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The body in his arms weighed more and more with each passing minute. He panted, gasped, heaved it a little higher, he had to. He had to make it, they had to make it.
The Lake wasn't that far now, or was it? It didn’t matter, they could make it.
The sky turned grayish, the air seemed stagnant which made it difficult for him to catch another breath. With no oxygen, he tripped backward a little. It wouldn't matter if the situation was different. He would just keep on going forward. But with the sturdy body leaning against him, donned in massive armor pressing his body, Merlin's posture wavered. They soon landed on the ground.
"Merlin..." He heard the other saying with a weak, strained voice.
"It’s not far now sire. Come on." He went out of his way to sound positive.
He wasn't. There was this morbid fear inside his heart, sagging his shoulders, clouding his mind, blurring his view. Because, after all, who said they will make it?
"It's no use..."
He pressed his lips so hard that they formed a mere crease, similar to the ones he had on his forehead. Too much worrying about arthur, too much fearing for his soul mate, too much caring about destiny, too much. Too much crinkled his young features.
"No. No, no," he repeated a few times, convincing himself rather than his king. "We have to..." here he put all the residue of his strength that was left in his body to push the other up. "move on..." a short, rapid puff of breath, Arthur's weight pressed against him.
Merlin was too exhausted. They wouldn't budge.
"Just... Just..." Noticing his friend’s determination and how to no avail it was, Arthur wanted to hinder him. "Just hold me..." Such a command came unprecedented, and Merlin's knees wobbled again, sending them both back onto the hard soil.
Soon after, Arthur felt two hands, securely wrapping around his belly and chest. He held them closer. He needed to sense the closeness, wished that this would somehow save him from any danger, just like these hands did countless times before, even though unbeknownst to him. Merlin's hands saved his life nearly every day, and so he squeezed them tenderly.
Suddenly so much about his friend deserved praise and gratitude. Lying comfortably on Merlin's lap, Arthur felt how right it was. His body was withered, almost numb because of the crippling pain flowing from his abdomen to every single part of his body.
His mind, however, remained conscious. In front of his eyes wasn't the bleary, sickly pale sky above. There were scenes, moments, situations when he missed getting stabbed, slashed, or smitten by mere accident or luck.
His luck had a name. His luck was right now nestling him up in his arms as if trying to shelter his being from threat. Arthur opened his heavy, drooping eyelids. He wanted to look at him, wanted to remember, wanted him to be the last thing he sees.
"Merlin..." his voice grew hoarse, it was dry and fading.
His friend's teary eyes shrunk slightly as he attempted to smile down at him. His warmest, most sincere, and sunshine-like smile, despite the pallor, sweat, disheveled hair, and chapped lips. But it wasn't that. His skin was white, unblemished, gleaming. His hair was jet black, dense, and his lips so full and plump.
Oh lords how beautiful Merlin is. Has he always been so beautiful?
Arthur's lips tugged, he reciprocated the smile. At that moment it dawned on him. He loved Merlin. He had loved him for a long time now. Every time he smiled thinking of him, every time he felt grateful for Merlin's mere existence, every time he sought his counsel, every time he worried for him, every time he was ready to lie down his own life for him, it was all out of love.
The way he was brought up, all the things he was taught and shown, made it impenetrable to understand before. Even if there was this immense feeling involved, the tickling sense when he grazed his smooth skin more or less intentionally, his upbringing would push it away. He was a king. He had duties, responsibilities, he couldn't let down his deceased father, couldn't let down his people. He was a ruler first, a knight after, a son then, a husband too, and only after that he was Arthur. A human, a normal man, a friend. Merlin's Arthur.
"Merlin there is..." he felt overwhelmed by how many words he wished to convey to him.
Enormous guilt coiled in his chest. He had wasted so many years, 10 years had passed when he could say what Merlin and everything he was and he did, mean to him. But he was blind, contemptuous, conceited, maybe even indifferent. And yet, Merlin's eyes gazed at him as if he was some sacred treasure that everybody ought to protect.
"There is one thing..." his mind jammed and he knew he didn't have much time left. "I have never asked of you before..."
Dozens of images flitted in front of his eyes. How they met, how Merlin made an impression on him from the start. How they would sacrifice one for another, how they interacted each day, more or less bickering, but most importantly being with each other, for each other. Arthur understood the meaning of love much stronger than any he had known before. For as he was looking at Merlin he saw love. But there wasn't enough time.
"Kiss me."
Merlin swallowed, a shiver running down his spine.
"Please."
The dark-haired boy knew he couldn't hesitate. He had been tenuous, hanging back all the time he was near Arthur. He dreamed of this moment but tried to fight it, he knew it was impossible. They were impossible. But here, with Arthur inches away from him, he stooped down, securing other lips with the pair of his own. No hesitation.
He felt Arthur tremble, his muscles tightening. The kiss was tender, light, sweet. All that Merlin imagined. He nibbled at soft skin, just then to let Arthur's teeth and the tip of his tongue nip and suck tenderly at his. Given their condition, they had to part sooner than they wished. Merlin had never seen such abounding love and light as at that moment in his king's eyes.
"I love you." the blonde uttered at last, and an unknown force closed his eyes.
His heart wasn't in such great pain anymore, now that Merlin knew. Now that he himself knew.
"A-Arthur."
The other was too stunned to speak, maybe too afraid.
"A-Arthur. Wake up." he sobbed out, shaking the other's arms with his even more shaky hands. "W-Wake up you prat!" he sobbed harder. "You have to wake up! You have to hear my answer!"
At one moment Arthur's eyes opened again. Without thinking, Merlin snatched his chance and yelled "I love you too!", scaring all the birds from the trees, shaking the earth, waking the wind.
But Arthur's gaze was dead. His eyes fell closed again, unresponsive. Merlin's cheeks were soaked with his tears.
"Arthur no... no..." his exasperated whispers filled the air.
After shaking his friend - his soul mate - for some more time, he turned to his last refugee. Magic. Uttering spell after spell, enchantment after enchantment, his eyes were golden incessantly. And so were his tears. The spell to bring back life was hopeless, a spell to embolden heartbreak futile, pleas to warm the body useless. He was holding his Arthur, just as he wanted to on any day. But not like this. He wanted to hold him whilst hearing his breaths, feeling his heartbreak, rejoicing at how blue his eyes were and how golden his hair seemed in the sun's rays.
"I love you too..." he muttered quietly, his hands running over the still body as if intending to share some life with it.
Merlin cried, his eyes were heavy with tears that refused to turn back to their previous transparent form. His eyelashes got adorned with golden tint, the water formed wavy lines down his cheeks and chin, some landing on Arthur's skin, speckling him with golden spots.
"I love you too..." was the last spell he could think of.
All the knowledge he possessed from books failed him. There was only this one thing he knew was true and could work - his feelings for Arthur. He was so afraid. If Arthur didn’t hear him saying it back, Merlin would never forgive himself, would loathe himself for the rest of his life.
He already had plans of not having a long life without Arthur by his side.
Merlin pressed their foreheads together, letting his tears drop freely onto Arthur's skin. He never stopped confessing his love, even after all around got quiet, the world either drew its breath in with anticipation as to what will happen next or already let Merlin be alone in his grief.
At that moment the silence was disturbed by a quiet groan. Merlin's eyes snapped open. He dislodged himself from the other, looking with amazement and incredulity at Arthur’s furrowing eyebrows and such familiar displeasure on his face. The one he would always display after being woken up early in the morning.
"Merlin... Why did you wet my face, you fool..."
It took Merlin yet a long time afterward to understand what happened at that moment. But at that time, he didn't pay it much heed. After jumping on Arthur and nearly kissing his breath away right there, they didn't need to figure it out yet. There were more important things.
"I love you too Arthur. I love you too, I love you too, I love you, I love you, I lo-" Most probably he would go on like this for eternity if it wasn't for Arthur’s agile lips that caught the other's in the midway.
Soon, Merlin wiped away the golden residue from Arthur's face, whilst the king kissed it away from Merlin's.
After a month, Merlin read about it in his grimoire. His tears brimmed not only with his magic and every single spell he chanted that day, but they were also overflowing with his need, wish, desire to bring Arthur back. Such magic was deeper, stronger even than the blade that nearly killed his king.
Merlin was magic itself, ancient magic. Arthur was born of magic. This fact enabled the former to instill life into Arthur's body back again. The blade despoiled Arthur of the life essence. But Arthur's life essence was magic. Merlin was his life essence. He was magic.
Or at least that was how Gaius later explained it to them.