Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When the boat disappears from view and the water goes still, Merlin knows that it’s over: destiny, done and dusted. He’s failed. The knowledge buries itself in his chest, a sharp spark of cold pain in his heart. He feels sick. 

Merlin lets himself sink to the ground, hands grasping ceaselessly at grass and dirt and stones as he tries to hold on. 

It is three days before Leon and Percival find him, pain etched indelibly in their faces, their eyes rimmed with red from mourning that has only just begun. They look to him with a question that  they already know the answer to, and he shakes his head, because there’s nothing more to be said. He gets up and washes the dirt from his hands. It swirls, silty, in the lakewater. It hasn’t settled by the time they start the journey back. 

Camp that night is too quiet. There are too many empty spaces in the circle, too many servings of stew left in the pot, loss building up for years to strike at this moment. Percival volunteers to take the first watch. He sits on a fallen tree as Leon and Merlin curl up on opposite sides of the fire. Leon falls asleep immediately, the dark circles under his eyes too pronounced. Merlin stays awake, staring at the flames, missing the warmth on his left side. 

“Gwaine?”

Percival stares ahead, and Merlin sees the glint of a familiar chain at his neck. “Morgana had a spy in Camelot. We crossed paths with her and…” he trails off, hand going to his neck. “She broke him. He’s dead.” 

Merlin had known Gwaine was dead from the moment he saw Leon and Percival with a space between them that shouldn’t have been there, but it’s different to hear it, spelled out in the gloom. It steals his breath, pulls at the already cracking pieces of his heart, and he curls in on himself. 

Percival meets his eyes, sad. “He said he failed. Right before he died.” He takes a shuddering breath, and Merlin sits up, steps over, takes the seat next to him. “He died believing that it was his fault that Morgana would find Arthur.” 

Merlin feels the guilt in the back of his throat, tugging and twisting, bringing tears pricking to his eyes. “It wasn’t his fault,” he said. “She’d have found us no matter what.” 

Percival nods. “I followed her. I wanted to kill her, I wanted her to suffer the way she made him suffer, but when I found her, she was already dead. Had been for a while.” 

Merlin stares at the fire and thinks of swords and screams and other sharp things. “I killed her,” he says simply. 

Percival nods again. “I buried her body,” he says softly, as if asking for forgiveness. 

And Merlin thinks of the girl who came to beg him for help when she set her chambers on fire, the girl who stared back at Uther with icy conviction, the girl who brought swords to Ealdor, the girl who he poisoned and held as she choked. “Thank you,” he whispers. 

Percival doesn’t say anything else. Merlin doesn’t sleep much that night, and when morning comes, they continue on. 

When they reach Camelot, the knights go to the queen, and Merlin goes to Gaius. The old man sits him down and fixes him a bowl of stew. He barely touches it before a servant comes and tells him that he is wanted in the throne room. 

Guinevere sits on the throne. Her face is set, but the stains of tears remain on her cheeks, and Merlin kneels in front of her, staring at the floor. Percival and Leon are near the door, but the room is otherwise empty. 

“Sir Leon and Sir Percival have informed me that the king is dead,” she says, and Merlin nods, because he can’t say it. 

Guinevere stands. “I would have you look at me when I speak to you,” she says, and oh, how Merlin longs for the days when they were just two servants on the periphery, laughing at the nobility and stealing the best honey cakes before they sent them out. 

“The king is dead, your highness,” he says, and pretends that his voice hasn’t cracked. “I failed you, I failed Camelot, and I failed him.” 

Guinevere looks past him. “Gaius said that you would bring him back,” she says. “He told me that you would save him.” 

“I couldn’t,” he says helplessly. “I wasn’t strong enough.” 

Guinevere’s hand goes to the royal seal hanging around her neck. “You’re dismissed,” she says. 

Merlin leaves as quietly as he can, and braces himself for the storm that he knows is coming. 

It comes that night, when Merlin’s bowl of stew still sits untouched on the table, when Gaius has gone out for his evening rounds. Merlin is sitting on the bench, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and when the door opens, he is reminded of a moment nearly a decade ago, when he sat here with the taste of poison lingering in his mouth and Arthur’s hand on his shoulder. 

“Arthur–thank you.” 

“You too. Get some rest.” 

It isn’t Arthur who comes in, because Arthur is dead. It’s Guinevere, and there is fire in her eyes, so he stands and folds the blanket. 

He’s not sure what all is said, because things go in and out of focus with the pain that ebbs and flows in his chest. But he can hear Gwen underneath her mask, and knows that the mask has broken when she screams “Why didn’t you save him? ”

“I tried,” he says, and he’s not sure if he’s crying or not. 

“You should have done more,” she snaps, and the words cut so deep that Merlin gasps, because they’re the same ones he’s been repeating to himself over and over.

“I did everything I could–”

“If it had to be one of you, it should have been you.” 

Merlin almost doubles over, because Gwen is the sweetest, gentlest person he’s ever met, and she’s breaking his heart all over again. When he finds the strength to speak, she’s watching him. 

“Don’t you think I wish it was me?” he whispers, and Gwen opens her mouth to respond, but he cuts her off. “Don’t you think I tried? I begged every force in this world and the next to take me instead, but they decided that my life wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t enough to bring him back, and that’s one more thing that I failed at. So yes, it should have been me, but it’s not, and I can’t change that.” He turns away before Guienevere can see him cry. 

“Merlin–” 

“I’m sorry, Gwen.” He wipes his tears away harshly and turns back around. 

“You keep saying that you did everything you could,” Gwen says, and there’s less anger in her voice. Less anger, and more pain. “But I keep thinking–” she shakes her head. “You’re Merlin. You’ve done everything that should be impossible, you’ve cheated death and saved all of us a thousand times. Why was this time different?”

“I’m not enough, Gwen. I don’t think I ever was.” He doesn’t look at her as he climbs the stairs to his room and closes the door. 

Leon comes to see him later that night. For the first time in Merlin’s memory, he’s not wearing his chainmail, just a dark blue tunic and brown trousers. He sits quietly, and puts a hand on Merlin’s shoulder, and it’s all Merlin can do to stop himself from breaking down. 

“She doesn’t mean it,” says Leon finally. “Everyone knows that if there was a way for Arthur to be saved, you would have found it.” 

Merlins stares at the floor, his eyes glassy. “I just keep thinking,” he says softly. “If I were faster, or if I didn’t let the horses run away, or if Morgana didn’t catch me by surprise–” 

Leon is already shaking his head. “Some things cannot be stopped,” he says. 

“I know,” says Merlin weakly. “That doesn’t mean I won’t feel guilty about it.” 

Leon sits there, quiet. “Gwen is grieving,” he says. “She shouldn't have said those things to you, but she’s–she’s in pain.”

And Merlin knows, because he knows grief like the back of his hand, like he knows the cobblestones in the square, like he knows the straps on a suit of armor. He knows grief like he knew Arthur’s eyes, like he knew Gwaine’s laugh, like he knew Morgana’s smile, long, long ago. Gwen is grieving, and he knows the anger that comes with it, knows it will pass. He just wishes that it wasn’t directed at him, even if he does deserve it. 

“Thank you, Leon.”

Leon squeezes his shoulder gently and leaves. Merlin doesn’t sleep well that night. The breeze that comes through the window smells too much like the lake, and he stares at the ceiling and thinks of Arthur’s eyes sliding closed for the last time. 

The next morning, Percival brings him breakfast, and he eats it because the man won’t leave until he does. They sit together for a while after Merlin has finished, and Percival wraps him in a tight hug before he leaves. 

When Gaius gets back from his morning rounds, he steeps chamomile and lavender in hot water for Merlin, pours it into a fat-bellied earthenware cup with a generous dollop of honey and sits with Merlin as he talks as much as he can and swallows back his tears. 

“He left this for you,” says Gaius, when Merlin has finished and is sipping his tea with shuddering breaths. He holds up a small leather bag and a sealed envelope. “Before he left for the battle.”

Merlin takes it. “Thank you, Gaius.” 

“I’ll leave you alone for now,” he says, shuffling over to his table and picking up a phial. 

Merlin takes the bag and the envelope to his room and sits on his bed. He breathes once, twice, three times before he finds the strength to crack open the wax seal and unfold the letter. Tears blur his eyes at the sight of Arthur’s writing sprawling messily across the page, but he blinks them back. He doesn’t want to smudge the ink. 

Merlin, 

If you’re reading this, I’m sorry. It means the battle is over, and whatever the outcome, I have not returned. I can only hope that you did not have to see what happened. 

I am sorry for many things. The one that you need to know the most is that I am sorry for how I’ve treated you. I spent my whole life alone until you arrived in Camelot. You were so unlike anyone else–servant, noble, knight. You treated me like a person first, a prince second, and I can never thank you enough. I think you saved my life, Merlin. And I repaid you by holding you at arm’s length because I was too afraid to get close. I am truly sorry.

I need you to know that I cared for you. I still do, in any way that is possible from beyond this world. I never want you to be in pain. Please, if only for my sake, don’t grieve too long. I wish I could be there with you, more than anything. 

Because I wouldn’t be me if I weren’t a clotpole, I am going to ask you one last favor: take care. Of yourself, of Guinevere, of Gaius, of Leon, of Percival, of Gwaine. You have the truest heart I have ever known, and I hope beyond all things that you can stay strong. 

Your friend,

Arthur

Merlin sets the letter down, trying not to cry because it’s so very Arthur, the gentle way he would talk before stepping in harm’s way, the tenderness that barely escaped at the most fragile of moments. He weighs the tiny bag in his palm, then opens it. 

It is a leather cord. He remembers it well, along with the reddish crystal that hangs from it. He hasn’t seen Arthur wear it in years, but looking at it reminds him of a time when things were simpler. 

There’s something new on the cord though, and he looks at it more closely. His stomach clenches when he realizes that it’s Arthur’s ring, the one he spun on his thumb when he was nervous. It was one of two things that he had from his mother. Merlin had never known him to take it off, and supposes he hadn’t noticed it because Arthur never took his gloves off after the battle. 

He hangs the cord from his neck, lets the cool stone and metal settle against his chest, and thinks of the crescent and ring that he knows Percival wears now, of Arthur’s mother’s sigil that he polishes every night, and he holds it all close to his heart. He doesn’t want anything to slip away, but he knows it will, as it has with Freya, Lancelot, and his father. 

Gwen knocks on his door that afternoon carrying a plate of honey cakes. He’s feeling so sick with guilt and pain that the smell turns his stomach, so she sets them down on Gaius’s table and sits next to Merlin. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “For what I said yesterday. You didn’t deserve any of it.” 

“Even if it was true?”

“It’s not.” Gwen sighs, and there are deep circles under her eyes. “I was angry. Not at you, just–angry. And that doesn’t make it alright, not even close, but I needed to tell you.” 

Merlin slips an arm around Gwen’s shoulders, and she puts her face in her hands. “Sometimes it feels like I doom people, just by loving them,” she says. “My father. Lancelot. Elyan. Now Arthur. I can’t keep hurting people.” 

The words tear at Merlin’s heart, because how many times has he thought the same thing? “It’s not your fault, Gwen. I know it might feel like it–trust me, I know how you feel. But it’s not your fault.” He rubs a hand on Gwen’s shoulder, and she cries harder. 

“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly. “It is my fault that Arthur died.” 

Gwen shakes her head. “Why would you say that?”

“I wasn’t strong enough.” 

Gwen sits up a little straighter. “Gaius said that there was a piece of a blade in his chest. He said he would have been useless. It’s not–”

“I should have healed him. I should have tried harder, or gotten him to the Sidhe–Gwen, I have magic and I couldn’t save him.”

Gwen startles, pushing away from Merlin. It hurts, of course, but she deserves to know, and after ten years of lies, she’s right to push him away. 

“What do you mean you have magic?”

“It’s for–it was for Arthur. No one else. There had to have been some way to save him, it was why I had magic in the first place–” His breathing is too fast now, and the world is spinning out of control. He’s about to lose Gwen, too, because he’s such a liar and has been for years, and he looks up, desperate. 

There are a hundred different emotions in Gwen’s eyes, but she approaches Merlin gingerly and lays a hand on his arm. He looks up at her, and her eyes are pleading. “Please tell me,” she says. “Tell me everything. No more hiding.” 

And so he tells her everything. He tells her of a young boy who came to Camelot with hope in his eyes. Of knights and poison and monsters and dragons, of druids and sorcerers, of crystals and ghosts and witches. Of creatures, creatures who ensnare the mind, who send fire crackling through veins, who consume magic and leave coldness in their wake. And finally, painfully, he tells her of a king with a wound in his side, a king who marched to his death and clung to life for a few short days after. 

“I told him before he died. About my magic.” 

“What did he say?”

“He was angry at first. But he came around.” Merlin fiddles with the sleeve of his jacket. “Don’t know if he would have if he weren’t dying.” 

“He would have,” says Gwen quietly. Merlin looks over at her and is surprised to see fresh tears on her face. “Gods, Merlin, I’m so sorry.” 

Merlin isn’t sure what to do as Gwen wraps her arms around him and pulls him into the tightest hug he’s ever had. He should be feeling something, but telling Gwen everything has left him numb, like he left a part of himself on the shore of the lake. 

“We should have been here for you more. All of us–me, Arthur, the knights–” Gwen eases Merlin’s head onto her shoulder and brushes his hair back, the same way his mother used to when he was little, when he had nightmares and woke up crying. 

“I was born to serve,” said Merlin. To serve Arthur. “It’s what I do. It’s what I’m meant for.” 

“Merlin, you’re meant for so much more. You are such a strong, wonderful, beautiful person, and you were not put here by some all-powerful destiny just to serve other people. Certainly not to serve other people at your own expense.” 

Merlin rubs at his eyes, suddenly exhausted. He hasn’t slept properly since the caves. Gwen lets him go and starts rummaging around. Before he can see what’s happening, she’s wiped his face with a damp cloth, helped him out of his boots, given him a sleep shirt and a clean pair of pants. 

She turns around for Merlin to change, but takes his dirty clothing and sets it in the laundry basket. It’s odd to see her like this, dressed in her red gown with the royal seal around her neck. She looks at once out of place and familiar.

“Lie down, Merlin,” she says. He settles back in his bed and Gwen draws the covers over him. “Get some rest.”

She smiles down at him, and for a moment it’s like being at home. She’s so good, so kind. “He said he loved you,” Merlin says. Gwen stops on her way to the door. 

“What?” 

“At the end. He said he loved you. He wanted me to tell you that.” 

Guinevere smiles sadly, and her thumb brushes against her wedding ring. “Thank you, Merlin.” 

He’s asleep before the guilt swallows him whole. 

“It’s too late.” Arthur’s breath is fading, and his body goes limp against Merlin. “It’s too late.”

“No–” The chainmail is cold.

“All your magic, Merlin, can’t save my life.” Arthur’s hands flail around, one eventually coming to rest on top of Merlin’s.

“I can. I’m not going to lose you.” Merlin can’t find the strength to stand, and Arthur lost it long ago. 

“Just–just hold me.” And so Merlin does, pulling Arthur tight to his chest. His hair brushes against Merlin’s cheek, and he takes a shuddering breath. 

“There’s something I want to say…”

“You’re not going to say goodbye,” says Merlin, because he can’t bear it, because Arthur’s not going to die, not going to leave him–

Arthur’s head lolls against Merlin’s shoulder. “No, Merlin.” His eyes are hazy. “Everything you’ve done. I know now–for me, for Camelot. For the kingdom you helped me build.”

Merlin shakes his head. “You’d have done it without me,” he says. 

Arthur laughs, and Merlin wants to hear it forever. “Maybe,” he says, and the smile fades as his eyes drift. Eventually his gaze returns to Merlin’s face, and he shifts closer. “I want to say–something I’ve never said to you before.” 

Merlin leans closer, and Arthur’s gloved hand comes to rest behind his head. “I love you.” 

Merlin’s breath stops at the same time as Arthur’s, but he takes another breath and Arthur never will. 

Merlin sits up, shaking, and reaches for the water on his bedside table. His other hand goes to the cord around his neck, then to the bag where he knows the sigil rests. 

He didn’t tell Gwen everything after all. 

  ***

Gwen repeals the ban on magic. It takes three months to get it past the council, but the day it is announced, Merlin stands with her on the balcony. A group of druids enter the city, and Merlin goes with Percival to the place where Morgana is buried. 

After a year of mourning, Gwen marries Leon. Merlin’s not sure if they truly love each other (the way that Guinevere loved Lancelot, loved Arthur, the way that Merlin loved–), but he knows that they both love Camelot enough to make it work. They have a son, and name him Stephen, after Leon’s father. Merlin tries to spend time with him, but there’s something deeply painful in his chest that won’t ease, because he’s only known one prince and he can’t know another.

Gaius dies five years after Camlann. Merlin grieves as he would grieve a father, but the edges are dulled. Gaius was old, had lived his life, had died peacefully in his sleep. The worst part of it is the guilt he feels for not mourning more. 

The years pass, at once too slow and too fast. Fine lines appear at the corners of Gwen’s eyes, and Leon’s hair is shot through with silver, but Merlin never gets any older. No frost touches his dark hair, no lines crease his face, and he finds himself relying more and more on glamours to cast away suspicion.

 Percival comes to Merlin some nights, seeking sleeping draughts even as the years go on and his brows grow lined. He tells Merlin one evening, as he waits for the herbs to steep, that he could hear Gwaine screaming before he died. Merlin sits with him, and they stare into the fire. He tells Percival, in a hushed voice, about the last days, down to the last moments, and Percival looks at him with understanding. They speak only of events, not of the dreams that spawn from them.

Merlin trains a new physician, a bright young woman named Amice. She learns the language of herbs quickly, has a knack for spotting imbalance. She is gentle and kind, stubborn when needed, and can raise her eyebrow nearly as sharply as Gaius. He is proud, and knows that he will be leaving the kingdom in good hands when the time comes. 

Percival is the first to die, twenty-five years after Camlann. Merlin suspects that he never healed after Gwaine’s death, and he hopes that they find one another in Avalon. Percival’s death leaves something hollow in his chest, and he knows that it is just the beginning. 

Merlin knows, irrevocably, that he will not find his friends (his family) in Avalon, because he will never get there. Age does not touch him, and death doesn’t stick. He dies once from a plague, coughs up enough blood to fill a bucket and feels his eyes roll back, but he wakes the next morning with his throat sore and his fever broken. He wonders, after that, how often he’s died before.

Leon sees it happen once–he joins the king on a patrol and takes an arrow to the chest, directly in the heart. He feels it struggle against the bolt for a few moments, sees the tears gathering in Leon’s eyes, and tries to reach up. 

“It’s okay,” he croaks, but Leon shakes his head and clasps Merlin’s hand tightly. Merlin swallows the pain, closes his eyes, and is released. 

He opens his eyes and he’s still on the forest floor. Leon is crying, the same quiet tears that he’d shed in private for Arthur. The arrow lies beside him, and Merlin’s shirt is stiff with dried blood. 

“Leon,” says Merlin, sitting up. 

The king stares at him in disbelief, and Merlin realizes uncomfortably that his glamour disappeared when he died, and Leon is seeing Merlin as he truly is, frozen in time just after Camlann. 

“Merlin?” he whispers. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Leon pulls him into a tight hug.

“No,” he says. “I am sorry. I am so sorry, Merlin, for this burden that you bear.” 

And Merlin looks at Leon, at the wedding ring on his finger and the lines in his face and the silver in his hair. “Thank you,” he says. 

They return, as ever, to Camelot. Leon doesn’t tell Gwen what happened, because Merlin asks him not to, and life returns to normal. Long days and longer nights, the constant knowledge of a missing piece.

Merlin stops trying to distinguish between dream and nightmare, because he’s not sure there’s much of a difference anymore. Some nights, Arthur whispers that he loves Merlin. Sometimes he is already dead by the time Merlin gets to the battle. Sometimes he stares up at Merlin with blood gathering on the corners of his lips and says I hate you . 

It is thirty years after Camlann that Leon dies. Merlin mourns him, and feels that he has lost another part of himself. It’s another cruel reminder that he will always lose everything and everyone, that someday Camelot will fall and Merlin will be left standing and that’s just the beginning.

Merlin is at Gwen’s side when she dies, three months later, and he takes off his glamour and lets her see him one last time. 

“I wish you could come with us, Merlin,” she says, her voice weaker now than he’s ever heard it.

Merlin smiles at her through his tears. “So do I.” 

She reaches for his hand, and clasps it in hers. “I know that there’s one more lie you told me,” she says softly. 

Merlin stiffens, because he knows exactly what lie it is, but Gwen is on her deathbed and whatever she asks, he will tell. 

“You said he wanted you to tell me that he loved me. That he was thinking of me when he died.” The next breath she draws rattles in her throat. “I learned to read when you’re lying after you told me the truth about your magic. And you were lying then.”

Merlin nods, lips pressed together, and Gwen continues. “What did he really say, in the end?”

Merlin bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, and Gwen’s brow creases. “I won’t be angry, Merlin. I just want to know.” 

I love you. 

“He said that he loved me,” Merlin whispers, and he knows it’s the right thing when Gwen smiles tiredly at him and reaches up to touch his cheek. 

“Thank you,” she says, and closes her eyes. 

In the months that follow, the kingdom mourns. Stephen takes the throne, the fourth king since Merlin set foot in Camelot. Merlin doesn’t stick around enough to see if he’ll be good at it. He packs his things–the scarves his mother made for him, the sigil that he still polishes every night, the knife that Lancelot tucked in his boot when he was unarmed on a hunt, the book of spells that Gaius gave him. He makes for Ealdor, because there’s one person left. 

His mother has grown old. Her hair is white and brittle, her face lined. Her eyes have not faded, have not lost their shine, and he sits with her. His heart breaks a little, because he can feel death in the corners of their tiny house, and he knows he won’t see her again. She tells him that she is proud of him, and that he must be strong, and she closes her eyes. 

Just like that, everyone is gone. 

.

***

The years seem to blur together. Merlin decides early on that he has lost too many people, that he can’t bear to lose more, and he spends more and more time alone. He knows that the outer villages in Camelot tell tales about the strange hermit who lives in the woods. Myrddin Wyllt, they call him. He’s a bard, apparently, and a seer, a prophet who went mad after battle. 

He can’t help but think that they’re not so far off. 

Camelot falls nearly four centuries after Camlann, and Merlin stops paying attention. He watched Camelot from afar because of Arthur, because of his friends, but with Camelot gone and his friends gone long before, there’s no meaning in it anymore. He retreats deeper into the forest, and children whisper tales of Myrddin Wyllt, the mad bard who comes into town once a year to trade meticulously woven baskets and rare herbs for cloth and pots. 

He hasn’t used his magic since Arthur died–isn’t sure he can, really, because his magic was always for Arthur–but the dreams continue, the prophecies fill his ears and he writes them down and stitches them into a book that he never opens. 

He sees pain and death and loss and rage and love, watching from the periphery, and he hates the world sometimes. Hates it for reasons he’s not sure he can explain, so he bites down on his tongue and digs a garden. He fills his corner of the forest with flowers and doesn’t leave it. The first time he uses his magic after Arthur died is to fix the leaves of a fern that have gone dry and brown. He watches them uncurl and shine in his hands, and he laughs. It hurts his chest. He could save a plant, but he couldn’t save Arthur. 

As the years go by, his magic seems to dwindle and wither, until he can barely stop a flower from wilting. The dreams become less and less frequent, and eventually, the magic fades from his clearing in the woods, and he ventures out. 

Camelot is gone. He barely recognizes the kingdom that stands in its place, and cares little for the crown and nobility. He spends his time traveling through villages, sometimes as a physician, sometimes as a bard, always as whatever is needed. He steals from nobles frequently, and gives the money to the people who need it most (someone starts calling him Robin, and he doesn’t care enough to correct them–why bother, a merlin and a robin are both birds). 

There are good days–days where he can almost smile, where the ache in his chest settles to his bones and he can breathe freely. More frequent are the bad days, where he wakes up with guilt so thick in his throat that tears come to eyes when he inhales, where he can’t get out of bed, where the memories are so strong that he can smell grass and the metallic scent of blood and hear his own voice laughing at him: not good enough not strong enough not fast enough never enough–

He spends most of the fourteenth century sleeping. He doesn’t think he leaves his house more than seven times, and the little time he is awake, he stares up at the ceiling and asks the world, silently, why him, why did he have to die, why wasn’t it me. 

He travels, after that, afraid that if he stays still too long he’ll slip back into the haze of gloom and pain. He meets physicians and scientists and artists and politicians, learns all they have to teach and more. 

He goes back to the ruins of Camelot after that, and sits on the lake shore for a while. He tells Arthur what he’s done and learned, and pretends like his voice doesn’t break as he speaks, like his tears aren’t mixing with the silt on the shore. The necklace still rests on his chest, ring and crystal. He still polishes the sigil every night. 

He travels to the lands near Camelot–they call it England, now, and finds himself in a city called London. He likes it, likes the hustle and bustle, the shouts and carts rattling on cobblestones. It reminds him a bit of the lower town. 

He finds himself in a tavern one night, sitting next to a man with a beard and ink smudges on his fingers. The man tells him about a play that he’s writing, about a prince and his father, his uncle who betrayed him. Merlin cries into his tankard of ale and tells the man (who introduced himself as William) about his prince, so noble and kind and sweet. 

“He died,” says Merlin, words slurring slightly with the alcohol, and William looks at him sympathetically. “He died in my arms and I couldn’t stop it, and I couldn’t follow him. He told me to be strong though. Left me a note.” He also told Merlin that he loved him, but he doesn’t tell William that. It’s too precious.

Later, Merlin goes to see William’s play. The prince’s name is Hamlet, and he’s played by a young man with golden hair. There is another man in the play, Horatio, who holds the prince as he dies. Merlin has to leave and stand in the cool night air outside the playhouse, forcing the pain back down.

When boats start crossing the sea to a new world, Merlin stays firmly on the soil in England. He watches a king go mad and thinks of Uther, but it has been a long time since he stood at the side of a king, since he stood at anyone’s side. 

Merlin sees social circles wax and wane, watches countless weddings and funerals. He sees gas lamps line the streets; sees them replaced with electric lights. He watches as horses and carriages are replaced with cars, watches as the cars change shape and become quieter, as they overwhelm the streets. He stays in London, because there’s nowhere that reminds him of Camelot anymore. 

As the years slip by into the twenty-first century, Merlin finds himself working in a coffee shop. He likes the process of making drinks, the dusky smell of espresso as it hisses out of the machine, the whir of the frother as he foams milk. As ever, he is hollow and lonely, even as he spends less time alone and more smiling at customers and exchanging pleasant conversation with the other baristas. He’s decided that surely not every smile can be fake, and nearly convinces himself that the ache in his chest has always been a part of him. 

Through all of it, the one thing that keeps Merlin going is Kilgarrah’s promise, the vow that Arthur will come back. He tries not to think too much about it, because the dragon always spoke in half-lies and he can’t bear the thought that he might be wrong. He forces it to become a truth, buried deeply in his mind with the last remnants of his magic: Arthur will come back. 

He spends the early hours of the morning at the rickety table in his flat, drinking tea and reading the news. There is a part of him that is always looking, everywhere, for some sign of Arthur, and that’s why he thinks he’s imagined it when he sees the word Avalon on the BBC’s homepage. 

His heart nearly stops as he scrolls to the headline: New Find at Llangorse Lake Points to Legendary Lake of Avalon. 

His hands shake. There was a boat found at the bottom of Llangorse Lake. In the boat was a sword (markings on the blade suggest that it is the legendary Excalibur–have we found King Arthur’s final resting place? ), corroded plate armor, and a chainmail hauberk, wrapped around a skeleton. The article proclaims that new facial reconstruction techniques will reveal the face of this mysterious warrior, and Merlin can’t stop himself as he scrolls further down, knowing what he will find. 

Arthur’s face stares back at him from the computer screen, the line of his jaw, the slope of his nose. The eyes are slightly too dull, the hair slightly too dark, but Merlin can do nothing but stare. This is a face that they’ve built from bones, from Arthur’s bones, because Arthur’s bones were at the bottom of a lake and they’ve dredged him up and he’s never coming back. 

He’s never coming back. 

Merlin falls out of his chair, unable to stop the anguished scream that rises in the back of his throat. Fifteen centuries of waiting for nothing. Arthur is gone, his armor and his reconstructed face the only things that are left. His breath is ragged, and he can feel tears on his face, agony breaking through the hollowness that has dwelt in his chest for so, so long. Arthur’s not coming back. Arthur’s not coming back. 

In all the centuries of waiting and loneliness, Merlin was always moving forward. He didn’t always have direction, but he knew that he was headed toward something, that someday Arthur would be back and the world would work the way it was supposed to again. No matter how far he drifted, he would always be caught in the current, pulled toward Arthur’s return. It was something almost like hope. 

Lying on the floor with the blue light of the computer filling the flat, Merlin truly loses hope for the first time in a thousand and a half years. 

Chapter Text

The laptop screen has gone dark, the battery long dead. The air in the flat is stale, and in the middle of it all lies Merlin. He hasn’t moved. He can’t bring himself to get up–he thinks that the slightest motion may finally break him, and this time, there’s no Arthur, no hope of Arthur, to pick up the pieces. 

He’s vaguely aware of days passing, of the sun rising and crossing the sky to set outside his window. He’s certain that the cup of tea he left on the table is reduced to sludge and mold. His muscles slowly unspool and he allows himself to go limp, face pressed into the floor. Maybe he’ll die here. Maybe one day they’ll find his bones, reconstruct his face, and he’ll be the one staring out from a thousand computer screens. 

If only he were so lucky. 

He doesn’t keep track of time, just knows that there is dust gathering on the table. He sees Arthur’s face, over and over. Sometimes Arthur’s there, in battered and bloody chainmail. Sometimes he screams at Merlin. Sometimes he tells Merlin that he loves him. Sometimes he reaches out as if he wants to touch Merlin’s face, his hair. Sometimes he tells him that he hates him.

He always disappears. 

Hours or days or weeks pass, Merlin can’t really tell anymore. He’s stopped feeling hungry or thirsty. He’s not sure when he sleeps, but every time he opens his eyes, he stares out at the familiar landscape of the flat and something in him dies again. He thinks that he’s finally cried all his tears now. He feels hollow in an entirely new way, a gaping cavern in his chest where hope used to live. 

An indeterminate amount of time after he’s heard the news (Arthur’s truly gone, Arthur’s never coming back), the door shudders under a knock. No one has ever knocked on his door before. He must be imagining things. 

Another knock, and a voice. “Merlin?”

And that’s it. He’s certain now that after all the centuries of waiting, of hoping and losing all over again, he’s finally, completely, gone mad. Because Arthur can’t knock on the door, Arthur can’t say his name, Arthur can’t do anything anymore because his bones were dredged up from the lake and he’s gone . 

“Merlin!”

It’s so achingly familiar, so beautiful and so right that his heart cracks, because he’ll never truly hear Arthur again. 

“Go away,” he manages, voice raspy with disuse. 

The door shakes. “Merlin, open the door .” 

“You’re not real,” says Merlin, sitting up. The pain in his chest is unbearable now, and he can feel tears starting. “You’re not really here. You’ll never be here.”

“Merlin–”

He physically flinches, sliding on the kitchen floor. No one’s ever said his name like that but Arthur (Arthur who died , Arthur who’s gone, Arthur who’s never coming back–). He starts to sob in earnest, great heaving breaths that tear at his throat and force his shoulders in. “Go away,” he says, more breath than words. “Leave me alone–”

“Merlin, you idiot, let me in–”

“I said to go away!”

There’s magic now, a maelstrom in the apartment, magic like Merlin hasn’t felt since Camelot. The walls are shaking, books are tumbling from tables and shelves, dishes are falling from the cabinets. Something sharp cuts his face and he cries out, feeling the blood trickle down his cheek. 

“Merlin, what happened?” The pounding on the door intensifies. “You have to let me in, you need help–”

Merlin reaches up to feel the cut on his cheek, stares at the blood smeared on his fingertips, and starts to laugh uncontrollably, his whole body rocking with the force of it. He’s broken, far, far more broken than he ever was before, and he can’t understand why he’s laughing. 

The pounding on the door stops, but Merlin’s laughter doesn’t, and he’s caught completely unawares when the door shudders a final time and gives out, swinging open. Arthur stands there, dressed in his familiar red tunic, whole and hale and him . Merlin stares up at him with tear-blurred eyes. He looks just like he always did, eyes bright and hair gleaming, and something that is so Arthur that the reconstruction failed to capture. It’s finally enough to stop the hysterical laughter rising in Merlin’s throat, to make his sinuses tingle with tears again. 

“Merlin?”

Merlin looks back to the floor, shaking his head. This isn’t the real Arthur. The real Arthur is dead. The real Arthur is in a museum with machines scanning his bones and putting his face in computers. 

Footsteps, and Arthur stands there before him, perfect as the day they met. Merlin shakes his head harder and swipes angrily at the tears running down his face. Is he crying still, or again? “You’re not real,” he says. “You’re not real and you’re not here and I can’t–” His breath catches, and he gasps desperately. For some reason, he’s forgotten how to breathe–a stupid thing, he’s been on the earth over a thousand years, and yet here he is, gasping like a fish out of water. 

A hand brushes against his jaw, achingly gentle, and he screams, scrambling back. “Get away, don’t touch me–”

“Merlin–”

“It isn’t you it isn’t you–” Merlin feels bile rise in his throat and he heaves, he can’t catch his breath, can’t move, can’t do anything, until arms reach around him and pull him close against a warm chest. 

“It’s me, Merlin. I’m so sorry.” 

Merlin gives in. Even if he’s imagining things, even if this is just a hallucination or a memory or whatever the hell he’s been seeing in the past weeks, he can’t go without it. He can’t go back to existing without Arthur, even if it means spending the rest of his life staring at the last cruel, desperate hopes that curl in the corners of his mind. He lets the hope unfurl again, vines before the frost. It’ll die soon enough, but in this moment, he lets himself think that maybe this is real . After all, a hallucination can't touch Merlin, can’t gather him into its arms and make him feel safe in a way he hasn’t been in centuries. He chokes on another sob and presses his face into the fabric of Arthur’s tunic. 

“It’s you?”

“It’s me. I promise.” 

No one’s held Merlin like this in years, like he’s something precious and fragile. No one’s carded a hand through his hair and tucked his head under their chin, no one’s gently rubbed his shoulder and whispered “It’s alright, just breathe, just breathe with me–”

When he finally stops crying and starts breathing again, Arthur doesn’t let him go, just sits on the floor with him, brushing his hair out of his face. 

“You’re really here?”

“I’m really here.” 

Merlin slumps against Arthur’s shoulder, face still wet. “I’m so tired, Arthur.”

“Then go to sleep. I’ll be here.”

“You always leave,” says Merlin, eyes growing heavy as he stares up at Arthur. He doesn’t want to go to sleep. If he goes to sleep, Arthur will leave.

“Not this time.” 

When he wakes, Arthur is still there, and the thin hope that’s taken root in his mind digs its roots in a little deeper. 

Arthur’s still holding him. It has to be uncomfortable, but he says nothing as he helps Merlin sit up. His eyes are sad, and he watches as Merlin shakily stands and runs a hand through his hair. His face feels tacky with tears, and the flat is near wrecked. 

Arthur stands slowly beside him, and reaches for his hand, fingertips brushing and falling short. “What happened, Merlin?”

Merlin closes the long-dead computer on his table. “You died,” he says, and he’s ashamed of how his voice wobbles. “And I thought you were coming back, but they found you–” He breaks off here, uncertain of how anything’s played out, of how Arthur could have returned if his bones are rotting in a museum. 

Arthur surveys the wreckage of the flat. “I don’t know what happened,” he says. “It’s been–it’s been like a dream, I suppose. I don’t think I was alive, but I didn’t feel dead, just separate .”

“They found your bones, Arthur,” says Merlin finally. “They pulled your body out of the lake and rebuilt your face.” He’s back there, for a moment, computer screen showing him a final glimpse of a not-quite-right-Arthur and he has to lean on the table. “I don’t know if you’re real. I don’t know if you’re even you anymore.” 

Arthur is watching him with an odd look in his eyes. “I still have my scars,” he says quietly. “The one on my leg from the arrow when we were looking for the Cup of Life. The one from the second time Morgana took Camelot. The ones on my back from when my father had me flogged.”

Merlin is silent, unsure of what to say to this. The Arthur in his imagination wouldn’t have scars, because in his imagination, Merlin doesn’t keep failing him. 

“I have a new one, too,” he says. He tugs his tunic up, and Merlin stares at the scar, knotted flesh where he’d bled out. Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s crossed the kitchen, broken dishes cracking under his feet, and brushed a hand against it. 

“Just–just hold me. Please.”

Merlin jerks back, but it’s too late. He’s falling again, falling back until he’s at the lake with Arthur in his arms and scent of iron in the air. 

“I want to say something I’ve never said to you before.”

Merlin doubles over, pressing his hands to his mouth. 

“I love you.”

“Merlin?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s a testament to how wrung out, how exhausted and damaged he is, that there are no tears left, just ugly, shuddering breaths that make his throat hurt. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Merlin.” Arthur comes closer, reaching out until his hand catches Merlin’s elbow. “I was never going to make it.” 

Merlin shakes his head. “You could have–”

“I knew I was going to die when he stabbed me,” says Arthur, his other hand coming to rest on Merlin’s shoulder. “The legends talk about the Fates cutting your string–that’s what it has to feel like. As soon as I felt the blade, I knew it was over.” 

Merlin tries to hunch in on himself, but Arthur puts a hand on each of his shoulders. “None of that,” he chides gently. “You’re so brave, Merlin. So strong. And I’m sorry you’ve had to be.” 

Merlin laughs humorlessly. “I’m not any of those things, Arthur. I let you die, and I let Camelot fall, and I can’t even–” He gestures helplessly at his house. “I can’t even take care of myself anymore. You’d be better off just leaving me here.” 

Arthur looks at him with something akin to hurt in his eyes. “This is my fault,” he says quietly. “And I’m sorry.” 

Merlin is slumped on a horse, cold burning through his veins so intensely that he thinks he’s finally found the pyre. Arthur’s hand finds his shoulder. “This is my fault, and I’m sorry.”

“No,” says Merlin. “It’s my fault. I’m–I’ve lost people before, and I was always able to go on. I’m just being stupid.” He runs a hand through his hair. “You probably think I’m pathetic.”  

Arthur’s face creases in concern, and Merlin thinks that maybe he’s said the wrong thing. He takes a step closer to Merlin. “Will you let me help you?”

It cuts Merlin to the core. “I can’t,” he says. “I– I’m supposed to help you . To serve you. That’s how it’s always supposed to be, and I’m useless and I can’t even take care of myself, and now I’m making you feel like you have to help me–” His fingers scrabble in the sleeves on his sweater, and he tries to ground himself. “I’m not supposed to need help. That’s not how it works.” 

“Not how what works?”

“Destiny.” 

Arthur’s face is sad as he closes the remaining distance between himself and Merlin, pulling him into a tight embrace. “Destiny will always come out how it’s supposed to, Merlin. You’re so much more than–than a tool for destiny, you’re allowed to need help.” 

Merlin shakes his head into Arthur’s shoulder. “I was born to serve you, Arthur,” he whispers. “That’s how it’s supposed to be. Always.” 

Arthur’s hand comes up to cradle the back of Merlin’s head. “Oh, Merlin,” he says, and he’s not supposed to sound that gentle, he’s not supposed to be helping Merlin, it’s always supposed to be the other way around. “You were born for so much more than that. You were born to plant flowers and read poetry and sit in the sun and watch rain out the window, to help people because you have the biggest heart I’ve ever known, to–” He holds Merlin tighter. “You were born for you , Merlin.”

They stand there like that until Merlin’s back grows stiff and Arthur’s shoulders pop as he pulls away. There are things to be done, now. Side by side, they sweep the broken dishes off the floor, dump the remains of Merlin’s old tea down the sink, gather scattered blankets and pillows. Merlin showers and dresses in clean clothing, washes his hair and finally curls up on the couch under a blanket, feeling too open and vulnerable and cold.

Arthur sits next to him. Merlin already misses the warmth of his arms around him, misses how safe he’d felt, but he’s too afraid to ask. He wonders how long it will be, how many days it will take, for Arthur to realize that Merlin’s the most useless person for him to stay with. 

“What are you thinking about?”

Merlin blinks, and Arthur is watching him again, that strange scrutiny in his eyes. “I was wondering why you’re here,” he says. 

“What do you mean?” 

Merlin curls further under the blanket. “I’m useless,” he says, and he lets it wash over him, this new-found knowledge. “I haven’t used magic for centuries, and the first time I do I nearly wreck my flat and you have to deal with the fallout. I fell apart like a child when you came back, and now you feel obligated to help for some reason, when you’re the one who’s been dead for over a thousand years. I shouldn’t need help, and you shouldn’t have to give it to me.” 

Arthur reaches forward and fixes the corner of the blanket. His eyes are glassy in the grey light, and if it were anyone but Arthur, Merlin would say he’s on the way to crying. “What if I want to help you?”

Merlin’s hands knot in the fabric of the blanket, and Arthur continues. “What if I’m here because you need help? You don’t have to do this on your own, Merlin.” 

Merlin shakes his head again. “I always have before,” he snaps. “Why should it be any different now?”

There are tears on Arthur’s face now, and Merlin feels a stab of guilt in his stomach–it’s his fault Arthur’s sad, it’s his fault Arthur’s crying–

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, because he’s not sure how to fix it, how to make it better. “I–I shouldn’t be angry with you–I–” And he’s done it again, he’s messed it all up and now Arthur’s going to leave again. Arthur’s been back for a scant few hours, and the fear of being alone has come roaring back full force, stealing through his veins and clouding his head. 

Arthur shakes his head. “You can be angry,” he says, voice wobbling. “And you can grieve, and you can feel everything you need to. Just don’t do it alone.” 

Merlin curls his hands into fists, nails biting into his palms. “I have to,” he says, and he hates himself in that moment. It would take a word, nothing more, a word and Arthur will keep him from falling apart again. He’ll help Merlin fight all his demons with the same fury he fought with on the battlefield, with the same determination he had ruled with. A word, and Merlin won’t be alone. 

And he can’t do it. 

He presses his thumbnail as hard as he can into the joint of his pointer finger, not caring about the red marks that it leaves, and stands. The flat is mostly clean now, broken dishes and old papers cleared away. The floor could use a sweep, the rug by the couch needs to be vacuumed, but it’s fine for now. 

Arthur is watching him. He looks so sad, sitting with the blanket half-unraveled on his lap and tearstains on his cheeks. He shouldn’t look like this. It’s Merlin’s fault he looks like this. Soon enough he’ll realize that he deserves more than this, more than whatever pathetic existence Merlin’s eked out, and he’ll be gone, and Merlin will be alone again. 

“Do you want the couch or the bed?” His voice is shakier than he’d like, trembling around unshed tears. 

Arthur is still regarding him with that quiet, contemplative look, and Merlin doesn’t know what to make of it. 

“I’ll take the couch,” he says, shaking out the blanket. Merlin stands there, at a loss, until instincts buried under a thousand and a half years take over and he arranges the pillows so Arthur can lay down, straightens out the blanket. 

“You don’t have to do that anymore,” Arthur says as Merlin finishes fixing the covers. 

Merlin stills. “I don’t know what else to do,” he whispers. 

Arthur nods slowly. “I know the feeling.”

Merlin tells himself over and over that as soon as he can get to his room, he can let it out, he can cry as much as he wants to and not feel Arthur watching him, but when the door closes, he finds that there are no tears, so he just sinks onto the bed and curls around his pillow. 

In the years since Arthur died, Merlin has come to hate the dragon. Kilgharrah may be the only remaining link to his father, but Merlin is no longer the child he was when he arrived in Camelot, desperately seeking something , and so secretly relieved to hear that there was some purpose to his existence. 

He hates the dragon, for telling him his destiny, and Arthur’s, and Morgana’s. Every moment of his life has become tied to the beast’s prophecies. 

“He never returned magic to the land, you know.”

Merlin doesn’t look at Kilgharrah as he lands behind him. He doesn’t say anything. 

“Do you know what that means?”

He does. He knows it all too well, knows with every fiber of his being. Nothing that the dragon says can hurt him. He’s said it all to himself so many times. 

“You failed at your destiny, young warlock. You have doomed magic.”

Merlin can’t find it in himself to care. 

“Without magic, your king will never return.” 

That hurts. The dragon has always had the answers, has always known far more that Merlin has, but Merlin knows how to cling to hope.

“You forget yourself,” he says, and he is proud of the strength in his voice. “I am Emrys. I am the son of the earth, the sea, the sky. I am magic itself, and so long as I am here, so is magic.” 

The dragon rumbles out a laugh, and Merlin relishes the spark of anger that lights in his chest, that chases away the freezing numbness. 

“You also forget that I am the Last Dragonlord. Do not cross me. Your life is in my hands.” 

Kilgharrah tilts his head. “My time is soon, young warlock. And you will be alone.”

He flies away, and the world shifts. It’s a battlefield now, and Merlin recognizes Camelot’s colors, the garb of the Saxons. He’s had this dream before, and the only thing he can do is run toward the cliffs where he knows Arthur will be. 

He’s too late, always too late. This time he meets Arthur’s eyes as the sword plunges between his ribs. The scream that rips itself from his throat brings with it a surge of magic, and Mordred crumples, the Saxons scatter. 

Merlin makes it to Arthur’s side, pressing his hand to the jagged hole in his chainmail. “Arthur,” he whispers, brushing his hair back. “Come on, we can fix this, everything will be alright–”

Arthur is pushing at him weakly. “Get away,” he croaks. 

“What?” Merlin doesn’t understand. 

“Get away from me,” snaps Arthur, and he sits up halfway, coughing, a horrible river of red running from his mouth. “You lied to me, Merlin, and now you’ve failed.” 

Arthur is dying now, Merlin knows it, but if he could just get Arthur to the lake… 

“Arthur, please , just let me help you–”

“No, Merlin.” Arthur’s voice is eerily calm, his eyes empty. “I’m going to die. And you’re going to watch. And you’re going to know that it is your fault.” His lips curl up in an awful grin. “You’ll have to live with that. Forever.” 

When Merlin wakes up, the tears are finally there, ready to overflow. He sits as still as he can and the walls blur, the edges of the door blur, and finally his face is wet and he can’t see a thing. It takes a moment for his body to catch up, and his lungs freeze and unfreeze, his shoulders shudder. He feels like he’s falling apart. 

In the end, he does what he always has: wipes the tears away, forces his lungs to behave, manages to make his hands stop shaking. Arthur is on the couch, waiting for him, and Merlin is there to serve Arthur. That hasn’t changed. 

Arthur is still asleep when Merlin creeps into the living room. He tries to make as little noise as possible, but Arthur’s eyes snap open anyway, focusing immediately on Merlin and closing again. Merlin has always known that Arthur would only sleep soundly around him, and it tugs at something in his chest to know that it’s still the same. 

He lets Arthur sleep, and slips into the kitchen. There is dust on the surfaces, so he lets the once-and-again familiar ripple of magic clean it for him. There’s no food in the refrigerator, nothing but stale bread in the cabinets. There’s tea, which he takes out, and oatmeal packets that he’s sure didn’t actually expire. 

Arthur sleeps until the kettle whistles. Merlin can hear him stirring in the next room, then his footsteps coming to the door. He comes in just as Merlin pours the water for the oatmeal and stirs it. 

“It’s not much,” he says, placing the bowl in front of Arthur. He’s added sugar to a cup of tea as well, and sits across Arthur with his own. 

“Thank you,” says Arthur, and the words should sound odd in his voice. He sits at the place Merlin has set for him and meets his eyes across the table. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’m not very hungry,” he says. 

Arthur’s expression goes unreadable, and he watches Merlin drink his tea. “Where do we go to find food?” He eats a bite of the oatmeal, and if he finds it unsatisfactory, he doesn’t say anything. “I haven’t seen any markets around, and I’m not sure what hunting would be like here.”

Merlin swills the dregs of his tea. Where do we go, a return to the days of Merlin-and-Arthur. “There are still markets,” he says. “They’re just different. I can go to one. People don’t really hunt for food much anymore, though. Just for sport.”

Arthur stirs his food. “You never liked it when I would hunt for sport,” he says. 

“Never saw the point.” Merlin tries for a smile, but he thinks his face has forgotten how to do it. 

“Are you a physician?”

“What?” 

“You were Gaius’s apprentice for so many years,” muses Arthur. “I had thought it might be a way for you to support yourself after…”

“I was, for awhile. When people needed it. Sometimes I told them stories. I’ve done a lot of things, I guess.” 

“What do you do now?”

How can Merlin explain the concept of a barista to Arthur, let alone a coffee shop? He fiddles with the string on his teabag. “I’m a cook, of sorts. I make drinks for people.” 

Arthur doesn’t pursue the question, just finishes his oatmeal. Merlin takes the dish before he sets it down, washes it, and puts it away. Arthur seems ill at ease, and Merlin doesn’t think that he’s much better. 

“I–um–” Merlin needs to go back to work, to make sure he has enough money to keep the apartment and buy food for himself and for Arthur now. He needs to buy groceries. Somewhere in the future, he has to buy a second bed–Arthur can’t sleep on the couch forever. He won’t have to, Merlin reminds himself, because he’ll leave soon enough . As soon as he realizes that Merlin is more useless in this world than he ever was in Camelot. 

Merlin blinks, and realizes that Arthur has stood up and taken a couple steps toward him. “Merlin?” 

“Yeah?”

Arthur looks relieved. “You’re alright,” he says. 

Merlin nods. He’s not sure why Arthur’s concerned. “I have to get food,” he says. “And I have to go back to work.”

Arthur smiles, and Merlin is the only person who knows him well enough to know that it’s fake. “Right,” he says, and though he doesn’t ask what he should do, Merlin knows that he’s bothered, bothered by the idea of purposelessness. 

Merlin racks his brain, but Arthur is out of place in the flat. There are no swords to swing, no battle plans to draw out, no people to approach him to ask for help. He ends up setting out a few books for Arthur in the living room, along with a water bottle. He doesn’t quite trust him to use the faucet yet. 

The sky is overcast, the air heavy with the threat of rain. The coffee shop is still closed when he gets there–he hasn’t checked the schedule, for all he knows, he’s opening today. He slots the key in the lock and opens the door, makes for the counter, and switches on the lights. 

A little while later, one of the other baristas comes in–Wren, he thinks their name is, small and thin with ice-blue hair. He’s talked to them a few times before.

Their eyes light up when they see Merlin, and they grin. “Merlin!”

“Hi, Wren.” Before he can react any more than that, Wren has barrelled across the shop and thrown their arms around him. He stumbles, taken aback. 

“We were all worried about you,” they say, once they’ve pulled away. 

Merlin blinks, feeling the ghost of their arms around his ribs. “What?”

“Two weeks,” they said. “No one heard from you at all. We all tried to call you, and I think Mallory went to the address that you had listed, but there wasn’t any answer.”

Merlin shrugs. “I had a–um. I was sick.” 

“Feeling better now?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” It’s odd, to be cared about. To be missed. 

They work side by side as the customers file in, taking and preparing and sending out orders. Merlin works straight through his lunch break, and only stops when the shop closes. He tells Wren goodnight, and they press a wax paper bag of scones into his hand, insisting that they’d have to throw them out anyway. They give him another quick hug before they leave, and tell him to make sure he eats something. 

He tucks the scones into his backpack and heads to the grocery store. It’s growing dark outside, and the first raindrops are hitting the pavement by the time he gets inside. He buys vegetables, bouillon cubes, a loaf of bread. A second toothbrush. Another tin of tea. He buys a few sets of clothes for Arthur, not knowing what else to do or how long he’ll stay. 

It’s pouring outside when he finally starts the walk home, so he ducks and weaves under awnings and through alcoves. He’s still soaked to the skin by the time he reaches his building, though his bag has stayed mostly dry. 

The flat is dark and quiet when he steps in, and for a moment, his heart rate kicks up–he knows that Arthur’s going to leave, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t scare him–but Arthur is sitting on the couch, blanket around his shoulders. His face is blank, and he’s staring out at the rain. 

“Arthur?”

Arthur hums in acknowledgement, not turning around. Merlin sets the bag of scones, the clothes, the groceries on the table and makes his way to crouch by the couch. Arthur glances at him. 

“Are you alright?” 

Arthur takes a deep breath, and Merlin is startled to hear the shudder in it. “I just–” He shakes his head and stands up, swiping a hand over his face. “It’s nothing.” He makes for the kitchen, and Merlin follows, his shoes squishing uncomfortably.

Arthur raises his eyebrows. “You’re soaked,” he says. 

Merlin shrugs. “Happens when it rains.” He starts to put the groceries away, but Arthur stops him before he gets far. 

“Go change your clothes. Can’t have my manserv–” Arthur cuts himself off, and his jaw tightens. “Can’t have you catching a cold.” His face has gone hard, a defense tactic Merlin recognizes in a second, one he barely managed to breach before.

There are things to be said here, but Merlin is not brave enough to say them, so he just hands Arthur the pajamas that he bought. “These are for you,” he says. “If you want to get cleaned up, you can change.”

He goes to his room and changes out of his sodden clothing, depositing it in the laundry room. Arthur is in the kitchen now, wearing a red sweatshirt over his pajamas. The sleeves are slightly too long, covering his hands. 

Merlin fries a couple of eggs and makes toast for Arthur, who sits at the table and eats it without complaint. For a moment, it’s almost like Camelot again, like Merlin is still Arthur’s manservant, like Arthur never died and Merlin didn’t spend fifteen hundred years mourning. 

“You need to eat something.” 

Merlin looks up from where he’s washing Arthur’s plate. “What?”

“You didn’t eat this morning, and you’re not eating anything now.” Arthur comes to stand next to Merlin. “You have to take care of yourself.”

Merlin turns back to the sink, but Arthur catches his wrist. “Merlin, I’m worried about you. You’ve don’t seem–” He looks past Merlin’s head as if the words he’s looking for are written on the cupboard doors. “You don’t seem yourself.” 

I don’t want you to change. I want you to always be you.

Merlin’s shoulders slump forward under the weight of another failure, but he steps away when Arthur steps closer. “It’s late,” he says, deliberately changing the subject. “Are you alright on the couch again tonight?”

Arthur follows Merlin to the living room. “Yes,” he says quietly. His eyes have that strange, watchful look to them again.

Merlin straightens out the blankets on the couch, and fluffs the pillows. “I’ll figure out something better in the next few days,” he says. “Unless you want to go somewhere else.” 

“I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

Merlin doesn’t meet his eyes. “Alright,” he says. “If you say so.” 

Arthur curls up on the couch, and he looks up at Merlin. “Goodnight,” he says. His expression is odd but familiar, and Merlin tucks it in the back of his mind, another mystery to unpack, another remnant of Camelot to unravel.

He reaches his room before he recognizes the expression–it clicks into place with other memories. Morgana’s betrayal. Lancelot’s sacrifice. Uther’s death. 

Arthur is grieving. 

It makes sense, all things considered. Arthur’s lost everyone and everything in one fell swoop, gone from a king with a wife who loved him and knights who would follow him into the darkest pits of hell to someone out of place and alone. Merlin must be a poor consolation prize. 

It takes him a long time to fall asleep that night, and he dreams about Camelot. He’s happier than he’s been in years, until he opens his eyes and finds himself staring at the still blades of his ceiling fan. 

They fall into an uneasy routine. Merlin wakes first. Some days he feels even worse than he did when Arthur was gone, and the pain in his chest creeps up to his throat and prickles in the corners of his eyes, but he forces himself out of bed, forces himself to straighten the covers, forces himself to tiptoe into the kitchen and prepare food. Arthur joins him, and they sit in silence. Merlin has started eating a little bit in the mornings, to stop Arthur from worrying. Most days he feels too sick to manage more than a slice of toast. 

Merlin goes to work after that, leaving Arthur alone at the flat. He feels guilty about it, knows that Arthur has always needed to move and think and do things. After the first few days, he shows Arthur around the neighborhood, takes him to the park. He thinks Arthur spends a lot of time there. 

He buys a second bedframe and mattress, another set of sheets, more pillows and blankets. He sets it up in the corner of the living room, moving bookshelves to create an alcove for privacy. 

Eventually Arthur starts to come with him to the grocery store. He is wary of everything, and Merlin can’t blame him. The world is so different from the one he left. 

They don’t talk much. Merlin isn’t sure what’s wrong with him–Arthur’s return is all he’s hoped for for centuries, and now that he’s back, he’s still not happy . Something’s missing. He feels like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Arthur to set out on his own and find someone better than Merlin to spend his second life with. 

There’s something wrong with Arthur, too. He’s quiet and deferent. He’s learned to clean up after himself, and never complains about anything. He never teases Merlin, never punches him lightly in the arm or swings him into a headlock. In some ways, it’s like Merlin doesn’t have Arthur back at all. 

They walk to the park together one evening, and throw frozen peas to ducks in the pond. Arthur’s face is starting to move again, less stone and more human. He smiles at Merlin once, as they walk back, and Merlin feels the tightness in his chest start to loosen. 

That night, he feels almost like himself again as he curls up to sleep. Almost, but not quite. 

He gets up for a drink of water in the early hours of the morning, when the sky is still dark. He tries to be as quiet as he can going through the living room, but Arthur is already awake. 

“Merlin–” he says, and his voice is hoarse. He’s doubled over, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead. His hand is pressed to his side, right over his scar, and Merlin can’t move, can’t breathe, just stumbles forward and pulls Arthur to his chest. He trips, and they both fall to the floor. 

“Merlin, it’s alright–”

Merlin can’t speak. He feels as though his mouth has been glued shut. He’s known that Arthur’s going to leave, but not like this , never like this, not the same way all over again. 

“I’ll be fine, Merlin.” 

Merlin shakes his head and runs a hand through Arthur’s hair. “Don’t die, Arthur,” he says, and he’s ashamed of how desperate his voice is. “I can’t do it again, Arthur.” 

“I’m not dying, Merlin. I promise.” Arthur sits up a little and turns to face Merlin. His face is drawn, but he presses Merlin’s hand to his side. “It hurts sometimes. It’s bad tonight, but it’ll pass.” 

Merlin presses his hand more firmly against Arthur’s ribs, the ridges of the scar fitting to his fingers, and Arthur’s shoulders relax slightly. 

“It hurts sometimes?”

“Badly. But it can’t be helped.” 

They sit in the dark. Arthur’s arms are tight around Merlin, and Merlin can’t quite bring himself to pull away. There are things to be said, but neither of them speak. Eventually Arthur nods off and slumps to the floor, at which point Merlin lifts him to the couch and covers him with a blanket.

Merlin sits at the kitchen table and doesn’t move until sunrise. Arthur comes in a little later than usual, and Merlin makes breakfast. His stomach rebels at the toast, so he tosses it in the garbage and gathers his things for work. 

“I’m sorry,” says Arthur.

Merlin stops at the door. “You don’t have to be,” he says. His hand falls from the door handle, and he forces himself to step closer to Arthur. “I–I should have handled it better. I wish I could do more to help you.” 

Arthur looks at him sadly. “I know this isn't what you’d hoped for,” he says. 

Merlin's stomach churns with guilt. “I shouldn’t have hoped for anything,” he mutters, unable to meet Arthur’s eyes. “It’s not fair to put that kind of expectation on you.” 

Arthur looks down at his empty plate. “Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if I just stayed dead.”

Merlin’s stomach drops. “What?” His voice is threatening to break. It’s beginning, Arthur is realizing that being trapped in this flat, trapped here with Merlin and the grief that he can’t let go of, is worse than being dead. 

Arthur won’t meet Merlin’s eyes. “It’s not your fault,” he says. “I just–I wish that you hadn’t had to grieve for so long. That you didn’t have to wait and spend all this time thinking about what would happen when I finally get back, and then realize that I’m just as much of a burden as I ever was and you were better off without me.”

Merlin rocks back. “I–I can’t–” He takes a deep breath. “I have to go,” he says, and he makes it out of the flat before the tears start. These were not the things that needed to be said. These were things that came from too much pain on both sides, from two men who never really learned what to do with the ache in their chest. He still doesn’t know what to do. 

When he arrives at the coffee shop, Wren is already there. They wave cheerfully, grinning, but freeze when they see Merlin’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Merlin sniffles, and Wren steers him over to a table, sitting him down and placing a cup of tea firmly in front of him. “Drink,” they say, pushing his hands around the cup. They get a blueberry muffin from the pasty case and set it in front of him, and he breaks off a piece of the top and forces himself to eat it. 

“Talk to me, Merlin.” Wren is across from him now, face bright and earnest. They’re so kind, so sweet, so helpful to everyone. Merlin wants to tell them, so badly, but he feels guilty about not talking to Arthur first–

“I can’t tell you,” he says, and the words twist in his chest. “There’s–there’s someone else who I have to tell first, but I don’t know how to tell him. I just want to tell someone , to feel like I’m not alone, but I feel like I don’t know how to talk to anyone anymore.” 

Wren reaches out and places a hand over Merlin’s. He nearly flinches, but they squeeze his fingers gently. “I’ll tell you what,” they say softly. “You can tell me whatever you need to. Get it untangled, figure out what you want to say, yeah? And then you can tell your person.” 

Something in Merlin’s chest cries out, something lonely and starving, and he stares into his tea. “I…I’ve lost a lot of people. My family, my friends. The person I cared about most, he–” Merlin’s not sure how to phrase it. “I thought he was going to die, and we said our goodbyes. I thought he died, and I spent years mourning him, but he came back recently.” 

Wren nods. “Alright,” they say. “What else?”

“Having him back–I had hoped for it for years. But now that he is, I don’t know how to… how to be happy, again, I guess? It’s like having him back brings back so much of the grief, and he’s lost all the same people I have, but hasn’t had the same opportunity to process it, and I don’t know how to help him do that, because I didn’t do a great job myself.” Merlin isn’t sure where the words are coming from, just knows that with every word he says to Wren his heart hurts less. 

Wren nudges the muffin closer to Merlin, and he takes a bite. They look past Merlin’s shoulder, deep in thought. 

“I’m afraid of the moment he realizes,” says Merlin. “The moment he realizes that he can do better, that literally anyone else in the world would be a better person for him to stay with. I can’t help him. I can’t even help myself.” 

Wren takes Merlin’s empty teacup back to the counter. “I don’t know everything about your situation,” they say. “But I think you’re being too hard on yourself. You’ve just found someone you thought you’d lost, and you’re trying to process that. You’re still trying to process what you feel about the people you’ve lost before, and you’re trying to help your friend and–from the sound of it–not letting him help you.” They dunk the cup in the sink. “It sounds like he might be the only person who understands what you’re feeling right now. You need that. And he needs you.” 

Merlin eats another piece of muffin. “Thank you,” he says. “I’ll think about that.”

Sometime partway through the morning, Merlin decides that he’ll talk to Arthur tonight. He’ll tell him about everything, everything that he didn’t know from Camelot, everything that’s happened since. 

By closing time, he’s changed his mind. Arthur’s words from that morning echo in his head: It would have been better if I just stayed dead. I’m just as much of a burden as I ever was. You’d be better off without me.

This is how Arthur’s feeling, purposeless and senseless and in pain, and Merlin’s been too busy wallowing in his own self-pity to help him. It doesn’t matter if he leaves, it doesn’t matter that things will never be the same, none of it matters because Arthur needs help and Merlin isn’t giving it to him. 

He stays late to take inventory, because in his useless, selfish heart, he can’t find it in himself to go home to where Arthur is sitting in the living room. Hollow. Waiting. Maybe he’ll be asleep when Merlin gets home. Maybe he can wait until the morning. 

It’s nearly ten o’clock when he leaves the shop. He walks home in the dark, past the grocery store, past the park. Arthur needs him, he needs Arthur, but neither of them can bring themselves to say it, stuck in the same vicious cycle they had been in Camelot. Two sides of the same coin, always spinning, a glance out of the corner of an eye, a flash, and gone. 

He opens the door to the flat slowly, not wanting to wake Arthur if he’s already asleep. The kitchen light is on, but the living room is dark. Merlin sets his shoes by the door and pads through the kitchen–he’ll eat in the morning–to the living room. Arthur’s not on the couch, nor is he in his bed beside the bookshelf. A prickle of unease snakes down Merlin’s spine, and he starts to walk faster. Arthur’s not in Merlin’s room, not that he really expected him to be, not in the bathroom, and that’s the whole flat searched. Merlin stumbles back into the living room, and his hands start to shake. 

Arthur’s gone.

Chapter Text

Merlin can’t breathe; all the air’s been sucked out of the flat and left his lungs. He sinks to the floor and tries to ground himself, to feel the carpet between his fingers, but something’s left the world and nothing feels real. His hands feel like ice, numb, immobile, and sweat trickles down the back of his neck.

Arthur’s gone. He died and came back and Merlin didn’t take care of him and now he’s gone. 

Merlin can’t stop shaking, and his chest hurts. His heart has stopped for all he knows, and maybe it’s for the better—he can’t fathom how he’s going to go on this time. His throat is sealed shut, and he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He’s drunk poison again and his throat has closed up and there’s no Arthur here to find the antidote. 

Maybe Arthur decided to leave. Maybe it wasn’t old pain in his wound at all and he’s bleeding out somewhere. Maybe he’s already dead. Maybe he was never back at all, and Merlin imagined the whole thing. Maybe—

With every thought, Merlin can feel himself drifting further, losing his grip. He feels like there’s a vise around his chest, clamping down and slowly crushing his ribs until there’s no room left for his lungs to expand, for his heart to beat. 

He manages to take a breath, and it’s an uphill battle, because there are tears in the way now, choking him, and his stomach is rebelling, though there’s nothing in it to heave up. He’s completely out of his own control, every part of him shuddering and failing like a machine that’s been left alone too long. He can’t stop. 

“Merlin, you idiot, where were you?” 

Merlin uncurls from his spot on the floor to see Arthur standing in the doorway. He’s disheveled and looks as though he’s run up the stairs to the flat. Merlin doesn’t hesitate, just lurches over to Arthur and throws his arms around him. He’s crying in earnest now, barely able to speak. 

“I thought you left,” he sobs into Arthur’s neck. “I thought you were gone again and it was going to be my fault again.” 

Arthur steers him gently over to the couch and sits him down without dislodging his arms in the slightest. He switches on the lamp, and his hand goes to the back of Merlin’s head. “I’m here, Merlin,” he says softly. “I was worried when you didn’t come home. I went to find you, but I can’t really find anything anymore.”

Merlin can feel his body resetting, the pain in his chest lessening. Arthur is here. Arthur didn’t leave. His breath returns almost to normal, an occasional gasp slipping in as his sobs quiet. There are things to be said, here in the soft light.

After a long while, Merlin manages to sit up. “I think we need to talk,” he says, and a heavy feeling settles in his bones. This will not be easy. 

Arthur, for his part, puts the kettle on for tea and wipes down the table in the kitchen. It may be the oddest thing about having him back, the fact that he’s learned how to function as a human being and not just as a royal prat. 

When there are two cups of tea on the table, Merlin and Arthur sit face-to-face across from each other. Merlin wraps his hands around his cup. “This isn’t going to be easy for me,” he says, and curse it all, his voice is already wobbling. “But I have to do it. All I ask is that you hear me out.” 

Arthur is watching Merlin intently now, and Merlin knows that the best way to untangle a life is to start at the beginning and follow the thread. So he tells Arthur everything that he doesn’t know already, tells him about a baby born with eyes that burned gold for the first hour of his life, a little boy who didn’t understand why he couldn’t use magic to fix the flowers. He tells him about a clumsily felled tree, a friend who knew things but didn’t speak of them. 

He tells Arthur about years of fear, about a border where one king hunts magic for slaves and the other hunts it for the pyre, about losing control, about a long journey to a city where sorcerers lose their heads and swing from gallows and go up in smoke. He tells him about a dragon who spoke in riddles. He tells him about the times he saved a prince, a prat with a heart of gold. There are a lot of those.

Merlin twitches his hands around his teacup, fingernails tapping on the ceramic. “I’ve done things, Arthur—things I’m not proud of.” 

Arthur reaches forward, but Merlin shakes his head. “I have to tell you. And it’s alright if you’re angry. You don’t have to forgive me for any of it. But you need to know.”

“I’ll forgive you, Merlin—”

“Don’t say that.” Merlin squeezes his eyes shut. “You might not.” 

Arthur pours more tea into both cups, and sits back in his chair. “Alright, then,” he says. “Tell me.” 

“I poisoned Morgana.”

Arthur’s eyes bore into him for a half a minute. “You–” 

“I poisoned her,” he whispers. 

Merlin hears Morgana cough once, twice, three times before he turns around and meets her gaze. Her hand is at her throat, lower lip trembling, and he nods once, watches the fear and betrayal battle in her eyes. 

He takes a step closer, because Morgana is going to die, and for the sake of the girl that he met years ago, he gathers her up in his arms. She fights him, at first, pushing and trying to scramble away, but hemlock acts quickly, and she’s fading fast. 

She gasps for air, choking on each breath, and her hand fists in the fabric of his jacket. Merlin holds her and feels the tears run down his face and wonders how it all came to this . 

“Merlin?”

Merlin blinks, and he’s back at the table in his flat. Arthur is sitting across from him, face unreadable. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

Arthur’s face doesn’t change, but he reaches out and touches Merlin’s cheek. His fingertips come away wet. “Why are you crying?” he says slowly. 

Merlin wants to flinch away from Arthur, to curl up and return everything he’s said to the dark, tangled mess in his heart, but he presses his hands flat to the table. “I should have done better,” he says.

Arthur raises one eyebrow. “Why did you do it?”

“It was the day of the sleeping sickness–curse. When Morgause’s knights stormed the citadel. I was so sure we were all going to die, and I asked someone for help, someone I shouldn’t have trusted. They told me that Morgana was the root of the enchantment, and that the only way to break it was to—” He swallows. “To kill her. So that’s what I tried to do.” 

It sounds so pathetic when he says it, like the barely-there excuse that’s kept the guilt at bay is crumbling. He should have figured something else, should have gone to anyone but the dragon, should have taken Arthur and ran, but his brain had been so foggy with cursed sleep that he hadn’t known what to do. 

Arthur is still watching him. “Who told you to kill Morgana?” He sits forward a little. “Was it the dragon?”

Merlin nods soundlessly. “And he demanded a price, that time. I asked him for too much with no return.” 

Something sparks in Arthur’s eyes. “A price?”

“I had to free him.” 

The words fall to the table like bricks, and Merlin remembers the long nights of siege and fire, ineffectual arrows clattering to the courtyard, civilians cowering in the castle corridors. Guilt had weighed on him, pulled him down until he thought he would drown. 

“You freed the dragon,” says Arthur tonelessly, and Merlin knows that Arthur can only forgive so much. He always has been for his kingdom, for his people, and Merlin betrayed that. 

“I didn’t know what he would do,” says Merlin. “I was scared. He’d made me swear on my mother’s life, and I was just—” He can remember Arthur sprinting across the cobblestones to protect Gwen, can remember the wound in his shoulder that he hid until it was very nearly too late. 

There are more things to say, though, so while Arthur’s gaze is fixed on the table, Merlin starts talking again. “Before we went to find the Dragonlord, Gaius told me something.” Merlin swills the tea in his mug and scrapes a fingertip along his thumbnail. “The Dragonlord—Balinor—he was my father.” 

“Your father?”

Merlin remembers the moment of elation—he’s finally found it, found what was missing when he was young, found that missing piece and maybe he could feel like something other than a half-loved bastard—

And he remembers the woods. The fight. The smell of blood and soil, mixing, the roughly carved wooden dragon that still sits, worn smooth and shiny with age, in his bedroom. 

“He was your father,” says Arthur softly, and the hardness in his eyes has faded. Not quite forgiveness, not yet, but understanding. 

Merlin’s not quite done, though, so he just plows on. “When he died, his powers passed on to me. I was the last Dragonlord, and Kilgharrah was the last dragon. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let him die. I’m still not sure why. I ordered him away from Camelot, though. And he obeyed.” He can’t look at Arthur, not now.

Arthur reaches across the table and wraps his fingers around Merlin’s wrist, squeezing gently, not letting go when Merlin tries to pull away. There’s something terrible in his expression, a guilt that Merlin knows too well, and his voice is shaking when he speaks. “How much have you lost, Merlin? How many times did you come back from some—some—some self-sacrificing idiotic mission injured?” He says mission as if it tastes bad in his mouth, as if it wasn't Merlin's duty and destiny to save Camelot and Arthur, time and time again.

This isn’t what Merlin expected from Arthur, not at all. He’s not supposed to do this. He’s supposed to do this, not after finding out about the dragon, not after finding out about Morgana. He has no idea, really, the extent of what Merlin’s done, the blood that stains his hands, the mistakes that lock around his limbs on bad days and shackle him down. He wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be helping Merlin, if he knew, so Merlin tries to speak again:

“I killed your father—”

“Stop it–”

“No, you have to know it all, I was the sorcerer, I tried to save him but I killed him instead, and–”

“Just stop, Merlin.” Arthur’s voice is strained, and his eyes are rimmed with red. “Don’t change the subject. Don’t bring up something that you think will distract me. How much were you hurt?”

Merlin can’t bring himself to answer. “You’re supposed to hate me,” he says. “I’m supposed to tell you that I’m a monster and you’re supposed to hate me.” 

Arthur is staring at him. “How many times, Merlin?” His voice is soft, deadly. 

Merlin’s hands twitch. “I lost… I lost a lot of people, Arthur,” he says quietly. “And—you would have called it battleshock. There are other names for it now, but I don’t think—I don’t think I ever really recovered.” 

Arthur’s eyes are sad now, and he gestures at Merlin’s neck. His hand flies up automatically, and his fingertips brush against the scar from the Fomorroh. 

“Are there more?”

Merlin’s stands slowly, and even more slowly, pulls off his shirt. Arthur’s never seen him without one; he doesn’t think he’s even seen him in short sleeves. 

Arthur’s eyes widen, and he stands so that he’s across the table from Merlin. 

Merlin feels exposed, flayed open. He knows what Arthur is seeing—the burn on his chest from Nimueh’s fireball, the arrow wound in his side where he’d been struck by one of Morgana’s men, various slices and jagged punctures and poorly stitched gashes that he had tried to fix himself, sitting on the narrow bed in his small room. He turns slightly, so Arthur can see his back—the serket sting, the manifold tears from falling from cliffs and walls. There’s a particularly nasty one just below the base of his neck, from when the Dorocha threw him into the wall. 

Merlin is so lost in the past that he doesn’t notice Arthur step closer until warm fingers settle on his arm, tracing a small, silver slit on his bicep. 

“I said this was your first battle wound,” he says. Merlin remembers it well, remembers the way Arthur had torn off a strip of his tunic and tied it tight to soak up the blood. If he hadn’t, Merlin probably wouldn’t even have noticed the cut. 

Merlin forces himself to stand still as Arthur’s hand presses to the scar. His other hand brushes against burn on his chest, against the worst of the scarring across his ribcage. “You tried to close this one yourself, with stitches,” he says quietly. Merlin nods, and Arthur moves to another scar. “And this one. But there’s a burn scar over it. You tried to cauterise it.” 

Arthur knows battle, and he knows scars. Merlin knows that if he looked long enough, he would fathom out what had caused each one. He would read the history of pain written across Merlin’s skin and sit with it, sit with the truth and the pain and the guilt. 

Merlin steps back, and Arthur gives him space. He still feels raw, like the skin after a scab falls off—healing, but still too tender, too easily torn. He pulls his shirt back on, and Arthur’s eyes follow him, and Merlin can recognize the grief in his expression far too easily. 

They sit back at the table again, and Merlin finishes his story. It’s all down to the bare essentials, now—Merlin doesn’t have the strength to dredge up anything else. 

By the time he’s finished, his voice is hoarse and his hands are shaking with exhaustion. Arthur looks just as tired, eyes rimmed with red and guilt. Still, he is the one who heats a can of soup on the stove and slices bread for dinner, though it’s the middle of the night. They eat in silence, rinse their bowls side by side. Merlin wipes the table with a damp cloth, and Arthur steps out to change into pajamas. 

Merlin finds himself in his room, dressed in an old sweatshirt and flannel pants. He sits down on his bed, turns off the bathroom lights, and curls up under the covers.

He’s so tired of it all. Talking to Arthur has dredged up memories he hasn’t touched in years. It’s like kicking up silt in the riverbed, clouding and cloying. His veins are buzzing, tight with anxiety, and he can’t shake the fear. He hasn’t felt this shaky since Camelot. Faces dance behind his eyelids and the taste of poison ghosts across his tongue. 

There’s a knock at his bedroom door, and he swallows. “Come in,” he says. 

Arthur pokes his head inside. “I wanted to say goodnight,” he says. 

“Goodnight,” says Merlin. “And thank you. For listening.” His voice is weak. 

Arthur lingers just past the doorframe. “Thank you for telling me,” he says. “And if I can–if you need help, you only have to ask. And if it’s too much for you to ask, if you have any trouble at all, just…” He trails off, then smiles gently. “You don’t have to ask. We’ve always—” He doesn’t finish the thought, but Merlin knows what he means. They’ve always been beyond speaking, in a way. 

Merlin smiles, and a lump rises in his throat. He sniffles, and swipes a hand across his face. “Thank you,” he says.

Arthur just smiles, and shuffles outside the door. He seems like he’s waiting for something. “Well, goodnight,” he says finally. 

“Goodnight,” says Merlin, and he lays back down as Arthur starts toward the living room. As soon as he’s gone, the room seems to dim, to grow colder. He knows this feeling; the same one that precedes a night full of the worst dreams his memory can cook up, the same one that precedes days where he can barely move, either because of his scars or because his limbs won’t obey and everything goes sluggish. Even as his head hits the pillow, there’s so much old pain lancing over his scars, and his heart kicks up, beating double time. He’s been poisoned, he’s been stabbed, he’s fallen, every face he’s ever killed is laughing at him, and it’s too much. 

I can ask for help I can ask for help I can—

It takes several minutes of lying in bed with his heart in his throat to even force himself to stand, and he walks on trembling legs to the door. Opening the door is another battle, and he forces himself just a step into the hallway.

“Arthur?” he calls. Arthur’s standing at the end of the hallway, one of Merlin’s books in his hand, and he turns around.

“Yeah?”

Merlin opens his mouth to say I need you, to say will you stay with me, but his voice catches, and he’s afraid that if he talks, everything that’s left holding him together will crumble. 

He tries to speak, but his throat seizes up, and Arthur comes back down the hall. The moment’s beyond words, as they always have been. He stands in front of Merlin so they’re eye to eye, and tilts Merlin’s chin up.

“Do you think you can tell me what you need?” 

Merlin shakes his head. His heart is still jackhammering against his ribs, and the lump in his throat is painful, bringing tears to his eyes. His whole body is throbbing, old wounds pulled open by memories.

“Can I ask? All you have to do is nod or shake your head.” 

Merlin nods, and Arthur rubs his shoulder. “Alright,” he says. “Do you need anything to eat or drink?”

Merlin shakes his head. 

“Okay,” says Arthur softly. “Do you need something to hold?”

Merlin thinks for a moment, then shrugs. Arthur reaches out and takes his hands. “Is this alright?” he says, and Merlin nods. Arthur steps closer, letting Merlin rest his head against his shoulder. 

“Are you tired?”

Merlin nods into Arthur’s shoulder. 

“Right,” says Arthur. “What can I do so that you can sleep?”

Merlin opens his mouth to speak, but a weak croak comes out instead. 

“It’s alright,” says Arthur. “Take your time.” 

Merlin leans harder into Arthur’s shoulder, squeezes his hands, and grits his teeth. He’s so tired, but beyond that, he’s tired of being alone and scared and cold. Arthur is here. Arthur wants to help him. Arthur wants him to be well. 

“Stay?” he whispers, half-ashamed of how hard it is for him to say one word. 

Arthur smiles. “Of course,” he says, so gently, so softly, that Merlin’s heart crumbles all over again. He slips an arm around Merlin’s shoulders and guides him over to the bed. He waits for Merlin to lay down, straightens the blankets out, then climbs up beside him, wrapping Merlin up in his arms and arranging his head on his chest. 

“Is this alright?” he asks, and Merlin nods. They lay like that for a while, and Merlin feels his heartbeat return to normal, his mind stops buzzing, the lump in his throat starts to dissipate. 

“Does talking about things…does it help?”

Merlin considers this, looks up at Arthur. “Sometimes,” he says. 

“Would it help now?”

Merlin can hear Arthur’s heartbeat, strong and steady and safe. “I’m just scared right now,” he says. “I know I’m not in any danger, but I can’t quite convince myself that I’m not, I guess.” He rubs a hand against his eyes. He’s just so tired. “I haven’t talked about any of that before,” he says quietly. “So I still feel the same way I did then.” 

Arthur is silent for long enough that Merlin thinks he’s gone to sleep, but then he speaks again. “Do you want to tell me about a time you were afraid? You can tell me, and I’ll tell you that I’m here, and that you’re safe.” 

Merlin doesn’t know where this side of Arthur came from, soft and gentle and present. In all their years in Camelot, they danced around everything—pain, loss, love—always seeing, never touching, two sides of the same coin. 

“There was a time,” Merlin begins, because even when untangling his life and the things that have happened to him, bits and pieces get left out. “There was a time when Morgana poisoned me.”

He feels Arthur’s intake of breath. His own heart is speeding up, and the phantom taste of the poison lingers on his tongue, sticky and numbing. 

“She’d bribed a boy to tell me his sister was dying, but that they were druids, so they couldn’t come into the city. I went out to help them, but there was no sister. It was just Morgana.” He can see her in his mind’s eye now, standing strong and proud and cruel atop the leaf mold. “She knocked me out and poured the poison in my mouth. When I came to—” This is where it gets hard. 

Merlin can remember everything that happened that day, but the thing he remembers most is lying on the ground, poison burning through his veins, every limb rebelling, heart struggling. He remembers the foul taste of tainted blood at the back of his throat. He remembers the way his throat closed and he thought it’s really it this time. 

Arthur is quiet, and one of his hands comes up to brush back Merlin’s hair. “When you came to?” And Merlin hears the unspoken bit, the you don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to.

“I was dying.” He forces himself to unclench his fists. “I—um—I—” 

He’s shaking now, and this was a bad idea, I can't do this. He’s so cold, and the room is fading. He can feel the leaves beneath his head, can feel the sickly rush of blood in his veins. 

A hand finds his, and he blinks. Arthur is there, Arthur is holding him.

“It’s alright,” he whispers. “You don't have to do this.”

Merlin nods. “I want to try,” he says. They lay in silence for a while before the phantom poison clears from his throat. “The kid saved my life. He mixed a poultice and…gods, he had to force it down my throat. And then he died. He got shot because I was protecting you and I couldn't take care of him.”

Arthur's arms tighten around his shoulders and he lets himself breathe. The taste of poison has nearly faded from his mouth, and his heart no longer feels like it will pound out of his chest. 

A brittle laugh escapes him. “I didn't know I was immortal then,” he says quietly. “I didn't need to be saved. I never needed to be saved."

“Merlin—”

“It’s useless to think about now,” he says quietly. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t.” He turns his face into Arthur’s chest, and waits for the pain to dissipate. Waits for the weight to lift off his chest, waits to feel like himself again.

“It won’t be fast,” says Arthur quietly. “Or easy.”

“What?”

Arthur smiles in the dark, and Merlin’s heart leaps. “Coming back. I haven’t—I haven’t lost as much as you, haven’t been through as much but there’s enough in my past that I know… I know some of your pain, Merlin. And it takes a long time to heal.”

They lay there together, and rain drums on the window. “Will you tell me?”

Arthur tucks Merlin’s head under his chin. “Tomorrow. For now, we need to rest.”

Merlin focuses on the warmth of Arthur’s arms around him, of the softness of his threadbare sweatshirt, of the rain trickling down the windowpanes. Present, grounding. He closes his eyes. 

He vaguely remembers waking several times in the night, but he’s not awake enough to know anything beyond fear, sharp and cold, and the warmth that comes between him and the blade. 

In the morning, he feels bone-tired and soul-bruised but safe. Arthur is still asleep beside him, arms looped around his torso, firm, but not constrictive. He can’t bring himself to get up just yet, so he cards a hand through Arthur’s hair and lets himself breathe. Dust motes dance in the faint sunlight, but there are still clouds rolling on the horizon.  

Arthur wakes not long after Merlin, but he, too, stays still for several moments. It should be odd for them to be together under a single blanket, both conscious, neither dying, no cold driving them together. It isn’t, and for the first time in years—since before Arthur died, really—Merlin feels at home. 

When they both get out of bed, Merlin calls in sick to work while Arthur makes breakfast, tea and toast, and they dress. Soon they find themselves at the table again, cups filled with tea. Arthur looks distinctly uncomfortable, pained, even, and Merlin lets go of the idea that he knows everything about his king and settles in to listen. 

Merlin knows, better than anyone, the story of the great King Arthur. He knows of his prowess with the sword, of his justice, of his deep, deep love for his people. He knows the quieter sides, the way he loved his friends, the way he would bind scraped knees among children playing in the courtyard. He knows how betrayal cut him to his core. He knows that he would only ever go down fighting. He knows that he was the best of anyone, anywhere.

But as he listens, he learns the story of a little golden-haired boy who didn’t have a mother when all the other children did. About a boy whose father saw too much of his lost love in the child’s young face and kept his distance, leaving the boy to be raised by nursemaids and tutors. About cold castle hallways and nightmares and sleepless storms. 

“I would eat dinner with him every night,” says Arthur. “But he’d never meet my eyes. We talked of the kingdom and what it meant to rule. He was like a stranger to me.” 

Merlin looks and he listens and he knows how hard this is for Arthur, how very distressing it is for him to lay himself bare, so he takes his hand. Arthur’s fingers tighten around his wrist, and he continues. 

“When I disobeyed my tutors, they would slap my wrist with a switch. Nothing hard, nothing severe. But I started training with a sword when I was nine, and my father took an interest then. He took an interest in my punishment, too, when I failed.”

Merlin can see it, in his mind’s eye, a shaking boy with shaggy blond hair hefting a sword. A king, iron-hard and iron-cold, standing at the edges, looking for something to be wrong. 

“Some days he would have me run drills until my arms cramped. Sometimes he’d have me clean the armory.” Arthur shrugs. “But then I was learning to be a prince, and being a prince was about more than fighting. And I was terrible at it.” His eyes have taken on a glazed-over look, and Merlin’s heart twists in his chest. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he says quietly, and Arthur nods. 

“I need to tell you,” he says. “I need someone else to know. I need help to—” he breaks off, and clears his throat. “I need to tell you.” 

“Alright,” says Merlin. “I’ll help you.” 

Arthur smiles, forced, and continues. “It started with slaps. If I talked back, he’d slap my face. Not hard, at first, but then the slaps started to hurt. Then he’d hit with the back of his hand, and I’d hope he wasn’t wearing any rings. He’d do other things, too. If I displeased him at dinner, he’d take away my food. If I didn’t do my laps fast enough, he’d take my waterskin. He started sending me to the dungeons, sometimes, when I behaved badly.” Arthur’s voice wobbles, nearly imperceptible, and through it all, Merlin just sits and listens. 

“There was always a reason for what he did, but no matter what I changed about myself, he didn’t stop, and there came a point where I didn’t recognize myself and there were no more reasons.”

“Oh, Arthur,” Merlin whispers, and Arthur’s shoulders are tense under his touch. He’s crying openly now, blue eyes finding Merlin through the tears.

“I just couldn’t understand why I wasn’t good enough,” he says, and Merlin can see the scared little boy shining through, tearful and hopeful. “But when I was fifteen years old, I found out how my mother had died.” 

Arthur is broad-shouldered and broad-chested, a man built to wear armor and lead an army into battle. But now he looks cold, and quiet, and defeated. 

“My mother had died,” he croaks. “Because there were complications with my birth. Because I was difficult. I didn’t have a mother, and it was my fault.”

Merlin leans forward, but Arthur has his hands tucked into the sleeves of his sweatshirt, shoulders hunched nearly to his ears.

“It all made sense after that,” he says, not meeting Merlin’s eyes. “Why my father hated me. I wasn’t good enough, and I had taken away the only person he ever loved.”

Merlin can feel his heart breaking. He had always known that Uther was cruel, had noticed the way Arthur’s face tensed when his father’s hand moved too fast, the way that Arthur seemed to glow at the slightest bit of approval and told Merlin to leave before stealing, hunch-shouldered from the room, when he had disappointed the king. 

But he hadn’t known this. 

“You know that it wasn’t your fault,” he says quietly. 

Arthur’s eyes remain fixed on the wood grain of the table, dull. “I didn’t at the time. I didn’t know when my father whipped me. I didn’t know when I would cry at night until I made myself sick because I was a murderer.” He takes a sudden, shuddering breath, and Merlin wants to help, wants to reach out and hold the broken, neglected man across from him, but he doesn’t know how. There are things to be said, but Merlin can’t find them. 

“All I knew until I met Morgause,” says Arthur. “Is that I was to blame for my mother’s death. And then when it was my father’s fault, I was so angry. You were there, you saw—”

Merlin had seen, had watched Arthur’s face twist with rage and his sword point rest at his father’s neck, and had stopped him, because Arthur was at his core a good man, and because Arthur never forgave himself a mistake. 

“It’s horrible of me,” says Arthur quietly, which Merlin knows means he’s about to say something that won’t be horrible at all. “But after that, sometimes I would wish that it had been my father’s fault. That I wasn’t to blame. That I didn’t deserve what he did to me.”

Merlin’s stomach twists, and this time, his hands stay at his sides. “I’m sorry,” he says, and knows that it can’t fix anything. 

Arthur’s eyes finally flick to Merlin’s face. “I told myself it was for the best,” he says dully. “That you had saved the kingdom from falling into the hands of a king-killer. That maybe you hadn’t really known the truth and were just trying to stop the chaos. But I was angrier at you then than I’d ever been.”

The words hang in the air. 

“You never hit me,” says Merlin softly. “Never pulled a sword on me, not a knife. You never did anything deliberately to make me fear for my life, not even when you were at your angriest.” Arthur’s hands twitch under the fabric of his sweatshirt. “Why? When you drew your sword on your own father?”

Arthur’s face twists in something that can barely be called a grin. “It didn’t take long for me to love you more than I ever loved him.” 

Love. It’s a heavy word, one that Merlin’s heard precious few times, one that he’s never been quite sure to respond to. He hasn’t had love for the better part of his existence, and for it to be tossed at him now, so casual, breaks something in him, for better or for worse, and this time he is the one to drop his eyes to the table. Every part of him wants to say it back, but he is still so cut-open and raw-hearted that it would feel like bleeding. He can’t do it. Not yet. 

He clears his throat instead. “You didn’t deserve what he did to you,” he says quietly. 

“I know,” says Arthur. “But I didn't then.” His eyes are sad, and silence falls heavy in the kitchen. 

“I was always scared for Morgana,” says Arthur after a handful of moments, and Merlin’s eyes snap up. Arthur’s always had this habit of jumping to and fro, never staying in the same place too long. 

“Yeah?”

Arthur rolls one of his sleeves until it just covers his wrist. “I was afraid that Uther would treat her the same way he treated me. But she was perfect. She was everything I wasn’t. She didn’t kill her mother.” 

Merlin opens his mouth to speak, but Arthur waves him off. 

“I was afraid for you, too,” he says, and his gaze goes past Merlin to focus on the sink. “I was afraid of what he’d do if he found out how much I relied on you. I was supposed to stand on my own. I wasn’t supposed to need someone to—to—”

Arthur doesn’t struggle with his words often, but he turns frantic eyes to Merlin. “I thought you were going to die, that first time you were poisoned. When I came back with the flower, my father crushed it and put it just out of my reach. I nearly dislocated my shoulder getting it back, and then Gwen—”

Arthur’s voice falters again, because Gwen is still a painful subject. 

“She took the flower to Gaius. And after that, my father figured out what had happened.”

Merlin can remember the fact that it took Arthur a week to come and see him, that Gaius had said something vague about a punishment. Mostly he remembers the aches in his body lingering from the poison, the nightmares that came with the fading fever. 

“What did he do?”

Another wry grin, self-loathing and self-mocking. “He had me flogged.” 

Arthur had been flogged. Arthur had been flogged for Merlin. He had risked his life and the future of his kingdom to save him, and in the end it won him a week in the dungeons and a flogging. 

“Was that the first time?”

Arthur curls his hands around his mug of tea. “No,” he says quietly. “There was a time when I was supposed to lead a raid on a druid camp. I was seventeen, and I didn’t—I didn’t know anything. I thought the druids were something to be feared, so when I broke into the camp—there were women and children there. I couldn’t let them be hurt, so I told my men to stand down.” 

Sometimes Merlin thinks he could have told Arthur about his magic, maybe, if there hadn’t been the looming shadow of—

“My father had ridden out behind us to see if I would disappoint him. And when I did, he forced me to watch while the knights…” Arthur trails off, and Merlin is grateful. 

“He had me flogged after that.” 

Merlin remembers the first time he helped Arthur put a tunic on, remembers the silvery knotted flesh on his back. He remembers how the steward told him not to ask the prince questions about his scars. He remembers waiting, after they were friends, for Arthur to tell him where they came from. He never did, and Merlin had enough secrets himself that he couldn’t exactly call him on it.

Arthur smiles grimly across the table. They’d slept late, and the day is already fading to evening, and this is taking a toll on both of them. Merlin has always known that Arthur had a tendency to bottle things up, to avoid speaking about them unless it would kill him and sometimes even then.

He hadn’t realized that he was just as bad. It had been, for so many years, a necessity, because he couldn’t speak of anything without letting the whole lie he’d built crumble around him. Then it was because there was no one there. So many years with so much weighing on him had shackled his tongue, locked every secret deep down where it couldn’t hurt him or anyone else. 

“Are you going to say something?”

Merlin looks over at Arthur. “I’m sorry,” he says, because what else is there to say? How else can you respond when the person you care about most has told you the worst parts of their life, about all the times when the world failed them and left them hurt and alone? What can you say but I’m sorry?

“Why?”

“Those things shouldn’t have happened to you.”

Arthur’s hands tighten around his mug of tea, and his mouth flattens into a thin line. “You’re one to talk.” 

Merlin’s stomach sinks. They’re both so damaged. They grew and lived in a world that forced them down, time and time again, that flayed open their skin and cracked their hearts. And the worst thing to think about is that if they had just talked—

If they had just talked, sooner than fifteen hundred years after Arthur died, if they had just managed to swallow down enough of the fear and pain and pride to ask for help, they would have had it, would have found home in each other. Now, Merlin knows that the damage done to him is irreversible, and knows that this is just one more way that he failed Arthur. 

“I should have been there for you,” says Merlin.

Arthur sighs, as if he’s prepared for this. “You were, Merlin. More than anyone else.”

That’s the thing that hurts most about it: Merlin failed Arthur in every way possible and that was still better than anyone else.

“But there should have been someone else there,” says Merlin. “Someone who could actually help you and not just make everything worse—”

“Gods, Merlin, what will it take for you to understand?” Arthur is angry now, and Merlin can't help but shrink back. He hates it when Arthur gets angry.

“I failed you, Arthur—”

“Stop saying that!” Arthur pushes his chair back, and it skids against the floor. He runs a hand through his hair and stalks across the kitchen. “Stop blaming yourself for things that already happened and weren't your fault.”

“And the things that are? When I lied to you for a decade about who I was? When I made you believe that it was your fault your mother died?”

“That wasn't your responsibility to tell me,” snaps Arthur. “It is not your fault that my father lied to me. It was not your fault that you lived in a place where magic was illegal. It was not your job to fix my relationship with my father.” 

“I was meant to protect you—”

“And you did.” Arthur’s voice is still harsh, harsh in the way that Merlin knows means his heart is breaking. “I should have done better for you.”

Before Merlin can react, Arthur is crying again, all hunched shoulders and near-silent tears. He approaches carefully, and Arthur looks up at him. 

“You didn’t know,” he says softly. 

Arthur takes a shuddering breath. “But I should have. I should have—” He breaks down, and Merlin feels oddly empty, out of place, like he’s bearing witness to a private grief that doesn’t belong to him. But Arthur has his arms wrapped too tight around his own ribs, and his hands are fisted in the fabric of his own shirt, and Merlin thinks of the little boy who would cry in castle corridors at night and gently, gently, gently, pulls Arthur into his arms. 

“What do you need me to do?” he asks quietly. Arthur’s face is pressed against his neck, tears staining the collar of his shirt. 

Arthur shakes his head against Merlin’s throat, and Merlin nods. Beyond words. “Okay,” he says. “Is this alright?” 

Arthur nods, and Merlin considers. It’s an odd mirror to the night before, and he wonders how Arthur had stayed so strong for so long, how he knew what to do to help Merlin. Maybe this is a chance to fix things. Maybe things can be better. 

There are things to be said, and Merlin wracks his brain for them. They take their form in Arthur’s voice. Do you need anything to eat or drink? Do you need something to hold? Are you tired? What can I do so you can sleep?

Arthur is holding on to Merlin tight enough to bruise, so Merlin knows that he needs something to hold, and he is more than willing to offer himself. 

“Do you need anything to eat?” Arthur shakes his head, and Merlin nods. “Okay,” he says. “What about some water?”

Finally, Arthur nods, and Merlin pours him a glass of water, stays there, one hand on his shoulder, as he drinks it. 

“I’m sorry,” he says once he’s done, and his voice is hoarse. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” says Merlin, making sure that his voice brooks no room for argument. Arthur blinks up at him, wide-eyed, and Merlin forces a smile. “I’m here to help you, Arthur.” 

“I should be helping you,” he whispers, and Merlin feels as though he’s been tossed up and turned around. They’re both just so stubborn, both so self-sacrificing, that they always want to help when they have nothing to give. Merlin sighs, and sits next to Arthur, reaching to hold his hand. 

“I don’t think we can say what either of us should be doing,” he says. He can feel Arthur’s eyes on him. “We just do what we need to. And we help each other.”

Arthur leans into Merlin’s shoulder and lets out another breath, steadier this time. “I want to be what you need,” he says. 

“Yeah,” says Merlin sadly. “I know the feeling.” He wraps an arm around Arthur’s shoulders. “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” 

“I’m not really hungry,” says Arthur. 

“Okay.” Merlin brushes Arthur’s hair out of his eyes and looks down into his face. “Do you think you can get cleaned up, and we can get some rest?”

It’s a little while later that they both end up in Merlin’s bed again. This time, Merlin curls around Arthur, shielding him from the world, and Arthur presses his face into Merlin’s shoulder. They’re not asleep, not yet, when Arthur speaks.

“You’ve died before,” he says. His hair smells like lavender soap. 

“Yeah,” says Merlin. 

Arthur is silent for a moment. “What’s it like, for you?”

“It hurts. And then it doesn’t. And then I'm back.” 

Arthur shifts so that one of his arms comes up behind Merlin’s back. “It didn't stop hurting when I died.” 

A pang in Merlin’s heart, sharp and brittle, but Arthur is already asleep, so he just holds him and hopes for better things come morning light. 

He sleeps through the night, no nightmares, for the first time in he doesn’t know how long, and when he wakes, Arthur is watching him. 

“Hello,” he says, and smiles. Merlin’s heart nearly breaks at it, because this is all he’s ever wanted. 

“Hi,” he says. 

They eat beans on toast for breakfast and go for a walk in the park. Arthur goes into the supermarket on his own for the first time because he wants to buy a bag of frozen peas for the ducks. He pours some into Merlin’s cupped hands, and they stand, side by side by the water. 

They are healing.

Arthur starts walking around the neighborhood, a little further every day, and he gets a job in the supermarket. Merlin stops fearing that one day he’ll wake up and Arthur will be gone. The days grow shorter and the leaves on the trees flush and spark. The air grows chillier, and Arthur laughs at the baggy sweaters that Merlin wears. 

There are still bad days. Sometimes Merlin can barely move in the mornings, and Arthur patiently coaxes him out of bed, sometimes bodily hauling him up and into the kitchen. Some days Arthur startles at loud noises and shakes uncontrollably, and Merlin is there to hold his hands and help him breathe. 

There are still revelations. One day, when the frost is coating the window, Merlin tells Arthur about the Crystal Cave, the first time, and then the second; the fear of the future, and the realization of it. Crushing hopelessness, and the first time he was ready to give up. 

Arthur cries, and spends the whole night holding Merlin tightly enough that he could never leave. 

Arthur learns how to talk about grief, and he and Merlin spend hours sitting on the couch until tears turn to smiles: Gwen, Lancelot, Gwaine, Percival, Elyan. Morgana. 

Merlin confesses that in the years since Camelot, he has tried not to think of Gaius, because he has realized things, and he doesn’t want to taint his obliviousness. Arthur’s eyes grow sad, and Merlin knows that he is thinking of Morgana, thinking of nightmares of fire and destiny. He has a confession, too:

“I wanted to hate him,” he says, tracing the stitching on one of Merlin’s throw pillows. “He knew what my father was doing to me, and he didn’t stop it. But he was gentle.” 

That’s the thing, isn’t it? Merlin wishes he could hate Gaius for the way he treated Morgana, wishes he could hate him for making him so afraid, wishes that he could hate him for bowing so low to destiny and bringing Merlin just as low with him. But Gaius was, after all, the only one who could help him so many times, and he can’t quite bring himself to the point of hatred. 

In mid-October, Merlin rents a car and they spend a weekend driving, through the city, through the countryside. Arthur loves the fields, loves the forests, and Merlin can see his face light up when he sees a huge, twisting oak tree. He has a phone now, and he’s learning to take pictures. Most of them are blurry, but Merlin sees the one he takes that day: it’s him, laughing, leaning against the trunk of the oak tree. He doesn’t know when he learned to laugh like that again. 

They sell the second bed and move the bookshelves back in place in the living room. Merlin clears out half of his dresser drawers, and Arthur moves his clothing, neatly-folded, from the bin that he had been using, into Merlin’s room. 

It’s early in November, cold and grey and raining, when they are walking outside, and Arthur reaches for Merlin’s hand. He takes it without thinking, and his chest feels like it might burst. Arthur pulls him along streets that he has learned, past the supermarket and the coffee shop and into the park. They start along their favorite path, and Arthur stops them near the creek. 

He takes a red scarf from his pocket and winds it around Merlin’s neck. His hand lingers just under Merlin’s jaw, and he smiles. 

“Red looks good on you,” he says softly. 

Merlin thinks he might blush, but in this moment, in the rain with Arthur, he feels more whole than he ever has. He feels loved, and he feels like the tears in his chest have finally closed. There’s just one more thing to be said.

“Arthur?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

The grin that splits Arthur’s face is dazzling, and he throws his arms around Merlin, laughing. 

“I love you too.” He pulls back and looks into Merlin’s face. His eyes are crinkling at the corners, and Merlin doesn’t know if he’s ever seen him so happy. The thought makes a laugh bubble up in his throat because it means they’re getting better, they’re both healing. 

It’s the most natural thing in the world to kiss Arthur then, and when they break apart, they’re both grinning like absolute saps. Merlin takes the opportunity to tug on a branch and send a cascade of water tumbling into Arthur’s hair. He sputters indignantly, and Merlin tears off down the trail. Arthur catches up quickly and grabs his hand even faster, pulling him into another kiss and stealing one end of the scarf, wrapping it around his own neck. They walk back to the flat hand-in-hand. 

There are things to be said, and they know how to say them now.