A/N: You may or may not know this, but I am currently working on two stories… This one, which will have action and humor, and Assassins, which will have action and angst-ier subjects. I'll be splitting my time between them, but I'm not going to be strict about updating these stories.

I got some suggestions for this story, and I will use some of them. But others just don't fit into what I want, sorry. (I am just physically incapable of writing a FabulouslyGay!Evil!Arthur. My mind refuses to even go there.) So we'll just see what we get, eh? ENJOY! (Oh, and hey, the Author Notes will get a lot shorter. This is just because it's the beginning.)

Without further ado…

Almost 60 years earlier

Merlin was leaving.

This was it. He gave up. He didn't care anymore, and he was getting. The. Hell. Out. Forget the prat and the dragon and destiny. His bags were packed and he was leaving.

He could still hear Arthur's voice ringing in his ears, spurring him on as he threw his other shirt in a knapsack. The echoes hurt. Tears pricked at Merlin's eyes.

"You're such a girl, Merlin. Shut up, Merlin. Why can't you ever do anything right, Merlin?"

Merlin pressed the tears back. No need proving him right.

Arthur thought it was perfectly fine to just yell at Merlin to his heart's content. He didn't know the things Merlin did for him. Merlin didn't ask for recognition, though; all he wanted was not to be treated like dirt. Was that so much to ask?

Apparently.

Even after Balinor, after Freya, after Will, after Morgana, Merlin hadn't faltered or hesitated to help Arthur once, and he hadn't asked to be thanked or comforted. He hadn't thought about leaving after all of that.

But Arthur and Merlin had never had a row like this one before, never. And it started over something so tiny… All it had taken to turn from mostly-friendly banter was Arthur's breakfast being late and Merlin being a little grouchy on account of having gotten only three hours of sleep the night before and then sleeping in. (He'd saved Arthur's life last night, and it had taken time.) The next thing Merlin knew, Arthur was screaming at him, hurtful things like he'd never heard, some of them the same insults but with new venom. And Merlin, gods help him, had hollered back. He'd never yelled at Arthur before.

It was surprising no one heard them, actually, but somehow everyone missed the quarrel between prince and manservant.

It didn't end as their little spats usually did. There was no awkward shoulder-patting, and Merlin didn't half smile as he inwardly forgave Arthur. Instead, Arthur shoved him out the door, ordering him to leave.

"Fine," said Merlin, glaring daggers at the prince's door. "Fine, I will."

And so he was going to leave.

Arthur didn't appreciate him at all. Arthur didn't care, he obviously disliked him—he couldn't have said those things otherwise, not like that.

Merlin wasn't even going to say goodbye to anyone. Gaius wasn't in his rooms, so Merlin left him a rather vague message. He was secretly relieved not to have to talk to Gaius about the whole thing. He didn't want to hear about "destiny" right now, and he didn't want Gaius to convince him to stay or to call him "my boy" at the moment.

He just wanted to leave. Maybe he'd go to Ealdor. Surely his mother needed help around the house. If not, maybe he'd just wander a bit. He wasn't all that crazy about the idea of going to Cenred's lands, though. He'd find some place somewhere.

Merlin lifted himself up off his knees and slung the brown sack over his shoulder. His jaw was clenched; his back was rigid. His eyes were quite dry, and for that he was thankful, but he hoped no one stopped him on the way out. He felt as fragile as an eggshell right now, and would just as soon not have anyone else calling him weak and girly.

He let his door smack into the wall when it opened, leaving it wide. Everything he could fit into his knapsack was missing from the room, but he'd left several important things, like the staff. He didn't have time to find a way to transport it.

No one stopped him as he walked down the hall, his feet near silent against the stone. He could feel their coldness through his shoes, he imagined. The air was chilly and wet around him, and Merlin shivered. It felt like rain. Oh, well, so he'd get wet. A quick spell should fix that.

He smiled slightly to himself. Once he was away from Camelot, he could use spells like that without looking over his shoulder every second. Sure, he'd have to watch out for bounty hunters and people of that sort, but he wouldn't be living right in a nest of metaphorical hornets—no magic-hating king or red-cloaked knights about to arrest him every time he turned around. He had gotten rather sick of that.

Wouldn't it be nice? Nothing holding him back. It sounded like freedom to Merlin. Why hadn't he left before? Whatever was holding him back anyway?

Weird that it had taken the realization that Arthur didn't really care to propel him out of Camelot. Already, as he just walked out of the castle and through the colorful bustle of people towards those gates (and weren't they like prison gates!), he was feeling more carefree. The totally inappropriate urge to laugh nearly overtook him, but he squashed it.

He would just walk out those gates, forget it ever hurt to have Arthur yell at him, and disappear from Camelot. Gaius and Gwen might miss him, sure, but he couldn't take any of this anymore. He'd send them both word that he was okay, and they'd forgive him as long if he wrote letters or something.

But he wouldn't write anything to Arthur, he thought with childish stubbornness as he walked right through the gates, waving almost cheekily to a guard that was acting like a statue. Let Arthur figure out for himself that his manservant had quit. Merlin wondered if it would take him long to find a new one.

Probably not. And to be honest, that servant would probably be better at serving than Merlin, who was passable but not excellent. He just didn't have the time to be excellent at that job.

Merlin took a deep breath, finding himself suddenly all alone outside of Camelot's walls. The road stretched out before him, over green hills, through those trees in the distance, right off into that blue sky.

That road had Merlin's name on it.

He took a step and grinned triumphantly to himself. He was really going. He was leaving. Not just pretending, but actually going.

He took another step. And another. He took a third. He was getting the hang of this "leaving" business…

BANG!

The humid air rippled like a wave in a lake, and Merlin found his top half leaning back faster than his legs could keep up. He lost his balance, and his eyes slammed shut as he fell to the ground, his body sending up a small cloud of dirt. The unmistakable scent of magic flooded his nose, and for a moment there was complete silence.

When he opened his eyes, an old man stood above him, looking at him. But not just any old man. This was a very familiar old man.

"Wha…?" Merlin gasped.

"Well, that worked," the old man commented. "Very well, actually; I got to you just in time! Such a useful spell."

"What… You…" Merlin gaped at him.

The old man smiled fondly. "I remember this part," he said, more to himself than to the young man.

"You look like I did…" Merlin looked confused.

"Naturally," said the man simply.

"You're… you're… me?" Merlin shook his head. Maybe he'd hit the ground a bit too hard. He was seeing things perhaps. That would make sense.

"Well, sometimes I go by— Dragoon… The Great!" The old man cackled a bit.

"Oh, gods," Merlin moaned, putting his hands up to his face. "You are me! How is that possible?"

"I'm you in over half a century," Older Merlin clarified. "I've just stopped by to help."

Merlin looked him up and down, but mostly up since he was still sitting on the ground and peering at the bearded man with long white hair and robes… Oh, for heaven's sake, robes? He was going to wear robes?

Old Merlin reached out a hand to help Young Merlin to his feet. "I think at this point I remember thinking that I needed a haircut and a change of clothes. Actually, I remember him… um, me… saying this very thing to you… um, me. Really, we're both you, so I could speak in any person. It doesn't particularly matter, though it may confuse you, because you're about to ask me—"

"What are you talking about?" Merlin said in some confusion.

The Old Merlin giggled in a very old and senile fashion. "Sorry, I know I'm complicating things. I can't help myself; besides, I remember how he did the same exact thing. Naturally. He's me. What I mean, of course, is that I'm here from the future to help you, but since you are my past, I have already been through all of this, so I am both saying this and remembering this. I remember it pretty well, considering it's been almost sixty years. Not the kind of thing one forgets. You won't forget it, will you?"

"What are you talking about?" Merlin repeated in the exact same tone. "And please don't talk in circles. I've had a trying day. And now that you've showed up, I think it will get worse."

"I'm here to help."

The scene was absurd. Absolutely absurd. Two men, one young, one old, stood in the middle of a dirt road while rain clouds gathered overhead, and the old man beamed like he had just gotten a handful of sweets at nothing in particular.

"With what?" asked Merlin.

"I know what you're doing," said the old man, sobering. "You're leaving because you think he doesn't care, and because you think you don't care."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "Please, don't try to tell me to stay. Future self or no, I'm sick and tired…"

"I'm not here to talk you into or out of anything, boy," said the self-proclaimed Dragoon the Great. "For the love of Camelot, I'm the greatest warlock in the history of magic! Do you really imagine I would do something so mediocre? Of course I'm not going to talk to you about it." He laughed like the idea was ridiculous, and reached forward to take Merlin's pack from his shoulders.

Merlin was so surprised that he let the man take it from it. "What are you going to do then?" he asked, though something deep inside him told him that he shouldn't.

The old man took the brown, heavy pack with all Merlin's possessions in his frail, pale arms and put it over his own bony shoulder. He reached out and took Merlin's arm in his leathery hand.

Merlin looked at the hand, wary.

"Well," said the old man with a mischievous, almost child-like grin, "I'm going to teach you a lesson, of course."

Merlin had just enough time to let these words sink in. He tried to pull away, because he knew, in that instant… I am completely batty when I'm old! But he couldn't detach himself from the surprisingly strong old man in time, and the sound of a magic spell reached his ears. Older Merlin's eyes went a liquid gold.

BANG!

And then the road that twisted over hills and out into those trees was completely and totally empty.

TBC