fic: LARP...a lot (pt 2)
part 1
*
Merlin was at his computer when Morgana came to his door that afternoon and sat on his bed. She glanced to his roommate's sleeping form, where he'd stumbled back from somewhere and fallen with a loud creak of springs to pass out again, and Merlin turned his chair fully.
"Don't worry about him, he'll be out until early evening."
"Merlin," she said. "It was brave what you did."
"Didn't really think about it."
Morgana shrugged, but looked at him like he had hung the moon, or at least saved her friend. Merlin held out a box.
"Pocky?"
They crunched in silence for a moment, until Merlin said, "Everything alright?"
"Not really, no. I've just received an email from the group over at Uni of Birmingham. My friend Harry over there, Harriet, she says that there's rumors of members of our group changing camps."
"What," Merlin said. "No one is leaving our kingdom. And no one would leave just before the joust!"
"That's just it," Morgana said. "We’ve got three weeks, and that gives people time to join other kingdoms, those who don't want to be affiliated with a bigoted king."
“I wouldn’t call him bigoted…”
Morgana gave him a look.
"But Morgana," Merlin said, and then whispered, because it somehow felt wrong to say. "Magic isn't real."
"It's the principal of the thing, Merlin," she whispered back, tears in her eyes. "It's a matter of personal freedom. People don't give up one of their two days off work to be told what to do."
Merlin didn't want to listen to this sort of thing, but he couldn't very well just shrug and say 'meh, freedom' either, so he let her continue on.
"Do you know how many good men and women Uther has forcibly ousted since our founding in September 2008?" she asked. "Too many. Gwen's father, as I'm sure you've heard. And even the first day, he kicked out a young theater major for declaring his character had magic, and his mother called the Uni board and had a fit. Of course, the threat wasn't taken into account because the club isn't necessarily affiliated with the campus."
"Oh," Merlin said. He'd known it was bad, but honestly hadn't put much thought into it.
"And the worst part," Morgana said. "Is that people can't help it. They're either magical or they're not."
This was something his roommate might have laughed at had he heard. Merlin's mind boggled as it once again tried to feel out the shady border that ran between LARPing and real life.
"Ah," he said.
"Some people just accidentally enact magic," Morgana told him.
"That sounds,” Merlin said. “Unfortunate?"
"It is unfortunate," Morgana said.
At that moment, Junes and Tim from down the hall came in in a rowdy shoving of shoulders.
Taking one look at the serious looks on both Morgana and Merlin's faces, they set in with their A game, and by the time Morgana had to head out for physics, her eyes were red where she'd wiped away laughter, and Merlin accepted a hug, and said, "Don't worry. It'll be alright, you'll see."
Merlin was, however, not so convinced as to go without advice from his elders.
"These are just rumors," Uncle G said over the phone.
"You think?" Merlin was desperate.
"I do," G said.
"Alright, I'll try not to worry," Merlin said. Trying to be that good nephew, he asked, "how are things?"
"To be honest, I'm very glad you called," G said. "Ever since I spoke with that nice king in the tent, I've been anticipating the next stage of development."
"Who?" Merlin's mind reeled as he tried to level his image of the king, that freaky figurehead, with 'that nice king.'
"Uther Pendragon," Merlin's uncle said. "He's been looking to build something on the tournament grounds. Something more permanent."
"He wants to take over as reigning King," Merlin said. He whistled. "I'd heard he was a megalomaniac, I didn't realize this was so serious."
"Merlin!" When Merlin remained judgmentally silent for a few moments, Uncle G took it as a cue to continue. "Now, we were thinking something of the times, 6th century or thereabouts, perhaps a small cathedral. We could make it out of plywood and spackling. I've been looking at floor plans of the great cathedral of Chartres-"
"Did you just say shart?" Merlin gasped.
There came a lengthy pause.
"Let's continue this conversation later, shall we?" G said.
"I'm sorry, I just-"
"Never you mind," G told him. "About the tournament. Let's just wait and see."
*
Merlin lived from weekend to weekend. From Monday to Friday, he pestered and was pestered by the guys in the dorms, and procured bottled beverages from the minifridge next door. On Saturdays, he was pestered by Arthur, who dared him to drink potentially hazardous mixtures brewed in tents by people without alcohol licenses. Lancelot, who'd taken to lurking around the refreshments just as he'd said he would, often joined them.
Situation being thus, it only made sense that Merlin would be found one Thursday clutching his lab report in sweaty hands, asking: "Are you going to be grading on a curve?"
"That grade is already curved," the professor told him.
Merlin could tick off things he had learned over the weekend, at least one for every finger, including how to swing a mace without hitting yourself in the eye, how to make iced elderberry juice with a little lemon twist, and how to knot a rope so one could climb safely out a window.
He may have failed his chemistry test, but they would win the war.
*
Suddenly it was early December and it was wretched all of the time, and Merlin didn't want to leave his dorm room for anything, not class and not really hanging around the tents, because it rained, especially out in the country.
"Do you need a tissue?"
"I'm so glad to see you," Merlin said. He wrapped Gwen in a giant hug, their rain coats sticking and slipping and before he knew it he was leaning in, closing his eyes for maybe a nap.
"Eep, Merlin," Gwen laughed. She patted him on the back, wetly. "You may be thin but you're rather heavy."
He moved off to lean against the wall and Gwen tucked the hood of her yellow rain jacket back now that she was sheltered by the overhang.
"You look bad," Gwen said. "Why are you out of bed? Over the phone you promised me you'd take care of yourself."
He waved his hand in the direction of a classroom door.
"Got to," he said. "Every class I've got is kicking my ass, and the only thing I'm actually worried about failing is Old English, and that's not even a class."
"Excited for the weekend, then?" Gwen asked.
Merlin scrunched his nose, and Gwen laughed at him and blew in the mittened cup of her hands to warm them.
"Naw, got better things to do," he said, but was crap at lying, always had been.
"Oh, come on, you'd actually miss it?"
"Course not," he said. "I've got to build an eco-friendly trash bin of some sort with that ridiculous club of yours, of which you're not even a member, might I add. Don't think I haven't noticed."
"They needed help and I found them some," Gwen said.
"I've got loads of mail to shine," Merlin reminded her.
"I'm still not sure why you allowed him to talk you into that," Gwen said. "You do realize that you can do whatever you please."
"It's just- The nerve!" Merlin said, but he did know, and that's what was confusing to him.
"Of Arthur?"
"I received this message, right?" Merlin said. "This message that said nothing like 'Hello, how are you, I heard you're ill, perhaps I could give you some time off, seeing as you go to school as well.' No, instead it said, 'Need my room cleaned, come at once.'"
One look at Gwen's face told him he had turned into someone else when he wasn't looking, or maybe he'd had it in him the whole time, the type of person who ranted just as another excuse to talk about himself.
"Sorry, Gwen," Merlin said. "How are you doing?"
"You know Arthur," Gwen sighed instead, and Merlin was surprised to find that he did.
*
His head was something of a cloud, and the rain hadn't let up. They were in their most impermeable tent, but still the air was chill, and the blue light from the outside came in eerie and soft.
"Come on," Morgana said to him, the sound of water against canvas a blank fuzz behind her words. "Isn't this a bit romantic?"
He went to make himself a ginger tea in a daze, boiling the water in a water heater he had hidden behind a crate connected to the plug strip, sucking electricity from the generator. If anyone asked, he imagined he would scoff and say, "Why it's Magic, of course," but it was more likely he would follow that up with, "No, no, not magic, I've brought an electric kettle."
His hair was damp in his beanie. While he waited for the water, he slanted a look at Arthur, who was speaking low with Lancelot at the far side of the tent. Gwen caught him looking, and smiled brilliantly. He shook his head, and then ripped open a tea bag.
"I just feel, I dunno," he said. "Muddy. Cold."
Rain pelted the canvas, and it felt reasonably possible that the inside of the tent was the whole world, the five of them the only people in it.
He sat back with his tea, and resumed his transcribing of the list of knights that would be participating in the pre-joust. His penmanship was something he was proud of. He should have been a penmanship-major.
"Well I think it's bloody romantic," Morgana said.
"Fine, fine it is," Merlin said. "Romantic, it so is. Rain, wet, yes, and chocolate and tea, and you're gorgeous."
"Killed it, though," Morgana said.
"It won't happen again," he said. "I promise."
If he sworled the A in Arthur's name a bit on the downstroke, it was accidental.
He spent the next half hour trying to make Morgana laugh at a few stories about his week, and tried to tell them loudly because he knew that Arthur would come on over.
"Alright then," Arthur said, like clockwork when Merlin had dotted the final exclamation point. "Finished up?"
"Yes sir," Merlin said.
"Must you always mock me?" Arthur sighed. He pulled a stool between Merlin and Gwen, while Merlin retorted with, "Must you always be mockable?" and Gwen stemmed this with, "Arthur, have you spoken to the king lately?"
Arthur nodded, and took up the parchment Merlin had been working on. He examined the list. Merlin thought of Uther, maybe in conference with other rulers, perhaps seated alone in candlelight. He had no idea what the man did all day.
"Twenty men on this list," Arthur said. "That's still plenty. I'll call it in then, shall I?"
"That's the final list," Merlin nodded.
Arthur took out his phone and made the call, and Gwen went to talk about medieval poetry with Lancelot, as they'd both taken French courses.
"Jealous you're rubbish at languages?" Arthur asked, after he'd clicked the phone shut. When Merlin didn't respond because in that minute's pause he'd fallen into a quiet stupor, head thick. Arthur leaned against him to get his attention.
"Who said anything about rubbish?" Merlin asked.
"You forget that I'm often subjected to your misspelled texts."
"But that's in English."
Arthur knocked him with a shoulder, and this was becoming pretty much too obvious for Merlin to handle, and so he said, loudly, "So, Morgana, tell me what you think about-" and Arthur interrupted by handing Merlin a tissue and saying, "No, Morgana, Merlin's had enough of your time. Tell me why haven't we sparred lately-" and Morgana smiled and just drank her tea.
The rain got harder, and Arthur told Merlin about his friend who'd lost his wallet and found it two weeks later where he'd left it on the field. It didn't matter that it was the most useless story Merlin had ever heard, it mattered that it was Arthur who was telling him, it meant something that Merlin wasn't bored out of his mind.
"Something wrong with your face?" Arthur asked, and Merlin became aware that he was frowning, but really trying to fight down the type of big smile that he knew made him look deranged.
When the woman arrived to take their registration form, Merlin felt proud of their little tent with chaise lounges set up against one wall and mounds of blankets. She accepted a cup of hot chocolate that Merlin fixed for her, feeling spacey but happy, and, situated, she fired off a few questions, like, "Name of scribe" to which Merlin answered, "Merlin," with a fluidity come of eight weeks at it, this was so normal now.
She also asked, "occupation," to which he said, "Slave to this guy," and Arthur said, "Slavery is different than service," and "it's not like you do much anyway."
The woman spoke loudly over them, "All the knights on this list are registered citizens of the Kingdom of Camelot?" to which Arthur said, "Of course," and Merlin said at the same time, "No, only about half."
A sudden pull at the atmosphere of the room told Merlin he'd just made some sort of error. Arthur stilled beside him, Morgana gripped her mug. Gwen and Lancelot stopped talking. Merlin grabbed at the fluttering remains of goodwill, and turned to say mostly to Arthur, seeking out his eyes, "We've got loads of unregistered, you know this."
"Is this true?" the woman said, looking down at the list in her hands.
"Ye- Yes," Merlin stuttered. "There are at least three on there I can name off the top of my head..."
"They are all of them talented men," Arthur ground out.
The woman looked from her list at Arthur.
"This is about your king's ban on magic, is it?"
"I'd appreciate it if you let this slide," Arthur said. "We're in a bit of a difficult situation, and I feel that the merit and dedication of these men should be enough to qualify them."
Gwen and Lancelot were listening, their discussion of Charlemagne completely halted. It had been pretentious anyhow, and Morgana sounded like she wanted to say something but was debating whether it would help.
"This will have to be put to a vote," the woman said. At least she seemed contrite, but if there was anything Merlin knew Arthur to hate most, it was pity. "I'll allow them to participate in the pre-joust, at least."
"Thank you."
Once she had left, after a few other questions which Merlin stayed silent during, and Arthur answered with a fake charm, the tent was horribly quiet.
Merlin finally spoke.
"I'm sorry, I didn't-"
"It doesn't matter," Arthur cut him off. He stood.
"It does. Please, I really didn't-" Merlin said. "Didn't know that it was against the rules, I mean- This whole time, Gwaine and Lancelot, and others...didn't you ever notice that-"
Lancelot came to them, and said with a fierce look on his face: "The fault is mine, Arthur. Please, let me-"
"Don't tell me this," Arthur said. "Any of you. Just don't. Now there'll be little chance any of those knights will be allowed to take part in the tournament, you do know that, don't you? Even if they pass the pre-joust."
Merlin tried to put things in perspective for a moment, a tactic he was trying to use when he found he was doing shit at his courses, when he'd crashed his mother's car, minorly, when he'd missed an important interview.
"The kingdoms, the rules, it's all a game anyways," he said. "Why should it matter, really, if a few people haven't registered properly?"
That may have been the wrong thing to say. He looked around at the four in the tent, from Gwen to Morgana to Lancelot, and finally at Arthur. All of them were squinting at him, like they were wondering if they even knew him. Perspective fluttered out the tent flap.
"I need some air," Arthur said.
"Or a drink," Morgana said. "I'll go with you."
She did touch Merlin briefly at the shoulder before they left, but it was cold comfort, and Gwen and Lancelot sat near the medieval space heater to play cards. He pulled out his PSP and just lost himself in it for awhile.
*
Two hours later, Morgana returned, and Merlin opened his eyes from where he was dozing, under blankets.
"You need about twice as much sleep as the rest of the world, don't you?" Morgana asked him.
"I have nightmares," he told her. This woke him, admitting that; he rarely told anyone.
"Mm," she hummed. "I have ridiculous dreams about birds, and sometimes Uther."
"Right."
"Sometimes about Arthur," she continued, and smiled when Merlin hid his face at the mention.
"Want to know a secret?" Morgana said.
Merlin nodded, feeling at his most pathetic, body heavy with illness, he probably should have stayed in bed. If Morgana said anything about Uther again he would probably cry.
"It'll be all right," she said.
"That's your secret?"
Merlin believed her and also he didn't. He wasn't one who usually tried too hard, not at things like this, not when it felt like all of his internal organs could come out worse for his efforts. Arthur had swords and also Merlin's heart sort of.
"Oh god," Merlin mumbled.
"Come on, up," Morgana said. He only sat when she ordered him, again. After which she said, "I think the sleep marks on your cheek might help your case. Arthur's a sucker for the downtrodden. Go, go. Shoo. Go speak to him."
"What?" Merlin asked.
"He's over at that big food tent at the border of Mercia. The imported ale, or whatever, with a few other knights."
"I don't-"
Morgana looked at him, and said, "If it helps, you owe it to him. You owe it to him to save the day."
Morgana went to Gwen and Lancelot, and Merlin wished he were any of them, all solid and beautiful, not someone who just kind of wanted to go back home and have his mother make him food. He could eat a whole pie right now, and he didn't even have the munchies.
"Must be stress," he said to himself. He got up anyways, bravest thing he'd ever make himself do he mentally promised.
And he left the tent as Gwen told Morgana, "The unspeakable hunting the uneatable. Oscar Wilde said that." And Morgana quoted back, "You cut the world into epigrams." And Merlin saw her tip her cup in Gwen's direction and Merlin dipped his gaze away, out of the tent to something else less contained, and more pertinent.
He picked up a pair of gloves as some excuse, and he went in search of Arthur.
Arthur was seated at a square table with a few other burly-types, a flagon of something sinister between them.
"Let me guess," Merlin said, approaching. "Made in the bathtub?"
"A sterile environment and perfectly potable," Arthur assured him tightly, just as Sir Martin said, "Only time will tell."
"Why are you over here, Arthur?" Merlin asked, because it felt rather important. "Mercia's not safe, especially this close to the competition."
"Thought you said this was just a game," Arthur countered. He glared into his cup.
"Yeah, well, Mercians can still beat you up over a game," he said. The men around him shifted, like they wanted to leave or possibly draw their swords at the implication that their prince would lose a fight.
"Could I have a word?" Merlin asked. He shifted as well, on his feet, and it felt like he was the only one standing in a room full of people drinking out of tankards, and his jacket was sodden with rain.
Arthur squinted at him for a long moment, and then sighed, to everyone it seemed. He stood, and came to where Merlin stood, and allowed himself to be taken a few inconsequential feet to the side.
"Look," Merlin said, but when Arthur carefully pulled his arm away, Merlin didn't know how to proceed.
"I haven't got all day," Arthur said. "I'm to speak with the king, and it will most likely take all afternoon."
"I don't want this to become an issue between us."
"Us?" Arthur said.
"Yes, us," Merlin looked at him sharply, and if Arthur looked like he understood it was just a fleeting look. "You're the type to react dramatically, to take extreme measures, so I just wanted to make sure you knew that I didn't intend to ruin our chances in the joust, just as much as I don't want something stupid to happen. Like, I don't want you to stop speaking to me, or thinking that I don't-"
How did you finish a thought like that? Arthur either knew it or he didn't.
"You kept this from me," Arthur said. "You knew the whole time that we were harboring men who weren't citizens, you let me knight them and train them."
"Well, yeah," Merlin said. "Where'd you think Lancelot came from? Just appeared one day? If it's so important to you, why didn't you check his papers?"
"I'd counted on you," Arthur said, which didn't really make sense but Merlin was just so angry.
"Well maybe you should try doing something yourself for once," he said.
The men at the table were definitely listening. Merlin hoped Arthur would keep his voice down. He'd never expected to feel so destroyed on the LARPing grounds. This was supposed to be an escape from real life, with a fake set of emotions to go along with the fake economy, not ones more real than Merlin had felt since he was twelve and emo.
"You know what I don't understand," Arthur was saying. "Is how you can possibly feel like you're adding anything to the kingdom. Why are you still here?"
"Just a lot of hand waving and tagging along, is that it?" Merlin said, and he suddenly knew that was what Arthur saw him as. When Arthur came back from the training grounds Merlin usually just hung around to talk to him, must have come off as idle this entire time, useless, even though he was helping out the majority of the time.
"Right," Merlin said. He took a step back, wanted to say something like, "You don't know me at all," but this wasn't a film and he didn't really have correct personality to pull it off, it would only sound pathetic. Arthur must have seen something on his face, because he actually took a half step forward, chasing the motion.
"Well, now if it isn't-" a man said in the background, and Merlin said, "Arthur," and Arthur turned.
"Prince Arthur, then?" A man said. He sneered at the name, and Merlin's hand twitched, this was the wrong time to get in the way of either of them.
"That would be me, mate," Arthur said. He took a step to the side, rather than forward, and Merlin nearly laughed. Arthur was protecting him! As if he needed it.
Sir Martin nodded kindly at the stranger.
"Join us for a drink?" he asked.
The man ignored him in favor of staring Arthur down.
"I look forward to running you through," the man said. "At the joust of course. Friendly competition and all that."
Arthur took a step forward and the men at the table were on their feet.
A pressure built steadily, just there behind Merlin's left eyebrow, like he was either massively tired, or monumentally annoyed. The look on Arthur's face tipped the scale one way for certain, and it didn't matter what had been the initial cause, because he couldn't think clearly any longer.
He must have stepped forward, because Arthur was beside him now, putting a hand on his arm, but for once it wasn't enough. Arthur was saying, "I'm not sure what you're doing, but I'd advise-" and he distantly heard Sir Owaine say: "Hey, hey Merlin, my dearest friend," as if he were about to come round to clap him on the shoulder, placate him.
But then the action was done. Merlin felt the tension release and then he was gasping, hands on his knees, sweat at his hairline.
"Merlin!" Arthur said.
"I didn't do anything," he said quickly.
"Did you just kill me?" the Mercian asked, suddenly childish, also angry. He pointed at his chest, and said again, "me?"
"I didn't-" Merlin sobbed out.
"What have you done?" Arthur's voice came out like a harbinger of death, for that is what it was.
"I haven't done anything-"
"Oh good," Sir Roland said. He made to pick up his mug, muttering, "None noted his eyes flashing a golden hue-"
"But a reflection of the sun, I swear," Merlin said.
"We're in a tent," Sir Martin snapped. "How could there have been sun. Arthur, did your manservant just-"
But it was the way Arthur was looking at him that sealed it.
Merlin looked sadly to the Mercian standing before him, if only to avoid everything else. The man's face was stricken as one near death.
"You never told me," Arthur said, simple as that.
"I'm sorry," Merlin's mouth felt wrong around the words.
His sentence as well as pronounced, the Mercian collapsed back onto the ground, as if blown away by an invisible force. He lay where had fallen, not likely to move again.
Merlin was too angry to tell Arthur now, what he had suspected since he had begun LARPing, too cowardly to say "yeah, well...magic, my character might happen to have it. We should have suspected, what with the name and all," or some other blundering thing that Arthur would have laughed off anyways.
As he sped from the tent, shoving the flap aside which fell back with an unsatisfying "fwap" of wetted canvas, he heard Sir Roland say, "Well done, Arthur," and maybe Arthur responded but Merlin was too far off to hear by now, his ears turned the wrong direction, perpetually forward, and so were his feet, one after another, stalking him past the rows of tents, at least thirty of them in this row alone, because the Mercian kingdom was growing.
What had he done?
His feet mushed into the sodden grasses and there was a middle-aged man who was trying admirably to grow out full merchant-stubble on the weekend which he'd have to shave come Monday for his job at the bank, and Merlin passed a woman mending some dented helmets with a small hammer, in a skirt and blouse with a terrycloth bathrobe thrown over to protect her from the bright chill of sunlight through fog.
Moisture puffed by like trails along Merlin's face, and caught up in his cheekbone hollows, the dipped cloth of his neckerchief, and the grooves he was allowing Arthur to scratch out in his heart like his words were the claws of a Questing Beast and there wasn't a sorceress of the old religion for miles.
With it came the tightening of the abdomen, and an inability to work his throat without moving about some deep sorrow which had taken up residence there.
The running footsteps behind him had to be Arthur's.
"I was only just-" Merlin tried aloud.
"I don't believe you-" Arthur said, he tried to catch hold of Merlin, but Merlin shook him off. "You're leaving then, are you?"
"Don't worry, I'll be gone before you know it," Merlin said. He didn't look at Arthur. He walked faster, towards the parking lot.
"You can't be serious," Arthur called after him.
"Course not," Merlin yelled back. He wondered what he was going to do, hitchhike? Propositioning unknown drivers while dressed as he was might attract the wrong sort.
Thank goodness he was good at pickpocketing. Merlin grabbed Uncle G's Honda keys when he swept the man into an impromptu hug in the chemist's tent with an "oof" of surprise, and then took off.
*
"Hi it's me."
"Oh, Gwen, am I ever glad to hear from you."
"Merlin," she said.
"I know, I know."
"Merlin, this is serious. You killed a man last weekend."
"I know."
"With your eyes."
"You think I don't know that? If it helps matters, it was an accident. How does one fake-kill someone?"
"I'm not sure, but if your character has magic then it just happens, I suppose. It's like making a move in a board game, except this is real life."
"Gwen, I was just so angry."
"It's just rather embarrassing, is all," she said. "The only time players die is in jousts. There just wasn't a protocol for that."
Merlin started. He ran a hand over his face, imagining the trouble he'd caused for the kingdom of Camelot, and feeling only minorly contrite. He was still angry. "How did they handle it?"
"Well, Arthur and the others decided to drink a lot more, and gave the character the chance to pick himself up and leave. That way, the character could claim that everyone was properly soused and could argue that you'd used a spell that had knocked him unconscious, rather than effectively killing him."
"Well, that's good then," Merlin said. He lay back in his bed, elbows giving out in relief. "That settles it."
"It's all cleared up, yeah. I'll see you soon." Her voice only quavered once, just at the end. Gwen was strong when she needed to be, like the clarity of purpose stripped all uncertainty from her voice.
"I guess I'll see you next Monday then," Merlin cleared his throat.
"Monday?" she asked. "What's on Monday? I meant I'll see you Saturday, because you'll be coming."
"Midterm on Monday?" Merlin prompted. At her confused silence, he said: "Chem midterm that I'll need to study for all weekend?"
"Oh," she said. "Right."
"I won't be coming Saturday," he clarified. There was a long pause, until he said: "Gwen...Camelot isn't real life."
"Of course not." She didn't sound sure.
"Remember how we're supposed to pass our courses?" He asked her. "To spend time reading great literature and getting arrested for public displays of indecency, to revere chemical formulas and ManU, not eat roast lamb and allow ourselves to be re-indoctrinated into some since-defunct religion by the priests of a medieval Christian god?"
Gwen hung up on him.
*
He missed the pre-joust.
*
"Of course Arthur passed the pre-joust, how could he not have?" Merlin said.
"Not keeping up with these things, are you?"
His roommate had, at one point, been trying to read, but he'd closed the book and tossed it over the side of the bed, and Merlin was man enough to admit that he was grateful. If his roommate ever had anything he needed to talk about, Merlin would be there for him. Merlin had said this aloud twice in the past few days and both times his roommate had thrown things at him and said, "What the hell is wrong with you? Talk or don't talk, just don't talk about talking. Do you know absolutely nothing of the code?
"If I were still a citizen of Camelot," Merlin told him. "If I were, I wouldn't at all be surprised that members of other kingdoms were left in the dust."
"Didn't you say that Arthur had taken fencing as a child?" his roommate asked.
"Yes," Merlin beamed. "He's really great."
"Cheater," the roommate snorted.
Merlin felt the steady burn of alienation, and seriously suspected that if he were to look out of his window right now, onto the grassy hillock between the dorms, that the area would be rolling with townsfolk, himself not one of them, or at least Morgana and Gwen would be strolling arm in arm.
He slammed his laptop shut when someone tapped at his open door.
"What are you still doing here?" It was just Alan from down the hall.
"Here?" Merlin asked, twiddling his thumbs. He scrolled through his schedule, frighteningly clear since he was no longer LARPing. "Still?"
"Didn't you say you'd scheduled a meeting with some guidance counselor?"
Merlin swung his head to look at the clock, because this was modern day, not silly 6th century which lacked proper amenities.
Shit! No clock! Merlin opened his laptop again and clicked frantically at the return1 key to wake his laptop up.
_____________________
1 Yes, Merlin is a mac user.2
2 Hipster.
As he ran down the two flights of old-smelling stairs from his dorm, out into the world, avoiding puddles and trees and students, the world suddenly filled with obstacles, Merlin's mind was buoyant with the possibility of speaking with an actual career counselor, a trained professional who had been trained to help people like him, someone who might do all the hard work for him. Merlin expected this to be much more gratifying than clicking 100 radio buttons on an online form and receiving an email that said, simply, "Baker."
Life wasn't so bad, he didn't need a medieval system to give his life structure, he didn't need friends who were more serious about a constructed reality than the reality of failing their courses. What would he do with the skills he learned LARPing, anyhow? Continue doing Arthur's chores forever? Allow him to drag him along to watch him play football well into finals, when he should be studying, and spend every weekend with Arthur shoving dubious pieces of raw-food pie in his mouth when he wasn't paying attention, and then waving over at the woman in a dowdy skirt at the table shouting, "He loves it, thanks," obnoxiously.
Walking into the counseling office was the easy part, turns out, shouldn't have hoped for anything because it was never, never what he got.
The horrifying face that was Uther's was the last Merlin had anticipated when he stepped through the door.
It was over in seconds. Merlin made a strangled noise, but not as loudly as he could have, so it was something of a win.
"How perfectly coincidental," Uther said.
"I know your real name," Merlin babbled. Uther stared him down, and the ringing of a distant phone rendered the scene even more uncomfortable.
"I see you in the service industry. Take this flier," Uther said and motioned to the stack with a gloved hand. He clicked a button on the intercom. "Next."
Although this helped him very little, Merlin left feeling better about his life, like he had just had an unexpected scrape with death but made it out alive, God Be Praised.
The next day he went home for the holidays and told his mother that he was considering a job in the entertainment business, maybe acting, and she laughed like it was a joke, and Merlin spent the next few weeks lying down, watching the rain.
*
Except that he didn't mope the entire time. He wasn't like that. He did harbor the occasional thought, like, maybe LARPing was the one thing in life that he'd regret not trying for. He wondered if idiots like Arthur were easy to meet, and he'd just never noticed, and if so how that was possible in the context of real life.
Once he went down to the pond and listened to some upbeat music that didn't fit the scene, and twice he spoke with Gwen over the phone, which warmed him to his toes. He received an actual hand-written letter from Morgana with a lipstick kiss at the bottom that should have made Merlin feel relieved, but really made him feel nauseous until he realized he hadn't eaten all day, so he got up to do that. He missed them both quite dramatically, because he could only be half-friends with them if he never went back, nothing to talk to them about over quick lunches on campus.
Nearly every afternoon he went to the pub or went to the crappy pizza place three blocks over with mates from sixth form, some of whom had started uni and some who worked, but none of them could say they'd taken on a second life over their new one. Merlin was not short of friends, he had some of the best, really, meeting wonderful people had never been a problem for him. He just wanted them all, and he knew that wasn't fair.
"Do you think you can only have one life?" Merlin asked Uncle G, who spent a lot of his time sitting at a work table he had set up in the old tool shed, mixing things and sketching out floorplans in turn.
"We only have the one, Merlin," Uncle G told him through glasses that had seen their time, but which were making a resurgence with the advent of Harry Potter.
"Oh," Merlin said. He had thought as much, felt on the edge of letting something wonderful go.
Merlin lurked around in the doorway, rain behind him just a cool splatter but he felt like he had been damp for months. He needed to go take a shower.
Uncle G looked up from his drawings, and Merlin felt like he was five years old when he met his steady gaze.
"You misunderstand me, boy," Uncle G said, with a severity that rang with conviction. "We only have the one life, so I would hate to see you waste it. Live it as richly as you can, for one day you might die suddenly of a stroke."
"So you're saying I should-"
"Get out of my sight and go make something of yourself."
Merlin slogged back through the garden, and then went inside to take a nap. But it was a nice thought.
*
"Merlin!"
Merlin was procumbent in his very modern-day mattress when he heard the ping of the doorbell over the screeching of birdsong out in the garden. Some beast gave a final warble before Merlin tipped himself upwards, feeling that head rush that only came after an evening nap with one's face shoved unceremoniously into the pillows when one thought no one was watching and no one probably cared. He made it to the door only after yawning and cracking his shoulder and pushing his hands over the whole of his long face.
"Merlin darling," his mother called again. "Someone here to see you."
There was a jump of his heart, if he was to be honest, and he tried to quell it, because those who wish are often let down, while those who wait and see are often just pleasantly surprised.
OhgodhehopeditwasArthur.
Merlin came down the steep steps slowly, every detail suddenly sharp and contrasted to Merlin's self: individual bits of carpeting were sticking between his toes with every downward step, his mother's hair was pulled back messily and she seemed pleased with the boy who stood before her, the boy who was blond and the picture of strength in a shirt of mail and boots that meant business.
It was Arthur.
They both looked up at Merlin's approach, and Merlin ducked into the room, smile feeling lopsided as he looked first to his mother and said, "Mom, this is Arthur Pendragon," and for the moment he met Arthur's clear, unreadable look and then glanced away.
It was impossible to see Arthur logically, actually there in the room where Merlin had imagined him so many times before.
"Merlin, offer your friend some food," Hunith said, and then continued to Arthur: "We've just had supper dear, but you're welcome to anything."
"That's very kind of you-"
"Hunith," Merlin's mother said firmly, and smiled and went off who knew where.
"So," Arthur looked like he might like to be outside on a training grounds somewhere, scratching at the dirt with a prop-sword. This was compacted by the fact that he looked up in an uncomfortable sneer, and Merlin held onto the handrail tightly.
"You came to Kettering," Merlin said in wonder.
"Right, must have gotten lost or-"
"Did you come to apologize, then? Because-"
"You have a rerebrace of mine," Arthur said. "It's worth quite a bit and I don't employ petty thieves."
"I haven't-"
"Oh, haven't you?" Arthur said. "Ah well."
The quiet was really quite horrible. Merlin dove to save it, not moving a muscle.
"I do have a pen you lent me once, though," he said, frowning like he was serious.
"Well then," Arthur said. He seemed to cling onto this as hard as Merlin did. "Go fetch it then, would you?"
"Right," Merlin said. He stood there for a moment, and he felt a grin twisting at his features and Arthur was rolling his eyes and returning the smile and then Merlin said again, "Right," and ran up the stairs like he was in the thrall of some fever dream.
When he came downstairs, pen clutched in one hand, humming under his breath for no reason in particular, Arthur was no longer there.
*
He went to the kitchen and sat.
"Merlin," Hunith was at the table too, he hadn't noticed. "Did your friend leave?"
"I thought-" Merlin said. He flicked the pen across the table top. "-but no. That was strange."
He sat for a moment - maybe everything was backwards from how he had imagined it, that was always a possibility - until his mother closed her hand over Merlin's, forcing him gently to stop clenching his fingers into a fist.
She waited for him to look up at her to continue, and when she did it was with a kindness in her eyes that reminded Merlin of something he had forgotten. "Merlin, Arthur likes you. He came here for you."
There was no way she could have known this, no way at all, but still...his mother was usually correct, it just took some mental adjustment to see it sometimes. This time he wanted her to be right, and it came easy.
Instead of truth crashing down around him with this, Merlin just saw clearly the situation. This was silly, a stress he had created for himself. Right now, Arthur was probably still leaving, slowly, and Merlin could stop him, couldn't he?
The thought prompted him to laugh, because maybe it could be that simple, and his mother looked back with a knowledge that her son had finally manned up.
Merlin just got up and shrugged, like a crazy person, feeling weird and at once miles better, realizing suddenly that nothing was the end of the world, rather it was the middle of things, that he had already gotten past the hard part and really all that was left for him was to walk out into the garden and say, "hullo there, Arthur, I see you drove two hours to come see me and apologize." to which Arthur may or may not say something like, "How gay is that, huh?" and then Merlin just had to agree.
Walking through his dark sitting room took at most a moment, opening the door, the work of a second.
Merlin walked out to a sky encrusted with stars, tiny pinpoints of light that felt like they were crushing down on him in the most dramatic of fashions when he realized at once that the garden was empty. Arthur was not stood shining in the moonlight by the rose hedges, touch lingering on a bloom as the attar soaked its way into a finger pad, and nor was he just exiting through the swinging, picketed gate like he was waiting for Merlin to call him back and then rush into his gauntleted arms.
"Oh bugger," Merlin said, quite inappropriately because Arthur was gone and Merlin might have to ask his mother to lend him the car. He rushed back inside and grabbed the keys saying, "Be right back," and kissing his confused mother on the cheek so that he wouldn't have to explain.
He leaped outside again, into the 7pm chill, as it was late Autumn and dark, and why oh why hadn't Merlin thought about this clearly, clear enough at least to realize that early November was usually the backdrop for tragedy rather than a summery fairy tale?
He ran down the walk, and pushed through the gate, not jumping over as he probably could have, still hesitant from that one time when he was 13 and ripped his pants in one clean jag down the inseam. The gate slammed behind him, and he raced down the moonlit sidewalk, keys in his fist, to where his mother had managed to find a parking spot because Uncle G had set up a chem lab in their garage so they had to rely on semi-findable road parking.
His feet hit the pavement and he nearly forgot what the rush was about, simply letting momentum tip him forward towards the beat-up car by the corner, mind set on this immediate task. As such, he barely registered the voice, faraway but insistent.
"Merlin!"
It took three calls, maybe, until he slowed himself enough to turn around. And there, way down the road, maybe two corners down, Arthur was standing in the shadow of a very large hedge.
"Arthur?"
"Get down here you great idiot! Where are you going? This is not a relay race!" Arthur called as he walked towards him.
Merlin began to race back the way he had come, shoving the keys in his pockets, meaning he had to rush back to pick them up off of the pavement because he was wearing the trousers with the holes in them today, which was rather foolish and a waste of time that could be spent running towards Arthur.
As they neared each other, with half a block between them and in front of some unknown person's darkened home, Arthur jogged the final bit, looking refreshed, suddenly wearing just jeans and a polo shirt of undiscernable shade.
"Just popped off to change out of my armor," Arthur told him, as they both came to a standstill on the pavement. "Felt like an idiot talking to your mother all decked out in fake steel-plating."
"Oh, thought you'd-" Merlin was out of breath.
"Of course not," Arthur told him. "I'm not going to drive all this way only to drive back again. You're going to let me sleep on your sofa, and also provide me with tea, that's what's going to happen."
"Of course," Merlin said, and he nearly swooned with relief, the assurance all he'd needed.
Then came a bit of staring at one another, and Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, which just looked dear when he wasn't dressed as a killer. Instead of saying anything important, as the situation seemed to call for, Merlin blathered, asking: "Why do you have a different last name than your father?"
Arthur seemed game for this conversation, if bewildered.
"I don't?" he tried.
"Oh, come on, I met him in the counseling office," Merlin said. "Looks just as frightening without his crown, let me just say."
"My father works in politics," Arthur told him.
"Yes, yes."
"No, real politics," Arthur squinted at Merlin, waiting for a spark of comprehension. "As in, House-of-Lords-Politics."
"Then Uther-"
"Merlin, you realize that one of the main components of Live Action Roleplaying is the roleplaying," Arthur said. "Or perhaps you don't because you're rather the same in-character as out. Uther is not my father, just as Morgana is not my sister."
"Morgana is supposed to be your sister?" In any other situation, Merlin would have felt ashamed at coveting a piece of gossip like this.
"Yes, but it's hush hush," Arthur told him. "In any case, you're a complete dweeb and also very strange. And also, if you ever lie to me again, I'll have you thrown into the stocks."
"The stocks-"
"Just never lie to me again."
"Right."
Arthur smiled at him with an unarguable fondness, and patted Merlin on the shoulder in a brusque manner like it was all settled, and then Merlin kind of shoved at Arthur's arm until he had manhandled him into the right position, and kissed him slow against the unmovable fence.
*
The next weekend, while Merlin suffered the direct sunlight that freshed out the entire dirt ring for once, somehow light in January, Gwen and Morgana held tight to scarves and passed along a bag of sweets.
The contestants trailed out onto the jousting grounds, some dusty and already sweating at the temples, hair matted from practice. Arthur was easy to spot in red, the ridiculous cape dragging out behind him, trailing in the dust, his armor like an exposed exoskeleton, telling and currently too bright to look at.
Arthur jogged up to the edge, and accepted the pats and shouts of their cut numbers. But his challenge was all for Merlin, as he reached a hand over the edge and said: "Let's have it then."
"Wha?" Merlin wondered.
The roiling mass quivered and roared in the distance and all around behind them.
"Your neckerchief, Merlin," Arthur said, and smiled a sarcastic look to any third-party who might have been paying attention. "That's what it's for isn't it?"
Merlin frowned and tugged off his cleaning rag that he still wore secured about his neck, and kind of shoved it at Arthur. Arthur frowned and made a face that meant something, until Merlin said, "Oh, you want me to-"
"Yes, Merlin, for God's sakes hurry up will you," as Merlin tied the rag onto Artur's forearm, near the crook where vambrace met mail.
"For luck?" Merlin hedged. He was still unsure if Arthur was looking for a token or someone to shine up his shoulder plate.
Arthur seemed appeased, in any case. He smirked at everyone, and then a final time, eyes meeting Merlin's in a daring manner, and then trotted off to join the other tin men in the arena.
They won the tournament by a mile.