Sometimes I forget how beautiful Camelot is, but never how beautiful my queen is.
Merlin had snickered when he had said that.
Guinevere had laughed, but the look she had shared with Arthur told him that she knew he meant it. Every time he declared his love for her, be it through gesture or speech, her soft, brown eyes would light up in the same way they always did.
Only now Arthur was looking up into blue eyes, not brown.
And Arthur's were closing while Merlin's were wet with tears.
"I want to say something... I've never said to you before."
There were so many things that needed to be said. Many more that Arthur wanted to say.
Tell Guinevere I love her. No matter what. Tell her I love her.
Arthur had never gotten to spend a lifetime with Guinevere despite them growing up together. But what they had spent together had been beautiful, and everything he had ever wanted. She would know that without him saying it one last time, Merlin would tell her because these were words he didn't need to say. They were imprinted on his heart and shone through his eyes, even when they were clouded over with pain.
If he was to die, he wanted to die with her name on his lips and her arms around him. But if it had to be someone else, then he wanted it to be Merlin. His arm lifted weakly to grab the back of his best friend's head.
The desperation in Merlin's eyes had increased as he held onto Arthur, trying to tether him to life through his embrace.
Merlin needed to hear it. Loyal, wonderful, trustworthy, Merlin. Because sometimes Arthur feared he didn't know. Merlin was too selfless and Arthur couldn't leave him like that.
"Thank you."
Hands grab at Merlin, guide him away from the knife but not before it's too late. Cloth is quickly bound around his arm and they're relieved it isn't worse. The wound will heal.
Will, Freya, Balinor, Lancelot... Arthur.
They've all heard the names before. The names of those that have died in Merlin's arms. There are more names, more than anyone wants to think about but these are the ones repeated the most.
They try telling him that cutting them off won't bring them back but while Merlin is sober enough to wield the knife, he isn't able to understand them. Glassy eyes roll back in their sockets and he is led to a cot.
It seems like nothing can stop Merlin from proving what the king so often accused him for. Not even the queen kneeling in front of him on the dirty tavern floor gets to him. But she doesn't stop trying. The Saxons keep raiding the supplies into the city, and kings are pressing for her hand in marriage but she's still there as often as she can be.
Sometimes it pays off and her gentle voice coax him into crying into her arms as she tries to take on some of his burden. And she finds herself staggering under the weight.
Merlin gets better. Or at least he has days. Days when he won't come into the tavern. No one knows where he goes off to but one by one the attacks stop. And when Merlin returns it's always with the same haggard look that he erases with more drinking.
He stops speaking altogether.
In the end only one man remains to remember the raven-haired boy as he was. Then he's gone too and Merlin is all alone. But he's used to it. It seems as if the centuries don't even pass and yet they do, every second tearing at his heart.
A truck's horn blares as it passes the wizened, old man in blue. The man that stops in front of a lake, the lake, and bowes his head-
Come back.
Please.
-lifts it again, and resumes walking.
A/N: This isn't the genre I usually write for but the idea has been in my head for some time and I finally decided to type it down. It's neither creative nor original but it is my first attempt at writing angst and I hope you liked it.