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Four months since Arthur reappeared and thoroughly messed up his life and also his flat, Merlin finds himself alternating between profound relief at the relative lack of technology-related questions and profound despair at Arthur's newfound prowess in manipulating the television remote and also Google, in ways that generate the most loathsome ideas for Merlin, who is a keeper to Arthur still.
One day while he's updating his twitter: 'the hope of Albion has ruined my microwave for the last time, omg’, Arthur raises his voice and declares, "Fetch me my sword."
Merlin stills at the keys. He knows Arthur knows about the no-swords thing, because he had to explain it to him while Arthur's eyes were still wide with fear at everything in the world, and then watched helplessly while Arthur crumpled in his arms. It's not something either of them would forget, and therefore Arthur is thinking of doing something irredeemably stupid.
Merlin glances up from his laptop and there, playing on the television screen, is a documentary on the Loch Ness Monster.
"No," says Merlin. "No. We are not going to Scotland so you can slay a mythical beast that does not exist."
Arthur throws him that look, the I-am-your-king-heed-me one, and Merlin just blathers on by default. "No, Arthur. Seriously. No. Not a good idea. The slaying bit, especially, will not make people accept you as a rightful ruler of anything. Not a good idea."
"Merlin-"
"Not a good idea."
Arthur sighs. "I just wanted to see it," he protests, pleading at Merlin with big wet eyes.
Merlin is undeterred. He has not lived for a thousand years by being distracted by adorable wounded expressions, not even one from Arthur. "Then what was the 'fetch me my sword' for?"
"Er, habit."
"Habit." Merlin rubs the bridge of his nose. "Yes, I suppose you'd get into the habit of striking down every magical creature you see."
Arthur looks at him strangely, and Merlin realises what he’s said. "What?" he says sharply, and if it comes out more cutting he’d than expected - then, well. It's been four months, and the story of his magic in Camelot is something that Arthur still hasn't asked about, lost at first in the whirl of technology and then something to be stepped around, later, and Merlin feels more than justified in harbouring his resentment.
Four months. He can pretend it’s fine for Arthur’s sake, but it’s harder when Arthur’s being such an ass.
"Merlin," says Arthur, fragile in the space between them, "Merlin, I'm sorry."
Merlin closes his laptop tiredly. He says, “Me too,” and leaves Arthur standing by the couch as he goes to bed.
◆
In the morning, Arthur says, "It's real, then," and Merlin's mug slips through his fingers. Arthur’s hand darts out and catches it, quicker than magic. Merlin presses his lips together as he accepts the cup from Arthur's outstretched hand.
"You said magical," says Arthur, "not mythical."
Merlin needs coffee to deal with Arthur. The wonders of caffeine have stayed with him since he spent a good part of the eighteenth century as a barista in Italy, and despite his past two decades in London, he's never quite gotten the hang of tea.
"I'm a myth, Arthur," says Merlin eventually, because Arthur has waited for Merlin’s coffee to brew, and obviously expects an answer now that it has. "You're a myth. It's a myth. Magic doesn’t exist."
Arthur looks down at himself, and across at Merlin, and says, "We're real."
"Yes."
"I want to see it."
Merlin grips his coffee cup in frustration. "Arthur-"
"Will it come?" he interrupts. "If we go?"
Merlin stares for a moment, and puts down his coffee, and sighs. "Yes, probably. If I call him."
"Him?" says Arthur in delight, in the same way he’d said this ‘microwave’, it makes things explode?
Merlin holds his face in his hands and sighs. All this could have been avoided if only he’d just disconnected the television, but Doctor Who had been showing the night before and it’s a show they both like to watch - pressed together on Merlin’s tiny battered sofa, warm and bizarrely domestic in the light of all they’ve been through. In the meantime, Merlin picks up his coffee and takes a long, scalding mouthful.
This is going to be like the time with the puffer fish, only so much worse.
“Alright,” he says, hating himself for how eager he sounds. “Let’s go.”
◆
They take a plane, because Arthur wants to see what it’s like to fly. Merlin gives him the window seat and watches as Arthur fights the acceleration at take-off to peer out of the window, fingers splayed against the glass in wonder.
Merlin spent a week as an eagle once, and he remembers with piercing clarity how the wind would stream through his wings as he soared over the earth. Some days now he feels so heavy he wishes he could fly away. The aeroplane is a dull metal cage but it manages, somehow.
Arthur turns to him then, and he looks young and beautiful and amazed, so Merlin doesn’t think any more about the aeroplane or how if he concentrates, he can bring it crashing down with scarcely a thought. Instead he watches Arthur’s familiar face and thinks with helpless certainty that anything and everything, was and will always be, worth it.
◆
They file out of the taxi and that's when Merlin sees it, wide and stretching across the horizon like the sea. The lake of Avalon isn't even a pond in comparison, and Merlin feels his heart lurch in his chest. In other words: Merlin is an idiot, because along the way he somehow managed to forget that the Loch Ness Monster lives in an actual loch, which is essentially a terrifyingly huge lake in close proximity to Arthur. From personal experience, this has not been a good thing.
“Argh,” says Merlin, filled with irrational jittery feelings, and he closes his eyes and spreads his magic down into the earth until he senses where Arthur stands, five feet away, radiating concern. Merlin says, “Don’t - don’t go near the lake without me. Alright?”
The sky above them is clouded inky black, and the faint glow of light from the hotel down the road is not enough to see Arthur’s face by. Arthur steps towards Merlin and looks down at the loch, glimmering under the deep purple-blue clouds. He places a steady hand on Merlin’s shoulder and its warmth seeps through the cloth, grounding Merlin more surely than even the magic of the earth.
“Merlin,” he says softly. “I’m here.”
Merlin exhales, and blinks. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” says Arthur.
Merlin nods stiffly, and after a while, after one last glance at the loch, he trudges off to get a decent hotel room.
◆
The next morning the alarm rings at dawn, because Merlin once had the idiocy to think that teaching Arthur how to use an alarm clock would be a good idea. Arthur sits up and prods at a half-asleep Merlin and almost trips over the sheets, fuzzy in the morning sun. Merlin rolls over and grumbles, muttering something intelligible under his breath, and in a violent swish of fabric the curtains draw themselves shut.
Then Merlin bolts upright and, upon looking around and finding only Arthur, falls back onto the bed with a sigh of relief. He squints at Arthur.
“What time is it?” he croaks.
Arthur snorts and pads over to the curtains. “It’s dawn, obviously,” he says calmly, as if dawn is a reasonable hour for any rational human being to be awake. Merlin briefly considers setting fire to Arthur’s hair, but that would be counterproductive and a waste of good hair.
“And why, exactly, are we getting up at dawn?”
“Because,” says Arthur, flinging open the curtains and sending a fresh spike of sunlight into Merlin’s wretched eyes, “We’re going to see Nessie.”
“Ugh,” moans Merlin, and struggles to sit up. “You probably shouldn’t call him Nessie.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to haul you out of a lake again, you prat," says Merlin, swiping the curtains closed with a blink. Arthur just rolls his eyes and yanks them open them again.
“Tyrant,” mutters Merlin, and inches out of bed. He shuffles miserably around the room, trying to look as non-functional and as generally pathetic as possible.
Arthur ignores him and goes to pull on a clean shirt. All his shirts were picked out by Merlin. This one says Keep Calm and Call the Doctor and has a crown on it, and is therefore the only one that Arthur willingly puts on without Merlin having to resort to bribery or force.
“And I suppose you’ve done that many times, have you?” says Arthur, voice muffled by a temporary layer of fabric.
Merlin stops where he’s started setting the bed, a ridiculous if considerate habit, and throws the pillow he’s holding at Arthur. Even half-clothed and half-blind, Arthur catches it with infuriating ease.
“You’d be surprised,” says Merlin, and it sounds forced even to himself. He watches Arthur wrangle on the shirt and stare unhappily at Merlin.
It’s too early for this; Merlin flops back bonelessly onto his bed, burying his face in the sheets. It’s the sort of thing he would prefer to talk about in the dark and over copious amounts of alcohol, but Arthur has never been so accommodating of his wishes.
“Merlin?” says Arthur, uncertain but resolute, clutching the pillow instead of tossing it back like he’s supposed to. Merlin twitches his hand, sending his remaining pillow flying at Arthur, and deflates at the muted sound of Arthur catching the pillow yet again.
“Go away,” he suggests, without much optimism.
“Merlin.”
“Arthur.”
“Merlin.”
“What!” snaps Merlin, springing upwards to sit at the edge of the bed, legs dangling as he stares defiantly at Arthur. “I was under the impression it wasn’t something you wanted to talk about.”
Arthur says, “What?”
“Go on. You’ll get there.”
Arthur furrows his brow, and Merlin almost wishes he didn’t know how to read Arthur so well - because when understanding dawns Arthur immediately glances away; out of the window at the slowly lightening sky. He bites his lip.
“Are we doing this now?” says Arthur, tentative and strange.
“You mean,” says Merlin. “Are we finally going to talk about Camelot, before or after we visit the magical creature that lives at the bottom of the lake, who has probably developed an aversion to the name ‘Nessie’ worse than mine is to ‘Emrys’? Or did you mean, are we going to put ourselves through an emotional conversation first thing in the morning and sober?”
Arthur throws one pillow at him and says loudly, “Yes. To both.”
Merlin catches it with his magic and it spins to a stop, and as he plucks it out of the air he meets Arthur’s eyes.
“I don’t know. Are we?”
Arthur swallows.
◆
They are.
◆
Merlin’s account is long overdue, halting at best, and marred by time and tears. He starts from the start and ends at Arthur’s end, and though by the time he is done his pillow is limp and damp, he hugs it to himself as if it will keep him upright when all his walls have crumbled down.
"Merlin," says Arthur, and steps forward.
In the moment that Arthur holds Merlin close, he murmurs his gratitude into Merlin’s hair, and Merlin feels a part of him breaking at the touch, the weight of centuries of silence lifting in the embrace of his king.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask earlier,” whispers Arthur, and Merlin shakes his head. “You had a lot to deal with.”
Arthur says, “Even so.”
“It’s okay,” Merlin whispers back. He always forgives Arthur more easily than he does himself.
◆
Then it’s mid-afternoon and useless to hope for privacy at the loch, which is already thronged with crowds and cameras and generally useless bustle, and Merlin scowls with newfound liveliness.
“Tourists,” he says with pronounced disgust, and Arthur cuffs him on the back of his head and says, “What are we, then?”
“We are guests,” says Merlin in a tone suggesting highly developed prattishness (he'd learnt from the best), abandoning the map he’s holding in favour of scoping out the area with his magic instead. In between the feeble vibrations of the crowds and Arthur’s bright proximity he can feel something deep and old stirring in the lake, and a grin stretches over his face. Later, he tells it, and out loud he says, “We’ll rent a boat for the night, row out somewhere, and wait for everyone to leave.”
“How did you do it the last time?”
Merlin shrugs. “I turned myself into a fish. Also the internet didn’t exist, which made things a lot easier.”
“You turned yourself into a fish,” echoes Arthur. “Why would you want to be a fish?”
Merlin smiles as dazzling as the sun, and says, “I liked being a fish. But anyway, you should take a nap, and I’ll handle the internet. Tonight is going to be brilliant.”
◆
The night is already brilliant, with or without the promise of magic. The moon hangs full and clear in the sky, and the lake is cold and silent and beautiful in its stillness. Merlin is a silhouette in the reflection of the lake; he brings them miles into the loch, and Arthur looks on silently as the boat leaves a tiny V-shaped stream as they glide forward until their hotel is a pinprick of light, like a star in the distance.
When they stop, Merlin puts out a hand and mutters something under his breath. A golden ring pulses from the centre of his palm across the lake surface and into the forest beyond, and he catches Arthur’s look and shrugs unapologetically. "Shorts out all electronics. And other complicated things.”
"So we're good now?" asks Arthur.
“Yep,” says Merlin, glancing over his shoulder and flashing Arthur a quick smile.
This is the fun part. Merlin can’t wait to see the look on Arthur’s face. Arthur has this deeply suspicious look already, possibly because Merlin looks like he's about to burst out laughing any second.
Merlin takes a deep breath and sobers up, like he's preparing some complicated magic pre-meeting ritual, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Arthur tense.
Instead, Merlin bellows, "SUSAN!"
Then he sits.
Arthur is dumbfounded. "What?"
"His name is Susan," says Merlin, who is obviously enjoying this far too much. "And he wants you to respect his life choices."
"You're not serious," says Arthur, because they watched that Doctor Who episode literally last week.
"I admit my willingness to go along with this trip stemmed partly from how I would be able to appropriate the line and have it make sense in context," says Merlin, and then at Arthur's outraged expression he bursts into laughter so loud it echoes around the lake.
"Shh!" says Arthur, looking around in a hilariously scandalised manner.
"It's fine, probably," says Merlin, waving his hand in a way that's supposed to be reassuring, and Arthur says, “You are rubbish at this, I can’t believe you ever saved my life,” which is perhaps not the best thing to say to stop Merlin from giggling like a fool.
“Sorry, sorry,” gasps Merlin, and makes a valiant effort to be less conspicuous. He’s still shaking with laughter when there's a prod at his magic stemming from below the lake’s surface, and he spares a moment to gather his magic for a prod of his own. It's me, he calls back happily, and pokes Susan just to make sure he knows.
The boat rocks in a sudden swell.
Merlin swallows his laughter and climbs upright, and raises his arms as the water begins to rise.
◆
Arthur stares transfixed at the shape emerging from the lake. Merlin's eyes gleam in the darkness, lit by the moon and magic as the waters around them crest upwards and fall with a roar, and he works to keep their boat steady and dry. When the last of the waters fall away, he lowers his hands and lets his magic rest.
“Oh,” says Arthur in proper astonishment.
Merlin, greets Susan, as polite and enormous as ever, and Merlin bows and wraps his magic into a greeting in return. Then Susan and turns his gaze on Arthur, and Merlin can hear Arthur let out a breath of quiet wonder.
In Susan’s shadow Arthur is as small a child, but he stands like a king. He turns and catches Merlin's eye and it's fleeting but also wonderful in all the ways that Merlin didn't get to see the last time, that he didn’t get a chance to see, and Merlin forgets to breathe as he watches Arthur bend in humble acknowledgement and there is a bright flare of happiness in Merlin’s chest at the sight.
Susan dips his head in return and says, sounding deeply knowing and deeply wise: Well met, Arthur Pendragon.
"It is an honour to meet you," says Arthur solemnly.
Susan nods. Merlin feels his eyes tearing up already, which is awful and magnificent because he's already cried once today, and both times because of Arthur - stupid, loveable idiot that he is.
A gift, says Susan.
And Susan begins to hum.
Merlin feels the song swelling inside of him and his heart stutters to a halt until he remembers to breathe. He closes his eyes against the need to fill the lake with his magic and feel the earth and sing along with a thousand voices of old, because this song is a tribute for him as much as it is for Arthur and he lets himself accept it freely for what it is. Susan hums and the lake reverberates with the sound of it -- it fills him with lightness and gravity, awe and pain, and Merlin can feel Arthur shudder and grasp for his hand.
The music sings to Merlin, sings to Arthur. It has no words; it says: This is the song of the once and future king, a song of love and loss and war and peace, of magic and men, of sorcerers and of second chances.
It says: The time has come. The time has come. The time has come.
◆
Merlin doesn't know how long they stand there. Arthur's fingers wrap around his and they breathe. The song goes on, and the song fades. When the last note dissipates Arthur’s eyes are wet with tears and Merlin blinks away his own, haunted still by the magic hanging in the air.
Susan rises and the movement sends another wave rippling across the loch; Merlin barely snaps out of it in time to keep them from toppling over. Above him he sees Susan - tall and serious, regarding Arthur for one long moment.
With what approximates sincerity for an ancient unreadable creature, Susan says, I look forward to your reign, Arthur Pendragon.
Arthur should probably say something to that, only he hasn't seemed to have regained his ability for speech, so Merlin clears his throat. His voice rings pure in the night. He says, "We all do,” and he means it.
Arthur darts a look at Merlin. Merlin’s eyes are fixed studiously ahead, but he gives Arthur's hand a reassuring squeeze, and Arthur looks down as if surprised at the fingers threading through his own.
Slowly, Susan nods, once to Merlin and once to Arthur. He breathes out a last, long note, and slips beneath the water.
Together, they sit, and wait.
◆
The sun begins to rise.
◆
"Let's do this again," offers Merlin.
Arthur doesn't say anything. Merlin glances over. The sunlight catches on Arthur's fringe as it falls messily against his sleeping eyelids, soft pink against the morning light. Merlin finds himself softening at the sight, and gives in to the urge to pat Arthur’s hair.
"Dollop-head," he says fondly. "I suppose even you have good ideas every now and then, even if they sound completely stupid at first.”
Then Arthur’s eyes snap open and he says: "They do not."
Merlin yelps and falls backward, almost capsizing the boat in his surprise. "Idiot," he hisses, and feels his ears burning from the way Arthur grabs the side of the boat for balance and laughs. Merlin's voice peters into a petulant sulk. "You were supposed to be be asleep."
"Well," says Arthur, “I wasn’t, obviously.” Before Merlin can cast an appropriate retaliation to that ridiculous statement, he adds, “Also, the show - I think there was something about a yeti?”
The Himalayas!
Merlin feels a smile breaking over his face, embarrassment and revenge forgotten. The Himalayas are beautiful if you don't have to worry about the cold, and he'd found the spell for that centuries ago. And the yetis!
Merlin tells Arthur, "The yetis are a very nice bunch."
Arthur regards Merlin with interest. "Have you gone cavorting around the entire globe?"
"No," says Merlin. It's true. He hasn't even been to the Mariana Trench yet. Ten thousand metres below the surface of the earth, cold and pitch black, and it's on his 'places to go' list anyway.
He tells Arthur this.
Arthur says, "What's that?" and "Can we go?"
Merlin stands and stretches. He taps the side of the boat and the motor roars to life. "Mmm, maybe."
"Just maybe?"
"Well, it depends," says Merlin, and he grins like a man with all the magic in the world. "How keen are you on being a fish?"
◆