Chapter Text
Merlin barely manages to get any sleep the night before his 16th birthday. He imagines it's a common scenario—him, his last night as a 15-year-old, and restless tossing and turning. Every time he drifts off, he dreams of himself standing in front of the mirror, naked and bare. Completely bare, not a single blemish or mark anywhere on his body. His freckles are gone, that mole on his shoulder disappeared, all his scars faded to nothing.
Then he jerks himself awake and lies there for another long while, trying to resist the urge to go check the mirror. He knows he has to wait until at least dawn. Maybe even later. When Gwen had gotten hers, it had taken until evening before it was dark enough to read.
He's awake when his alarm goes off, and he hurries into the bathroom. He shucks off his clothes and stands square in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the door.
There. Just above his left hipbone. His mark. His soulmate's name.
Arthur
With a little crown next to it, elegant and pristine.
The marks are dark, bold, precise, and impossible to mistake for anything else.
"Arthur," Merlin repeats to himself, thinking there has to be some mistake.
"Merlin!" his mother, Hunith, calls from the kitchen. "Breakfast."
Merlin blinks at his reflection, trying to see what has apparently been hiding under the surface this whole time. Surely he would have known by now.
"Merlin!"
"Coming, Mum!" Merlin shouts back and frantically gets dressed, deciding he will deal with it later. Maybe he's so sleep deprived that he read it wrong. Maybe it will change into something else by the end of the day. Maybe…
When he gets downstairs, he sees that Hunith has strung up banners in the living room. Happy Birthday. Happy Mark Day.
"There you are," she says happily, pulling him into the kitchen. "Happy Birthday, Merlin. I made your favourite."
Merlin sits at the table and forces himself to eat a piece of the coffee cake even though he isn't hungry. It's tasteless in his mouth.
"So," she says, sitting opposite him, "do you have it yet?"
Merlin shakes his head.
Hunith just smiles. "Not to worry. Mine didn't appear until almost midnight."
"What does yours say?" Merlin asks. He's never asked before.
"Balinor. With a little dragon."
Merlin takes another bite of cake. So, his parents had been soulmates after all. And his father had left, anyway.
"Don't look so morose," she admonishes. "We were happy together."
Merlin struggles to swallow. "What if…"
Hunith waits patiently.
"What if it's wrong?"
"It can't be wrong," Hunith says gently. "Although, you're welcome to ignore it. Plenty do. Will's parents weren't soulmates, and they would have stayed together forever if he hadn’t died."
"Wait… they weren't soulmates?"
"No. Maybe she'll still find hers."
"Yeah," Merlin says absently. He's never considered that the mark could be a suggestion rather than a mandate, a sentence, a fate.
"Not to worry," she says again. "You're young. These things have a way of figuring themselves out."
Merlin goes back to his cake.
In the evening, after Hunith has gone to bed, Merlin goes back to the mirror. He gets naked again, his eyes skimming all the usual landmarks on his body. The freckles. The mole on his shoulder. The scars on his knees from when he'd fallen over too many times as a child. The scar on his hand from the stitches. His ears.
The mark is still there, clear as day. If anything, it's gotten darker.
Arthur
His girlfriend's name is Freya. He's straight. And he's so confused.
There's no way Arthur could be a girl's name. Maybe if it was a more neutral name like Taylor or Jamie, but no. It's Arthur, and that can only be a boy's name.
Merlin imagines getting naked with Freya—not that they have, yet, but one day—and having her see this. She doesn't turn 16 for another four months, but he knows now that she isn't his soulmate. He had assumed as much—they were young, after all, and puppy love rarely lasted—but now he knew. He knew that they weren't meant to end up together.
He had lied to her that morning at school, saying his mark hadn't appeared yet. She had just smiled and kissed him, assured him that it would come in time, and gone off to class like she wasn't worried.
Maybe she wasn't worried. Maybe she knew as well as he did that their first relationship was unlikely to be their last.
Still. Even if it's not Freya, surely it's supposed to be a girl. Merlin is straight. How could he end up with someone named Arthur?
Maybe he's meant to end up with a trans woman, and Arthur is her birth name. That, at least, seems within the realm of possibilities for his future. He'll have to get the mark corrected, though. Maybe he can get a tattoo over it with her real name. Then they won't be stuck looking at Arthur for the rest of their lives.
Deciding that must be it, Merlin gets dressed again and goes into his room to finish up his homework. He has a text from Freya.
Did it show up yet?
It takes him a long time to figure out how to respond.
Yes, I'll tell you about it tomorrow. I love you.
I love you too. Happy Birthday! Sleep tight :)
———
Arthur wakes up hungover on the morning of his 16th birthday. He and his friends had had a little party the night before, and, since his dad was away on business, they'd gotten into his alcohol collection.
It had been a stupid idea.
At least it's a weekend, though. Arthur can't imagine facing school this way.
He's considering his options for breakfast, wondering what's the least harmful thing he could manage to stomach, when it hits him.
He's 16.
He rushes to yank off his clothes, his head spinning a little with each movement.
Merlin
With a little stick next to it. Or—is that a magic wand? There are beams of light shooting out of it.
"Fuck," Arthur says, and he lies back down. "Fuck, fuck fuck."
He had hoped it wasn't true. He had hoped it was just a phase. He had hoped it was normal to feel this way about other guys. He had hoped everyone else felt this way.
He had known better. He knows better, now, for sure. He can't imagine a girl being named Merlin. It has to be a boy's name. And that means it's true. He's gay.
His mobile rings and it takes him a moment to find it buried under his covers.
"Hey, Dad," he says, and his voice cracks. He clears his throat.
"Arthur. Happy Birthday, son." Uther's voice is all business.
"Thanks, Dad."
"I'm sorry I'm not there for it."
Arthur's not. "It's fine," he says. "Work is important."
There's a few beats of silence on the line.
"Well," Uther finally says, and Arthur closes his eyes. "Tell me. What's the lucky lady's name?"
"Dad—"
"Unless it didn't show up yet. That's normal, too, you know."
"I know."
"It'll come in by the evening."
"It's there now," Arthur says.
"Oh? What's it say, then?"
He can hear the uncertainty in his father's voice.
"It's…"
He can't do it.
Uther sighs, and Arthur knows that he knows.
"I have to run," Uther says, and the disappointment is clear. "I'll see you when I get home tomorrow. Don't forget to water the plants."
He hangs up without saying goodbye, without saying that he loves Arthur, without getting into the mess that Arthur just dropped on their laps.
Arthur puts down his mobile and looks at the marks on his hip again.
Merlin
"That's a stupid name," Arthur says, and he goes to find some breakfast.
———
Morgana can barely stand it. It's been an hour since dawn, and the mark is still too light to see. It's there—it's definitely there. She has a soulmate. There's someone for her. It's just a matter of who.
She has a hard time believing there's anyone out there who could love her. She barely loves herself. Mostly she loves what she could become, the woman she sees herself as in the future. It's hard to love what she is now. She tries, though. She doesn't want to go through life hating herself. She wants to feel normal. She wants to be normal.
She checks her hip again. It looks like it might say…
Leon
With a tiny something next it. Something long and sharp. A sword, perhaps.
Morgana takes a deep breath. Leon.
She knows a Leon. Leon is her brother's best friend. And Leon knows her.
Rather, Leon knows what she has to present herself as. He knows the lie. He knows the version of Morgana that everyone else does. He doesn't know her.
Leon had turned 16 months ago. She remembers because her brother, Arthur, had hosted a pool party for him. All his friends had been after him to show off his mark—he was the oldest in the group, the first one to get it—but he had refused. Morgana had been there, doing her best to blend in with the boys. He had given her a look. A look like he knew. And then, to escape his friends' grabby hands, he'd jumped into the pool. Morgana had gone back inside.
Maybe that hadn't been the right interpretation of the look. Maybe he'd meant something else by it. Maybe her name had been there, branding his skin. Maybe he hadn't wanted to reveal to his friends that he had a boy's name on his hip.
Morgan
Morgana wipes her eyes and takes a deep breath to steady herself. She can live with Leon as her soulmate. If he can stand what she plans to become. If he can get past knowing the lie version of her that he's known so far. If he will agree to get the mark corrected. It wouldn't be hard work, just adding an A.
She can live with that. Leon is kind. He's the nicest out of all Arthur's friends. He's the only one who treats Morgana like a person rather than just Arthur's sibling. She can see them lying out together by the pool, getting to know each other, ignoring Arthur's calls for Leon to come play with him in the pool, falling in love.
Morgana sighs and wipes her eyes again. Maybe it's a different Leon entirely. Maybe it's someone she hasn't met yet, someone she won't meet for years to come, someone who will only ever know the true version of herself.
There's a knock on the door and Morgana pulls on briefs and a t-shirt before opening it.
"Hey," Arthur says. "Happy Birthday."
He's holding out a cupcake with a candle on it. He must have gotten up early to buy it from the bakeshop in town.
"Thank you," she says, and he pulls her in for a hug before she can take it.
"You're welcome," he says gruffly, ever so manly with his displays of affection. "Did you get it, yet?"
Morgana nods. She knows Arthur's mark also has a boy's name. She thinks she's the only one he's told. She hasn't told him about herself yet, though. Not yet.
"Anyone we know?"
"Maybe."
Arthur doesn't ask her to clarify. "I've made breakfast, if you want."
Morgana nods again and follows him down to the kitchen.