Chapter Text
Strange as it may seem, Arthur had never given much thought to his supposed immortality, partly because it was an impossible thing to come to terms with. But it was equally impossible to ignore since everyone else (apart from Merlin and Mordred) was not immortal and got swept on with time into the grey and grouchy, and eventually toward their graves.
Around the time their perpetual ‘youthful looks‘ started garnering comments in the village, Merlin devised a potion he and Arthur could each take a sip of every day, which would give them the appearance of gradually aging alongside everyone else. Over the span of thirty years, it made little crow’s-feet appear under Merlin’s eyes, his laugh-lines had etched themselves into his cheeks, and his dark hair had become increasingly shot with silver. However, Merlin looked none the worse for it. In fact, it somehow suited him, and Arthur found himself feeling in the odd contemplative moment that he may actually prefer Merlin this way. So, naturally, to express this feeling, he took to insulting Merlin, calling him an ancient, crusty cretin at every opportunity.
Merlin only ever stuck his tongue out at him in response.
For his own part, Arthur thought he himself wore the signs of time very well, until he looked into the mirror one day (on his thirty-first year as head of the village council), and saw Uther. He chose to avoid the mirrors after that.
Merlin noticed.
One morning, while they were still in bed after the sun was well up, Merlin pulled the blue duvet over both their heads. Inside the warm, blue cocoon, humid with their breath, Merlin smiled at him, until Arthur had to relent, give in and smile back.
“Let’s go somewhere,” Merlin whispered, with brilliant eyes full of ardent promise of adventure. “Let’s go see the world.”
Lying with his head snugly in Merlin’s palm, Arthur blinked, “The world? We're...running away?”
“We won’t be running away from anything,” Merlin said.
“What about our responsibilities here? What about ‘destiny’?”
“Destiny will find us, wherever we are.” He ran his thumb softly down the bridge of Arthur’s nose.
Arthur hesitated. “What about the village?”
A sadder look dampened Merlin’s eager smile, and he faltered. “It will go on, I suppose, like everything else.”
Arthur frowned at the thought, and something inside him pinched painfully. He swallowed.
“Arthur?”
“But...I would die for them. If that is my destiny then I will do it. I would gladly die for any of them. For you.”
Merlin looked at him a good while, seeing. “There's no need for that. You don't have to die to be worthy of living.” His hand stroked the side of Arthur’s face. “You died once before. You don’t have to die again. You keep on searching for a cause to die for.” He waited a moment, plaintively. “You’re allowed to live.”
“I am not afraid of pain.”
“No,” Merlin said. “You're afraid that, one day, the pain might stop. And that you'll still be here, without it.”
Arthur scrunched his eyes shut.
“You’re allowed to live,” Merlin told him, again, quietly, quietly... “Even after everything.” And again, but different, “We're allowed to live.”
Arthur was quiet for some time. And Merlin was quiet with him.
Finally, “Where would we go?”
Merlin smiled again. “Everywhere.”
***
They announced their retirement from their long-held respective positions in the village to much lament. Gareth was now the new head of the council, and it had been a seamless handover. The village made sure to draw out their farewell process for as long as possible. Unfortunately Kira, among many others, was no longer alive to give her undoubtedly colourful comments on the situation, and when Arthur left the village for the last time on the dreaded final day he felt deeply like he had just lost another old friend.
And so, restored to their state of bodily youth with a golden flash of Merlin’s eyes, they set off into the world, which at that time could still be travelled for leisure in good faith.
Arthur’s first time on an airplane went about as well as could be expected. To avoid the airplane, the initial plan had been to travel by ship instead. And Arthur had been sure that this was a brilliant alternative, until he stood at the docks, and looked at all the ships, and to where the grey water faded into the horizon. He remembered the last time he boarded a ship. An instant, terrible, icy shiver paralyzed him with his one foot on the ramp, and he could move no further.
Merlin did not say anything about it when the ship left port without them, but reassured Arthur that the ship was a lackluster option anyway, and quickly booked them some airplane tickets instead.
Merlin had given him a proper preparatory talk beforehand, and made sure he ate, and made him swallow a potion for his nerves. And so Arthur bravely boarded the airplane with some fragile assurance. He opted not to sit by the window, but on the aisle side where the friendly ladies with the little scarves kindly offered him assorted snacks and a beverage.
When the plane took off, Arthur was holding - squeezing - Merlin’s hand, purely to be companionable and for no other reason, of course. Once the airplane had levelled out and Arthur’s ears had adjusted to the thick humming sound, he had to admit that it was not too bad after all. In fact, he was perfectly fine with this. It was barely worth the earlier condescending fuss with the seatbelt clicking lecture.
He let go of Merlin's hand.
“You doing okay?”
Arthur took a deep, brave breath. “Of course. This is nothing.”
Merlin offered him an encouraging smile, and invited Arthur to lean over to look out the little window. Arthur leaned over confidently, looked down, instantly regretted it, and promptly threw up right into Merlin’s lap.
He slept with his head resting on Merlin's shoulder the rest of the way, firmly clutching Merlin's hand, and not letting go, not even for the snacks.
***
They traveled all through Africa, down to its Southernmost point, and visited the old Castle of Good Hope. From there on they explored India, Nepal and Malaysia. China took them the better part of a year to properly appreciate, and then there was Japan.
Thereafter they went North, and spent a few weeks with Mordred in his cabin on the outskirts of a remote town in Northern Norway where Mordred had settled himself after Kara's inevitable passing.
Mordred had developed an avid enthusiasm for ice fishing, and since Merlin did not much care for it, it was Arthur alone who got yanked out of the cozy, fur-lined bed he was sharing with Merlin on the first morning there and unceremoniously dragged out into the freezing cold tundra to go stand rather foolishly with a fishing rod over a hole in a frozen lake.
Whilst Arthur tried to maintain his balance and some dignity, skidding around on the slippery surface, Mordred stood on the equally frozen bankside, leaning on a spear stuck precariously deep into the ice, cracking it, and watching him.
“Better tread carefully there!” Mordred would call at him. “You wouldn’t want to misstep. It’s a long way down.”
Arthur knew very well that Mordred was not, in fact, warning him about the ice. “I am trying, alright?” He readjusted his stance to maintain control.
“You sure you don’t need…” Mordred retracted and then re-stuck the spear, harder, into the icebed. “…help?”
“No,” Arthur called back in frustration, trying to stop his teeth from clattering. Cracks were radiating up the ice towards Arthur, controlled by Mordred's spear. “I’m fine! I'm f-fine!”
“Are you sure?”
As if for the sake of irony, Arthur slipped and had to catch himself on one knee. “Yes, I am sure! I am sure! I have it under control! I am doing everything I can! I have kept my promise! I swear!”
“I am still keeping my eye on you. Don’t forget,” Mordred said with a rather amused grin on his face, but thereafter relented, pulling the spear from the ice and, mercifully, thereafter letting Arthur back into the car along with the one measly, scrawny halibut Arthur had managed to somehow ensnare over the course of several hours out in the cold, and drove them back to the cabin, and Merlin.
After Norway, Merlin and Arthur toured the rest of Scandinavia, and then the Baltic states, and finally ended up in Spain. Arthur had a newfound passionate appreciation for the hot Spanish summer after their long stay in the cold countries, and so they decided to take a break from traveling.
Arthur managed to secure himself a job at the British embassy, and the job came with the use of a lovely historic villa in a pleasant, lush suburb just outside Madrid. In the afternoons, he played football at the local sports club. Merlin met some kindred spirits at the nearby art consortium and found satisfaction in secretly employing his magic in the name of art conservation at a local museum. They spent just over five years in Spain, and Arthur picked up the language quickly enough to argue with Merlin in the vernacular on equal footing in record time.
Centuries later, they both looked back at this time in Spain as some of the best of their whole, long lives.
***
It was near the end of their fifth year in Spain when Arthur came back from football practice one such afternoon, jogging the way back to the villa for the sake of the extra exercise, and opened the front door to the familiar sound of distant voices.
He casually ducked his head into the nearby sitting room area to see Merlin at his makeshift desk near the wide bay window, engaged in some sort of online meeting with his colleagues at the consortium.
Merlin had looked up when Arthur had emerged.
Not wanting to disturb, Arthur mouthed a quick hello and pointed up the stone-tiled staircase to state his intentions, then ducked back out of the room. He jogged up the stairs two at a time, enjoying the exertion and the deep breaths in his lungs. Once upstairs in the room he had taken as his study, he decided that while Merlin was still busy working he might as well also get some work done.
Still wearing his football kit, he pulled a haphazard folder of papers from his backpack, and went to sit himself down in one of the many disused, sunny rooms, splaying the papers in a wide circle around him on the floor. The papers were profiles of players in the football club, and as president of the club he had been tasked with making up the teams for the next inter-club tournament. So he set to work, stretching his legs into a cool-down lunge where he sat.
Deep in concentration, humming to himself, he vaguely noted Merlin’s form in the doorway behind him, just in the corner of his eye. He did not think much of it, assuming Merlin was just passing by in the hallway, and so continued with his task of arranging the papers into hypothetical teams.
Therefore, caught mid-thought quite some time later, he was startled when he felt an unexpected touch to his shoulder. He jerked his head around to see Merlin standing just behind him, with a hovering hand reached toward Arthur and a rather strange look on his face. Arthur was half-surprised he had not heard Merlin’s approaching footsteps on the hollow, woodplank floors. Merlin stood back quickly like he was guilty of something.
“Whoa, what are you doing sneaking up on people like that?” Arthur demanded, grinning the rhetorical question up at Merlin.
Merlin looked a bit flustered, twisting his hands around nervously. “Sorry, I - ” He paused, looking down at Arthur where he sat looking up at Merlin. “Sorry.” Merlin turned and quickly walked away.
Sorry? That in itself was odd. Merlin never said ‘sorry’ when a reciprocal insult would have done well. Arthur replayed the interaction in his head, found it very odd indeed, and so jumped to his feet, and set off after Merlin.
Merlin was already halfway down the staircase.
“Merlin!” Arthur called after him. “Merlin!”
Merlin stopped his decent, and turned around to look up at Arthur where he stood at the top of the stairs.
“What was that? What’s going on?” Arthur asked, keeping his tone and expression light, showing that he was not about to fight over it, jokingly or otherwise.
Merlin continued to look at him where he stood. The bright light coming through the stained glass windows behind Arthur had to be responsible for the strangely awed, teary glint in Merlin’s eyes.
“It’s nothing, I…” It did not seem like Merlin was going to complete his sentence.
“Come on,” Arthur tried again. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
Merlin shifted around, and briefly rubbed at his eyes, before looking back up at Arthur. “It’s just…” he said. “You seem at peace. You seem...happy.”
Arthur could not help but frown at the remark. He took a few moments to think about it, taking inventory of himself. “Well, I suppose I am…happy,” he finally concluded.
Merlin’s mouth twitched into something like a smile. “I am glad you are…happy.”
“Merlin, what is this about? Is something wrong?”
“No...”
“Then why are you acting so…strangely?”
“I…” Merlin began, then stopped short.
“Tell me.” Arthur tried not to sound as concerned as he felt, not wanting to escalate the situation when Merlin was already on the run.
“I…sometimes I forget that you are…back. That you are here. And then I remember. And I just see you…and you look good. You look…happy.” Merlin swallowed and looked away. “I guess I just needed to remind myself that you are here. And that you are…real.”
Arthur tried to make sense of Merlin’s words, finding them oddly unsettling. “Of course I am real, Merlin. What else would I be?”
To his surprise, Merlin let out a choked little laugh, turning away with his sleeve over his mouth. There were definitely tears in his eyes now. The whole thing was bewildering.
“Merlin?” Arthur asked again, now thoroughly worried. Had Arthur done something to upset him so?
Merlin descended the last few steps and was about to disappear from view when Arthur called back down to him. “Merlin!”
Merlin stopped.
“Are you…” Arthur began, and suddenly found himself terrified of the answer. “Are you…happy?”
Merlin repeated the strangled laugh from earlier, rubbing tears from his eyes and yet smiling at the same time. He looked back up at Arthur.
“More than you could know,” Merlin answered, and turned, walking away.
***
Perhaps in retrospect it is easy to see that Merlin knew something. Or at least could sense that something was about to happen.
That night Merlin was restless. He tossed and turned around in their bed, clutching at Arthur intermittently. Arthur had thought it to be one of Merlin’s recurrent night terrors harkening to that long-ago time in the tent, and therefore thought it best to keep his distance as much as he could. These nightmares were infrequent, but when they did occur they were severe.
Merlin was moaning, keening loudly, urgently.
“Merlin,” Arthur decided to step in, and shook him firmly by the shoulder. “Wake up.”
Suddenly Merlin had a death grip on Arthur’s arm.
“Merlin!”
But Merlin was not asleep at all. He latched onto Arthur, rolling himself over to hitch a leg over Arthur’s hips and kissing him hard. He writhed his body against Arthur's, mouthing Arthur’s name. Merlin’s arm had disappeared behind his own back, tenting the blankets.
The moans were not moans of terror, but something else entirely.
Arthur was kissed again. And again.
“Merlin?”
On a heavy exhale, Merlin said, “I want you to fuck me. We can go slowly. As slow as you want.”
Arthur sat up quickly, scooting himself backward. Merlin only held him tighter, his one arm still moving behind himself. He was gasping softly, mouth open.
“Merlin. No.”
Merlin made a dissatisfied groaning sound. “Can…can I fuck you then? We can try. Just try? Yes?” Merlin said in a low, parched voice. His skin was clammy with sweat, hot with want. “I'll be so good at it. I'll fuck you good. So good. You'll be screaming for more. Yes?”
“We’ve been through this.”
“It'll be fine.”
“No.” He kept his voice gentle, reasonable. “We can't.”
This was not the first time Merlin had ambushed him with the suggestion (nay, demand) for penetrative sex, when he knew that it was the one taboo Arthur could not do away with, even after three decades. Not after everything.
It was the final forbidden frontier: no.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“It does.” Arthur switched on the bedside light, the brightness instantly dissolving the dark, throwing their heaped shadows onto the warm terracotta walls. He rubbed his hands over his face to disguise his wince, and then patted Merlin on the shoulder. “We can do something else.”
“What? Play Scrabble? How many points do I get for playing 'monk'?”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “I suppose you think you are being funny?”
“Yes. Hilarious even. It's one of the main reasons you love me.”
“I do not love you.”
“Right. Of course.”
Merlin was still lying mostly on top of him, his one arm still working behind his own back and the other running lustfully up and down Arthur’s naked side.
“Come on. You can do me. And I could do you. It will be fun.”
“Fun?” Arthur tried to laugh away the tightness in him. “Persuasive argument there, Merlin. But the answer is still no.”
Merlin sighed with resigned dissatisfaction. He shifted away awkwardly, and sat up as well.
“Look, let’s do something else,” Arthur offered, eager to put Merlin at ease despite his own sleepiness. “Anything you want. Come on.”
“I told you what I want.”
“Anything but that.”
Merlin rubbed at his own forehead, and took some deep breaths. “I dreamt…I dreamt that we…were…”
“That we were what?”
“That…” Merlin hesitated. He laid back down, and put a heavy arm around Arthur’s waist. “That we could stay here forever. And that nothing else mattered.”
Arthur rubbed the residual sleepiness from his eyes. “Is this some new elaborate way to get into my trousers in the middle of the night?” Arthur asked, and waggled an eyebrow, keen on getting rid of the sudden somberness between them.
Merlin laughed. “Perhaps. Did it work?”
“Not even slightly,” Arthur said, and leaned in to gently touch Merlin’s nose with his own. “But I could be persuaded into a favour or two.” He licked his lips in preparation and shuffled himself lower and lower down Merlin’s body.
“What’s on offer?”
“Almost anything.”
***
Autumn in Spain was different than Autumn had been in the village. It was still hot and bright outside until late and the slowly russeting leaves on the trees boulevarding the streets of the old Spanish neighborhood were the only tell-tale sign of the season thus far. It was a Tuesday, which meant Arthur was at the football club that late afternoon. There was a friendly club practice match that afternoon, the scores neck-in-neck until the very end when Arthur’s team managed to break through the opposing parry-line and claim one more point in their favour. There was no crowd to cheer, only a couple of friends of family of the players who stood had on the sidelines for support and now clapped hands – either in congratulations or consolation.
It was not that it was unusual for Merlin to be there, watching, only that this time Arthur spotted him not on the sidelines with the other onlookers, but by himself in the lower stands, sitting quietly. He usually told Arthur when he would be visiting the club, if only as a casual mention at breakfast, but this time he had not.
Arthur did not mind this, on the contrary, and had waved up at Merlin earlier, a gesture which Merlin returned, but otherwise he sat unmoving, watching Arthur as he moved from one side of the field to the other.
When the match was over, and Arthur had shaken all the hands offered to him, and shared few rough, sidelong hugs with his fellow teammates, Merlin had now appeared on the field. The wind had picked up and Merlin was there with one of Arthur’s jackets, wordlessly holding it out while Arthur threaded his arms into the sleeves, handing his water bottle from one hand to the other as he did before taking another gulp from it.
Merlin zipped up the jacket.
“Didn’t know you’d be coming by here today!” Arthur said over the wind. “Everything alright? Finished early at the museum?”
Merlin, however did not acknowledge either question, his attention firmly on Arthur’s one hand where a grass-abrasion from an earlier dive had drawn a minute amount of blood. He was staring at it with enough concern to make Arthur self-conscious, and Arthur pocketed the hand.
“Arthuro! Oh, hola Merlin!” came a holler at them in Spanish. “It was Arthur’s under-captain, a short but speedy man named Ennio. “You’re joining us at seven tonight at the bar for tapas and perhaps dinner?”
Merlin was looking at him now, face still unreadable, urgent, almost unfamiliar in its somberness.
“I will let you know!” Arthur hollered back, in his own imperfect but reasonable Spanish. His eyes did not leave Merlin’s face, prompting for clues as to Merlin’s less-than-cheery disposition.
Ennio replied with something, but Arthur did not catch whatever it was.
Increasingly concerned now, “You’re here to walk me back to the villa?” Arthur queried, asserting a grin, though he felt the ripples of unease inside himself. “What? You think I somehow forgot the way?”
Merlin reciprocate the grin, though mildly, and Arthur felt himself relax a bit. “Yes, come on.” He took Arthur’s hand out of his pocket, and steered him by the elbow along towards the exit, without clarifying which question he had just answered.
As they went, they heard various calls of -
“Bye, Arthur!”
“Goodbye, Arthur!”
“You’re coming tonight, Arthur?”
Merlin had scooped up Arthur’s backpack on the corner of the field and then flung it over his own shoulder as the walked.
The gate to the club was still closed, but it rolled open quickly when Merlin shot a golden gaze at it. Arthur was startled, Merlin rarely used his magic in public so recklessly, in full view of passersby who luckily seemed too distracted by the gusting wind to notice.
“Merlin? Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Arthur queried, trying to keep up. Merlin had let go of his elbow, and now fell in stride next to him. “Merlin?”
It was a few blocks of a walk to get back to the villa. Arthur did not re-attempt the question until they were safely inside the door. Merlin immediately locked the door, and left Arthur in the foyer to go close the shutters in the living room also while Arthur dumbly watched on, before following him.
“Merlin? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“No,” Merlin answered, closing the curtains now. “At least, I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“What does that mean?”
Merlin was looking at him, all over him, but still without meeting his eyes. “You hurt your hand,” Merlin said disapprovingly. “And your knees.”
“What? I - ” He looked down, and saw the small, superficial gravel-scrapes on his knees, no worse than what he usually came off with during a practice match, but Merlin now suddenly seemed as concerned about it as though it were a mortal wound.
“Come sit down,” Merlin said, heading to the couch. “I’ll have a look. At the damage.”
“Damage?” Arthur tried an incredulous laugh. “It’s barely a few scrapes, Merlin! What on Earth are you on about?”
“Will you come sit down?”
And for the first time in a good long while, Arthur was terrified. He stood still.
“Merlin. Look at me.”
Merlin did not. He had sat down on one end of the couch and was rearranging a few pillows on the other side to make space for Arthur. “Come sit,” he instructed. “I will fix your hand, and your knees, and - ”
“Merlin.”
Merlin finally looked at him.
“Did I…do something…”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Merlin said quickly. “Don’t think that.”
Arthur breathed a sigh – frustration, relief, he did not know.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin then said. “I didn’t mean to - ” he faltered. “Sorry.” He dropped his face into his hands.
This was the second time in less than a week that Merlin had devolved into apologies for unknown offenses. There was the conversation in bed that one evening, only two days prior, when Merlin had made demands of him for more than their usual kind of intimacy, and Arthur had politely refused, as he always did. Only, this time, the refusal had caused – was still causing – Merlin significant distress.
Was this about that?
The ensuing guilt was achingly familiar.
Should Arthur have agreed to Merlin’s request? To -
“Fuck,” Merlin said. “Now I have upset you.”
Arthur shrugged, “I am not upset,” he said. “Perhaps a bit confused? Will you tell me what’s going on?”
Now Merlin seemed to be the one in the throes of guilt. He sat back into the couch, and leaned his forehead into his hand, wincing.
Arthur still did not approach.
“Arthur, can I tell you something? From…before?”
Before?
Before.
“You can,” Arthur said, bravely, though not without reluctance. “Of course you can. You don’t need to ask my permission to speak about anything.”
There was a hesitant pause before, “After I left Camelot for Airgíalla,” Merlin started. “All the time I was there – before…you came – I knew something was going to happen. I tried telling myself it wouldn’t, and that everything was fine. Everyone told me it was going to be alright. But I knew something was coming – something terrible – and I was right.”
Arthur felt a bit weak in the knees.
None of this was news to Arthur, of course, and yet it may as well have been. The revelation was enough to sicken him all over.
“Hey, no,” Merlin said quickly. “This is not about what happened then. It’s about now. I think…something is about to happen…again. It's the same feeling. Something is about to happen.”
Arthur took a step back. “Merlin. I would – never – do anything like that again. I promised you. I promised myself. I promised - ”
Merlin stood up. “No! No, that's not what I meant. God, I am so bad at this. No, I meant something else is coming. Something – or someone – horrible. Something is about to happen.”
Heart beating unsteadily, “Something? Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
It was silent for a few moments.
“So,” Arthur ventured. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Do you know when?”
“No, I don’t.”
There was a strange obliqueness in Merlin’s words that unnerved Arthur. He measured his response carefully. He knew Merlin had just confided in him something deeply unsettling, and he knew he needed to remain calm, remain optimistic, remain strong, for both their sakes. He would not abandon Merlin to be the only strong one again. He would be brave this time.
“Alright,” Arthur said. He tried to sound unfazed, reassuring. “Well, whatever it is, we’ll be ready.”
Merlin gave him a tragically grateful look as he sat down again. He pushed his palm deep into the fabric of the couch and then grimaced painfully. “I don’t want this – everything we have here – to end.”
Arthur frowned. “Nothing needs to end unless we want it to.”
Merlin beamed at him. He did so very carefully as though he was afraid to have misunderstood Arthur's meaning. “You...don’t want this here to end either?”
“All this?” Arthur asked, and then gestured around the room. “No. I like it here just fine, actually. The weather is nice, I get to serve England through the embassy work, the football club is finally becoming a reliable win at the tournaments, and of course there’s...uhm…” Here Arthur waved his hands vaguely in Merlin’s direction, but did not add any words to the broken sentence.
Merlin laughed, out loud, and Arthur felt himself exhale in relief. Merlin sounded more like his usual self now, and less like the tense, guarding creature who fetched – no, hauled – him from the club that afternoon.
“Okay,” Merlin said, still laughing. “Okay, good to know we agree on that at least.”
“Are we currently in disagreement about something else?”
“Mmm,” Merlin considered. “Nothing important at the moment. Though, I would tell you again, Ennio has a little ongoing fascination with you – a crush, as they say.”
Arthur snorted, “Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. He has a fiancée.”
“Yes, poor girl. I bet she hears all about you – all the time. Arthuro this, Arthuro that...”
Arthur rolled his eyes, and finally approached the couch. He took up one of the small scatter cushions and shoved it at Merlin’s grinning face.
Merlin laughed again, batting the cushion away, “I am only mentioning it because, in general, you fail to notice how people see you.”
Arthur plopped himself down next to Merlin. He folded his arms but spread his legs enough to have one of his knees touch Merlin’s. “Well, fortunately I have you to translate these profound yet invisible facts of observation.”
“Yeah. Fortunately you do – have me.” Merlin was looking at him in that pensive way which sparked Arthur’s self-consciousness again. He knew something was expected of him here – to say something in return for such a declaration of devotion. A devotion he shared but had long ago forbade himself to voice, especially not in any tactile manner.
“Well, yes, I have you – in the way a dog has fleas or an office has interns,” Arthur said, with mock exasperation, in his ridiculousness, for the sake of avoiding what he knew he could not express properly.
Of what he dare not say.
Lest -
He hung his head in shame.
Merlin reached for his hand, which he allowed Merlin to take from where it had been tucked under his arm. Merlin turned it over in his own hand, drawing his thumb over the small abrasion Arthur had earned himself that day. After the second draw of the thumb over it the abrasion was gone. Merlin leaned over to do the same for Arthur’s knees. His hands did not linger, but maintained a strict physician’s professionalism as they worked.
“Thanks,” Arthur finally said. “You need to be more careful with that though. People will start to notice. Plus, it was hardly necessary. I wasn't going to die from it.”
“I don’t care.”
Arthur had been talking about Merlin’s magic being at risk of being noticed, of course, but it was unclear whether Merlin had inferred something else rather.
“Anyway,” Merlin added, glancing back at Arthur’s now perfectly healed hand. “That would have stung when you do the dishes later tonight.”
“Uhm, no,” Arthur protested quickly, scowling comically. “Quite sure it’s your turn for the dishes.”
“And now there’s also nothing preventing you from going comfortably on your knees after dinner.”
Despite the familiar innuendo, Arthur felt his face heat up. He has never quite gotten used to how comfortable Merlin was discussing sex. “And here I thought you were nursing my wounds because you’re just a charitable person.”
“Me? For you? Never.”
Arthur was the one to laugh this time, and Merlin grinned along with him.
“I like that you still blush, even after all this time.”
“I wasn’t blushing, Merlin. That's for girls. I am sweaty - in the way a man is sweaty after a good football match. Which his side won, by the way.”
Merlin raised an eyebrow, and then shook his head concedingly. “Right.”
“And so, therefore, in being thus victorious, he should be exempted from wash-up duty tonight then?”
“Fat chance,” Merlin said, in his usual teasing way.
But something was still not quite right.
Arthur raised his hand slowly, and was about to do something embarrassing like touch Merlin’s face, if only to try and put him at ease instead of conveying something overly sentimental, but instead he balled it into a fist to knock it briefly to Merlin’s shoulder instead.
Merlin had watched the hand forlornly, through its whole doubting process, and then finally he looked up at Arthur's face as the hand retreated. He seemed a least a bit calmer, more himself.
“You’ll need to leave soon,” Merlin finally said, though rather regretfully. “If you want to be at the pub on time. They're probably already waiting for you.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“No, not tonight,” Merlin replied. He sighed heavily. “I won't be good company regardless. I'll probably head to bed early. Maybe some rest will help. I am sorry to have worried you. I don't want to ruin your post-match also. You should go.”
Having already made up his mind long before, Arthur rummaged around the couch cushions for a bit, and then upon remembering that he had left his mobile phone upstairs, he stood up.
Merlin’s eyes followed him, suddenly desperate. “You’re leaving right now? You’ll need to eat first. Last time you didn’t eat before and you got sick.”
“No, I am phoning Ennio to relay my apologies. I am staying in tonight.”
He heard the surprise in Merlin’s voice. “You are?”
Arthur was halfway up the stairs. “Of course I am.” There was no part of him who would have left Merlin behind in the state he was in, though if he had to be honest, he preferred an early night with Merlin above any antics at the pub on any given day. Of course, he could not bring himself to tell Merlin this simple fact, and would have rather opted for dying, again, and so rather added, “Since I have to be on my knees soon anyway, I might as well get it over with.”
He paused a second to see whether his poor joke had landed.
He knew it had when Merlin chuckled and shook his head hopelessly.
“I…thank you, Arthur,” Merlin said, grateful, and turned away.
Still stalled on the stairs, Arthur was still staring at the man on the couch, and saw in the familiar form the tense and worried posture return, and his profile turn fraught with worry again. Merlin was chewing on a nail now, bouncing a leg anxiously, and did not seem to have noticed that Arthur was still looking at him.
On impulse, Arthur turned back. He walked a few steps back in Merlin’s direction. Then he halted, reconsidering himself.
He turned away and then promptly turned back again.
Merlin only looked up when Arthur had somehow successfully made the last few steps all the way to the couch.
With poised determination, he leaned over the edge, and – though carefully, fleetingly – pressed his lips to Merlin’s jaw with a tiny, almost inaudible kissing sound.
He stood back up quickly after that, and in his embarrassment rushed toward and up the stairs, leaving Merlin to stare after him in astonishment and awe.
***
Arthur came down the next morning, pleasantly flush-cheeked, spike-haired, and wearing nothing but an inside-out robe belonging to Merlin.
“I called in sick today,” Arthur announced at breakfast the while the little television they had in the kitchen cheerfully blared its morning program. He was dishing himself some eggs and then slid the cup of tea he had brewed for Merlin towards him. “The flu.”
“Oh? The flu? Are you feeling congested?” Merlin responded with instant concern from where he was currently leaning over the table, watching the little television. “You were breathing just fine through just your nose last night, while your mouth was...otherwise occupied.”
“I am not actually sick, Merlin,” Arthur clarified. “I just decided I would rather stay here today. The new interns are being a nuisance, and there’s that finance meeting I would rather avoid, and…” Of course the real reason was that Merlin still had that tired, worried look about him, and nothing Arthur said – or did (even on his knees, the previous night, with fervor) seemed adequate comfort or reassurance. “…and I could do with a day off.”
“You really don’t have to do that – for my sake. Yesterday, I was just being…paranoid. I have just been - thinking - a lot and - ”
“I just said that it wasn’t about you,” Arthur lied. “I can shirk my duties for one day if I want to.”
Merlin smiled fondly at him, and nodded. “Yes, you can.”
Arthur waved a hand. “There you have it then,” he said. “Are you needed at the museum today?”
“Uhm, no. Not really.”
“Then I guess we’re both staying in,” Arthur said. “Sure we can find…something to do.”
“I am sure we can.” Merlin was smiling still – not a perfunctory smile, but his relaxed, genuine smile, full of teeth and dimpled cheeks, and so Arthur took some credit for the smile and silently congratulated himself for having managed it.
“Good,” Arthur said, satisfied, and began stuffing his mouth with forkfulls of scrambled egg.
“Perhaps you want to stay here so you can kiss me again? Like you did yesterday. You kissed me first.”
Arthur scrunched up his face. “No, I don't. And I didn't,” he said with his mouth full. “Don't be stupid, Merlin.”
“Right. I could swear that's what happened. You don't usually kiss me first. You never do actually.”
“I didn't. Why would I kiss you? You're - ” Arthur swiveled his finger by his ear and then took another bite of his breakfast. “...and ugly. Like a troll. And I have more discerning tastes than the likes of you.”
“You're blushing again.”
“I am certainly not.”
“I liked it, you know. You can do it again.”
“You didn't like it. Because it didn't happen.”
“Right. Sure. Okay.”
Merlin was watching the television now, his smile having a faded only a little, drinking his tea while Arthur did his best to pretend he was not watching – not admiring – the gentle face he had fallen in love with more than a millennium ago, and still continued to do.
Love was a heavy thing, he had come to learn.
Too heavy, sometimes.
And he feared it.
Still.
Horribly.
Something in Merlin’s face suddenly twitched and changed. Eyes still on the television, he lowered the cup from his mouth, and a deep furrow formed on his brow.
Arthur’s gaze snapped to the television where a news report was underway:
“The beast had been spotted numerous times around the Camden area. It is reported to have the appearance of a horned horse, with noticeable bloody lesions across its body, and aggressive tendencies. So far, three motorists have reported being attacked by the creature along the motorway. So far, only one casualty has been confirmed. Motorists have been advised to stay clear of the area. Animal control and the UK Health Security Agency have issued instructions - ”
The news report was accompanied by grainy footage of a fleshly pink creature, stag-like, though as large as a horse, that stood on the edge of a forest along a motorway. It was almost shiny in appearance, oozing something sticky-looking from its raw-meat flanks. It was arching its neck, twisting it in an eerily unnatural way, burnishing its hooves, and swaying unsteady where it stood – before suddenly charging headlong onto the road - and this is where the video footage was abruptly cut off upon a frightened shriek from the camera operator. Upon its approach it could be seen that whatever the creature was, it was rotting. The last frame, now eerily paused on the television screen, showed that the creature once sported one singular horn between its eyes, though it had been bluntly butchered from right against the bone of its skull. Its eyes were wild and black and weeping.
The news report flashed away into a transition screen.
There was a jingling advertisement for back-to-school supplies on now.
Merlin glanced at him, and Arthur immediately felt the blabbering idiot for all the placating he had been doing since the day before to try and put Merlinat ease. Whatever was happening back in England, was not some natural phenomenon.
And Arthur, to his regret, knew exactly what a de-horned unicorn looked like.
This was it.
“Do you think…you can extend your sick leave?” Merlin asked him, remarkably composed, taking a large, fortifying swallow of his tea. There was a shudder in his voice, and for a moment it all felt surreal. “I’ll book us a flight back.”
Arthur already missed the life they had not three minutes ago.
Here it was.
It was truly Autumn now.