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Arthur holds Merlin in his hands. For one year, sometimes six, sometimes none. Sometimes it’s a month or three weeks or even three seconds. Once, it was a day.
That had been the best day of that Arthur’s life.
Other times, most times, Merlin is just within his reach.
In the house next door, over the white picket fence.
Two lockers down, with a different circle of friends.
Three feet across the hall, in another apartment, with another man.
Five minutes too late at the coffee shop. Fourteen minutes too early at the park.
Always within Arthur’s reach, but always too far. Always just that little bit beyond the stretch of his fingers.
And it’s not fair because Arthur never truly gets to learn all of Merlin, not from the other’s lips anyway. He never gets to learn what that scar under his ribs is from, or why he knows how Arthur takes his coffee. He never learns how Merlin understands what Gwen and Morgana’s sad looks mean and why they just roll off Merlin’s shoulders, like he’s used to it.
No one should ever be used to being so sad. Especially not Merlin, not his Merlin.
So Arthur spends night after night, kissing away his sorrows, melting frowns off of his thin lips with bubbling laughter and teasing jibes, tickles and afternoon romps in the sack. Or on the couch. Or in the hallway, still half-dressed but too desperate to bother.
Like if Arthur lets go, Merlin will slip through his fingers - a pale, dark-haired, blue-eyed fish in a sea of magic.
And Arthur never learned how to swim, not properly anyway.
Merlin never tells him anything, so he watches and learns. Memorizes everything he has to know before Merlin isn’t there to teach him anymore. Catalogues every detail, because the only thing Arthur knows is that they never last long. And he never knows the answer to that question until.
Until Merlin isn’t there to answer.
All the feelings and things he used to know but doesn’t - all the reasons Gwen couldn’t look at him without crying, Morgana couldn’t hold him without trembling. Why Merlin always loved him like there was no tomorrow.
It’s because they never know, if there will be a tomorrow.
When he loses Merlin, again (and again and again), Arthur shakes, his body wracked with sobs, as everything rushes into him. Like Merlin is the dam, and when he goes, the whole world floods into Arthur, all at once, rushing and whirling and he can’t catch his breath.
He’s overflowing.
He’s a king, but his hands aren’t large enough to hold a kingdom, a sword, his crown, his legacy, his friends, his family, Merlin and magic, and love. He can’t hold all of them at the same time, and there’s too much of it to pick through, they all just start slipping through his fingers without permission.
The only thing that keeps him going is the promise Merlin left him, the very first Merlin to the very first Arthur.
“I’ll find you, always. Over and over again. Just wait for me.” My King, my Arthur.
So that’s what Arthur does. He waits. Every single time. For how many years, decades, lifetimes it takes. Because if he doesn’t, he doesn’t get to see Merlin again. even if he lives again, he won’t be alive. Not without.
Not without Merlin.
He keeps his promise to the world so that the world will let Merlin keep his.
And every single time, Merlin returns, until he has to leave again. It’s a cycle that even Merlin’s magic cannot break.
But every single time, he returns and shares what he can of his life with Arthur. And in return, Arthur shares what he can with Merlin, gives him everything, takes everything, and lets go of nothing.
It goes on like that, for a thousand years. And a thousand more, after that.
Until. Until—
Until the sun rises over Camelot once more, and Arthur steps out of Avalon with Merlin not trailing after him like a servant and his master, but next to him. Equals.
“My King. Arthur.”
“Merlin,” he breathes. “Merlin.”
“Welcome home.”
When Merlin smiles at him, the sun never sets again.
When you come home, you will be loved.