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“At least take my cloak!” Lancelot called from the bed, watching as Merlin turned from the door. “You wouldn’t want the rain to-”
Merlin laughed. “Soak me to the bone, yes I heard you the first fifteen times.”
He took the cloak from the chair, though, and wrapped it around his shoulders. Lancelot smiled.
“Be safe.”
“Aren’t I always?” Merlin asked.
“Not really, no.” He thought of all the times Merlin had returned from these secret missions with bruises and new scars he could never explain, the missions to save Camelot he refused to take Lancelot on no matter how many times they argued.
It’s too dangerous , Merlin would say.
What about you? Lancelot would respond. You’re not immortal either.
“I’ll be fine, you worry too much.” Merlin grabbed his pack and went to the door.
And as Lancelot watched him leave, yet again, to the dangerous night which held all the things he could never protect Merlin from no matter how he may have wished to, he thought that he didn’t worry nearly enough.
*
“'Cause when it’s cold
I’ll wrap my scarf around you”
*
“My mother made this for me.” Lancelot said, as he wrapped the faded blue scarf around Merlin’s shoulders. “It’s the last thing I have of her.”
Merlin started, reaching to unravel the scarf. Lancelot stopped him with gentle hands.
“I can’t-”
“It’s cold.” Lancelot replied, interrupting him as though he had not heard the small protest. He looked at Merlin, who looked so peaceful under the midday winter sun as the snow fell, sprinkling his dark hair in a somehow beautiful contrast. “She would have wanted you to have it, I think.” He continued, despite how Merlin’s blue eyes seemed wet with unshed tears. He took the scarf and tugged it softly, pulling Merlin closer. “She always told me to find someone with a kind heart. She would have loved you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Merlin whispered.
“Then don’t.” Lancelot responded, and kissed him.
*
“And when it’s hard
I’ll place your head into my hands”
*
Lancelot found Merlin curled in a pile of blankets in his small room, his face pale and his eyes red.
“I can’t do this, Lance.” He whispered eventually, his voice full of an anguish which made Lancelot’s heart ache for him, as Lancelot sat down next to him and took his hand, his thumb moving in soothing circles. “What- what if Albion never comes? What if this is all for nothing? What if I’m- ” He cut himself off, his voice breaking slightly. “What if I’m nothing?”
“Oh Merlin,” Lancelot said, pulling him close and taking his face in his hands.
“Never say that. Never think that. Do you know why I’m here, in Arthur’s court? Why I serve the son of a king who not only banished me, but has persecuted your kind for decades?”
“Why?” Merlin asked, looking up at him with such a raw expression that Lancelot held him tighter.
“Because of you, you and your faith in the world that you and Arthur will build. Albion will come, dear heart, it will.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Lancelot said firmly, and swore to himself that he would do everything within his power to keep it.
*
“It’s like I’ve gone off to the coast
Left you behind just standing there”
*
The screams of the Dorocha surrounded him, and yet all he could think of as he looked back, a sad smile on his face, was Merlin. Merlin, who had been his first friend in Camelot, who had always believed in him, and fought for him, and sacrificed for them all. Merlin, who was ready to die for Arthur, for Camelot, for the future of Albion that he had yet to see.
Merlin, who Lancelot loved above all others.
He turned back to the veil, opened his arms in the embrace of a death he knew was coming, and went to meet his fate.
*
Pretending not to see your ghost
If only you could hear my voice
But you are screaming far too loud to hear me swear
Just because I left doesn’t mean that I’m not still there
*
The first thing Lancelot saw after stepping through the veil was Merlin. He supposed that was a fairly good thing to see directly after dying, the face of the one he loved most.
He wondered if this was Heaven, or Hell, or some other afterlife he had never given much thought to.
“N-no,” Merlin said, looking to the side as if searching for someone to turn to. Lancelot took one step forward, then another, until he was all but running to Merlin. He reached out to grab Merlin’s hand-
Only for his own to go straight through it.
Fuck.
“Merlin,” He said, hoping in one last attempt that maybe he would be heard. “Can you hear me?”
Merlin continued to stare through him, to where the veil had been. His eyes were distant, filled with tears that Lancelot longed to brush away.
That was a no, then.
He followed the others back to Camelot. There was a weight on all of their shoulders, and it almost startled him to realise- while he was at his own funeral, and wasn’t that an odd thing to experience- that it was because of him. He was dead. Whatever this strange sort of an afterlife was, if it was indeed one, he was no longer along the living.
Arthur began the speech, and for the first time since he died, Lancelot cried.
Because it wasn’t just Arthur’s speech. Though it may have been Arthur saying the words, he knew that they were Merlin’s.
All those nights when Merlin had stayed up late in their chambers, writing one speech or another. The nights when Lancelot had simply let him work, because he loved to watch him work in the candlelight.
And he knew, he just knew that Merlin hadn’t given himself time to breathe, that he had thrown himself into the work and Arthur had either not noticed or not known how to address it.
He decided then and there that whether he was dead or not, he would spend the rest of eternity being there for Merlin, if need be.
*
And I’m so proud of you
And when they laugh at us
You’ll feel my fingers down your back
*
It was another one of those bad days, the ones which followed the cold nights where Merlin slept little (and Lancelot ached to soothe his nightmares as he had before, to press a kiss to his brow and hold him close) and the mornings when everything seemed to go wrong.
The kind of day when Merlin tripped on his way to bring Arthur his breakfast, which resulted in him being yelled at by the King. When yet another magical assassin attacked, and Merlin dealt with it alone, only returning in the late hours when all was silent.
Lancelot followed Merlin on all of these missions, now, and the knowledge weighed heavily enough on him, which meant that it must be an unimaginable burden on Merlin himself.
He watched Merlin tend to his wounds, wishing for the thousandth time that he could- if only for a moment- touch the world of the living, and help him wrap the bandages as he remembered Merlin doing so many times for him.
He allowed himself to gently cup Merlin’s face instead, and imagined that he felt Merlin lean into his hand.
*
“And when you scream I’m not alright
And throw my picture at the wall
‘You were supposed to be my light
And keep me safe against them all”
*
“Sometimes I hate you, Lancelot.” Merlin said, staring out at the lake. In his right hand he clutched a faded blue scarf. “It’s been a year now, did you know?”
Lancelot hadn’t, honestly. Time was hard in this realm of loneliness. The days blurred together, the only thing reminding him of what was real and what wasn’t most days was Merlin. The words I hate you stung, and yet he hated himself, and his inability to even die right too, sometimes.
“It’s- hard. It’s been a hard year. I don’t, I don’t know what to do without you, Lance. That’s why I hate you. Because I love you, and I loved you, and I always will love you.” His grip tightened on the scarf, and he looked down, tears filling his eyes. “We were happy, so happy, and I believed for once, I really did.”
All Lancelot could do was watch, no matter how every part of him yearned to take Merlin in his arms and hold him.
“I think that I believed is what made it worse. I won’t get my happy ending. The best I can do is fight for Arthur’s.”
It was in moments like these when Lancelot cursed destiny, cursed the dragon, cursed Gaius and Uther and even Arthur, cursed everyone and everything who had made Merlin believe that he would always be less deserving than Arthur, than Arthur’s destiny, than Arthur’s happiness.
What Lancelot would give to fight them all, to spirit Merlin away to a place they could be free from the chains which weighed him down.
He watched Merlin turn from the lake, tears streaming down both of their faces, and cursed them all.
*
How could you leave me here ?' you’ll scream
And louder, I’ll scream back to you from that unknown
And say
I know you’re strong enough
*
“I’ve never stopped thinking of you, you know.” Merlin said to the night sky. “Even though you left me,” he laughed, but it was tinged with a sadness that hurt to hear. “I wonder if you can hear me.”
Yes , Lancelot wanted to scream. I’m here, I always have been. I hear you, I love you.
“How could you leave me, Lancelot?”
He didn’t answer. There wasn’t much of a point, anymore.
*
“And years from now at night that storm
Will break, you’ll step outside to feel it shake”
*
It was centuries until Lancelot saw the Lake of Avalon again after Arthur’s death. Merlin had returned to Camelot three days after the death of his king.
Three days of screaming, of crying, of cursing fate and destiny and most of all himself.
After that, Merlin visited every month to see if Arthur had risen.
The years went by, and soon every month turned into every year, and every year to every five years.
Whenever Merlin went in recent history, Lancelot stayed behind. He had long ago stopped truly believing in the return of Arthur, and the heartbreak on Merlin’s face when he realised the same of every visit had become too much to bear.
But on the anniversary of Arthur’s death, after fifteen centuries, he returned with Merlin. It reminded him of the one year anniversary of his own death, all those years ago.
“Lancelot, Arthur. It’s been another year. It’s been fifteen hundred years, actually. I don’t know how to describe it, really, this modern world. I think you would have liked it, Lance. Arthur would have probably just been confused.” He laughed to himself, but it was a sad laugh, just like the one from a time long past. “He was confused quite a lot, wasn’t he. I wonder what the historians would say if they knew their Once and Future King was a dollophead.”
A tear fell down his face. He still had the appearance of a young man, but his eyes had always shown the truth of his age, in Lancelot’s opinion.
“You left me, both of you. I don’t quite know how to carry on. It’s been so long.”
He took a step into the water, staring out at Avalon with an expression so lost that Lancelot couldn’t help but follow. He stepped out behind him, and reached out to hold his hand, though he knew the gesture wouldn’t be felt.
Merlin gasped, looking down at his hand. He saw the hand holding his, and whirled around to face Lancelot.
“Lancelot?” He asked, his voice fragile, as if he didn’t believe his eyes. Lancelot wasn’t sure he believed it was happening either.
“Merlin,” Lancelot said, and Merlin choked on a sob. “You- you can hear me? You can feel me?”
“Yes, oh my god, Lancelot, oh my god-”
Merlin was crying now, and Lancelot did what he had wished for centuries to do. He pulled Merlin into a kiss, and wrapped his arms around him.
Later, they would figure out if it was Avalon’s power which brought Lancelot back, or if there was a Once and Future Knight. Later, they would have time for the endless questions which would leave them both teary eyed, their voices choked as they remembered the times that had been.
But for now, Lancelot once again held Merlin in his arms. And that was enough.
*
“You’ll say ‘I’ve been so scared
You left me here behind, do you not care?
How the fuck am I supposed to carry on without you here?‘
Just when you’re about to give up every hope you have, you turn around”