"So, Arthur Pendragon – I don't think I have to ask how you heard about the Dollhouse."
Arthur forced himself into his most charming smile as he made himself comfortable in the plush seat that sat across the way from Nimueh's desk. Nimueh herself was smiling coyly at him, sipping on a glass of what looked like sherry. Arthur had denied a drink upon entry, for fear he might throw it up.
"Of course not," He laughed, and the sound grated against his ears. "My father's been your client for years, hasn't he?"
"Oh, longer," Nimueh assured him. "Since your mother died, in fact."
"Really?" Arthur said, stomach churning at the thought. "That long? Who would have guessed? He only told me about the existence of the Dollhouse very recently. I was….very intrigued. I had no idea that kind of technology was available."
"Well, it's not exactly available yet," Nimueh smirked and downed the rest of her sherry, the drink staining her lips. "But we here at the Dollhouse are more than happy to give any customer what they need."
What they need.
What Arthur really needed right now was to throw her out of this office and out the tall, overly-spacious window behind her and onto the crowded London streets where, if she survived the fall, she would surely be run over at least once.
The thought was all that kept him from exploding. Instead, he made his smile wider. "Well, I'm in need of a particular service right now."
Nimueh reached for her computer, fingers poised over the keyboard. "A romantic engagement? I spoke with your father last week; he says you haven't been seeing anybody recently."
Arthur mentally corrected that to "never seeing anybody ever", but there was no need to say that aloud. He had to keep up pretenses if this scheme was ever going to succeed. And he had little hope of that in the first place.
"No, no, nothing like that," he said. "It's just – I'm going on a business trip next week. I'm hoping to form an overseas office of my corporation in New York City."
"Where is it that you work again?" Nimueh asked, ever cordial. "Your father must have told me a dozen times, but for the life of me, I can't think of what it is."
"Excalibur," Arthur told her. "We do work similar to yours – well, I thought we did. But we definitely don't operate on such a large scale."
"Of course you don't," Nimueh scoffed. "No offense to you and yours, but Rossum has the most advanced drug researchers in the world currently."
"I'm well-aware."
"If I'm correct – which I usually am," Nimueh leaned forward, pursing her lips at Arthur in a way that made Arthur want to find the nearest trash bin. "When you were fresh out of university, we offered you a job here at the Rossum Corporation."
Arthur tried to prevent himself from scowling, although he had no idea if he was successful or not. "That you did."
"If I may ask, why did you choose to start your own business instead?" Nimueh asked.
Arthur swallowed hard.
"I got my first job offer."
Arthur had come home to find Merlin typing away at his computer, a thousand words per minute – literally. He had used magic to speed up his typing skills once again. Arthur could see the pages nearly flying by just from standing behind him. Merlin had far too much to say for his own good, if you asked Arthur.
Merlin's intensity wasn't letting up – he hadn't heard the door open, hadn't heard Arthur come inside, even when he cleared his throat a few times. Arthur was used to this treatment, though. He and Merlin had lived together throughout all of university, had lived within three blocks of each other since they were five years old. A friendship that lasted that long – Arthur just had to smile fondly down at his best mate.
Merlin finally registered his presence when Arthur spoke. His typing slowed into nothingness and he spun around in his chair, looking up with sleep-deprived eyes. "Sorry, what?"
Arthur laughed. "I got my first job offer."
"Congratulations!" Merlin jumped up with a beaming grin. Arthur felt his heart speed up a bit. "That's brilliant! Where?"
"Rossum Corporation," Arthur told him. "It has some of the most advanced psychotropic drug research there is. And my father's friend Nimueh is one of the higher-ups, though I'm not sure exactly what she does."
Arthur had expected Merlin to start breaking out the celebration champagne, but his best friend's smile had suddenly become very fixed, eyes going wide with what looked like dread – which confused Arthur quite a bit.
"What?" He asked, hurt. "I thought you'd be happy for me."
"I – Arthur," Merlin hesitated, blinking slowly, mouth open in what appeared to be sympathy. "Rossum…It's not…It's what I've been researching for the past couple of weeks," he said, gesturing back to his computer.
"Why would you do that?" Arthur said with a short laugh, but it sounded forced to his ears, and his joyful mood had suddenly evaporated with Merlin's words. "As I recall, your research projects tend to involve human rights and the unjust ways of society."
"Which is what Rossum is," Merlin said. Arthur opened his mouth to argue, to yell and scream and tell Merlin to fuck off, that he didn't know what he was talking about, but –
But.
"Arthur, I think they're experimenting on people."
Arthur snapped back into reality with a shudder. He didn't like thinking about Merlin in the beginning of all this, it only made him want to break down and give up. "Just wanted to go my own way, I suppose. Anyways, I need someone from a charity foundation – makes me seem more of a humanitarian. Unfortunately, I think I've managed to piss off many of the charities in London, and it's far too late to start repenting for my errors now. Could you manage that, someone from an orphanage, or a mental health clinic? It could really help my case."
"Is that all?" Nimueh said with a tinkling laugh. "We could give you anyone you want, Arthur. Are you quite certain about saying no to a romantic engagement? Seeing as how your family is such a great contributor to our cause, we could always throw in some romantic feeling with your charity worker, free of cost."
"No," Arthur gritted his teeth, mind hurting at the very idea of M – of someone being forced to love him, forced to sleep with him. It wasn't right, not on any level. "No, just a charity worker is fine for me. I'm sure I'll be coming back, though," he threw her a bone. "Now that I know about this place, it will be quite hard to stay away."
"The Dollhouse does have that particular effect," Nimueh smiled. "We have many actives who would be ever so pleased to accompany you."
Of course they would, Arthur thought. You made them that way.
"Could I see photographs, by any chance?" Arthur asked. "It may not be a romantic engagement, but…I would like to be somewhat familiar with this person."
"You'd like to have met them before, very well," Nimueh clacked the note onto her computer. "I'll give you the details on your relationship with them once I've had my top workers perfect the programming. I have pictures here of our most requested actives, if you'd like to have a look."
"I would, thank you," Arthur said, heart pounding quite ferociously in his chest. He would have to keep a straight face here, no matter what happened, no matter what he saw. He couldn't react – or all of this would go to waste.
Nimueh turned her screen around to give Arthur a better view. There were five pictures onscreen, lined up one after the other, close-up shots of each of the people's relaxed, emotionless faces. The first four were rather unspectacular, but the fifth picture –
The fifth one was a twenty-something man with dark hair curling around his overlarge ears, a narrow, pale face with a hint of scruff, and electric-looking eyes.
Arthur felt a tug deep in his chest, but he pushed it down as hard as he possibly could, willing his face not to contort with rage and let himself fulfill his fantasy of shoving Nimueh out a window.
"How about the last one?" Arthur said, very nearly shoving the computer back at her.
"Ah," Nimueh smiled down at the screen and Arthur's stomach churned. "That's Trickster. I'm certain he will work just fine."
Trickster.
The word, the name, had been running through Arthur's mind all week. Trickster, trickster, trickster, trickster. He'd called Merlin that before, laughingly, in jest, when Merlin had once again outsmarted some of the top minds of the known world yet mysteriously remaining unemployed.
Trickster, trickster, trickster.
That was his name now. Merlin's name. They'd stripped away his very identity.
Trickster.
It wouldn't be Trickster Arthur would be meeting today at the airport, though. Merlin hadn't been overly forthcoming about his research on Rossum, but Nimueh had told him as much, that the man who would be approaching him in minutes was Ben Jones, a London charity worker who had vast experience in the world of mental health and wanted to ensure that another branch of Excalibur would be going up somewhere in the world, seeing as how much the corporation had helped people he knew.
Ben Jones.
Not Trickster.
But not Merlin, either.
Merlin with a new name, a new personality, a new everything – and he didn't know Arthur beyond a few happenstance meetings that hadn't ever occurred.
"There you are, Pendragon."
A familiar voice, one he hadn't heard in so, so long, rushed over Arthur, encased him, to the point where he had to close his eyes and savor it for a moment, drink it in so that he would never forget the deep, lilting sound.
Arthur didn't want to turn around – but he force himself to.
And there he was.
Merlin – No, not Merlin, Ben Jones – was standing next to him in the crowded airport terminal, leaning against a barrier across from where the flight leaving for New York would take off from. He was dressed impeccably in a suit and tie, hair slicked back and combed in a way that Merlin's never was. Arthur resisted the urge to reach out and mess it up just a little, as he usually did with his best mate.
His eyes were the same, though, and it was that fact that let Arthur open his mouth.
"Hey, Ben," he said, voice sounding strangled even to his own ears. "There you are. I was beginning to think you wouldn't show up."
"Of course I showed up," Merlin – Ben, it was Ben – said with a roll of his eyes. "I said I would help you. I always follow through on my word."
No, you don't! Arthur wanted to scream. No, you don't, because if you did, you would have come back!
He stopped himself, though. This wasn't his best mate, this was a near stranger, and if Arthur couldn't remember that…
"I'm glad," he said instead. "C'mon, I think the flight's boarding."
Ben followed behind him to where the flight attendant was calling for those with first-class tickets. Arthur's eyes scanned the perimeter, searching something, someone, out. Merlin couldn't have come here alone; the Dollhouse would never let one of their operatives – actives – leave the country without any sort of supervision.
He could feel eyes on him, and turning, Arthur caught the eye of a curly-haired bloke who looked away the second after Arthur caught him, and he made a mental note to watch out for him in the future.
"You ready?" Ben asked with Merlin's voice, and Arthur hoped to God that he was.
Arthur had been waiting up for hours. He had nearly gone to bed six times, but he knew that even if he tried, he could never sleep while Merlin was in danger.
He had come home from work that day – Excalibur, his greatest pride, the business he had built from the ground up, that would never be as advanced as Rossum, but Merlin hated Rossum so much that Arthur couldn't bring himself to regret his decision to turn down that two year old job offer – to find a note on the kitchen counter.
'Sorry, Arthur, huge break-though, can't wait to explain, but I might be able to break into Rossum tonight. Don't worry yourself like you always do, I'll be fine. Leftover casserole from last week in the fridge. I'll be back, you know I will. –M'
Arthur had hated how casual it was, how much Merlin's obsession with Rossum had grown. Merlin had always been, first and foremost, an advocate for equality, for the equal treatment of all human beings no matter what, and Arthur knew that he would never be able to change that.
Hell, he agreed with Merlin most of the time – but he didn't have the freedom to be an advocate for whatever cause took his fancy, like Merlin had for so many years until he became fixated on Rossum.
When Arthur heard the door creak open, he didn't know what to expect, or how he would feel about the matter.
When he saw Merlin's face, looking entirely shaken up and horrified, blood running down his cheek, all feelings of anger dissipated from Arthur's system.
"Oh, God, you idiot, what happened?" Arthur ran a hand down Merlin's cheek, the red rubbing off onto his hand. "What the hell did you do?"
"It's not just experimenting on people," Merlin said in lieu of greeting, grabbing Arthur's hand and squeezing tightly, as if reassuring his existence. Arthur, reveling in the moment, held him back even tighter. "They're erasing people."
"What do you mean?"
"I broke into your dad's friend's office – kind of exploited my connection to you, I'm sorry."
"It's fine, it's fine," Arthur reassured him.
"Anyway, I kind of seduced the security guy –"
"Guy?" Arthur asked, suddenly sharp, a bubble of jealousy in his gut, because goddammit, if Merlin was going to sleep with a guy it better well fucking be Arthur – but he couldn't think about that now, Merlin was in too much of a state.
"I took an educated guess at his sexuality," Merlin's laugh was weak. "Going back to the important part. Once I dealt with incapacitating him, I magicked my way into the files, and – God, it's – Rossum is the parent organization of a secret operation called the Dollhouse."
"The Dollhouse?"
"They have the technology to erase people, to take their personalities out of them and leave them with just their body, just an empty shell of nothingness – until they put another personality into the body, anything that they want, anything their clients want. I don't…I don't even think my magic could do that. But they can."
"That's…that's…" Arthur was too horrified for words.
"I know," Merlin whispered as he reached out for Arthur's other hand, pulling his body tightly against his own. "Alarms went off after that, people were appearing left and right – if I didn't have magic, I never would have gotten out alive. I thought I'd never see you again."
"You got out," Arthur released his grip on Merlin, pushing him back so that their eyes could meet. "That's the important thing."
"I have to go back, you know," Merlin said, and Arthur opened his mouth to tell him no, no, never, you're never going back, you're safe here – but Merlin cut him off before he could start. "I can't let them get away with this, you know that."
Arthur did know, and that was the most awful thing of all. He knew, and he still just wanted Merlin to stop this madness, to be safe. "Then let me help you."
Merlin shook his head emphatically. "No. You can't. You're too much a prominent figure – and I'm willing to bet a lot of money your father is a Dollhouse client. How could he not be?"
Arthur felt the need to defend his father against such blasphemes, but he knew Merlin was most likely in the right. There wasn't any way that something like this was going on and Uther Pendragon was in the dark. He would be involved somehow.
"I can't just let you do this on your own," Arthur said. "You – you're my best mate, M. Always have been. We've never stopped having each other's backs. I stopped you from being beat up in first year."
"And…" Merlin's gaze was full of sadness and regret. "Now I have to protect you. I can't stay here."
"What do you – can't stay here?" Arthur's brain could hardly comprehend the words, the meaning behind them, so he laughed a little desperately. "Merlin, I don't understand."
"If I do this…if they recognize me…" Merlin trailed off with a deep sigh, eyes downcast before they flickered back up to Arthur's with welling tears. "They can't trace me back to you. They can't. I won't let them."
"You – you can't just cut me off!" All of the anger Arthur had been feeling toward Merlin before he arrived had suddenly returned in sevenfold. "How dare you – you think you can do that to me? What are you going to do, cut off your connections to everyone you know?"
"Yes," Merlin replied without missing a beat, voice as serious as Arthur had ever heard it. "This is it, Arthur. My purpose, the reason I'm here. I have to stop them, Arthur, I can't let people keep being exploited. This is why I was born with magic, why I was born in the first place."
"No," Arthur shook his head adamantly. "Merlin, you don't have to. You don't have a greater purpose. You're just…you're meant to just live."
"I can't believe that," Merlin told him, freely crying now, although it was silent. Tears were threatening to leave Arthur's eyes now, too, because he never cried. Never. But then again, Merlin had never left him before.
They weren't even together, not in the way Arthur had always longed for, but Merlin was still leaving him.
"You give yourself over to a cause…" Merlin's voice was thick. "And you serve it. No matter what. This is mine."
Arthur could have hated Merlin, should have hated Merlin, for that day. But he didn't, because he never did. Merlin could lay waste to the entire world and Arthur would forgive him.
But Arthur had been in the right when he had met Ben – he wasn't Merlin. Ben was the most polite, cordial, and utterly boring person Arthur had ever met. It was like he had never heard of sarcasm, or jokes, which were Merlin's forte. It was heartbreaking to hear the things Merlin would never say come out of his mouth. But it wasn't really his mouth anymore.
The only thing Ben had in common with Merlin was their looks. It was Merlin's body, but not his soul, his heart, and he wasn't Arthur's best friend who knew him inside and out. He was a stranger.
He was, however, very adept at business meetings, which was so far the only thing that Arthur remotely liked about Ben. The two of them had been very convincing, and another branch of Excalibur looked like it was going to exist here very soon.
"Nice job today," Arthur called to Ben through door between the adjoining hotel rooms. They had only just gotten back to the suites, and Arthur was tired. Not just from the executive meetings, but from the mere existence of Ben in close proximity to Arthur. It hurt too much to be with the person he loved more than anything, who he had spent the last six months missing desperately, and have it not truly be him.
"Thanks," Ben called back with Merlin's voice. His face appeared in the doorway, and Arthur's attention immediately snapped to him. "I think we can count that as a success. Hope I managed to help out some. I'm not overly experienced in these matters."
"You did fine," Arthur said a bit hollowly. "And your credentials speak for themselves." Credentials that the Dollhouse created, he added silently.
"Well, it's late, I'll be turning in," Ben made a move to close the door, but Arthur, nearly subconsciously, reached out a hand to stop him. "Ben – wait."
"What is it?"
"I…" Arthur swallowed hard, not knowing what he was going to say next, but he had to say something, anything at all. "Do you ever feel like you're actually someone else?"
"How do you mean?" Ben asked, eyebrows creasing together, puzzled. Arthur couldn't stop now, he really couldn't. And if Ben had anyone following him…well, they couldn't be in the rooms with the two of them. It was now or never. If he ever wanted to get Merlin back…
"Like…like you don't really exist, and you're just…you were created. And that there's a real you underneath all of that?"
"I don't…" Ben blinked. "I'm not one of your patients, you know."
"I know," Arthur sighed irritably. "I…Goddammit, I don't know how to do this."
"How to do what, exactly?"
"You…Who am I to you?" Arthur asked. "Just answer me that. Who am I?"
"You're Arthur Pendragon," Ben said with a strained laugh, and he was probably wondering if Arthur was mental, but he Arthur couldn't really give a shit right now. "You're the CEO of Excalibur Industries. Is that what you wanted to hear? Because I think I'm going to go to sleep now."
"Just wait a second," Arthur almost pleaded him. "Merlin, please."
"What – what did you just call me?"
Shit.
Arthur had not expected, but he had hoped, when the doorbell rang.
Merlin's contact with him had become more and more sporadic, stopping by their flat minimally in the six months since he'd moved out, and as of late, only coming to Arthur's workplace to assure Arthur that yes, he was still safe.
Still, Arthur always hoped.
And this time, for once, it wasn't in vain.
"I'm going in," Merlin came inside without an invitation, without a greeting, but his hands were shaking and his hair was plastered to his face from the thunderstorm currently raging outside. Arthur had been just about to have a cup of tea before he went to sleep, but now sleep was the furthest thing from his mind.
"Going in? Like –breaking into Nimueh's office again?"
"No, a bit higher-scale than that," Merlin hung up his jacket on the coatrack before meeting Arthur's eyes, his gaze more heavy and intense than Arthur could ever remember it being. "The Dollhouse itself."
"What – I thought you suspected it was underground!" Arthur was shocked. "A secret location underground. That hardly anyone knew about."
"I may or may not have found someone who used to be a doll," Merlin said, shifting on his feet guiltily. "Her name's Gwen. Apparently, she made a deal with them – they get five years of her life, and then she's taken care of forever. She did it for her little brother, apparently, to make sure he would be taken care of. And she doesn't remember anything – it was like five years went by in an instant for her."
"Are you – are you serious?" Arthur's voice dropped. "She told you where it is?"
"She gave me a general location," Merlin shrugged, staring at his feet. "I used a specified locator spell to lead me from there. I…It'll be tomorrow night."
"I'm coming with you," Arthur told him, and Merlin opened his mouth in protestation, but Arthur plowed on. "I won't let you do it alone. I won't."
"Arthur, don't you see?" Merlin stepped forward to grip his shoulder. "You're what I'm coming back for. You – you're everything, and I can't lose you. I can lose myself, I can lose myself a thousand times over in a thousand different ways, but I can't lose you."
"You don't think that I can bear losing you either?" Arthur snapped at him, shoving his hand off. "If you're going, then I'm coming with you, and that's the end of things. You and me. Always. You utter idiot."
"Please," Merlin pleaded with eyes wide. "Please, Arthur. This is my fight, my war. Not yours. And you'll be needed later – your company, you're the good guys here, the ones who don't erase the existence of people. If I can bring Rossum and the Dollhouse down, the world is going to need you. I need you. I…I love you."
And then, somehow, though Arthur couldn't say how, they were kissing, messy and desperate like they would never again have the chance to be together, and Arthur was nearly holding Merlin up, or was Merlin holding him up, everything was distorted and insane and the only thing Arthur knew was that he never, ever wanted this to stop for as long as he lived –
And then they jolted apart, as if waking from a dream and Merlin was staring at him with wonder and dread and every emotion there ever was, and Arthur knew he looked the same way.
"I love you, too," he said, because it was the only thing he could say. "You have no idea how much."
"We – we'll do more of this, when I get back," Merlin whispered like a promise into Arthur's skin. "The very second, I swear it."
For a single moment, Arthur almost believed him.
"I – I didn't call you anything," Arthur could feel his throat stick against the words, forcing himself to say them even though he wanted to cry and scream and shout them again and again.
"No," Ben regarded him suspiciously and perhaps with fear. "You called me Merlin. Why did you do that?"
"Because – because it's who you are!" Arthur, at long last, exploded in emotion. "It's you – who you really are, before they remade you into…into all of these things. Into Trickster, into Ben, into who the fuck knows! Merlin is you, not someone they made you be."
"I have no idea what the hell you're talking about," Ben's face hardened. "But I think you need some help."
"Yes, I need help – Your help, Merlin's help!" Arthur hadn't realized he was shouting, but he was. "You have to remember. C'mon, Merlin, even if no one else can – you have magic, for Christ's sake! What's the fucking point of magic if you can't remember having it? I thought this was why you were born – So come on. Remember!"
Arthur reached forward and shook the man desperately, violently, willing some kind of reaction, a Merlin reaction, anything at all to show him that his friend was still somewhere inside of this shell –
"You're a fucking lunatic!" Ben swore loudly, shoving Arthur off of him – but then his grip relaxed, and his hard eyes that had been so full of fear and anger began to soften into those of confusion and, if Arthur dared to hope, affection. "You – Arthur – what…"
"Merlin?" Arthur's heart sped up, and letting his hands fall to his sides, let out a shuddering breath. "Is it – is it really you?"
"Yeah," Merlin breathed heavily, nearly collapsing into the wall, and he looked up at Arthur in shock mingled with wonder. "You…you…This isn't possible. I saw their technology; they explained it all to me. They took my personality and memories and they put it on a disk, they imprinted me with someone else – I shouldn't be able to remember anything. But…"
"It must be your magic," Arthur breathed out a laugh. "You were born with it for a reason after all."
"I guess I was," Merlin shook his head, obviously blown away. "I can't…I can't believe you did all this, Arthur."
"I had to save you," Arthur told him. "I had to. And I…When you didn't come back, I knew that you were either dead or a doll. Luckily, it was the latter. I can't believe that they just took you like that….when you said people were erased; I didn't realize what that meant. But it was like you had never existed in the first place. No record of you anywhere, not even on our old lease."
"I'm so sorry," Merlin reached out and took Arthur's hand in earnest, holding it tightly, and Arthur held him so tightly he nearly lost circulation. "Forgive me, please."
"Of course," Arthur sighed, pulling him closer into a hug, burying his nose in the crook of Merlin's neck, breathing in his scent, and Merlin sighed into him. "I – I know you can't stop now, that we can't stop now, we have to stop this, but – can we leave here? Could we run if we wanted?"
"I've got a handler somewhere around here, watching and monitoring me," Merlin murmured into Arthur's shoulder. "And I…I signed a contract. A five year one, like Gwen. They didn't know who I was, and they told me that if I signed, they would never find out."
"Christ, Merlin," Arthur whispered. "What are we going to do?"
"I have no idea," Merlin lifted his head from Arthur's shoulder to press their foreheads together. "But whatever is, we'll do it together. I promise."
Arthur believed him this time.