Gibraltar May Tumble Part 2 for Camelot's Closet
Title: Gibraltar May Tumble 2/3
Author: shes_gone
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~25,000
Summary: Merlin's life in London is a bit of a mess: his career trapped somewhere between student and professional, his love life trapped in a relationship gone sour, and most days he feels physically trapped in the tiny, shared flat he can't afford to move out of-until an unexpected opportunity sends him packing for the coast. There, he meets someone who might be in a even worse fix than he is: Arthur, a Victorian-era sea captain who's trapped, a bit literally, between life and death, and who refuses to leave the house he died in over a hundred years ago.
Warnings: I suppose I need to warn for major character death, but, like. Only sort of. Trust me? :D
Part One
♦♦♦
He spends almost a month researching, after he gets the idea. He flips through all the books in Gaius's backroom and combs the far reaches of the Internet, and comes away feeling… less than confident. Most sources say the spell is only a myth, just a legend without any actual record of it having been successfully cast.
He learns it anyway, though, because-well, just because. A little optimism never hurt anyone.
In the end, it's laughably easy.
"So," Merlin says, cautiously, over his evening tea, "I have an idea." Arthur looks at him with interest, and Merlin starts explaining, mentally lining up all the reasons that Arthur has nothing to worry about, since Merlin's magic is a bit all-or-nothing, working or not working but almost never going haywire or producing wildly unexpected results, but Arthur's agreeing to it before Merlin gets past the initial pitch.
"All right," Arthur says, and he stands expectantly.
"I-are you sure?" Merlin asks, blinking. "You don't want to... think it over? Or have me do more research, or..." Arthur just shrugs, which scares Merlin a little, because he doesn't understand why Arthur trusts him this much.
"Unless there's some horrible side-effect you've chosen not to mention?" Arthur asks, against Merlin's troubled silence.
Merlin shakes his head. "No. I read everything I could find-which wasn't very much at all-and all it mentioned was that you might be a bit tired, afterwards."
"Afterwards," Arthur repeats, looking thoughtful. "How long will it last?"
"I don't know," Merlin answers. "I'd guess at most, about a day. But more likely only a few hours. Maybe less. Assuming it works at all."
Arthur worries his lower lip for a moment, then nods decisively. "I want to try."
Merlin looks up at him and swallows, because he hadn't been sure he was going to try this at all, let alone right now, but there's no real reason to wait, he supposes. It probably won't work anyway.
He stands a few feet from Arthur, taking a deep breath to steady himself as Arthur widens his stance and squares his shoulders, as if expecting a physical blow.
Merlin breathes again, and then it's just a raised arm and a few whispered words, and Merlin can feel his magic pool, focus, and reach for Arthur. It connects, and then there's nothing, just silence between them as Merlin holds his breath, waiting.
Arthur gives a shuttering breath. "Oh," he says, surprised and awed, and Merlin's heart trips over itself because Arthur is-breathing.
"Is that-" Merlin says, "are you-did it-" and he's surprised to find that he's shaking.
Arthur is too, Merlin can see, shaking and breathing hard like he can't quite believe he remembers how, his eyes darting around the kitchen in shock. "Dinner," he says, after a moment, and Merlin frowns.
"Are you hungry?"
Arthur shakes his head. "I can smell it," he says, his eyes locking with Merlin's. "Actually smell it."
"Is that-good?" Merlin asks, and Arthur just beams at him a moment before he's gone, running out the door on heavy footsteps that Merlin can hear, and Merlin just stands there, swaying a little as he tries to catch his breath, because-that wasn't supposed to work. That spell was supposed to be a myth. He swallows and steadies himself, and while this isn't the first time his magic has caught him by surprise, he's not been quite this startled by it in a long time.
His eyes drift to the window and fix on Arthur, who's standing with his face to the sun, head thrown back, chest rising and falling with deep purpose. The moment stretches out, strangely suspended, and Merlin can't move until Arthur opens his eyes and looks back at the house.
"Merlin!" he calls. "Merlin, come out here," with an almost manic happiness in his voice. "Can you smell it?" he says, when Merlin steps outside. "The sea?"
Merlin nods, smiling. A warm breeze blows into the garden, carrying the scent of flowers, and Arthur closes his eyes. His hair rustles over his forehead, catching the sun in glints, and Merlin's smile breaks into a grin, wide and large, fit to split his face in two.
When Arthur looks at Merlin again, his expression is full and overwhelming. "Thank you," he says, and Merlin can only nod before he has to pull his eyes away.
"So what would you like to do?" Merlin asks, after a few minutes during which Arthur just wanders around the garden, running his fingers over the shrubbery and the fence and the smooth stones of the walkway. "We could go down to the water, or into town if there's something special you want to eat, or… I dunno. Anything."
Arthur just looks at him.
"Or-you could, I mean," Merlin stumbles out. "I don't have to go with you."
Arthur's brow furrows and his eyes hover on Merlin for another moment before flitting away. "You don't know how long this will last, right? Maybe only be an hour?"
"Maybe," Merlin replies, apologetically. "I have no idea."
"And… is this it?" Arthur asks. "Would it-would the spell work a second time?"
Merlin just shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. I don't see why it wouldn't, but-"
Arthur swallows and nods, glancing back at Merlin before turning his gaze out to the world around them, the sky and the sea and the trees and the road and everything, looking untethered and lost, like trying to prioritise it all is killing him, and Merlin can't even imagine.
He doesn't notice that he's stepped over to where Arthur's standing until Arthur gives a small start and looks down to where Merlin's hand is resting on his forearm. Merlin blinks, and thinks he should pull his hand back, but he can't. The warmth of the touch magnetic, and Merlin can't move, can't speak, as Arthur stares at him, expression unreadable, and then leans in to kiss him.
Merlin gasps into it, Arthur's lips against his, solid and warm and real. Arthur kisses him once, twice, and then pulls back to look at him. Merlin sways towards him, and feels Arthur's hand settle over his own.
"If all I have is an hour," Arthur says, "then I want you."
"Oh thank god," Merlin says, and they're kissing again, Arthur's fingertips warm and gentle on the side of his throat, and Merlin can feel his own pulse like a runaway train underneath them.
Arthur's hair is sun-warmed and soft when Merlin's fingers slide into it, and the hands at his back are strong even as they still tremble a little, and Arthur's mouth is hot and eager, and Merlin can't stop grinning because Arthur is here, solid and warm and real, and he wants this, too.
"Wanted this so bad," Merlin mumbles into Arthur's mouth. "So fucking bad, but I wasn't sure you'd-I mean, you're from a different time, and-"
"Merlin," Arthur interrupts, lips already pink and wet, "the one thing I can do when I haven't got a body? Is talk. So for now, would you please just-shut up."
Merlin gives a breathy, somewhat manic laugh, and is all too happy to oblige.
His hand has only just slipped into Arthur's trousers, fingers barely grasping at his cock, when Arthur makes a surprised, choked-off noise and goes still, his cock twitching under Merlin's touch. Merlin blinks and then Arthur's leaning against him, breathing hard and getting heavier, his legs giving out. Merlin steps a foot back and grapples for hold on him, then eases him down to sitting in the grass, eyebrows rising when Arthur collapses onto his back.
With an amused smile and nothing else for it, Merlin lies down next him, ignoring his own erection in favour of curling in close to Arthur on the grass, heavy and sated and achingly warm.
"I'm sorry," Arthur says, a few minutes later, eyes closed and mouth drawn in embarrassment. Merlin bites his own lip and just looks at him a moment before kissing him.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" he says, grinning, and enjoys the warm puff of laughter that slips out of Arthur's mouth.
♦♦♦
Later, spread out on the bed, Merlin is pulled back to awareness by the soft drag of fingers along the underside of his knee. He inhales quietly and looks down, watches Arthur studying him, exploring every inch of skin with his fingers and his palms and his lips.
"Arthur," Merlin whispers, giving a small shudder as the last of his orgasm-induced haze fades. His skin feels electric, alive and hot along the trail of where Arthur's been, touching him, kissing him, tasting him, smelling him, and it's almost too much.
"It's so good," Arthur says, climbing overtop of him when Merlin paws at him. "You feel so-so good."
"You too," Merlin says, the words disappearing into the soft wetness of Arthur's mouth.
He presses his body up against Arthur's and smiles when he feels Arthur's cock, hot and hard again. Arthur grunts at the contact and lets his head fall to Merlin's shoulder. "What d'you want?" Merlin asks, dipping his nose into blond hair.
Arthur just groans and shifts, slotting his body more closely against Merlin's, until his cock slides between Merlin's thighs.
"Think you can handle more than just my fingers this time?" Merlin quips, and Arthur gives an embarrassed whimper against Merlin's collarbone. Merlin grins and nips at the shell of his ear affectionately. "My mouth, maybe?" he whispers.
Arthur draws a quick breath, and Merlin squeezes his thighs together at the small, seemingly inadvertent thrust of Arthur's hips.
"Or my arse?" Merlin breathes, right into Arthur's ear.
Arthur gives a full-body shudder, and goes still.
"D'you want to fuck me?" Merlin asks, and Arthur presses his forehead against Merlin's shoulder a long moment before looking up at him, eyes dark and deep.
"You don't-you don't have to let me," he says, voice shaking so that Merlin has no choice but to kiss him.
"I want you to, you prat," Merlin says, and kisses Arthur again before stretching out from underneath him to reach for lube and a condom from the nightstand drawer.
Arthur rolls off to the side, giving Merlin room to manoeuvre. "Do you think we need that?" he asks, eying the foil packet.
Merlin looks at him. "The condom?" Arthur nods. "I-yes. I always use one."
"Always?"
Merlin nods. "Did you have them yet?"
"Yes. And they were useless. Armour against pleasure, cobweb against infection," he says flatly.
Merlin bites back a smile. "They're better now."
"I don't doubt it, but-all the same, do you really think we need it? This is a brand new body. I haven't had the chance to sully it yet."
Merlin huffs a laugh, and then considers it, because Arthur might have a point. But, "Sorry, no," he says. "I have no idea how new or not this body actually is, and I'm not risking it. Bloody sailor."
"You are the one with an entire drawer full of French preventatives," Arthur argues, smiling.
"That's life in the twenty-first century, my friend," Merlin says, haughtily. "Take it or leave it."
Arthur looks at him a moment, then laughs, knocking their foreheads together. "I'll take it," he says, and Merlin smiles.
Merlin tears open the condom and smirks as he rolls it over Arthur's cock, then wraps his hand around it and gives a squeeze. Arthur gasps, blinking. "Does that feel like armour to you?" Merlin asks, trailing his finger along the length of the latex.
Arthur shakes his head a bit helplessly. "It does seem like an improvement."
"Good," Merlin murmurs, dragging his thumb over the head of Arthur's cock. "Now," he says, "do you want to open me up? Or do you want to watch me do it?"
Arthur swallows. "Maybe I should just watch, for a minute," he says.
Arranging himself so that Arthur has a good view, Merlin opens the lube, slicks his finger, and reaches back to his hole. Arthur's breathing is audible as Merlin rubs a fingertip over himself, and it grows quicker and louder when Merlin presses inside.
"Arthur, god," Merlin says, watching his face.
Arthur's on him instantly, face in his neck and hand on his thigh and, "May I help?" he says. "I want to help."
"Be my guest," Merlin chuckles.
Arthur fumbles around for the lube and then there's a slick, eager finger touching Merlin's, rubbing at the rim of his arse and sliding inside, pressing wetly in alongside it. "Fuck," Merlin gasps, arching into it.
Arthur's other hand comes to Merlin's hip, careful and deliberate even as their fingers slide over one another inside him, and it takes Merlin's breath, the way Arthur touches him, like every press of skin needs to be savoured and remembered. He bites at his lip and bears down on their joined fingers, until Arthur takes the hint and adds another. The rest of his hand curls around Merlin's, his thumb pressing wetly into Merlin's palm.
"I'm ready," Merlin says, when he can trust his voice. "I-fuck, that's good-you can-please-"
Arthur presses his hand against Merlin's hip as he withdraws their fingers. Merlin wraps his legs around him as he slicks himself and moves forward, one hand pressed to Merlin's thigh and the other guiding his cock as the head slips easily inside.
Merlin closes his eyes and sighs into the wet slide of it, the perfect way Arthur fits inside him, and when he opens his eyes after a long, perfect minute, Arthur's just hovering there, eyes a bit wild and desperate, pinning Merlin to the bed with something so earnest and raw that Merlin has to breathe hard against the words that suddenly appear in his throat, too big and too soon.
It's a moment before he trusts himself even to reach for Arthur's arm, to pull him down by it and kiss him on the mouth, wet and deep.
"Move," he grits out, when the moment's passed, and Arthur does.
♦♦♦
When Merlin wakes up, Arthur is gone. There's no warmth left in the space where he slept, and the only evidence that he was there at all is the tender ache in Merlin's arse, and the invisible fingerprints all over his skin. "Arthur?" he asks, voice echoing the dark, quiet room.
All he gets in response is silence, and he rolls over to bury his face in Arthur's pillow, breathing deeply, but there's nothing. Any smell he might have left behind is gone as well, dematerialised right along with him.
Merlin rolls onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes against the wave of heartache, and wills himself to just fall back asleep.
Sleep refuses to come, and eventually Merlin gives up on it, climbs out of bed and pads out onto the balcony, trying not to think about anything. He looks out over the water, and sees a ship, its beacon bright and low on the horizon. He stares at it, wondering if it's coming or going as dawn seeps into the landscape around it. Its light lasts longer than any of the stars overhead, and when it's gone, Merlin doesn't know if someone's just shut it off, or if the ship's sailed past the curve of the earth.
♦♦♦
By mid-afternoon, the day's clouded over and Merlin's sitting in the parlour listening to the rain, ignoring the book in his lap and staring at the large portrait on the wall, trying not to lose his mind.
Arthur's been gone all day.
Merlin hasn't any idea why, nor how worried he should be. It might be something in the aftermath of the spell keeping him away, or it might just be Arthur staying away, and Merlin can't decide which would be worse. He swallows and tells himself he's being melodramatic, that it's really only been a matter of hours, even if it's rather a lot of hours, and he shouldn't be so worried.
The book he holds hasn't a chance of distracting him, though, and so he just sits, willing the rain to drown out the sound of his thoughts.
"Good book?" comes a voice from the doorway, and Merlin nearly leaps off the sofa.
"Where've you been?" he asks, after a moment, and he's glad he manages to keep most of his hurt out of his tone.
"I don't know," Arthur says, wary, and Merlin looks at him. "How long have I been gone?"
Merlin shakes his head. "At least since I woke up, just before dawn."
Arthur glances at the clock, which reads nearly four. "I lost the whole day," he says, and it sounds like a question.
"So you've been, what? Unconscious?"
"Something like that, I suppose."
"What do you remember?" Merlin asks.
Arthur shrugs. "Nothing, really. I remember falling asleep," he says, "with you. And when I woke up just now, it-it was like waking up from sleep, but-different."
"How?"
"I don't know. But I could tell that time had passed. Too much."
"Are you-OK? How do you feel?"
Arthur just looks at him a moment, and Merlin really hopes he doesn't come back with his standard I'm dead, Merlin, because Merlin doesn't think he could handle that right now. But Arthur just nods. "I'm fine."
"Good," Merlin says, nodding. And, after a moment, "I suppose that's what it meant about you being tired afterwards."
"I suppose," Arthur agrees, and then there's silence.
Merlin has a lot that he wants to say, but he doesn't know where to start, or how much Arthur would want to hear. "I'm sorry you didn't have more time," he settles on.
"Me too," Arthur answers, after a moment.
Merlin stares at the book in his lap, fiddles with the pages. "You didn't even get off the property," he says. "There must be so much more that you wanted to do."
"Not really, no," Arthur says, and when Merlin looks up at him, he can see that there's a lot Arthur wants to say, too, and a quiver of excitement shoots through Merlin's gut.
Neither of them says anything, but the way Arthur's looking at him sets the corners of Merlin's mouth twitching upwards, and then Arthur's smiling, and there's silly happiness bubbling up inside Merlin's chest and he probably shouldn't let it-no, he really shouldn't let it, because this isn't that simple, this isn't like any other morning-after he's ever had (or ever will, probably), but maybe they can pretend it is, for a little while.
"I want to try it again," Arthur blurts. "I need to know if the spell will work again."
Merlin looks at him. "I-yeah. OK," because there's no point in pretending he doesn't want to.
Arthur grins and comes over to the sofa, stopping right in front of Merlin expectantly.
"D'you mean right now?" Merlin asks, laughing.
"Yes, why not?" Arthur says. "Have you something else to do?"
Merlin grins up at him, but can't ignore the sobering thought nagging at him. "You were gone all day, Arthur, and neither of us knows what really happened, or why. Maybe we should wait, just a little," he says. "Just to be sure that you really are OK."
"I'm fine, Merlin, honestly. I feel-exactly like I did before. I've not been through any sort of ordeal. Please."
"What if you're gone all day again tomorrow?"
"So what if I am?" Arthur says, earning himself a disapproving look from Merlin. "You'll be at work tomorrow, anyway, so you won't be here to miss me."
Merlin frowns, but feels his resolve wavering at the look on Arthur's face. "What if it gets worse? What if you're gone longer?"
"What if it gets easier?" Arthur counters. "Maybe what I need is training."
"Maybe what you need is rest."
"I've been resting for a hundred years, Merlin," and now the look in Arthur's eye is more pleading than it is playful, more raw want than anything else, and Merlin feels it twist inside him. "Please," Arthur says, and reaches for Merlin's face, but stops before his hand gets there, sparing them both the nothingness they would feel.
Merlin's hand is raised in answer before he quite gives it permission to be, and he's speaking the words, and Arthur's warm, solid fingers tangle in his for a brief moment before Arthur's on the sofa, pulling Merlin on top of him.
♦♦♦
"Merlin, what are you-" Gaius cuts himself off and grabs the small bottle out of Merlin's hand before any of the contents pours out.
Merlin blinks at him, a bit blearily, then down at the concoction in front of him.
"Did you even read the instructions?" Gaius scolds.
"Sorry, yes," Merlin says. "I just grabbed the wrong bottle. I'll pay closer attention, sorry."
Gaius looks at him, exasperated expression shifting to concern. "Are you feeling all right? You look a bit run down."
Merlin nods. "I'm OK, yeah. Just tired." Arthur was still gone when Merlin arrived home last night, and Merlin didn't sleep a wink all night, waiting for him. The waiting should be getting easier, he thinks. He knows Arthur isn't staying away on purpose, and he knows-or thinks he knows-that he's OK, that he can come back, that he will, and Merlin just has to be patient.
Gaius frowns at him. "Do you want to take a little something home to help you sleep tonight?"
Merlin smiles. "No, thanks. I think it's due to catch up with me. Probably sleep like a baby tonight."
"Mmm," Gaius says, unconvinced. "Why don't you take your lunch, and come back to this once you've raised your blood sugar a bit."
Merlin nods, grateful, and retrieves his lunch from the fridge-the pasta he'd made for dinner last night, and been unable eat. Gaius leaves him to it, and Merlin's picking at it and ignoring all the horrible scenarios involving Arthur playing out in his mind, when Arthur himself suddenly appears.
"What the-" Merlin says, dropping his fork. "Arthur!"
"Sorry," Arthur says, "I know I shouldn't come here."
Merlin gapes at him, heart hammering with shock and relief. "I-it's OK," he manages.
"I saw the calendar," Arthur explains, "and I just-wanted you to know that I've returned."
Merlin just looks at him, and manages a nod. He catches his breath after a minute, and the silence that falls between them is thick and heavy. Arthur opens and closes his mouth more than once, and Merlin can't think of a single bloody thing to say, so he just swallows and holds Arthur's gaze.
"Merlin," a voice comes from behind him, though it takes Merlin a moment to register it. "Did you say there were five or six orders that came in for-oh, hello," Gaius breaks off, rounding the corner into the room fully.
Merlin starts, suddenly snapping out his daze at the realisation that Gaius and Arthur are in the same room and Arthur, for whatever ungodly reason hasn't dematerialised. Arthur suddenly starts as well, eyes going wide and darting over to stare at Gaius in open horror. Neither of them says a thing, though Merlin feels his mouth flapping a little.
"I'm Gaius," Gaius says, looking at them both with concern. "And it's all right, I allow visitors."
Arthur remembers himself first, blinking and straightening and moving towards Gaius. "Gaius," he says, "Arthur," and for an awful moment Merlin thinks he might try to shake the man's hand before he stops, shoving his hands into his pockets with an awkward smile. "I've... heard so much about you," he says.
"Have you, now?" Gaius replies. "Nothing too terrible, I hope?"
"Certainly not," Arthur says, and Gaius chuckles.
"Arthur's my-visitor," Merlin stammers. "He's here… visiting. For a while."
"How nice," Gaius says, kindly ignoring Merlin's verbal flailing. "I hope you're enjoying your stay so far?" Gaius smiles as Arthur nods. "I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch, Merlin, but I can't remember if you said there were four or five orders for, um," he glances at Arthur, "that came in on the email."
"The website," Merlin corrects him gently. "And it was six, I think."
"Ah yes, right. I should be able to prepare that this afternoon. Could you, when you get a chance, show me one more time how to… look at it? The website, I mean."
"Of course," Merlin says, smiling. "We're expanding," he explains, with a glance at Arthur. "Gaius brews an excellent variety of traditional medicinal and magical remedies," he says, with a reassuring glance at Gaius, "the sort most people can't find in their local pharmacies anymore. So we've stated a mail-order business, to grow our customer base."
"Except it's on the Internet," Gaius says, turning self-deprecating eyes on Arthur. "Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day someone in Estonia could buy Wolfsbane on their computer."
"Nor did I," Arthur replies, with feeling, and Merlin glares at him.
Gaius chuckles, smiling at Arthur, and then cocks his head, like something's just caught his attention. "Have you visited before, Arthur?" he asks.
Arthur blinks.
"There's something very familiar about you."
Arthur's eyebrows go up, and Merlin feels his stomach clench. "People say that to him all the time," Merlin says, a bit too loudly. "He's just got one of those faces."
"Do you have family in Whitecliff?" Gaius persists, studying Arthur's face.
Arthur frowns. "No, sir," he says. "Not anymore."
"But you did?"
"Yes, but," and his voice goes quiet, "generations ago. It has been a very long time."
"Well, I'm a very old man, my boy."
"Not old enough, I'm afraid," Arthur replies. "It's been over a hundred years since my family left."
"What was their surname?"
After a breath, "Pendragon."
"Pendragon," Gaius repeats to himself. "Pendrag-oh yes, of course!" he says, gesturing. "The hotel! That's who you look like, the boy in portrait."
Merlin feels his eyes bug a little, and he watches Arthur stare at Gaius.
"The hotel?" Arthur asks, after moment.
"Yes," Gaius says. "Have you not been there? Right next to the golf course. That was your family's estate."
"I've not been there yet, no," Arthur says, when Gaius pauses, waiting for a response.
"Oh, you must go. It's a lovely old place. They turned it into a hotel between the wars-maybe earlier, actually. My father used to take me there. He was the town physician, of course, and I'd tag along when he went up to treat someone staying there. I'd sit in the main hall and wait for him to finish, earning tips off the guests by carrying their bags up the stairs-all the while, feeling Lord Pendragon watching me disapprovingly."
Arthur stiffens, but Gaius doesn't notice, chuckling before he continues. "That man intimidated me from beyond the grave, let me tell you. I don't know how many hours I spent transfixed by the large portrait of him and his son over the stairs." He looks at Arthur carefully. "It's been years since I've been up there, but I remember it very clearly, and you are the spitting image of that boy. He must be your... what? Great-grandfather? Great-great, perhaps?"
It takes Arthur a long moment to say anything. "I, um-"
"Oh, no wait," Gaius interrupts him. "He died quite young, didn't he? I don't think he had any children." There's a heavy pause. "I suppose Lord Pendragon must have remarried, after leaving Whitecliff, eh? For here you are."
"Here I am," Arthur agrees, weakly.
"How do you know so much about the Pendragons, Gaius?" Merlin asks.
Gaius shakes his head. "When you've lived this long in one place, my boy, you know all the local legends."
Merlin stares at Arthur, who's gone as white as a-well, ghost.
Gaius looks back and forth between the two of them. "Well," he says, after an awkward moment, "I'm sorry to have interrupted your visit."
"Not at all," Arthur says, looking up at him. "It was very nice to meet you."
"And you," Gaius answers. "And might I say, welcome home."
♦♦♦
"This is a bad idea," Arthur says, when they reach the large entrance gates where the drive meets the road.
"Nonsense," Merlin replies. "This is a brilliant idea."
"Can't we just go home and have sex again?
"No. Seven times in thirty-six hours is enough. I'm sore, and I know you are too."
"What if I disappear while someone is watching?" Arthur moans.
Merlin shrugs. "I'll deny ever having seen you, and strongly imply that anyone who says anything is off their rocker."
Arthur scowls at him. "That is a terrible plan."
"You're just nervous."
"I am not."
Merlin throws him a sideways glance and starts walking up the drive. "C'mon, I want you to show me around." Arthur grumbles, but starts after him, up the inclined path towards the old manor house.
It's taken Merlin several weeks to talk Arthur into this, weeks that have passed so quickly he's almost lost count of them in the ever-shifting landscape of their relationship. They've fallen headlong into an intoxicating cycle of magic and sex and waiting, and Merlin wonders if it isn't driving him a bit mad. His spells are getting stronger, though, lasting longer-the more he feels himself wanting Arthur, really wanting him, the longer Arthur sticks around. When they time it right, Arthur can have a body for an entire weekend, sometimes even a little longer. Of course, the flip side is that he's gone longer, too, afterwards, but Merlin's trying not to think about right now.
They walk in silence for a short while. Merlin looks up at the large stone building as they approach it, and tries not to feel intimidated. He imagines Arthur as a child, calling it home.
"Oh, let's go down here first," Arthur says, when they come to a fork in the drive. "The stables used to be just back here."
"Lead the way," Merlin says, and follows him.
"I don't understand," Arthur says, frustrated, several minutes later. "Why would they let them fall into such disrepair? And why aren't they keeping horses? Do people not ride for pleasure anymore? Isn't that something their guests might like?"
"I dunno," Merlin says. "They should. Seems like a waste."
Inside isn't much better, when they walk into the main hall, after finding the doors unlocked. It's clean, and better kept-up than the stables, but that's not saying a lot.
The reception desk shows signs of someone working-the lamps are turned on, and there's a cup of tea sitting next to a battered paperback novel-but it's currently abandoned. There's a muffled sound of a hoover, running somewhere upstairs.
"We should go," Arthur says, as Merlin wanders over to the staircase. "They wouldn't want us just nosing around."
"We're not going to do any harm," Merlin reasons, and he looks up at the large portrait over the stairs, just as Gaius described it. Arthur is about fifteen or sixteen, holding a rifle and dressed in a hunting costume, standing stiffly behind a devoted-looking Springer Spaniel and next to his father. Merlin gives a small swallow at the sight of the man, tall and hard and imposing. He tries to see the man that Arthur says cared so much for the people of Whitecliff, but it isn't easy.
"Well, I can see where you got your good looks, anyway," Merlin says.
Arthur glares at him sidelong, and Merlin bites back a smile, once again imagining Arthur as a child, hovered over by his governess and his tutors, his riding instructors and sailing instructors and hunting instructors, and whatever other sorts of instructors children like him had.
"Did you have a nice childhood?" Merlin asks.
"Yes," Arthur says, after a moment. "I suppose I did. My father wasn't-he did what he could, in the absence of my mother and-I was happy, yes."
"I want to see your old bedroom," Merlin says, biting back a grin.
Arthur's eyebrows draw together a bit. "I'm sure it's not the same as it was."
"I don't care."
"It's probably a guestroom and is probably locked."
"I-don't care," Merlin says, grinning. "Let's go see," and he jogs up the stairs, Arthur reluctantly following.
♦♦♦
"They're idiots," Arthur says hotly, sprawled on his back. "I don't see that they are even trying."
"Mmm-hmm," Merlin says, agreeably. He digs down past the top layer of sand for the stuff that's still cool and wet, and scoops a handful.
"They wouldn't have to spend a great amount to get started-they already have a couple of sailboats, she said. So use them, for god's sake! Offer lessons! Surely some of the local townspeople have grandchildren they would send along."
"That's a good idea," Merlin agrees, slapping the sand down on Arthur's bare chest, and smoothing it out. "And I bet it'd attract more families with children to come on holiday, if they advertised it right."
"Exactly!" Arthur agrees, heartily. "And sailing is just the beginning! Honestly, with only a small bit of creative thought, they could increase their revenue and fix the place up, have a chance at actually doing a decent business."
"You should offer them your services," Merlin says, smirking.
Arthur rolls his eyes and lets his head fall back with a sigh. Merlin piles more sand onto his chest and spreads it out. "That feels nice," Arthur says, and Merlin smiles.
They're both quite for a while, Merlin steadily burying Arthur's torso, enjoying the sun, and listening to the birds and the waves and the wind.
"So your year here is more than half over already," Arthur says, and Merlin startles a little, his hand stilling over Arthur's sandy stomach. He looks up at Arthur's face, but his eyes are closed against the sun.
"It is," he says, swallowing.
"What will you do, after your time with Gaius?" Arthur asks. "Go back to London?"
Merlin reaches behind himself for another handful of sand. "I haven't really thought about it yet," he says, almost truthfully. "I have to pass the board exam, before I can start a real job anywhere."
Arthur nods, eyes still closed.
Merlin focuses intently on spreading sand over Arthur's hip. "I think," he says, stomach suddenly in knots, "if I told him that I wanted him to, Gaius might offer to hire me on as his assistant." He swallows when Arthur doesn't say anything. "The internet sales are going really well, and I think he might like to keep me around to help with that."
One of Arthur's eyes open, and he squints down at Merlin. "I thought you said the appeal of doing business on the internet was that you could live anywhere you wanted, and still be successful."
Merlin nods, and meets his gaze. "Anywhere I want, yeah." Arthur looks at him a long moment, his other eye blinking open.
He pulls his gaze away, and there's a quiet moment before, "I have sand everywhere," he says, lifting his head to survey Merlin's work. He frowns. "What is that?" he says, dubiously.
Merlin grins. "Don't you recognise it?"
Arthur gives him a levelling look.
"I think it's some of my best work," Merlin says, "if I do say so myself."
Arthur growls and launches up towards him, breaking up the hard-packed sand and sending the erect cock Merlin sculpted crumbling back onto the beach. Merlin laughs and takes off running towards the water and will insist, later, that the reason he gets caught and tackled into the waves so easily isn't Arthur's remarkable physical prowess, but the strength of his own desire to get away.
♦♦♦
That evening, sunburnt and fucked-out and exhausted, Merlin stares at the half-played game of chess in front of him and makes a mental list of all the reasons that falling this hard for someone-for anyone, let alone-is a bad idea. He's never been exactly careful with his heart, preferring to give it away every time he's had the chance, and he's been hurt for it, in the past.
This, though. He's never felt anything like this.
He takes a sip from Arthur's abandoned beer bottle and tries not to think about it, choosing instead to finish the move he'd been in the middle of when Arthur disappeared.
♦♦♦
"I know it mustn't sound terribly impressive to you," Arthur says, weeks later, as he runs his fingers lazily along the length of Merlin's arm, "in an age when you can get on an airplane and be anywhere in the world in a matter of just hours, but-for me, in my time, to have seen so much of the world as such a young man, it-it was special. I was very lucky."
Merlin can't help his smile. "It is impressive," he says. "Even now." A breeze blows across the balcony, chill with the fading influence of summer, and Merlin shivers.
"Do you want to go inside?" Arthur asks, wrapping his bare arms around Merlin's chest for warmth.
"No," Merlin says, and burrows a little further into the cradle of Arthur's lap, until he can feel Arthur's cock nestled between the cheeks of his arse. "I like it right here," he says, and Arthur presses a kiss to his temple.
Merlin sighs and looks up at the stars, eyes following a plane crossing the sky, and then drifting to the light of a ship out on the water.
"I've never been anywhere," he says, a bit sheepishly, "despite all my technologically advanced travel options."
"Nowhere?" Arthur asks.
"Well, unless France counts as somewhere, which it doesn't. We did make it Spain one weekend, but we ran out of money and had to leave before we really saw anything. So believe me, your travels are very impressive."
"I wish I could take you somewhere," Arthur says.
Merlin smiles. "Where?"
"Anywhere. Everywhere-as many places as we had time for."
"Where first?" Merlin asks, resting his back flat against Arthur's chest to he can feel the rumble of his voice.
"The North Cape," Arthur says, easily.
"The North Cape?" Merlin repeats, bemused. "The most romantic place you can think of is in the Arctic Circle?"
"Yes," Arthur says, thwaping Merlin on the arm, but his indignation is tempered a bit by the way he presses the word into Merlin's hair. "I'd take you in the summertime, so we could drop anchor in a fjord and then I would fuck you all night, underneath the midnight sun."
"Sounds cold," Merlin says, grinning.
"Fine," Arthur says, and Merlin can almost hear him rolling his eyes, "after that, we'll head towards the Caribbean."
"Mmm, better."
"And Barbados. I'll sail you across the reef where the blue water turns green."
"You gonna fuck me all night there, too?"
"Greedy," Arthur chides. "I think I ought to make you fuck me while we're there."
Merlin grins. "Officially sold on Barbados."
"And then… down to the Falklands, so you can see the southerly gale rip the whole sea white."
"And then?"
"Anywhere you want."
Merlin closes his eyes. "Let's do it," he says. "Let's just-go. Do all those things."
Arthur huffs a small laugh, and pulls his arms tighter around Merlin's chest.
"Seriously," Merlin says. "I'll quit my job, and... steal us a boat, and we can spend the rest of my life at sea, you showing me everything there is."
Arthur laughs. "Because that could only end well, given what an excellent sailor you are."
"Shut up, I'd learn! C'mon, let's be pirates. I'd be a brilliant pirate."
"You would be a terrible pirate. And, as an officer in the Royal navy, might I remind you that piracy is not joke."
"Then why are you smiling?"
"I'm not," Arthur insists, though it's plain in his voice that he is. "I would never be a pirate."
"Even if I asked you really nicely?"
"Even then."
"Even if it meant you could fuck me in a fjord?"
Arthur pauses. "Probably not even then," he says, and Merlin laughs.
"Well, all right," Merlin allows. "No piracy. You should take me sailing again, though, now that you're here to actually do the sailing. It's a bit criminal, that you haven't been back out on the water."
"I would love that," Arthur says, warm and genuine.
♦♦♦
Sailing, Merlin concedes, is completely brilliant, when someone who knows what they're doing is at the helm.
It's a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in early September, the kind you have no choice but to savour. Arthur navigates them out of the harbour easily, deftly, and Merlin does exactly as he's told, which mostly just involves moving around the boat, a bit closer to the bow or the stern, a bit to port or to starboard, as Arthur tries to find the best balance of their weights.
"It's a good thing you are so small," Arthur says. "I'm accustomed to a much heavier boat, where one person's weight doesn't matter so much." Merlin just sticks his tongue out at him.
And when they're out on the water, with the wind behind them and the sun on their faces and the salty spray everywhere, Merlin can't take his eyes off him or the the happiness that's pouring off him in waves, glittering off the wake behind him.
Arthur sees him and grins. "Turn around!" he chides, calling over the wind. "It's beautiful and you're missing it!"
Merlin smiles. "It is," he agrees. "And I'm not."
Arthur just looks at him a moment before looking away, rolling his eyes, but his cheeks pink as he checks the sails. Merlin's smile just gets bigger.
He bites his lip and looks away, out at the water and the sun, down to the boat beneath him, and then back at Arthur, mischievously. Arthur raises his eyebrows in question.
Carefully, probably overly so, since he has no real sense of how his weight actually affects the stability of the boat, Merlin turns to face Arthur fully, and then lowers himself down onto his back, stretching out suggestively. It's a small boat, but there's room enough.
"What d'you think?" he calls to Arthur. "Will a boat this size do, or will I need to steal something bigger?"
Arthur stares down at him, amused gaze turning glassy and wanting almost immediately, and Merlin imagines them both naked, Arthur stretched out over top of him, pushing into him as their little boat bobs over the waves, and, fuck, the sunburn would be completely worth it.
Merlin feels himself start to grow hard at the thought, and Arthur watches him like a hawk as Merlin reaches down to palm himself through his jeans.
He closes his eyes and sighs into the pressure, pushing his hips up against his hand, completely shameless, and Arthur was right-he really would make a shitty pirate, because he doesn't recognise the sound of the sail flagging and then snapping to attention, the squeak of the sliding metal or the sickening thump until it's all over, and he opens his eyes to see the sail billowing directly above him, which isn't where it's supposed to be at all.
"Arthur?" he says, lifting his head to look down to the stern. Arthur isn't there, nor anywhere to be seen, and the first thought Merlin has is that his spell must have been absolute rubbish this time, if it couldn't last long enough to give Arthur a full afternoon on the water. He lets his head fall back against the boat with a disappointed thunk, dreading not only getting this boat back to harbour by himself, but the indefinite number of lonely hours in front of him, waiting for Arthur to come back.
But then his head snaps up again, because there was a thump, as the boom came flying across the boat, which means it hit something, and Arthur was there, solid and distracted and oh sweet fucking Christ. "Arthur!" Merlin cries, sliding out from underneath the boom and scrambling on his knees to the back of the boat.
It's stupid, really, that Merlin reacts the way he does to the sight of Arthur's motionless form slipping underneath the surface of the water, because Arthur's already dead, and Merlin hasn't any idea how this approximation of a body he's given him relates to that-if it's real, strictly speaking-and what, if anything, would happen to Arthur's ghost if this body died, but he's not thinking about any of that when he finds himself in the water, crashing as fast as he can towards him.
The water's cold and rough and Merlin's only a decent-enough swimmer, really, but he gets there, and a tug of magic pulls them both to the surface. Merlin gasps for breath and clings Arthur tight against him, shaking him and pounding his fist against his chest because he's too still, he's not fucking- "Breathe, you bastard!" Merlin yells, and he can feel the punch of magic behind it, and suddenly Arthur flails against him, coughing up seawater and wheezing a moment before slipping back into unconsciousness, out cold but breathing, his head lolling back onto Merlin's shoulder.
Merlin grips him tighter and screws his eyes up tight, doubling the buoyancy spell beneath them before letting himself feel the relief of it, of Arthur alive and solid against him. He presses his cheek into the slick mess of hair plastered to Arthur's head and pants into the crook of his shoulder, presses his palm against Arthur's chest so he can feel his heartbeat, and he's-
He's done this before.
He's done this-almost exactly this-before. He's pulled Arthur's limp, sodden body to the surface and gasped for breath while rejoicing that Arthur did the same, and it isn't just déjà vu, he remembers it, clearly, but that's-that's impossible. He stares down at the side of Arthur's face, slack and unconscious, and the entire world goes a bit blurry, tilts, and then comes back into focus, and it's true. He can see it all in perfect, crystal clear focus, and fucking hell, Merlin remembers.
His fingers knot into the soaking fabric of Arthur's shirt, desperate and clawing, as an entire lifetime of memories-someone else's, but his-explode into his brain, and when he can breathe again, he manages to loosen his claw-like grip and just float.
They stay like that for a long time, long enough that Merlin can feel his body temperature start to dip in the cold water. He knows he should get Arthur back onto the boat, but he doesn't want to let go, doesn't want to move. He resorts to heating spells instead.
Eventually, Arthur stirs against him, drawing breath through his nose and grunting a wordless question.
"I've got you," Merlin whispers. "You're OK."
"Merlin?" Arthur says, after a moment, and Merlin can hear it in his voice, how much bigger his name has become.
Merlin tightens his hold around Arthur's broad chest and nods furiously. "Yeah," he says. "It's me."
Arthur's heartbeat explodes underneath Merlin's palm, and Merlin can almost taste the adrenaline coming off him, and then his heartbeat, along with the rest of him, is gone. Merlin's arms are suddenly empty, and he's bobbing about in the water all alone.
"Arthur," he sobs, "fuck."
♦♦♦
He remembers everything. Or, at least, he hopes it's everything, because it's a fucking lot.
It starts in Camelot-Camelot, for fuck's sake-an impossibly long time ago, and skips along through history-a village under siege by Normans, another just farming its way peacefully through the fourteenth century, Tudor London and civil war and industrial revolution and more wars with France than Merlin can keep straight-but it's always Arthur, always the two of them back in the world, somehow, reunited by one means or another, and it's-insane.
It's mental, Merlin knows it is, impossible and ridiculous, but-true. It's real, he knows it is, as surely as he knows anything.
It's also confusing as fuck, the way the memories are his but also feel like they belong to someone else, and the only thing Merlin wants right now is to talk to Arthur about it. To see what he's remembering and feeling and thinking, but Arthur still hasn't come back.
He's never been gone this long. At the end of the fourth day without him, Merlin chews the inside of his cheek raw, until he tastes blood, because that's the longest Arthur's ever taken to come back. It's never been easy to predict how long Arthur will be gone, but there's always been some proportion to it: a day or so with him embodied leads to a day or so without him at all. It's a frustratingly imprecise measure, Merlin's internal student of science complains, but that's how his magic's always been, at its most basic. He can learn all the spells he wants, and sometimes they come easily to him and sometimes they don't, but when his magic comes from somewhere else, from that place deep inside him that he'll never really be able to control, all bets are off.
So when Arthur's been gone for five days, and then six, and then seven, after only having been here for an afternoon, Merlin doesn't know what to think.
♦♦♦
The match is hard to light, with Merlin's fingers shaking like they are. It's the middle of the night, and he's awake, again, after dreaming about all the times he almost saw Arthur die. And a few times that he did. He pinches the match harder and strikes it a third time, relieved when it catches. He pokes the flame into the burner, dials on the gas, and with a unnatural puff of wind, it blows out.
He whirls around, and there's Arthur, leaning casually against the edge of the table, arms crossed over his chest, looking every inch the self-satisfied prat he was the first time they met.
"You utter bastard," Merlin whispers, hard, breath caught high in his chest.
"Now that's a bit harsh, isn't it?" Arthur replies, smiling. "You could just use your magic, like you did the last time."
Merlin's jaw clenches.
"In fact, you probably don't need the burner at all, do you? Powerful wizard like you, should be able to manage a cup of tea."
"Do you know how long you've been gone?" Merlin grits out.
Arthur's smug expression falters into something closer to sheepish, maybe even sad. He holds Merlin's eye for a thick moment before glancing down at the burner. "Could you turn the gas off, please," he says, and Merlin frowns at the knob a moment before dialling it down.
"I needed to get my bearings," Arthur says.
"For a week? For an entire week, you let me think-you couldn't pop your stupid ghostly head in for five seconds, just to let me know you hadn't been sucked into the fucking void? I thought you were gone, Arthur, really and truly gone, and I-fuck." He swears and collapses back against the wall.
"I'm sorry. I should have. It's-for what it's worth, it's not been that long for me."
Merlin looks at him. "How long?"
"Day and a half."
Merlin sighs, eyes falling shut in anger, exhaustion, worry and relief. "It took you five days?"
"Apparently."
"But you were only here for an afternoon."
Arthur pauses. "Was a bit of an afternoon, though, wasn't it?"
Merlin looks at him, and the question he's been desperate to ask all week-You remember, too, right?-dies on his lips, because the answer is written all over Arthur's face. Merlin swallows and holds Arthur's gaze.
♦♦♦
Merlin calls in sick to work, and sleeps for nearly two days. Arthur's there, every time he wakes up, sitting by the bed or standing by the window, steady and vigilant, but Merlin can read all the same questions he himself has in the stiff way he holds his shoulders, and the firm clasp of his hands behind his back.
"Would you stop thinking so loudly, please," Merlin says to Arthur's back, silhouetted in the window. "You're keeping me awake."
Arthur turns to him, smiling. "Well, it's about time you got your lazy arse out of bed."
"Yeah, yeah," Merlin says, and rolls onto his side, propping his head up with his elbow. "Come here?"
Arthur hesitates, but comes, and Merlin tries not to wince at the way the mattress doesn't dip at all, when Arthur climbs on top of it. He stretches out next to Merlin, looking embarrassed, and it takes more willpower than Merlin realised he had not to reach out to him.
"What are you thinking?" Merlin asks.
Arthur looks at him, brow creased, and then down at the bed. "That I should go," he says.
Merlin frowns. "Where?"
"Away. That'd be the honourable thing. Give you a chance at a real life."
"I have a real life."
"Yes, and you should share it with someone who is alive, not-"
"Right," Merlin says, flatly, after a moment, "'cause that's gonna happen." He watches Arthur until he looks up, meets his gaze. "I've been sharing my life with you for round about the last thousand years," Merlin says. "There's no getting out of this rut now," and he smiles when Arthur chuckles.
"Where were you?" Arthur whispers, eyes darting around the house he built a hundred years ago, the bed he died in.
"I don't know," Merlin answers. "I haven't got any memories of it."
"None at all?"
Merlin shakes his head. "I might have been here, somewhere-my first memory from all the other times is the day I found you. So I could've had a life, I suppose, and just not remembered it." Since you weren't in it, he doesn't say. Since I wasn't here to stop you dying too soon, and he knows Arthur's thinking the same thing.
"Maybe we just fell out of step," Arthur says. "And I was determined to wait for you."
"God, you would do," Merlin laughs. "Couldn't just die and come back, try again in the next life like a reasonable person, could you?"
"I'm very committed."
Merlin snorts, but feels the pull of it inside him, the truth of it. "What do you think happens now?" he asks. "Are you-stuck here?"
There's a long, heavy silence. "At least you'll know where to find me," Arthur says, with a weak smile.
Merlin watches him for a moment, and then, "No," he says. "No, I think we're meant to fix this."
"Fix it?"
"Yes. Permanently."
"How?" Arthur says, flatly.
"Um, hi… starts with an 'm'?"
Arthur shakes his head. "Merlin, no. Haven't we learnt this lesson before? You can't play with life and death like that, it's too-costly."
Merlin looks at him, jaw tight.
"Maybe it's better this way," Arthur says, "with nothing more left to chance, and-"
"Nothing with us has ever been left to chance, Arthur, and you know it," Merlin says, his voice like iron.
Arthur looks at him. "Yes, but. What if we've reached the end? We have had more than our fair share, Merlin, and maybe this is-"
"No," Merlin says again, with feeling. "Arthur, no-who the fuck says what our fair share is? Or that we're meant to just stop trying, when we've reached it? No. No, we're meant to fix this-why else would I be here? Why did this job just fall into my lap? Or this cottage? There's a way to fix this, Arthur, I know there is. And I'm going to find it."
Arthur just looks at him, his eyes unspeakably full, and another quiet, thick moment passes.
"Merlin," Arthur murmurs, "please," and Merlin knows exactly what he wants. He shuts his eyes against it, because he can't. "Merlin," Arthur tries again.
"You were gone for so long," he replies, desperate.
"I came back."
"What if it takes even longer?"
"I'll come back. I always come back. Please, Merlin, I can't-" he breaks off, and slides closer, close enough that Merlin should be able to feel him breathing. "We haven't since-I haven't touched you since before we-since the day on the boat, and I-"
Merlin says the words before Arthur can finish, and the warm puff of breath that comes against his mouth is the single most perfect thing Merlin's ever felt. Arthur blinks in surprise for only a brief moment before he's on top of Merlin, enveloping him, kissing him deeply.
♦♦♦
Merlin doesn't know if remembering his past lives has connected him to a deeper, more powerful well of magic, or just a deeper well of want with which to power it, but the body he conjures for Arthur that night lasts almost a week and a half, twice as long as the longest-lasting one before that. The time passes in a flurry of nakedness and blissed-out sleep and foggy days at work that last too long, and when it's over, Merlin's got the other side of the coin to deal with, a much longer week and a half spent waiting.
He slumps out the door on a Tuesday morning, rolling his bicycle down the garden path, and startles a chipmunk out from under some leaves. There's a bright red berry visible between its teeth as it scurries off, and Merlin looks to the edge of the garden path.
The lily of the valley is there, thriving, its blossoms long since gone and its berries now a deep red, and Merlin loses his breath at the thought of Arthur, a hundred years ago, on his knees, planting flowers meant to bring the second coming and the return of happiness-without even knowing what it was he was waiting for.
"Gaius," Merlin says, bursting into the pharmacy fifteen minutes later, "I need your help."
Gaius looks at him over the rim of his spectacles. "God's sake, Merlin, what's the matter?"
"It's to do with Arthur," Merlin says, struggling to catch his breath. "My friend, Arthur-do you remember him?"
"Ah," Gaius says, lowering his paper. "You've arrived at it, have you?"
"What?" Merlin says, after a beat.
Gaius folds his newspaper, and reaches behind the till for the Ring Bell for Service placard. "Come with me," he says, and disappears through the door to the backroom.
Merlin just stares for a moment, dumbfounded, before trailing after him.
♦♦♦
Part Three
Author: shes_gone
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~25,000
Summary: Merlin's life in London is a bit of a mess: his career trapped somewhere between student and professional, his love life trapped in a relationship gone sour, and most days he feels physically trapped in the tiny, shared flat he can't afford to move out of-until an unexpected opportunity sends him packing for the coast. There, he meets someone who might be in a even worse fix than he is: Arthur, a Victorian-era sea captain who's trapped, a bit literally, between life and death, and who refuses to leave the house he died in over a hundred years ago.
Warnings: I suppose I need to warn for major character death, but, like. Only sort of. Trust me? :D
Part One
♦♦♦
He spends almost a month researching, after he gets the idea. He flips through all the books in Gaius's backroom and combs the far reaches of the Internet, and comes away feeling… less than confident. Most sources say the spell is only a myth, just a legend without any actual record of it having been successfully cast.
He learns it anyway, though, because-well, just because. A little optimism never hurt anyone.
In the end, it's laughably easy.
"So," Merlin says, cautiously, over his evening tea, "I have an idea." Arthur looks at him with interest, and Merlin starts explaining, mentally lining up all the reasons that Arthur has nothing to worry about, since Merlin's magic is a bit all-or-nothing, working or not working but almost never going haywire or producing wildly unexpected results, but Arthur's agreeing to it before Merlin gets past the initial pitch.
"All right," Arthur says, and he stands expectantly.
"I-are you sure?" Merlin asks, blinking. "You don't want to... think it over? Or have me do more research, or..." Arthur just shrugs, which scares Merlin a little, because he doesn't understand why Arthur trusts him this much.
"Unless there's some horrible side-effect you've chosen not to mention?" Arthur asks, against Merlin's troubled silence.
Merlin shakes his head. "No. I read everything I could find-which wasn't very much at all-and all it mentioned was that you might be a bit tired, afterwards."
"Afterwards," Arthur repeats, looking thoughtful. "How long will it last?"
"I don't know," Merlin answers. "I'd guess at most, about a day. But more likely only a few hours. Maybe less. Assuming it works at all."
Arthur worries his lower lip for a moment, then nods decisively. "I want to try."
Merlin looks up at him and swallows, because he hadn't been sure he was going to try this at all, let alone right now, but there's no real reason to wait, he supposes. It probably won't work anyway.
He stands a few feet from Arthur, taking a deep breath to steady himself as Arthur widens his stance and squares his shoulders, as if expecting a physical blow.
Merlin breathes again, and then it's just a raised arm and a few whispered words, and Merlin can feel his magic pool, focus, and reach for Arthur. It connects, and then there's nothing, just silence between them as Merlin holds his breath, waiting.
Arthur gives a shuttering breath. "Oh," he says, surprised and awed, and Merlin's heart trips over itself because Arthur is-breathing.
"Is that-" Merlin says, "are you-did it-" and he's surprised to find that he's shaking.
Arthur is too, Merlin can see, shaking and breathing hard like he can't quite believe he remembers how, his eyes darting around the kitchen in shock. "Dinner," he says, after a moment, and Merlin frowns.
"Are you hungry?"
Arthur shakes his head. "I can smell it," he says, his eyes locking with Merlin's. "Actually smell it."
"Is that-good?" Merlin asks, and Arthur just beams at him a moment before he's gone, running out the door on heavy footsteps that Merlin can hear, and Merlin just stands there, swaying a little as he tries to catch his breath, because-that wasn't supposed to work. That spell was supposed to be a myth. He swallows and steadies himself, and while this isn't the first time his magic has caught him by surprise, he's not been quite this startled by it in a long time.
His eyes drift to the window and fix on Arthur, who's standing with his face to the sun, head thrown back, chest rising and falling with deep purpose. The moment stretches out, strangely suspended, and Merlin can't move until Arthur opens his eyes and looks back at the house.
"Merlin!" he calls. "Merlin, come out here," with an almost manic happiness in his voice. "Can you smell it?" he says, when Merlin steps outside. "The sea?"
Merlin nods, smiling. A warm breeze blows into the garden, carrying the scent of flowers, and Arthur closes his eyes. His hair rustles over his forehead, catching the sun in glints, and Merlin's smile breaks into a grin, wide and large, fit to split his face in two.
When Arthur looks at Merlin again, his expression is full and overwhelming. "Thank you," he says, and Merlin can only nod before he has to pull his eyes away.
"So what would you like to do?" Merlin asks, after a few minutes during which Arthur just wanders around the garden, running his fingers over the shrubbery and the fence and the smooth stones of the walkway. "We could go down to the water, or into town if there's something special you want to eat, or… I dunno. Anything."
Arthur just looks at him.
"Or-you could, I mean," Merlin stumbles out. "I don't have to go with you."
Arthur's brow furrows and his eyes hover on Merlin for another moment before flitting away. "You don't know how long this will last, right? Maybe only be an hour?"
"Maybe," Merlin replies, apologetically. "I have no idea."
"And… is this it?" Arthur asks. "Would it-would the spell work a second time?"
Merlin just shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. I don't see why it wouldn't, but-"
Arthur swallows and nods, glancing back at Merlin before turning his gaze out to the world around them, the sky and the sea and the trees and the road and everything, looking untethered and lost, like trying to prioritise it all is killing him, and Merlin can't even imagine.
He doesn't notice that he's stepped over to where Arthur's standing until Arthur gives a small start and looks down to where Merlin's hand is resting on his forearm. Merlin blinks, and thinks he should pull his hand back, but he can't. The warmth of the touch magnetic, and Merlin can't move, can't speak, as Arthur stares at him, expression unreadable, and then leans in to kiss him.
Merlin gasps into it, Arthur's lips against his, solid and warm and real. Arthur kisses him once, twice, and then pulls back to look at him. Merlin sways towards him, and feels Arthur's hand settle over his own.
"If all I have is an hour," Arthur says, "then I want you."
"Oh thank god," Merlin says, and they're kissing again, Arthur's fingertips warm and gentle on the side of his throat, and Merlin can feel his own pulse like a runaway train underneath them.
Arthur's hair is sun-warmed and soft when Merlin's fingers slide into it, and the hands at his back are strong even as they still tremble a little, and Arthur's mouth is hot and eager, and Merlin can't stop grinning because Arthur is here, solid and warm and real, and he wants this, too.
"Wanted this so bad," Merlin mumbles into Arthur's mouth. "So fucking bad, but I wasn't sure you'd-I mean, you're from a different time, and-"
"Merlin," Arthur interrupts, lips already pink and wet, "the one thing I can do when I haven't got a body? Is talk. So for now, would you please just-shut up."
Merlin gives a breathy, somewhat manic laugh, and is all too happy to oblige.
His hand has only just slipped into Arthur's trousers, fingers barely grasping at his cock, when Arthur makes a surprised, choked-off noise and goes still, his cock twitching under Merlin's touch. Merlin blinks and then Arthur's leaning against him, breathing hard and getting heavier, his legs giving out. Merlin steps a foot back and grapples for hold on him, then eases him down to sitting in the grass, eyebrows rising when Arthur collapses onto his back.
With an amused smile and nothing else for it, Merlin lies down next him, ignoring his own erection in favour of curling in close to Arthur on the grass, heavy and sated and achingly warm.
"I'm sorry," Arthur says, a few minutes later, eyes closed and mouth drawn in embarrassment. Merlin bites his own lip and just looks at him a moment before kissing him.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" he says, grinning, and enjoys the warm puff of laughter that slips out of Arthur's mouth.
♦♦♦
Later, spread out on the bed, Merlin is pulled back to awareness by the soft drag of fingers along the underside of his knee. He inhales quietly and looks down, watches Arthur studying him, exploring every inch of skin with his fingers and his palms and his lips.
"Arthur," Merlin whispers, giving a small shudder as the last of his orgasm-induced haze fades. His skin feels electric, alive and hot along the trail of where Arthur's been, touching him, kissing him, tasting him, smelling him, and it's almost too much.
"It's so good," Arthur says, climbing overtop of him when Merlin paws at him. "You feel so-so good."
"You too," Merlin says, the words disappearing into the soft wetness of Arthur's mouth.
He presses his body up against Arthur's and smiles when he feels Arthur's cock, hot and hard again. Arthur grunts at the contact and lets his head fall to Merlin's shoulder. "What d'you want?" Merlin asks, dipping his nose into blond hair.
Arthur just groans and shifts, slotting his body more closely against Merlin's, until his cock slides between Merlin's thighs.
"Think you can handle more than just my fingers this time?" Merlin quips, and Arthur gives an embarrassed whimper against Merlin's collarbone. Merlin grins and nips at the shell of his ear affectionately. "My mouth, maybe?" he whispers.
Arthur draws a quick breath, and Merlin squeezes his thighs together at the small, seemingly inadvertent thrust of Arthur's hips.
"Or my arse?" Merlin breathes, right into Arthur's ear.
Arthur gives a full-body shudder, and goes still.
"D'you want to fuck me?" Merlin asks, and Arthur presses his forehead against Merlin's shoulder a long moment before looking up at him, eyes dark and deep.
"You don't-you don't have to let me," he says, voice shaking so that Merlin has no choice but to kiss him.
"I want you to, you prat," Merlin says, and kisses Arthur again before stretching out from underneath him to reach for lube and a condom from the nightstand drawer.
Arthur rolls off to the side, giving Merlin room to manoeuvre. "Do you think we need that?" he asks, eying the foil packet.
Merlin looks at him. "The condom?" Arthur nods. "I-yes. I always use one."
"Always?"
Merlin nods. "Did you have them yet?"
"Yes. And they were useless. Armour against pleasure, cobweb against infection," he says flatly.
Merlin bites back a smile. "They're better now."
"I don't doubt it, but-all the same, do you really think we need it? This is a brand new body. I haven't had the chance to sully it yet."
Merlin huffs a laugh, and then considers it, because Arthur might have a point. But, "Sorry, no," he says. "I have no idea how new or not this body actually is, and I'm not risking it. Bloody sailor."
"You are the one with an entire drawer full of French preventatives," Arthur argues, smiling.
"That's life in the twenty-first century, my friend," Merlin says, haughtily. "Take it or leave it."
Arthur looks at him a moment, then laughs, knocking their foreheads together. "I'll take it," he says, and Merlin smiles.
Merlin tears open the condom and smirks as he rolls it over Arthur's cock, then wraps his hand around it and gives a squeeze. Arthur gasps, blinking. "Does that feel like armour to you?" Merlin asks, trailing his finger along the length of the latex.
Arthur shakes his head a bit helplessly. "It does seem like an improvement."
"Good," Merlin murmurs, dragging his thumb over the head of Arthur's cock. "Now," he says, "do you want to open me up? Or do you want to watch me do it?"
Arthur swallows. "Maybe I should just watch, for a minute," he says.
Arranging himself so that Arthur has a good view, Merlin opens the lube, slicks his finger, and reaches back to his hole. Arthur's breathing is audible as Merlin rubs a fingertip over himself, and it grows quicker and louder when Merlin presses inside.
"Arthur, god," Merlin says, watching his face.
Arthur's on him instantly, face in his neck and hand on his thigh and, "May I help?" he says. "I want to help."
"Be my guest," Merlin chuckles.
Arthur fumbles around for the lube and then there's a slick, eager finger touching Merlin's, rubbing at the rim of his arse and sliding inside, pressing wetly in alongside it. "Fuck," Merlin gasps, arching into it.
Arthur's other hand comes to Merlin's hip, careful and deliberate even as their fingers slide over one another inside him, and it takes Merlin's breath, the way Arthur touches him, like every press of skin needs to be savoured and remembered. He bites at his lip and bears down on their joined fingers, until Arthur takes the hint and adds another. The rest of his hand curls around Merlin's, his thumb pressing wetly into Merlin's palm.
"I'm ready," Merlin says, when he can trust his voice. "I-fuck, that's good-you can-please-"
Arthur presses his hand against Merlin's hip as he withdraws their fingers. Merlin wraps his legs around him as he slicks himself and moves forward, one hand pressed to Merlin's thigh and the other guiding his cock as the head slips easily inside.
Merlin closes his eyes and sighs into the wet slide of it, the perfect way Arthur fits inside him, and when he opens his eyes after a long, perfect minute, Arthur's just hovering there, eyes a bit wild and desperate, pinning Merlin to the bed with something so earnest and raw that Merlin has to breathe hard against the words that suddenly appear in his throat, too big and too soon.
It's a moment before he trusts himself even to reach for Arthur's arm, to pull him down by it and kiss him on the mouth, wet and deep.
"Move," he grits out, when the moment's passed, and Arthur does.
♦♦♦
When Merlin wakes up, Arthur is gone. There's no warmth left in the space where he slept, and the only evidence that he was there at all is the tender ache in Merlin's arse, and the invisible fingerprints all over his skin. "Arthur?" he asks, voice echoing the dark, quiet room.
All he gets in response is silence, and he rolls over to bury his face in Arthur's pillow, breathing deeply, but there's nothing. Any smell he might have left behind is gone as well, dematerialised right along with him.
Merlin rolls onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes against the wave of heartache, and wills himself to just fall back asleep.
Sleep refuses to come, and eventually Merlin gives up on it, climbs out of bed and pads out onto the balcony, trying not to think about anything. He looks out over the water, and sees a ship, its beacon bright and low on the horizon. He stares at it, wondering if it's coming or going as dawn seeps into the landscape around it. Its light lasts longer than any of the stars overhead, and when it's gone, Merlin doesn't know if someone's just shut it off, or if the ship's sailed past the curve of the earth.
♦♦♦
By mid-afternoon, the day's clouded over and Merlin's sitting in the parlour listening to the rain, ignoring the book in his lap and staring at the large portrait on the wall, trying not to lose his mind.
Arthur's been gone all day.
Merlin hasn't any idea why, nor how worried he should be. It might be something in the aftermath of the spell keeping him away, or it might just be Arthur staying away, and Merlin can't decide which would be worse. He swallows and tells himself he's being melodramatic, that it's really only been a matter of hours, even if it's rather a lot of hours, and he shouldn't be so worried.
The book he holds hasn't a chance of distracting him, though, and so he just sits, willing the rain to drown out the sound of his thoughts.
"Good book?" comes a voice from the doorway, and Merlin nearly leaps off the sofa.
"Where've you been?" he asks, after a moment, and he's glad he manages to keep most of his hurt out of his tone.
"I don't know," Arthur says, wary, and Merlin looks at him. "How long have I been gone?"
Merlin shakes his head. "At least since I woke up, just before dawn."
Arthur glances at the clock, which reads nearly four. "I lost the whole day," he says, and it sounds like a question.
"So you've been, what? Unconscious?"
"Something like that, I suppose."
"What do you remember?" Merlin asks.
Arthur shrugs. "Nothing, really. I remember falling asleep," he says, "with you. And when I woke up just now, it-it was like waking up from sleep, but-different."
"How?"
"I don't know. But I could tell that time had passed. Too much."
"Are you-OK? How do you feel?"
Arthur just looks at him a moment, and Merlin really hopes he doesn't come back with his standard I'm dead, Merlin, because Merlin doesn't think he could handle that right now. But Arthur just nods. "I'm fine."
"Good," Merlin says, nodding. And, after a moment, "I suppose that's what it meant about you being tired afterwards."
"I suppose," Arthur agrees, and then there's silence.
Merlin has a lot that he wants to say, but he doesn't know where to start, or how much Arthur would want to hear. "I'm sorry you didn't have more time," he settles on.
"Me too," Arthur answers, after a moment.
Merlin stares at the book in his lap, fiddles with the pages. "You didn't even get off the property," he says. "There must be so much more that you wanted to do."
"Not really, no," Arthur says, and when Merlin looks up at him, he can see that there's a lot Arthur wants to say, too, and a quiver of excitement shoots through Merlin's gut.
Neither of them says anything, but the way Arthur's looking at him sets the corners of Merlin's mouth twitching upwards, and then Arthur's smiling, and there's silly happiness bubbling up inside Merlin's chest and he probably shouldn't let it-no, he really shouldn't let it, because this isn't that simple, this isn't like any other morning-after he's ever had (or ever will, probably), but maybe they can pretend it is, for a little while.
"I want to try it again," Arthur blurts. "I need to know if the spell will work again."
Merlin looks at him. "I-yeah. OK," because there's no point in pretending he doesn't want to.
Arthur grins and comes over to the sofa, stopping right in front of Merlin expectantly.
"D'you mean right now?" Merlin asks, laughing.
"Yes, why not?" Arthur says. "Have you something else to do?"
Merlin grins up at him, but can't ignore the sobering thought nagging at him. "You were gone all day, Arthur, and neither of us knows what really happened, or why. Maybe we should wait, just a little," he says. "Just to be sure that you really are OK."
"I'm fine, Merlin, honestly. I feel-exactly like I did before. I've not been through any sort of ordeal. Please."
"What if you're gone all day again tomorrow?"
"So what if I am?" Arthur says, earning himself a disapproving look from Merlin. "You'll be at work tomorrow, anyway, so you won't be here to miss me."
Merlin frowns, but feels his resolve wavering at the look on Arthur's face. "What if it gets worse? What if you're gone longer?"
"What if it gets easier?" Arthur counters. "Maybe what I need is training."
"Maybe what you need is rest."
"I've been resting for a hundred years, Merlin," and now the look in Arthur's eye is more pleading than it is playful, more raw want than anything else, and Merlin feels it twist inside him. "Please," Arthur says, and reaches for Merlin's face, but stops before his hand gets there, sparing them both the nothingness they would feel.
Merlin's hand is raised in answer before he quite gives it permission to be, and he's speaking the words, and Arthur's warm, solid fingers tangle in his for a brief moment before Arthur's on the sofa, pulling Merlin on top of him.
♦♦♦
"Merlin, what are you-" Gaius cuts himself off and grabs the small bottle out of Merlin's hand before any of the contents pours out.
Merlin blinks at him, a bit blearily, then down at the concoction in front of him.
"Did you even read the instructions?" Gaius scolds.
"Sorry, yes," Merlin says. "I just grabbed the wrong bottle. I'll pay closer attention, sorry."
Gaius looks at him, exasperated expression shifting to concern. "Are you feeling all right? You look a bit run down."
Merlin nods. "I'm OK, yeah. Just tired." Arthur was still gone when Merlin arrived home last night, and Merlin didn't sleep a wink all night, waiting for him. The waiting should be getting easier, he thinks. He knows Arthur isn't staying away on purpose, and he knows-or thinks he knows-that he's OK, that he can come back, that he will, and Merlin just has to be patient.
Gaius frowns at him. "Do you want to take a little something home to help you sleep tonight?"
Merlin smiles. "No, thanks. I think it's due to catch up with me. Probably sleep like a baby tonight."
"Mmm," Gaius says, unconvinced. "Why don't you take your lunch, and come back to this once you've raised your blood sugar a bit."
Merlin nods, grateful, and retrieves his lunch from the fridge-the pasta he'd made for dinner last night, and been unable eat. Gaius leaves him to it, and Merlin's picking at it and ignoring all the horrible scenarios involving Arthur playing out in his mind, when Arthur himself suddenly appears.
"What the-" Merlin says, dropping his fork. "Arthur!"
"Sorry," Arthur says, "I know I shouldn't come here."
Merlin gapes at him, heart hammering with shock and relief. "I-it's OK," he manages.
"I saw the calendar," Arthur explains, "and I just-wanted you to know that I've returned."
Merlin just looks at him, and manages a nod. He catches his breath after a minute, and the silence that falls between them is thick and heavy. Arthur opens and closes his mouth more than once, and Merlin can't think of a single bloody thing to say, so he just swallows and holds Arthur's gaze.
"Merlin," a voice comes from behind him, though it takes Merlin a moment to register it. "Did you say there were five or six orders that came in for-oh, hello," Gaius breaks off, rounding the corner into the room fully.
Merlin starts, suddenly snapping out his daze at the realisation that Gaius and Arthur are in the same room and Arthur, for whatever ungodly reason hasn't dematerialised. Arthur suddenly starts as well, eyes going wide and darting over to stare at Gaius in open horror. Neither of them says a thing, though Merlin feels his mouth flapping a little.
"I'm Gaius," Gaius says, looking at them both with concern. "And it's all right, I allow visitors."
Arthur remembers himself first, blinking and straightening and moving towards Gaius. "Gaius," he says, "Arthur," and for an awful moment Merlin thinks he might try to shake the man's hand before he stops, shoving his hands into his pockets with an awkward smile. "I've... heard so much about you," he says.
"Have you, now?" Gaius replies. "Nothing too terrible, I hope?"
"Certainly not," Arthur says, and Gaius chuckles.
"Arthur's my-visitor," Merlin stammers. "He's here… visiting. For a while."
"How nice," Gaius says, kindly ignoring Merlin's verbal flailing. "I hope you're enjoying your stay so far?" Gaius smiles as Arthur nods. "I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch, Merlin, but I can't remember if you said there were four or five orders for, um," he glances at Arthur, "that came in on the email."
"The website," Merlin corrects him gently. "And it was six, I think."
"Ah yes, right. I should be able to prepare that this afternoon. Could you, when you get a chance, show me one more time how to… look at it? The website, I mean."
"Of course," Merlin says, smiling. "We're expanding," he explains, with a glance at Arthur. "Gaius brews an excellent variety of traditional medicinal and magical remedies," he says, with a reassuring glance at Gaius, "the sort most people can't find in their local pharmacies anymore. So we've stated a mail-order business, to grow our customer base."
"Except it's on the Internet," Gaius says, turning self-deprecating eyes on Arthur. "Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day someone in Estonia could buy Wolfsbane on their computer."
"Nor did I," Arthur replies, with feeling, and Merlin glares at him.
Gaius chuckles, smiling at Arthur, and then cocks his head, like something's just caught his attention. "Have you visited before, Arthur?" he asks.
Arthur blinks.
"There's something very familiar about you."
Arthur's eyebrows go up, and Merlin feels his stomach clench. "People say that to him all the time," Merlin says, a bit too loudly. "He's just got one of those faces."
"Do you have family in Whitecliff?" Gaius persists, studying Arthur's face.
Arthur frowns. "No, sir," he says. "Not anymore."
"But you did?"
"Yes, but," and his voice goes quiet, "generations ago. It has been a very long time."
"Well, I'm a very old man, my boy."
"Not old enough, I'm afraid," Arthur replies. "It's been over a hundred years since my family left."
"What was their surname?"
After a breath, "Pendragon."
"Pendragon," Gaius repeats to himself. "Pendrag-oh yes, of course!" he says, gesturing. "The hotel! That's who you look like, the boy in portrait."
Merlin feels his eyes bug a little, and he watches Arthur stare at Gaius.
"The hotel?" Arthur asks, after moment.
"Yes," Gaius says. "Have you not been there? Right next to the golf course. That was your family's estate."
"I've not been there yet, no," Arthur says, when Gaius pauses, waiting for a response.
"Oh, you must go. It's a lovely old place. They turned it into a hotel between the wars-maybe earlier, actually. My father used to take me there. He was the town physician, of course, and I'd tag along when he went up to treat someone staying there. I'd sit in the main hall and wait for him to finish, earning tips off the guests by carrying their bags up the stairs-all the while, feeling Lord Pendragon watching me disapprovingly."
Arthur stiffens, but Gaius doesn't notice, chuckling before he continues. "That man intimidated me from beyond the grave, let me tell you. I don't know how many hours I spent transfixed by the large portrait of him and his son over the stairs." He looks at Arthur carefully. "It's been years since I've been up there, but I remember it very clearly, and you are the spitting image of that boy. He must be your... what? Great-grandfather? Great-great, perhaps?"
It takes Arthur a long moment to say anything. "I, um-"
"Oh, no wait," Gaius interrupts him. "He died quite young, didn't he? I don't think he had any children." There's a heavy pause. "I suppose Lord Pendragon must have remarried, after leaving Whitecliff, eh? For here you are."
"Here I am," Arthur agrees, weakly.
"How do you know so much about the Pendragons, Gaius?" Merlin asks.
Gaius shakes his head. "When you've lived this long in one place, my boy, you know all the local legends."
Merlin stares at Arthur, who's gone as white as a-well, ghost.
Gaius looks back and forth between the two of them. "Well," he says, after an awkward moment, "I'm sorry to have interrupted your visit."
"Not at all," Arthur says, looking up at him. "It was very nice to meet you."
"And you," Gaius answers. "And might I say, welcome home."
♦♦♦
"This is a bad idea," Arthur says, when they reach the large entrance gates where the drive meets the road.
"Nonsense," Merlin replies. "This is a brilliant idea."
"Can't we just go home and have sex again?
"No. Seven times in thirty-six hours is enough. I'm sore, and I know you are too."
"What if I disappear while someone is watching?" Arthur moans.
Merlin shrugs. "I'll deny ever having seen you, and strongly imply that anyone who says anything is off their rocker."
Arthur scowls at him. "That is a terrible plan."
"You're just nervous."
"I am not."
Merlin throws him a sideways glance and starts walking up the drive. "C'mon, I want you to show me around." Arthur grumbles, but starts after him, up the inclined path towards the old manor house.
It's taken Merlin several weeks to talk Arthur into this, weeks that have passed so quickly he's almost lost count of them in the ever-shifting landscape of their relationship. They've fallen headlong into an intoxicating cycle of magic and sex and waiting, and Merlin wonders if it isn't driving him a bit mad. His spells are getting stronger, though, lasting longer-the more he feels himself wanting Arthur, really wanting him, the longer Arthur sticks around. When they time it right, Arthur can have a body for an entire weekend, sometimes even a little longer. Of course, the flip side is that he's gone longer, too, afterwards, but Merlin's trying not to think about right now.
They walk in silence for a short while. Merlin looks up at the large stone building as they approach it, and tries not to feel intimidated. He imagines Arthur as a child, calling it home.
"Oh, let's go down here first," Arthur says, when they come to a fork in the drive. "The stables used to be just back here."
"Lead the way," Merlin says, and follows him.
"I don't understand," Arthur says, frustrated, several minutes later. "Why would they let them fall into such disrepair? And why aren't they keeping horses? Do people not ride for pleasure anymore? Isn't that something their guests might like?"
"I dunno," Merlin says. "They should. Seems like a waste."
Inside isn't much better, when they walk into the main hall, after finding the doors unlocked. It's clean, and better kept-up than the stables, but that's not saying a lot.
The reception desk shows signs of someone working-the lamps are turned on, and there's a cup of tea sitting next to a battered paperback novel-but it's currently abandoned. There's a muffled sound of a hoover, running somewhere upstairs.
"We should go," Arthur says, as Merlin wanders over to the staircase. "They wouldn't want us just nosing around."
"We're not going to do any harm," Merlin reasons, and he looks up at the large portrait over the stairs, just as Gaius described it. Arthur is about fifteen or sixteen, holding a rifle and dressed in a hunting costume, standing stiffly behind a devoted-looking Springer Spaniel and next to his father. Merlin gives a small swallow at the sight of the man, tall and hard and imposing. He tries to see the man that Arthur says cared so much for the people of Whitecliff, but it isn't easy.
"Well, I can see where you got your good looks, anyway," Merlin says.
Arthur glares at him sidelong, and Merlin bites back a smile, once again imagining Arthur as a child, hovered over by his governess and his tutors, his riding instructors and sailing instructors and hunting instructors, and whatever other sorts of instructors children like him had.
"Did you have a nice childhood?" Merlin asks.
"Yes," Arthur says, after a moment. "I suppose I did. My father wasn't-he did what he could, in the absence of my mother and-I was happy, yes."
"I want to see your old bedroom," Merlin says, biting back a grin.
Arthur's eyebrows draw together a bit. "I'm sure it's not the same as it was."
"I don't care."
"It's probably a guestroom and is probably locked."
"I-don't care," Merlin says, grinning. "Let's go see," and he jogs up the stairs, Arthur reluctantly following.
♦♦♦
"They're idiots," Arthur says hotly, sprawled on his back. "I don't see that they are even trying."
"Mmm-hmm," Merlin says, agreeably. He digs down past the top layer of sand for the stuff that's still cool and wet, and scoops a handful.
"They wouldn't have to spend a great amount to get started-they already have a couple of sailboats, she said. So use them, for god's sake! Offer lessons! Surely some of the local townspeople have grandchildren they would send along."
"That's a good idea," Merlin agrees, slapping the sand down on Arthur's bare chest, and smoothing it out. "And I bet it'd attract more families with children to come on holiday, if they advertised it right."
"Exactly!" Arthur agrees, heartily. "And sailing is just the beginning! Honestly, with only a small bit of creative thought, they could increase their revenue and fix the place up, have a chance at actually doing a decent business."
"You should offer them your services," Merlin says, smirking.
Arthur rolls his eyes and lets his head fall back with a sigh. Merlin piles more sand onto his chest and spreads it out. "That feels nice," Arthur says, and Merlin smiles.
They're both quite for a while, Merlin steadily burying Arthur's torso, enjoying the sun, and listening to the birds and the waves and the wind.
"So your year here is more than half over already," Arthur says, and Merlin startles a little, his hand stilling over Arthur's sandy stomach. He looks up at Arthur's face, but his eyes are closed against the sun.
"It is," he says, swallowing.
"What will you do, after your time with Gaius?" Arthur asks. "Go back to London?"
Merlin reaches behind himself for another handful of sand. "I haven't really thought about it yet," he says, almost truthfully. "I have to pass the board exam, before I can start a real job anywhere."
Arthur nods, eyes still closed.
Merlin focuses intently on spreading sand over Arthur's hip. "I think," he says, stomach suddenly in knots, "if I told him that I wanted him to, Gaius might offer to hire me on as his assistant." He swallows when Arthur doesn't say anything. "The internet sales are going really well, and I think he might like to keep me around to help with that."
One of Arthur's eyes open, and he squints down at Merlin. "I thought you said the appeal of doing business on the internet was that you could live anywhere you wanted, and still be successful."
Merlin nods, and meets his gaze. "Anywhere I want, yeah." Arthur looks at him a long moment, his other eye blinking open.
He pulls his gaze away, and there's a quiet moment before, "I have sand everywhere," he says, lifting his head to survey Merlin's work. He frowns. "What is that?" he says, dubiously.
Merlin grins. "Don't you recognise it?"
Arthur gives him a levelling look.
"I think it's some of my best work," Merlin says, "if I do say so myself."
Arthur growls and launches up towards him, breaking up the hard-packed sand and sending the erect cock Merlin sculpted crumbling back onto the beach. Merlin laughs and takes off running towards the water and will insist, later, that the reason he gets caught and tackled into the waves so easily isn't Arthur's remarkable physical prowess, but the strength of his own desire to get away.
♦♦♦
That evening, sunburnt and fucked-out and exhausted, Merlin stares at the half-played game of chess in front of him and makes a mental list of all the reasons that falling this hard for someone-for anyone, let alone-is a bad idea. He's never been exactly careful with his heart, preferring to give it away every time he's had the chance, and he's been hurt for it, in the past.
This, though. He's never felt anything like this.
He takes a sip from Arthur's abandoned beer bottle and tries not to think about it, choosing instead to finish the move he'd been in the middle of when Arthur disappeared.
♦♦♦
"I know it mustn't sound terribly impressive to you," Arthur says, weeks later, as he runs his fingers lazily along the length of Merlin's arm, "in an age when you can get on an airplane and be anywhere in the world in a matter of just hours, but-for me, in my time, to have seen so much of the world as such a young man, it-it was special. I was very lucky."
Merlin can't help his smile. "It is impressive," he says. "Even now." A breeze blows across the balcony, chill with the fading influence of summer, and Merlin shivers.
"Do you want to go inside?" Arthur asks, wrapping his bare arms around Merlin's chest for warmth.
"No," Merlin says, and burrows a little further into the cradle of Arthur's lap, until he can feel Arthur's cock nestled between the cheeks of his arse. "I like it right here," he says, and Arthur presses a kiss to his temple.
Merlin sighs and looks up at the stars, eyes following a plane crossing the sky, and then drifting to the light of a ship out on the water.
"I've never been anywhere," he says, a bit sheepishly, "despite all my technologically advanced travel options."
"Nowhere?" Arthur asks.
"Well, unless France counts as somewhere, which it doesn't. We did make it Spain one weekend, but we ran out of money and had to leave before we really saw anything. So believe me, your travels are very impressive."
"I wish I could take you somewhere," Arthur says.
Merlin smiles. "Where?"
"Anywhere. Everywhere-as many places as we had time for."
"Where first?" Merlin asks, resting his back flat against Arthur's chest to he can feel the rumble of his voice.
"The North Cape," Arthur says, easily.
"The North Cape?" Merlin repeats, bemused. "The most romantic place you can think of is in the Arctic Circle?"
"Yes," Arthur says, thwaping Merlin on the arm, but his indignation is tempered a bit by the way he presses the word into Merlin's hair. "I'd take you in the summertime, so we could drop anchor in a fjord and then I would fuck you all night, underneath the midnight sun."
"Sounds cold," Merlin says, grinning.
"Fine," Arthur says, and Merlin can almost hear him rolling his eyes, "after that, we'll head towards the Caribbean."
"Mmm, better."
"And Barbados. I'll sail you across the reef where the blue water turns green."
"You gonna fuck me all night there, too?"
"Greedy," Arthur chides. "I think I ought to make you fuck me while we're there."
Merlin grins. "Officially sold on Barbados."
"And then… down to the Falklands, so you can see the southerly gale rip the whole sea white."
"And then?"
"Anywhere you want."
Merlin closes his eyes. "Let's do it," he says. "Let's just-go. Do all those things."
Arthur huffs a small laugh, and pulls his arms tighter around Merlin's chest.
"Seriously," Merlin says. "I'll quit my job, and... steal us a boat, and we can spend the rest of my life at sea, you showing me everything there is."
Arthur laughs. "Because that could only end well, given what an excellent sailor you are."
"Shut up, I'd learn! C'mon, let's be pirates. I'd be a brilliant pirate."
"You would be a terrible pirate. And, as an officer in the Royal navy, might I remind you that piracy is not joke."
"Then why are you smiling?"
"I'm not," Arthur insists, though it's plain in his voice that he is. "I would never be a pirate."
"Even if I asked you really nicely?"
"Even then."
"Even if it meant you could fuck me in a fjord?"
Arthur pauses. "Probably not even then," he says, and Merlin laughs.
"Well, all right," Merlin allows. "No piracy. You should take me sailing again, though, now that you're here to actually do the sailing. It's a bit criminal, that you haven't been back out on the water."
"I would love that," Arthur says, warm and genuine.
♦♦♦
Sailing, Merlin concedes, is completely brilliant, when someone who knows what they're doing is at the helm.
It's a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in early September, the kind you have no choice but to savour. Arthur navigates them out of the harbour easily, deftly, and Merlin does exactly as he's told, which mostly just involves moving around the boat, a bit closer to the bow or the stern, a bit to port or to starboard, as Arthur tries to find the best balance of their weights.
"It's a good thing you are so small," Arthur says. "I'm accustomed to a much heavier boat, where one person's weight doesn't matter so much." Merlin just sticks his tongue out at him.
And when they're out on the water, with the wind behind them and the sun on their faces and the salty spray everywhere, Merlin can't take his eyes off him or the the happiness that's pouring off him in waves, glittering off the wake behind him.
Arthur sees him and grins. "Turn around!" he chides, calling over the wind. "It's beautiful and you're missing it!"
Merlin smiles. "It is," he agrees. "And I'm not."
Arthur just looks at him a moment before looking away, rolling his eyes, but his cheeks pink as he checks the sails. Merlin's smile just gets bigger.
He bites his lip and looks away, out at the water and the sun, down to the boat beneath him, and then back at Arthur, mischievously. Arthur raises his eyebrows in question.
Carefully, probably overly so, since he has no real sense of how his weight actually affects the stability of the boat, Merlin turns to face Arthur fully, and then lowers himself down onto his back, stretching out suggestively. It's a small boat, but there's room enough.
"What d'you think?" he calls to Arthur. "Will a boat this size do, or will I need to steal something bigger?"
Arthur stares down at him, amused gaze turning glassy and wanting almost immediately, and Merlin imagines them both naked, Arthur stretched out over top of him, pushing into him as their little boat bobs over the waves, and, fuck, the sunburn would be completely worth it.
Merlin feels himself start to grow hard at the thought, and Arthur watches him like a hawk as Merlin reaches down to palm himself through his jeans.
He closes his eyes and sighs into the pressure, pushing his hips up against his hand, completely shameless, and Arthur was right-he really would make a shitty pirate, because he doesn't recognise the sound of the sail flagging and then snapping to attention, the squeak of the sliding metal or the sickening thump until it's all over, and he opens his eyes to see the sail billowing directly above him, which isn't where it's supposed to be at all.
"Arthur?" he says, lifting his head to look down to the stern. Arthur isn't there, nor anywhere to be seen, and the first thought Merlin has is that his spell must have been absolute rubbish this time, if it couldn't last long enough to give Arthur a full afternoon on the water. He lets his head fall back against the boat with a disappointed thunk, dreading not only getting this boat back to harbour by himself, but the indefinite number of lonely hours in front of him, waiting for Arthur to come back.
But then his head snaps up again, because there was a thump, as the boom came flying across the boat, which means it hit something, and Arthur was there, solid and distracted and oh sweet fucking Christ. "Arthur!" Merlin cries, sliding out from underneath the boom and scrambling on his knees to the back of the boat.
It's stupid, really, that Merlin reacts the way he does to the sight of Arthur's motionless form slipping underneath the surface of the water, because Arthur's already dead, and Merlin hasn't any idea how this approximation of a body he's given him relates to that-if it's real, strictly speaking-and what, if anything, would happen to Arthur's ghost if this body died, but he's not thinking about any of that when he finds himself in the water, crashing as fast as he can towards him.
The water's cold and rough and Merlin's only a decent-enough swimmer, really, but he gets there, and a tug of magic pulls them both to the surface. Merlin gasps for breath and clings Arthur tight against him, shaking him and pounding his fist against his chest because he's too still, he's not fucking- "Breathe, you bastard!" Merlin yells, and he can feel the punch of magic behind it, and suddenly Arthur flails against him, coughing up seawater and wheezing a moment before slipping back into unconsciousness, out cold but breathing, his head lolling back onto Merlin's shoulder.
Merlin grips him tighter and screws his eyes up tight, doubling the buoyancy spell beneath them before letting himself feel the relief of it, of Arthur alive and solid against him. He presses his cheek into the slick mess of hair plastered to Arthur's head and pants into the crook of his shoulder, presses his palm against Arthur's chest so he can feel his heartbeat, and he's-
He's done this before.
He's done this-almost exactly this-before. He's pulled Arthur's limp, sodden body to the surface and gasped for breath while rejoicing that Arthur did the same, and it isn't just déjà vu, he remembers it, clearly, but that's-that's impossible. He stares down at the side of Arthur's face, slack and unconscious, and the entire world goes a bit blurry, tilts, and then comes back into focus, and it's true. He can see it all in perfect, crystal clear focus, and fucking hell, Merlin remembers.
His fingers knot into the soaking fabric of Arthur's shirt, desperate and clawing, as an entire lifetime of memories-someone else's, but his-explode into his brain, and when he can breathe again, he manages to loosen his claw-like grip and just float.
They stay like that for a long time, long enough that Merlin can feel his body temperature start to dip in the cold water. He knows he should get Arthur back onto the boat, but he doesn't want to let go, doesn't want to move. He resorts to heating spells instead.
Eventually, Arthur stirs against him, drawing breath through his nose and grunting a wordless question.
"I've got you," Merlin whispers. "You're OK."
"Merlin?" Arthur says, after a moment, and Merlin can hear it in his voice, how much bigger his name has become.
Merlin tightens his hold around Arthur's broad chest and nods furiously. "Yeah," he says. "It's me."
Arthur's heartbeat explodes underneath Merlin's palm, and Merlin can almost taste the adrenaline coming off him, and then his heartbeat, along with the rest of him, is gone. Merlin's arms are suddenly empty, and he's bobbing about in the water all alone.
"Arthur," he sobs, "fuck."
♦♦♦
He remembers everything. Or, at least, he hopes it's everything, because it's a fucking lot.
It starts in Camelot-Camelot, for fuck's sake-an impossibly long time ago, and skips along through history-a village under siege by Normans, another just farming its way peacefully through the fourteenth century, Tudor London and civil war and industrial revolution and more wars with France than Merlin can keep straight-but it's always Arthur, always the two of them back in the world, somehow, reunited by one means or another, and it's-insane.
It's mental, Merlin knows it is, impossible and ridiculous, but-true. It's real, he knows it is, as surely as he knows anything.
It's also confusing as fuck, the way the memories are his but also feel like they belong to someone else, and the only thing Merlin wants right now is to talk to Arthur about it. To see what he's remembering and feeling and thinking, but Arthur still hasn't come back.
He's never been gone this long. At the end of the fourth day without him, Merlin chews the inside of his cheek raw, until he tastes blood, because that's the longest Arthur's ever taken to come back. It's never been easy to predict how long Arthur will be gone, but there's always been some proportion to it: a day or so with him embodied leads to a day or so without him at all. It's a frustratingly imprecise measure, Merlin's internal student of science complains, but that's how his magic's always been, at its most basic. He can learn all the spells he wants, and sometimes they come easily to him and sometimes they don't, but when his magic comes from somewhere else, from that place deep inside him that he'll never really be able to control, all bets are off.
So when Arthur's been gone for five days, and then six, and then seven, after only having been here for an afternoon, Merlin doesn't know what to think.
♦♦♦
The match is hard to light, with Merlin's fingers shaking like they are. It's the middle of the night, and he's awake, again, after dreaming about all the times he almost saw Arthur die. And a few times that he did. He pinches the match harder and strikes it a third time, relieved when it catches. He pokes the flame into the burner, dials on the gas, and with a unnatural puff of wind, it blows out.
He whirls around, and there's Arthur, leaning casually against the edge of the table, arms crossed over his chest, looking every inch the self-satisfied prat he was the first time they met.
"You utter bastard," Merlin whispers, hard, breath caught high in his chest.
"Now that's a bit harsh, isn't it?" Arthur replies, smiling. "You could just use your magic, like you did the last time."
Merlin's jaw clenches.
"In fact, you probably don't need the burner at all, do you? Powerful wizard like you, should be able to manage a cup of tea."
"Do you know how long you've been gone?" Merlin grits out.
Arthur's smug expression falters into something closer to sheepish, maybe even sad. He holds Merlin's eye for a thick moment before glancing down at the burner. "Could you turn the gas off, please," he says, and Merlin frowns at the knob a moment before dialling it down.
"I needed to get my bearings," Arthur says.
"For a week? For an entire week, you let me think-you couldn't pop your stupid ghostly head in for five seconds, just to let me know you hadn't been sucked into the fucking void? I thought you were gone, Arthur, really and truly gone, and I-fuck." He swears and collapses back against the wall.
"I'm sorry. I should have. It's-for what it's worth, it's not been that long for me."
Merlin looks at him. "How long?"
"Day and a half."
Merlin sighs, eyes falling shut in anger, exhaustion, worry and relief. "It took you five days?"
"Apparently."
"But you were only here for an afternoon."
Arthur pauses. "Was a bit of an afternoon, though, wasn't it?"
Merlin looks at him, and the question he's been desperate to ask all week-You remember, too, right?-dies on his lips, because the answer is written all over Arthur's face. Merlin swallows and holds Arthur's gaze.
♦♦♦
Merlin calls in sick to work, and sleeps for nearly two days. Arthur's there, every time he wakes up, sitting by the bed or standing by the window, steady and vigilant, but Merlin can read all the same questions he himself has in the stiff way he holds his shoulders, and the firm clasp of his hands behind his back.
"Would you stop thinking so loudly, please," Merlin says to Arthur's back, silhouetted in the window. "You're keeping me awake."
Arthur turns to him, smiling. "Well, it's about time you got your lazy arse out of bed."
"Yeah, yeah," Merlin says, and rolls onto his side, propping his head up with his elbow. "Come here?"
Arthur hesitates, but comes, and Merlin tries not to wince at the way the mattress doesn't dip at all, when Arthur climbs on top of it. He stretches out next to Merlin, looking embarrassed, and it takes more willpower than Merlin realised he had not to reach out to him.
"What are you thinking?" Merlin asks.
Arthur looks at him, brow creased, and then down at the bed. "That I should go," he says.
Merlin frowns. "Where?"
"Away. That'd be the honourable thing. Give you a chance at a real life."
"I have a real life."
"Yes, and you should share it with someone who is alive, not-"
"Right," Merlin says, flatly, after a moment, "'cause that's gonna happen." He watches Arthur until he looks up, meets his gaze. "I've been sharing my life with you for round about the last thousand years," Merlin says. "There's no getting out of this rut now," and he smiles when Arthur chuckles.
"Where were you?" Arthur whispers, eyes darting around the house he built a hundred years ago, the bed he died in.
"I don't know," Merlin answers. "I haven't got any memories of it."
"None at all?"
Merlin shakes his head. "I might have been here, somewhere-my first memory from all the other times is the day I found you. So I could've had a life, I suppose, and just not remembered it." Since you weren't in it, he doesn't say. Since I wasn't here to stop you dying too soon, and he knows Arthur's thinking the same thing.
"Maybe we just fell out of step," Arthur says. "And I was determined to wait for you."
"God, you would do," Merlin laughs. "Couldn't just die and come back, try again in the next life like a reasonable person, could you?"
"I'm very committed."
Merlin snorts, but feels the pull of it inside him, the truth of it. "What do you think happens now?" he asks. "Are you-stuck here?"
There's a long, heavy silence. "At least you'll know where to find me," Arthur says, with a weak smile.
Merlin watches him for a moment, and then, "No," he says. "No, I think we're meant to fix this."
"Fix it?"
"Yes. Permanently."
"How?" Arthur says, flatly.
"Um, hi… starts with an 'm'?"
Arthur shakes his head. "Merlin, no. Haven't we learnt this lesson before? You can't play with life and death like that, it's too-costly."
Merlin looks at him, jaw tight.
"Maybe it's better this way," Arthur says, "with nothing more left to chance, and-"
"Nothing with us has ever been left to chance, Arthur, and you know it," Merlin says, his voice like iron.
Arthur looks at him. "Yes, but. What if we've reached the end? We have had more than our fair share, Merlin, and maybe this is-"
"No," Merlin says again, with feeling. "Arthur, no-who the fuck says what our fair share is? Or that we're meant to just stop trying, when we've reached it? No. No, we're meant to fix this-why else would I be here? Why did this job just fall into my lap? Or this cottage? There's a way to fix this, Arthur, I know there is. And I'm going to find it."
Arthur just looks at him, his eyes unspeakably full, and another quiet, thick moment passes.
"Merlin," Arthur murmurs, "please," and Merlin knows exactly what he wants. He shuts his eyes against it, because he can't. "Merlin," Arthur tries again.
"You were gone for so long," he replies, desperate.
"I came back."
"What if it takes even longer?"
"I'll come back. I always come back. Please, Merlin, I can't-" he breaks off, and slides closer, close enough that Merlin should be able to feel him breathing. "We haven't since-I haven't touched you since before we-since the day on the boat, and I-"
Merlin says the words before Arthur can finish, and the warm puff of breath that comes against his mouth is the single most perfect thing Merlin's ever felt. Arthur blinks in surprise for only a brief moment before he's on top of Merlin, enveloping him, kissing him deeply.
♦♦♦
Merlin doesn't know if remembering his past lives has connected him to a deeper, more powerful well of magic, or just a deeper well of want with which to power it, but the body he conjures for Arthur that night lasts almost a week and a half, twice as long as the longest-lasting one before that. The time passes in a flurry of nakedness and blissed-out sleep and foggy days at work that last too long, and when it's over, Merlin's got the other side of the coin to deal with, a much longer week and a half spent waiting.
He slumps out the door on a Tuesday morning, rolling his bicycle down the garden path, and startles a chipmunk out from under some leaves. There's a bright red berry visible between its teeth as it scurries off, and Merlin looks to the edge of the garden path.
The lily of the valley is there, thriving, its blossoms long since gone and its berries now a deep red, and Merlin loses his breath at the thought of Arthur, a hundred years ago, on his knees, planting flowers meant to bring the second coming and the return of happiness-without even knowing what it was he was waiting for.
"Gaius," Merlin says, bursting into the pharmacy fifteen minutes later, "I need your help."
Gaius looks at him over the rim of his spectacles. "God's sake, Merlin, what's the matter?"
"It's to do with Arthur," Merlin says, struggling to catch his breath. "My friend, Arthur-do you remember him?"
"Ah," Gaius says, lowering his paper. "You've arrived at it, have you?"
"What?" Merlin says, after a beat.
Gaius folds his newspaper, and reaches behind the till for the Ring Bell for Service placard. "Come with me," he says, and disappears through the door to the backroom.
Merlin just stares for a moment, dumbfounded, before trailing after him.
♦♦♦
Part Three