Em is a small boy when he stands beside his mother in front of a bronze plaque embedded in the earth, flat but for the characters inscribed on its metallic surface. He watches her kneel before it, her affectionate fingers tracing the sloping curve of the first B, the acute groove of the following A.
He waits, impatient, precisely two feet behind, one foot to the side. His mother's made him wear a coat even though he doesn't feel cold, and he's sure his cheeks are becoming rosy from the wind. He only knows how biting it is because of the way his mum's pulled her collar up. The grey skies hover above them, the clouds' bellies dark and full of the promise of rain. But his mum doesn't heed their warning, and so he waits, claiming respect in his silence.
Instead, he studies the graveyard that surrounds him, as ancient as the very first casket that had been buried there (the sign on the drive in had claimed Since 1443). This is where generations of his father's family lie, where the man rests now, too. But he doesn't stare too closely at the names on the white marble, the speckled granite, or the plaques that encircle him. They aren't the names he holds dear to his heart.
Those names are all but forgotten in the minds of men.
This should be more concerning, but to his six-year-old mind it's just the way it is. He doesn't mind the daydreams any longer, or the mystifying images that flash through his mind sporadically. He knows he doesn't perceive the world like everyone else. He knows there are parts of himself missing.
He stops sharing these thoughts with his mother when she starts to worry. It's his uncle who says that he just has an overactive imagination, and it's nothing to be concerned about. That he'll grow out of it.
He's four when he doesn't respond to his name. Emery.
He's five when he first watches Finding Nemo and insists his mother call him Marlin.
Neither is quite right.
It is now that he likes to pretend he lives another life, in another world, another time. There, he has other friends and family. Asleep is where he sees the world—not as he knows it—most vividly. He's most comfortable with the colour of deep crimson, with metal that gleams silver in the sun. He understands the scents of linen, of natural, earthy herbs and spices, and he knows the virile musk of sweat and hard work. The sharp metallic clang of blade on blade is his music, the only kind he can truly register.
Having lived his short life in the city, with its over-abundance of sights and smells and sounds, his senses are unsurprisingly dull.
The only reason he even knows something is wrong with his perceptions is because of the way people act and react around him. His uncle having to pull him out of the way of oncoming traffic because Em couldn't quite hear the rumbling engine of the approaching lorry. Kids at school mocking him for being unable to tell the difference between purple and blue. His mum demanding he wear his jumper even though he's never cold.
He fakes excitement at the exotic dishes his mum makes once a month because he's ashamed to tell her that, to him, they all taste the same. It's hardly any wonder that he turns to dreams to escape his bland reality.
Here, though, away from the city and with a panoramic view of the countryside, everything's a bit clearer, and he knows this is almost like how it should always be. He feels something wake inside himself that's always been dormant before. While his mother reminisces, he's drawn deeper into the centre of the cemetery, past towering monuments capped with angels like sentries, guarding over the dead in their final place of rest. The unkempt grass beneath his feet softens each footfall, dampens the hems of his secondhand trousers when he trods upon them with the heels of his shoes.
He skims dates, pauses a moment to ruminate on the stone of 'Gwendolyn', who was but a child at the time of death. His ruddy fingers trace the rough edges of stone, slide gracefully across the cold, slippery surface of marble until he is forced to stop, something keeping his foot from taking another step.
The stone before him is nondescript, timeworn and deteriorating. He cannot make out the dates on its face, but they aren't what he's looking at anyway.
Four letters stick out at him, barely legible, but they unlock something in his mind and in his heart. Their appearance makes him sway where he stands as he's accosted with an emotion he's unable to process.
He mouths the letters, tastes the syllables on his lips, and repeats them.
A - R - T - H -
This will be the first time he feels like he's found something of home.
x X x
He is nine when a boy called Elliot trips him on the playground, declares him a big-eared idiot, and becomes his best friend.
Elliot talks loud and gestures wide, and apparently forwent a filter between his brain and his mouth at birth. He is frank in his opinions and fearless in the face of authority, and Em feels a deep affection for him that he is completely unaccustomed to.
He likes Elliot for many reasons. When they are young, he recognizes those reasons as he can hear Elliot clearly whenever they chatter together, or Elliot calls Em whatever name he wants to be called and never makes a fuss over it, or he doesn't tease Em for visiting an ancient grave every other weekend (in fact, sometimes he even comes with him), or even he lets Em use his things, share his lunch, stay over at his house like it isn't a big deal, like it doesn't immediately occur to him that everything about Em's life has to be odd and peculiar.
Em likes how, when he's with Elliot, life is a little more vibrant. He likes the slight change in the atmosphere that he can never recreate when he's on his own.
And as they get older and their friendship deepens, as they're increasingly referred to as the inseparable Emery and Elliot, he really just likes Elliot because he's Elliot.
x X x
There is an instance, when Em is about thirteen, that he doesn't think he'll ever forget. He's at the cemetery like he always is on a free Sunday afternoon, and by now it's commonplace.
Elliot isn't with him today, caught up as he is being forced to go to his grandmother's house for her birthday (or so he says). Em doesn't really mind.
It's partly cloudy out, but without the steady breeze, the hot afternoon might've been unbearable. As it is, he sits on the lush, sun-warmed grass in front of his usual stone, the one with the four eerily familiar letters, and angles his body so his face is shadowed by an oak's thick, gnarled branch.
Some days he likes to talk to the stone, as if it's a long lost friend. Sometimes he'll ramble on for hours, about his day, his week. He'll explain to it his most surreal thoughts, and he'll admit secrets that he doesn't even share with Elliot.
Some days he'll study the marks on the stone, trying to make out any more letters or humouring himself by tracing a few blotches at the top of the stone. He thinks if he stares long enough and hard enough, he can pick out the suggestions of a date.
Other days he lowers himself in front of the stone and sits silently. These are the days he tries not to think at all.
Today, though, he plucks at the grass between his crossed legs and wishes desperately for the millionth time that the stone might spontaneously split in the middle and start talking back.
He imagines it'll take on the tone of the phantom voice inside his head that soothes the burn in his throat and acts like a balm to his despairing heart. The voice that says:
Do I know you?
There are times, Emery, when you display a sort of—I don't know what it is. I want to say—it's not wisdom. But yes, that's what it is.
You are such a girl's petticoat.
I came back because you're the only friend I have and I couldn't bear to lose you.
You wouldn't understand, Emery. You have no idea what it's like to have a destiny... you can't escape.
I don't want you to change. I want you to always be you.
Thank you.
He doesn't know why, but the voice in his head always stumbles over his name. It botches the vowels and consonants, struggling, as if it's trying to say something entirely different.
He wishes he knew what.
But today is a day like any other, and the conversation is as one-sided as it's always been. He thinks he can hear the occasional chirp of a cricket, though he isn't certain.
When Em looks up he is startled to see a young woman perched on top of the stone, her kindly brown eyes blinking back at him. He's riveted by the sight of her surrounded by an almost ethereal glow, her gossamer gown shimmering a delicate ivory. She smiles at him, but the expression hits him like a punch to the gut. In all his short life, he has never seen someone look so sad while wearing a smile.
"Who are you?" he asks, a little breathlessly.
But then he is distracted by a bit of rustling behind him, and by the time he turns back around the pretty lady is gone.
He sits there longer than he generally would in hopes that she will come back. But while he will never catch a glimpse of her again, he thinks something of her presence stays with him as he leaves the graveyard that day.
x X x
Em is legally an adult when he goes off to university on the other side of the country from Elliot, life going back to an insipid gloom the likes of which he hasn't known in years.
But it doesn't stay that way for very long.
It is in the library—of all places—where he's checking out the books he'll need for the semester, that his life takes an unexpected turn (though he doesn't know it, yet).
The pretty girl behind the counter who's scanning his books is chattering on at him a mile a minute, and despite himself, he finds that he's grinning at her unreserved babbling.
He's not one to peruse a person's appearance, but the girl intrigues him—and not just because he can smell the subtle fragrance of spring flowers wafting off her. (He's only ever been aware of his mother's scent, always smelling as if she's just drenched herself in rich lavender perfume. He's had to learn not to be hindered by his defective senses, but he can't deny his immense pleasure at hearing the girl's tinkling laugh with crystal clarity, and not as if he's listening to it behind a wall of water.)
"Oh!" the girl says as she peers at his identification card. "You're from Ealdor? My da lives about half an hour north from there, in Escetia."
"Yeah? I go there all the time. My friend Elliot loves getting ice cream from a shop right off the motorway."
"You mean Cenred's?" she asks eagerly. "Your friend has good tastes."
Em scoffs good-naturedly. "Don't let him hear you say that."
There is a glint in her warm brown eyes when the girl gives him his ID card back. "I'm Olivia, by the way. But most people call me Liv."
Em tries to put on his most winning smile, but it's clear by the girl's amused grin that he probably looks ridiculous. "Nice to meet you, Liv. I'm— "
"Emery," she cuts in. A lovely scarlet flushes up her neck and stains her cheeks as he stares at her. "I read it... on your card?"
"Oh! ...Right," Em says, bemused, though his grin is no less genuine. "Well, most people just call me Em."
"Em it is." Liv pushes his textbooks back towards him, along with his receipt.
He stays to chat for a few moments longer until another student starts vying for Liv's attention. Before he slips away, Liv invites him to join her on her lunch break with her boyfriend (apparently she's made sandwiches), and her jovial nature is so alluring that he just can't say no.
When Liv introduces him to Landon, Em's breath is knocked right out of him. Instantly, he recognizes how handsome the man is, but more than anything it's his eyes—their intensity, honesty, and gentleness—that attract Em. He's sure he's never met more perfect human beings than Liv and Landon, and certainly not a more perfect couple.
They will both instigate changes in his life, but it's not until they invite him to pub night a couple weeks later that the muddled puzzle pieces of his existence finally start falling into place.
x X x
His name is Daniel Penn.
Em first takes notice of him when he walks into the pub behind Liv and Landon and hears loud, belting laughter. The sound is rich and decidedly pleasant, and gets his heart racing even before he sees what the man looks like.
It isn't any shock that someone who could offer such a lovely laugh would also be absurdly gorgeous. Em doesn't normally take notice of these things, but even to him it's obvious.
It's in the way he throws his head back, the way his Adam's apple bobs, and it makes Em's throat suspiciously dry.
Em's never really had a type before, but he supposes that if he did, he'd be rather taken with the blond-haired, blue-eyed sort.
He sucks in a sharp breath as he brushes past Daniel to get to his seat on the other side of the table. He's mostly impartial to the variations in temperature wherever he goes, but he can feel Daniel radiating an intense warmth that is utterly foreign to him. The natural, earthy scent that pervades his nostrils, however, is wholly familiar.
He knows he's drawn to Daniel, even though none of his explanations for this can properly justify why. Daniel's exceptionally stunning, but he's not particularly nice or welcoming. He's witty, but his criticisms border on cruelty. He's intelligent, but his edges are too sharp for Em's tastes. At least, they would be, had Em not been too busy making sure Daniel was never let out of his sight to take much notice.
Their acquaintanceship begins when Landon decides to move in with Liv and offers Em residency in the flat he used to share with Daniel. Despite the fact Em already technically has a place (and disregarding the half-hearted grumbles of protest coming from Daniel's side of the table), he readily agrees.
The first couple of weeks are full of malicious antagonism, and Em can never understand why he stays (except that something aching pulls at his heartstrings every time he even contemplates leaving).
For two people who ostensibly hate each other, however, they are certainly seen hanging around together a lot. If Em is reading in the living room, Daniel can be counted on to be sitting right next to him, shouting at the TV while he plays some video game or other. If Daniel's engaged in a game of footie with his mates, Em is probably chatting with Liv on the sidelines. If Em's at the library working studiously on his coursework, Daniel is naturally in dire need of a book that will help him finish a paper that's due the very next day. And if Daniel's misplaced his keys (which Em most certainly did not hide on purpose), then Em is conveniently around to find them and hand them back to him (but not before he's screwed with Daniel by dangling them over his head and making petty demands first).
It comes as a bit of a surprise when, after a big brute of a man called Vincent mocks Em, Daniel unexpectedly shoves him away and essentially tells him to fuck off. Of course Daniel doesn't look at or talk to Em for the remainder of the day, but Em never forgets the encounter.
When Em jokingly invites Daniel shopping to get some groceries, he doesn't imagine Daniel will agree, but he doesn't complain as they're heading out the door together, either.
They hang out with their respective groups of friends, those friend groups sometimes overlapping, until gradually they're going out to see a movie, just the two of them. Neither makes a spiteful remark the entire night.
It seems as if, overnight, they've become the best of friends. It's evident (once they start communicating with each other, anyway) just how much they have in common. Their offhand repartees are quickly replaced by scintillating banter, and, for the most part, Em loves it.
They continue to argue constantly, and it becomes a sort of game to see who can devise the cleverest insult. But Daniel has a predilection for being capricious, and Em can't always keep up with the mood shifts. He tries to remain impervious, but sometimes Daniel's shoves are too rough, his laugh too sharp, his sarcasm too acerbic. Sometimes, his belligerence is too much to take.
He reminds Em of a raging whirlwind, unpredictable and volatile, and if there was anything normal about Em at all, he would run away, take shelter.
But Em thrives in a storm, and he's never felt more alive than he does when in Daniel's presence.
He has never been deferential. It's in his very nature to fight back. So he does. He breaks through the concrete wall of defenses Daniel's thrown up around himself and personally grapples with the prison bars wrapped around his heart.
It only takes him until the end of the semester to fall in love with what he finds hidden inside.
And it only takes until the end of the semester, when he and Daniel are preparing to go home for the holidays, for Daniel to ruin it all.
Daniel's in one of his moods. His movements are tense, his stance rigid. Em has wisely chosen to keep silent while they pack, but clearly Daniel can't leave it at that.
He's just got off the phone with his father—a call that can never end well—and he hasn't said anything about it to Em (not that he ever does where his dad is concerned). Em can only assume the man has been pressuring Daniel again, about any number of things—Em's learned not to ask.
It starts when he accidentally gets in Daniel's way and escalates spectacularly until they're screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. Only when someone pounds on the wall and tells them to shut the fuck up do they stop for a breather.
"Why can't you make your own decisions?" Em insists, quieter this time. "Maybe if you just do what you want to do, he'll respect you for it."
"What would you know about it, Emery?" Daniel growls, flinging a shirt into his bag. "You don't even have a father!"
The retort stings, as it's meant to. Daniel looks stricken for a split moment, as if maybe he wants to take it back and apologize. But he doesn't. Of course he doesn't.
Em purses his lips and turns away abruptly. He quickly finishes stuffing the last of what he needs into his suitcase, zips it up, and strides briskly to the door with it trailing behind him.
"Em..." Daniel sighs.
Em ignores him.
x X x
The afternoon he returns to Ealdor, Em goes straight to the graveyard without pause, not even calling his mum to tell her he's back.
He expertly sweeps around gravestones until he's settling stiffly in front of a bronze plaque, one that has recently been visited if the fresh-looking gardenias are anything to go by. (He recalls them being his mother's favourite and that his dad would bestow them on her whenever the endeavour took his fancy.)
He's lost again in a monotonous reality, and the massive void in his chest seems like it could suck him in entirely at any moment.
He doesn't think about why he never comes here. He doesn't think about how much it hurts that he never knew his father, and yet still he dreams about him. Sometimes they're in a cave, sometimes he's taking his last breaths in Em's arms. Sometimes he's saying, Listen to me. You are my son. I've seen enough in you to know you will make me proud.
All of it is impossible. His dad died months before he was even born. He's always ignored the flashing images that involve his father, pushed them to the far back of his mind. They hurt too much to ponder on.
He sits there silently, his mind blank, and stays there until it's long gone dark and exhaustion finally forces his hand.
He comes back bright and early the next morning, but bypasses his father's grave to instead sit in his usual spot. He stays there the rest of the day before he has to go home or otherwise worry his mother.
This goes on for the next few days, and he's not really interested in doing much else no matter how his mum pesters him.
He's starting to zone out, staring at the curve of the R, when he catches a glimpse of something abnormal in the corner of his eye. He glances up to find Daniel standing there, his hands buried in the pockets of his hoodie, his shoulders hunched as if to protect himself from the chill in the air. His hair is a disheveled mess, his eyes are red-rimmed, and he doesn't look to have slept in days. Em can only stare at him.
There's a soft thump as Daniel collapses to his knees on the grass beside him. He chokes on a gasp, and then breathes, "Merlin."
And his voice is suddenly very familiar, in a way it hasn't been for the last few months that Em's known him. How Daniel shapes his lips, that precise tone and timbre—Em knows it. He knows it like it's a part of himself, like it's something dear and precious, something he's spent hours upon hours studying and memorizing.
Em's eyes shut involuntarily. It's the final clue, the last piece of the puzzle. The key that unlocks the cage his mind's been trapped in for the past eighteen years.
He realizes that it's the first time he's been called something and instinctively thought, Me. That's my name.
Now, when he opens his eyes, his vision is more pronounced. The dark green of each individual blade of grass stands out in sharp contrast to the grey of the headstone. The coming of rain is instantly obvious to his unobstructed senses. He is struck by the way colours refine into richer tints, how smells and sounds have enhanced to create a more vivid awareness. It's like being doused with sobriety after having lived his entire life in an alcoholic haze.
He looks at Daniel and is hit by a wave of images that he now understands to be memories. A golden dragon emblem on a crimson backdrop, flying daggers and shields, chainmail and armour, poison, sacrifice, horseback riding, quests, menacing beasts, fantastical creatures, perilous lands, chivalrous knights, a sword set in stone, a round table, ridiculous old men, an enigmatic dragon, a ruthless king, a caring mentor, a kind handmaiden, a beautiful but troubled ward, an arrogant prince turned magnificent king.
A sword forged in dragon's breath and a mortal wound that would not be healed. Rage, fear, confusion, loss, sadness, guilt, loneliness.
Magic.
Arthur.
It isn't until his cheeks become damp that he realizes why his vision has turned blurry. Strongarms are suddenly wrapping around him in a firm but gentle embrace, and Em can't help but press his wet face into the warm crevice between Daniel's neck and collarbone. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he says, voice hoarse and cracking like age-old marble.
"Shh." Daniel rocks him back and forth, whispering soothing words and sweet nothings into his ear. "I'm sorry, too," he says, and somehow Em gets the impression that he's apologizing for much more than just his hurtful words.
They pull back until they're facing each other, their noses nearly brushing. This close, Em can see the redness of Daniel's eyes and the way his damp blond lashes clump together. Daniel crouches there, indisputably alive. His face is young, but he's wise beyond his years, and it suddenly makes Em think, Maybe Arthur was trapped, too.
Those intimately familiar blue eyes are watching him closely now, and they're sparkling with possibilities, as if daring Em to make the next move.
Em's grin is watery as he accepts the challenge. He leans forward to brush his lips lightly over Daniel's, pausing a moment for Daniel's reaction.
He is unprepared for Daniel lunging forward to reclaim his lips but easily matches his enthusiasm. The kiss is rough, slick, and not at all refined, but it brings Em such immense delight that something starts to bubble under his skin and surge through his veins, making his heart pound in his chest.
It's magic.
Em grips Daniel to him tightly and lets his magic pour out.
Later, they will talk.
Later, they'll decide together that this life will be different, and that they will choose their own paths.
Daniel helps Em to his feet once the sun starts its descent towards the horizon, and guides him to the exit.
But before he leaves the graveyard, Em finds some rose bushes lining the wrought iron fence and picks a few of the wilting blooms. He takes great care positioning them so they're propped up against the ancient stone, something in him giving way for contentment. With one last glance, he leaves the cemetery behind him to walk hand-in-hand with Daniel towards a better destiny.
He doesn't ever go back.
x X x
Perched on top of a timeworn and deteriorating gravestone, a pretty lady with brown eyes and a white gown strokes the soft petals of a withered rose, until they flourish once more beneath her fingertips.
She smiles.
fin