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Honey, understand that I have been left here in the reeds
But all I'm trying to do is get my feet out from the creeks
And I see you
Turn around, you're my A Team
+
Arthur doesn't really feel pain anymore. He wonders if the sickly stab wound in his stomach still bleeds, or if all the blood has gone from his body with the last of his life force. All he can feel now is Merlin's arms around him, Merlin's chest shaking with sobs against him. Arthur's hand strokes the back of Merlin's head, tender as a lover, and, in the depths of his dying mind, Arthur wishes that he had taken his gloves off so that he could feel the curl of Merlin's dark locks one last time.
Arthur tells him thank you and means it, but he knows now, here at the end of everything, that he truly wants to say I love you. Merlin is crying, deep heaving sobs, and all Arthur wants is to dry those tears, kiss those trembling lips, and spend one more day in the sun with Merlin's laughter on the wind.
The last thing that Arthur feels is Merlin's desperate fingers on his cheek. The last thing that Arthur hears is his name on Merlin's lips. And then there is only darkness, black and infinite. For the longest time this is where Arthur remains.
The world is cold.
Arthur's skin screams as though he is being dragged out of water, away from the brink of death, but then his head breaks the surface of the lake with no ripples, and he knows: he is still dead. Dead, and standing knee-deep in the waters of Avalon.
But there is a seated figure at the water's edge. Their clothes are strange, all flowing sleeves and a swooping neckline, but Arthur would know those cheekbones anywhere. Merlin is older and there is a hardness in his eyes that Arthur has never seen before, but it is undoubtedly him.
"Merlin!" Arthur tries to shout, but his lungs burn and no sound comes out, only smoke. He tries to run, to desperately reach the water's edge, but trying to break through the veil is like swimming against a current. Pulsing veins of weeds wind themselves around his arms, around his chest, and drag him back down into the depths. Arthur knows that he does not breathe, does not need to breathe, but as the water fills his lungs and overflows in his windpipe he wonders if his body knows this too.
The world is cold.
The lake freezes over but Arthur finds himself a phantom once more, with ice surrounding his torso as a frigid barrier between himself and Merlin on the banks of Avalon. Merlin has a beard this time, curled into a point on his chin, and his trousers make his legs look like strange pumpkins on stalks. But Arthur's stopped heart threatens to beat again at the sight of him, and the frost-bitten air seems to glow gold in Merlin's presence.
"Merlin!" Arthur tries to shout but water billows out of his throat instead of words. He clutches at his burning throat, coughing and spluttering, and hits the ice with an armoured elbow. Nothing happens. He tries and tries and tries to scream at Merlin, to catch his attention, but the ears of the living are deaf to the pleas of the dead.
At the bank of the lake, Merlin stands and turns away. Arthur watches him go with pain in his heart, willing him to turn around, turn around please. When the reeds grow tall through the ice, and the weeds curl strongly around Arthur's arms, he lets them pull him down into the murky depths without a fight.
The world is cold.
Once more, the lake allows Arthur a glimpse of the only man he has ever loved and he almost makes it to the water's edge. Merlin is wearing more clothes than Arthur can fathom, each garment fashioned from brightly coloured silks. His beard is gone, his hair long and pulled back into a ribbon at the nape of his neck. But it is still Merlin, with sadness in his eyes and the world on his shoulders. Arthur gets close enough that he can see the crows' feet at their corners, can almost feel each shuddering breath that trembles in Merlin's chest
In the shallows of the lake, so tantalisingly close to the shore that he can almost feel the tiny, smooth stones that live there, Arthur breathes Merlin's name into the wind. It is a small, pitiful sound of an endless, separated love; a sound of hopelessness. But then, as the weeds and waters pull Arthur into their drowning embrace, Merlin looks up and into Arthur's eyes, unseeing.
As the water fills his lungs and the gloom muddies his vision, Arthur sees his name on Merlin's lips.
The world is cold.
The sky above Avalon gurgles and flashes with weaving sparks of bronze magic. Merlin hits the grass with a crunch and tumbles heavily down the sodden bank of Avalon. The damp grass soaks easily into his uniform, the grim khaki blending easily into the dreary landscape and becoming one with the mortal ground. In the frenzy of smashing unceremoniously into the earth's cold embrace, his helmet has fallen into the mud beside him.
Merlin is momentarily surprised to find himself in Avalon when seconds ago he was being thrown sideways into a shell crater somewhere in France. But the scent of the water and the sound of the rain shaking the trees is so familiar that he can't think of anywhere else he would have rather gone. After all, they say home is where the heart is, and, throughout all of time, his heart lies in Avalon with Arthur.
A glimpse of silver in the grey mist of the lake catches Merlin's eye. No, not silver: iron. Merlin scrambles to his feet, almost slipping over in the sucking mud, and desperately flings himself into the shallows. A few metres out, standing up to his waist in the moonlit waters, Arthur Pendragon shines gold in his armour and burns as a radiant sun in Merlin's vision.
"Arthur?" Merlin chokes, somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
Arthur lunges forwards in the water, fighting against the suck and pull of the weeds. Nothing matters except Merlin; nothing can stop him from reaching him, not even death itself. Not this time, not if he can help it.
"Merlin!" He calls back and almost bursts into tears of joy when that grin, that oh so familiar grin, carves a divine parenthesis into Merlin's cheeks.
But when they find each other in the water, icy fingers clawing through Merlin's uniform at his waist, their embrace is thwarted. Instead of falling into Arthur's arms, Merlin almost falls into the waters behind him. He catches himself just short of being completely drenched, but the chill of the water is nothing compared to the harsh winter of his heart.
Arthur sees his own pain reflected at him when he turns to Merlin, so close but so far away on the other side of the veil. Merlin's lips tremble, his hand shakes as he reaches out to try and touch Arthur's chest, and effervescent bubbles of yearning burst over his ribs.
His fingers go straight through Arthur's breastplate and there is only sharp air where his chest should be.
Arthur can't help but laugh; high and bitter and echoing the cruelty of their torment. As if being confined to the dark and cold of Avalon wasn't torture enough, now he must stand inches away from his love, the other half of his soul, and be unable to touch.
The reeds close tight around his calf and he knows time is limited.
"Merlin, I miss you," Arthur whispers. To Merlin, he sounds far away, as though the hell of no man's land lies between them. "God," Arthur inhales shakily, though he has no need for it, "god, how I miss you."
Merlin holds the back of his hand to his lips to hide his sobs and looks into the eternally unchanging pools of Arthur's eyes.
"Arthur, I-," He breathes deeply, trying to drown his sobs so that he can say, "I love you."
Arthur's heart soars and his bones ache with how much he wants to reach out, to hold the trembling figure of his manservant and never let them be parted in this life or the next. The world is so cruel to allow them this audience after so long, but not deign to give them the peace of one another's embrace.
"Merlin," Arthur starts, but the weeds are a noose at his neck, are a tourniquet at his arms. And then, he is gone. Claimed by the darkness once more.
Merlin watches as the ethereal figure of Arthur flickers in the gloom and then, like smoke on the breeze, vanishes. Only a few waves of shimmering gold in the rainfall give any sign that he had been there at all. Merlin's chest heaves with a loud sob. Turning his face up to the heavens, he lets the rain wash over him and draw the tears from his eyes.
The world is cold.
"Hey!" A lilted voice calls out. A metallic slam echoes across the eerily still water of Lake Avalon. Arthur flits in and out of consciousness and feels smooth stones against his cheek.
"Oh my god, is he dead?!"
"What's that he's wearing?"
"Probably had too much cider at a stag do."
A tentative hand pushes at Arthur's shoulder and rolls him a little. He groans, coughs, and a cascade of lake water spews out of him onto the mud.
"Oh shit, he's alive!" A child's voice.
"Theo! Language!" A scolding parent.
The sun burns down into Arthur's eyes until he opens them. A young woman is crouching beside him, raven hair cropped to her chin and tucked behind one ear. Her clothes are strange and hug her body in a way that makes Arthur uncomfortable.
"Hi, hello, are you alright? Do you have someone we can call?" The woman asks, but Arthur has no idea what she is saying to him. The language is too round, too foreign to comprehend. He frowns, pushing himself up to his feet only to stumble when his legs are strange and weak beneath him. He pushes past the woman and her odd clothes, past the young boy and older man who are with her, and strides off towards Camelot.
"Excuse me, sir?!" The woman calls.
"Maybe he's Welsh?" The man offers, shrugging.
The sun is warm, too warm and, as soon as he is under the cover of trees, Arthur discards his armour and mail against a gnarled oak. Sweat plasters his hair to his forehead and trails ice down his spine. He isn't sure where he is going, the woods changed and unfamiliar in the time he has been gone as though reminding him that his existence is inconsequential. He had originally felt drawn to Camelot, to his home, but at some point, a bizarre, rumbling feeling had woven itself under his skin. It thrums at the nape of his neck and seems to guide him, instinctively.
In the woods a clear path has been carved through the trees. Along it, Arthur finds expertly crafted signposts which bear a simple, painted outline of an oak leaf and two lines of text. The first is in a language he does not recognise, but the second says the word 'footpath'. At first, he pauses and wonders whether he should follow it, but the odd influence under his skin tells him no.
After some trekking, the back of his shirt almost completely soaked in sweat, Arthur's eyes catch on a dark figure in the distance. Haloed by the sun streaming through the trees, daubed in gold by a divine artist, only a silhouette is visible, but the way that Arthur's heart suddenly aches in his chest tells him all he needs to hear.
"Merlin?!" He shouts, voice hoarse and throat raw. The figure freezes and then starts bounding clumsily through the undergrowth towards Arthur with the grace of a newborn calf. The sight of that awkward, uncoordinated run fills Arthur with immeasurable joy and pushes his own legs forward into a breathless sprint. Their bodies collide recklessly in the middle of the forest and tumble heavily to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
Merlin's laughter is the most beautiful thing that Arthur has ever heard and it comes hot and flustered against his ear. Inside him, the buzzing magic that had led him there bursts and blooms and seems to surround them both in an aura of shimmering, unrelenting bronze.
For a dazed moment all Arthur can do is stare down at where Merlin is pinned beneath him. That intoxicating grin is a blur in his vision; those storm blue eyes are hypnotising. The clothes that Merlin is wearing are not far from the woman at the lake, tight where a tunic is loose and woven from a fabric that is both rich and simple in equal measure. Arthur props himself on one arm so that he can trace the neckline and pull it away from the pale angles of Merlin's throat.
Merlin swallows, mouth dry as it watches the desire grow in Arthur's eyes. Arthur follows the movement of his Adam's apple up, up over Merlin's lips, along his cheek until their gazes meet.
"Arthur, I-," Merlin starts.
"I have loved you all these years, and," Arthur has practised these words, has imagined this very moment ever since their wartime meeting some hundred years past. He kisses Merlin's neck, "I will love you," another kiss, this time on the rough curve of Merlin's jaw, "for all those yet to come." Arthur's voice is deep with want, but he means every word. He kisses Merlin on the mouth, to emphasise them. The world slows around them, time altered by their joy as their mouths move soft, deliberate, alive. Merlin reaches up and grasps at Arthur's hair, at the side of Arthur's throat so that he can feel his pulse and be overwhelmed by his vitality.
They lie unmoving except for the occasional tilt of a chin, or the twirl of Merlin's fingers in Arthur's hair, as they make up for the last millennia of lost time. The woods grow darker around them, hikers and ramblers kept at bay by Merlin's magic, until finally the moon begins her watch overhead.
"Merlin," Arthur murmurs, when he notices.
"Mm?" Merlin hums and traces Arthur's jaw with his fingertips.
"Did you fast forward time, or have we been laying here for hours?"
Merlin tilts his head so that he can look around at the dark woods. As though awakening from a slumber, his body suddenly aches from being pressed against the damp forest floor for hours. He groans as he sits up, pushing Arthur off of him with a gentle hand. He goes to say something, but the warmth of Arthur's chest against his palm, and the steady thud of Arthur's living pulse fills him with sudden, unstoppable emotion. Floodgates open and Merlin's face drops into a deep sadness that flows and shimmers with tides of yearning.
"I can't believe you're alive," He whispers.
Arthur places a hand over Merlin's on his chest and uses the other to tilt his chin up. Their eyes meet, blue on blue, and a wondrous golden smile is shared between them.
"I'm alive." Arthur murmurs, "I'm yours." He confirms.
Merlin kisses him, hard and desperate and full of grief.
And, at last, the world is warm.