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Gently a voice sounded, pressing into his thoughts. His mind pushed it aside and kept whirling in the latest rabbit hole, but the voice was so insistent and remarkably familiar. Slowly, so slowly, Merlin’s attention was drawn towards that so familiar voice. An ache started somewhere inside as he began to hope. He would have cried if this body could, but instead he inked in panic and began to flail. WAIT! He needed to see who that voice belonged to. Preferably without drowning them.
Slowly, a shimmer started at his center, then a tingle, and light began to pour from him. As his form shrank and twisted, he could hear the voice reacting in what sounded like panic? “Wait, wait I’m coming!”
Slowly standing up to his waist in water, Merlin blinked, focusing human eyes for the first time in centuries. At the edge of the lake stood a figure. Blearily, Merlin tried to see the face, hear that beloved voice. “Speak to me now!”
“It can’t be,” was his last thought before he toppled face first into the lake.
When he came to, he rested in the arms of someone. Merlin began to shake. Unwilling to open his eyes in case the face was not the one he longed for. But a voice was speaking to him softly, lovingly and hands were stroking him gently, sweetly. Finally, the voice murmured his name and asked him to look at the speaker. Merlin could not refuse the tenderly made request and slowly his jewel toned blue eyes opened to see a face so close that he gasped in surprise. The other jerked a bit and smiled brightly.
“Oh, Love, I know you have waited long, but you should not make your king wait for you.” With that, firm lips met his in a sweet chaste kiss.
Arthur, his Arthur was kissing him. Before he could react, the kiss was over as Arthur pulled back and looked at him. “Love?”
Merlin pulled himself up and wildly kissed those lips he’d been dreaming of, almost afraid he was still in a self-induced trance. His love, his hope, his King was returned. He would ask questions later, but for now he would kiss and touch every inch of the man hungrily kissing him back.