Work Text:
The details change.
It is 1455, and Arthur can delay no longer, hope for reconciliation no more. He stares out the window at the rolling fields of his lands, at the precious green and brown and endless blue sky, and wishes an answer could come from the land itself.
“My Lord, the Lancasters will wait no longer.” Leon speaks hesitantly, but firmly. Always his strong right arm. “You must decide what to tell them.”
Arthur does not look away from the land outside his castle. “Leave,” he says, “I will give them the answer presently.”
He hears Leon’s bow, then his boots scraping against the floor, metal on stone.
Other boots pad against the floor, softer ones, without mail or sword or iron to weigh him down. “Well?” Merlin asks, and manages to imbue that one word with you-need-to-answer and stop-being-a-coward and all-you-fighting-men-are-idiots. The number of implications he can give a single word has only increased with the years.
Arthur turns from the window at last. Merlin stands in the center of the circular tower room, leaning against a table in the center—round, Merlin had observed with his teasing grin, the first time he saw it.
“Henry is a fine king.”
Merlin’s eyebrows rise.
“Edward is only a boy.”
“He is as old as you, when you took the throne.”
Arthur nods, admitting the point. Merlin has never told him anything but the truth, anything but what he needs to hear, even if does not want to.
“He does not know what it means to rule. He just wants revenge for his father.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“Henry is my king!” Arthur slams his hand against the stone, the mail reverberating. “He is my king and I am duty bound to declare for him.”
“He is your king,” Merlin agrees. His eyes are calm as the lake Arthur can glimpse outside his window, glinting with gold like the sun.
“But—he is not a fine king.” Arthur sighs, turns back to the window. This is his choice, his choice alone, and it will determine the fate of all the people on this land. He looks at the land, the sun, the water. “I don’t know what to do.”
Merlin’s feet pad closer, and his hand rests on Arthur’s shoulder. “You will do what you think is right, as you always do. And that will be right.”
For a moment, Arthur does not move, trying to absorb the strength and heat in that lean, unmailed hand. Then he rolls his shoulders back and turn to face the door. “I have made my decision.”
They are not the same people in each life. They have been raised by different parents, in different worlds, with different morals. They have walked different paths and fought different battles.
They remain, at the heart, at the innermost part of them that will rise and rise and rise again, the same.
It is 1825, and Morgana brings Merlin home. He stares up at the towering stone edifice that is her house, and curses. Not literally. Though he is tempted to teleport somewhere. “Morgana!” he tugs on her wrist, stopping her before she touches the doorbell. “You didn’t say you were—” He can’t line up the art student he met in Paris, angry and beautiful and passionate, the lady who he paid hopeless court to until she finally looked at him, with this heavy stone.
Morgana laughs and bustles forward, her skirts brushing against the ground. She is wearing a corset. She looks wonderful in it, but still. A corset. “Come on, Merlin. They’ll love you.”
He doubts it. He doubts the man who owns this home in Mayfair will be very happy about a suit paid by a student with money that barely goes back a generation. Morgana honestly does not care, he knows, but from what she has told him of Uther, the man has a consciousness of the illustrious nature of his family that stretches back centuries.
But because he does love her, loves who he can be with her, he lets her pull him forward, past a butler that stifles an eyeroll as she dashes past, past priceless art and lofty halls and honest to God suits of armor, until she skids to a halt outside a pair of double doors. He watches as she transforms, pulls on the armor he first saw her in, her chin up and face cold, every inch the lady. He hates that mask, has no part of the life that wears that mask. Yet.
He takes his cue and pulls on his own mask—the mild mannered country lad, wide eyes and slightly bumbling manner. Good-hearted. Not that he isn’t, in the usual course of things. Though he wonders, sometimes, about the dreams of blood and fire.
The doors swing open, and Morgana sweeps in, Merlin trailing behind her. She holds out her hands as the men at the long, heavy table rise, and a real smile breaks out on her face. “Father!” she cries. The older man takes her hands, kisses first one, then the other, his stiff back bending and face glowing in delight.
“Morgana,” he says, all the love in the world in that name. Merlin relaxes, infinitesimally. No one who can love Morgana like that could be all bad.
She turns to the side, to the golden man, about their age, wearing a Regimental’s uniform, and her smile changes, sharpens. “Arthur,” she says, and her eyes laugh. “Haven’t managed to kill yourself yet?”
“Morgana,” he replies, in the same tone. His hands are on his hips. “Finished wasting your time with your little drawings?”
Merlin knows the look in her eyes then, the hidden hurt, the dismissal, and can’t help himself. “Morgana isn’t wasting her time,” he inserts. The full force of those blue eyes turn on him, and he draws himself up. He is taller than Arthur, though skinnier, and no one should talk like that. Human decency, really. “Her paintings are wonderful.”
For the first time, Arthur turns his gaze on Merlin. He looks down his aristocratically straight nose—a difficult feat, because Merlin is a few paces away and taller. “And who are you to judge?” His lips press together in a hard, thin line.
“My name is Merlin,” he says hotly. Something is sparking behind his eyes, something hot and cold together. “I’m studying in Paris as well. And who are you to judge?”
Arthur’s eyes widen. At the impertinence, probably. “A better man than you, Merlin.” But there is fondness in his gaze, and by the way Morgana is grinning at him, Merlin figures that means Arthur likes him.
Sometimes they remember, sometimes they do not. Sometimes, most excruciatingly, one does and one does not. Sometimes the memory is complete, sometimes it comes in half-formed intuitions and inexplicable knowledge, in certainty that this is where they are meant to be.
“You cannot stand against them.”
Arthur rolls his eyes at his squire and goes back to sharpening his sword. Which should really be Merlin’s job, but the man never does it right, and he likes to be sure that anything he is trusting his life to is as perfect as he can make it.
“King Harold is.”
“King Harold will die.” Merlin says it with absolute certainty, though what a squire could know of something like that is beyond Arthur. Still he picks up Arthur’s hauberk and carries it to the bench beside him. Arthur watches him move, watches the light step and deceptively proud tilt to his head. “And you might, too.”
“With you by my side? Never!” Arthur drawls. Merlin snorts—he knows full well how clumsy he is with a blade. Though he never manages to die, so that’s something.
Arthur lapses into silence as the sound of his whetstone is countered by the steady swipe of oil on metal. He can feel Merlin’s warmth beside him, the constant, if hidden and non-warlike, strength. “If the battle is so—”
“No.”
“What?”
Merlin snorts again, and does not look up from his work. “You were going to tell me to stay out of the battle, go far away from the coast, so that I would stay safe. Which is bollocks, because nowhere is safe, and anyway, if you’re going to fight then so am I.” Now he looks up, right into Arthur’s eyes, and he can almost imagine gold in their depths.
“But…”
Merlin fixes him with that stare again, the one that combines ‘you idiot,’ with ‘aren’t you sweet,’ and Arthur gives. He usually does, even if Merlin insists otherwise. “Safest place for you is where I can keep an eye on you, anyway,” he agrees. Merlin elbows him in the side, and Arthur wonders just what he did before this mad, incompetent, brilliant squire came into his life, and wonders why he can hardly remember.
They don’t fall in love every time. They didn’t the first time—or maybe they did, but neither can say any more. Sometimes Arthur marries Gwen; sometimes Merlin falls for Morgana. Once, Morgana and Arthur fell in love, much to his later disgust. Gwen and Merlin have married more than once; Merlin was shocked to remember he and Gwaine had a passionate affair around 1700. Arthur always tries to deny the sexual tension between him and Lancelot, but Merlin is never convinced.
More often than not, they fall in love.
It is 1917, and the country is at war. Arthur is not surprised—he always seems to come back when the country is at war. Part of that hour of greatest need thing, he supposes. Of course, he muses, not for the first time, as he slogs his way through the mud and rats of the trenches, the Great Powers did not see fit to put him in a position to do something about the war. Bugger them. And bugger their mud, too.
He ducks into his dugout as a shell explodes above him, and winces. Too close. One of theirs or one of the Huns’, who knows? Probably English, preparing for the push. That’s the way this war works. He misses swords.
Merlin blinks up at him from the bunk. He looks very young, in his corporal’s uniform, blue eyes very big in a muddy face. He always seems young, until he seems ancient and terrible. “News?”
“Push this morning.”
“Damn.” Merlin runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “Arthur, this isn’t working. The men are just dying out there, and pushes aren’t helping.”
“I know.” Arthur sits beside him, lets Merlin lean his head against his shoulder. He is warm despite the mud, of course. Merlin never suffers the cold. Spoiled brat. “But what can I do?” He is not king, this time. He is responsible for his men, and that is all.
Merlin’s eyes glint golden. “I could—”
“No.” This happens every war. “Merlin, you can’t. You know that.”
“Nothing big!” Merlin protests, and Arthur wonders just what that means. Nothing big like no earthquakes, or nothing big like healing? He has seen both, and more. It terrifies him sometimes, as much as the first time Merlin let loose the volcano inside of him. It comforts him, too, just as much. “Just—make the generals change their mind. You know this war is stupid. Haven’t you been reading the papers?”
“I know, but still, Merlin.” He says the name with all the command he has, though Merlin never has done what he is told.
Merlin sighs, and wraps himself around Arthur a little more. It is always a little awkward when they fall in love and remember, because they know the other things—Guinevere and Morgana and Lancelot. Or maybe it is awkward because they remember and know what could have been. But that does not stop them, not this time, when they all need the comfort they can get. Not any time, when they are two alone in the endless streams of time.
Lancelot knocks on the door of the dugout, then steps in. “Sir,” he says, sharp military precision in his salute. He doesn’t remember, none of the others ever do—but he is still the same. “Time for the push.” He does not comment on Merlin, but his lips curve upwards. He’s a good man, Lancelot. Better than Arthur. Always is.
Arthur rises—as far as he can in these infernal trenches—and stretches, then puts on his helmet. “Well?” He looks expectantly at Merlin.
Merlin groans and uncurls from the bunk, coming to his feet with the lithe grace that always hides beneath the bumbling exterior. “Fine, I’ll come. But just this once, you hear? And only to keep you out of trouble.”
It makes Arthur laugh, as Merlin knew it would. Arthur steps out first, into the trench, then turns back—and that is when the shell hits and Arthur’s world dissolves into pain.
When he wakes, the pain is gone. Totally, absolutely. He can focus on the mud in which he is lying, the stale stench of gunsmoke and blood and decay in the air, the shells thundering beyond him. All of which tells him something is terribly wrong. He opens his eyes.
Merlin’s eyes are gold, gold as the sun and Excalibur’s hilt and the first time, but his face is drawn, edges sharp as a corpse. Arthur looks down, follows Merlin’s gaze. His legs are rebuilding themselves, bone by bone, muscle by muscle, growing from the torn stumps like a tree from a seed. For a second, Arthur just watches, safe in Merlin’s arms—and then he understands.
“No!”
Arthur’s eyes flick to Merlin, as his toenails grow and Merlin’s face is pale, pale as death itself. “No, Merlin. You’re killing yourself!”
Merlin collapses; now it is Arthur who leans over him, cradles him, as if he could give back the gift Merlin has given him, the gift Merlin has always given him. “Oh, my lord,” Merlin breathes out, even as he grows cold—though Arthur is not a lord this time. “I always go first, you know that.”
“You won’t this time, I swear it.” Arthur is not crying. He has been here too often. But it hurts, oh, it hurts as much as the first time, like his heart is being ripped from his chest, like his legs have been snatched from his body once more. “I order it.”
“I never do what I’m told,” Merlin counters. His lips flutter into a smile; his eyes close. “I’ll see you soon, my lord.”
And then he is gone, and Arthur is missing half his self.
This is what is always true. He is Arthur. He is Merlin. Whenever Albion needs them most, they are reborn.
A small boy with golden hair bikes down the street, feet flying, sweat pouring down his back in the August heat. And making his t-shirt stick. He flashes past house after house, suburbia at its finest, and whoops with the sheer joy of riding.
The whoop changes into a scream as another boy emerges from a side street, right into his path. The rider swerves, wobbles, manages to screech to a stop.
“You idiot!” he yells, “Don’t you look where you’re walking!”
The other boy is tall and dark haired, all legs and arms. He crosses those arms across his chest. “You should look where you’re riding.”
“I do!”
“Obviously not, if you almost bumped into me.”
The rider’s mouth opens and closes, swallows air. Then he grins. “Arthur.” He sticks out a hand.
The other takes it, and something crackles between them as they touch. “Merlin.”
They find each other.
It is the first time, tragic and brilliant enough for all the others. Arthur stands on the highest tower of Camelot. In the distance, the fields are shining green, the mountains icy strong and constant. The forests lend their dappled shadows to the land, places for men to prove themselves. The borders are clear, Morgana not seen for many years. In the town, peasants are going about their daily work, a cheerful clamor; in the yard, Gwaine’s sword clashes against Leon’s with a ring of steel and a gloating shout. Gwen is in her solar, doing embroidery with her ladies. The sky is clear, the wind crisp and clean, and Merlin stands beside him, his staff resting lightly on the stone.
There is darkness to come, though he knows it not—Mordred and Camlann, betrayal and twisted obsession. But for the moment, the dream shines as clearly as his crown. Arthur slings an arm over Merlin’s shoulder, barely remembers the weedy boy who would have winced at the weight of mail and now holds the weight of more magic than he can conceive of.
“Look, Merlin,” he says, face bright as it was the first time his father told him what it meant to rule, “Look what we have done!”
Merlin’s eyes are golden as he speaks. “Look, Arthur,” he echoes, old as the hills and young as the clouds. “Look what we will do.”