Discalimer: I have no claim over any recognizable plots/characters nor do I profit from them.
Author's notes: This fic also has two very small companion pieces, which may or may not, at some point, arrive on . Thanks to vensre from livejournal for beta-ing this for me.
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Refracted
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When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
And, ringing, springs from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.
It's autumn and the streets smell of almost-rain. Wind pushes old grocery bags filled with leaves down the street, the shushing noises they make both loud and seemingly very far away. Arthur comes to the conclusion that of all the times to sulk by refusing his dependable personal driver and instead walking the mile from work to home, tonight was not his night.
He shivers, more because he feels he ought to than because he is genuinely cold, and tucks his briefcase firmly under his arm. When his flat is finally in sight, Arthur begins to dig in his pockets for the key card, which will let him into the building. He stops for a moment, to check his jacket in case he might have left it in his pocket, and that is when he sees the boy crouched against a wall a little way in front of him, a street kid.
The feeling that sweeps over him is so sudden and shocking that he drops his briefcase. Heat and need blossom out from his chest like a heart attack and for a moment the whole sky in doused in blue-gold flames, creeping over the edges of his vision, crawling across the buildings like spreading vines, brightly flowered.
Then the feeling is gone, as quickly as it had set over him, but the sizzle and burn of it doesn't completely fade, and Arthur feels drunk or high without any of the blurring. The world appears sharper and more beautiful than it was only a moment ago.
Despite the fear and confusion clawing at the back of his mind, Arthur walks nearer to the boy. He scrutinizes his five o'clock shadow, scruffy dark hair, generally unkempt clothing, and the contrast of his full pink mouth and pale skin stretched across a delicate skull full of pure sharp angles. Even with the tatty clothing and dazed slump against the wall, there is something not quite right. The boy doesn't look very homeless. He is skinny but not skeletal, his shirt, while dirty, appears to be made from good quality linen, and he is wearing well used but well cared for black leather boots. Also, the boy does not seem to be begging, nor does he have the usual cart of rubbish that accompanies most homeless people Arthur has encountered.
The moment Arthur is close enough to touch, the boy's eyes snap open. They are very, very blue, and Arthur stands frozen like a deer caught in the headlights, but he wants it. He wants to stay, trapped just as he is so much it's shocking, and his breath shudders to a stop, lost between his lungs and his mouth.
The boy smiles, wide and white and the relief on his face is all-encompassing, enormous, and makes Arthur feel incredibly important, as though he is the King of England. Arthur, the boy mouths, It's okay. The boy leans his head back against the wall, one arm reaching out, a thin wrist turned vulnerably towards him. Arthur closes the space between them and gently circles his fingers around the offered hand. It feels intimate and familiar. The boy looks at Arthur searchingly for a moment more, but then his head tips back and he appears to convulse.
When the boy opens his eyes again, they are large and cloudy, as though seeing to somewhere far away. The strange buzz that Arthur has been running on for the last few minutes fades instantly, leaving him feeling burnt out and empty.
The dreamlike pull that had caused him to step forward and catch the boy's hand is gone, and Arthur drops it quickly, but somehow, he still feels the soft smooth touch of it, the space where it belonged in his grasp. He feels silly, childlike.
The wind blows harder for a minute more and Arthur looks around, reminded of where he is and what exactly he's meant to be doing. Then he returns his gaze to the boy. It seems ludicrous to even entertain the idea of just leaving him here, on the street, broken and wrong, but Arthur cannot think of any reason he could explain logically to someone else that he should care about this homeless stranger than any other homeless stranger Arthur avoids daily. After all, the kid obviously has some sort of mental problem, sitting as he is with his wide pearlescent eyes, when only a moment ago he was connected to Arthur. He could be a drug addict, a thief, or a murderer for all Arthur knows.
Nevertheless, he only stands in indecision for a few more minutes before picking the boy up, and hurrying down the street with him, suddenly grateful it's late enough that no one is around, and terribly glad the boy is so skinny, he's hardly difficult to carry for the remaining few hundred yards to Arthur's building. He tells himself as he does it that it's out of charity, or that he needs to find out why a street kid knows his name. But that isn't the reason. He picks the boy up because he craves the sudden completeness he felt when their eyes met, and he cannot imagine letting that feeling of absolute attachment slip away now that he's had it.
Once inside the flat, Arthur is at a loss for what to do. He has a guest bedroom, but he's worried about putting the kid in there and then falling asleep and waking up to him going through Arthur's things, or gone. Arthur's also a bit afraid he'll wake up terrified, in some random stranger's posh flat. As a compromise, Arthur puts the boy in his own bed and then decides to sleep on the small couch in the bedroom, relatively sure he'll wake up if the boy makes much noise.
He lays on his sofa for twenty or so minutes, replaying in his head, again and again, that sudden clarity of thought and the crackling tension broken up by the strange ferocity of joy in the boy's expression spliced with the blank stare he wore after, wears now, lying in Arthur's bed without sleeping, barely even blinking.
Wondering what on earth he thinks he doing, Arthur stares at the soft rise and fall of the lump on his bed and slowly, slowly, he falls asleep.
Despite the turmoil and the small uncomfortable couch, it's the best ten hours of sleep Arthur's ever had in his life.
---
When he wakes, morning light is streaming in through the shades in golden bars and Arthur yawns widely, relishing in the deeply rested feeling that permeates his bones.
Then he rolls over.
For a moment he is merely confused by the dark head of hair that meets his eyes. He rarely bothers to sleep with anyone. It's nice enough on a physical level, but overall, Arthur has found that sex never has no strings attached and the people whom the strings are attached to are never, ever the one he wants. He doesn't know who he wants, just that somewhere, once or in the future, there was/is a-
Arthur blinks. Firstly, he wonders why can he not think in the correct tense. Secondly, he did not take anyone to bed last night. But he did put someone into his bed. The main question Arthur asks himself, however, is how did he get into his bed. He sits up to find he is dressed in pyjamas, he didn't put himself into. The boy from the night before is still in bed with him, asleep now, and wearing a second pair of flannel pyjamas that Arthur does not remember owning. They boy's hair is damp, and his skin looks soft and clean. He looks strangely older than he had the night before, with his hair trimmed a little and his stubble gone, less like a wild child and more like…like something else. Something Arthur remembers from a very long time ago. Something he aches for.
It seems hard to believe that whoever the crazy homeless person he stupidly brought home with him woke in the middle of the night, showered, cut his own hair, went out to buy pyjamas and then redressed himself and Arthur and tucked them both back into bed, but Arthur can think of no other explanation.
The fairytale-like plane his life seems to be operating on allows this sort of thing to happen so Arthur suspends the logical part of his mind and concentrates on getting out of bed quietly enough that he won't wake the other man. Then he makes eggs.
He folds mushrooms and peppers into the omelet and is about to add ham but stops halfway through because he remembers that the man in his bed doesn't like ham, which leaves him even more confused than he was before, because how could he possibly know something like that?
He's saved from further contemplation of this strange epiphany because said man stumbles sleepily from the hallway, rubbing his eyes like a child and yawning.
"Mornin' Arthur," he says, and then smushes his mouth against Arthur's lips wetly, in a clumsy kiss. He swipes the omelet pan from Arthur's hand in the same motion and slides it onto a waiting plate, and then before Arthur can recover from his shock enough to ask the stranger what the hell he thinks he's doing, he seizes up, limbs going stiff like they had the night before on the street. The plate drops to the floor, shattering to pieces, and quickly, Arthur catches the boy as he falls.
"What are you?" He can't help but mutter as he manhandles the boy onto his wide leather sofa. When the boy's eyes blink open again, they aren't empty and clouded as he expects, but instead pure liquid gold. Arthur has never seen a colour more perfect, and he would think to call it unearthly except they're the exact opposite. They are the Earth, here in his living room, bursting through the shell of a lost boy.
"Saviour." It says, voice soft like the sighs a wind through the branches of a tree, many trees, all the trees in the world. It reaches out its hand in a parody of insecurity - it catches Arthur's cheek, smoothing the pad of its fingers against his skin. "You are too young for yourself. Where is your past, my son?"
Arthur can feel that it wants an answer but he's starting to think he's way more than in over his head, which is not a judgment he makes lightly. He says nothing, rather than give the wrong answer. It closes its eyes, sadly, and when they open again, they're dull. Arthur sighs, props the boy up like a rag doll, and goes to investigate.
He finds the boy's trousers in an untidy heap next to the shower. He's so sure it's a pointless effort to check the pockets for information that when he pulls out a leather wallet, he's surprised. Surprise is becoming a permanent state of being for Arthur. Inside he finds a university ID card, which credits the boy, whose name turns out to be Merlin Aurelio, with being a lecturer. Arthur finds this hard to believe for several reasons, the first is that Merlin can't possibly be more than 25, a fact confirmed by his driver's license, and the second is that university lecturers rarely lead double lives as crazies on the street. However all the information in the wallet, credit cards, licenses, even his train pass share the same name and similar grinning pictures of the boy now propped up vulnerably on Arthur's sofa.
Arthur decides that something fishy is going on. He then decides that he is not just in over his head - he is, in fact, over all thirty-three floors of his main downtown office building. He also doesn't want to stop. He feels more real, and more excited than he has in longer than he can remember. Arthur has always had a bit of a penchant for wild adventures. He mainly keeps it in check, locked up tight behind stacks of paperwork and common sense but sometimes it bursts free, and when it does, everyone else ought to watch out.
---
Two days pass, and Arthur barely leaves the house. His secretary calls several times, but Arthur is in the rare position of not having to answer to anyone. He is a multi-millionaire recluse orphan. He'd built his own company from the ground up and he has a lot of acquaintances and a few past paramours, but in general, Arthur often feels uncomfortable around people. He is nothing if not charming and charismatic. People love him even at his worst, but he cannot help but feel on some elemental level, they are real people and he is not.
He always assumed the feeling was a product of his own mysterious past. As a very small child, Arthur had been found on the doorstep of an orphanage with an envelope containing three and a half million pounds, meticulous instructions about giving Arthur the best future possible and a small card pinned to his swaddling clothes, which labeled him with his name. It was as though whoever had placed him there had read a lot of storybooks, but never lived in the real world. The money and instructions meant that Arthur's life existed in a strange bubble of austere nursemaids and the best schooling possible. One might have thought Arthur would grow up feeling unloved, but he hadn't, he only always felt that he was waiting for something better. It made for a strange sort of loneliness.
And now this. The rightness of whatever was happening now was unmistakable to Arthur, spoke to all the places in him that yearned for more, made his very instincts hum.
He waits for another event like the first morning, but it doesn't happen. The blank Merlin seems to be a permanent fixture, save for the fact that sometimes, if he has left the room for a while, or fallen asleep at his desk, he finds himself moved, or redressed, or a full English breakfast prepared on the table. It is not only unsettling but also seemingly impossible. Arthur doesn't even understand how he himself keeps allowing the…pure insanity of the situation to continue. His best explanation is the good feeling he has? It's barely an excuse.
But there are also the flashes. Flashes is the only way to describe them, but it isn't exactly accurate, and if he is going to be completely honest with himself, these aren't the first either. When he was growing up, it would happen sometimes, standing on a street corner, or lying on the grass in a park, and a scent or smell would trigger a sort of vision, a thought, a moment in which he is not the Arthur of today but another, far greater than what is possible in the grey life he leads.
The irony of Arthur's name is certainly not lost on him. To be named after a great fictional character of a King of England, in those moments, though, Arthur suspects that irony is not the right word at all; that perhaps reality is more what he is looking for. Now Merlin is sleeping in his bed.
On Tuesday evening, exactly forty-eight hours after finding Merlin on his street corner, Arthur is contemplating this and other things as he redresses rag-doll Merlin, being very careful not to look at the long thin white lines of the body laid out before him because he might start to remember it. The sharp shrapnel feeling his heart gets makes him too afraid to look any closer, however his thumbs find a few lines of script in black ink on the boy's lower back and, interested, Arthur inspects them more carefully.
They are not written in any language Arthur has seen before, but the letters almost look like the English alphabet, so he tries them out, fitting his mouth awkwardly around the uncomfortable syllables. They feel warmer than the rest of Merlin's skin, and for a second that is not a second but a space of time that must be infinitely small, Arthur feels again the strange strung out high he did at the first meeting of their eyes. He gasps at the pleasure of it, and it leaves him breathless and bubbly.
Merlin gasps too. He sits up very quickly.
"Arthur?" He says, confused. "What are you wearing? That is an incredibly weird shirt. And where are we? And what have you done to your hair? And…no, seriously, Arthur, what in heaven's name is going on?"
Arthur gapes. "Uh…uh…Merlin?"
"Yes?" He replies shortly. "Sorry, are we going to have the respectfulness fight again, I just thought that perhaps seeing as that we've obviously been transported to some sort of alternate dimension, now was not the time, Sire."
Arthur means to continue being surprised, but the way the boy says his Sire grates on his nerves in such a way that he finds himself trying to think of a retort. "That really doesn't sound any better, and besides that, shouldn't I be asking you what's going on?"
Merlin blinks. "What do you mean?"
"Well, clearly-" But Arthur is cut short as Merlin stiffens again, and Arthur sighs in annoyance. He was about to get somewhere and now he's going to have to deal with three days of nothing again. Luckily, or perhaps it isn't really luck at all, that is not what happens.
Instead, Merlin's eyes, if it were possible, go a clearer, cleaner blue than they were just a moment ago.
"Arthur?"
Arthur rolls his eyes. "Yes, yes. Here I am, 'Arthur'. What do you want?"
"Oh. Thank God. Thank God."
Merlin surges forward, his arms sliding around Arthur's shoulders eagerly. Arthur straightens nervously for a moment, but it feels so familiar that he relaxes into the hug with only a little hesitation.
"Look, I'm really sorry about yesterday, or whenever it was, when I kissed you in the kitchen. I just get my timelines confused sometimes, and something has gone wrong. We're all messed up. You don't remember me right now, do you?"
"No." Arthur says. "I don't."
"Right, okay." He pauses to think for a moment. Arthur is strangely pleased by the ridiculous look this causes. His ears stick out to a truly incredible angle. He begins to speak again, but in the slow ponderous voice of someone who is talking to himself
"I know I was in the library at Cambridge, and then I left, and something must have happened because when I came back around I was sitting on the street corner looking at you. In between I just remember that I was in pain. I think, anyway, and maybe…" He falls silent before whispering distantly. "I don't know…"
"We're in London now. How do you not know how you got here?"
"Hmm…I think…Excuse me, but is there a reason why you're rubbing my lower back? I mean, I'm not complaining or anything, but it doesn't seem like something you'd be inclined to do right now."
"Oh, oh, right." Arthur coughs abruptly and starts to remove his hands, but as he does so, the warm feeling in his chest leaches away, and the air suddenly tastes acrid and cold. Merlin clasps his hands quickly over Arthur's.
"Maybe, don't do that. One thing you ought to remember, Arthur, this is not an exact art. We work by trial and error here."
"Yes." He replies, hiding a grin though he doesn't know exactly what it's for. "I was redressing you, because you hadn't changed clothes at all, and I found this tattoo or something on your back, right here. I poked it-"
Merlin scoffs, "You would."
"-and then you woke up again from the blank you, and then you started talking about how we were caught in some other dimension and you called me Sire, and then you twitched again and this happened."
"Hmm…" Merlin says again. "Well let's have a look at the words. Do you have a mirror?"
They shuffle towards the bathroom, and Arthur suddenly realizes that Merlin is dressed only in pyjama bottoms, which are nearly falling off because Arthur hasn't properly tied the string, and he still has no shirt on, and he smells good. But he also thinks it really isn't the time, so he turns his head to the side a little and concentrates on not accidentally letting go of the tattooed skin.
"I see." Merlin says, upon craning his neck around to study the skin of his back, and then he adds, in a much more worried tone. "Oh dear."
"What is it?"
Merlin sighs. "This would be infinitely easier if you had your memory. How old are you?"
"Twenty-three?" Arthur replies uneasily.
"Well, that doesn't make any sense either. If you weren't born knowing, you at least should have gotten it back when you were eighteen."
He stands pondering for a moment, an expression that is beginning to become familiar.
"Bear with me for a minute Arthur, I swear I'm not lying or crazy, but you're King Arthur. And I'm Merlin. You know. Really. And occasionally you get re-incarnated usually to help the country out of some situation or another, like last time you were around it was World War II, and you were a sort of ultimate secret advisor or something. And I just don't ever die. I make sure you're okay and stay alive until your job is done, et cetera. But anyway, obviously there has been some sort of interference this time round because I've got a very bad spell inked into my back."
"What?" Arthur asks, less worried by how odd the explanation was than by how well it made sense.
Unfortunately at that moment, the door buzzer rings, signaling that someone would like to come up stairs and annoy Arthur. Merlin curiously pulls away to look outside the door, but then whatever strange connection between Arthur's hand and Merlin's back that was holding him in the present snaps with a rush of icy electrical energy, and as per usual, Merlin's form mimics a wooden board for a moment, before collapsing uselessly to the ground.
"ARGH." Arthur shouts, and then more quietly, "Shit."
Then he picks up Merlin, and drags him over to the couch, lies him down and adjusts until he looks like he is asleep rather than dead, and closes his blank eyes more gently than he feels the idiot deserves.
He buzzes whoever is waiting at the door up and then tugs at his hair a little until it looks slightly less like a small woodpigeon has been nesting in it. On the other side of the door stands his best friend, who is perhaps one of the few people on the earth Arthur does not constantly feel uncomfortable with.
"Gally," he says tightly. "What do you want?"
Galahad Lanson is best described as perfect. Arthur suspects that if he weren't so damn good people would hate him. Arthur met him the year before he went to University, but had known Gally's uncle years before. The two were nearly identical and Arthur marvelled at the family resemblance. Gally is also smart, and one of those people that never seems to age a day.
"I was just worried about you, Arthur. No one's heard from you since Saturday."
"Right." Says Arthur, trying to think how to best get rid of Gally quickly. "Well, I'm in the middle of a…uh…torrid love affair."
Gally raises one eyebrow. "A what?"
"You heard me, I'm deeply in love, but I really have to go because we were just, you know, busy."
Suddenly, Gally looks a little more worried than a moment ago. "In love? I don't think I've ever heard you say that before."
Arthur berates himself. Perhaps that was really not the right choice for an excuse. He should have just said he was terribly contagiously ill.
"For Christ's sake, I'm busy!"
Gally winces (he is also oddly devout) and then attempts to causally get past Arthur by wedging his foot in the door. "When do I get to meet this lovely lady?"
"He is asleep. So not right now."
"But you just said you were-"
Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur sees Merlin's form on the sofa go tellingly rigid. Damn. He thinks. The oxygen in the room thins suddenly, and Arthur is sure that the strange gold-eyed figure has returned to divulge the secrets of the universe but it is really not the time. Gally is still trying to slyly slip around Arthur into the flat without success.
"Are you sure you're really in love? It's just, I'd always thought I knew, uh, what sort of person you were going to end up going for and-"
"Fuck." Arthur says, because the books on his shelf have started quivering, and a few are beginning to float. The magic, because what else could it be, is surprisingly unsurprising. "Merlin, what are you doing?"
"The world folds. The world turns. I see you all, thin silver lines of life, short and endless…" Merlin begins to murmur in a low inhuman baritone.
"Did you just say Merlin?" Gally asks.
"Yes, yes, that's his name. But Gally, you've really got to go now." Arthur replies quickly, eyeing the way Merlin's head is thrown back a little, and definitely more worried about it than entranced by the pale figure of his neck.
Gally stops trying to get past Arthur and simply pushes by him, saying, "Oh dear, oh dear, something's gone wrong hasn't it? And you still don't remember yet!"
In the same moment, Arthur stops to consider Galahad and Galahad's uncle and their names and how similar they look.
"Jesus." He says, "What the hell? You're fucking Sir Galahad, aren't you? This is not my week." Arthur shuts the door the flat, and tries to prevent himself from laughing aloud at the way Gally is fluttering around Merlin like a nervous woman.
The Golden thing turns to Arthur, and, not knowing what else to do, Arthur clasps its hands in his and leans forward until their faces are very close.
"Crumbling, crumbling, the shadows are near." It whispers.
"I'll save you." Arthur replies. Abruptly, he understands. He knows what it wants from him now. It wants him to make it safe. "It's okay."
"She is very cold." It says. "She broke us apart, with her icy fingers. King. You know the answer?"
"I'll find out." Arthur promises. He no longer knows what he is saying but the words bleed from his lips, taken like fruit from a tree, because they are the words that the Earth needs hear.
"Yes." The Golden thing replies.
"Yes." Arthur kisses its forehead. The light fades from its eyes until they are blank again. Arthur tells himself he wasn't really wishing that other Merlin would return, instead. The one who, in their few short moments of acquaintance, made Arthur feel strangely safe.
Arthur softly lays the empty body back down again and then turns to face Sir Galahad who stands limply, with a guilty look painted across his face.
"You." He says shortly, an accusation. "Are going to explain exactly what is going on here."
Gally sighs. "Look," He begins, "As far as whatever is wrong with Merlin, I haven't a clue. We had a bit of a fight a while back and I haven't spoken to him in nearly five years, but as for the rest of it…" He sits down on Arthur's wide armchair heavily.
"I don't know why you don't have your memory back yet either. I've been trying to contact Merlin to ask him about it. What happened was we found out you'd been reborn and located you when you were about four, and Merlin hung around for a little, but he left again, because it was difficult, he's really missed you, you see, it's hard for him when you can't remember him. He gave me instructions to watch out for you and tell him when you remember everything. Sometimes something triggers you when you're younger, but usually if not, you remember on your eighteenth birthday, I've no clue why. Anyway, this time you didn't remember and I wasn't sure where Merlin had gone to tell him, but now he's appeared here and clearly, there's more to it than just faulty memory."
"I don't think I get it." Arthur said slowly. "I'm King Arthur. Is that what you're saying? And I should know it. But I don't."
"Yes?" Gally says. "Right, I'll try to prove it to you. Take this sword."
"What?"
Gally holds up his finger, for wait-one-moment and then leans over Merlin, there is a thin leather cord with a small pouch hanging around Merlin's neck that Arthur either hadn't noticed before or wasn't there. He reaches inside and tugs free a sword. The pouch is no bigger than an envelope, but the sword pulled free is very large indeed. Arthur has never even held a sword before - he's slightly afraid he'll drop it.
Gally hands it to him after pulling a second sword free, which doesn't look as nice as the first.
Arthur doesn't drop the sword. It feels like the taut form of a body between his hands, slick and smooth and lovely. Arthur has to catch his breath from the goodness of it. He feels powerful suddenly. Without knowing what he is doing, Arthur lets the sword guide him into gripping it properly.
"Fight me, Arthur."
"Okay." Arthur replies, before he is even aware of opening his mouth.
They fight in Arthur's living room and the adrenaline that floods his veins is like sweet dessert wine, heady and thick and making his breath quicker and his heartbeat heavier. His hands know how to block and thrust and parry long before his head does. He defeat Gally easily and when Gally is on his knees with Arthur's sword point at his throat he pants, "My Liege." And Arthur nods silently, granting him the plea.
Right. He thinks to himself, I'm King Arthur.
---
After that, they play a waiting game. The hours stretch out, and Arthur asks Gally question after question because he is so hungry for the answers. How much of the stories he's seen and read are true? What was his favourite food, his favourite colour? What is Merlin like? Were they in love? Is that why is hurts to look at him sometimes? What does it feel like to save the world? What Gally tells him isn't really enough, but he soaks up the replies like sunlight.
At midnight, Merlin wakes again. The second he opens his eyes he instructs Arthur to press his hand against the spell again.
"It feels better." He says in explanation. "It sort of hurts when you don't, even if it isn't you anchoring me here. Lets go look at it in the mirror again now, I need to figure out exactly what it means. Perhaps if we can counter it we can fix the problem. And hello Galahad, long time, no see."
"Yes, I suppose so Merlin."
"Been telling Arthur how bad I am for him?"
Gally's face pinches. "I wouldn't do that."
Merlin sighs. "I guess you wouldn't. Old grudges die hard, you know?"
"What?" Arthur asks, confused.
"I -" Gally looks at Arthur sheepishly, "I told you we'd had a fight. I sometimes might be a little jealous of Merlin. Because he and you are very…right for each other, and you are a very great man, Sire. On top of that, I wasn't very understanding about him wanting to leave."
"It's alright, Gally." Merlin says tiredly. "This is probably my fault, anyway."
Something in Arthur wants to smile at that, and before he can think better of it he adds, "Probably."
Merlin turns toward him and nudges against Arthur's hand under his shirt.
Arthur remembers a little. He sees Merlin's face lighted with a grin, he wears red livery and sweat beads at his brow. They are racing through dark green and brown, a forest in the afternoon, and they are hunting, a chase, Arthur loves it. Merlin is clumsy, he halts the party and Arthur cannot make himself angry even though it's a day's work wasted. They have berries for dinner in pale gold tent and Arthur likes the taste of them better from Merlin's tongue.
"Oh." Arthur and Merlin say at the same time, then "Was that you?"
They laugh. It feels good.
Galahad recopies the spell out in long careful black strokes. His hand looks like it would fit around a quill better than the ballpoint pen Arthur hands him. They sit back down at the desk and Merlin "mmms" and "ahhs" over the lines of script for several minutes.
"As far as I can tell, it's a breaking apart spell. It roughly translates to this." He says, rewriting what looks like a verse of poetry on a fresh sheet of paper.
Prism, Prism
Refract His Light
Tear Apart His Memory
Give Them All a Fright
Break Him Into Pieces
None of Them Right
"It still rhymes." Arthur notes. "Even though it was translated from another language."
Merlin shrugs. "It's a spell. It does weird stuff like that."
"So what is it?" Gally asks, for clarification.
"I believe that the purpose is to break my conscious mind into several parts, probably with the intention of driving me insane. But what doesn't make sense is why I'm not insane. And what Arthur has to do with it. This should merely incapacitate me. Not link me to anyone else."
They sit thinking for a minute.
"Oh!" Merlin says. "Perhaps…" He pulls Arthur's shirt up quickly. Then he grins, the wide familiar grin that Arthur both really likes and also makes him think idiot. "Oh, I am good. Clever, clever."
He quickly copies out whatever he has found on Arthur's back, which turns out to be another few lines of script in the first strange language. Then he writes a second translation beneath it.
Prism, Prism
Alone In the Night
Guide Him to His Other Half
Lost and Bright
"You countered it." Arthur says, thinking that, perhaps, he half understands.
Merlin nods, "That I did. I'm glad that's solved. Now, who did this to us, why don't you remember your past, and how are we going to fix it?"
Arthur sighs, "It's never easy with you, Merlin, is it?"
Merlin doesn't move or make any noise, but Arthur can feel his mirth through all the places where their skin is touching. It's nice.
"So, if this is meant to break me into pieces, have you been in contact with any other, uh…versions of me?"
"Well." Arthur ponders for a moment. "So far we've seen the Blank Merlin, the Golden thing, the one-who-called-me-sire, and also, a couple of times I've found things moved around, or you shower or change or cook when I'm not around."
Merlin meets Arthur's eyes guiltily, "That last one was me. I told you I get confused in time. I kept waking up and just thinking it was odd we weren't sleeping in the same bed, that's how I knew something strange was happening, and then I got the timeline sorted out in my head, and I remembered about being on the street and you finding me, and I knew something was wrong. Now what's this about the Golden thing?"
Gally answers this one, "I think it's all the magic. In a purified form. It has a sort of sentience."
"That could be dangerous." Merlin replies. He doesn't seem perturbed by the fact at all. "And what about the other one?"
"I didn't meet that one." Gally says. "But if he called you Sire, I suspect that perhaps it's a relapse to when you first met."
"Probably." Merlin says, thoughtfully.
---
It's hard to do anything with Arthur's hand constantly on Merlin's back but Gally makes them sandwiches and they talk, Merlin and Gally trading stories about the past, and Arthur expects to feel left out, but when they talk it feels more like remembering than hearing for the first time. Sometimes, he can almost picture what they speak about, and he adds his own comments in, the vivid sight of memories nearly close enough to touch, but not close enough to make his own.
When it's early morning, Gally stands and shakes himself out. "I've got to go now." He says. "Arthur's got a board meeting today, so I'll go and tell him he can't make it. You've also run out of bread. I'll be back later, eh?"
Merlin nods absently from the place where his head has very slowly migrated to lie on Arthur's lap. Arthur looks up at Gally with a plea on his face. Leave him alone with Merlin? Merlin who could suddenly turn into another person at any moment? Merlin who knows him like a well-read book? Merlin who loves him intensely enough to live forever, waiting for the small windows in time they might exist in together? Merlin who Arthur loves in return, not only because he can remember, if he remembers nothing else, the soft full smell of, and who Arthur has just now fallen in love with again, because of the way his hands paint the air in front of him with eager shapes as he tells me of my past.
Gally shakes his head, and then motions obscurely in a language that Knights seem born knowing. Go on. You're literally made by Fate for one another.
The door snicks shut behind him.
"So." Merlin says once the flat falls silent again. "How's life been for you?"
"Okay, I guess." Arthur replies.
"Good." Merlin says softly, and then repeats it, "Good." As if to reassure himself.
"I love you. Still, I mean, I know it isn't really the same…as if I knew you better, but I can feel it. I missed you."
Merlin curls away from him and Arthur worries he's really messed everything up now. But after a few long moments of uncomfortable silence, Merlin asks, his voice small and pale in a way that Arthur knows to be rare, "Are you mad at me?"
"What?" Arthur asks, truly puzzled. "Why would I be mad at you?"
"I left you alone, Arthur. I shouldn't have gone away. I never have before. That's probably why we're in this mess. It's just hard sometimes, seeing you so young. And innocent. And not only do you seem too far away, but then when you remember everything, I have to watch you forget your youth again. I'm torn two ways. I want my king but I want you to have that freedom." He falls quiet. "I'm sorry. You don't need to hear this. It's stupid. I'm too old for this."
"No." Arthur says. For a moment he can see the universe, everything stretches out before him, easily, easily, he is a King. "It's okay. I don't like it when you keep secrets. It never turns out well." The knowledge fades, leaving whispers of not yet in the shadowy places of Arthur's thoughts, but Merlin sighs. He feels their mutual connection. Arthur wants.
They kiss softly, lips meeting like the wings of birds. Arthur knows that Merlin wishes he would just remember but he doesn't know how, so he gives Merlin what he can. When they fall asleep, they don't roll away from one another, but Arthur's hand slides from the tattoo spell, and when he wakes again later, there is only the broken form of blank Merlin. Arthur remembers that he doesn't cry just in the nick of time. He rolls over and goes back to sleep.
---
When Arthur next wakes it's because someone is violently shaking him. He sits up abruptly and unfortunately this results in him smashing his head into the nose of Merlin, who turns out to be the one pulling him from sleep.
"Oww!" Merlin says, clutching at his face.
"Ugh." Says Arthur clutching at his head. "What is your nose made of? Steel?"
"What is your head made of? Oh wait, I already know. It's just full of rocks."
"Oh." Arthur says, after wasting a moment on feeling offended. "You're the other Merlin."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Arthur tries to remember what they all worked out he should say if this happened again. "Umm…we're roughly a thousand years in the future and you're caught in a spell in which your soul has fractured. You are one of the fractures, and umm…something about timelines. But that part was confusing. I didn't pay attention, I was looking at your cheekbones."
"Great." Merlin says, "It's nice to know we adhere to the whole 'general incompetence' thing."
"That's the way we roll." Arthur says, smiling grimly.
"What?" Merlin asks.
Arthur sighs. "Never mind."
"So what do we do now?"
"I don't know." Arthur says, unsure. "Usually you fade away within a few hours. I suppose we wait."
"Because that's not the least bit bleak."
But this Merlin doesn't fade away within a few hours. He sticks around for nearly a week. The fifth day, Gally returns and claims he can't hold off the company any longer, that Arthur either needs to return or state he's going on hiatus which will mean paperwork and instating people to act in his place.
Arthur figures that when all this blows over, he'll be gone too, so it doesn't really matter one way or another, but he can't make himself stop caring about something that he built. Merlin reassures him that if he could, it would be very unlike the Arthur he knew.
"You like caring about things." Merlin says to him, scarfing down packets of crisps like a starving dog. The miracle of modern foods is not lost on Merlin. Then shyly, he adds, "I like watching you care about things."
As best Arthur can figure, the point at which this Merlin's memory extends to is very shortly after they stopped being manservant and prince and started being something else. It lends itself to a sweet sort of attraction that fills Arthur up differently but just a nicely as the pulled-taut forever-love that the other Merlin has for him.
Arthur thinks that perhaps what he is doing here is not quite right. If he takes just the facts and lays them out flat on the table - like a deck of trick cards, they show a bare reality that makes Arthur into a fickle man, taking love from what really amounts to two different strangers and giving back next to nothing. He's known these people for a week. They're all also insane, and Arthur is suffering along with them.
But it isn't like that. He tells himself this because it's the truth. Arthur loved Merlin before he'd met him. He loved him before he was born and before that again. He's loved him for a thousand years, and maybe he doesn't know the events that happened in between but he feels it, the ache of eternal duty across the broad expanse of his shoulders.
In just the same way, Merlin is not two people or three people, or whatever the breaking spell has made him. The strangest lesson Arthur imagines he might take away from this is that people are not just the sum of their memories, or the product of their parts. Loving the youth of Merlin is the same as loving the infinite of him.
---
At the office, Arthur silently sets in place what amounts to a new regime. He sweet talks the right department heads and fires the worst of the troublemakers. People don't notice, but that's the best thing about being in power. Everyone is so busy watching your face they forget to look at what you're doing with your hands.
He leaves in the afternoon secure in the knowledge that if he dies tomorrow, or perhaps ascends the throne of England, or whatever they expect will happen, the company will tick along just fine without him. Gally promises he'll keep watch but reminds Arthur that it's possible he won't need to leave at all.
"It's not as if you're being taken up to heaven Arthur. Obviously some bit of England is in trouble, or will be soon and you need to help. Maybe the company will be useful."
Arthur shrugs and brushes him off. "It's better to be prepared", he tells Gally, someone else again for just a moment. "I learned that the hard way."
Gally nods, "I suppose you must've."
---
Then it happens, and this is how it does.
They are sitting on the sofa in Arthur's flat one moment, Merlin staring at the television enraptured.
"And you're sure there aren't any tiny people trapped in there?" Merlin says, touching the faces of the cast of Friends reverently.
"Yes." Arthur replies for the thirty-second time that afternoon.
Then, suddenly, Merlin is collapsed and arching his back like he's never been in so much pain before.
"Oh God." He says, his voice hoarse and Arthur standing above him, terrified, and picking Merlin's writhing body up off the ground. Five minutes pass and Merlin throws up down Arthur's front - Arthur barely notices.
"What is it? Can you tell me?"
"I don't know. I don't know. It hurts." Merlin says, and then just as quickly all the tension drains suddenly from his body. Arthur expects the return of blankness but that is not what he gets.
The blue eyes that look at him now are not Merlin's at all. They are much too icy, and the pupils look dilated like a drug addict's would. Whatever is in Merlin's body opens its mouth and the sound that comes out is like fingernails on a chalkboard meeting fingertips on a wineglass.
"Oh, that rat." The woman says. "He drew himself to you. No wonder I could not get to him easily."
"Who are you?"
"Do you not recognize me, Arthur? I am very offended. But then I suppose you would not, because I stole your memories and used them to drag me back into life. You have a great spirit, Arthur Pendragon. It is not hard to slip out behind you in the space you leave travelling from one side of life to the other."
"Who are you?"
"I am Nimueh, Arthur Pendragon. Do not worry. I am not here to kill you. I regret it has never been my place. Just to make you suffer. It is not an easy place waiting in the shadows between life and death. There is no peace there, and there is no colour."
Arthur doesn't know if he should be afraid. He only wishes she would get out of Merlin's body - he wants it back.
"Do not worry, little Arthur. I do not plan on staying in your beloved Merlin's form. It was merely the best way to be sure he was not in the way of my plans."
Arthur thinks he didn't even speak aloud.
"I am going to rule the world, Arthur. These people today do not remember magic. They do not know how to stop it."
"No." Arthur says. "No."
"What do you think you can do?"
Arthur wishes he had his memory. He can't even fight Nimueh physically, because he would probably also end up hurting Merlin. What he really needs if for Merlin to be here. He would know what to do. Arthur really hates feeling helpless, and he really hates not being able to fix the problem himself but he is also (unlike some people) not an idiot.
Nimueh is smiling at him. She curves Merlin's sweet-soft lips up into a thin slash across his face, an angry lopsided half circle. Arthur doesn't like it at all.
"I can not leave you two like this, Arthur, I assume you know. You are both too dangerous to me, together, so-"
On a whim, Arthur shoves his hand under Merlin's shirt, searching for the place he knows the spell is, and then he quickly finds the place on his own back where the spell Merlin cast is inked in. It feels unusually warm to the touch and Arthur likes the steady, almost musical, hum of it.
"Sorry, Nimueh, but I think not." He says, even though he has no clue what he is trying to do and is even more doubtful about whether or not it's going to work. He closes his eyes tightly, and tries to do several things at once.
If he can fit Merlin back into one piece, perhaps that will force Nimueh out, but at the same time, if that doesn't work, or if it isn't enough to send the witch back to wherever she came from, Arthur thinks he can perhaps try to get his memory back. At least then he'll have some knowledge of Nimueh, aside from the sharp spike of dread that shot up through his stomach when she said her name.
The space behind his closed eyes is very black but in his mind, Arthur imagines pushing into it, like a wall of jelly.
No, that isn't really going to work. A wall of jelly? What is he thinking? Instead he concentrates on the hum of Merlin's magic beneath his palms.
"What do you think you are doing, Arthur?" Nimueh calls shrilly, twisting in Arthur's sure grip. He ignores her, thinking only quickly, quickly.
He feels it, suddenly, and gasps. All the pieces of Merlin are trapped here. He doesn't know what he's doing or how or where, but the blackness and the warmth cupped in the palm of his hand feels like Merlin so perfectly that Arthur has stopped breathing. They tug at him. Shards, he thinks. Shards are what he finds. With his mind's eye Arthur can see all the bits of Merlin, gold and blue and grey like an English summer day, he fits them back together with his desperation, searching for everything he knows of Merlin that might help.
He remembers Merlin. The annoyed quirk of the corner of his mouth, and the glow of blue light stretching from his fingertips in the utter darkness of a cave. The pull of his hands on Arthur's armour, silvered and sharp in the dawn light of a battle morning. Everything else floods in behind it. Morgana and Gwen and his father in those early years. The Knights, and an equal place for them all to sit. Lancelot kneeling before him, wearing loyalty like a cloak. His naval uniform and the feeling on sea wind ruffling his hair, polished wood of his ship beneath his hands, and a French ship under the flag of Napoleon turning tail and running upon sight of him. On the road in America, 1934, because they weren't so stingy with their help that other countries didn't deserve it too. He remembers the smiles of children on cardboard streets when he gives them Cadbury chocolate bars, and the way Merlin smiles at him in the night.
Arthur steals back his memories, and he uses them like superglue, sticking the pieces of Merlin back together again.
"What are you doing?" Nimueh shrieks again. "I need those. I need your memories. My anchor. I will fade!"
King Arthur grins when he feels Merlin become aware again, he pulls back, letting Merlin unfold back into his own mind. Arthur shivers; it felt weird to be a guide to the magic, and he feels small but vivid in the afterglow.
Merlin and Nimueh both inhabit the space of Merlin's body together, but Merlin is bigger than Nimueh now, and King Arthur stands at his shoulder.
"Long time, no see." Merlin says to her.
Nimueh screams, and it sounds as though she is falling down a very long well, farther and farther away every moment, until she hits the bottom with the sickening sound of her own absence.
"Well," says Merlin, "She never learns, does she. A thousand years, and we can still kick her ass, huh."
Arthur groans with a wary mixture of suppressed laughter and leftover fear. "Yes, I should say we can."
They stand for a moment, and Arthur wants to kiss Merlin, so he starts to lean forward, but is prevented by Merlin's finger against his lips.
"Shower first, please. You still have throw-up on the front of your shirt."
Arthur looks down, only now realizing, "Gross," he says.
"Yup." Merlin agrees, then more quietly, "You okay? That probably wasn't a very tame way to remember your past."
"It was perfectly fine." Arthur says gruffly.
"I missed you."
Quickly, before Merlin can stop him again, Arthur leans forward and presses a very gentle, chaste kiss to Merlin's temple. "I missed you, too."
---
They sit at a round metal table in a café near Covenant Gardens. Arthur drinks tea and Merlin watches starlings beg food from a group of school children.
"So why do you think I ended up back here anyway?" Arthur asks. He's wondering if the people at the table next to them will notice that he's sliding his foot up and down the back of Merlin's calf. There are some good things to be said about the twenty-first century.
"I hear there is an economic crisis?" Merlin replies absently. Arthur thinks it's a rare thing for Merlin not to be absent, in mind anyway.
He sighs. "I don't like maths very much."
A maiden knight--to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.
I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace
,
Whose odours haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armour that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.
(Further note: The poety are extracts from the famous and popular Sir Galahad, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.)