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He walked along the mostly abandoned road, his shoulders hunched forward with old age, long, white, scraggly hair and beard spilling down the front and back of his blue coat..
Well, I managed five whole seconds this year. He thought tearfully, bringing a wrinkled hand to brush away the tears he could feel stinging his eyes. The rest of the walk back to his final destination was passed in a haze of memories filled with billowing red capes, cocky smiles, teasing blue eyes and hair as gold as sunshine. He figures he owes most of his journey to muscle memory, and right on cue, a round worried face pops out the door of a beautiful old house, relief and concern filling the rapidly fading worry.
“Hey, I was getting a bit worried when you were running late.” she said softly, reaching out a hand to pull him inside.
He allowed her to do so, and began to pull off the many layers he was wearing and storing them in a special closet by the door. She held out a vial filled with a bright blue liquid to him and he gave a nod of gratitude before downing it. Almost immediately he could feel the effects of the potion work, his wrinkles disappeared, the hunch of his shoulders straightened, he felt the beard and long hair recede and soften.
The now raven-haired man worked his jaw,stretching out the kinks left from the spell. The girl grinned, and gave him a kiss on his stubbly cheek.
“I’ll heat up the shepherd's pie, you go take a wash.” she ordered, her bright smile making his heart clench, as he remembered another smile, one that has long since faded. Nevertheless he grinned back and gave a dramatic bow,
“As you wish your majesty.” his voice returned to its deep and smooth tone.
She giggled and waved him away, disappearing into the kitchen. Shaking his head, he headed upstairs, silently thanking the Triple goddess for allowing him to keep at least this ray of sunshine in his life.
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Much later after a thorough shower, a filling meal and a comfortable conversation, distracted him from lingering on dark memories of the past. Sighing tiredly, he closed his eyes and fell into a dream-filled sleep.
“The Once and Future King rises again. You must go to him now.” A booming voice echoed around his room, startling him for his rest.
She was standing at the foot of his bed, wearing an old white t-shirt and pink flannel bottoms, her eyes unseeing and a blinding gold, and her mouth forming words that weren’t being said with her voice.
“The Once and Future King rises again. You must go to him now.” the voice repeated.
As he stared shell-shocked, her eyes returned to their familiar blue, and she gasped as though she had just resurfaced.
“Blond bloke. Popping out of water. Have to go NOW!” her frantic shouting jerked him out of his trance.
They both raced down the stairs, not minding the definite chill they could feel in the air,especially in their socks and no coats. His mind was racing but his body was frozen, he couldn’t walk back to the lake, and there was no public transportation available immediately at 3:00 a.m.
“-Get in! I’m driving!” She screeched, already starting the very expensive black car that was parked next door.
He dove into the passenger seat and sent two quick prayers to both the old and new gods. One being that he wouldn’t be too late again, and the other being he won’t die in this damned car before he saw him again, as she slammed the accelerator and they shot out of the driveway.
The last sight he saw before his eyelids slammed shut, was the house rapidly disappearing from sight in his rearview mirror.
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Only when he felt the car lurch to a full stop, did his eyes slowly flutter open.
“Am I dead?” he asked hoarsely, his voice nearly failing him after a particularly high shriek escaped him when she took a very sharp turn maybe a mile back.
“No, but you’ll wish you were, if you don’t get out now.” she huffed.
Realization hit him through the haze of adrenaline in his brain. After a few tense seconds of wrestling with the door, he tumbled out onto the freezing apsalt.
He jumped down the barrier, and slowly made his way towards the shore that haunts so many of his memories and dreams.
He walked in a daze, the muddy sand giving away to cold, black water. The buzz of long-dormant magic rising to an unignorable hum beneath his skin. As soon as his socked feet dipped below the surface, a shudder went through the very ground, and the water of lake Avalon rippled and bubbled.
Twin gasps broke through the stillness in the air as an unseen force turnt a switch inside of both dark-haired figures, triggering a golden glow in their normal icy blue eyes.
The water near him gave a final rumbling ripple, before parting and returning what it had once taken so long ago.
First a shock of blond hair resurfaced, followed by a face not seen for over a millennium and a half, gasping for oxygen.
The dark haired man stared at him for a few moments with bright, shining eyes, from both the magic flowing through him and his unshed tears, before he found himself running and he flung his body into his.
After a moment of hesitation, the blond returned his embrace just as tightly, neither man noticing the freezing cold water that reached to their thighs nor the fact that both of them were now soaked from head to toe,in November, their focus solely on the way the other’s body fit into his. The blond’s arms around his companion’s trim waist and his nose pressed into the hot juncture between his neck and shoulder. And the burnet’s arms around his neck, long, pale fingers tangled into wet, burnished locks, his face upturned with tears running freely down his cheeks, and his chest heaving with uncontrollable sobs.
“Merlin..” breathed his Once and Future king.