tried messaging back but got an undeliverable error. Confused, he walked down two flights of stairs to the IT department to find the network security administrator. Kilgharrah was one of the few in IT who had his own office. Most of the department sat in a large open room with a few partitions between desks, but whether because he had seniority or because no one else wanted to work closely with him, Kilgharrah worked in a small, dimly lit office in the far corner of the floor.
Merlin found him sitting at the counter facing the opposite wall. He had a firewall in pieces on the counter, presumably adding more memory. Kilgharrah either didn’t hear him come in or was ignoring him, so Merlin cleared his throat. “You wanted to see me?”
Without turning his head, Kilgharrah held up one finger for a moment and then continued his work, adding the memory and reassembling the firewall. Merlin stood waiting, barely resisting tapping his foot in annoyance at being made to wait. Finally Kilgharrah turned in his chair and fixed Merlin with a stare that felt too penetrating. He didn’t speak for several moments.
“You’ve been busy.” He raised one eyebrow. “Perhaps the result of restless nights?”
Once again, Merlin was taken aback by Kilgharrah’s eerily perceptive question. The only person he had mentioned his dreams to was Arthur, and as Arthur hadn’t even told his sister that Merlin’s dreams were creating code, somehow he didn’t think Arthur would have shared that bit of information with the cranky old network admin.
Before Merlin could respond, Kilgharrah continued. “It seems fate was not finished with you yet, Mr. Emrys.”
Merlin narrowed his eyes. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Chuckling gently, Kilgharrah looked down and when he spoke again, he almost seemed to have forgotten Merlin was there. “The prophets must have had quite the sense of humour. Never could I have predicted this sort of return.”
“What are you talking about?” Merlin was starting to wonder whether the old man was suffering from dementia or something.
With another chuckle, Kilgharrah returned his penetrating gaze to Merlin. “As kingdoms change, so do kingships, I suppose. Destiny may yet have plans for you and the other side of your coin. It is for the two of you to figure out together.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Merlin’s concern for Kilgharrah was growing by the second, so he spoke in soothing tones. “Do you need me to call someone for you? Do you have someone at home who helps you out?”
Now Kilgharrah laughed outright. “No, Merlin. I do not need help. Fate has finally gotten things right. I feel we will all be just fine.”
Merlin was not at all convinced that Kilgharrah was okay. He seemed to be having some sort of psychotic episode, and Merlin was afraid to leave him alone until he started making sense again. “Look, why don’t I stay here with you for a while? I’ve been meaning to learn more about the details of the DragonVision network.”
But Kilgharrah simply shook his head and returned his focus to his computer. “No, young Emrys. Your place is not with me. Go on upstairs. Arthur is waiting to talk with you.”
When Merlin did not move, Kilgharrah began typing and did not speak again. After a few moments, Merlin decided that at least he didn’t seem to be a danger to himself. Perhaps Merlin would go find Arthur. He had spent the weekend rehearsing opening lines for when he saw Arthur that might open the door to a more personal relationship. Walking back up the stairs, Merlin’s stomach was doing flip-flops as he thought about his plans. He wanted to say something that would make it clear that he was interested but that wouldn’t just lead them into their usual flirty teasing rhythm.
After much deliberation, Merlin had settled on, “I’ve been thinking… How do you think the average medieval citizen would have reacted to an openly gay king in a relationship with a member of his court?”
Merlin hoped that question might lead to a heartfelt discussion about the challenges of being gay throughout history. And then they could discuss the challenges of workplace romances where one partner was in a position of power over the other, like King Arthur and his Court Sorcerer. And perhaps the discussion would be too extensive for the office and would have to be continued over lunch. Someplace nice. Where Arthur might accidently spill some sauce down his chin. And Merlin would have to reach over with his napkin to dab it off. And their eyes would meet. And Arthur would reach for Merlin’s hand…
Arriving at his floor, Merlin shook his head as he stepped out of the stairwell to clear away the goofy schoolboy daydreams. One step at a time. He would go to Arthur’s office all casual and cool and act as though the deep question had just come to him.
However, he never made it to Arthur’s office, because Arthur was waiting for him in his own office. And the moment he saw Merlin in the doorway, Arthur’s face lit up, and his mouth dropped open in what looked like surprised awe.
“Merlin.” Arthur breathed. He reached his hand toward Merlin and then lowered it slowly as he took a hesitant step forward. “How did you do this?”
Confused, Merlin jerked his head side to side. “What? The game? I already told you. I have no idea. I dream things, and then they show up on the computer.” He shrugged one shoulder, because the game wasn’t creating copies of his dreams anymore. “Sort of.”
Arthur’s shoulders dropped, and his eyes were suddenly sad. “You don’t…” He shook his head slightly. “You don’t remember?”
Why was Arthur suddenly questioning this? Merlin thought he was okay with the unexplainable creation of scenes in the game. “I mean, I remember my dreams, mostly. But I still have no idea how they’re getting into the game.”
With a deep sigh, Arthur looked toward the floor. His brow was creased, and he closed his eyes and pressed his lips together for a moment as if he was trying to gain control of strong emotions. Merlin just watched him, even more confused. What had changed? Why was Arthur suddenly so disappointed in him?
But then Arthur looked up at him again with a hint of a smile on his lips and a hopeful twinkle in his eyes. He took two steps forward and reached for Merlin’s hand. He held it tightly between his own hands, and when he spoke, his voice was low and intimate.
“I think you do know how your dreams are showing up in the game.” His eyes locked on Merlin’s, and the trust Merlin saw shining from those beautiful blue eyes he so admired made his heart clench. “What does it feel like to you, Merlin? You have a strong, vivid dream. And then hundreds of lines of code, new graphics and animations, music, voices… everything… just…” He waved one hand. “Suddenly show up on the server.”
Merlin’s heart was pounding, and he felt his breath quickening. He knew where Arthur was going. He knew what Arthur wanted him to say. The thought had been hovering in the back of his head since that first dream, but he wouldn’t let himself dwell on it.
“What does it feel like, Merlin?” Arthur repeated, giving him a nod, encouraging him to give voice to the frightening thought he had been ignoring. “How are you creating these new scenes?”
Trembling, Merlin felt tears warming his eyes, and he was terrified to speak the word, but Arthur pressed his hands around Merlin’s again, and that warm touch gave Merlin the strength he needed to face the truth.
“Magic.” He whispered. “I think it’s magic.”
A wide smile broke out on Arthur’s face, and he squeezed Merlin’s hand tightly. “Yes. Magic.”
Merlin’s eyes widened in fear. “But how? Magic isn’t real.”
With a chuckle, Arthur reached up to tousle his hair. “Says the man named Merlin who creates elaborate battle scenes out of thin air.”
“But…” Merlin shook his head in disbelief. He had no words for what Arthur was suggesting. Just because his mother had a fondness for ancient legends and named him for a fictional wizard, didn’t mean he had actually had magic. It was impossible. Although…
Arthur kept hold of his hand and smiled gently as Merlin struggled to process this new concept. There was no denying that new scenes appeared in the game reflecting Merlin’s own dreams. And for the most part, his colleagues had not questioned how the new code was created. Almost as if some power was reassuring them that this was meant to be.
Meant to be. Merlin drew a sharp breath. Like fate or destiny. Like Kilgharrah had been rambling about just a few minutes before. Merlin wracked his brain to remember his enigmatic words. Something about destiny’s plans and two sides of a coin.
“It’s okay, Merlin.” Arthur finally dropped his hand with a last gentle squeeze of his fingers. “You don’t have to figure it all out right now. It’ll come. I think we can expect great things in our future. It’s like fate is putting things right.”
Merlin’s heart leapt. Kilgharrah had definitely said something like that.
Arthur walked toward the door, but turned to give Merlin another broad grin. “We’ll figure it out, old friend. Together.”
Long after Arthur had rounded the corner, Merlin stood staring blankly toward the hallway. What was happening? Why was Arthur suddenly encouraging Merlin to accept that magic was creating this game? And when did Arthur become so affectionate?
And why did Merlin get the feeling that Arthur was keeping something from him?
*****
“I don’t know why we keep coding new scenes.” Elyan pushed away from his computer and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. “Merlin’s just going to keep adding new ways for him to snog Arthur while the rest of us stand around in chainmail watching.”
Merlin glanced his way, ready to apologize, but he saw that Elyan was grinning widely. He and Percy had both been thrilled when they saw their characters on the screen. So many of Merlin’s co-workers were in the game now that jokes about chainmail and swords were becoming a running gag around the office. Gwaine and Lance had held an impromptu tournament over lunch on Monday using paper towel rolls as weapons.
When Gwaine dealt Lance a mortal blow, and Lance swooned in a dramatic death scene, complete with a speech declaring his undying loyalty and love for Camelot, his king and above all his fair maiden, the Lady Guinevere, Merlin laughed and cheered along with everyone else, until he noticed Arthur, leaning against the doorframe, brow furrowed and jaw clenched. His eyes were so sad, like he was holding back tears.
“Hey, as long as we don’t have to watch them snogging around the office. Although you will need to be careful about art imitating life.” Percy reached over and jabbed Merlin on the arm. “You just make sure you keep most of that in the bedroom, mister. We want to keep a nice 16 rating for this game.”
“We don’t…” Merlin stammered. “We’re not…”
Percy and Elyan cackled with laughter. In addition to joking about knights and sword fights, the DragonVision team had taken to adding lots of innuendo to their comments about Merlin and Arthur. The comments always flustered Merlin, but Arthur had taken to winking in response, basically confirming everyone’s suspicions about them. Merlin always rolled his eyes and scolded Arthur for doing that, but secretly he loved that Arthur seemed to enjoy the innuendo.
Elyan stopped laughing when he noticed Gwaine standing in the doorway. “We were just messing with Merlin here about his boyfriend, the king of Camelot.”
“We’re trying to see whether his ears will actually burst into flame.” Percy grinned. “Feel free to jump in.”
But Gwaine stood unmoving, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. He shook his head with a strained sigh. “It’s not funny. Merlin, you lied to me. To all of us.”
Merlin was shocked by Gwaine’s harsh accusation. He stared at his usually good-natured friend who stood, almost shaking now, glaring at him from across the office. “Gwaine...” But Merlin didn’t even know how to respond.
Elyan stood and walked over to Gwaine, holding his hands before him, palms up, in a placating manner. “Hey, calm down, mate. I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding.”
“Did you bring us here? Did you make all of this happen?” Gwaine was shouting now, and Merlin was still at a loss as to what he might have done to make his friend so angry.
Now Percy stood and placed himself between Gwaine and Merlin. “Why don’t we go talk down the hall, Gwaine?”
“Why are you both defending him? All that time, he could have helped. He could have stopped everything!”
“Gwaine.” Arthur appeared in the doorway, voice calm, but firm. He placed a hand on Gwaine’s shoulder, gently turning him so they stood face to face. “A word?” He jerked his head toward his office.
Without hesitation, Gwaine obeyed, following Arthur down the hall. Elyan and Percy turned to stare at Merlin.
“What the hell was that all about?” Elyan wondered.
Merlin just shook his head. “No idea.”
Slowly, Percy and Elyan returned to their computers and started typing again, but Merlin noticed over the next hour or so that they would occasionally exchange a glance behind his back. He studiously ignored them, but found it difficult to concentrate on his work, wondering what exactly Gwaine was accusing him of and why his friend had been so angry.
*****
Merlin didn’t see Gwaine again for the rest of the day, and after lunch, Percy and Elyan were back to normal, joking around with him and clacking away on their keyboards, adding code to the program, even though that code might be changed overnight.
That night, Merlin dreamt about a surprise attack in the Valley of the Fallen Kings that led to him being injured and Arthur saving him. But then he was kidnapped by Morgana who used a multi-headed snake called a Fomorroh to command Merlin to kill Arthur.
Merlin stepped into the lift the next morning trying to remember the details of his dream, as this one was hazier than most, and just as the doors were about to close, a voice called out, “Hold the lift!” So Merlin punched the button to open the doors.
“Thanks! We didn’t want to wait—“
Lance’s mouth dropped open the moment he saw Merlin. He stepped aside to allow his fiancée to enter the lift first, and as the doors slid shut, they both looked at Merlin expectantly, eyebrows raised and lips curled into slight smiles.
“Morning.” Merlin nodded at them, unsure why they were staring at him like that.
“Merlin.” Gwen smiled at him quite soppily considering her fiancé was standing beside her and Merlin was gay.
He scrunched his nose and leaned his head toward her. “Are you feeling alright, Gwen?”
Her face crumpled, and she let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob and nodded adamantly. She looked so happy, she was almost glowing. Wait…
Merlin raised his eyebrows. “Are you pregnant?”
Gwen laughed out loud, shaking her head. As the lift doors opened, she pulled Merlin in for a hug and walked down the hall without another word, so Merlin turned to Lance.
“Is she?”
“No, she’s not pregnant.” Lance clapped Merlin on the shoulder. “She’s just really happy about how things are turning out.”
“How things… What does that have to do with me?” Merlin was so confused.
Lance gave a slight chuckle that was almost patronising. “Oh, I imagine you’ll find out soon enough.” Then Lance put both hands on Merlin’s shoulders and squeezed hard. “It’s really good to see you, Merlin.”
As Lance walked toward the art department, Merlin mumbled after him. “You see me every day.”
Wondering whether Gwen and Lance had stopped at a pub on their way in to work this morning, Merlin fetched a cup of coffee from the break room and then strolled into the programming office. Percy and Elyan both spun around immediately when he walked through the door.
“Something weird is going on with Gwen and Lance. They’re—“ but Merlin stopped mid-sentence, because his officemates were both giving him the same soppy look that Gwen had given him in the lift. “What the hell? Did I put my shirt on inside out this morning?”
Merlin glanced down to check his shirt as well as the fly on his trousers.
“I don’t think he knows.” Percy half-whispered to Elyan.
“Knows what?” Merlin was getting frustrated. “What is going on?”
At that moment, Arthur stepped up behind Merlin. “What are you shouting about, Merlin? You should get to work. This is a business, you know. We don’t just waste the day standing around drinking coffee and shouting at our co-workers.”
Merlin spun around, ready to shout at his boss at this point, but Arthur was giving him such a smart-arsed smirk just daring Merlin to fight back, so he narrowed his eyes and went to sit at his desk, carefully setting down his coffee, before opening a browser window and clicking on his favourite gaming news site. He turned back to Arthur and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Your move.”
But Arthur just shook his head. “You never change, do you Merlin?”
For some reason, this comment made Elyan and Percy laugh, which only frustrated Merlin even further. Before he could respond, however, Arthur turned back toward the door and called over his shoulder, “Elyan, Percy. May I see you both in my office?”
And Merlin was left alone, glaring at his computer, not even caring to open the game and see what last night’s dream had created. Elyan and Percy did not return for at least an hour, and when they did, their goofy stares were gone, but as they sat down and got back to work, Merlin still sensed their eyes on him. Finally, he got up and went to talk to Arthur.
He got halfway down the hall when Gwaine called out behind him. “Hey, Merlin?”
Not quite sure what to expect after Gwaine’s outburst yesterday, Merlin turned but still took a couple of steps backward. He felt a little better when he noticed a pained look cross Gwaine’s face as he backed away from him.
“I wanted to apologize for yesterday. It was like Elyan said… just a misunderstanding.” Gwaine shrugged and started to walk toward Merlin, but then stopped quickly, as if he didn’t want Merlin to feel threatened. “Arthur cleared everything up for me.”
“What were you so upset about?” Merlin could see that Gwaine felt bad, so he closed the distance between them.
“Don’t even worry about it, Merlin.” Gwaine waved one hand. “I thought…” He took a deep breath and looked down for a moment before meeting Merlin’s eyes. “I was angry that you hadn’t helped out with something, but Arthur made me see that you’ve always done far more than any of us ever knew.”
Merlin narrowed his eyes. Instead of reassuring him, Gwaine’s explanation only made Merlin more angry and frustrated than he was before. “Why is everyone being so cryptic all of a sudden?”
Gwaine laughed right out loud. “Are we? Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt you to get a taste of your own medicine for once.”
“Gwaine!”
Merlin jumped when he heard Arthur’s voice behind him, but Gwaine just gave him a wink and then spun on one foot to retreat back toward the art department. So Merlin turned pleading eyes to his boss.
“Arthur, please tell me what’s going on. Everyone is being so weird. It’s driving me crazy!”
Arthur gave him a sympathetic smile and jerked his head back toward his office. “Come on. You can come hide out in here for a while.”
Merlin followed Arthur over to his computer, and Arthur pulled up another chair beside his, motioning for Merlin to sit. But then instead of joining Merlin, Arthur hesitated for a moment and went to close his office door.
“I really like the new scene you created last night.”
Merlin started to explain to Arthur that he hadn’t even played it yet, but Arthur sat beside him and opened the game to start the newest section, so he just kept his mouth shut. He watched as Arthur pulled Merlin away from the bandits after he had been hurt in the fight. And then, in spite of Arthur’s best attempt to save him, a rock fall separated the king from his injured warlock. After Arthur returned to Camelot with the knights, the game offered the option to let Merlin take care of himself or to go back into the forest to look for him. Of course, Arthur chose to go looking for Merlin.
“As if that’s any sort of choice.” Arthur joked before locking eyes with Merlin. “Arthur would never abandon Merlin like that.”
But then after the king and Sir Gwaine found Merlin climbing out of a bog, strange things started to happen. Several times, it seemed like Merlin was trying to kill the king. Arthur’s reflexes were quick, and his fingers flew over the keyboard fast enough to avoid each attack, and afterward, the game kept offering the player chances to question Merlin, but every time, Arthur selected the option to ignore the warlock’s strange behaviour.
Again, Arthur looked directly at Merlin. “He trusts him. He can’t see that Merlin’s behind these attacks, not because he’s stupid, but because he trusts Merlin more than anyone.”
Merlin looked back at Arthur, lips curling into a sceptical smile. He thought Arthur was making some strange choices in playing the game, but he really seemed to want Merlin to understand how much he believed in King Arthur’s faith in his Court Sorcerer.
After a few more attempts on the king’s life, the game would no longer allow the player to deny that Merlin was trying to kill Arthur. After a bit of investigation, they discovered a way to temporarily neutralise the creature controlling Merlin, and together Arthur and Merlin returned to Morgana’s hut to kill the Fomorroh.
After the snake head had been removed from Merlin’s neck, Arthur and Merlin shared another passionate kiss. But as the characters were locked in each other’s arms on the screen, Merlin noticed that Arthur was not looking at the computer. He was looking at Merlin. So Merlin turned and couldn’t help smiling at Arthur’s soft gaze.
“Merlin, I need to ask you something.” Arthur’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, and Merlin’s pulse quickened. “I’ve wanted to ask you for a while, but I wasn’t sure… with me being your boss and all… how it would look. But now, I just… I need to know, before anything changes.”
Merlin was confused about what Arthur thought might change, but he smiled his encouragement, because he thought he knew what Arthur wanted to ask him.
“Will you go out with me?” Arthur looked so hopeful and a bit vulnerable, and Merlin wondered how it was possible for the gorgeous creature before him to have any doubts as to what Merlin’s answer would be.
Briefly, Merlin considered giving a teasing response, but Arthur’s completely unguarded face with wide, questioning eyes grabbed hold of his heart and kept him from being so mean.
“I would love to go out with you.” Merlin grinned. “Or stay in with you. Or anything, just as long as I’m with you.”
Arthur’s smile lit up the whole office and sent shivers down Merlin’s spine. He was suddenly reminded of the first time they met, when Arthur stepped into the HR office and Merlin felt like he was looking straight into the sun.
“Excellent. How about Friday? After work, we can grab a bite. Take a walk. See where the night takes us?”
Unable to stop grinning, Merlin nodded rapidly. “Sounds good.”
“Good.” Arthur nodded as well, pursing his lips together, as if he was unsure what to say next.
Merlin looked toward the computer, checking the clock, and then back at Arthur with another small smile. This part was always a bit awkward. After plans for a first date had been made, Merlin irrationally didn’t want to see the person again until it was time for the date to start. Perhaps he thought they might come to their senses and realise they were crazy for wanting to date him. Feeling the need to escape, Merlin stood quickly, causing the chair to roll halfway across the office.
Before Arthur could notice his ears turning red, Merlin excused himself. “I better get back to work.” And he flung the door open and fled down the hall to the men’s room where he locked himself in a stall and giggled a bit in nervous disbelief. He had an actual date with Arthur Pendragon, Sun God and King.
*****
He managed to avoid Arthur the rest of the day, and he actually got a little programming done for a huge battle they had planned before his dreams started mucking about with the storylines. He felt like this battle could still fit in, so his code should still be usable, no matter what else his subconscious had planned.
That night, he had trouble getting to sleep because he was so excited and nervous about his date with Arthur. And he wasn’t sure how he would make it all the way to Friday without having some sort of meltdown. When he finally did get to sleep, his dreams were so vivid and powerful that he awoke shaking again, like he had when the dreams first started.
Once again, Morgana had taken over Camelot, assisted by Arthur’s traitorous uncle, and this time Merlin had to put Arthur under a spell removing his free will to get him away safely. Most of the rest of the dream was spent dealing with Arthur’s crisis of confidence. He seemed to believe that he was not a worthy king. Merlin finally brought him before most of the kingdom to pull the sword out of the famous stone. Although, in the dream, it wasn’t quite the same as in most of the legends.
Curious how the magic would translate this dream into the game— because the dream ended with Guinevere being crowned queen — Merlin arrived at work early the next morning. Almost as soon as the action started, the game took a completely different path from Merlin’s dream.
In this version, Arthur did not lose faith in himself as king. Instead he seemed to be questioning his devotion as Morgana’s half-brother.
“What if all she really wants is to be recognised publicly as the daughter of Uther?” Arthur confided in Merlin as they helped innocent citizens escape out the back of the council chamber. “Merlin, what if she just wants to be part of my family?”
“She wants power, Arthur.” Merlin gently reminded his king. “She believes that, because she is Uther’s daughter and she is older than you, she should have been made queen. She wants control of Camelot.”
After Arthur gave directions to Sirs Leon and Percival to help as many people as they could away from the castle and into the forest, he joined Merlin and a few of his knights in the middle of the chamber, waiting for Morgana’s men to break open the door.
Arthur turned once again to Merlin, and the game player was given a dialogue choice that would clearly decide the king’s course of action. Hovering the mouse over each option, Merlin weighed the possible results.
He could have Arthur say, “We must protect the kingdom. Morgana is dangerous and we cannot allow her to gain control. We fight. To the death, if need be.”
Or, “I’ll ask to be brought before Morgana. I will try to negotiate with her to find a common ground, but Merlin, I want you ready to take her down if she doesn’t cooperate.”
Merlin was tempted to select that second option, as he didn’t believe Morgana would settle for anything less than total control, and he knew that Merlin was powerful enough to beat her. However, as he considered the character of King Arthur, he thought about his nobility and his loyalty. He thought about how much he cared for each one of his citizens, including his half-sister, no matter what she had become. And Merlin thought about how kind and generous and trusting the real Arthur was and how he always wanted to see the best in people. Merlin smiled to himself. King Arthur reminded him so much of his Arthur, and he knew exactly which option Arthur would select.
So he clicked the third dialogue option. “She’s my sister, Merlin. She deserves better than what our father gave her. I want Morgana to have the title of Princess, and I will give her a position on my council.”
After Merlin made his selection, he felt a sense of peace come over him. He had never felt anything like it. He reminded himself that this was just a game and had no effect on real life, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that some magical force was using this game to set things right.
He shook his head, laughing at these ridiculous thoughts. He was starting to sound like Kilgharrah!
He finished playing the new sequence. Arthur had to convince his sister of his sincerity in giving her a titled position of power, and then he had to fight a few skirmishes with Morgana’s men who were angry that their leader had just given up the battle. The sequence ended with King Arthur entrusting Princess Morgana with the task of keeping an eye on the use of magic throughout the kingdom and assisting those who were still learning to use their powers as well as punishing those who were misusing their power.
As the screen went blank, Merlin was tempted to go back and try the other options at that key turning point in the game, but he decided he wanted to hold onto this feeling of peace and all being right with the world for a while longer. So he got up and walked toward the art department to see if any of his friends there had played the new scenes yet.
Morgana’s office was at the front of the large room that housed the computers and work stations of DragonVision’s artists. As Merlin passed Morgana’s office, he noticed that she was sitting at her computer just finishing the new sequence. When she looked up at him, he was shocked to see tears streaming down her face.
“Are you okay?” He asked, concerned, as he took a step into her office.
She stood and walked toward him. “You see what could have been? If I hadn’t been made to believe I was a monster, everything might have been different.”
Morgana stepped right up to him and smacked him round the head.
“Hey!” Merlin rubbed his ear. “What was that for?”
“Nothing… just…” And she threw her arms around his neck, her body shaking with sobs. “Thank you, Merlin.” She finally pulled back, but kept her hands on his shoulders. “You’re a few centuries too late, but thank you, nonetheless.”
“Um… You’re welcome?” Was Morgana so invested in her game character that the sorceress’s redemption was affecting her so deeply?
She gave Merlin a slight shove but smiled gently at him. “Go on. Get out of here. And if you tell anybody about this, I will turn you into a toad.”
She waved her hand menacingly, but Merlin just laughed as he backed away. “How could I tell anyone when I’m not even sure what just happened?”
Throughout the day, his colleagues kept coming up to him and thanking him for the new scenes. Most of them seemed to believe that Arthur’s acceptance of Morgana made an excellent conclusion for the game.
“But what about the final battle scene? We’ve already got most of the programming finished!” Merlin complained to Elyan and Percy over lunch.
“There’s no need for it now.” Percy shrugged.
Elyan added, “Arthur’s emotional battle over how to handle his sister was the perfect climax to the story.”
Percy nudged Elyan with his elbow. “Unless of course, Merlin was looking for a different sort of climax with Arthur.”
“True, true.” Elyan nodded wisely as Merlin felt a blush rising in his cheeks. “You’ll have to talk to Gwaine about getting that visual from the characters, if you’re not able to get the job done yourself.”
“Shut up!” Merlin laughed, tossing his empty crisp packet at Elyan. He grabbed his water bottle as he left his fellow programmers alone in the break room. He hadn’t spoken with Arthur yet today, so he headed toward his office to find out what he thought about the Pendragon siblings making peace.
Arthur’s door was almost closed, so Merlin raised his hand to knock on it, but then he heard a sound that made him stop short. He thought he heard Arthur sob. Merlin pushed the door open just slightly so he could make sure Arthur was okay, but what he saw made his breath catch in his throat. Morgana and Arthur were standing in the middle of the office, arms wrapped tightly around one another, both weeping openly.
“I wish I had known sooner. I wish I could have helped.” Arthur murmured into the top of her head.
Morgana squeezed him tighter around the middle. “I wish I would have felt safe talking to you.” Her voice broke as she spoke again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Arthur whispered.
And Merlin backed away slowly. He wasn’t certain what they were talking about, but he knew they would not want a witness to their tender moment.
He spent the rest of the afternoon adding documentation to the code. Because everyone seemed to believe the redemption of Morgana served as King Arthur’s major quest for the game, Merlin didn’t want to waste time programming another battle scene if Arthur was happy with the game as it was. He wanted to talk with Arthur, but he didn’t see him again. Leon mentioned he thought he was in a meeting with the marketing department downstairs.
As Merlin rode the train home that evening, he wondered whether he would have any more dreams now that the game seemed to have reached a natural conclusion. He heated leftovers for dinner and ate on the couch in front of the telly. He thought about his date with Arthur tomorrow and tried to decide what he should wear to work that would not stand out too much in the office, but would still show off his best for the date that evening.
He climbed into bed just before midnight feeling excited and hopeful about tomorrow.
*****
The world was collapsing around Merlin. The air around him seemed too thick, but there was somehow not enough of it to draw into his lungs. His legs were too weak to hold him, and his arms burned from overuse, but he felt if he could just reach deep inside and summon a bit more strength…
He collapsed, and the forest spun around him and time ceased to exist.
“Just… just, hold me. Please.”
It was too late. There was nothing else he could do.
“Everything you’ve done… I know now. For me. For Camelot. For the kingdom you helped me build.”
The only thing that existed in the entire world was Arthur’s face.
“Thank you.”
No. No. Arthur. Stay with me. No! Arthur!
“Arthur!”
Merlin sat straight up in bed with a shout. He was drenched in sweat. He was shaking violently.
And he remembered everything.
“Arthur.” He whispered. And he flew from his bed, threw on whatever clothes were on the floor of his closet and was out the door on his way to Arthur within minutes.
Merlin realized he had no idea where Arthur lived, but he reached into his pocket, pressed his fingers to his mobile, and using magic that, even after centuries of lying dormant, still felt as natural to him as breathing, he probed the city’s database until he found Arthur’s address.
When he reached the door to Arthur’s flat, he did not even pause. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning, and Arthur was surely sleeping. Merlin remembered from all those mornings as his servant that Arthur did not like being woken up, but he pounded on Arthur’s door. And he shouted Arthur’s name.
He had seen Arthur earlier that day. And almost every day for the last six months. But minutes ago, he was holding Arthur as he died. And suddenly, he felt the centuries since he had last seen the man who, for ten years, he had dedicated his whole life to.
“Arthur!” He was just about to use magic to unlock the door when it swung open.
And Arthur was standing before him. And Merlin let out a sob. He was exactly the same but also completely different.
“You remember.” Arthur smiled, and his face was the most beautiful thing Merlin had ever seen.
“You died.” Merlin’s voice broke. “There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t save you.”
“You saved me a hundred times over, Merlin.” Arthur shrugged one shoulder and shook his head, still smiling gently. He was offering forgiveness that Merlin wasn’t quite ready to accept.
Tears sprung to Merlin’s eyes and one slid down his cheek. “I should have stopped Mordred sooner. I knew he was destined to kill you, I could have…” He paused, because he didn’t want to admit to Arthur how many times he had considered letting Mordred die.
“No, you couldn’t.” Arthur stepped forward and took Merlin’s hand, pulling him gently inside and closing the door behind him. He seemed to know what Merlin was hinting at, even without Merlin speaking the words. “You wouldn’t be you if you had.”
He slid his hand up Merlin’s arm, making Merlin’s breath hitch. Arthur’s hand rested for just a moment on Merlin’s shoulder and then continued, trembling slightly, onto Merlin’s neck and around the back of his head. One thumb reached forward to trace Merlin’s jawline, and Merlin could not breathe. He could not speak. He could only stare into Arthur’s eyes. The eyes that had hypnotised him in the HR office six months ago, and the eyes whose every fleck of colour he had memorised fifteen hundred years before.
“And if you weren’t you, Merlin,” Arthur took a deep breath, his own voice now betraying the depth of his emotions, “I wouldn’t have loved you so deeply.”
The blend of joy and sorrow at hearing these words from the man who meant everything to him was too much, and Merlin’s face crumpled, and his tears flowed freely. He reached his arms around Arthur’s waist at the same time as Arthur slid his own around Merlin’s shoulders, and they held one another tightly. Merlin pressed his face into Arthur’s neck and took a deep, shuddering breath, and the scent of Arthur flung him immediately back to the days of cleaning Arthur’s clothes and making Arthur’s bed and preparing Arthur’s bath, and he pulled him even closer, savouring the feeling of Arthur’s arms wrapped around him. How many times had he admired those arms and wondered how those chiselled muscles would feel under his fingertips? Or wrapped around his waist, pulling him close? Or, Merlin flushed at the thought, pressing him into the mattress of Arthur’s four-poster bed?
He pulled back slightly, so he could look into Arthur’s eyes again. “Arthur,” he whispered, smiling through his tears. “You have to know that everything I did was for you. I hated lying to you, but I had to keep you safe.”
“I know that, Merlin.”
But Merlin shook his head, because he needed Arthur to understand the depth of his devotion. “I told you that I was born to serve you. That it was my destiny. And that was how it started, but Arthur, you have no idea how quickly I fell for you.” He laughed, and Arthur laughed along with him. “You were such an arrogant prat when we met, but then you showed just a hint of goodness, and I was gone. I don’t think I had even been your servant for a full week when I realised that you were it for me. I would have done anything for you.”
“So you’re saying you were a bit fond of me. Is that it?”
Jostling his arms around Arthur’s waist, Merlin scrunched up his nose at him. “Don’t even pretend you didn’t know how much I loved you, Arthur Pendragon.”
Arthur’s expression sobered, and he nodded slowly. “I knew.” He murmured softly. “But I was a prince who would be king, and it was a different time, and I couldn’t really show you properly.” He drew his fingers across Merlin’s forehead, brushing his hair to the side, before sliding his hand down to cup Merlin’s cheek. “But I hope you knew, too. How I felt about you.”
And Merlin leaned into Arthur’s touch, closing his eyes for a moment. “I knew,” he whispered.
When he opened his eyes, he noticed Arthur staring at his lips, and he leaned slightly forward, ready, after so many years of want, to feel Arthur’s lips pressed against his, but then he remembered something and jerked back.
“Gwen.” His eyes met Arthur’s in a silent question.
Nodding almost apologetically, Arthur admitted, “I did love Gwen. But we talked a couple of days ago when she remembered, and neither one of us feels the same way now. She loves Lance. She always did, really.” He gave a slight chuckle and returned his earnest gaze to Merlin. “And she understands that I want to be with you now.”
Merlin stared at him quietly for a few moments, not quite able to believe that Arthur was choosing him, but then Arthur smiled his crooked grin, and Merlin could resist no longer. He sprung forward, lips parting to capture Arthur’s, and, in his enthusiasm, he crashed their teeth together painfully.
Pulling away and rubbing his mouth, Arthur glared at him. “Ow?”
With a sheepish grimace, Merlin apologized. “Sorry!”
He was mortified, but Arthur just chuckled. “Leave it to you, Merlin, to completely muck up our first kiss.” He shook his head mockingly. “I always knew you were an idiot.”
But before Merlin could retaliate, Arthur pulled him close and reached up to draw his thumb across Merlin’s lower lip. He leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together, allowing his lips to hover tantalisingly close to Merlin’s. Merlin’s eyes slid shut, and his mouth opened slightly. He felt Arthur’s warm breath mingling with his, and then Arthur whispered, “Let me show you how it’s done.”
He tipped his head forward, and his lips were on Merlin’s. And they were soft. And they were warm. And they were everything Merlin had imagined. He darted his tongue out for a taste, gliding it teasingly back and forth. With a deep moan, Arthur captured Merlin’s lower lip between his and sucked hard. Gasping, Merlin tilted his head and plunged in. This time, when their teeth clacked together, neither one of them pulled away.
Soon Arthur’s hands were in Merlin’s hair and Merlin’s were gripping at Arthur’s back. Arthur was wearing a soft T-shirt, and Merlin could feel every muscle through the thin material. As Arthur bit down slightly on Merlin’s bottom lip and then planted a soothing kiss over that spot before moving on to slide his mouth across Merlin’s chin and down his jawline, Merlin reached up under the hem of Arthur’s shirt and lightly scratched his nails around to Arthur’s stomach, pressing his thumbs into the firm muscles he found there.
“Ungh, Merlin.” Arthur groaned, hot breath tickling Merlin’s ear.
He put his hands on Merlin’s shoulders and pushed him backward until he was leaning against the door. Arthur returned his attention to Merlin’s mouth, sliding his tongue in to dance with Merlin’s. This time Merlin let out a desperate moan, and in response, Arthur braced one hand on the door behind his head, pressed his body against Merlin’s and rolled his hips.
Merlin tossed his head back, gasping, and Arthur leaned in and nipped, first at his exposed throat and then at his earlobe, and then he whispered, “Bedroom?”
Incapable of any further thought as Arthur nibbled all the way down his neck, Merlin barely managed to rasp out a desperate, “Please!” And with the sexiest grin Merlin had ever seen, Arthur slid his fingers down Merlin’s arm to catch his hand and pull him toward his bedroom.
*****
Merlin spent the rest of the weekend at Arthur’s flat. They talked a lot about Camelot and about why they thought everyone had been reborn in this time and place. Arthur asked Merlin about his magic, and Merlin told him all the ways he used it to help and protect Arthur in their first lifetime. Merlin told Arthur the truth behind several of the stories in the game, and Arthur told Merlin he liked the game’s version of events better than the original.
On Sunday, Arthur jokingly ordered Merlin to prepare his breakfast, and Merlin made an egg soar across the room and crack just above Arthur’s head. Arthur threw pillows at him as egg dripped down the side of his face, but then Merlin pulled him into the shower where they took turns washing each other’s hair.
They went to bed early and stayed in bed late, spending hours talking and kissing and touching, getting to know one another in a whole new way.
“Do you need to run home before we go into work this morning?” Arthur rolled over on Monday morning and nudged his way under Merlin’s arm, laying his head on Merlin’s shoulder and tracing his fingers through the hair on Merlin’s chest.
“Why?” Merlin bent the arm Arthur was resting on so he could rake his fingers through Arthur’s hair. He closed his eyes again and sighed contentedly. He didn’t want to go to work. He wanted to stay in Arthur’s bed all morning dozing with Arthur on his shoulder and their legs tangled together under the covers.
Arthur leaned his head forward to kiss Merlin’s chest. “You don’t have anything to wear. You burst in here Friday night in jeans and a ratty old T-shirt.” He moved his mouth to Merlin’s nipple, alternately nipping gently with this teeth and swirling his tongue around it.
“I’ll just… ahh, yes… borrow something from you.” Merlin gasped again, and Arthur lifted his head with a look of triumph before giving a devilish grin and raising onto his knees, leaning over Merlin and placing wet kisses all over his stomach.
“You’d drown in one of my suits, Merlin.” Arthur pushed the sheet down and nibbled on the sensitive skin just below Merlin’s belly button. Closing his eyes to focus on the sensation of Arthur’s lips on his skin, Merlin found himself almost panting with desire. He needed those lips just a bit lower. “But you can probably wear my skinny jeans.”
“Arthur! Are you seriously still talking about what I’ll wear to work? I’ll go starkers! I don’t care. Just get your mouth on me now!”
Arthur bit playfully at the edge of Merlin’s hipbone. “I’m going to hold you to that.” And then he dove under the covers, and Merlin gave not one more thought to his clothes.
After they had both showered, Merlin selected one of Arthur’s dark red button-down shirts and a pair of his nicest black trousers to wear. He smoothed the fabric hanging loosely over his body that was more angular than the broad, muscular shape the clothes were purchased for, and Arthur smirked at him.
“I told you it wouldn’t—“
With a single wave of Merlin’s hand, the shirt and trousers immediately shrunk to fit him perfectly, and Arthur sneered and rolled his eyes.
“Show off.”
Merlin raised his eyebrows. “Remind me, how many tournaments did you win back in Camelot, oh Humble One?”
“Yes, yes. You’re very funny, Merlin.” Arthur shook his head as he reached for his wallet and keys that were sitting on his dresser. “You better watch out, or I won’t let you in my car. You can ride the train to work.”
They headed out the front door, and Merlin scoffed. “Of course you would think riding the train with all the lowly commoners would be some sort of punishment, Your Majesty.”
Arthur stopped in the middle of the pavement and turned to give Merlin a curious look. “Did you just mock me for not wanting to associate with commoners?”
Merlin snorted as he realised how ridiculous that accusation was. “Oh. Right.” He shook his head, laughing.
“That’s okay, Merlin.” Arthur turned and continued walking toward the car park. “I’ve always known you were an idiot.”
He glanced over his shoulder and waited for Merlin to catch up. Then he reached for Merlin’s hand, drew him close and planted a kiss on his cheekbone.
“But you’re my idiot.” He smiled fondly and held Merlin’s hand all the way to his car.
*****
After the extra time they spent in bed that morning, Merlin and Arthur were a bit late getting to work. When they stepped out of the lift, they heard a roar of laughter coming from the break room. Exchanging an amused glance, they headed toward the sound to find out what was going on.
Gwaine’s voice rose above the din. “And the next morning, Leon found Percival and me passed out on the floor of the armoury. Our gold was all gone, I had lost my chainmail, and Percival lost his boots! He walked all the way from the lower town in his bare feet!”
As he and Arthur reached the door, Merlin saw that the whole team was there, howling with laughter as Gwaine finished his story. Gwen, Lance, Morgana, Elyan and Percival were seated around the table. Leon stood, leaning against the refrigerator, and Gwaine was perched on the edge of the counter.
“I don’t even remember who we were playing dice with, but he was either cheating, or he was one lucky bastard.” Percival grumbled. “Those were my best boots!”
Leon noticed Merlin and Arthur standing in the doorway, and he quickly stood up straight. “Sorry, Arthur. We were just…” He eyed Merlin nervously. “We were goofing around, that’s all.”
The others started mumbling apologies as well, so Arthur turned a grin to Merlin and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Merlin here knows a thing or two about cheating at dice. Don’t you, Merlin?”
“Well,” Merlin shrugged. “Someone had to take you down a few notches. And I may have had a few tricks up my sleeve.”
He reached out and a water bottle that was sitting on the counter beside Gwaine flew across the room and into his outstretched hand. Mouths dropped open all around the room as Merlin casually opened the bottle and took a sip. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Arthur was beaming beside him.
“Merlin!”
“You remember!”
“You’ve still got your magic!”
Everyone stood and crowded around Merlin, patting him on the back and hugging him. Percival offered him his chair and went across the hall to pull in a few extra chairs from the art department. They all settled back down to continue sharing stories both from the days back in Camelot and from their new life as well.
As old friends and enemies sat around the table of DragonVision’s break room, talking and laughing, Merlin noticed Arthur’s eyes shining with unshed tears. He caught Merlin’s eye from across the table and nodded slightly at the others, directing Merlin’s attention to each of them in turn. Gwen and Elyan were sitting side by side, heads bowed together, sharing a quiet conversation. Leon was seated between Lance and Percival, and the three of them were gesturing, reminiscing about sword techniques. Gwaine was next to Morgana sharing easy laughter as they quoted lines from their favourite films to each other.
When Merlin’s gaze returned to Arthur, he smiled and nodded his understanding. Arthur reached forward and tapped the table lightly with one finger, raising his eyebrows. It took Merlin a moment to understand what Arthur was trying to tell him, but once he figured it out, he couldn’t help laughing out loud.
The break room table was round.
Merlin held Arthur’s gaze, smiling quite soppily, he was sure, and he couldn’t remember ever feeling this happy in either of his lives. He suddenly felt very grateful that fate had given them another chance.
As Arthur turned to join the conversation with Gwen and Elyan, Merlin pondered fate and destiny and wondered what they might have in store for him this time around. He decided that later on, he would have to descend the stairs for another cryptic conversation with a dragon.
Not that he expected any answers.
