The first thing he did when he ran into Merlin and recognized him, was take his face into his hands and kiss him firmly, like long-lost lovers. Arthur guessed in some way, they were. It had been awkward afterwards, when Arthur frowned and asked at a very confused Merlin, did we ever do that, back then?
“No? Arthur?” Then he spoke in a different language, but at Arthur’s lack of recognition, he spoke again in his old voice. “What the hell is going on? Am I dead?”, Merlin had asked.
“Dead?” Arthur parroted back.
“Oh, this is it, then? It took a thousand years but I finally fucking lost it, didn’t I?” he looked up at the sky. He spoke again in that different language, hurriedly, angry.
“Merlin, could you explain what is going on?” he asked.
“You died. I held you in my arms as you died. And then I waited for you. A thousand and eleven years and now you’re here, kissing me, like we’ve been sleeping together for the last thousand damn years.”
“You waited.” Arthur stated, trying to put the pieces together.
“Well, I had no damn choice but to wait. Forever if I had to, apparently,” he sounded bitter.
“Why?”
“I told you, you idiot. Back then. My destiny is helping you fulfill your destiny. Whatever the hell that means.”
Arthur was puzzled. He had no choice but to wait.
Merlin hated him.
Merlin hated him and Arthur was the one thing holding him back from actually living.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.
“Shut up,” Merlin replied.
Arthur wanted to tell him he’s not supposed to talk to him like that, but how could he? He’s been free from Arthur’s authority for a thousand years. A thousand years of not being anyone’s manservant.
They stood there uncomfortably for a few moments, then Arthur took Merlin’s hand.
“When I woke up, the first thing I knew was that I had to find you.”
“To have me clean your clothes? To kill me for betraying you for years? For being magic? For failing to save the King of Camelot?”
It stings, that Merlin thinks Arthur could only ever think of him like that.
“I just wanted you, Merlin.”
Merlin cried then, he cursed, he spoke in that other language and after minutes of unintelligible babbling, he collapsed on the ground on his knees. Arthur knelt down immediately.
“This is too much,” Merlin said to the ground.
Arthur held his chin and made him look at him.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m here and I want to be with you and I love you and I’m not going anywhere.”
Merlin froze.
“You what?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“No, a little earlier. You love me?” and Merlin’s voice sounded so small that the wind could have taken it away.
“I thought you knew,” Arthur said matter-of-factly.
“Arthur, you were married and, to you, I was your useless servant. You treated me like a servant anyway, not like you treat someone you love,” he looked completely baffled at the idea the Arthur had loved him back then. That he loves him now. That all he felt right then was love.
“But I loved you then”, Arthur said.
“You had a strange way to show it,” Merlin replied.
“And I love you now,” he adds.
Merlin shook his head, laughing, and stood up, then took Arthur’s hand and walked him to his home in an obstinate, stunned silence.
Awkwardness had given way to curiosity. Arthur wanted to know everything. He couldn’t believe it had been that long since his time. A thousand years, Merlin had told him. A lot had changed.
Neither of them talked about how Merlin knew all of these things. How he had been left behind, to wait for Arthur until Albion needed him most. Which was apparently, the year 2020 with no recollection of a life before the day he ran into Merlin.
Of course, Arthur was curious, Merlin was as well, but researching the why was of no interest to Arthur. He wanted to try the world for himself and feel what was different. About him, about the world, about everything.
The same day he came back, he tried fish and chips with mushy peas. Merlin bought the food without going anywhere. Someone came, on what he later learnt was a motorcycle, dropped the food and left.
It was delicious. Merlin had blushed at Arthur’s loud moan when he tried his first bite. Every single one of Arthur’s taste buds were alive with the greasy potatoes, the airy fried fish and the creamy peas. Merlin captured his expression on what he later learnt was a phone and he was surprised at how he looked. He saw himself in a way a mirror had never shown him. Fit but tired. A regal posture in commoner’s clothes. A blissed-out expression he never thought he could have on his face.
That same night, he tried holding Merlin as he cried himself to sleep, still unconvinced that Arthur wasn’t an illusion, holding onto him so fiercely that Arthur could’ve never escaped even if he had wanted to. (Which, he didn’t.)
The next morning, when he woke up before Merlin, he had tried watching him sleep. It was unrestful and fitful, nightmares obviously obscuring his mind. Merlin tensed and opened his eyes abruptly. They shone a bright, pale gold.
Arthur held his breath, Merlin looked scared and wild in a way that Arthur never noticed before. It chilled him.
Heavy silence fell in the room and nothing moved. The curtain was stopped mid-air by a breeze, but there was no breeze to be felt. Where he previously had heard the chirping of the birds, there was emptiness. His own breathing felt trapped inside of him. Arthur was afraid.
But then, Merlin breathed out and closed his eyes and things went back to normal. The sound and breeze and his own lungs expanding.
“I’m sorry, I’m not used to feeling stared at. It tickled something inside,” Merlin apologized, eyes still closed.
“Merlin, look at me,” Arthur said suddenly. He wanted to see Merlin’s eyes again. He wanted to know this was Merlin, his Merlin. The one that had held him when he faded into the darkness.
The man didn’t budge.
“Merlin.”
Merlin’s expression softened and he turned around to look at Arthur. His eyes were back to their usual blue hue, deep waves of troubled water lit up by the morning sun.
“God, I missed your voice,” Merlin said. “I think I forgot for a while. How my name sounds when you say it.”
Arthur could see the apprehension in his eyes, the slight tremble of his chin. Merlin looked like he wanted to cry again and Arthur felt horrible for being responsible for that.
“Merlin,” he uttered again. “Merlin, Merlin, Merlin, Merlin.”
Without any warning, Merlin’s lips were on Arthur’s, pressing firmly.
This felt better than their kiss the day before. This wasn’t Arthur trying to do the thing he had dreamt of doing for years before he went into the darkness, the one thing he yearned for so strongly that he couldn’t say a word before doing it. He recognized Merlin as if their souls had done the actual seeing and he went immediately for the one thing he had to do if he had a new chance. The only thing he had thought about after waking up in a white hospital bed and running outside looking for him.
This time Merlin wasn’t being surprised by what he assumed to be a hallucination, this time Merlin was initiating the kiss, looking for Arthur as Arthur had looked for him before.
They kissed for a long time, lazy and tender kisses mixed with heavier, needier kisses. It made Arthur feel alive for the first time since he woke up.
After Arthur had been back for a week, he had tried going out by himself. Just walk around the block and come back. Merlin lived in the edges of a small town, there weren’t many places to get lost, yet Arthur had kept walking aimlessly for what felt like hours, unable to find his way back to Merlin’s home.
His chest tightened, his eyes stung and his hands trembled. Arthur tried breathing deeply, as if steading himself for battle, but it was not working, so he stood in the middle of the street holding the tears in until he couldn’t anymore. He fell to the floor and his vision narrowed. The black edges seemed to tighten around him and he was keenly aware of someone calling to him, of a loud horn, of shouts in strange tongues, of someone’s arms carrying him somewhere, but he couldn’t see anything.
He was shaking a little less when he finally made out “Arthur. Arthur, breathe with me.”
Arthur understood the words but he couldn’t follow them.
“Arthur, come on, try to focus on me, okay? Focus on my voice. Can you do that?”
He thinks he nodded because the voice kept talking.
“Hey, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay. This was too much too soon; we’ll try again some other time. Just, bear with me, I don’t know how you’re here, why you’re here. Or for how long. I don’t know what I’m doing either. I’m so sorry, Arthur.”
Merlin. That’s Merlin’s voice and he’s speaking softly next to him. He’s aware of his body now in a way that he used to be before. As if a mystery force was pulling him, trying to bring him closer to Merlin. He lets himself be carried there.
When he opens his eyes, Merlin is looking at him intently.
“Hey,” he said, again in that soft voice, the way you would speak to a frightened animal or a very small child.
“Hey,” Arthur croaked.
“Let’s go home, okay?”
Arthur nodded and took his offered hand, standing up. He didn’t let go even when they got home.
Arthur noticed that whenever Merlin spoke on the phone, he spoke differently. New words, new sounds, new tones. When he asked Merlin about it, he had said language has changed a lot, Arthur. You need to catch up on a thousand years of words, vowel shifts and historical references.
He had been joking, but Arthur wanted to try, so he sat next to Merlin when he worked on his computer, looking for clues on what was happening with Arthur. It was difficult to keep up because the screen was too bright, Merlin switched tabs often, and he was explaining to Arthur in Old English what he did as he did it, so it confused him more than anything at first.
Then he tried Merlin’s books. There were many, of different sizes, styles and materials. The old books written in a mixture of Old English and a later English were the easiest. He could follow along with some things, even if it bored him out of his mind. They were all recipes or studies on the human body or birds. He wanted something more but his brain was trying his best to keep up.
And he watched TV. So much of it. Merlin said he kept it mostly for guests, but now it was constantly turned on, filling the space of Merlin’s home with the sounds of the new language. Merlin still spoke to him in his English, but he would often add a saying in the new English and would try to explain it to him to try to get his point across. He used a lot of images from his phone and videos to show him what he meant. Arthur didn’t always understand but it made Merlin smile and it warmed his heart, so he paid attention.
A few weeks later, after Merlin came back from the market, carrying a big bag of vegetables, Arthur surprised him by saying, welcome back, love, I missed you in his best practiced new English.
Merlin’s grin had been so bright that Arthur was blinded for a few seconds. Then they kissed and Arthur thought he would try anything in the world to make Merlin smile like that again.
A little over a month after Arthur came back, they realized Arthur was a ghost. No records of him being born anywhere, his fingerprints weren’t on any database on Earth, and there were no medical records whatsoever (except from the hospital he had woken up at, listed as a John Doe. Some truck driver had brought him in when he found him lying on the highway, dripping wet and starkers. However, no signs of drowning or hypothermia. No sources of water nearby).
Merlin talked to some people, took his photograph against a white background, and a couple of days later came back with papers and an ID. It didn’t mean much to Arthur, but Merlin was excited with the task and had been glowing about having Arthur Pendragon exist somewhere again.
Naturally, now Arthur wanted to try to exist outside of Merlin’s home, so they went for dates. The park, the farmer’s market, the coast. For that last one, they had to drive a car (or Merlin had to drive anyway) and Arthur marveled at how fast the greenery gave way to grey, flat roads and then the view of the coast.
Many things had changed since he went into the darkness, but this hadn’t. The sea was still immense, humbling, never-ending. The familiarity of it brought tears to his eyes. This was all that was left of his time. The waves crashing against the sea and Merlin. Everyone and everything else was gone.
When they went back home that night, Arthur couldn’t sleep, troubled by the notion that he was not normal. He was not exactly human now. He didn’t know what he was, but it was something else. Something unknown and scary, the way magic had felt growing up.
Maybe this meant that Arthur was a little magic himself.
Not long after the trip to the sea, Arthur decided to try to ride a bike.
He had seen people around the small town on the contraption and had thought that if he couldn’t have a horse, then this mechanical version of transportation was something he needed to learn if he wanted to go anywhere. Cars were still too complicated in his mind.
Merlin brought home a rusted, ugly thing that looked unstable and unsafe.
“No point in getting you something good, since you’ll trash this soon enough,” he joked.
And Arthur did. That very same day. He had finally managed to keep his balance enough to pedal when he didn’t notice a pothole, rode right over it and fell on his side. He had gripped the handle so tight that he was still holding it in his hands when the rest of the bike just stayed on the floor.
Merlin had been insufferable for days, but then had brought another bike, a nicer one this time, and told him in a teasing tone “I hope you’ll take care of this one. You don’t need to treat it like an undomesticated animal. It does what you want it to do, love.”
They rode around town together, tracing long, winding paths back home, just so Arthur could learn his way around town.
Eventually, Arthur ventured on his own, early in the morning when he couldn’t sleep anymore and the sun had barely shown its first rays. He spent a long time riding around, his mind empty of all but the way his legs moved and his breaths came. He didn’t know how long he was out, but when he came back, Merlin was outside, looking wildly around, wearing nothing but the pair of loose pants that he put on to sleep.
“For fuck’s sake, Arthur, leave a note or something. Jesus,” he said in the new English when Arthur unmounted the bike.
He wrapped his arms around Arthur and hugged him tightly.
“I thought you were gone,” he mumbled in Arthur’s English against his neck.
“I’m sorry, love. I told you I’m not going anywhere,” Arthur replied using the new English. He was trying to get used to the way the vowels rolled off his tongue, the way he could address Merlin so casually and with so much love. And he would keep trying until the darkness took him again.
“I think it’s very sexy of you to learn the ways of the new world,” Merlin whispered.
“Sexy?” that was a new word.
“Mmm, yeah, very sexy,” he repeated. Then he kissed the side of his neck, his jaw, his cheek, and finally, his lips.
If this is sexy, then Arthur likes sexy.
Arthur knows that Merlin hasn’t spent a thousand years alone in the world. He knows there must have been other people, other friends, other lovers, but Arthur doesn’t let that bother him. Much. However, he wants to meet new people, the people Merlin now considers friends, so they try that next.
Merlin invites over three of his friends, a short, brunette with a strange accent and tanned skin named Monica, a blond, gangly, pale-skinned guy named Aiden, and a tall, fit, dark-skinned man named Lucian.
They all know about magic and magical things and aren’t slightly surprised when Merlin brings the food from the kitchen without moving a finger. They hadn’t told them about Arthur yet though, Merlin said this was his long-distance boyfriend, visiting from somewhere and that English wasn’t his first language.
Still, they were curious about this Arthur guy that just happened to be dating a Merlin guy and Arthur thought it was painfully obvious that they knew something else was going on, but they didn’t directly ask.
They watched a movie and ate snacks and drank and they teased Merlin a lot for staring at Arthur at various points during the night.
“Like, I get it. Long distance, but could you please keep the eye-fucking in private, please?” Monica said.
Eye-fucking?
“Yeah, I’m not trying to be a prude or anything, but still. It makes me a bit uncomfortable how often you guys just stare,” Aiden added.
Merlin blushed furiously and looked away.
“Knock it off, guys. I was the same way when my wife came back. It’s difficult to explain,” Lucian said softly.
“Came back?” Arthur asked.
“Yeah, like you. I’m not thick, you know. These two might be, but I can see someone who’s been on the other side with just a glance.”
Silence filled the room.
And then.
“Oh my God?”
“You mean, he’s-“
“Son of a bitch. You actually did it, you mad lad.”
“Uh, oh. This doesn’t feel right. I don’t mess with the dead.”
Monica’s and Aiden’s voices kept babbling about him and the dead and veils and darkness, but Arthur couldn’t keep up with everything they said in that frantic tone.
“Guys, guys, guys!” Merlin raised his voice. “I didn’t do anything. I swear to whatever God you guys are currently praying to that I did not bring Arthur back. He literally just appeared one day and I have no fucking clue what’s going on. But I swear I’m not messing with the dead again. Learned my lesson nine hundred and ninety-nine years ago.”
Arthur wonders what happened back then, what Merlin had tried to do and if it had been to bring him back. Arthur thinks it was. He also thinks it might be something he never wants to find out.
Monica asked him questions in that thick accent of hers and Arthur tried to give answers but he knows he’s not very useful because he doesn’t remember anything. In his mind, he closed his eyes surrounded by Merlin’s arms one moment, sinking into a deep darkness that swallowed him whole, then woke up in a white room in a backwards robe the next.
In the end, Arthur’s memories of the darkness stop being interesting and they go back to discussing the movie. At some point, Aiden had started rolling what he had deemed a joint and passed it around the living room.
Arthur was no stranger to cannabis, he remembered it faintly, from banquets and celebrations and as medicine for an upset stomach, but back then it was smoked in a wooden pipe and it had smelled a lot less strong than it did now.
Merlin eyed him when Lucian passed him the joint, as if trying to convey some kind of message, but then just smiled and nodded. Arthur smoked.
He coughed immediately and everyone laughed.
He tried again and held the smoke inside as long as he could. It burned his lungs and gave him a heady feeling when he finally exhaled. He didn’t feel any different immediately, so he tried a third time.
“Jesus, Merlin, you forgot to mention medieval kings were such potheads,” Aiden teased.
“You might want to slow down, babe. This is stronger than it used to be,” Merlin warned.
Babe. Arthur liked that word.
Still, he ignored the warning and took another drag, coughing again. Then he passed the thing to Monica.
For a few minutes, nothing happened. They just kept talking, eating and teasing Merlin. Arthur can’t help but glance at Merlin every once in a while. He feels that same pull he had felt in the street the day he got lost, the same pull he remembers from before, and he’s reminded that now he can look his fill. He doesn’t have to watch the fight inside himself between his feelings for Merlin and his feelings for Gwen. Gwen had been gone for a long time and Merlin was right here.
His heart feels lighter with the knowledge that he gets a second chance. He doesn’t know how long it’ll be or what he’s become or even what’s going on in the world outside of Merlin, but he knows deep in his soul that he’ll make it count.
Arthur tunes back into the conversation when he hears his name being called out.
“What?” he says.
“You’ve been staring at Merlin for like, 20 minutes. Are you okay?” Monica asks, her voice sounds softer now and Arthur doesn’t know if she’s speaking that way or if his brain can’t seem to keep up with the actual words.
Arthur can feel his cheeks burning and looks away, trying, and failing, to act as if this is completely normal.
“Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.” Merlin speaks to him in his English, all rounded vowels and nasal consonants. “This isn’t Gaius’ botany side-project.”
“’m fine,” he insists, trying not to look at Merlin, but his eyes go back to him out of his own volition.
Merlin laughs. Loud and openmouthed and happy. Arthur loves that laugh. Arthur loves Merlin.
At some point, he gets a glass of water and crisps to munch on. The conversation keeps flowing around him but he’s content just listening. Sometimes they speak too fast for him to understand or they’ll say things like Instagram or space station or gravity or Shakespeare fairytale that mean nothing to him yet. However, he’s enjoying himself.
When Merlin’s friends leave, Merlin comes to sit by his side on the couch.
“How are you feeling?”
Arthur looks at Merlin’s face and his chest tightens. He’s so beautiful, it almost hurts to look at him.
“Arthur?”
“I love you,” he says, in today’s English, with such a passion that it takes him aback. “I love you, Merlin. I love you.”
When Merlin kisses him, Arthur’s heart flutters. He loves him. He wants to stay for as long as Merlin will have him. And if it’s one, a hundred or a thousand years, Arthur doesn’t care.
Trying weed in the twenty first century opened a door that Arthur didn’t think could be opened. There were so many things to try, teas that would’ve been labeled potions back in his day, mushrooms that would’ve been called evil, pills and stamps and crystals. Arthur wants to know what else he can feel and see and hear when he tries them.
“Not all mind-altering substances are equal, Arthur. Some of these things are really addictive and BAD for you,” Arthur could hear Merlin’s capitalization.
“I’m not asking you to give me poison, I just want to know how it feels,” he argues.
“Well, they feel good, that’s the whole point of drugs.”
“Have you tried them?”
“Yes, Arthur. You don’t live a thousand years without going on a bender for a decade or two,” his voice is even, but there’s a hint of something else in it. Arthur learned that most drugs were used against pain, so if Merlin had tried them, it meant he had been in pain before. Pain because of his own immortality. Pain because of lost friends and lovers. Pain because of Arthur. He didn’t like the idea of Merlin suffering for anyone.
Merlin keeps tapping at his phone without even looking up and adds, “I don’t know if seeing things is good for you yet, you’ve seen too much of the 21st century already. Maybe ecstasy?”
“What’s that?” Arthur asks. He doesn’t even recognize the word.
“MDMA, mostly. Just, manmade stuff, Arthur. It makes you feel really happy, emotional and, well, ecstatic, I guess,” Merlin shrugs, he keeps tapping at his phone.
“What’s ecstatic?” Arthur asks again. English has so many new words, he can’t really keep up.
“Elated, overjoyed, blissful. Whatever happiness you remember multiplied by a hundred,” says Merlin. He doesn’t look too happy about it.
Curiosity gets the best of him.
“What did you feel when you first tried it?”
Merlin stays silent for a long time. Long enough, that Arthur begins to think he’s forgotten the question, then he mumbles, “you went into a cave halfway across the kingdom to find a flower to save me. And not long after I woke up you came up to Gaius’ chambers to see if I was alright. You thanked me. You smiled. And even though you smiled at me a thousand times after that, that was the first time it made me happy to see your smile. That’s the feeling I had the first time I did it.”
Arthur can’t speak.
That’s such a small thing, Arthur barely even remembers doing it. Of course, he would go find the remedy to save Merlin’s life. Of course, he’d check to see if he was alright. Of course, he’d smile if Merlin was alive. He can’t believe it had been such a monumental moment for Merlin. Or maybe it was the perspective that only a thousand years walking the Earth could give you.
Arthur kisses Merlin’s scruffy cheek, the short beard makes his lips tingle. Merlin closes his eyes and leans into him. They stay close to each other until the light of the late afternoon fades into twilight. They’re startled by Merlin’s phone ringing.
“Hello?” he answers, then smiles, “okay, be there in a minute, mate.”
Merlin stands up and Arthur eyes him curiously.
“Well, we’re about to find out what you feel when you’re ecstatic,” he announces, he softly touches Arthur’s cheek and adds, “I’ll be right back, love.”
Turns out, there’s not a lot to do once you take ecstasy. It’s just a pill and it doesn’t give him any feelings once he takes it. Merlin saves his own pill in his pocket.
“It takes a bit to kick in, don’t freak out if you feel a lot of stuff at once,” he stands up.
“Why aren’t you taking one?”
“Because I want to be clearheaded if you freak out on me. The stuff this guy gets me is top notch, never a dull ride. Ergo, you might freak out.”
Arthur only understood half of the words, but the meaning was clear enough. Merlin wants to take care of him. It makes Arthur feel light and warm inside.
Merlin puts on some soft music. To Arthur it sounds like guitars and chime bells, but Merlin had shown him so much music and so many instruments and sounds that he might be wrong. A male voice sings softly of churches and lovers. Arthur finds he likes it.
He doesn’t feel anything yet, so he flips through one of Merlin’s books in the hopes that it sparks something. He still can’t read new English very well, but he still tries to read it in an attempt to discover what Merlin likes. He wants to know this Merlin, the Merlin that has been to so many places, learned so many things, lived so many lives. A thousand years is a long time for a person to change and, though Merlin doesn’t look that much different, sometimes Arthur looks at him and sees someone he doesn’t entirely recognize.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that Merlin is not hiding anymore. He uses his magic very openly (if not in the vicinity of the general public), he walks with his head held high (not arrogantly, but confidently), he walks around the house half naked without a care in the world (and Arthur enjoys those moments greatly). He’s had enough time to come into himself and be comfortable with it and Arthur loves it.
Has he always loved Merlin this much? With such a burning passion it ravages his entire soul?
It is then that a gentle surge of energy flows through his chest, light and comforting, enveloping Arthur in a warm tingle that can be felt to his bones. Is this it? The feeling of ecstasy Merlin had talked about? It doesn’t feel like a big deal to him.
He glances up from the book to look for Merlin and finds him in the kitchen putting the kettle on.
“I don’t feel any different,” Arthur says.
“Yet,” Merlin replies, smiling in his direction.
“I feel something, alright, but it might be just love.”
“Ah, so you do feel different,” Merlin walks to the sofa and sits next to him.
“I don’t feel different. I loved you before this,” he closes the book and leaves it on the table with a thump. The sound echoes in his ears for a moment, louder than the soft music Merlin is playing.
Merlin takes his hand and a sharp, high current runs through him, like an insect bite but on his whole body. He startles and withdraws his hand.
“Ah, there it is,” Merlin says, smiling wider. “Sorry, love, I should’ve told you is very heavy on the senses. All of them.”
Arthur takes a moment to assess said senses. He doesn’t see, hear or smell anything different. He can feel the aftertaste of the pill on his tongue, but nothing else. Besides Merlin’s touch, nothing feels changed.
He thinks it might not work as intended for him, what with the small issue of having been dead for a thousand years, but Merlin doesn’t seem worried, he’s just looking at Arthur admiringly, as he often does when he thinks Arthur won’t notice. But he always notices, he noticed even back then.
The music is slower now, but Arthur can’t tell if time is stretching or if the drug is messing with his head. A slight shiver makes him run his hands carelessly over his arms, a deep feeling following the soft touch. And this, this feels different. Warm and tingly and good in a way he had never experienced before.
He turns to look at Merlin’s stretched hand holding a glass of water. He’s parched. How didn’t he notice that sooner? He drinks it all in one go, water messily running down his chin and neck.
Merlin reaches out but stops a centimeter away from his skin.
“Can I touch you?”
Yes, please.
But he can’t say that now, his thoughts are too big to be contained in those two words, so he nods instead.
Merlin’s hand traces the path of the water droplets, soft and lenient, taking his sweet, sweet time. It makes Arthur want to yell at him to get on with it, to touch him roughly and everywhere and right now, but his throat is too tight to speak right now.
“God, I wish I could go back in time and never take E so that I could share this moment with you,” Merlin mumbles.
“You can,” Arthur croaks, his voice barely a whisper above the music.
Merlin frowns at him and gets up from the sofa. The loss of contact feels tragic, as if someone had pushed him into a cold lake without a warning. Arthur watches as Merlin goes to the kitchen, turning off the kettle, reaching for another glass of water and brings it to him. He doesn’t question Merlin and just drinks it, almost making a mess of himself on purpose so that Merlin would touch him again.
“You tell me if you feel, see or hear anything out of the ordinary,” Merlin instructs in a serious voice.
“Yes.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
“Arthur, I mean it, if you stay quiet during a bad trip it’ll only make it worse.” Merlin had no right to sound so damn hot while giving orders.
“Yes, Merlin, I get it. Now, will you stop talking for a second? Your voice is making me feel things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things,” he replies vague enough, widening his legs as he reclines more on the sofa. His entire body feels warm, but the heat in his lower abdomen is distracting him from anything else. He’s hyperaware of Merlin standing just a few paces away, observing him.
“Fine, be like that,” without any warning, he takes his own pill dry, grimacing as he does so. “I’m changing the music though; I like to have something to move to.”
Merlin plays with his phone for a bit until the music changes to a repetitive, soft beat. It thrums in time with his heartbeat and gives him the urge to move. At the same time, Arthur wants Merlin to come back to the sofa, to hold his hand, to give him that rush again.
The realization that he can have both things hits him like the ocean tide.
Arthur stands up stretching his hand to Merlin, who takes it without hesitation, intertwining their fingers and pulling him closer. He’s swaying his head to the rhythm and Arthur tries that for himself, breathing deeply and releasing the tension on his shoulders bit by bit. There’s a fire running inside him that begins where their fingers touch and spreads to every corner of his body like magic. It might even be magic, he thinks. He’s touching Merlin after all.
Merlin comes even closer then, leaning in to whisper in his ear, “you look so blown and beautiful I want to kiss the ever-loving fuck out of you.”
Now that’s an idea.
Arthur lightly turns his head, his lips brushing against Merlin’s cheek and the feeling on his lips is so unique that he can’t find the words to describe it, but he wants more of it. So, he lightly kisses Merlin in a search for that something more.
It’s an explosion of light and colors behind his eyes. Their lips are barely touching, but it’s enough to make Arthur’s head spin. Merlin’s soft breath on his lips is more but it’s not enough, so he goes deeper, parting his lips at the same time Merlin does. Their mouths crash against each other in a hungry kiss, passionate and deep and wonderful.
It's the light summer breeze in a hot day, the rustling of the leaves in the autumn wind, the first rain of the winter, the flowers blossoming in the early spring.
It’s finding Merlin waiting outside of the heavy doors, having waited for him all night because he didn’t want Arthur to feel alone.
It’s the exasperation in Merlin’s voice saying what’s that wilddeoren eating. It’s alright, it’s just Merlin, and the laugh that bubbles out of Arthur when Merlin speaks to him in that tone, like he’s not a servant but a close friend.
It’s Merlin fixing his collar before a royal meeting, running the tips of his fingers against the skin of his neck, blushing when he realizes what he’s just done.
It’s finding Merlin after days of thinking he was dead, covered in mud and stinking like hell, but hugging him anyway because he’s there, he’s alive, he’s smiling brightly at Arthur.
It’s Merlin catching his eyes across the hall while he serves wine to some visiting nobles, fumbling with the jug and spilling the liquid all over, making Arthur laugh all the way to the other side of the room.
It’s Merlin’s eyes looking at his lips when he speaks, averting his eyes when Arthur catches him in the act, giving him a fuzzy feeling inside.
It’s Merlin saying how long have you been training to be a prat, my lord.
It’s Merlin saying I’m teaching poetry. Merlin saying dollophead. Merlin saying my lord. Merlin saying his name, ringing in his head. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.
He pulls back for a second and looks at Merlin’s face.
“Were you saying my name?” Arthur asks, Merlin’s eyes still closed.
“No? I don’t know? I feel like we’ve been kissing for half an eternity, I might’ve said things or maybe I just thought them loud enough for you to hear,” he sounds out of breath, the words coming out in a rush that urges Arthur to kiss him again to shut him up.
So, he does.
Merlin’s hands are on his waist now, touching the uncovered skin between his shirt and his trousers. Arthur craves the exchange of energy that’s passing through them with each kiss. He never wants it to stop. They’re swaying to the music, their bodies brushing against each other at several points of contact and the fire inside of Arthur grows to surround him and Merlin and the house and the entire world. It’s so intense that he has to take a step back for a second.
“I feel like I’m going to explode,” he says.
“It happens sometimes,” Merlin replies, still holding his hand.
“I want to lie down for a second.”
“Okay.”
He goes through the motions slowly, scared to break the connection to Merlin, but Merlin never lets him go. They stretch on the narrow sofa, flush against each other and Arthur couldn’t ask for a more perfect moment.
“What do you feel, Merlin?”
“A very calm sense of happiness. Like that time with the knights around a fire. You were looking at me from your tent and you smiled. That’s the feeling, right there. What do you feel?”
“I can’t say it.”
“You don’t have to, love.”
Arthur feels alive.
As if the entirety of his previous life had been nothing but a dream, a prelude to this one where he gets to lie down with Merlin on an ugly sofa and listen to the beats of his heart (or the music) ringing in his ears. Someone inside of him was dying and a new Arthur was being born, rising from the proverbial ashes like a bird out of a myth from ancient times.
Arthur feels Merlin’s arms surround him, holding him like the last time he died. He looks up and sees Merlin’s eyes studying him closely. There’s barely any blue surrounding the dark of his pupils. He notices his long lashes, his straight nose, his scruffy cheek, his full, pink lips, looking bruised and wet.
Arthur’s never seen someone so beautiful in his life.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Merlin asks, running the tip of one of his fingers up and down his arm.
“You are just so much. I feel like I don’t deserve this,” Arthur confesses.
Merlin rolls his eyes at him.
“I mean it, you are the most beautiful, powerful, marvelous, brilliant being in the world and you got stuck with me when the fates sorted things out.”
“I’m not stuck with you, dumbass,” he teases.
Arthur rests his forehead against Merlin’s, closing his eyes.
“I don’t think I can be without you ever again,” Arthur mumbles.
“Then don’t go where I can’t follow,” Merlin’s voice is a prayer to a long-forgotten god, soft, vulnerable, fearful.
“I won’t,” he promises. And if there’s anything left of the Arthur from before, it’s that strong resolve that could move an entire kingdom to bend to his will. It’s the same determination that makes him want to follow Merlin to the end of the world and beyond.
They stay silent for a long time, sharing their breaths, their hearts beating as one.
So this is ecstasy, he thinks. To be held by the love of his life as the music ebbs and flows around them, the moment being etched into his memory in such a sharp rendering that maybe someday in the future he will be able to take it out of his dreams; to hold this moment in his hands and feel the same peace and love that fills him up now.
Ecstasy.
Happiness.
Bliss.
The next time he opens his eyes Merlin is staring at him.
“I’ve always been in love with you,” Arthur says. “I love you, I love you, I love-”
He doesn’t get to finish because Merlin kisses him then. Deep and hot and needy in a way that they hadn’t kissed before tonight.
“I should’ve told you then,” Arthur pants against his mouth when they come up for air.
“It wouldn’t change anything,” Merlin replies in an even tone.
“Or it could’ve changed everything,” he reasons.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters that you know. I won’t let you forget it.”
Merlin’s lips are on his again. It’s a short-lived kiss, but it’s delicious in its intensity.
“Remind me now,” Merlin breathes out.
Arthur does.