Under the Wild Oak [1/4]
Masterlist
A hospital at night is a cold, unforgiving place. Its hallways are dark and sombre, and they echo with remnants of the day: tapping footsteps of the living, click-clacking on polished floors; beeping heart monitors of the in-betweens, the we’re-sorry-we’re-not-sures; the utter silence of the dead, no longer masked by the hustle and bustle and brightness of day-shift. At best, it is chilling, deeply unsettling for anyone unlucky enough to be stuck within; at worst, it is terrifying, a unique reminder of the mortality of man, the brevity of his connections, the long-lasting devastation of his wake.
People talk, sometimes, about doctors. They say they’re insensitive, that so many years of losing some and saving others and never having the chance with the rest has dulled their empathy, their ability to understand the sheer desperation a normal person feels in the face of loss. They say they’re almost like the hospitals they serve in: cold, unfeeling; harbingers of death more often than pillars of salvation and support.
Looking at the man lying prone, pale, and fragile in the bed, Dr. Merlin Emrys thinks only, They’re wrong.
The traveller has already been walking for miles.
His feet are calloused, soles rough and permanently aching, it seems, from the thousands (or is it millions? It’s probably actually closer to billions, now that he thinks about it, but he lost track so many hilltops ago) of steps he’s taken to get to this point. His boots are made of soft, supple leather that hugs the arches in his feet, bends and reshapes itself easily around the curve-and-flex motion of his foot in one step, two, three, four, five, until the number grows so high he loses count again.
He wears a jacket of brown leather, a shirt of blue cotton, trousers of a deep brown-black wool. Slung over his shoulder is a pack carrying spare clothing; flint and steel for fire; a small pouch of ink powder; and a fountain pen, tip bent and broken, useless.
If asked, the traveller could not say why he is walking, or where to. He knows only that the road stretches out before him like something open, inviting -- something that dares him to venture forward. It stretches behind him, too; something quickly experienced and quickly forgot, all in a few footfalls too much like countless others to be anything remarkable.
It is there to be travelled, he knows, simple and sure. So for as long as it goes, as long as it’s there, that is what he will do.
Merlin wakes to the sound of knocking, soft but persistent, on his door. He blinks once, twice, awareness of his surroundings expanding gradually like the puddle that forms under a slowly-melting icicle. First, the page his cheek is resting on, rows of text blurred beyond comprehension by the proximity. Next, the ache, quiet and throbbing, between his shoulder-blades and up the base of his neck -- the kind that comes from a night lying hunched over a desk, cold. From all appearances, he’s spent another night in his office, which just. Fuck, but Arthur is going to kill him.
“Merlin?” he hears, and speak of the Devil. Arthur knocks again, louder this time. “Merlin, I know you’re in there. Your light’s on, and you never came home last night,” and bugger. Arthur’s voice has that tone of not-worry he gets when he is worried, and exasperated beyond measure, but doesn’t want to show it.
This does not bode well.
Merlin straightens, stretches, and hurries for the door, opening it to reveal Arthur in the outlying hospital corridor. His fist is still raised, mid-knock, and his face reads, as expected, of annoyed and, faintly, exasperated, but also overwhelmingly of tired.
It’s not a new look for Arthur, tired, hasn’t been for at least the last two years, but that doesn’t make something in Merlin’s chest tighten any less at the sight of it.
Arthur drops his hand back down to his side, and says, “Finally decided to stop ignoring me, then?”
Merlin fidgets at the accusation lacing those words; never exactly a master of subtlety, Arthur. “Ah, yes,” he says, and steps out of the doorway to let Arthur in. “And hello to you, too, by the way.”
“Mm,” Arthur murmurs, noticeably not touching Merlin as he walks past him and into Merlin’s office. “Sleep all right last night?”
“Sort of, although my neck and shoulders would suggest otherwise, now.” Merlin laughs a little, trying to dislodge even just a bit of the tense air that’s followed Arthur into his office.
Arthur smirks and says nothing.
“And, uh -- and what about you? Were you fine last night?”
“Yes.”
“No pain? Unexpected issues with the medica--”
“I said I was fine, Merlin,” Arthur says, cutting him off.
“Right. Just, you know, wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything I should be worried about, yeah?”
Arthur shrugs.
“Well, erm,” and Merlin thinks, just as he has countless times before, that the resurgence of early-relationship awkwardness is probably the worst part of this entire situation. Still, he blunders on. “If you didn’t have any problems, was there anything you needed? Or did you just miss me too much?”
Arthur doesn’t smile. “I want you to get breakfast with me this morning.”
Odd; they’ve never stressed eating breakfast together as anything important, significant. “Any particular reason why?”
The look Arthur gives him asks Merlin clearly, perfectly, succinctly whether he is a very special sort of idiot. “You haven’t been home in two days,” he says, tone brokering no protest. “Get breakfast with me.”
“Okay,” Merlin nods, and normally, he’d keep refusing until Arthur didn’t so much “cave” as “drop the issue and stalk away in frustration.” But Arthur’s right, he hasn’t been home in two days, which is a fair amount of time even for him and the long hours he’s taken to working; plus, Gaius had reminded him of the same thing last night, and Merlin sort of fears the lecture Gaius and his inexplicable level of eyebrow control will depart upon him if he doesn’t “stop wasting what time you do have, and go spend it in a way you won’t regret later, you nincompoop.” So while he ordinarily wouldn’t give in so easily, today he just walks past Arthur to lift his coat off the hook on the back of the door. He can feel Arthur watching him as he shrugs it on and winds his scarf around his neck. He’s not as quietly angry as before, though; still tense, sure, but Merlin has apparently done something right by agreeing instantly, and it already feels less and less like Arthur is apt to maim him at the slightest (even unknown) error on his part.
He turns back to Arthur, says, “Ready?”
At Arthur’s nod, they move into the corridor, where Merlin pauses to close and lock his office door.
When he looks back at Arthur, Merlin finds him looking a bit more relaxed -- temporarily placated, it seems. Merlin smiles tentatively and offers Arthur his hand. Arthur looks at it for a moment, and Merlin freezes, afraid that he has misread the situation, misread Arthur, entirely, and that Arthur is still very much irritated with him.
He finds he needn’t have worried, though, when Arthur smiles softly and grabs Merlin’s hand, twining their fingers together. Arthur leads them down the corridor toward the exit, already talking about that one café on King Street, you know, Merlin, the one with the really excellent Danishes, and Merlin’s smile grows. They’re comfortable again, familiar and easy, and as Merlin responds that yes, that sounds lovely, he thinks: We’ve made it through another one.
It sounds desperate, yes, but he doesn’t much care; it’s reassurance, and it’s enough.
***
The café, when they arrive, is busy, warm and too-loud in that public-place way that’s just shy of totally comfortable. It’s not ideal for a breakfast date, but Arthur is already pink-cheeked and shivering from the cold despite his coat, so Merlin doesn’t dare take a table in the outside seating section, even if it is quieter.
Instead, they find a table next to the window facing the street. Merlin removes his coat and scarf and hangs them over his chair. He watches Arthur do the same, brown peacoat and red-and-yellow-striped scarf folded neatly before being draped over the wire frame of the chair’s back. Merlin can see Arthur’s hands shaking slightly, almost imperceptibly, as he undoes the fastenings, and he almost reaches to help before remembering how disastrously that had gone the last time.
(“I’m not an invalid,” Arthur had snapped, eyes blazing with indignation and more passion in his voice than Merlin had heard in months. “I may be sick, but I’m still capable of doing things for myself. I expect you to remember that, Merlin.”
And, though it’s hard most of the time, Merlin has.)
Once they’ve sat and ordered, breakfast is calm. The Danishes are sweet, fresh; the tea is aromatic, just strong enough; the conversation is refreshing, easy in a way it hasn’t been for a while. Merlin is struck again by how comfortable it is between them now, and he’s relieved -- it’s really been too long since they were anything but tense around each other, since they allowed themselves to forget the circumstances for a while and just enjoy each other’s company.
Like all things lately, though, the ease between them is too good to last long, and they’ve barely finished eating before Merlin’s mobile rings, shrill tone cutting Arthur off mid-word and making them both wince.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin mutters, “I thought it was on silent; let me just check who it is.”
Arthur sighs and picks up his tea, the set of his mouth back to that worrying, too-level line of irritation.
Merlin fishes his mobile out of his pocket. The screen flashes the name “Will” at him, and he knows he can’t not answer it, much as it will anger Arthur. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and moves to flip his phone open and take the call.
“Don’t,” Arthur says hurriedly, and Merlin looks at him in surprise. He’s smiling, oddly enough, but it’s a strange sort of smile, tense around the edges, ironic and looking almost like he’s expecting disappointment. “Just, for once, don’t answer it. Let it go.”
Merlin pauses, torn, fingers on the cover of his phone and eyes fixed on Arthur. “Don’t,” he says again, and the phone is still ringing, an obnoxious, insistent reminder of the tantalizing possibility of success, of being able to fix this -- a reminder Merlin finds he can’t ignore.
He mouths, “I’m sorry, really,” even as he flicks open his mobile and mutters, “Emrys.”
Arthur’s face falls into the sort of I-knew-it disappointment that stings no matter how many times Merlin sees it. The tension is back in the stiff line of his shoulders and bowed neck, the way he shakes his head slightly to himself.
Will chatters in his ear excitedly about the apparent success of a new compound they tried yesterday, one based primarily on a sap sample from a tree in some forest Merlin can’t remember the name or location of now. And Merlin’s happy about this, ecstatic, but not nearly so much as he would be if he weren’t watching Arthur stand and put on his coat and scarf brusquely.
When Arthur looks at Merlin, his eyes are angry and upset, as is his tone when he bits out, “Try to come home tonight,” and his gait when he brushes past Merlin on his way out of the shop. Merlin tries to grab his hand as he passes, but Arthur shakes him off, pulling away quickly and continuing on without looking back.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Will,” Merlin says, cutting the other doctor off. “Fill me in more when I get back, okay?”
Merlin hangs up and stands. He grabs his coat off the chair and, not even bothering to put it on, slings it over his arm before digging through one of its pockets for some cash. The few bills he finds are tossed quickly onto the table to cover the meal before he practically runs out the door, looking up and down the street once outside for any sign of Arthur’s brown peacoat, his blond hair.
Finding neither, he sighs. Arthur is already gone onto something else, so Merlin turns and heads back to the hospital, to the smallest chance of a success that will make all of this worth it.
***
Merlin is accosted at the hospital not thirty seconds after he gets back to his office. Will (and he knows it’s Will; everyone else has the courtesy to knock) comes rushing in, pushing open the door with enough force that only Merlin’s strategically-placed doorstop stops it from swinging into the wall.
“Merlin! I had Margaret at the front desk on the look-out for you -- you’ll never believe what’s happened,” Will says, breathless and excited.
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me, though,” Merlin says, voice teasing but hand already reaching for the chart Will is holding out for him.
“I told you a bit about it on the phone, but it’s that compound -”
“The one we developed yesterday, right. From that tree. The one Gaius chewed me out over for administering it without proper testing first.”
“I hadn’t heard about that last bit, actually. But yes, that compound. It’s -- well, it’s remarkable, really. None of us can quite believe it yet.”
“Will. Focus. What’s it done?”
“We administered it to the oldest of our test subjects, yes?”
“Lancelot, right. As I told Gaius yesterday, it was give him the compound or put him down, he’s that old.”
“Yeah, well, now he’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not. Old anymore, that is. We came in this morning to check on him and found him like this, young again. His fur’s grown back in, all dark and glossy again, and --”
“Show me,” Merlin says, and he is already leading his own way out of his office and down to the research and development wing before Will has even stepped into the hall.
When Will catches up to him at the lifts, slightly breathless again, he says, “So we ran tests on him after we found him, largely because we couldn’t properly believe what we were seeing.”
“Which ones?”
“Uh, standard reasoning and comprehension tests, mainly, and an EKG. The usual ones given pre-op to establish the levels of understanding and neural activity.”
“Yeah, and?” The lift dings and opens in front of them. They step into it, Will pressing the button for level three as Merlin continues to read through the folder in his hands.
“Well, if you look here,” and Will flips a page in the chart Merlin’s skimming frantically to show a series of graphs. He continues, “You can see the results we got from this morning’s tests as this red line, and these other lines chart yesterday’s pre-op, the tests done a year ago, and the ones from five years ago, respectively.”
“Holy shit.”
“That’s what we said.”
“But that’s -- this red line is up with the results from last year. That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
“Holy shit, that’s --” But what, exactly, that is gets cut off by the lift dinging again and opening at the third level. Merlin doesn’t bother finishing his sentence, just walks out and down the corridor to his team’s lab, Will right on his heels.
The lab, when Merlin reaches it, is just as noisy as always. The entire staff, it seems, is talking, all at the same time, all at loud volumes, and all using the words wow and fucking incredible and do you think this could mean in various quantities. There’s a sense of liveliness, though, of enthusiasm and hope that’s been lacking the last few months, but is near palpable now.
Although his head is just about buzzing from the sheer excitement in the room, Merlin doesn’t stop to theorise, speculate, anything; he’s too focussed on actually seeing this for himself, as he still doesn’t quite believe it.
The first sight of Lancelot, however, dispels any remaining, weak notion that this is all someone’s sick, elaborate idea of a prank. The monkey looks -- well, Will was right to say “remarkable” earlier, and “unbelievable” as well, because those are the exact words running through Merlin’s head right now. Yesterday, on the operating table, Lancelot’s fur was white and thin, whole patches of bare skin visible where failed treatments or the tumour itself had made it fall out. Today, though, it’s just as Will had described earlier: glossy and dark, thick in a way it hasn’t been in years, and the only section of skin Merlin can find in his initial inspection is the spot on the monkey’s head where it had been necessary to shave him for surgery the day before.
Merlin leans in for a closer look, and Lancelot screeches, raises a paw as if to bat at Merlin’s face -- playful, something that, again, he hasn’t been in years, and holy fuck but this is amazing.
Merlin turns back to his team, who have quieted to let him examine Lancelot in relative peace, but who are still beaming as though every Christmas they will ever experience has come early.
“This,” he says, then stops to clear his throat and process this in some way that makes sense. “This is -- I’m sure you all realise this is mind-blowing. All the tests indicate that the age-lessening effects are more than cosmetic?”
“Every one,” Will confirms from where he’s leaning against the door, grinning.
“And the tumour?” Merlin asks.
His team’s smiles freeze a bit at his question, and Merlin feels something in his stomach clench. An intern answers him this time, voice slightly hesitant.
“Early reports haven’t indicated any reduction in tumour size, sir. But we are running some tests to investigate it more thoroughly, see if there’s anything we missed earlier, I mean.”
“That’s not good enough,” Merlin says, and he hates to snap at her, hates to see the looks of happiness and optimism slip steadily off of his team’s faces to be replaced with something far more serious and far less suited to the nature of what they’ve observed today. Still, he can’t afford now to lose sight of why he’s here, why they’re all here -- the tumour, curing it, has to be their primary focus, regardless of whatever amazing things they find in their research.
“Merlin,” and Will’s speaking again, exasperated, “Merlin, these results are ground-breaking. We need to look into them --”
“No! They’re fantastic, yes, but what we need, Will, why we’re here, and the subject of our research, is to find an effective treatment for the brain tumour. These results are a start. They obviously indicate something effective beyond what we could imagine. But we need to focus on applying them to treating the tumour, and not get distracted by anything else that may surface.
“Keep running those additional tests, and notify me immediately if you find anything. Otherwise, I want everyone to start preparing more samples of that compound. We’ll vary them later, but it took close to six hours to prepare the other day, so before we can do anything else, we need plenty of it prepped and ready to go with minimal delay.”
“Yes, sir,” is the collective response, and if Merlin feels guilty about the tension in the room, the disappointed slump in people’s shoulders and tone in their voices, he doesn’t show it.
Instead, he quickly washes and scrubs his hands before diving into what looks to be a seemingly endless day of mixing chemicals.
***
Will corners him later that day:
“Care to explain why you’re so pissy today?”
“I’m not pissy!”
“You’re just focussed, right. And I bet you didn’t sleep in your office last night, either.”
“. . . Who told you?”
“No one had to tell me. I’ve been your best friend since we were in diapers; I can see when you haven’t slept well. Contrary to what that husband of yours might think, I’m not dumb.”
“Ass.”
“Yeah, well. How is he, by the way?”
“Who? Arthur?”
“You got any other husbands?”
“Shut it. And he’s fine, he says.”
“But you don’t believe him.”
“No, not really. He gets tired easily, and he’s been having headaches a lot. Strong ones, too, though he tries not to show it.”
“Too worried about his image of masculinity, or doesn’t want you to fret?”
“I don’t know. He knows I do, anyway, and I think I have every right to. I just. If something happens to him, Will, if I lose him --”
“Then why are you here?”
“What?”
“If you’re so scared that something’ll happen, why are you here? Why aren’t you at home, spending time with him?”
“Never thought I’d see the day where you of all people encouraged me to spend time with Arthur. Remember when you used to hate him and didn’t want me to see him at all? I do.”
“Merlin.”
“Hm?”
“Stop avoiding the question. I may still not like the arrogant git much, but you clearly do, so why are you here and not with him?”
“Because I have to be here. I’m here for him, Will. I can’t just sit there, not when I could be doing something to try and help fix it, keep him here, and just. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Merlin.”
“Good. Now, can I please get back to work?”
***
The drive home later is long. Snow has melted into slush and hardened again, making the roads, icy, slick, and dangerous. Merlin finds himself caught in that strange kind of traffic that comes not from an accident, but from everyone being extraordinarily safe and driving at much slower speeds. He’s moving, yes, but it’s taking him twice as long as normal to get back home, and he’s frustrated with the in-between nature of his situation. He’s not at the hospital doing research and being useful, but he’s also not with Arthur, which is what he left the hospital for. Instead, he’s stuck in stupid, time-wasting traffic that is doing nothing to calm his nerves and mind, still whirring and frantically busy over trying to find some way to make today’s discovery work for him.
By the time he gets home, it’s already past eight, and he’s sort of dreading facing Arthur, who will undoubtedly be disappointed and very probably still angry. He parks his car next to the kerb in front of their brownstone before climbing the small flight of stairs to the front door and letting himself in.
The brownstone he and Arthur share is beautiful, three stories and spacious. It’s just the two of them, so this much space is probably a bit excessive, but they’ve still found ways to make it just fit. Merlin has his bay window for reading, and Arthur has his study for working, and the rest of the rooms just fell into that comfortable, mutual territory of “ours” in that way things tend to when marriage is involved. It’s still a little baffling to Merlin, that Arthur could learn to share and he himself could learn to take up this much room, but it’s nice nonetheless.
Their brownstone seems especially large, though, when he walks into the foyer and finds it apparently empty. All the lights are off, and there’s no answer when he calls out for Arthur, so he starts walking toward the kitchen (where Arthur most often leaves his I’ve-gone-out notes), footsteps echoing through the rooms as he goes.
Just as he expected, he finds a post-it stuck to the counter after he reaches the kitchen and flips the lights on. The note is shocking pink, which means that Arthur still hasn’t gone to the store since his old package ran out, instead choosing to succumb and finally use the ones Morgana gave him as a joke about two years ago. She’ll laugh herself silly if she ever finds out about this, largely because of the fuss Arthur put up when he first came home to find only pink post-its in his desk, all other office supplies (apart from a brand new package of purple gel pens) stolen from it. As he peels the note off of the marble countertop, Merlin smiles a bit at the thought, the image of Arthur so huffy and indignant over something so stupid.
Sure enough, the note is written in Arthur’s thin, spidery scrawl, although in black ink, not sparkly purple.
Merlin --
Gone to the lake in the park. (7:30pm) Yes, I have my scarf and gloves, you giant mother hen.
Join me?
-- Arthur
A quick glance at the clock shows it’s only 8:10 now -- enough time to meet Arthur there, if he hurries. Merlin folds the note, shoves it in his pocket, and walks out of the kitchen, turning the lights back off as he goes.
As he rushes through relocking the front door once he’s outside, Merlin can only think that it’s a damn good thing he hadn’t bothered with removing his coat.
***
Merlin finds Arthur under the oak tree on the bank of the lake. The tree has been stripped bare by winter, but it’s still recognisable, so finding it is an easy thing to do. Arthur’s looking up and smiling at him when he gets there, having already heard Merlin’s footsteps crunching through the thin layer of snow on the ground. Merlin chooses to take this as a Good Sign, and he tries not to come off as hesitant or uncertain when he lowers himself to sit next to Arthur on the blanket that’s spread out beneath him. He finds he needn’t have worried, though; he’s barely settled before Arthur is leaning against him, head resting on Merlin’s shoulder, anger from this morning apparently forgot. It’s a bit uncharacteristic for Arthur, who’s infamous in their social circle for holding grudges for truly ridiculous lengths of time, but Merlin decides not to question it, instead wrapping his left arm around Arthur and his right one around his knees, tucked up against his chest.
Arthur’s sitting in the same position, wrapped in another blanket with only his head visible above it. The light of the full moon has tinged everything a bluish-white, but Merlin can still see that Arthur’s cheeks are stained with flush from the cold; his lips look chapped and sore from being in the wind for too long, and he’s beautiful. He’d also still kill Merlin for saying that, even after all these years, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is.
Again, however, Merlin decides against taking the Course Most Likely to Cause Annoyance, and he refrains from mentioning it. Arthur should thank him, really, or at least be proud that he’s learned discretion in what he says.
Instead, Merlin presses a kiss to the top of Arthur’s head, the short blond hair there tickling, cold and damp against his face. He says, “So what are you doing here?”
Arthur shrugs against him.
“Oh, come on. You must have had some reason for coming here beyond wanting to drag me out into the cold again.”
“No, actually, you’ve hit the nail on the head there. Call it revenge for cutting our breakfast short this morning.”
“Very funny, prat. Now, really, why are we here? I don’t mind, see; I’d just like to know why.”
“I felt like looking at the lake for a bit.”
“It’s mostly frozen over. And the water’s dark, so you can’t see much.”
“It’s still beautiful. You can see steam rising up off the top there, look.”
Merlin looks in the direction Arthur is cocking his head, and he does see it. It’s mid-January now, so the moon is up, but still low in the sky, and it’s absolutely lovely to see it reflected on the lake. He’d been right before, the lake is mostly frozen over, so it’s almost a mirror for the moon, the entire surface turned into glassy panels of silver and white. And there is some steam floating up above its surface, the temperature difference between the icy top of the lake and the frigid winter air creating vapour that rises in misty tendrils. It’s visible in this light, stained a shimmering, faint grey, almost pearlescent, and Arthur’s exactly right: it is beautiful.
“Yeah, it is. Gorgeous.”
“Do you know what the medieval legends say about lakes?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“Ass.”
“Well, it’s the truth. You always tell me, whether I really want to hear or not, so I know this time won’t be any different.”
Arthur huffs a bit. “Whatever. As I was saying before someone decided to be juvenile, the Arthurian legends dated to the medieval era -- the twelfth through fourteenth centuries or so -- a few of them describe lakes as a sort of entrance into the afterlife.”
“The afterlife, hm?” and Merlin can’t help but snicker a little at how irritated Arthur gets by his scepticism. At least, he can’t until Arthur elbows him roughly in the side.
“Yes, and stop laughing! This is interesting.”
“If you say so, sure, it is.”
“Shut up and listen. I let you blabber on about your chemicals and biology all the time, so fair’s fair.”
“All right, fine. So, the afterlife? How does that work?”
“Yeah. One version of the Arthurian legends says that when the king was wounded at that last battle --”
“The one where he won, but only after everything else went to shit?”
“Yes, that one. So after he was wounded, he didn’t die, not really, even though it was a mortal wound. He avoided death by having one of his knights take him to the shores of a lake, where they placed him in a boat that took him to the Isle of Avalon, because his wounds would be healed there. Sort of a cop-out, actually.”
“What makes you say that? Cheating death would be fairly great, don’t you think?”
“Well, no,” Arthur says, chewing his lip a bit in that way he does when he’s mulling something over, searching for exactly the right words. “No, I don’t. I mean, rather than get this heroic death, the sort of death every warrior secretly wants, one full of the honour and glory of battle, he got told to wait. So yeah, he cheated death, great, but he did it at the cost of peace. The same legend says that Arthur’s still waiting on Avalon for the moment when the world needs him most, isolated from the living and the dead, suspended.”
“Huh. Never really thought of it that way before.”
“A lot of people haven’t, I think. Which is odd, because the Arthurian stories in particular are full of stuff like that, the pain of waiting that comes with avoiding and not accepting death. The same thing -- or something similar, at least -- happens to Merlin in his travels. He gets tricked by a girl and sealed in rock or the trunk of an oak tree. So he doesn’t die, but he’s like Arthur, not really alive, either, and cut off from everything he loves in the world.”
“When you put it that way, yeah, it does sound pretty awful.”
“Exactly. It’s amazing, though, how that part of the legend latched on so quickly. Bit of a testament to how foolish we are about death -- we’re all of us so terrified at the thought of finality, of loss, that we do anything we can to avoid it. We forget that while death is horrible for those left behind, it’s a transition into ultimate peace for those who die. Regardless of whether you believe in an afterlife or not, death’s a sort of freedom from pain, waiting, whatever, and we forget that when we take it away, we take those away, too.”
At this, Arthur falls silent, staring at the lake again. It’s a bit difficult for Merlin to see him properly in the poor lighting of night, but he looks -- not sad, really, just pensive, like he’s trying to figure out how to say something difficult and painful.
Merlin, in an effort to save Arthur’s lower lip from utter mutilation at being chewed so much, says, “You’ve really put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”
Arthur grins and gives Merlin a look like he’s an idiot. “Well, yeah. It’s part of my book, so I sort of had to.”
“Oh, your book. I see.” Merlin wants to say more than that, to ask about the book Arthur’s been writing on-and-off since he first got sick two years ago, but he knows better by now than to push the issue. Arthur has said that Merlin will see the book when Arthur’s good and ready for him to, and not a moment before, so while it still bothers him a bit, this exclusion from something that so obviously means a lot to Arthur, Merlin’s pretty much learned to let it be.
Tonight, though, Arthur surprises him. He snakes his left arm out over the blanket that’s wrapped around him, then gropes near his feet for something Merlin can’t see. When Arthur presses it into Merlin’s right hand, his eyes are anxious, wide and earnest and fixed on Merlin’s.
“I’m ready for you to read it,” he says, voice eager and insistent.
Merlin grins and looks down at the book. Its cover is smooth leather, cold and soft under his hands. He opens it, thumbs through it quickly. It’s a beautiful book, pages smooth and thick and creamy, and every inch of them filled with Arthur’s elegant handwriting. It’s also, he notices, unfinished: the last page he turns to is headed in large text at the top with “Chapter Twelve,” but it’s blank beneath that.
“It’s not done,” he says.
“I know, but I’m ready. I want you to read it now.”
“Are you sure? You wouldn’t rather I wait until it’s finished?”
“No,” Arthur insists. “Come on, Merlin. You’ve been pestering me about this practically since I first started it, and now that I finally give you permission, you question me on it? I can take it back, you know,” and he’s already reaching for the book, a teasing smile on his face.
“No!” Merlin pulls the book away from Arthur’s outstretched hand, holds it tight against his chest as if this will stop Arthur from taking it. “No, it’s fine. I just wanted to make sure, but you’re right; I’m being dumb again.”
“You do seem to do that fairly often,” Arthur says, still smirking and leaning his head closer to Merlin again.
“Prat,” Merlin jabs good-naturedly, and then they’re kissing, slow and sweet and there, exactly the connection Merlin’s felt they’ve been missing these past few days. When he pulls back, Merlin says, perfectly honest, “I would love to read your book.”
He goes to set it on the blanket again, and when he looks down to make sure it lands on fabric and not snow, he sees something that sends a shock through him. The blanket Arthur’s wrapped in has shifted from his movement, and Merlin can now see his feet, which have apparently been in sandals and all but bare the entire time he’s been in the park.
Merlin looks back up at Arthur, tense and agitated. “Arthur,” he says, “where are your shoes?”
“On my feet?” He’s tentative in his answer, at least, which means he’s aware he’s done something wrong.
“No, I mean your real shoes, the boots you wear out in the cold and snow to keep your feet decently insulated. Where are those?”
“Oh,” Arthur says, blushing a bit as he looks down at his pale toes. “I was wearing these around the house, and I guess I left in such a rush that I forgot to swap them for the boots. By the time I noticed, I was almost to the park, and I had the blanket with me to stay warm, so I figured I’d be all right.”
“Arthur,” Merlin sighs, and oh, he is going to kill him. “Arthur, how could you be so stupid? You know you can’t risk getting sick right now, not during treatment! I -- come on, we need to get you back to the car.”
“But I didn’t bring the car, I walked.”
“I know, but I drove, so let’s go.”
Merlin stands quickly, and Arthur follows without protest, thank God; they don’t have time for him to fight Merlin on this. Arthur grabs his book and pens off the blanket before Merlin scoops it up into a heavy, wet, and very cold ball of fabric.
Together, they turn and walk back to the car, the lake lying forgot and glittering behind them.
The traveller’s torso is a patchwork of marks. The skin itself is pale white, no matter the length of exposure to the elements, to wind and sand and sun. But it is marred all over by a network of blemishes: a patch of freckles between his shoulders; a scar in his right side from where he fell against a particularly sharp rock; a small, dark mole on his left lower back. The history of his journey is written on his skin, a visible and permanent reminder of all he has experienced, the blank patches only signs of experiences yet to be had.
The most interesting “blemishes,” though (and he questions that word, really), are the ones he has made himself. His entire front upper-body -- arms and hands, lower abdomen and the planes of his chest -- is covered in inked dragons. They swirl up and over his shoulders, around his arms in coiled loops, a horde of scales and claws, of furled wings and snapping teeth. They look threatening, his dragons, ferocious and feral, the inky gleam in their black eyes is one of bloodthirstiness, of desperation.
They’re beautiful.
The traveller knows this because he’s inked them all himself, every last scale. He isn’t entirely sure why; all he knows is that occasionally, while he’s resting for the night by the side of the road, his skin will itch, tingling as if in anticipation, in need. The dragons already there look at him, eyes seemingly filled with anticipation, and there’s nothing he can do but mix ink, heat the mangled tip of his pen, and spend the next few hours capturing another beast in flight on his skin. It’s painful, but oddly soothing, and seeing the new dragon alive and comfortable on his body, as if it has always been there beneath the surface, waiting to emerge, is well worth the sleepless night before.
Sometimes, when it is midday and the sun is hot and high above him, the traveller will pull off his shirt and coat. He’ll tuck them in his pack and continue to walk, noon sunlight gleaming down onto his glistening, sweaty skin; the dragons playful and chasing, exposed to anything lucky enough to see them.
Arthur has been in the bath for close to fifteen minutes now. He’d protested a bit when they’d first got home, when Merlin had ordered him to strip while he himself ran a bath in the washroom nearest their bedroom.
“I’m fine, Merlin,” he’d said, voice petulant, “really. I warmed up enough in the car. And even if I hadn’t, I’m not a child; I’m fully capable of running myself a bath, you know.”
“I know,” Merlin had responded. “I just don’t trust you enough to actually do it. Now, strip.”
Arthur had, eventually, and then climbed into the bath, which is where he is now. He’s up to his shoulders in soap foam, but his hands are dry -- a result of holding his book above and clear of the threatening water for him to read.
Merlin smiles a bit, looking up from his own book to watch Arthur. He’d always been a bit of a book junkie, Arthur, from all the way back to their first meeting in college, when Arthur’s areas of their dorm room were filled with precarious little piles of novels and paperbacks that he could even navigate his way through when drunk. That bookworm tendency had only increased after he’d fallen ill, only Arthur now has a study lined with endless bookshelves, all fully-stocked, to store his own private library. They’re inseparable, Arthur and the printed word, even when the former is supposed to be washing himself in the tub before the water cools.
“Good Lord, but you’ve gone soft in your old age,” and Merlin jerks out of his thoughts to find Arthur looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
“What?” he sputters. “No, I haven’t.”
“You’ve spent the last five minutes staring at me with what is probably the soppiest expression the world has ever seen on your face. Yes, you have.”
“I was not staring at you. I was reading.”
“The book that you haven’t turned a page of in five minutes? You’ve never been that slow of a reader, even on the boring stuff.”
“Well. Fine, say that I was looking at you. What’s so wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I suppose. I mean, I am rather gorgeous, so I can understand why you’d find yourself distracted by me.”
Merlin snorts. “Arrogant bastard.”
“With good reason, and you know it.”
“Yeah, very good reason,” Merlin mumbles under his breath, soft and low.
“What was that?” Arthur’s voice is smug, cheeky, and Merlin knows he’s lost this round.
“You heard well enough; I said, ‘Yes.’ You may be arrogant, but you’re lovely, and you know that.”
“See, just as I said: gone soft,” but Arthur’s smiling now, small and happy. He closes his book and places it on the floor near the tub. “Suppose I should actually wash now, yeah?”
“Yeah, that’d probably be a good idea.” Merlin stands and puts his own book on the vanity countertop. “I’ll go put a kettle on for tea, so it’ll still be hot when you get out.”
He turns to leave, but Arthur’s voice stops him.
“Wait,” Arthur calls, and when Merlin looks back, he’s holding the bath-sponge out. “Can you heat this before you go? The water’s gone a bit cool for proper lather.”
Merlin’s brow furrows and he frowns; he had filled the tub with water just shy of scalding, so there’s no way it should have cooled that much by now, all of his teasing aside. And even from his place by the sink, he can see steam rising from the water.
He walks quickly over to Arthur and takes the sponge from his hand. It’s still warm from where it’s been submerged in the soapy water, and the fact that Arthur can’t feel that is more than a little worrisome. Merlin reaches out and turns on the left-side tap, the one labelled “HOT.” Steaming water rushes out and onto the sponge, burning Merlin’s fingers where it runs over them and making him wince.
After about a minute, when he’s sure the sponge is fully wet, Merlin twists the tap off. He turns back to Arthur, who’s pulled his legs up so that his knees are above the surface of the water. Merlin presses the sponge, overly-saturated and dripping water, onto Arthur’s right knee, tracing it a bit over the skin there. His eyes are questioning when he looks at Arthur, wanting to know if there’s any change.
Arthur shakes his head once, and Merlin feels the pit of his stomach drop out. He’s more than slightly nauseous as something clicks in the back of his head and he understands.
“Outside, at the park, your feet. You couldn’t feel the cold.”
Arthur nods, ducks his head when Merlin inhales quickly.
“That’s why you didn’t wear boots out -- it didn’t matter because you couldn’t feel it. Has this -- anything like it -- has it happened before?”
Arthur’s voice is low and flat when he answers, “For a few weeks now. It’s getting harder for me to feel hot and cold, but today’s the worst it’s ever been.”
“For a few weeks? Arthur, why didn’t you tell me?” Merlin’s voice is shaking now, angry and openly scared, and he could really care less.
Arthur’s head comes up sharply at the question, and his gaze, when it meets Merlin’s, is almost defiant. “Because this would have been something else for you to fix, and I’m tired of you treating me like I’m broken. I’m not, Merlin.”
“You’re --”
“I’m sick, yeah, but I’m not fractured, and I’m not some problem for you to solve. And that’s all you seem to think of me as anymore, and I’m so over it!”
“Well, I’m sorry if I’m scared, Arthur! I’m sorry if the thought of losing you frightens me to death!”
Merlin moves to push up off the floor, but when he does, Arthur’s hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist and keeping him there, on his knees by the tub. Arthur’s voice is that low, dangerous kind of furious when he talks.
“You think I’m not scared, Merlin? I am, fucking terrified, even, and mad as hell about everything I’ve had to put up with since this all started. But I’m also fucking tired of you acting like I’m going to collapse at any minute, I’m so sick of it! I’m still me, Merlin, not some piece of glass that’s going to shatter when I hit something I can’t handle.”
Arthur’s hair is plastered against his forehead from the water that had splashed up when he moved, and his eyes are bright, desperately frustrated, and it hurts Merlin to see him like this.
“I don’t need you to fix me,” Arthur says, “and I’m so tired of waiting for you to realise that.”
He sounds so angry, so stubborn and arrogant and proud; he sounds like himself, but a dauntingly passionate version that Merlin hasn’t dealt with since before the tumour, before Arthur got sick. It’s such a forceful reminder of how they used to be, and Arthur is so shockingly enraged, so beautifully alive in front of him, that Merlin can’t help but lean forward and kiss him.
Arthur jerks a bit in surprise, but he responds easily. His mouth opens under Merlin’s eagerly, and the hand he has on Merlin’s wrist traces up his arm to grip his shoulder. One of Merlin’s hands is gripping the slippery side of the tub, anchoring him, and the other is laced through Arthur’s wet hair, holding his head steady. They’re both pulling at each other, desperate to get closer, and it’s too much for either of them to get proper leverage. When Merlin shifts to stand and get them both out of the washroom, his left foot slips on a small puddle of water and he overbalances, falling into the tub with a yelp of surprise.
Water sloshes over all sides of the tub as he lands on Arthur, and they’re both of them laughing, and then they’re kissing again, Arthur’s left hand sliding up to rest against Merlin’s cheek as if to hold him there. His legs have spread open under the water to accommodate Merlin’s body, and his mouth is hot and wet under Merlin’s. He tastes of curry (probably what he ate for dinner tonight, and Merlin should really check the fridge for leftovers soon), faint and spicy against Merlin’s tongue.
Arthur’s hips are pressing against Merlin’s, and his chest is, too, only Merlin can’t feel it properly through the too-thick barrier of his sodden clothes; that’s a problem, but it’s one that’s easily fixed. Merlin breaks their kiss and pulls back so that he’s kneeling upright in the tub. He peels off his shirt, taking extra time where it’s sticking to his skin, before tossing it away from the tub to land on the tile floor with a loud splat.
When he leans back down, he’s able to lie flush against Arthur, skin to skin, and it is glorious. His hips jerk forward, sluggish under the water, and Arthur moans, moans again when Merlin starts kissing and licking at his neck. Merlin smirks against the skin of Arthur’s throat; Arthur’s always been sensitive here, no matter how much they’ve done this, and it’s definitely a bit of an ego boost to know that Merlin can still make him lose control from that.
Merlin bites a little at the underside of Arthur’s jaw, tongue flicking out to taste him, even though he knows he’ll find only the bitter flavour of soap. Arthur threads the fingers of his right hand through Merlin’s hair and cranes his neck back, allowing Merlin greater access; his left hand shoves between their bodies to trace down Merlin’s chest, stopping when it hits the top of Merlin’s trousers. There’s a bit of fumbling with the fastening -- and Merlin can’t really blame him; Arthur is doing it under water, and while being pretty expertly distracted, so his struggle is understandable -- before he manages it.
Merlin’s trousers and pants are pushed quickly down his hips, and he outright gasps when Arthur’s hand comes back up to grab his cock. He bucks his hips into the grip and Arthur smirks at him, shamelessly proud. Merlin shifts until his arms are wrapped around Arthur’s waist, hands resting on Arthur’s arse and pulling him impossibly closer. Arthur lets go of his cock, but makes up for it by bringing his legs up around Merlin’s hips, bumping their dicks together and giving Merlin better leverage for when he starts to thrust.
They’re back to kissing now, mouths sealed against each other and swallowing every whimper, every curse and groan, greedily. Merlin thrusts his hips against Arthur’s, cocks rubbing together with delicious friction. His hands knead Arthur’s arse, and Arthur breaks the kiss to lean his head against Merlin’s shoulder, gasping. One of them is panting, a breathless, constant stream of fuck and faster and love you, and their motion is making water spill over the edges of the tub in steady waves, sending it sloshing onto the floor in loud, obscene-sounding splatters.
Arthur bites at Merlin’s shoulder, and his hands scrabble against Merlin’s back (Merlin’s not sure when they got there, but hey, he’s not going to question it). He’s keening and cursing as he thrusts up against Merlin, loud and forceful and alive, so overwhelmingly still here, that Merlin loses it, too caught up in Arthur Arthur Arthur all around him to do anything but come. He manages to get a hand in between them before he completely blanks out, and even as he’s writhing and helpless with release, he’s reducing Arthur to the same.
After, when Merlin comes back to his senses, his head is resting on Arthur’s shoulder, and Arthur’s fingers are combing through his hair. He pulls back to look at Arthur, who smiles before kissing him softly.
When they’re done, Merlin says, “Guess we’ll both need another bath, hm?”
Arthur laughs, a happy sound that Merlin can feel in every inch of his body, and says, “Yeah, probably,” before leaning in to kiss Merlin again.
Part Two
A hospital at night is a cold, unforgiving place. Its hallways are dark and sombre, and they echo with remnants of the day: tapping footsteps of the living, click-clacking on polished floors; beeping heart monitors of the in-betweens, the we’re-sorry-we’re-not-sures; the utter silence of the dead, no longer masked by the hustle and bustle and brightness of day-shift. At best, it is chilling, deeply unsettling for anyone unlucky enough to be stuck within; at worst, it is terrifying, a unique reminder of the mortality of man, the brevity of his connections, the long-lasting devastation of his wake.
People talk, sometimes, about doctors. They say they’re insensitive, that so many years of losing some and saving others and never having the chance with the rest has dulled their empathy, their ability to understand the sheer desperation a normal person feels in the face of loss. They say they’re almost like the hospitals they serve in: cold, unfeeling; harbingers of death more often than pillars of salvation and support.
Looking at the man lying prone, pale, and fragile in the bed, Dr. Merlin Emrys thinks only, They’re wrong.
The traveller has already been walking for miles.
His feet are calloused, soles rough and permanently aching, it seems, from the thousands (or is it millions? It’s probably actually closer to billions, now that he thinks about it, but he lost track so many hilltops ago) of steps he’s taken to get to this point. His boots are made of soft, supple leather that hugs the arches in his feet, bends and reshapes itself easily around the curve-and-flex motion of his foot in one step, two, three, four, five, until the number grows so high he loses count again.
He wears a jacket of brown leather, a shirt of blue cotton, trousers of a deep brown-black wool. Slung over his shoulder is a pack carrying spare clothing; flint and steel for fire; a small pouch of ink powder; and a fountain pen, tip bent and broken, useless.
If asked, the traveller could not say why he is walking, or where to. He knows only that the road stretches out before him like something open, inviting -- something that dares him to venture forward. It stretches behind him, too; something quickly experienced and quickly forgot, all in a few footfalls too much like countless others to be anything remarkable.
It is there to be travelled, he knows, simple and sure. So for as long as it goes, as long as it’s there, that is what he will do.
Merlin wakes to the sound of knocking, soft but persistent, on his door. He blinks once, twice, awareness of his surroundings expanding gradually like the puddle that forms under a slowly-melting icicle. First, the page his cheek is resting on, rows of text blurred beyond comprehension by the proximity. Next, the ache, quiet and throbbing, between his shoulder-blades and up the base of his neck -- the kind that comes from a night lying hunched over a desk, cold. From all appearances, he’s spent another night in his office, which just. Fuck, but Arthur is going to kill him.
“Merlin?” he hears, and speak of the Devil. Arthur knocks again, louder this time. “Merlin, I know you’re in there. Your light’s on, and you never came home last night,” and bugger. Arthur’s voice has that tone of not-worry he gets when he is worried, and exasperated beyond measure, but doesn’t want to show it.
This does not bode well.
Merlin straightens, stretches, and hurries for the door, opening it to reveal Arthur in the outlying hospital corridor. His fist is still raised, mid-knock, and his face reads, as expected, of annoyed and, faintly, exasperated, but also overwhelmingly of tired.
It’s not a new look for Arthur, tired, hasn’t been for at least the last two years, but that doesn’t make something in Merlin’s chest tighten any less at the sight of it.
Arthur drops his hand back down to his side, and says, “Finally decided to stop ignoring me, then?”
Merlin fidgets at the accusation lacing those words; never exactly a master of subtlety, Arthur. “Ah, yes,” he says, and steps out of the doorway to let Arthur in. “And hello to you, too, by the way.”
“Mm,” Arthur murmurs, noticeably not touching Merlin as he walks past him and into Merlin’s office. “Sleep all right last night?”
“Sort of, although my neck and shoulders would suggest otherwise, now.” Merlin laughs a little, trying to dislodge even just a bit of the tense air that’s followed Arthur into his office.
Arthur smirks and says nothing.
“And, uh -- and what about you? Were you fine last night?”
“Yes.”
“No pain? Unexpected issues with the medica--”
“I said I was fine, Merlin,” Arthur says, cutting him off.
“Right. Just, you know, wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything I should be worried about, yeah?”
Arthur shrugs.
“Well, erm,” and Merlin thinks, just as he has countless times before, that the resurgence of early-relationship awkwardness is probably the worst part of this entire situation. Still, he blunders on. “If you didn’t have any problems, was there anything you needed? Or did you just miss me too much?”
Arthur doesn’t smile. “I want you to get breakfast with me this morning.”
Odd; they’ve never stressed eating breakfast together as anything important, significant. “Any particular reason why?”
The look Arthur gives him asks Merlin clearly, perfectly, succinctly whether he is a very special sort of idiot. “You haven’t been home in two days,” he says, tone brokering no protest. “Get breakfast with me.”
“Okay,” Merlin nods, and normally, he’d keep refusing until Arthur didn’t so much “cave” as “drop the issue and stalk away in frustration.” But Arthur’s right, he hasn’t been home in two days, which is a fair amount of time even for him and the long hours he’s taken to working; plus, Gaius had reminded him of the same thing last night, and Merlin sort of fears the lecture Gaius and his inexplicable level of eyebrow control will depart upon him if he doesn’t “stop wasting what time you do have, and go spend it in a way you won’t regret later, you nincompoop.” So while he ordinarily wouldn’t give in so easily, today he just walks past Arthur to lift his coat off the hook on the back of the door. He can feel Arthur watching him as he shrugs it on and winds his scarf around his neck. He’s not as quietly angry as before, though; still tense, sure, but Merlin has apparently done something right by agreeing instantly, and it already feels less and less like Arthur is apt to maim him at the slightest (even unknown) error on his part.
He turns back to Arthur, says, “Ready?”
At Arthur’s nod, they move into the corridor, where Merlin pauses to close and lock his office door.
When he looks back at Arthur, Merlin finds him looking a bit more relaxed -- temporarily placated, it seems. Merlin smiles tentatively and offers Arthur his hand. Arthur looks at it for a moment, and Merlin freezes, afraid that he has misread the situation, misread Arthur, entirely, and that Arthur is still very much irritated with him.
He finds he needn’t have worried, though, when Arthur smiles softly and grabs Merlin’s hand, twining their fingers together. Arthur leads them down the corridor toward the exit, already talking about that one café on King Street, you know, Merlin, the one with the really excellent Danishes, and Merlin’s smile grows. They’re comfortable again, familiar and easy, and as Merlin responds that yes, that sounds lovely, he thinks: We’ve made it through another one.
It sounds desperate, yes, but he doesn’t much care; it’s reassurance, and it’s enough.
***
The café, when they arrive, is busy, warm and too-loud in that public-place way that’s just shy of totally comfortable. It’s not ideal for a breakfast date, but Arthur is already pink-cheeked and shivering from the cold despite his coat, so Merlin doesn’t dare take a table in the outside seating section, even if it is quieter.
Instead, they find a table next to the window facing the street. Merlin removes his coat and scarf and hangs them over his chair. He watches Arthur do the same, brown peacoat and red-and-yellow-striped scarf folded neatly before being draped over the wire frame of the chair’s back. Merlin can see Arthur’s hands shaking slightly, almost imperceptibly, as he undoes the fastenings, and he almost reaches to help before remembering how disastrously that had gone the last time.
(“I’m not an invalid,” Arthur had snapped, eyes blazing with indignation and more passion in his voice than Merlin had heard in months. “I may be sick, but I’m still capable of doing things for myself. I expect you to remember that, Merlin.”
And, though it’s hard most of the time, Merlin has.)
Once they’ve sat and ordered, breakfast is calm. The Danishes are sweet, fresh; the tea is aromatic, just strong enough; the conversation is refreshing, easy in a way it hasn’t been for a while. Merlin is struck again by how comfortable it is between them now, and he’s relieved -- it’s really been too long since they were anything but tense around each other, since they allowed themselves to forget the circumstances for a while and just enjoy each other’s company.
Like all things lately, though, the ease between them is too good to last long, and they’ve barely finished eating before Merlin’s mobile rings, shrill tone cutting Arthur off mid-word and making them both wince.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin mutters, “I thought it was on silent; let me just check who it is.”
Arthur sighs and picks up his tea, the set of his mouth back to that worrying, too-level line of irritation.
Merlin fishes his mobile out of his pocket. The screen flashes the name “Will” at him, and he knows he can’t not answer it, much as it will anger Arthur. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and moves to flip his phone open and take the call.
“Don’t,” Arthur says hurriedly, and Merlin looks at him in surprise. He’s smiling, oddly enough, but it’s a strange sort of smile, tense around the edges, ironic and looking almost like he’s expecting disappointment. “Just, for once, don’t answer it. Let it go.”
Merlin pauses, torn, fingers on the cover of his phone and eyes fixed on Arthur. “Don’t,” he says again, and the phone is still ringing, an obnoxious, insistent reminder of the tantalizing possibility of success, of being able to fix this -- a reminder Merlin finds he can’t ignore.
He mouths, “I’m sorry, really,” even as he flicks open his mobile and mutters, “Emrys.”
Arthur’s face falls into the sort of I-knew-it disappointment that stings no matter how many times Merlin sees it. The tension is back in the stiff line of his shoulders and bowed neck, the way he shakes his head slightly to himself.
Will chatters in his ear excitedly about the apparent success of a new compound they tried yesterday, one based primarily on a sap sample from a tree in some forest Merlin can’t remember the name or location of now. And Merlin’s happy about this, ecstatic, but not nearly so much as he would be if he weren’t watching Arthur stand and put on his coat and scarf brusquely.
When Arthur looks at Merlin, his eyes are angry and upset, as is his tone when he bits out, “Try to come home tonight,” and his gait when he brushes past Merlin on his way out of the shop. Merlin tries to grab his hand as he passes, but Arthur shakes him off, pulling away quickly and continuing on without looking back.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Will,” Merlin says, cutting the other doctor off. “Fill me in more when I get back, okay?”
Merlin hangs up and stands. He grabs his coat off the chair and, not even bothering to put it on, slings it over his arm before digging through one of its pockets for some cash. The few bills he finds are tossed quickly onto the table to cover the meal before he practically runs out the door, looking up and down the street once outside for any sign of Arthur’s brown peacoat, his blond hair.
Finding neither, he sighs. Arthur is already gone onto something else, so Merlin turns and heads back to the hospital, to the smallest chance of a success that will make all of this worth it.
***
Merlin is accosted at the hospital not thirty seconds after he gets back to his office. Will (and he knows it’s Will; everyone else has the courtesy to knock) comes rushing in, pushing open the door with enough force that only Merlin’s strategically-placed doorstop stops it from swinging into the wall.
“Merlin! I had Margaret at the front desk on the look-out for you -- you’ll never believe what’s happened,” Will says, breathless and excited.
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me, though,” Merlin says, voice teasing but hand already reaching for the chart Will is holding out for him.
“I told you a bit about it on the phone, but it’s that compound -”
“The one we developed yesterday, right. From that tree. The one Gaius chewed me out over for administering it without proper testing first.”
“I hadn’t heard about that last bit, actually. But yes, that compound. It’s -- well, it’s remarkable, really. None of us can quite believe it yet.”
“Will. Focus. What’s it done?”
“We administered it to the oldest of our test subjects, yes?”
“Lancelot, right. As I told Gaius yesterday, it was give him the compound or put him down, he’s that old.”
“Yeah, well, now he’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not. Old anymore, that is. We came in this morning to check on him and found him like this, young again. His fur’s grown back in, all dark and glossy again, and --”
“Show me,” Merlin says, and he is already leading his own way out of his office and down to the research and development wing before Will has even stepped into the hall.
When Will catches up to him at the lifts, slightly breathless again, he says, “So we ran tests on him after we found him, largely because we couldn’t properly believe what we were seeing.”
“Which ones?”
“Uh, standard reasoning and comprehension tests, mainly, and an EKG. The usual ones given pre-op to establish the levels of understanding and neural activity.”
“Yeah, and?” The lift dings and opens in front of them. They step into it, Will pressing the button for level three as Merlin continues to read through the folder in his hands.
“Well, if you look here,” and Will flips a page in the chart Merlin’s skimming frantically to show a series of graphs. He continues, “You can see the results we got from this morning’s tests as this red line, and these other lines chart yesterday’s pre-op, the tests done a year ago, and the ones from five years ago, respectively.”
“Holy shit.”
“That’s what we said.”
“But that’s -- this red line is up with the results from last year. That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
“Holy shit, that’s --” But what, exactly, that is gets cut off by the lift dinging again and opening at the third level. Merlin doesn’t bother finishing his sentence, just walks out and down the corridor to his team’s lab, Will right on his heels.
The lab, when Merlin reaches it, is just as noisy as always. The entire staff, it seems, is talking, all at the same time, all at loud volumes, and all using the words wow and fucking incredible and do you think this could mean in various quantities. There’s a sense of liveliness, though, of enthusiasm and hope that’s been lacking the last few months, but is near palpable now.
Although his head is just about buzzing from the sheer excitement in the room, Merlin doesn’t stop to theorise, speculate, anything; he’s too focussed on actually seeing this for himself, as he still doesn’t quite believe it.
The first sight of Lancelot, however, dispels any remaining, weak notion that this is all someone’s sick, elaborate idea of a prank. The monkey looks -- well, Will was right to say “remarkable” earlier, and “unbelievable” as well, because those are the exact words running through Merlin’s head right now. Yesterday, on the operating table, Lancelot’s fur was white and thin, whole patches of bare skin visible where failed treatments or the tumour itself had made it fall out. Today, though, it’s just as Will had described earlier: glossy and dark, thick in a way it hasn’t been in years, and the only section of skin Merlin can find in his initial inspection is the spot on the monkey’s head where it had been necessary to shave him for surgery the day before.
Merlin leans in for a closer look, and Lancelot screeches, raises a paw as if to bat at Merlin’s face -- playful, something that, again, he hasn’t been in years, and holy fuck but this is amazing.
Merlin turns back to his team, who have quieted to let him examine Lancelot in relative peace, but who are still beaming as though every Christmas they will ever experience has come early.
“This,” he says, then stops to clear his throat and process this in some way that makes sense. “This is -- I’m sure you all realise this is mind-blowing. All the tests indicate that the age-lessening effects are more than cosmetic?”
“Every one,” Will confirms from where he’s leaning against the door, grinning.
“And the tumour?” Merlin asks.
His team’s smiles freeze a bit at his question, and Merlin feels something in his stomach clench. An intern answers him this time, voice slightly hesitant.
“Early reports haven’t indicated any reduction in tumour size, sir. But we are running some tests to investigate it more thoroughly, see if there’s anything we missed earlier, I mean.”
“That’s not good enough,” Merlin says, and he hates to snap at her, hates to see the looks of happiness and optimism slip steadily off of his team’s faces to be replaced with something far more serious and far less suited to the nature of what they’ve observed today. Still, he can’t afford now to lose sight of why he’s here, why they’re all here -- the tumour, curing it, has to be their primary focus, regardless of whatever amazing things they find in their research.
“Merlin,” and Will’s speaking again, exasperated, “Merlin, these results are ground-breaking. We need to look into them --”
“No! They’re fantastic, yes, but what we need, Will, why we’re here, and the subject of our research, is to find an effective treatment for the brain tumour. These results are a start. They obviously indicate something effective beyond what we could imagine. But we need to focus on applying them to treating the tumour, and not get distracted by anything else that may surface.
“Keep running those additional tests, and notify me immediately if you find anything. Otherwise, I want everyone to start preparing more samples of that compound. We’ll vary them later, but it took close to six hours to prepare the other day, so before we can do anything else, we need plenty of it prepped and ready to go with minimal delay.”
“Yes, sir,” is the collective response, and if Merlin feels guilty about the tension in the room, the disappointed slump in people’s shoulders and tone in their voices, he doesn’t show it.
Instead, he quickly washes and scrubs his hands before diving into what looks to be a seemingly endless day of mixing chemicals.
***
Will corners him later that day:
“Care to explain why you’re so pissy today?”
“I’m not pissy!”
“You’re just focussed, right. And I bet you didn’t sleep in your office last night, either.”
“. . . Who told you?”
“No one had to tell me. I’ve been your best friend since we were in diapers; I can see when you haven’t slept well. Contrary to what that husband of yours might think, I’m not dumb.”
“Ass.”
“Yeah, well. How is he, by the way?”
“Who? Arthur?”
“You got any other husbands?”
“Shut it. And he’s fine, he says.”
“But you don’t believe him.”
“No, not really. He gets tired easily, and he’s been having headaches a lot. Strong ones, too, though he tries not to show it.”
“Too worried about his image of masculinity, or doesn’t want you to fret?”
“I don’t know. He knows I do, anyway, and I think I have every right to. I just. If something happens to him, Will, if I lose him --”
“Then why are you here?”
“What?”
“If you’re so scared that something’ll happen, why are you here? Why aren’t you at home, spending time with him?”
“Never thought I’d see the day where you of all people encouraged me to spend time with Arthur. Remember when you used to hate him and didn’t want me to see him at all? I do.”
“Merlin.”
“Hm?”
“Stop avoiding the question. I may still not like the arrogant git much, but you clearly do, so why are you here and not with him?”
“Because I have to be here. I’m here for him, Will. I can’t just sit there, not when I could be doing something to try and help fix it, keep him here, and just. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Merlin.”
“Good. Now, can I please get back to work?”
***
The drive home later is long. Snow has melted into slush and hardened again, making the roads, icy, slick, and dangerous. Merlin finds himself caught in that strange kind of traffic that comes not from an accident, but from everyone being extraordinarily safe and driving at much slower speeds. He’s moving, yes, but it’s taking him twice as long as normal to get back home, and he’s frustrated with the in-between nature of his situation. He’s not at the hospital doing research and being useful, but he’s also not with Arthur, which is what he left the hospital for. Instead, he’s stuck in stupid, time-wasting traffic that is doing nothing to calm his nerves and mind, still whirring and frantically busy over trying to find some way to make today’s discovery work for him.
By the time he gets home, it’s already past eight, and he’s sort of dreading facing Arthur, who will undoubtedly be disappointed and very probably still angry. He parks his car next to the kerb in front of their brownstone before climbing the small flight of stairs to the front door and letting himself in.
The brownstone he and Arthur share is beautiful, three stories and spacious. It’s just the two of them, so this much space is probably a bit excessive, but they’ve still found ways to make it just fit. Merlin has his bay window for reading, and Arthur has his study for working, and the rest of the rooms just fell into that comfortable, mutual territory of “ours” in that way things tend to when marriage is involved. It’s still a little baffling to Merlin, that Arthur could learn to share and he himself could learn to take up this much room, but it’s nice nonetheless.
Their brownstone seems especially large, though, when he walks into the foyer and finds it apparently empty. All the lights are off, and there’s no answer when he calls out for Arthur, so he starts walking toward the kitchen (where Arthur most often leaves his I’ve-gone-out notes), footsteps echoing through the rooms as he goes.
Just as he expected, he finds a post-it stuck to the counter after he reaches the kitchen and flips the lights on. The note is shocking pink, which means that Arthur still hasn’t gone to the store since his old package ran out, instead choosing to succumb and finally use the ones Morgana gave him as a joke about two years ago. She’ll laugh herself silly if she ever finds out about this, largely because of the fuss Arthur put up when he first came home to find only pink post-its in his desk, all other office supplies (apart from a brand new package of purple gel pens) stolen from it. As he peels the note off of the marble countertop, Merlin smiles a bit at the thought, the image of Arthur so huffy and indignant over something so stupid.
Sure enough, the note is written in Arthur’s thin, spidery scrawl, although in black ink, not sparkly purple.
Merlin --
Gone to the lake in the park. (7:30pm) Yes, I have my scarf and gloves, you giant mother hen.
Join me?
-- Arthur
A quick glance at the clock shows it’s only 8:10 now -- enough time to meet Arthur there, if he hurries. Merlin folds the note, shoves it in his pocket, and walks out of the kitchen, turning the lights back off as he goes.
As he rushes through relocking the front door once he’s outside, Merlin can only think that it’s a damn good thing he hadn’t bothered with removing his coat.
***
Merlin finds Arthur under the oak tree on the bank of the lake. The tree has been stripped bare by winter, but it’s still recognisable, so finding it is an easy thing to do. Arthur’s looking up and smiling at him when he gets there, having already heard Merlin’s footsteps crunching through the thin layer of snow on the ground. Merlin chooses to take this as a Good Sign, and he tries not to come off as hesitant or uncertain when he lowers himself to sit next to Arthur on the blanket that’s spread out beneath him. He finds he needn’t have worried, though; he’s barely settled before Arthur is leaning against him, head resting on Merlin’s shoulder, anger from this morning apparently forgot. It’s a bit uncharacteristic for Arthur, who’s infamous in their social circle for holding grudges for truly ridiculous lengths of time, but Merlin decides not to question it, instead wrapping his left arm around Arthur and his right one around his knees, tucked up against his chest.
Arthur’s sitting in the same position, wrapped in another blanket with only his head visible above it. The light of the full moon has tinged everything a bluish-white, but Merlin can still see that Arthur’s cheeks are stained with flush from the cold; his lips look chapped and sore from being in the wind for too long, and he’s beautiful. He’d also still kill Merlin for saying that, even after all these years, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is.
Again, however, Merlin decides against taking the Course Most Likely to Cause Annoyance, and he refrains from mentioning it. Arthur should thank him, really, or at least be proud that he’s learned discretion in what he says.
Instead, Merlin presses a kiss to the top of Arthur’s head, the short blond hair there tickling, cold and damp against his face. He says, “So what are you doing here?”
Arthur shrugs against him.
“Oh, come on. You must have had some reason for coming here beyond wanting to drag me out into the cold again.”
“No, actually, you’ve hit the nail on the head there. Call it revenge for cutting our breakfast short this morning.”
“Very funny, prat. Now, really, why are we here? I don’t mind, see; I’d just like to know why.”
“I felt like looking at the lake for a bit.”
“It’s mostly frozen over. And the water’s dark, so you can’t see much.”
“It’s still beautiful. You can see steam rising up off the top there, look.”
Merlin looks in the direction Arthur is cocking his head, and he does see it. It’s mid-January now, so the moon is up, but still low in the sky, and it’s absolutely lovely to see it reflected on the lake. He’d been right before, the lake is mostly frozen over, so it’s almost a mirror for the moon, the entire surface turned into glassy panels of silver and white. And there is some steam floating up above its surface, the temperature difference between the icy top of the lake and the frigid winter air creating vapour that rises in misty tendrils. It’s visible in this light, stained a shimmering, faint grey, almost pearlescent, and Arthur’s exactly right: it is beautiful.
“Yeah, it is. Gorgeous.”
“Do you know what the medieval legends say about lakes?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“Ass.”
“Well, it’s the truth. You always tell me, whether I really want to hear or not, so I know this time won’t be any different.”
Arthur huffs a bit. “Whatever. As I was saying before someone decided to be juvenile, the Arthurian legends dated to the medieval era -- the twelfth through fourteenth centuries or so -- a few of them describe lakes as a sort of entrance into the afterlife.”
“The afterlife, hm?” and Merlin can’t help but snicker a little at how irritated Arthur gets by his scepticism. At least, he can’t until Arthur elbows him roughly in the side.
“Yes, and stop laughing! This is interesting.”
“If you say so, sure, it is.”
“Shut up and listen. I let you blabber on about your chemicals and biology all the time, so fair’s fair.”
“All right, fine. So, the afterlife? How does that work?”
“Yeah. One version of the Arthurian legends says that when the king was wounded at that last battle --”
“The one where he won, but only after everything else went to shit?”
“Yes, that one. So after he was wounded, he didn’t die, not really, even though it was a mortal wound. He avoided death by having one of his knights take him to the shores of a lake, where they placed him in a boat that took him to the Isle of Avalon, because his wounds would be healed there. Sort of a cop-out, actually.”
“What makes you say that? Cheating death would be fairly great, don’t you think?”
“Well, no,” Arthur says, chewing his lip a bit in that way he does when he’s mulling something over, searching for exactly the right words. “No, I don’t. I mean, rather than get this heroic death, the sort of death every warrior secretly wants, one full of the honour and glory of battle, he got told to wait. So yeah, he cheated death, great, but he did it at the cost of peace. The same legend says that Arthur’s still waiting on Avalon for the moment when the world needs him most, isolated from the living and the dead, suspended.”
“Huh. Never really thought of it that way before.”
“A lot of people haven’t, I think. Which is odd, because the Arthurian stories in particular are full of stuff like that, the pain of waiting that comes with avoiding and not accepting death. The same thing -- or something similar, at least -- happens to Merlin in his travels. He gets tricked by a girl and sealed in rock or the trunk of an oak tree. So he doesn’t die, but he’s like Arthur, not really alive, either, and cut off from everything he loves in the world.”
“When you put it that way, yeah, it does sound pretty awful.”
“Exactly. It’s amazing, though, how that part of the legend latched on so quickly. Bit of a testament to how foolish we are about death -- we’re all of us so terrified at the thought of finality, of loss, that we do anything we can to avoid it. We forget that while death is horrible for those left behind, it’s a transition into ultimate peace for those who die. Regardless of whether you believe in an afterlife or not, death’s a sort of freedom from pain, waiting, whatever, and we forget that when we take it away, we take those away, too.”
At this, Arthur falls silent, staring at the lake again. It’s a bit difficult for Merlin to see him properly in the poor lighting of night, but he looks -- not sad, really, just pensive, like he’s trying to figure out how to say something difficult and painful.
Merlin, in an effort to save Arthur’s lower lip from utter mutilation at being chewed so much, says, “You’ve really put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”
Arthur grins and gives Merlin a look like he’s an idiot. “Well, yeah. It’s part of my book, so I sort of had to.”
“Oh, your book. I see.” Merlin wants to say more than that, to ask about the book Arthur’s been writing on-and-off since he first got sick two years ago, but he knows better by now than to push the issue. Arthur has said that Merlin will see the book when Arthur’s good and ready for him to, and not a moment before, so while it still bothers him a bit, this exclusion from something that so obviously means a lot to Arthur, Merlin’s pretty much learned to let it be.
Tonight, though, Arthur surprises him. He snakes his left arm out over the blanket that’s wrapped around him, then gropes near his feet for something Merlin can’t see. When Arthur presses it into Merlin’s right hand, his eyes are anxious, wide and earnest and fixed on Merlin’s.
“I’m ready for you to read it,” he says, voice eager and insistent.
Merlin grins and looks down at the book. Its cover is smooth leather, cold and soft under his hands. He opens it, thumbs through it quickly. It’s a beautiful book, pages smooth and thick and creamy, and every inch of them filled with Arthur’s elegant handwriting. It’s also, he notices, unfinished: the last page he turns to is headed in large text at the top with “Chapter Twelve,” but it’s blank beneath that.
“It’s not done,” he says.
“I know, but I’m ready. I want you to read it now.”
“Are you sure? You wouldn’t rather I wait until it’s finished?”
“No,” Arthur insists. “Come on, Merlin. You’ve been pestering me about this practically since I first started it, and now that I finally give you permission, you question me on it? I can take it back, you know,” and he’s already reaching for the book, a teasing smile on his face.
“No!” Merlin pulls the book away from Arthur’s outstretched hand, holds it tight against his chest as if this will stop Arthur from taking it. “No, it’s fine. I just wanted to make sure, but you’re right; I’m being dumb again.”
“You do seem to do that fairly often,” Arthur says, still smirking and leaning his head closer to Merlin again.
“Prat,” Merlin jabs good-naturedly, and then they’re kissing, slow and sweet and there, exactly the connection Merlin’s felt they’ve been missing these past few days. When he pulls back, Merlin says, perfectly honest, “I would love to read your book.”
He goes to set it on the blanket again, and when he looks down to make sure it lands on fabric and not snow, he sees something that sends a shock through him. The blanket Arthur’s wrapped in has shifted from his movement, and Merlin can now see his feet, which have apparently been in sandals and all but bare the entire time he’s been in the park.
Merlin looks back up at Arthur, tense and agitated. “Arthur,” he says, “where are your shoes?”
“On my feet?” He’s tentative in his answer, at least, which means he’s aware he’s done something wrong.
“No, I mean your real shoes, the boots you wear out in the cold and snow to keep your feet decently insulated. Where are those?”
“Oh,” Arthur says, blushing a bit as he looks down at his pale toes. “I was wearing these around the house, and I guess I left in such a rush that I forgot to swap them for the boots. By the time I noticed, I was almost to the park, and I had the blanket with me to stay warm, so I figured I’d be all right.”
“Arthur,” Merlin sighs, and oh, he is going to kill him. “Arthur, how could you be so stupid? You know you can’t risk getting sick right now, not during treatment! I -- come on, we need to get you back to the car.”
“But I didn’t bring the car, I walked.”
“I know, but I drove, so let’s go.”
Merlin stands quickly, and Arthur follows without protest, thank God; they don’t have time for him to fight Merlin on this. Arthur grabs his book and pens off the blanket before Merlin scoops it up into a heavy, wet, and very cold ball of fabric.
Together, they turn and walk back to the car, the lake lying forgot and glittering behind them.
The traveller’s torso is a patchwork of marks. The skin itself is pale white, no matter the length of exposure to the elements, to wind and sand and sun. But it is marred all over by a network of blemishes: a patch of freckles between his shoulders; a scar in his right side from where he fell against a particularly sharp rock; a small, dark mole on his left lower back. The history of his journey is written on his skin, a visible and permanent reminder of all he has experienced, the blank patches only signs of experiences yet to be had.
The most interesting “blemishes,” though (and he questions that word, really), are the ones he has made himself. His entire front upper-body -- arms and hands, lower abdomen and the planes of his chest -- is covered in inked dragons. They swirl up and over his shoulders, around his arms in coiled loops, a horde of scales and claws, of furled wings and snapping teeth. They look threatening, his dragons, ferocious and feral, the inky gleam in their black eyes is one of bloodthirstiness, of desperation.
They’re beautiful.
The traveller knows this because he’s inked them all himself, every last scale. He isn’t entirely sure why; all he knows is that occasionally, while he’s resting for the night by the side of the road, his skin will itch, tingling as if in anticipation, in need. The dragons already there look at him, eyes seemingly filled with anticipation, and there’s nothing he can do but mix ink, heat the mangled tip of his pen, and spend the next few hours capturing another beast in flight on his skin. It’s painful, but oddly soothing, and seeing the new dragon alive and comfortable on his body, as if it has always been there beneath the surface, waiting to emerge, is well worth the sleepless night before.
Sometimes, when it is midday and the sun is hot and high above him, the traveller will pull off his shirt and coat. He’ll tuck them in his pack and continue to walk, noon sunlight gleaming down onto his glistening, sweaty skin; the dragons playful and chasing, exposed to anything lucky enough to see them.
Arthur has been in the bath for close to fifteen minutes now. He’d protested a bit when they’d first got home, when Merlin had ordered him to strip while he himself ran a bath in the washroom nearest their bedroom.
“I’m fine, Merlin,” he’d said, voice petulant, “really. I warmed up enough in the car. And even if I hadn’t, I’m not a child; I’m fully capable of running myself a bath, you know.”
“I know,” Merlin had responded. “I just don’t trust you enough to actually do it. Now, strip.”
Arthur had, eventually, and then climbed into the bath, which is where he is now. He’s up to his shoulders in soap foam, but his hands are dry -- a result of holding his book above and clear of the threatening water for him to read.
Merlin smiles a bit, looking up from his own book to watch Arthur. He’d always been a bit of a book junkie, Arthur, from all the way back to their first meeting in college, when Arthur’s areas of their dorm room were filled with precarious little piles of novels and paperbacks that he could even navigate his way through when drunk. That bookworm tendency had only increased after he’d fallen ill, only Arthur now has a study lined with endless bookshelves, all fully-stocked, to store his own private library. They’re inseparable, Arthur and the printed word, even when the former is supposed to be washing himself in the tub before the water cools.
“Good Lord, but you’ve gone soft in your old age,” and Merlin jerks out of his thoughts to find Arthur looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
“What?” he sputters. “No, I haven’t.”
“You’ve spent the last five minutes staring at me with what is probably the soppiest expression the world has ever seen on your face. Yes, you have.”
“I was not staring at you. I was reading.”
“The book that you haven’t turned a page of in five minutes? You’ve never been that slow of a reader, even on the boring stuff.”
“Well. Fine, say that I was looking at you. What’s so wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I suppose. I mean, I am rather gorgeous, so I can understand why you’d find yourself distracted by me.”
Merlin snorts. “Arrogant bastard.”
“With good reason, and you know it.”
“Yeah, very good reason,” Merlin mumbles under his breath, soft and low.
“What was that?” Arthur’s voice is smug, cheeky, and Merlin knows he’s lost this round.
“You heard well enough; I said, ‘Yes.’ You may be arrogant, but you’re lovely, and you know that.”
“See, just as I said: gone soft,” but Arthur’s smiling now, small and happy. He closes his book and places it on the floor near the tub. “Suppose I should actually wash now, yeah?”
“Yeah, that’d probably be a good idea.” Merlin stands and puts his own book on the vanity countertop. “I’ll go put a kettle on for tea, so it’ll still be hot when you get out.”
He turns to leave, but Arthur’s voice stops him.
“Wait,” Arthur calls, and when Merlin looks back, he’s holding the bath-sponge out. “Can you heat this before you go? The water’s gone a bit cool for proper lather.”
Merlin’s brow furrows and he frowns; he had filled the tub with water just shy of scalding, so there’s no way it should have cooled that much by now, all of his teasing aside. And even from his place by the sink, he can see steam rising from the water.
He walks quickly over to Arthur and takes the sponge from his hand. It’s still warm from where it’s been submerged in the soapy water, and the fact that Arthur can’t feel that is more than a little worrisome. Merlin reaches out and turns on the left-side tap, the one labelled “HOT.” Steaming water rushes out and onto the sponge, burning Merlin’s fingers where it runs over them and making him wince.
After about a minute, when he’s sure the sponge is fully wet, Merlin twists the tap off. He turns back to Arthur, who’s pulled his legs up so that his knees are above the surface of the water. Merlin presses the sponge, overly-saturated and dripping water, onto Arthur’s right knee, tracing it a bit over the skin there. His eyes are questioning when he looks at Arthur, wanting to know if there’s any change.
Arthur shakes his head once, and Merlin feels the pit of his stomach drop out. He’s more than slightly nauseous as something clicks in the back of his head and he understands.
“Outside, at the park, your feet. You couldn’t feel the cold.”
Arthur nods, ducks his head when Merlin inhales quickly.
“That’s why you didn’t wear boots out -- it didn’t matter because you couldn’t feel it. Has this -- anything like it -- has it happened before?”
Arthur’s voice is low and flat when he answers, “For a few weeks now. It’s getting harder for me to feel hot and cold, but today’s the worst it’s ever been.”
“For a few weeks? Arthur, why didn’t you tell me?” Merlin’s voice is shaking now, angry and openly scared, and he could really care less.
Arthur’s head comes up sharply at the question, and his gaze, when it meets Merlin’s, is almost defiant. “Because this would have been something else for you to fix, and I’m tired of you treating me like I’m broken. I’m not, Merlin.”
“You’re --”
“I’m sick, yeah, but I’m not fractured, and I’m not some problem for you to solve. And that’s all you seem to think of me as anymore, and I’m so over it!”
“Well, I’m sorry if I’m scared, Arthur! I’m sorry if the thought of losing you frightens me to death!”
Merlin moves to push up off the floor, but when he does, Arthur’s hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist and keeping him there, on his knees by the tub. Arthur’s voice is that low, dangerous kind of furious when he talks.
“You think I’m not scared, Merlin? I am, fucking terrified, even, and mad as hell about everything I’ve had to put up with since this all started. But I’m also fucking tired of you acting like I’m going to collapse at any minute, I’m so sick of it! I’m still me, Merlin, not some piece of glass that’s going to shatter when I hit something I can’t handle.”
Arthur’s hair is plastered against his forehead from the water that had splashed up when he moved, and his eyes are bright, desperately frustrated, and it hurts Merlin to see him like this.
“I don’t need you to fix me,” Arthur says, “and I’m so tired of waiting for you to realise that.”
He sounds so angry, so stubborn and arrogant and proud; he sounds like himself, but a dauntingly passionate version that Merlin hasn’t dealt with since before the tumour, before Arthur got sick. It’s such a forceful reminder of how they used to be, and Arthur is so shockingly enraged, so beautifully alive in front of him, that Merlin can’t help but lean forward and kiss him.
Arthur jerks a bit in surprise, but he responds easily. His mouth opens under Merlin’s eagerly, and the hand he has on Merlin’s wrist traces up his arm to grip his shoulder. One of Merlin’s hands is gripping the slippery side of the tub, anchoring him, and the other is laced through Arthur’s wet hair, holding his head steady. They’re both pulling at each other, desperate to get closer, and it’s too much for either of them to get proper leverage. When Merlin shifts to stand and get them both out of the washroom, his left foot slips on a small puddle of water and he overbalances, falling into the tub with a yelp of surprise.
Water sloshes over all sides of the tub as he lands on Arthur, and they’re both of them laughing, and then they’re kissing again, Arthur’s left hand sliding up to rest against Merlin’s cheek as if to hold him there. His legs have spread open under the water to accommodate Merlin’s body, and his mouth is hot and wet under Merlin’s. He tastes of curry (probably what he ate for dinner tonight, and Merlin should really check the fridge for leftovers soon), faint and spicy against Merlin’s tongue.
Arthur’s hips are pressing against Merlin’s, and his chest is, too, only Merlin can’t feel it properly through the too-thick barrier of his sodden clothes; that’s a problem, but it’s one that’s easily fixed. Merlin breaks their kiss and pulls back so that he’s kneeling upright in the tub. He peels off his shirt, taking extra time where it’s sticking to his skin, before tossing it away from the tub to land on the tile floor with a loud splat.
When he leans back down, he’s able to lie flush against Arthur, skin to skin, and it is glorious. His hips jerk forward, sluggish under the water, and Arthur moans, moans again when Merlin starts kissing and licking at his neck. Merlin smirks against the skin of Arthur’s throat; Arthur’s always been sensitive here, no matter how much they’ve done this, and it’s definitely a bit of an ego boost to know that Merlin can still make him lose control from that.
Merlin bites a little at the underside of Arthur’s jaw, tongue flicking out to taste him, even though he knows he’ll find only the bitter flavour of soap. Arthur threads the fingers of his right hand through Merlin’s hair and cranes his neck back, allowing Merlin greater access; his left hand shoves between their bodies to trace down Merlin’s chest, stopping when it hits the top of Merlin’s trousers. There’s a bit of fumbling with the fastening -- and Merlin can’t really blame him; Arthur is doing it under water, and while being pretty expertly distracted, so his struggle is understandable -- before he manages it.
Merlin’s trousers and pants are pushed quickly down his hips, and he outright gasps when Arthur’s hand comes back up to grab his cock. He bucks his hips into the grip and Arthur smirks at him, shamelessly proud. Merlin shifts until his arms are wrapped around Arthur’s waist, hands resting on Arthur’s arse and pulling him impossibly closer. Arthur lets go of his cock, but makes up for it by bringing his legs up around Merlin’s hips, bumping their dicks together and giving Merlin better leverage for when he starts to thrust.
They’re back to kissing now, mouths sealed against each other and swallowing every whimper, every curse and groan, greedily. Merlin thrusts his hips against Arthur’s, cocks rubbing together with delicious friction. His hands knead Arthur’s arse, and Arthur breaks the kiss to lean his head against Merlin’s shoulder, gasping. One of them is panting, a breathless, constant stream of fuck and faster and love you, and their motion is making water spill over the edges of the tub in steady waves, sending it sloshing onto the floor in loud, obscene-sounding splatters.
Arthur bites at Merlin’s shoulder, and his hands scrabble against Merlin’s back (Merlin’s not sure when they got there, but hey, he’s not going to question it). He’s keening and cursing as he thrusts up against Merlin, loud and forceful and alive, so overwhelmingly still here, that Merlin loses it, too caught up in Arthur Arthur Arthur all around him to do anything but come. He manages to get a hand in between them before he completely blanks out, and even as he’s writhing and helpless with release, he’s reducing Arthur to the same.
After, when Merlin comes back to his senses, his head is resting on Arthur’s shoulder, and Arthur’s fingers are combing through his hair. He pulls back to look at Arthur, who smiles before kissing him softly.
When they’re done, Merlin says, “Guess we’ll both need another bath, hm?”
Arthur laughs, a happy sound that Merlin can feel in every inch of his body, and says, “Yeah, probably,” before leaning in to kiss Merlin again.
Part Two