Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Merlin jumped up from the bed, the lights turning on in an instant. 

“Okay, and I’m going to need you to be specific here,” he says, his hands pressed together as if he’s praying. “What exactly do you mean when you say that you saw my memories?”

I frown. “They’re memories. I remember what happened. The scene, the feeling, the -”

“Fuck!”

“Merlin!” I exclaim, his anxiety palpable. My heart quickens as his uneasiness grows. 

“Okay, um -” His fingers rip through his hair, disturbing his already untidy bedhead. “So they’re all there? Just everything I’ve ever seen? Everything?”

I shake my head slightly as I search for an answer that will assuage him. “I guess - I mean - I haven’t seen everything. Just a few of them.”

“Oh god,” Merlin whimpers, his shaking fingers hovering over his closed eyes. He sways slightly as if he might fall faint. “How - how do you - do they just pop up?”

“Well, usually they come to the surface if something reminds me of them, like when we went to town today, I just had to look at a sign and remember what it said a hundred years ago. But then …” I trail off as I remember my nightmare. “The one that came in my dreams… that one was just there.”

I gasped awake, sweat clinging to my skin. It was still the middle of the night. Dark. I don’t even know why I tried sleeping. The wars always came back at night. The wars, the plagues, the witch hunts. They always managed to find me again. No matter how many years passed. 

But at least I didn’t dream of  him . 

I shudder violently as the nightmares overtake me. Images that linger, bloody, broken, hopeless. I choke on nothing, ice filling my lungs. My fingers seize into fists and my eyes squeeze shut. Broken arrows - the muzzle of a gun - that poor little boy he was only fourteen. I can tell I’m shaking. It must look like I’m having a fit. I can’t escape them. They come one right after another. War after war, fight after fight, life after life. I don’t want to see anymore. Hear anymore. Smell anymore. I gag on a phantom stench. 

“Merlin,” I rasp, my throat raw and ragged from screams that are not mine. 

There are too many all at once. Too many babies crying, too many shouts of grief, too many solemn processions down the main road. I’m shivering uncontrollably. The blackness behind my eyelids becomes a backdrop for Merlin’s misery. It cripples me. 

I force my eyes open, searching desperately for something, anything, a lifeline of any kind to distract from this unending downward spiral that leads nowhere but excruciation. My eyes land on Merlin’s wall, his shelves full of books. Yes. There must be something there. What did Merlin like to read?

That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love,

Duty, and zeal, to your unmatched mind,

Care of your food and living; and believe it,

My most honour'd lord,

For any benefit that points to me,

Either in hope or present, I'd exchange

For this one wish, that you had power and wealth

To requite me by making rich yourself.

I let poetry wash over me, stories of kings and witches and lovers combined. Pretty words frost over my tongue. They mock, they plead, they cry. Tragedies yes, but fiction at least. Old and practiced enough to pull me away from the nightmares that plagued me moments before. 

I breathe in an unsteady breath and muster the strength to look back where Merlin is still standing, rubbing his forehead apprehensively. He hadn’t noticed my episode. I don’t know whether to feel relieved or hurt.  

A shiver takes my thoughts to different priorities. I am freezing, the onslaught of Merlin’s ghosts crystalize under my skin. I pull the blankets tighter around my shoulders but it does nothing. 

“Merlin,” I mumble. I sniff and wipe at my eyes. I must look pathetic. 

He breathes out slowly. His eyes are still closed. 

“Merlin!” My voice comes out sharp, like I am still a king and Merlin is still a servant, like it has any meaning at all. Still, Merlin’s eyes snap to mine. Perhaps there is still some power in my voice. 

His brow questions, his hand stayed at his side waiting for an explanation for my outburst. 

But I don’t know what answer to give him. I’m overwhelmed. I’m upset. I’m - I’m scared. Before I thought it had been his intention to share his thoughts with mine and it was a solution to a problem. But now - now that they are unwelcome intruders, given unwillingly, Merlin’s memories frighten me and I don’t know how to stop them. 

“What do I do?” I feel my lip tremble. 

Merlin’s jaw clenches, I can see the muscles moving as he swallows. I wish he was closer to me. 

When he speaks, his voice is quiet. Rough. 

“You see the bad stuff, don’t you?” It’s not really a question. What else could have brought me to tears? I nod anyway. 

“Not always, just… just now.” Some warmth is coming back to me now. My throat doesn’t feel like I’ve swallowed a glacier anymore. But they’re still there. Those ghosts are still in my head. I won’t ever forget them. They’re a part of me now. 

But they were a part of Merlin first. 

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. 

“It’s not your fault.” Merlin’s voice cracks like a whip, sharp, strong. 

“It’s not your fault,” I said. 

The girl looked up at me, her cheeks stained with tears. She couldn’t be any more than eleven. 

“It’s not your fault,” I said again. I risked a step closer, the ashes puffing up in a tiny cloud beneath my feet. “What’s your name?”

“Merita.” She wasn’t crying anymore. 

“That’s a pretty name.” I took another step closer. “My name’s Merlin.”

“I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to. I -”

“I know.” The wind shifted and I paused to avoid choking on smoke. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

“I don’t know how to control it,” she whispered. 

“I know some people who can help.”

Her eyes widened with hope. New tears began to form. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

I reached out my hand for her to take. I didn’t think of the people I hurt. I didn’t think of their faces. I didn’t think of their tears. I swallowed. 

“You won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”

I shudder as the memory passes over me. Merlin looks at me with the same intensity as moments before, but there is a curious glint in his eye. As if I’m a sort of specimen to be studied. 

“You’re cold.”

“I’m fine.”

His eyes trace over me intensely and I shiver again, though I’m not as cold as before. 

Finally, he tears his eyes away from mine and moves toward the bookshelves. He takes one down opens it, scans a few lines, and then shuts it immediately, tossing it onto the floor. 

“Be careful with that,” I say, jumping up from the bed. “That thing is older than some civilizations!”

I blink at the unfamiliar thought that just escaped my mouth just as Merlin turns back to me with a look of near disgust. 

“Oh, this is so weird.” 

“Sorry.”

“Please stop apologizing”

“I don’t even know where that came from.”

He gives me a mirthless grin. “It came from me remember.”

I bow my head and rub my eyes. “Right.” I sit back on the bed. He turns back to rummage through his library. 

The sound of disturbed pages and thudding books fill the room for a few minutes. 

“Merlin.”

He hums in response. He’s not paying attention to me. 

“Merlin.”

“What?”

“What the hell are you doing?”

Merlin lowers his book and smiles. “You almost sound like your old self again.”

I frown at him. 

“What do you think I’m doing? I have to fix this.” He gestures vaguely toward me. “I can’t have you snooping on all my memories like a creep.”

“I don’t want to see them,” I say defensively. I mean, it was sort of nice when I was reminded of home, or a sweet pie Merlin had in the 1850s, or a festival with that one song that always got stuck in Merlin’s head but no one played anymore. 

But it was hardly worth it. As much as I’ve seen of Merlin’s very long life, the bad seemed to outweigh the good. It hurt. It stung. It burned. And I didn’t want to see it anymore. 

“I’m not snooping either,” I say. 

“Sure you aren’t.

“I’m not!” What would I even snoop around for? Merlin is as dull as a rock.

Well, that wasn’t true, was it? That was an old thought. One I told the other knights to tease him. I don’t think I ever really thought it. Even when we first met, Merlin had intrigued me. No one had ever spoken to me like that, not unless it was before a sparring match. But then this boy, a peasant, had looked me in the eye and called me a-

“- prat?" 

"You can't address me like that." 

My heart beat loudly in my chest. I can’t seem to stop myself from saying, "Sorry. How long have you been training to be a prat....my lord?

I’m really not that surprised when he takes a swing at me. He really was a prat. 

There is a fondness to that memory, its warmth almost counteracting the chill that overtakes me. I’ve wondered before how my life would have changed if Merlin hadn’t been such an ass the day we met, if he hadn’t spoken up and called me out for my own cocky behavior. 

But I guess it had been destiny all along. 

“I don’t know what you’d snoop around for that’s the whole point,” Merlin says. “You could go looking for anything.”

I sigh. “Merlin, apart from being a sorcerer your entire life, I doubt very highly that you have any secrets that I didn’t know about.” 

Merlin pauses his reading again to give the most deadpan expression I’ve ever seen. “Yes. Because if you didn’t find out one of the most obvious things that’s ever been kept a secret then surely you’d be a master detective at every other opportunity.” He shakes his head and mutters. “I still can’t believe you didn’t even suspect.”

I frown. Well, yes it seemed obvious now. Of course, Merlin had magic. You could see it. Not just when his eyes turned gold or he spoke in ancient tongues. You could sense it. There was something . . . off about him. Strange. Old. Intense. I tried to remember if he’d always been this way. 

When he brought me my breakfast in the morning at least ten minutes late he’d seemed incompetent, not powerful. When he’d draw my curtains and turned down the covers as I got ready for bed, when he smiled at me softly and bid me good night, he’d seemed naive, not someone wise beyond their years. Even during the times Merlin was strangely intense, his emotions high, and his voice quavering, it had just been . . . Merlin. 

But he’d been hiding his whole life. He’d been hiding from me.

“My son,” Balinor grunted, the wound in his chest slowly staining the front of his clothes but some part of me knew it was already too late. “I have seen enough in you to know that you will make me proud,” my father whispered. 

My father. 

I felt his fingers tremble against my cheek. His eyes began to stray from mine, losing focus. I tried to hold his head up. I just wanted a little more time. To hold him longer. To know him. For him to know me. 

His head fell back as life left him. The first time I embraced my father was when he died in my arms. 

“No,” I breathed. “Father.”

I can’t do this alone. 

I couldn’t breathe. Tears fell without control. I rocked uselessly on my knees before my father’s corpse. 

I could have done something - used my magic to deflect the blade, pushed the attacker away with a gust of wind - I could have -

“No!” Arthur’s voice came from behind me, desperate, defeated. His hope of saving Camelot perishing along with my father. 

He couldn’t know what I was. 

I covered my mouth with my hand in a desperate attempt to quell the sounds of my grief. 

He couldn't know who this man was to me. 

I rubbed at my eyes, wiping away my tears. I sucked in a shaking breath. When I turned to look at Arthur, it was all I could do to keep my agony from showing on my face. 

“Camelot is doomed,” he said. 

I did not want to think of Camelot. I didn’t want to care. Another tear fell down my cheek. 

Arthur sighed and stood, his head bowed. 

“Come on. The faster we get home, the more time we’ll have to prepare.”

My heart stuttered in my chest. “What?”

“We have to go.” He finally looked at me, resignation in his eyes. A wild burning thing reared inside my chest at his words. Go? 

“We can’t leave him like this,” I said. I didn’t care that my voice cracked. 

“Merlin-”

“No! This isn’t right we have to bury him. I won’t just -”

“Merlin -” His hand gripped my arm like a vice, shaking me slightly. “I’m sorry.” His eyes were wet. What excuse did he have to cry? “But we don’t have time.”

I tore my arm away from him. I could have told him. I could have told him everything. I could have allowed myself to weep and scream and pound my fists against the muddied ground, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. We would still have to go. 

I stalked in the direction of the horses, Arthur close behind me. I felt his eyes on the back of my head. Concerned. Confused.

“Merlin, it’s alright. We’ll find another way.”

 I didn’t have the strength to say anything. I would try to come back if we even made it through this alive. For my father.

I gasp an icy breath. 

“Arthur?”

The tears in my eyes blur my vision but I can still make out the shape of Merlin as he drops his book and shuffles toward me. I try and wipe them away but they keep coming, my breath shallow and weak. 

“I’m sorry.”

His hands move my own out of the way, his thumbs brushing under my eyes. “Hey, hey. It’s alright.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again, sniffing pathetically. “I didn’t know. I didn’t - I’m so sorry, Merlin.” I grip his shoulders tightly. At some point, he’d knelt on the ground in front of me. 

“It’s alright, just breathe, come on.” One of his hands travels into my hair behind my ear, soft and steady. The other continues to wipe away my tears. Tears born of Merlin’s grief. This was all so twisted. I should be the one comforting him. I bring my hands up to hold his face just as he did mine. Concern muddles his gaze but he doesn’t pull away. 

“Arthur.” His voice is water passing through reeds, soft, insistent. “What was it? What happened?” 

My gaze is finally clear enough to hold his own. I let my fingers trace over his jaw, under his eye. 

“Your father,” I choke a whisper. Tears spring in Merlin’s eyes along with something else. A lonely sorrow that takes the color from them, dims the blue to a cloudy grey. 

“Ah,” Merlin croaks, “I see.” His eyes are red but no tears fall. “What -” he breaks off, clears his throat. “What did you see?”

I shake my head slightly. I don’t want him to feel this way. Not again. But his fingers smooth through my hair and he raises his eyebrows imploringly. I bow my head in defeat, Merlin’s hands following me. I don’t want to see his grief. 

“I saw his death.” Merlin’s fingers still in my hair for a moment before they resume their soothing movements. “I saw how I didn’t even let you grieve your own father.”

“Hey.” His other hand pushes under my chin and I am forced to meet his gaze. His jaw clenches beneath my palm. “That is not your fault. You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.”

I close my eyes and two more tears fall. Merlin doesn’t move to brush them away this time. 

“I’m guessing when you see these memories . . . you . . .” He falters and I open my eyes. I watch his throat work as he swallows. “You must feel them too.”

I nod. 

A single tear drops from his lashes. I spread it slowly across his cheek as if it was never there. 

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

“No.” Merlin’s voice is steel. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix this. I promise.”

I nod again. Merlin’s hands travel down to my arms and I lean forward, my body moving of its own accord, seeking something I cannot define. His arms envelop me as my head comes to rest on his shoulder. My fingers grip loosely at the sides of his shirt. 

“I’ll make this right,” he vows and tightens his hold. I sigh into his neck. I believe him. 

===================================================================

Merlin’s been looking at books for ages. 

He’s instructed me to think of nothing and sit still. That lasted about twenty minutes before I got up and made us both breakfast. He’d barely touched his toast, muttering to himself and growing increasingly frustrated when he didn’t find the answer he was looking for. 

But that had been six hours ago. I’d lapped the cottage grounds seven times, played ten games of solitaire, the rules of which were conveniently stored in the recesses of Merlin’s memories, and the man’s wall of books was nearly empty. 

I glance at the towering stacks strewn about the bedroom floor and imagined a tiny man jumping from stack to stack, doing little flips and twists, climbing over cracked binding and folded pages. But even my tiny imaginary man soon ran out of books to travel on. I sigh deeply and roll onto my back on Merlin’s bed. 

“Merlin.”

“Hush. No thinking.” He sits on the floor, absorbed by the small decaying pages in his lap.

“Merlin.”

“Shut up.”

“I think I’m going mad with boredom.”

I hear Merlin huff. 

“Really, though, how long is this going to take?”

The book in Merlin’s hands slams shut. “Are you seriously going to complain about waiting? To me? ”

That shuts me up. God, I am being such a dick. Guilt sinks deep into the pit of my stomach. Merlin goes back to his books. 

I manage to hesitate a few more minutes before I say, “Isn’t there just a reversing spell?”

“If it were as simple as that don’t you think I would have done it by now?” he murmurs distractedly, turning another page. 

“I don’t know the rules!” I pick at one of my fingernails. “Besides, you told me not to think of anything, unless you want me to look for answers -”

“Stop!” Merlin looks at me, this time with an urgency to his gaze. 

I sit up to look at him, my legs dangling over the edge of the mattress. “I’m sorry.”

Merlin relaxes by a fraction. 

I spread my hands at my sides in a placating gesture. “Could you explain, then?”

Merlin sighs. “I was stupid.”

“Not surprising.”

“And I was . . . just so excited to solve a problem that didn’t need fixing that I pulled that spell from memory. But I - I must have remembered it wrong - or just misunderstood.” He sighs again. “I didn’t know it would do this to you. So I have to find the spell and see exactly where I went wrong. If I make up another spell on the spot I could melt your brain on accident.” The shame in his eyes makes me want to hug him, brush away the guilty lines between his eyebrows. 

“Okay. No brain-melting. I appreciate that.” His lips twitch upward and my chest feels warm. “Thank you for explaining that to me.” I pause. “Is there anything that I can do to help?”

Merlin shakes his head. “I can’t risk it.” He picks up his book again. 

His expression is muted, carefully maintained into a practiced blankness, the dark shadows under his eyes more pronounced than I would have liked. I’ve seen the expression before. I hated it then, and I hated it now. Closed. Distant. As if a curtain is drawn behind his eyes, obscuring his true feelings from any onlooker’s view. I wonder what he’s thinking. For all the thoughts of his I have, I only have his memories.  I think of how many times I saw that expression before and brushed it off. I’d thought he’d been . . . moody, sensitive. I thought he’d gotten into something at the tavern. Maybe having a bit of girl trouble. But I’d been blind. I’d never even seen him at the tavern without an explicit invitation from a group of knights. I’d barely ever seen him with a girl. But I imagine he scarcely had any free time at all, magicing about, saving the kingdom, keeping me safe from assassins left and right, looking after Gaius and all his patients, doing chores on top of it all. 

Saving me. Saving my home. 

Getting into trouble when I wasn’t there to help him. 

Merlin’s memories supply flashes. I’m thrown violently against brick walls, cave ceilings, and ceremonial altars. My skin burns. My bones ache and crack. Poison bubbles through my blood, scorching my insides, but Arthur can’t know. 

I gasp involuntarily as the phantom pains flicker throughout my body, ghosts of the agonies Merlin once had to bear.

I hear Merlin shift. “What was it?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly, even as I feel the sting of unwilling possession, the ache of empty lungs when Merlin was thrown into a wall by a force more powerful than nature.  

“Arthur.”

The softness of his voice makes me look up. To my surprise, there’s the smallest of smiles on his lips. It’s as soft as his voice, tentative, as if he’s scared to let it grow. 

“You don’t have to hide from me.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “I already know.”

I swallow back a bitterness that isn’t mine. Merlin never was able to share himself on his own terms. Even now, centuries from a time when he would be persecuted for who he is, he is sharing himself unwillingly. I’m taking this from him. 

And yet . . . 

I cannot help but feel relief. Relief to finally understand, to know, to see for myself. To be the one person in the entire world to know him. As he knew me when I was a prince too blinded by my arrogance, a king too distracted by the evils around me, a friend too selfish to notice the steadfast companion by my side. 

“Arthur?”

He’s sat beside me. I didn’t notice him move. His shoulder presses into mine. Warmth spreads from the touch absorbing the icy aches and pains Merlin’s memories plant inside me. I do not look at him but instead, focus on his touch.  

“You went through so much to protect me - Camelot,” I wince, stumbling over my words. “I thought I knew - when you revealed your magic to me - I thought I understood what you’d been through.” I close my eyes as old memories surface. When I open them again I seek the comfort of Merlin’s gaze. Blue, encouraging, understanding. “I didn’t know you hurt so much.”

He leans his shoulder further into mine and I am grateful for the pressure. “It’s not your fault.”

I don’t voice my opposition - that I should have noticed, that I could have helped. “You shouldn’t have had to go through all that alone.”

“I didn’t,” Merlin tries to assure me. “Not really. I had Gaius. I had Lancelot, for a time. And - and I always had you.”

Until he didn’t. 

“I did always have you. You were destined to come back.”

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Not so fun, is it?”

“Merlin!”

Merlin’s face lights up in a full grin, and my mouth moves to mirror the expression of its own accord. 

“No, I’m not reading your mind. Just your face. Remind me to teach you poker later.”

I frown as he chuckles and rubs his face tiredly. He looks back distastefully at all of his piles of books. 

“Take a break,” I say. 

He sighs. “I can’t.”

“You’ve been reading for hours, your eyes must be hurting. Come on.” I get up from the bed and grab his wrists, pulling him up until his hunched shoulders are level with mine. “I’ll cook something. 

His face scrunches in suspicion. 

“I can do it! I know how.” I smile and lean forward. 

Merlin leans back slightly, away from me. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust your culinary skills.” But he steps toward the door anyway. I grin at my small victory. 

“How will I get better if I don’t practice?”

==========================================================================

It turns out that knowing the basics of how to cook doesn’t necessarily mean that I am going to be good at it, but when I somehow burn the pasta, Merlin only laughs and shakes his head. 

“Let’s maybe stick to something without fire for now.” His eyes widen. “Oh! I know. You haven’t had peanut butter yet!”

Merlin’s memories pull a helpful reminder of the taste and I watch eagerly as he sets out the ingredients. 

“Could I have mine with strawberry jam?” I ask. 

“Yes, it’s in the fridge.”  

I take it out and start unscrewing the jar, but Merlin smacks my hand away. 

“Absolutely not. Did you forget thirty seconds ago when you blackened the noodles? You’re not to be trusted. Now go sit down and wait.” He points a stern butter knife in my general direction until I’m sat at the table. 

I watch him prepare our meal with his back turned to me. His shoulders move beneath his t-shirt as he spreads on the peanut butter, cursing softly when a bit of jam hits the countertop. He swipes it up with his finger and sucks it into his mouth quickly, maybe hoping I wouldn’t notice. 

An incredible, unequivocal fondness for the man swells within me and it’s warm and soft and I don’t know where it comes from but it must show on my face.

“What?” Merlin turns with two plates in his hands. 

I swallow down the strange feeling and try to school my expression into something more appropriate. “Nothing. I was just thinking. . . you don’t have to cook for me all the time now. I’m pretty sure I can manage a PB&J.”

Merlin sets the plates down on the table and takes his seat. “Ah, but you haven’t had my PB&J. Besides,” he lifts the sandwich from his plate, tearing his eyes away from mine. “I don’t mind.”

He takes a slow ponderous bite.

“But I’m not a king anymore,” I remind him gently. 

He swallows quickly, my eyes tracking the movement of his throat. “Of course, you are!” He sounds scandalized, as if I’d just said the most offensive thing I could think of. 

My head tips to the side, regarding him carefully, questioning. “King of what, Merlin? I have no castle, no kingdom, no people. All I have is you.”

Merlin looks down at his plate, as if he suddenly lost his appetite. 

“I’m not complaining,” I say, trying to comfort him. Guilt procured over which he had no control settles over his expression. It shouldn’t be there. “It’s honestly a bit of a relief. There’s not any of the responsibility. There’s none of the - the trials we were all put through. Unless . . . you think it’s part of my destiny or something.”

Merlin stiffens slightly and shakes his head. “No, you’re right. You - I just wanted things to be like they were. I’m holding on to something that’s gone.”

He still doesn’t look up at me. I want him to look at me, to know that he’s feeling alright. His sandwich lies on his plate, ignored. He’s not alright. 

“Merlin?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he assures me, finally looking me in the eye, but the blue is muted again, his smile forced. He’s hiding something from me. 

My eyes narrow. Merlin looks down again. 

A tiny wound opens under my ribs, a trickle of hurt drips from me. He’s lying to me again. He doesn’t want me to know him. His distrust stings. 

I don’t understand. What more could he possibly have to hide from me? I thought we had put this all behind us. 

“Merlin . . . you’re not telling me something,” I say after a while. 

His jaw works as he closes his eyes. “Please don’t look.” I watch his lip tremble as his voice shakes. 

“Then just tell me . Merlin.” I reach out and grab his hand. His eyes snap open and land on our fingers. I don’t think before I say, “What is it that you’re so afraid of me knowing?”

I walked along the beach, the chill making my bones ache. The birds were quiet along the shore. The clouds were moving quickly. Maybe I’d see some stars tonight. That would be nice. 

I stopped before my shoes hit the water line and looked out across the silvery surface to face that cursed tower. I closed my eyes. I tried to imagine him. See his face. His features morphed, shifted. . . no, his nose wasn’t that high up his face . . . his eyebrows weren’t that close together. I wasn’t sure anymore. 

I hadn’t been sure in decades.

I opened my eyes again, just to look at the water. 

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said. Quiet. Heartsick. Certain. 

My fingers shook as I shoved them into the pockets of my jumper. 

“I’m sorry.”

I glanced at the tower one more time before I turned and walked back the way I’d come. 

I wouldn’t do this anymore. 

I’d found a way. Fairly painless, though I wouldn’t have cared about the method even if it had been extreme. If my research was correct, then this was my last night on earth. 

The wind shifted again, gentler, the remaining clouds in the sky painted in bright pinks and lavenders as the sun began to set. There would be stars tonight. 

A sad little smile found its way to my face. Maybe I would do some star gazing. 

I opened the door to my little cottage. Everything was how I left it, cluttered but tidy. Lonely. Empty. I frowned. I couldn’t spend my last night alone in that house. I turned back and shut the door behind me. With a final look toward the direction of the lake, I raised myself into the air, flying just as tall as the roof of my house, and stepped onto the shingles. They weren’t the most comfortable things to lay on, but I was so tired. I cast a spell to keep myself warm, and laid back on my roof. 

And I looked at the stars. 

I watched them all night. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t want to. 

I watched the sunrise, I heard the birds in the trees begin to wake up and sing. I stayed up there longer than I had expected, lost in memories. But when the sun had nearly reached its peak, I let myself float back to solid ground. 

I stepped into my house and walked to my bedroom. Books were still strewn about from my research. I double-checked my notes one more time.

This was it. I’d be gone. Maybe . . . maybe fate would bring us back together. When Albion’s need was greatest. Some deep magic would let us see each other again.  

But I couldn’t wait anymore. 

I sat on the bed. I closed my eyes. I opened my mouth to say the words. 

And I heard a bell. 

A bell?

I opened my eyes. It wasn’t my phone. The sound persisted. Close. Clear. What could . . .

My eyes widened as my heart jumped along with my feet. I was flying out into the hallway in seconds. 

It couldn’t be. 

I hadn’t heard that thing in ages. 

The living room was still except for the bell ringing on the table of old and ancient instruments I’d made centuries ago. It was ringing. 

But that meant. . .

My heart thudded like a hammer in my chest. 

“Now?”

Magic was stirring, old and powerful, something entirely different from mine. And it was close!

I don’t remember leaving the house, only faintly hearing the crash of a flower pot as my legs sprinted toward that cursed lake. Blood pumping, wind whistling in my ears. I didn’t want to hope. Not now. I wouldn’t hope. 

For god’s sake, I’d just lost all hope. I was going to - I’d been prepared to - I had been so close!

The sun reflected harshly on the surface of the water, glittering obscenely as I scanned the lake for any blemish, any sign. 

My eyes caught on a sodden figure with golden hair and I almost tripped, my legs nearly giving out. My breath came in heavy gulps, lungs stinging.

“Arthur,” I gasped. 

He came. He was here. At last. 

“ARTHUR!”

My fingers tighten around Merlin’s. His memory sinks icily to the pit of my stomach as the realization hits me. 

My voice feels alien and hoarse when I start to say, “Merlin -”

He rips his hand from mine and stands abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. I’m quick to follow him. 

“Merlin,” I say to his back, stronger this time. I step in close, turn his limp shoulders around to face me. His face is ducked low, avoiding me. 

He won’t look at me. 

“Merlin.” I grab his face and force his eyes to meet mine and he does not resist. His eyes are so old, the shroud of his unshed tears not enough to hide the age within their depths. My thumbs trace beneath the dark bruises under his lashes. 

I’d wondered before why he hadn’t been sleeping. And now I knew. Research, he’d called it. 

My breath shudders out of my lungs and salt touches my lips. When had I started crying?

“Tell me you weren’t going to. Tell me you wouldn’t.” My fingers brush over pale skin, barely touching, as if afraid I’d wipe him away, like dust in wind. 

He closed his eyes, tears spilling over purple shadows onto my fingers. 

“I told you not to look,” he whispers. 

“Merlin,” I plead with him. 

He leans into my palm. His lip trembles.

“I’m sorry.” His breath is warm against my wrist. 

I swallow back my terror as his eyes flutter open. I cannot seem to think. I don’t understand. Though I shared his memories and feelings, his despair does not outweigh the dread I feel now. Fear and panic swirl inside me like a maelstrom, spilling acid down my throat and into my lungs. The thought of Merlin destroying himself agonizes my heart so much there is a physical, unspeakable ache. I barely can believe it. 

He wouldn’t. 

He . . . 

But he almost had. 

Merlin raises his eyes to mine, as blue and vast as an evening sky. There is a shame within their depths. I cannot stand to see him like this. But there is little I can do now. All I can offer is my comfort. 

“Come here.” I pull him to me, one arm around his side, the other hand at the base of his skull. He lets out a short sob against my shoulder and I close my eyes against the noise. I press him closer to me. I feel our hearts beat against each other and dispel the thoughts of my heart beating by itself. It just makes me hold him tighter. 

“It’s alright,” I murmur, though I don’t know if it is to comfort Merlin or myself. “It’s all alright now.”

Merlin gives another aborted little sob onto my shoulder and I rub his back. 

“Come on.” I don’t realize what I’m doing until my hand is under his knees and his head is tucked into my chest. I don’t need to carry him, but he’s in no state to be walking about. I take us from the kitchen to the bedroom and lay him in the bed. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles again. 

“It’s alright.” I hold his shoulder as I gather the blankets with one hand, like I’m afraid to let go of him. 

I think I am. 

I pull the blankets up to his shoulders and lay down next to him, pressing my chest into his back, only the blanket and our clothes between us. My hand curls around his body and applies a light pressure to his chest over his heart. It beats steadily against my palm. His chest expands with every shaky breath. 

I want to say something. I have to tell him . . .

What would I say that he doesn’t already know? What could I say to a man whose suffering I’d barely glimpsed? 

I press my forehead to the back of Merlin’s neck, breathe in his sandalwood soap and the faint hint of laundry detergent he uses on his clothes. It lends me little comfort, but that is not the reason for my closeness. I will comfort him. I will be here for him.  

I pull him even closer to my chest, his warmth seeping into mine, and hope that he takes what little I can give him. 

==========================================================================

Merlin falls asleep after a while and I try to follow suit. The methodical heartbeat against my palm and soft snores should lull me to sleep but my wakefulness persists. 

I can’t even seem to close my eyes. I’m too afraid. 

I’ve always felt this strange protectiveness toward Merlin, one I hardly understood at the beginning. At first, it was about duty. He was my servant. I was responsible for him. And then, as my fondness for him grew, and his stubbornness got in the way, and I realized he would never leave me. . . I suppose I’d made a silent vow to do the same. He’d sacrificed himself for me more times than anyone else I knew, even if he was a dollophead. Even though he never seemed to know his place. Even though I didn’t always understand where his affection came from. 

And now I know he’d sacrificed so much more. He’d been kidnapped, beaten, tortured, poisoned - and that was just when I was alive!

He’d endured so much. Alone. 

And it had nearly pushed him to the brink. 

I stiffen instinctually, the very thought of Merlin’s research turning my stomach. I glance around the room. He’d done it here, in this very room, pouring over books, seeing stones, and smokeless fires, divining a spell that would destroy himself. 

It’s still here. 

The spell is still in this room. A darkening dread floods into my lungs as the thought trickles into my head. He could still use it. 

He wouldn’t. I was here now. There was no reason to - I stop myself when I realize my arrogance. It was foolish of me to even think I was the one barrier between Merlin’s happiness and his demise. 

And besides, I didn’t know how long I’d be allowed to stay. I didn’t know for what purpose I returned. What if I was forced to leave again through means beyond my control? Would my absence make Merlin’s feelings return?

Slowly, I inch away from Merlin’s sleeping form and rise from the bed. He sleeps peacefully, his handsome features still and serene. 

I couldn’t let that spell exist. 

My eyes glance over the thick pages near the bookshelves. Merlin had shuffled them all away in a hurry when we first came into his room the day I returned. But where was it now? My memories jumble together, clouded by the overwhelming nature of all the things I learned and saw that day. But what of Merlin’s memories?

I close my eyes and focus. Slowly, for the first time, I wade into the chilly stream of Merlin’s memories willingly. I slide past his joy of finding me, his grief that it took so long, the shame of what he had been so close to accomplishing. There.  

I follow that feeling, his memory melting into the scene that would be before me if I opened my eyes. Books on the bed and scattered on the floor, and there, on the top of open pages of an old weathered tome, is the spell. Written clear as day on the cracked blue binding, the yellowing pages, stands the fine neat handwriting on college-ruled notebook paper. 

I open my eyes and let out a breath, the vision gone. With keen eyes, I search for the weathered blue binding I know I will find that cursed spell. It takes a few moments in the growing darkness, the light from the window growing weaker as the sun sets, but finally, my eyes come to stop on my target. 

Quietly, as to not disturb Merlin’s sleeping form, I unstack the books laying precariously on top of it. My fingers shake as I flip through the pages. The white notebook paper stands out against the ancient pages. It’s folded in a random diagonal crease from when Merlin slammed his book shut in his haste to hide from me. I take it and read the words though they have no meaning to me. 

Still, the lines on the paper send spikes of dread through me, as if blades of molten ice pierced my heart and lungs. 

I crumple the paper in my hand and replace the book onto its pile. 

Throwing this spell away is not enough. I need to destroy it. 

I walk to the kitchen methodically without turning on the lights, Merlin’s memories guiding me down the hall, warning me of the squeaky floorboard under the thermostat. The kitchen is dark but the window shows enough pale light for me to find the stove and light the gas burner. 

Merlin’s secret goes up in smoke. 

I wash the bits of ash down the sink and breathe a sigh of relief. A shadow of fear lightens around me by a fraction. I don’t ever want to think about that again. 

I make my way back to the bedroom. Merlin is just where I left him, curled tightly onto himself, knees nearly touching his stomach, his fingers crooked under his nose. He looks so soft. Whole. I wish I knew how to help him, aid him in some way. But what could I offer him but reminders of a painful past? It seemed as if I was too hindered by Merlin’s memories to do anything but hurt him further. 

I blink. 

I could help by using his memories. If I could find the spell -  just as I found the piece of paper hidden in his books - the one he’d read so long ago that altered my mind, if I could help reverse my enchantment, maybe he wouldn’t look so sorrowful when I told him all I’d seen. Maybe he wouldn’t look at me with knowing pity, a mutual mourning. 

A small grin pulls at the corners of my lips but I do not declare victory quite so soon. Instead, I take a deep breath and close my eyes. 

==========================================================================

“Merlin,” I whisper. The man hums beneath me. My hand moves from his shoulder to slide my fingers into the hair at his temple. 

He groans louder and shifts onto his back, just as I withdraw my fingers as if I’d been burned. I blink perplexedly at my hand. I don’t know what had possessed me to touch Merlin that gently nor why I had done it without conscious thought. I shake my head. A question for another time. There were more pressing matters at hand. 

“Merlin,” I say louder this time and watch as Merlin’s eyes flicker open. 

“What time is it?” he mumbles. 

“No idea.” I sit on the edge of the bed, a paper clasped in my hand. “I need to tell you something.”

Merlin’s eyes blink rapidly again as they focus on me. I raise my eyebrows expectantly. His expression turns mournful. 

“Before you say anything,” he starts, closing his eyes against some invisible attack. “I’m sorry you had to see what you saw. It was never my intention for you to see - to experience -”

“Merlin.” I cut him off. I can’t stand to think of it right now. Perhaps one day, when the endless drone of time has driven these last few hours far from my memory, when the thought is stale and dry in my mind, I will be able to talk about it, but not now. “I destroyed that wicked thing. We never have to think about it again.”

Merlin’s eyes open in a questioning glance and though I do not want to discuss it any further, I feel I owe him an explanation. 

“I found your notes,” I concede. Merlin’s lips press into a line. “I burned them. They’re gone.” They won’t hurt you anymore. 

Merlin seems to hear the words I left unsaid because a sad little smile traces itself onto his lips. He is silent, but the way he tears his eyes away from mine seems to scream their meaning. 

“You remember it still.” It’s not a question, though I desperately want it to be. My sneaking about had all been for nothing. The threat was still there. 

He nods. “I read those words too many times not to remember them.” He glances up at my face with an apologetic smile. “They’ll fade soon enough. Everything eventually does.” His voice is emotionless and once again I am nearly knocked to the ground with the weight of his sacrifice. “Thank you, though. For - “ He winces at himself. “- for trying. It means a great deal to me.”

He sounds tired, so incredibly exhausted that I want to push him back into the bed and force him to sleep for another two days. But he’s awake and he’s agitated, his eyes drifting over the stacks of books that do not contain the one thing that can help him relax. 

“Hey,” I say, letting a smile onto my lips, for Merlin’s sake as well as my own. “I’ve got some good news.”

Merlin shifts his gaze away from the books to look at me questioningly. 

“I found the spell.” I grin at him.

“You what?” His eyebrows lower in confusion. 

“When I was - well I realized I could look for something specific if I really focused. I could . . .” I pause, searching for the right way to phrase this ability. One of Merlin’s thoughts floats to the surface of my mind helpfully. “I could ‘control F’ the memory of the spell. Where you’d last seen it, I mean.”

“Control F the memory?” Merlin scoffs incredulously. 

I wave the paper in my hand triumphantly. He follows it with his eyes like a cat following its prey. He reaches for it but I snatch it away before his fingers can touch the paper. 

“Arthur?”

The slight tremor in the paper exposes my shaking fingers. I want these things gone just as much as Merlin does, but I cannot risk a single other secret. I don’t know if I would be able to recover. 

“I will give this to you,” I say slowly, trying to make him understand, “if you promise me there is nothing else. Nothing else you’re hiding from me. No more secrets.”

Merlin’s expression turns apologetic. “Arthur, you know I never meant to keep my magic from you. I never meant to break your trust.”

“And the other thing?” I still couldn’t seem to speak of it. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

His lips twitch as the crease between his eyebrows deepens. “Why would I ever put you through that intentionally?”

I swallow. I don’t answer him. I wouldn’t tell him if our situations were reversed. 

It hurts that he wouldn’t tell me. 

It hurts that he would even think to - 

My eyes screw shut, the black behind my eyelids offering meager relief from the ache in my chest. I open my eyes after a deep breath. Merlin is looking at the paper. 

“Please, Merlin.”

His eyes shift back to mine. So blue. So old. 

“I can’t take another secret. I can’t.” I’m not proud of the way my voice breaks. 

“I could just take that, you know.” His smile is as tentative as his voice. 

I stop my lip from trembling with sheer force of will. “I could just look, you know.”

His smile fades. His eyes are watery, the redness making the color of his irises even brighter.

“I have nothing more to hide from you, Arthur,” he says softly, slowly, like a feather falling from a nest. “I’ve - I’ve shown you everything.”

I search his eyes. He’s telling the truth but there is a sadness to them that wasn’t there a moment before. Is it because I doubted him again? Is it because I forced his hand? I don’t know what it is and I respect him enough not to look. If he doesn’t want to tell me that’s his right, I just . . .

He’d scared me before. More fear than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. And I never want to feel like that again. 

But Merlin had promised there were no more secrets. And I believe him. 

I turn the paper over to him. He takes it slowly as if I might rip it away from him again. When I let go entirely, he scans the lines of the original spell. 

“Oh, I am an idiot,” he mutters to himself. “I remember now. Hold on.” He gets up from the bed and begins pacing back and forth. I watch him as I lean back on the covers. I can’t help the small smile that comes to my face. Though he is more ancient than nearly everything on this earth, his features sing of boyhood, his frenzied gate belies his years as his limbs jitter youthfully at the excitement of this moment. A victory is on the horizon that Merlin will not be denied. 

“Ah, okay!” Merlin halts in front of me. His grimace confuses me until he speaks. “This might hurt a little.”

I raise an eyebrow. 

“I’ll be . . . taking something from you - it doesn’t matter that they’re not yours to begin with, they are yours now, whether we like it or not.” He sighs. “Here, lie back on the bed.” 

I maneuver myself until my head reaches a pillow. He takes another deep breath and I watch his chest expand beneath his shirt. 

“Okay.” He drops the paper on the sheets beside me as he sits on the edge of the bed. “Remember how I told you to brace yourself last time?”

I nod silently, my smile remains on my face. I cannot seem to make it leave. 

“Right, well do that again but better.”

His fingers wiggle apprehensively as he raises them to my temples, just as he’d done before. 

“What are you smiling about, you have to focus.”

My eyes track between his eyes and I feel his fingers tremble at the sides of my face. There is an indescribable ache in the air. A homesickness without memory of a home. A longing I have seldom felt but so strong I can almost hear it. I miss him, though he sits right in front of me. No, that’s not quite right. I do not miss him. So what is it?

Do I miss our old life? The one where I was blind and Merlin hidden from the world? No. 

Do I miss what is about to be taken from me? Do I miss what is not mine but allows me to see my friend clearly for the first time in eternity? 

Do I miss something that I have not the words to describe? A feeling so certain I feel it's been with me my entire life. A feeling so elysian, I wonder how I could not have noticed it before. 

I chase that feeling, searching, following its lingering tracks as if I’m once again on the hunt, but it evades me. The trail isn’t cold. My prey is just too far off to catch up. 

Merlin’s eyes search mine.  My smile widens by a fraction. 

“Be gentle with me,” I say softly. 

Merlin’s breath hitches as he glances away from my gaze, then back up. The smallest hint of a blush tints his pale cheeks. 

“Of course,” he replies, barely audible. I wait for him to say the words. I wait for sunlight to flood over cerulean oceans. 

The pain is sharp, a twisting knife behind my eyes that steals the breath from my lungs. And it lingers. His memories do not want to go. They sever themselves from me as if cut by a dull and rusted blade. I’d expected the pain in my head, I’d prepared myself for it. What I did not expect was the awful ripping, tearing, wresting of Merlin’s soul from my chest. I had not considered that they had settled in my heart, made a home in my core. I think I hear myself scream. The sound is distant. My head splits. My chest feels as though I have a gaping, open wound, wide enough for something to rummage around in the cavity of my chest, pull on strings of muscle, tear at every thread, extract my very heart. 

And then it's over, the pain gone as quickly as it had come. My fingers claw weakly at the front of my shirt, just to make sure there is unbroken skin. After I confirm there is nothing wrong, the rest of my senses return to me. 

Merlin has shifted. Instead of sitting daintily at the edge of the bed like he was before he has turned, his back toward the headboard, his arms encircling my shoulders, his hand pressing my skull into his chest. I feel his breath across the bridge of my nose as he holds me to him. He's saying something, though I do not seem to hear it quite yet. 

Slowly, shakily, I raise my hand to cover his where it squeezes my shoulder. And then I start to hear him. It’s his heartbeat I hear first, thunderous and steady pressed to my ear. Then I begin to make out what Merlin is saying. 

“I’m sorry. Forgive me. It’s over. It’s alright. It’s over. I’m sorry.” 

My hand closest to him reaches up, my fingers curling over the back of his neck. Warm. Sweat-slick. 

“Merlin, ‘s alright,” I’m able to mumble. He doesn’t cease his panicked mutterings. It’s not enough. My voice is too weak. I must be stronger for him. 

I swallow thickly. 

“Merlin.” My voice is louder. Clear. My hand tightens at the nape of his neck. 

His voice wavers. “Arthur?”

His gaze comes into view. Blue eyes become vortexes of guilt and shame as they look down upon me. Merlin’s vice-like grip softens to gentler fastenings. 

“I’m alright,” I say. I can barely feel the soft puffs of his breath upon my cheek. 

He looks at me too long without speaking, but I find I do not mind the silence. Stillness is a far better companion than panic. The only intruders are his beating heart and our blending breaths. 

We stay there until his neck cools and my arm starts to cramp. The only muscle I dare to move is my thumb as it smoothes lightly over his skin. 

“Did it work?” he asks, his voice breaking over the stillness. 

Reluctantly, I move from him. I feel colder, not dissimilar to the chill of a memory that isn’t mine. His eyes seem to track my every movement. 

“I don’t know. Give me something to think about.”

Merlin’s lips press into a line and he looks away from me. “Think of Lancelot. My first meeting.”

My tongue wets dry lips and I close my eyes. I focus on my old friend’s face as I remember him. Handsome. Kind. Gone too soon. 

There is . . . a whisper. An echo - of Merlin’s memory. It’s smoke, perhaps even lighter. A warmth, an excitement, an understanding, but that is all I can gather. I open my eyes. 

Merlin awaits my answer with bated breath. I smile and nod. 

Relief crashes over his features like a wave. He no longer has to be afraid of what I may stumble upon. He leans forward, as if strength leaves him, bowing his head until it rests on my shoulder. 

“Good,” he sighs into my arm. I smile at the weight of him against me. It is at once both strange and familiar. “Thank you for helping me.” He raises his head to look at me and I smile. 

“I will always help you. You need only ask for it.” 

His lips curl slightly upward, the sweet outweighing the bitterness from time lost. We cannot change the past. There is only now. His gaze is far away as he looks at the books still strewn about the floor before us. He sighs. Content. 

“Help me put the books away.”

Perhaps this is what Merlin felt as my servant. The times I asked him to attend to me. To care for me. I hope it is. 

“Of course.”

==========================================================================

It occurs to me after the first stack of books is put away, that he could do this with magic. But there is something comforting about doing it all by hand, a quiet simplicity that soothes the air around us, settles our turbulent minds. 

I no longer remember where they go. I don’t recall the strange method of organization he’d placed them in over the years. So I stand by his side and hand them to him, one by one, as he replaces them in their rightful post. Sometimes he looks at the title to make sure. Others, he simply takes the book from me, his hands run along the binding with old familiarity, and he places it on the shelf without a second glance. 

I look at him. 

He is like a dream. What other explanation could there possibly be? What other reason for his constancy, his strength, his faith in me, in the powers that permitted me to return to him? It seems too good to be a reality. 

I do not deserve him. 

I have never deserved him. 

What must he have thought, all those years by my side, unable to say the thing that meant the most to him? Unable to reveal to me the parts that he kept hidden.

And how could I have not seen? He was in pain. He was hurting. And all I saw was his loyalty. Why would he stay? I don’t understand. He is too good. Too kind. Far more powerful than any of us could have ever imagined and yet he stayed. With me. 

Was it destiny? Fate? Had he had any choice in the matter or had he taken the word of soothsayers and dragons that his soul should be sealed to mine? 

Why?

I close my eyes, focusing on that question. I do not have his memories now. Just echos. But maybe it will be enough. To understand, finally, to relieve the itch that has been worrying me since he first revealed who he was in that forest so long ago. 

I just sense feelings. Bits and pieces. There are no more scenes to watch, no details to collect. Just . . . a controlled fear, a soft pride, a delicate hope. There is determination and affection and sorrow. A deep, unyielding devotion. A lonely yearning that aches in the air, a homesickness without a memory of a home.

My eyes open. I’ve shown you everything, he’d said.

Perhaps, I begin to understand. 

Merlin holds his hand out for another book. My hands are empty. 

I should hate to be wrong, but I do not think I am.

“Arthur?” He’s looking at me, eyebrows raised, a tiny bemused smile upon his lips.

Actually, I’m quite certain. 

“You love me.”

Merlin’s face makes several changes very quickly. There’s the initial shock, of course, confusion, a deep blush, and at last, a sincere nervousness. 

“What?”

I take a small step forward. There are but inches between us. “You love me.” I am more sure than ever. 

Merlin’s tongue darts out to wet his lips. His eyes shift between mine, searching, but I know he sees no malintent within my gaze. Quite the opposite. Still, his breath comes shallower.  He swallows. 

“Of course, I love you,” he says, soft but strong. Relieved, I think. 

I imagine my heart should be racing, my breath uneven, my palms sweating. But the only change I feel is the muscles in my face twitch, a small smile growing. I am . . . comfortable. Content. Glad. 

“How could I not love you,” he continues. Tears begin to pool in the corners of his eyes but I’m not worried. They are not born of pain. “Would I have waited, if I had not loved you?”

I raise my eyebrows. It is a good question. One we’ll never know. 

Merlin blinks rapidly. “You’re - you’re not saying anything.”

My hand travels upward. It comes to rest over his heart. I feel it pulsing lightly beneath my thumb. It races as if he’s run a mile. It excites me, my heart beginning to echo his own. 

“I would have waited for you,” I whisper and I know that it is true. “If I’d had to. If our places were reversed. I would have waited. Just as you did.”

Merlin’s lip trembles. I want to soothe away its tremors with my own. My breath comes out short. My nose bumps the skin of his cheek. My fingers brush against his throat. 

“Merlin,” I breathe against his lips. I don’t remember when I closed my eyes, but I’m so close I do not need to see. 

He is even softer than he looks. His lips not hesitant, but light, as if afraid to bruise, to hold too tightly. He tastes slightly of tea and something sweeter. 

I am in love with him. 

My forehead presses softly against his as our lips part from each other. I keep my eyes closed and choose instead to soak in the moment with my other senses. 

“I love you.”

Merlin’s breath hitches. 

“I love you,” I say - delicate words, but the strength behind them incomparable to steel. “I love your kindness and your passion. I love your softness and I love your strength. I do not deserve your affection. I do not deserve to behold your gaze. You are life itself. You give me hope. You lift my very soul. I love you. I love -”

Merlin’s mouth is hot on mine, his hands thread into my hair. His lips, more forceful than before, glide over mine in a brilliant rhythm. His intensity coaxes my lips to part, to deepen the kiss.

He feels right. 

One of my hands remains at his neck, while the other holds the back of his head, steadying him, though he is more anchor to me than he will ever know. I press my body to his, his warmth a balm to my aching skin. He makes a small little sound in the back of his throat and I breathe it in. 

He’s perfect. 

He always has been. I’m so glad I was given the opportunity to see it so clearly. 

I break away from him, my lungs straining. His eyes are closed, the deep blue I know and love hidden from me for a moment. There are tears beneath his eyes. The salt melts on my lips as I press them under his eyes, like they were never there. 

I lean away from him slightly, just to soak in all of him, but Merlin’s eyes snap open, his grip tightening around me. 

“Stay.” One word but there are too many meanings behind it. Stay, do not break this spell. Stay, hold on to this moment just a few moments longer. Stay, this feels too right. Stay. Stay with me. Do not leave me now. Not when I have bared myself, body and soul. I could not take it. Stay. 

I hold his face. He is beautiful. 

“I will not leave you.” My words are forged in promise. A challenge. Not even gods would dare fight them. “I will stay with you as long as you will let me.”

He smiles and I cannot help but smile back. Outside, the sun begins to rise.