Posted this on my Tumblr! Hope you guys would like... I don't watch Merlin, so if something's off, please tell me. x
Merlin brought the hot coffee to his lips, the liquid sloshing around in his mouth, warming his whole body on the way down. Coffee had been a drink reserved for kings in the time Arthur was still there, but now, in this century, it seemed like everyone was a king or queen and he'd learned to love it in the year he'd been living with John. He looked down at his friend's hand.
"John, are you ever going to stop fidgeting?"
"What about you? Arthur died, didn't he? Aren't you still fidgety?"
"You have to start to go to therapy again."
John caressed his coffee cup a bit tighter, not wanting to return there for another session. If he was going to be asked how he was feeling for a whole hour and had to pay for it, he'd rather just sit in his chair 221B talking to Merlin, who had become his best friend in the year Sherlock had… been absent.
"It's just… I can't let go of him. I know no psychiatrist can help there."
He laughed a short, humourless laugh because his mental instability was reaching a point of no return.
"When Arthur… left, I wandered around aimlessly for so long, I forgot what love was."
"So, I guess you figured out what love is?," John said sarcastically.
Merlin turned to John and sighed.
"Love is about letting go."
Something about what he'd just said stuck in John's brain. He didn't even realize that he'd gotten up from the bench, walked over to Sherlock's grave, put his hand on it and whispered "I love you" until he was walking away.