Arthur tugs the layers of comforters up, tucks them under his chin, his eyes still closed, and rolls over onto his side, the bedsprings protesting underneath him.
"I can hear you smirking," he says to Merlin standing on the other side of the bed, his voice hoarser than he would like. He feels like crap and Merlin's laughing at him.
"You're just a big baby," says Merlin, his voice worn with exhaustion, and Arthur feels the other side of the bed sink with Merlin's weight as he sits down.
"Am not," Arthur whispers, a few seconds too late for it to sound like a prattish retort from the old days because he hears Merlin swallow back soft laughter between his teeth.
He ignores Merlin. Well, tries to as Merlin's careful, stiff movements when he swings his legs onto the bed and scoots down the headboard so he's lying down more or less are distracting him. He wishes Merlin would stop acting like he's something fragile without his armor in this new century.
But he can't order him away, not now, Merlin isn't his servant anymore. But Arthur can still see that notion, a thread between this time and the last, tangled in his hands as he fights not to fix Arthur's tie when they are at lunch in the cafe or the clench in his jaw as he notes how little Arthur actually eats nowadays.
Arthur feels the growing urge to cough and he desperately tries to muffle it in the covers. But it's no use because Merlin is already turning over onto his side, a sound too much like a mother's shushing and soothing comfort passing his lips as he places a tentative hand on Arthur's shoulder.
"Mer-" Arthur begins, but he stops as Merlin, who has grown more silently stubborn with age, rubs circles into his shoulder, his back, through the sheets.
Guinevere used to do this, rub the sore spots out of his body after a tournament or battle, or after an argument with Merlin, pulling him back against her to rub his chest and entwine his legs with hers when she was finished.
And here Merlin is doing the same thing, in his own way, the pressure on Arthur's shoulder too small and careful, and Arthur hates him for it, but the circles say Shut up and Arthur shifts, closer to Merlin without even really knowing that he is.
Another bout of coughing, his whole body writhing as Arthur tries, needs, to suppress it, to keep Merlin (but no, he does it anyway) from lifting the sheets and comforter up, making Arthur shiver at the sudden gust of cold air, and then shiver for a different reason as Merlin slides closer, closer. Merlin shouldn't feel so warm next to him, but perhaps it's just his magic, simmering below the surface of his skin.
"It will be all right," Merlin says, his lips brushing against Arthur's shoulder briefly, before he shifted away from him, lying on his back, the heat subsiding slowly.
"You don't know that" Arthur says softly, knowing he shouldn't, feeling the air suddenly bristle with magic, just before Merlin lets out a something like a sigh mixed with anger he is trying to control.
Arthur doesn't understand why Merlin won't talk about last night, why they don't talk about the blood Arthur washed shakily down the bathroom sink with Merlin's reflection in the mirror watching him, hawkeyed, his expression unreadable. They don't talk about him dying.
"Stop being so damn cheerful," Arthur says after a moment, because he'll never say he's sorry, not now and besides, he would love to hear Merlin laugh right now. He wrestles with the sheets and the comforter suddenly feeling hotter than he did a few moments ago. He kicks the sheets off and lays on his back, and tries to stare the ceiling rather than Merlin, who hasn't moved at all, even the sheets aren't really pulled up to his chest anymore- he must be cold- but the ceiling is dizzyingly bright and it's better if he just closes his eyes and lies still.
"Arthur."
"Hmm," Arthur replies, his eyes still closed, his brain a bit fuzzy.
"What does it feel like?"
"What does what Merlin?"
He can hear Merlin swallow, and he knows what's coming.
"Dying."
Arthur wishes he knew. He doesn't remember it from the last time, on the battlefield. He only remembers getting cold, a bit nippish wind around his fingers, climbing up his knuckles, his feet bones, like a slow poison or the first tickle of wine in the belly. He has told Merlin this but he does not think Merlin understands truly, fully, because Merlin has never died. Morgana had locked him away in a tree for millennium, left him to sleep. To remember. To desire. To thirst for a human voice to fill his ears instead of thunderous silence. To only see the world outside in visions and dreams.
Arthur turns his head and looks at Merlin. He is still angry with him, he can see that in the setline of his jaw, but Merlin's gaze eventually meets Arthur's when Arthur refuses to answer him until he looks at him.
"It was good. It was time," Arthur says slowly, the words not enough, but he thinks Merlin understands what he means, but then Merlin reaches out a hand and places it on his forehead suddenly, messing with Arthur's bangs in the process.
"You have a fever," he whispers.
"I believe I do."
"I'm going to get a wet cloth," Merlin says, his tone too cheerful, and he sits up, all elbows and sharp lines, rolling off the side of the bed like buffoon.
"Merlin—"
"I don't mind."
"Merlin, you don't have to."
Merlin stops and turns around, his hand already on the light-switch. He just gives Arthur a look that says Prat and continues into the bathroom, shuffling through the cupboard.
Arthur knows this is all just a front. Because Merlin doesn't have a choice, not really. He wants to do this. He needs to do this. It's what has kept him sane, it has keep him being him, and not some twisted manifestation of Albion, infested with bitterness and memories of what had been and what could have been.
Or at least that is what Arthur hopes, and dreads. Because he's not the same Arthur.
Arthur has been sleeping for long time. Longer than he should have. He stretches, full bodied, unfurling his arms, cracking his wrist bones, flexing his feet, feeling so much better than he has in while, maybe a lifetime. Then he sees someone out of the corner of his eye, shifting above him, cloaked in the shadows that seem to hang from the ceiling. His eyes still aren't working right, clouded with sleep and left over dreams.
He groans, sleepily.
"Hmmmm, Gwen?" he asks.
"No," the figure whispers not close enough for Arthur to see clearly.
"Come here, Gwen," Arthur says, his voice a little hoarse. He stretches out a hand, wanting to catch a hand in his. The figure hesitates, and then takes it, crouching down by the bed, closer.
But it is all wrong. The hand isn't small like hers, the grasp is too strong, the fingers too long and lithe. Then Merlin's face appears, very real, his look clouded and somber, his brow furrowed in concern.
He shushes Arthur. "It's Merlin," he says quietly, as if that would make things better, as if that make the memories now flooding back-
(Fire. Ash. The hum and whine of the ambulance, the hand Arthur's holding is too cold, too cold, and someone's sobbing, weeping, and it is only when Merlin finds him, a few yards from the burning car, he realizes it's him.)
-any better, but Merlin holds his hands in his as Arthur begins to sob, then dropping them to pull him into his chest and comfort him like a mother over a child. He holds Arthur too tight, but Arthur doesn't care, he just wants. Wants those days when he was something better than this husk of a man. So he clings to Merlin, breathing in his smell that reminds him of the forest, of honey and the bitter sweetness of wheat fields.
Guinevere died over two months ago. Everything Arthur feels is normal, the therapist keeps stating repeatedly in these sessions, his pen never faltering over his clipboard as he does, bastard. But Arthur doesn't tell him that about his dreams, about Uther, about magic, about the man sitting the corner who won't die, and who refuses to leave Arthur alone for more than a few hours, and so they go in circles, hovering like sharks over the whirlpool of Arthur's true thoughts and feelings, round and round.
They talk about Gwen instead, with this lifetime's quirks and habits, her short temper, her long hours at the factory, leaving her side of the bed cold most mornings. But all of this is not Guinevere, and Arthur's heart aches.
Merlin insists on sitting in, listening and watching quietly in the corner, behind the therapist so the man can't watch for his reaction to Arthur's sputtering half truths. The therapist would love to dissect Merlin, try to break past his mask of careful smiles and blank stares, and Arthur smiles a little at the thought of someone as young as this man, only a few years older than him, trying to fix Merlin.
Merlin sits stock still in the corner, his back very straight, his ankles crossed. (He never crossed them anywhere else.) Maybe he thinks he can soak up the threads of Arthur's pain and loss, if he just sits there, quietly. Arthur thinks he might go mad if they do this anymore. Besides, Arthur's face is flushed with fever, again and his voice is going. So they leave, the session only half over, the therapist looking very pointedly at Merlin as they do, as if he's trying to figure him out one last time.
When they get home, Merlin helps him into bed, not even listening to Arthur's protests -I can do it Merlin, just let me!—but shucking off Arthur's shoes and changing his jeans and dress shirt into sweats with lightening efficiency, one learned over a thousand years of dreaming through these motions again and again.
Arthur rolls over in the bed, tucking the covers under his chin, hoping Merlin will just leave him be for while, go sleep in another room, but he doesn't, he just stands there like he's waiting for Arthur to fall asleep before he does anything and it hurts Arthur for reasons he can't fathom.
"I'll be fine, Merlin," he says reassuringly feeling sleep trying to claim him, pressing down on his eyelids and weighting his limbs. Merlin doesn't move, his expression as he looks down at Arthur undeniably sad, his lips pursed like he doesn't believe Arthur, or maybe doesn't want to.
So Arthur, feeling more tired and ancient then he has ever felt before, (he just wants to sleep) juts out his chin and says in a strong, clear voice: "I want you to leave."
Merlin's expression is ghost of what it would have been a thousand years ago, when Arthur ordered him to do something he hated, and Arthur feels his magic prick the air, his skin, heating the sheets. He turns to go and Arthur nestles down into the pillows. But a minute passes, and he realizes he still hasn't heard the door open and close, and so he turns, and Merlin's hand is on the knob, his forehead pressing into the wood, his back tense.
Arthur's heart gives a sudden clench in his chest and he feels afraid. He's never seen Merlin like this.
He whispers Merlin's name like it's forbidden, and Merlin turns slowly, the tenseness in his back and shoulders shattering.
"I'm afraid," he says slowly.
Arthur swallows, so is he.
"I'm afraid you won't be there when I wake up," He says a bit louder.
Arthur rolls over, not really thinking about what he's doing, what he's asking, and pulls back the corner of the sheets of the other side of the bed. He waits, watching Merlin's expression change, the sadness.
He doesn't think Merlin breaths for the next moment, as he crosses the space between him and the bed, and sits down, before he lies down and takes the corner of the covers from Arthur almost trembling and rolls on his side.
Then Arthur tugs Merlin closer, until he can wrap his arm around Merlin's wiry frame, press his leg against his, and take Merlin's hand, squeezing it tight.
"I'm still here," he whispers into Merlin's ear, and Merlin relaxes, his shoulders curving as Arthur encases him, a quiet sigh of content passing between them.
They sleep for hours and when they wake Merlin smiles, pulling Arthur's warm body tighter against his and Arthur cannot help but kiss the corner of that smile, and the smile grows wider as Arthur continues to kiss him, until Merlin bursts into sleepy giggles at Arthur's ticklish touch. And for while, laugher is all they need.