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Usually, Merlin loved his job. It was actually pretty terrible, being Arthur’s personal assistant, especially when the crime rate was up in Camelot and there were heavy things within Arthur’s reach. But his reflexes had improved in the last few years, and crime was at an all-time low, thanks to…well. Thanks to Merlin.
Not that Arthur knew it was thanks to Merlin. Not that Arthur wouldn’t be furious to discover the vigilante cleaning up Camelot’s streets was actually his best friend, running around in a ridiculously form-fitting suit and kicking ass.
Still, he did love his job. He loved being able to make a difference, even if that meant fetching coffee or dropping off Arthur’s suits at the dry cleaner’s. Plus, he spent every day with Arthur, and that’s something he planned to do for the rest of his life.
But sometimes. Sometimes.
“What do you mean overtime?”
Arthur raised an incredulous eyebrow over the towering stack of paperwork on his desk. “It’s pretty self-explanatory, honestly,” he said. “The election is next week, we need all hands on deck. Surely you understand.”
“But I-I have plans!” Merlin stammered. I have to put on a suit and throw lightning at rapists and muggers. “Very – very important, un-cancelable plans!”
“I’m sure you can reschedule your date, Merlin.” Arthur had adopted the same distasteful look he always wore whenever Merlin’s fairly active love life was mentioned. Somehow, it only made him better-looking. “You’ve been on a fair number of them recently, one night off couldn’t hurt.”
Merlin had to bite his lip to keep from protesting. He hadn’t been on an actual date in months. There were only so many times he could claim to be at a pub before Arthur started making noises about rehab, so after a while Merlin began inventing dates. First he invented a boyfriend, but after a month of Arthur demanding to meet this “Chad”, Merlin was forced to stage a very dramatic breakup via phone with an amused Lance after a meeting. Now, he either invented a date or lied about being with Lance. Using his friend as an alibi always filled him with guilt, so he tried to do so as little as possible. As far as his other friends were concerned, he dated a lot. None of them were as negative as Arthur, though that was because Merlin was constantly asking for time off and blowing off most of their personal plans.
Instead of arguing, he switched tactics. “I’ve already canceled on him twice, if I do it again we’ll be over! Come on, Arthur, please,” he cajoled, widening his eyes to appear as innocent as possible. “I really like this guy.”
Arthur stared at him for a long moment, his expression indecipherable. Then he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Fine, Merlin,” he said, his voice thin. “Whatever. Go on your date. Have a fantastic time.”
He let out a quiet sigh, and suddenly seemed to have aged ten years. There were dark bags under his eyes – how had Merlin missed them before? – and while they’d been talking, he’d reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose three separate times.
A knot was forming in Merlin’s throat. He wanted so badly to just reach out and brush the hair from Arthur’s forehead, to will his magic to cure the hellish headache he knew was pounding at his friend’s skull. But his magic didn’t work that way. It was perfect for vigilantism; he could summon fireballs, whip up a tornado, hell, he could even conduct electricity without electrocuting himself. His magic had never worked for healing purposes…and he still hadn’t worked out a way to fly.
Well, at least he could make a mean cappuccino.
“Thanks, Arthur. Do you need anything before I go? Coffee?” He wanted so badly to stay. He’d been neglecting Arthur, and not just at work. They hadn’t done anything more social than grab lunch in between meetings in what was actually weeks but seemed like ages. Camelot needed him to be The Warlock, and Arthur…Arthur could manage another night on his own.
Arthur shook his head. “I’ll send one of the interns for some. Go on, then. Don’t want to keep him waiting.”
Still, Merlin hesitated, hovering awkwardly around the door. “Alright. But I’ll clear my schedule for the next few days, yeah?”
That brought a shadow of Arthur’s grin back. “Yeah?” he repeated.
“Yeah,” Merlin agreed, grinning back. “No dates. I’ll be all yours, you can do what you want with me.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
When Merlin finally managed to tear himself away, Arthur had gone back to his paperwork, but a bit of the tension had left his frame. The shadow-grin was still on his face.
-
When Merlin arrived home, he dumped the takeout he’d picked up onto the kitchen counter, pet Aithusa for the requisite five minutes, then took a quick shower. Afterwards, he dressed in a pair of pajama bottoms and a hoodie, grabbed his dinner, and settled onto the couch to watch the news while he ate.
Before he could even reach for the remote, his cellphone started ringing on the counter, and he grumbled to himself under his breath as he reluctantly left the couch to grab it. The caller ID said it was Arthur’s cell, and he grinned as he answered the call and brought the phone up to his ear.
“Did you change your mind about that coffee?”
“Merlin!”
Merlin immediately tensed. Arthur’s tone was frantic, and there were faint screams in the background.
“Arthur? Arthur, what’s going on, where are you?” he asked.
Arthur’s breathing was quick and heavy, and it took him a long moment to answer, a moment in which Merlin didn’t breathe at all. “Merlin,” Arthur repeated, and now he sounded slightly relieved on top of the terror still present in his voice. “Thank Christ, I didn’t know, you didn’t say where you were going for your date, and I didn’t – I wanted to make sure you weren’t here-“
“Arthur, what’s going on?!”
“Someone’s in the building, they’ve put us on lockdown, I’ve tried to reach Security but they’ve cut the phone lines and there’s a masked man with a gun in the hall outside my office.” Arthur’s breathing hitched suddenly, and he said, “That was Morgana. They have Morgana, Merlin, I have to-”
Merlin’s heart leapt up into his throat and he could barely manage to croak, “No, Arthur! Wait for the police, or-or wait until I can get there-” Already he was running for his bedroom, stripping along the way to his closet. He grabbed his suit from its hanger and began pulling it on, ignoring the pain as the tight material tugged on his leg hair in protest. “Just wait for me, Arthur,” he panted into the phone, now pinned awkwardly between his ear and shoulder.
“What? No, you can’t come down here! Call the police and then stay there, wherever you are, you’ll be safe there.”
“You know I can’t do that, Arthur.” Merlin finally remembered himself and pressed speaker, dropping the phone onto his bed to finish tugging the suit up his torso. “And I know you, which is how I know that you’re about to do something incredibly stupid and frustratingly noble.”
“Merlin-”
“Am I wrong?”
The other end of the line was suspiciously quiet.
“Arthur-”
“I have to tell you something,” Arthur interrupted. His tone was still panicked, but there was something else there as well, more intimate, more personal.
It stopped Merlin in his tracks. He had finished with his suit and was about to tug on his mask, but now he was frozen in place. His heart, already beating double-time, quickened, and his palms had begun to sweat. After a long moment, he swallowed audibly and repeated, “Arthur.”
“Merlin, we’ve known each other for a long time.”
“Yeah, we have.”
“I want you to know that I consider you to be my dearest friend.”
Merlin’s throat ran dry. “Yeah?” he rasped. His legs felt weak and he sank down onto the edge of his bed, mask lying forgotten on the floor.
“And you’re a complete idiot.”
That made Merlin snort. “That sounds more like you.”
“Hush, I’m trying to confess something here.”
“Well, don’t. You can’t fool me, this is you saying goodbye, I will not accept that,” Merlin told him sternly, then ruined the effect by sniffling.
Arthur’s smile was audible in his voice as he retorted, “Tough shit. I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight, Merlin, but if there’s even a chance that I can say goodbye to the people I care about, I’m going to take it. Most don’t have that luxury.”
Merlin turned that over in his mind for a minute, trying to fight against Arthur’s logic. In the end, he admitted defeat. “Alright,” he sighed. “You’re right.”
“Can I get that in writing, please?”
“Arthur!”
“Yeah.” Arthur cleared his throat down the line. His voice, already quiet, went softer. “Do you remember when we first met?”
“Of course. You called me a pasty-skinned peasant and told me never to set foot in your kingdom again. I would also like to point out that your kingdom was actually a sandbox.”
“No, you – our second meeting, then.”
“Oh. You mean when we were thirteen?”
“Yeah. Do you remember what I told you, after that nasty business with Valiant?”
Merlin wanted to tell him they didn’t have time for this, that they could talk about this later. But they did, and they couldn’t. Instead, he said, “Not exactly, no.”
“I told you that there was something about you, but that I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.”
He remembered now. His heart had nearly burst out of his chest it’d been beating so fast. Had Arthur discovered his magic? He wondered so then, and he wondered so now. “And?”
Arthur sighed. “And I still haven’t quite figured it out. Even if I had a lifetime to figure it out, I’m not sure I could. But I’d still like to have the opportunity to try.”
“Arthur.” The tears that had welled in Merlin’s eyes finally spilled over, and he pressed his face into the bedspread to muffle a sob.
“I know you’re out on a date tonight, and you said you really liked him, I just – if I don’t die-”
“You’re not going to die-”
“If I don’t, can I take you out to dinner? So that we can talk?”
It was a strange feeling, being sad and terrified and ludicrously happy all at the same time. Merlin laughed incredulously into the bedspread and swiped a hand across his cheeks. “You have terrible timing, clotpole.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Next time I see you, I’m going to punch you in the face.”
“You’ve said that, too.”
Merlin’s voice grew quiet. “Then after, you can buy me takeout and we’ll go to yours. So that we can talk.”
Arthur’s breath hitched. “Alright,” he said. “You’ve never said that.”
Merlin laughed again. It wasn’t altogether pleasant laughter, even slightly hysterical. In the past eight months, his life had been shifted and turned and shaken like a snowglobe until he wasn’t sure which direction he was facing at any given moment. But in the past fifteen minutes, Arthur had managed to outdo that – his entire world had been flipped upside down, and it was making his head spin. He sat up and tucked his head between his knees, struggling to breathe normally.
“Merlin? Are you alright?”
Arthur’s voice sounded far away, and Merlin realized it was because he’d accidentally knocked the phone off the bed. His breathing had gentled somewhat and he was no longer dizzy – when had he become so dizzy? – so he reached down to grab the phone from the floor. “I’m fine, just…” Merlin hesitated. “Arthur, I have something to tell you, too.”
“I think I know what you’re going to say, Merlin. I feel the same way.”
“No, Arthur – I mean, yes, Arthur, but Arthur, what you said, about there being something about me – you were right. Arthur, I-”
Before he could get the words out ‘I have magic’, Arthur cut him off with a hissed, “Fuck!”
“Arthur, what-”
There was a great commotion on the other end, glass shattering, what sounded like Arthur’s heavy desk scraping across the floor – and then a sharp cry of pain.
“Arthur? Arthur! Are you alright?!” Merlin yelled, panic bubbling in his throat. “Arthur, answer me, please, are you-”
A gunshot echoed down the line, and Merlin’s phone exploded.
-
The phone had exploded, but the bedspread hadn’t even been scorched. Merlin spent precious minutes staring, eyes unseeing, at the burnt remains. Then it hit him, and he gasped in a sudden loud gulp of air, rocking back slightly. Dimly he heard Arthur’s name being mumbled over and over, and it took much too long for him to realize it was his own mouth saying the word. Like a prayer.
Call the police, a voice remarkably like Arthur’s whispered in his head, and he automatically reached out before he realized. He didn’t have a phone. He didn’t have a phone, how could he call the police if he didn’t have a phone, he needed a phone-
And there was suddenly one in his hand. He blinked down at it, stupefied, for a long moment before recognizing it as Lance’s. His friend hadn’t been by in several days, and he certainly would have been if he’d left his phone in Merlin’s flat. The only other explanation was that, somehow, Merlin’s magic had…teleported it here? To Merlin…who desperately needed a phone.
He stared. Magic didn’t work that way. He’d tried, once, when he was a teenager and deep into Doctor Who, to travel back in time after he’d completely botched a maths test. It hadn’t worked. And while time travel and teleportation weren’t nearly the same thing, they were both equally as impossible.
But the evidence was in his hand. There was no other way Lance’s phone could’ve ended up here, right at the very instant he’d required it. And then it all made incredible sense, because of course his magic could do the impossible where Arthur was concerned, it would do anything for Arthur.
As he was contemplating this, the phone made the little ding! sound that Merlin knew meant Lance had gotten a text. Glancing at the screen, he was relieved to find that it was from Gwen. Then his stomach was sinking again when he realized that Arthur wasn’t the only one in danger right now – Morgana had been working late as well. And from what Arthur had said earlier, she’d been taken hostage. Gwen needed to know.
The phone had a passcode, but Merlin knew that Lance hadn’t changed it in years. He clicked on Gwen’s name and let the phone ring.
She picked it up on the second ring. “Okay, it wasn’t that important, Lance, you didn’t have to call-”
“Gwen, it’s me.”
“…Merlin? You sound weird. Is something wrong?”
He sighed. “Arthur just called me from the office. He said there were men with guns inside the building, and he said they had Morgana.”
There was stunned silence on the other line. Then, her voice tight and controlled, Gwen said, “Are the police there?”
“No, I haven’t called them yet, I-”
Gwen started cursing loudly, and he yanked his head to the side with a wince. “Gwen, please, it’ll be alright, I-I’m going to save them, Gwen, it’ll be alright-”
“How are you possibly going to save them yourself, Merlin?! This is a job for the police, or-or for The Warlock! You can’t just waltz in there, it’s not safe-”
“Gwen. I am The Warlock.”
She stopped shouting. There were several muffled sounds, soft footsteps, then the sound of a door closing. She said, “I’m at work, Merlin, you can’t just say things like that, someone might hear. This would make a fucking hell of a story.” Gwen always reverted to cursing when she was upset.
“I’m sorry, Gwen.”
“Merlin, I-” She paused. “We can talk about this later. Just, please, be-be careful, alright?”
“I will. Promise.”
“And Merlin?”
“Yeah?”
“Bring them home.”
Merlin smiled. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant smile. “I will. Promise.”
-
Because he’d promised Gwen, and because some of the hostages might be injured, he called the police and informed them of the situation before he took off. By the time he’d arrived at City Hall, there were several squad cars and ambulances outside the building. A few officers tried to catch his attention, but his sole focus was getting into that building and saving his friends. They only vaguely registered in his peripheral vision as he stalked straight past them, through the barricade, and up the stone steps to the front entrance.
He could’ve snuck into City Hall through a back door, caught the bad guys by surprise, and limited the expense of his magic. He could’ve coordinated with the police, allowed their SWAT team to enter the building with him, and taken care of the situation, again, with little effort on his part.
He didn’t even entertain either of those possibilities.
Instead, with cops shouting at him to stop, The Warlock blasted the heavy oak doors in with a gust of wind. He strode right in through the absence of an entrance and, with a flick of his wrist, disarmed the two masked men standing guard in the lobby. Another flick, and they flew backwards and struck the wall with a sickening thwack!, then slumped to the floor and moved no more. He stepped over their prone bodies and continued on.
His magic knew Arthur. His magic loved Arthur. Since they’d first met, whenever he was nearby, the magic sang in Merlin’s veins. His presence made the magic joyful, and his absence made the magic subdued. It took weeks for Merlin to realize that, if he concentrated hard enough, the magic searched out his friend. It never failed to guide him back to Arthur’s side.
Now, he let his magic lead him to where he needed to be.
Three more men accosted him on his way to the third floor, but he barely had to raise his hand to send them crumpling to the floor. They would wake from their sleep in a matter of hours, he knew. He didn’t kill any of them. Arthur wouldn’t like that. Arthur was a good man.
Twenty-two people, all of them Merlin’s co-workers and friends, were in Conference Room A. The large round table had been hastily shoved against the door, most likely when the masked men had realized he was coming. Merlin felt a sense of loss when he splintered it in half, but they could have a new one commissioned on Monday. It was wobbly anyway.
He spotted Morgana huddled in the far corner. Her hair had partially fallen from the French braid she’d worn earlier that day, and her face was streaked with tear marks, but her expression was thunderous. One of her hands was clutching the locket Gwen had given her for their one-year anniversary, the other brushing Arthur’s hair back from his forehead. He was lying with his head in her lap, and his face was so pale that Merlin could swear that his own heart stopped beating. Then he noticed that Arthur’s chest was moving slightly, he was breathing, and that meant he was alive.
There were three masked men in the room, all of them armed, and while Merlin had been staring at Arthur, they’d raised their guns level with his chest. One man, who was obviously in charge, took a step forward. “If you want to save these people-” he began, but Merlin didn’t give him the chance to finish. He raised both arms and all three men yelped as their guns suddenly burned so hot that they melted in their hands. While they were distracted by the burning metal, he gathered the electric current constantly hovering over his suit and fired it at each of the men in turn. They all cried out and fell to the ground unconscious.
Once he was certain there were no more criminals in the building (or conscious ones, at least), Merlin turned to the hostages and, careful to pitch his voice, told them, “You’re safe now. The police are outside. Is anyone injured?”
From the back, Morgana called out, “Here! My brother, he-”
Merlin was already moving, winding his way through the people, who were now standing on shaky legs and heading for the door. He slid to his knees on the floor beside Morgana and reached out to check Arthur’s pulse. It was slightly quicker than normal, but steady. “What happened?” he asked, unable to keep the relief out of his voice.
Morgana’s eyebrows knitted together in a frown, but she answered him nonetheless. “He tried to stop them from taking one of the interns. Stupid idiot.” She directed this last part down at Arthur, whose eyelids had begun to flutter. “The man had a knife and he slashed Arthur in the side. It wasn’t too deep, and I managed to stop the bleeding, but he passed out about twenty minutes ago.”
“So-so he wasn’t shot?”
Morgana’s frowned deepened. “No, he wasn’t shot, why-”
Merlin didn’t hear what she said next. The tension left his body with a quiet sigh and relieved tears welled in his eyes. Shaking his head and blinking rapidly, he cleared his throat and asked, “Where’s he injured?”
She looked like she wanted to protest, but concern for her brother won out in the end. “His right side, there,” she told him. Lifting his untucked button-down, she exposed his torso until the angry red gash was visible.
At the sight of the wound, Merlin’s magic flared out in concern, wrapping around his hand as he pressed it to Arthur’s side. It seeped into the too-warm skin, and Morgana gasped when it began glowing. Merlin’s magic couldn’t heal – but it did. It knit the flesh back together, repaired broken blood vessels, and in less than a minute, the skin of Arthur’s side was once again unblemished, though still slightly pink.
“H-how did you do that?” Morgana choked out. Her eyes were wide with awe and fear as she tore her gaze from her brother and where the knife wound used to be, up to stare into his masked face.
He couldn’t have answered her, even if he’d had anything to say. The magic must have drained the pain as well, for Arthur’s eyelids fluttered again, then opened, his eyes slightly out of focus. “Wha?” he asked, his voice faint but steady.
Slowly, his hand went to his side and, upon finding no wound or pain, he made a strangled sound. “What…how? Where did my…” he trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words.
“He-he healed it. Somehow,” Morgana told him without taking her eyes off The Warlock.
The breath left Merlin’s lungs in a grateful gasp, and he grinned beneath the mask. “You’re alright,” he said, forgetting to pitch his voice low the way he always did when he spoke as The Warlock.
Arthur definitely noticed. “You sound like…,” he began, then let his voice trail off, until silence filled the room.
Morgana’s expression had morphed into one of slowly dawning understanding. “Merlin,” she breathed out, one hand coming up to clasp, shaking, over her mouth.
He didn’t move. He couldn’t move. Frozen in place, he watched Arthur’s face as the realization began to dawn on him as well. It was incredibly painful to watch. Arthur’s face, twisted in confusion, faded into disbelief, morphed into denial, and then, finally, anger.
“Arthur-” he began, but Arthur didn’t let him finish.
“So you lied to me.” It was flat, monotonous with a thin veil of fury. Arthur’s face had shifted into the face he put on when he had to speak to someone he didn’t particularly like; his own version of a mask. It was oddly fitting.
Merlin cringed. “Yes,” he said. “But I didn’t-”
He stopped, because he didn’t know what he could say to make this better, but also because the SWAT team had finally decided to get with the program and were already on the second floor. “The police are coming,” he said instead, rising on slightly unsteady feet. “You’ll be alright now. I-I know you’re angry-”
Arthur made a strangled sound in his throat.
“You have every right to be angry with me, Arthur, but please don’t tell them who I am. Just – let me explain? Please. Just give me the chance to explain. Please.”
His face was still stony, but after a moment, Arthur gave a small nod, then turned his entire body to face the wall to his right. Morgana, who had up until then been completely silent, told Merlin, “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with us.” She smiled suddenly, stunning and grateful. “Thank you, Merlin. You saved everyone. You always save everyone.”
Merlin flushed, thought thankfully it was hidden behind the mask. “It’s my job,” he replied without thinking.
Arthur’s fists visibly clenched, but he didn’t turn around. Morgana leveled him with a glare that softened almost immediately, and she once again brushed the hair from his forehead. “He won’t admit it right now, but Arthur’s thankful as well,” she said. Then, haltingly, a worried look gracing her face, she continued, “Does Gwen-”
“She knows,” Merlin interrupted, smiling slightly as Morgana’s shoulders sagged with relief. “I called her right after-” He coughed and shifted awkwardly. “Anyway, she knows, and she told me she was on her way. And…” Pausing, he cast outwards with his magic, locating the brightness that was Gwen. “She’s outside right now. The police are trying to keep her out, but she’s telling them that she isn’t here as a reporter, and-” He winced as the officer holding her back was knocked on his ass. “You should get out there before she gets herself arrested.”
When he glanced back at Morgana and Arthur, they were both staring at him in shock. He flushed once more. “I know it’s a lot,” he said, shuffling his feet. “I promise I’ll explain later, I just – it’s probably not best if I’m here when the police arrive.”
Morgana nodded. “Right. We’ll talk later. And, Merlin, could you maybe…?” She bit her lip and resolutely did not look in her brother’s direction.
Merlin grinned. He’d expected Morgana to ask, so he merely said, “Of course. I didn’t want to rush you.”
This time, Morgana was the one flushing, and she ducked her head with an embarrassed smile. “Okay. Tomorrow, maybe?” She chanced a glance at her brother, then looked back at Merlin. “Or Monday?”
“Monday sounds great.” Merlin looked to Arthur, but he was staring once more at the wall, his body a long line of tension. His mouth suddenly tasted like ash, and he took another step towards the door. “I’ll see you then,” he told Morgana. Then, with one last, longing look at Arthur, he closed his eyes and muttered a few choice words. Morgana’s gasp a moment later told him that he had successfully gone invisible, and he ducked out of the open door moments before the SWAT team finally burst into the room.
He made his way outside and stood a ways back, watching silently as Arthur and Morgana were brought outside by the SWAT team, watching as Gwen, seconds away from full-out decking the officer trying to hold her back, shrieked and ran to her girlfriend, throwing her arms around Morgana’s body and bursting into tears. He watched them hold each other tightly, rocking slightly back and forth, for several long moments before Gwen noticed Arthur and flung her arms around him, too.
Once he was satisfied that they were in good hands, Merlin left.
He returned to his flat, stripped down to his pants, and collapsed onto his bed beside the remains of his phone. He stayed there, staring at the ceiling, absorbing the events of the night, until dawn.
His phone was still broken, but even if it hadn’t been, Merlin didn’t expect he’d be hearing from Arthur any time soon.
-
The next night, he was curled up on the couch in his flat, watching reruns of Friends with Aithusa kneading relentlessly at his thigh. She’d already drawn blood twice when someone starting knocking on the door, and it was with not a small measure of relief that he shoo’d her off to get up and answer. He opened the door to find Arthur on the other side.
“Can I come in?” Arthur asked. He was dressed like he’d come straight from work; pressed slacks and a light blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up to bare his forearms. His hair was a mess, his tie was askew, and there was a suspiciously coffee-colored stain on his collar.
He was, as always, gorgeous.
Merlin realized he’d been standing there, staring, for a while, long enough for Arthur’s tentative smile to disappear. “Um, yeah, sorry,” Merlin stammered, stepping back to let Arthur slip past him. As he closed the door and fumbled with the latch, he took a moment to gather himself.
When he turned back around, he noticed the bags in Arthur’s hand as he set them down on the counter. “What’s that?” he asked cautiously.
“I believe I was invited,” Arthur replied, lifting out several Styrofoam boxes and a case of his favorite fancy beer before crushing the plastic bags up into a ball.
He bustled around the kitchen, ignoring Merlin’s confusion as he grabbed a pair of forks from the utensil drawer and grabbed a mass of napkins from the holder next to the microwave. “The beer’s warm,” he said, his tone apologetic.
Merlin, still dazed, pointed to the fridge. “I already have some – of yours, I mean,” he rushed to explain as Arthur opened his mouth, most likely to begin ranting about Merlin’s piss poor taste in beer. His cheeks heated at Arthur’s surprised expression. They hadn’t hung out together in Merlin’s flat for at least three months, so there was no plausible reason to have a case of Arthur’s favorite beer in the fridge.
Thankfully, Arthur didn’t call attention to this. Instead, he just gave a dazed, “Alright” and swapped out the warm case for the cold one. Without consulting Merlin, or even really looking in his direction, he carried the food and drinks into the living room and placed it all onto the coffee table. Merlin, not really sure what was going on, followed.
Aithusa had claimed the couch as her own, but when she noticed Arthur, she stretched lazily and loudly meowed her desire to be pet. “Alright, pretty girl?” he crooned, scratching her behind the ears, and she pressed up into his hand and purred.
When Merlin continued to hover awkwardly by the doorway, Arthur sighed heavily and waved him in. “Come on, I can’t eat all of this by myself!”
Merlin snorted. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Oi! I’m not here to be insulted.”
It was said teasingly, but still Merlin sobered. “Why are you here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, just-” Carefully, he walked over to the opposite end of the couch and sat down with his legs curled up underneath his bottom. “How are you?” he asked, his voice soft.
“Physically, I’m great,” Arthur answered, popping the lids off his beer and taking a healthy swig. Swallowing, he continued, “Emotionally? Not so great.”
Merlin flinched. “Look, Arthur, I-”
“Merlin, please, I want to talk about this just as much as you, but I’ve been busy at the office-”
“They cleared it? Already?”
“Yeah.” Arthur gestured around with his fork dramatically as he began ranting about how the police were still trying to get answers from the masked gunmen, how his father was understandably furious and out for blood, how Morgana was wiping the floor at press conferences with any reporter who dared insinuate that she was too shaken by the hostage situation to do her job. He wasn’t really paying attention, so when Arthur said, “I forgot to ask. How did your date go the other night?” Merlin didn’t hesitate to admit that he hadn’t actually had one.
Arthur’s fork clattered to the table. “Are you – seriously? You were lying about that, too? And - all those dates you’ve been on? The man you met at the market, the one at the cinema, the – Chad?!”
“Er, Chad wasn’t real, either.”
“But – you broke up with him on the phone!”
"Actually, that was Lance."
"You lied to me. For-for months. Christ, you’ve been doing this almost a year-” Arthur raked a hand through his hair, a clear sign of his frustration.
“Arthur, I wanted to tell you, I just-”
“You just what, Merlin? Just didn’t trust me? We’ve been friends since we were thirteen, did you think I would turn you in?”
“I didn’t know, alright?” Merlin yelled, straightening up on the couch and clutching a throw pillow to his chest “I didn’t – you’ve been giving press conferences saying The Warlock is a horrible, attention-seeking whack job, running around Camelot interfering with police business! You said I should be locked up or put down!”
Arthur looked stricken. Some of the anger had drained from his face, and in its place was wide-eyed panic. “I didn’t know it was you, Merlin, I’d never hurt you, I wouldn’t have-”
“You have a duty to uphold the law, Arthur. You swore it, and I know you, I know you’d rather die than go back on your word.”
“But not if it’s you, Merlin, you have to know that, you have to know how I feel-”
“And you know how I feel. I never wanted to put you in a position where you had to choose.”
Arthur drew a sharp breath in through his nose. His head fell against the back of the couch and his eyes squeezed shut. He looked almost in pain, and Merlin was reaching out without thinking. His fingers brushed the hair back from Arthur’s forehead and his magic once again seeped into Arthur’s skin, soothing the migraine just beginning to develop behind his eyes. Arthur moaned at the sudden relief; then his eyes snapped open and they were staring at each other with matching looks of wonder.
“How did you do that?” Arthur whispered.
Merlin shook his head. “It’s never worked this way before,” he murmured, turning his gaze instead down to his own hand. “I’ve never been able to control it quite like this.”
“Your…powers?”
“I don’t have ‘powers’, Arthur. I’m not like Superman.”
“Well, obviously.”
He snorted. “I’m saying that it’s not that I have ‘powers’ per se, it’s just…my magic.”
Arthur leveled him with a deadpan look. “Magic,” he repeated, his tone dubious. “Like Harry Potter.”
“Ha fucking ha, you’re too late, Lance made that joke ages ago.”
“And why exactly did you tell Lance before telling me?”
“I didn’t tell him, he found out. I’ll tell you how later, but for now, what you need to know is that I have…” He took a deep, grounding breath in, then exhaled it slowly. “I have magic. And I use it for Camelot, but mostly, I use it for you, Arthur.”
He wasn’t sure to expect after his confession, but he certainly hadn’t expected Arthur to smile, grasp a handful of his hoodie, and pull him into an eager kiss.
Arthur’s lips were soft on his, the kiss sweet and slow, and it was so much better than anything he’d ever imagined. He fought the need to surge forward and deepen the kiss, just pressed back and followed Arthur’s lead. The magic was swirling underneath his skin and, despite his efforts at restraint, it bled through into the kiss. By the way Arthur groaned and changed the intensity of the kiss, he didn’t seem to mind.
When they finally parted, Merlin’s lips were swollen and his cheeks flushed, and he buried his face into Arthur’s neck and mumbled, “I wish I could change. For you.”
He felt Arthur swallow against his cheek, and then he was being pushed gently back until he could look Arthur in the eye. “I don’t want you to change,” Arthur said. “I want you to always be you.”
Tears threatened to spill from Merlin’s eyes but when he tried to turn his face away, Arthur’s hand cupping his jaw steered him back gently but firmly. “You were right,” he continued, his voice hushed like he was imparting a great secret. “Camelot needs you as The Warlock. You’ve done so much good in the past eight months. And while I don’t entirely understand…this,” he wiggled his other hand in what he probably considered to be a good imitation of Merlin doing magic, “I know you, and I trust you, and I…”
Merlin smiled. “I know you, and I trust you, and I love you, too,” he said, and the look of wonder on Arthur’s face briefly took his breath away.
When Arthur made to draw Merlin into another kiss, a hacking cough disguised as a laugh caused them to leap backwards in shock. In the doorway stood a wrinkled old man with grey hair and a supremely unamused expression. “I see you have realized your destiny, young Emrys,” the living fossil rasped, waving his arm with an air of smug superiority. “You have failed in the past, but now you will finally bring about the new age of Albion, with the other half of your coin by your side.”
“Merlin,” Arthur drawled out warily, “what is the old intruder talking about?”
Merlin graced him with a sheepish grin. “Er, I didn’t get a chance to tell you the rest?”
“What does he mean by destiny, Merlin?!”