Warnings: Although not explicitly stated this does have Merthur connotations.
"For god's sake Arthur, you'll get us both killed!"
"Nonsense!" Arthur turned back; Merlin could see a smile stretching the sides of his mouth, crooked and familiar. Some things never changed; the fields surrounding the woods may have been filled with modern houses and broken in places by motorways, and Arthur might have been wearing a red jacket and jeans rather than the cloak Merlin remembered so well, but he was still risking his neck for the sake of it. "Are you a coward, Merlin?"
Merlin sighed. Some things definitely never changed.
"You're lucky I'm not an old man any more!" he called, scrambling over a fallen log and narrowly avoiding twisting an ankle as his trainer slipped on moss. "Or you'd have to carry me."
It wasn't particularly the soggy path or the broken stones that bothered Merlin – they reminded him of Camelot more than anything – but the fact that the wooden bridge Arthur was standing on looked as if it had been built at about the same time they'd been born. Which was a long time ago, Merlin mused, gingerly testing it with his toe.
"Hurry up Merlin." Arthur was already halfway across, waiting in the very middle with his arms folded. Merlin sighed, but began to edge his way over the gap. There was a very sheer drop and although he'd never been particularly afraid of heights, the shallow stream underneath would do nothing to break his fall.
"You're not the king any more. You can't tell me what to do."
"Really? Because you seem to be doing it."
"Dollop head!"
"Imbecile!"
"Clotpole!"
Arthur laughed; the wintry sun made his teeth glint. Merlin was struck by how much they laughed nowadays. That suited him. No point in moping; he had a bridge that looked creakier than an old man's bones to cross. Water from the damp trees pattered onto his head, and he stopped, putting a hand up to check there was nothing stuck in his hair. Arthur, still waiting for him in the centre of the bridge, tapped his foot.
"Come on Merlin, we'll have died before you get here."
Merlin jerked his head in irritation and took the final steps to the middle, staying well back from the sides. "This walk was your idea, you know."
"Yes, but I didn't expect to have to wait for you to catch up all the time."
Merlin snorted as he reached Arthur, expelling breath in a puff of warm air that rose in steam in front of his face. "And yet you carry on doing it."
"Shut up Mer-"
Something gave way beneath their feet. The wood groaned and shuddered, then bucked like a wild horse, folding in on itself. Merlin felt his heart jolt; it lurched in his chest, rising into his throat and shutting off his air. The smile hadn't yet slid off Arthur's face, although his eyes were wider than they had been a second ago.
The bridge snapped in the centre with a sound like the cracking of a whip.
The first thought through Merlin's head was 'oh dear'. The second was along the lines of 'do something', although he couldn't be sure; by that stage they were already plummeting too quickly for him to be certain even of his own thoughts. The wind had turned from a gentle breeze to a rush of freezing air that whistled in his ears and made his teeth shake. He caught a glimpse of the ground rising greedily towards his feet, stretched his arms out, found Arthur's hands, and muttered the first thing that came into his head.
They came to a halt with such an alarming jerk that Merlin thought they'd hit the ground, until he realised it didn't hurt as much as he'd expected. Arthur's hands were gripping his so tightly his fingers were aching, shooting splinters of pain along his palms as fingernails dug into his skin.
His feet brushed against something, and when he glanced over his shoulder he saw he was lying horizontally, suspended above the ground and rising every second that passed. The wind continued to hiss around his head. Arthur was staring at him with a mixture of shock and terror – not that he'd admit he was scared once they got onto solid ground.
Although, he would have to get them to solid ground first.
"Merlin!" Arthur's voice was distorted by the rushing air. "What are you playing at?"
"Saving your sorry backside," Merlin muttered, racking his brains for a way of stopping the spell without sending them plummeting back down the ravine. At the moment they were just hovering, bobbing every now and then, connected by their hands. He needed to go sideways and down. Easier said than done.
For some reason, he started to kick. The air reminded him of water; he was suspended and confused, and his instinct was to try and push it aside. At first, nothing happened; his foot sailed through the empty air with absolutely no effect. Arthur opened his mouth, probably to say something insulting; he was scared, and he was always rude when he was scared. And then Merlin's foot hit a branch overhanging what had, until a couple of minutes ago, been the bridge.
He felt his trainer tap the bark with a sharp pain in his little toe, and at first thought nothing of it. He was considering letting go of one of Arthur's hands and grabbing onto the branch instead, sizing it up and feeling doubtful it would take both their weights, when the spinning began. His foot, in sliding off the wood, had started to turn them sideways in a circle, like a propeller. An out of control propeller.
Once it had started, he found he couldn't stop it. His hands were slipping on Arthur's, knuckles white, and he could feel his eyesight beginning to blur as the scenery whipped around and around.
"Let go!"
Merlin stared as best he could with his eyes watering and his throat tightening; he felt seasick. "What?"
"Let go!" Arthur repeated. "Trust me."
"Are you sure-"
"Trust me!"
Merlin found it wasn't hard; his fingers were slippery with sweat anyway. He closed his eyes and let go.
He hit the ground with a soft thump, wincing as his elbow cracked against a rotten tree stump, shattering a part of it to soggy splinters. By the time he looked up Arthur had already landed, on the opposite side of the gap; they'd pinged away from each other, like sparks off a Catherine Wheel.
"You alright?"
Arthur nodded, getting his feet and tugging his foot out of a patch of brambles with a hiss and a badly-muffled curse. "Just about. No thanks to you."
Merlin staggered upright, leaning on a tree for support as his head tried to remember what it felt like to be upright, rather than going in dizzy circles. "Me? You're the one who crossed it in the first place! If it hadn't been for me…"
Arthur let out a grumpy, spoiled huff. "There was no need to turn us into a roundabout."
"The spinning was unintentional!" Merlin bellowed in reply, rubbing his sore hands before brushing mud off his trousers and scarf. "I didn't do it on purpose."
"Well you need to improve on your magic."
"Improve-"
"Who knows when this might happen again?" Arthur was already making his way down the slopes and amongst the trees; Merlin set off after him, wishing they weren't separated by the gap; he didn't want to have to tell his clotpole of an ex-king not to get lost.
"Hopefully it'll never happen again," he muttered, panting as he scrabbled under a branch curved like an arm above his head. On the opposite side, Arthur dodged a patch of nettles, pulling ahead.
"Come on Merlin! I think there's another crossing further down. I'll meet you on your side."
Merlin sighed and hoped the next bridge would be sturdier than the last one. In the trees a bird, startled by his loud crashing through the undergrowth, took off with a screech, and he stopped to follow its flight as it landed, puffed up and angry-looking, on bush with its beak in the air.
"Hurry up, Merlin!"
The bird flew off again. Merlin rolled his eyes, but a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Some things never changed, and he liked it that way.
Thanks for reading, reviews welcome!
The end.