The Perched are Parched
Disclaimer: Do not own Merlin
A/N: I decided to delete the second chapter to this story. I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought I had a great plot to follow and yet I feel it can do nothing but dead end. So this is now a oneshot. To all those who were looking forward to an update: forgive me, hopefully one day I'll actually have a great story to provide you all.
Summary: Merlin waits, Merlin listens.
Merlin always perched on the same bench, teetering on the edge, at the same time every day. In the same place he waits and waits although for what he is unsure. Sometimes he'll perk up when a man with blond hair walks by. He waits patiently most days and others he hums a tune to himself, much to the chagrin of the people who pass by.
Then there comes the glorious day when a man sits next to him, frowning, grumbling. Merlin knows exactly who it is, who he has wanted it to be for so many years.
"Oh, I didn't see you there," Arthur observes with the honey sweet voice that Merlin had been longing for. The accent is thicker, more British less princely posh.
Arthur stares at Merlin, who is so stricken he can't do anything more than stare back.
"You're eyes, they remind me of someone," Prince- no, just Arthur, comments ruefully, "but that would be insane. I've never met the bloke." But his face scrunches up with the not-memory memory anyway.
Merlin still can't respond, his throat is constricting, he's pretty sure that his eyes are burning with a combination of exhaustion and gratefulness. It's hard to refrain from reaching out and touching Arthur's knee, which has been radiating a sort of warm heat ever since he sat down.
"I do miss him; although I don't really understand how I could possibly miss someone I've never met. In fact, I'm actually lonely. Ridiculous isn't it?"
Merlin finally breaks from the trance he couldn't help but be sucked into and disagrees. He's been lonely, so very lonely for far too long. In fact, it had become a feeling that was so engrained into his life that even now, with Arthur finally beside him again, it's still sort of there, waiting. Maybe it's because he knows that eventually, as it always happens, he'll be alone again.
"Did you actually just agree with me?" Arthur looks astonished and reaches down to Merlin with a finger ready to stroke Merlin's feathered chest, "a bird… no, not possible in the slightest. I'm just imagining things." And before he touches him Arthur pulls away gruffly.
But Merlin is insistent, chirping away and inching closer to Arthur so as not to scare him, an interesting concept to Merlin, who is used to being frightened by humans at this point.
"Are you… Merlin then?" And Merlin is sure to make it clear that clearly he is Merlin, Arthur's very own.
"Well, why are you a bird?"
And from this, the story only just begins.