I don't own Merlin. Iron belongs to Woodkid.
/
The pages of the rather bland calendar that hung in Merlin's kitchen seemed to blur. Months passed, quickly and steadily, and with them passed life events.
Merlin nearly died at one point due to appendicitis, Gwaine's brother showed up, shouted a bit and left, Uther left Arthur to run the company and retired with Gaius to the Bahamas, much to Merlin's displeasure –"Do you have any idea how much it costs to call the Bahamas? Let alone get plane tickets!" "Stop complaining, Merlin, you haven't even seen my phone bill."- and Arthur and Gwen continued to make eyes at each other in meetings when they thought people weren't watching. Mordred became a part time employee as the university started up again, taking over the position of Page Coordinator, and Remington and Sanchez married, and moved away with much tears and smiles. Freya was given back her position in the US military, receiving an honorable discharge. Nimue cried through the whole ceremony, to no one's surprise, and Freya wore her saber with pride. The Sokiyama's came and went without any incident whatsoever, and Lance Allot was settled into prison.
Kilgarrah, who now had to take care of another person who should probably be seeing a therapist, started up a shop doing what he actually enjoyed- tailoring clothing. Christian spent his time learning the trade as well as singing constantly in his inhumanely lovely voice. Business boomed, and soon the tiny shop was employing not only them but a set of exceptional seamstresses from China, Mexico, Italy and Nigeria, none of which spoke any English but adored their employer, particularly when a man broke in and demanded money. Christian had tackled the man with a shriek of displeasure, and Kilgarrah had neatly disarmed him and cuffed him none to gently in under 30 seconds. Merlin cut out the newspaper article and smugly added it to a fat scrapbook of incidents that had happened because of the family, with Gwaine looking on and shaking his head.
Life was good for all of them.
/
On the sixth month mark of the attack on Camelot, Gwaine woke at 3 AM to hear the sound of fists on a punching bag. He listened to them for a minute before rolling over to shove his face into his pillow and let out a quiet little scream of frustration.
For the third time in as many days, Merlin was out of bed at 3 o' clock, and taking whatever was bothering him out on the punching bag stationed in the living area. Normally, Gwaine would be fine with this. Violence, after all, was part of his man's life, and he could deal with that, because it was part of his own. But he really wished that Merlin would just tell him what the problem was, rather than leaving him in the darkened bedroom to try and go back to sleep. It had become impossible for him to sleep without Merlin near him, though, so it was a useless exercise.
"Gwaine," he mumbled into the pillow, "You are a ruined man. You really are."
He rolled into Merlin's spot, shifted around a bit, and gave up. Rain drummed on the windows, he noticed vaguely, and thought that tonight would be a terrible time to be outside.
Rolling out of bed, he hunted down a pair of pajama pants and stumbled out of the room to the living room, just in time to see Merlin roundhouse the punching bag and nearly send it through the wall. The Dragonlord snarled, pummeling the thing.
Gwaine sighed and dropped onto the couch. "Please don't break this one. They're getting expensive."
There was a suspicious sounding rip. Gwaine groaned, grabbing a pillow and shoving it over his face. This, he could feel, was going to be a long day.
There was a heavy thump, and he wheezed in pain as Merlin sat on him. Pulling the pillow away, he glowered angrily at the man currently occupying his stomach. "What has gotten into you?" he growled, trying without success to move his lover's bony butt off of him.
"It doesn't make any sense!"
"No, it really doesn't. You eat us out of house and home and still stay skinny as a rail. It's unreal."
Merlin elbowed him in the chest, and Gwaine wheezed again. He began squirming frantically, and Merlin rolled his eyes, hopping off of him only to straddle him and recline on his chest. Gwaine rolled his eyes and sighed, accepting that they weren't going anywhere any time soon. He reached around to wrap his arms around Merlin, and the man nuzzled under his neck.
"So what's wrong?"
Merlin sighed. "It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Why hire someone to kill someone only to change your mind, and even though you've gone out of your way to be discreet, do something so exceptionally hostile and obvious to steal something of no use?"
Gwaine sighed. "Merlin. It doesn't matter. The Boss has his fingers in a million and one pies, and while he said you were a- quote unquote- "issue", I'm starting to think that he was actually after me."
"What?"
"Edwin was ordered to kill me at first, remember?" He gently squeezed his lover, and Merlin sighed. "Don't worry, love. Let's just be grateful that they're leaving us be, yes?"
Merlin let out a groaned sigh, and nestled against him. "I just don't like it," he admitted sulkily. "I feel like we're about to be pounced on, and everything will be taken away just when it's all going so well."
"I know, love. I know."
/
The night was indeed wet and cold, and the only people out and about were those truly desperate for money. Most of them were in the darker districts as well, in the alleyways and overhangs that are so prevalent in the darker areas of cities.
One of them, a lean young man in a fake leather jacket lined with equally fake fur, was walking down the street, shoulders hunched, an umbrella over his head. He hadn't been having a good night- only two people had stopped him tonight, and they hadn't exactly paid well. He sighed, breath clouding in the air as he slowly wandered through the puddles and other pitfalls that littered the sidewalk.
A car slushed by, but didn't slow down. He grumbled quietly to himself, resisting the urge to flip the car off, and absently glanced down an alley as he walked past it.
He froze.
The umbrella flopped to the ground with a splash, and the young man ran into the alley, hurrying to turn over a body that lay, naked and filthy with blood and muck on the ground. His fingers fumbled for the guy's neck, and he gasped in relief when he felt a pulse, faint though it was. Blood oozed onto his jeans from the man's back, but he ignored it. With shaking fingers he pulled a battered cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number.
"Gwillem, I've got-I've got s-someone that's hurt, he's bleeding out-be ready. I-I'm bringing him to you."
He hung up quickly, cursing with a faint sob as he pulled the man up and over his shoulder. He wasn't a strong man by any stretch of the imagination, but the other man was short and delicate enough that it wouldn't be too hard to move him- provided he lived. For the millionth time, he cursed the fact he was a nice man.
The umbrella was left swaying on the sidewalk.
/
Kieran Gonzales woke to a world of pain, and was not exactly happy about it.
"Whoa! Gwilllem, he's alive and oh shit he's strong! Get in here!"
A lamp crashed to the ground, the bulb breaking into a bunch of pieces. Kieran thrashed, only to scream as his back exploded into a world of pain. He tried to curl up, only to shriek as the pain grew even worse. Strong hands shoved him back onto the tattered, bloodied mattress. "Hold your sorry self still, you idiot, or you'll tear out your stitches, and I did not spend three hours helping Gwillem put them in just for you to yank them back out."
Kieran forced his eyes open, looking into furious brown eyes shadowed by lanky brown hair. He keened slightly as the man shoved off, standing up and skulking over to a man who looked like the love child of Einstein and Sigmund Freud who'd come in the door. Kieran watched, eyes fuzzed with pain, as the man who'd saved him poked and prodded at the other man, who seemed to have been distracted by a windchime- hung inside? What was with this guy?
"Hoi, Gwillem. Help me out here."
"Rabbits burn cane sugar! Buggerit two pence for a dagger!"
"Yeah, I know, I'll detangle them later alright? You just have to help me check his stitches and fix the dressing. And possibly get some more of those pain pills."
"Bluebird sits on a fence, sits on a fence," the man said seriously, and stomped over to him. Kieran whimpered and tried to pull away, only to be roughly grabbed and his eyes pried open. A bright blue eye peered at him, and Kieran gave up struggling when his back clamored in righteous indignation. It then occurred to him that the only thing covering him was a thin, dangerously stained blanket, and he froze, terrified.
"Well?" The rescuer said dryly.
"Seals. Seals eat lettuce."
Kieran gaped at the man as he roughly rolled him onto his stomach from his side and whimpered as calloused fingers ran over his back. It burned, and he sobbed into the mattress as the man poked a bandage in the spot between his shoulder blades. His whole back ached and throbbed, and the rest of him didn't feel much better. The man promptly whacked him on the shoulder, snarling, "Ice cubes!"
"Now, Gwillem, calm down. It's alright."
Kieran could have kissed his rescuer when the harsh hands were removed, and he was rolled back onto his side, the blanket pulled up around his chest. The rescuer looked him over with sharp bad tempered eyes, and drawled, "Well, you're not as bad as it could be."
"What happened to me?" he gasped out, shuddering as tremors hit his back again. Tears were coursing down his face, through the muck, and he didn't dare try and wipe them away.
The other man sighed, and ran a hand through his slightly matted hair. "Well, to put it simply, we have no idea what happened, but we can tell you that you've been hurt."
"How?" Kieran demanded, and another spasm of pain made him gasp in agony. He promptly had two pills shoved into his hand along with a glass of water. "Wha-"
"Take them, now, or you'll pass out and you know it."
Kieran shoved the pills in his mouth and forced himself to swallow through the pain of lifting his arms. The glass crashed back down, rolling away from him, and he winced in pain from over exertion.
"Great. Now, tell me what happened," he growled out. It was less of a threat that it should have been, mostly because he was still crying.
The other man sighed, and waved Gwillem out of the room. Already, he could feel the drugs kicking in and kicking in with a vengeance. He lay limp and let the drugs take hold, soothing his brain. It wasn't the first time he'd had painkillers this strong, and he felt a moments panic before remembering that he'd seen the markers for vicoden.
"Well, to put it very simply, you were carved up and probably would've died from blood loss if I hadn't come along. Oh, and…and you were burned."
"Burned?" Kieran asked weakly. His head was starting to swim nicely. Nice, fast work.
"Branded, actually," the other said grimly. "A capital letter B, between your shoulder blades."
"And the…the carving, as you put it?"
The other sighed, reaching over and almost gently pushing a bit of his hair out of his face. "Do you have any enemies?"
"I'm a kid in cooking school who whores himself in the worst part of town to keep up with the rent and stay alive. No." Kieran pulled back from his touch. "What did they do to me?" His voice was tinged with fear, but his tongue was growing heavy. The mixture of shock and the painkillers had done him in.
"It says "Do you like my gift to you". And…you've got some internal bleeding." The man wouldn't meet his eyes.
"Internal bleeding?"
"We'll talk about it in the morning…"
The man's voice faded as Kieran slumped back into unconsciousness.
/
As the sun rose over the horizon, Kieran's eyes blearily opened again, and he stared in tired befuddlement at the snoozing man who was sitting against the wall. Confused, he realized what exactly he was doing there, and slumped into the mattress. The room was small and dingy, with a vinyl floor covered in worrying stains and cracks. A tall candelabra stood in one corner, and a dim bulb hung from the ceiling, along with a shell windchime by the door. A solitary table, of which the lamp had been knocked off and still remained, was covered in various sharp implements, including new, cheap looking syringes, a curved needle, white thread and several scalpels. His back twinged in pain again, but he ignored it, some of the painkillers still there enough to keep it dull. Returning his attention to his rescuer, he watched as the strangers eyes twitched back and forth under their lids. He felt baffled by the fact the man had gone to him and saved him.
The man, seeming to have felt his attention, and shifted slightly, yawning. Opening his eyes and blinking a few times, he surveyed Kieran rather tiredly. Kieran, feeling self conscious, gathered the blanket around himself.
"Ah, you're still alive then."
Kieran nodded weakly. The man sighed, relaxing back against the wall for a moment before dragging himself to his feet. He wasn't especially tall, and had average looks. A rather forgettable face, truthfully, but it was what Kieran's mother would have called "pleasin' t' look on".
"Very nice. Need anything?" The man stretched lazily.
Kieran swallowed hard. "Why are you doing this?" he asked weakly. "You don't even know me."
The man sighed, rubbing his head. "Sadly, I'm a nice person." He picked up a bottle from where it had been sitting on the floor and took a swig from it. There was a label, but Kieran's eyes wouldn't focus on it. "So, you got a name?"
"Kieran. Kieran Gonzales."
The man raised his eyebrows. "Irish first name, Spanish surname?"
"My mother was Irish by way of Dublin, my father from Spain. And you?" Kieran said rather quietly, only to wince as his back twinged violently. He cringed, and lowered his eyes as the other man rose and sauntered over to the mattress.
"…Will. William Smithson, and I'm from nowhere you need to know about, nor is my family." A shadow passed over Will's face, and Kieran wondered what had caused it.
The man that Will called Gwillem wandered in and announced bad temperedly, "Ducklings blast the castle walls. Buggerum. Tawdry candle wax and turpentine?"
Will nodded. "Yeah, we can move him. Pills and clothes first, though."
Gwillem snorted, and tossed a bottle at him. Will caught it easily, and Gwillem left, muttering, "Tuppence rags on bluebirds, buggerum."
Will shook his head. "You got a place to stay?"
"Apartment on 7th and 25th." Kieran tried to lever himself up, only to have booted foot push him firmly back down. "Listen…do you need anything?"
"What?" Will was preoccupied by the opening of the bottle.
"Do you need anything- is there a way for me to repay you?"
"Only if you've got a place for me to stay and food."
Kieran looked at him and said seriously, "I have a couch and bring home the extras from school."
/
The word "studio" would be infinitely too grand for the hole in the wall that was Kieran's home, but Will looked thrilled all the same when they managed to get there. He went around praising the place, though it was all one room save the bathroom. A cot was set up in the corner, the ceilings were low, and the windows were all grimy, but it was home all the same, and extremely clean. The tiny kitchenette was spotless.
Kieran's body burned, despite having taken one of the vicoden, but he still limped to the window that led to the fire escape and tried to push it open. Will promptly came over and helped, whistling when he saw the garden planted there. Tiny rose bushes, miniatures, sat beside more useful things like chives, sage, lavender and oleander.
"Do they need watering?"
"No, it's just-" Kieran's words broke off, and Will turned to glance at him. The man's eyes were wide, trained out the window. Confused, he followed the smaller mans gaze and was surprised to see a slim, dark haired young man with a violin climb out of the opposite window onto his fire escape. He watched with interest as the man set his bow to the strings, contemplated for a second, and then began the most breathtaking solo of The Swan Lake Suite's "Scene" that he'd ever heard. He stood there, dumbstruck, as the man played on. Other people had opened their windows, and the gang-bangers music in the adjoining building was immediately turned off. The world went still, holding its breath as the man poured his soul into the violin. He was incredibly beautiful, with ice blue eyes that Will could see even across the expanse.
When he finally turned, Kieran's hand was at his mouth, and silent sobs were wracking his body.
/
Over the next week, the two pieced together what had happened, and the full impact of what had happened began setting in, mixing with the schooling that Kieran insisted on going to, and Will having to walk the streets every few nights to keep up rent since Kieran couldn't. From what they gathered, Kieran had been out walking the streets, and a rather plain black car had pulled over. There'd been a man, black and good looking, wearing a suit that did nothing to disguise his muscles, and he'd suggested they find a nice place to get to know one another. Kieran had climbed in, and remembered seeing a red-headed man in the back seat, one that had had work done on his face.
"Not good work, reconstructive. They hadn't done a really great job of it, the skin wasn't quite the right color."
And then what had happened or where he'd gone he didn't know, but slowly Will had explained that it was very likely he'd been raped. He'd been bleeding badly, his body ripped up inside- they'd probably intended to leave him as a message to someone. The words cut into him were proof of that, and the branding…
Kieran had gone a little insane after that bit, his brain shutting down as he tried to comprehend that he'd nearly been killed over a message.
/
The police district where Ian Ared worked was bustling when he saw the boy looking over the wanted sketches on the wall. Any other day, he would have ignored the kid and gone on with his work, but he felt drawn to him, and, well, he didn't have anything better to do with his time.
He walked over, and the kid jumped as he cleared his throat. "Looking for someone?" he asked, a little brusquely.
The kid nodded slightly- he had weird looks, Ared thought, with that tousled auburn hair and Spanish looks. Good looking kid, though, if on the small side. When he spoke, there was a trace of desperation. "I'm looking for a man, a red head who's more strawberry blonde, white, had reconstructive surgery on the right side of his face, maybe from burns. The red might be a dye, though."
Ared felt chills roll up his spine. "Wait a sec." Hurrying over to Grunhilda, one of the bad-tempered desk cops who ran searches, he asked hurriedly, "D'you still have the sketch of Edwin Muirden?"
Grunhilda nodded, digging in the drawer to grab it. "Here. Why-" But Ared was already gone, hurrying back to the kid.
"This him?" The kid looked horrified, and nodded weakly. Ared could have jumped for joy. Finally, someone had seen him. They'd all but given up. "Meet Edwin Muirden. He was in charge of that insanity that happened over at the Camelot building. You seen him?"
The kid tore his eyes away from the sketch and looked bleakly at Ared. "All of him."
/
Merlin's day wasn't going all that well when the skinny kid stepped into his private domain. As Arthur was now the complete and utter ruler of the Corporation, he'd been upgraded to "personal assistant"- ie, secretary with a fancier title and a lot more responsibilities. On the bright side, Gwen and Arthur had decided it probably wouldn't be a good thing for Gwen and Merlin to switch the people they worked for, which meant his job was secure for now. Unfortunately, he'd had to hand the reins of the Pages over to Mordred, thanks to the fact that he was so busy there wasn't any possible way from him to ever handle the workload. The Pages had taken it well, and enthusiastically. Mordred was pretty well liked, and had dazzled them all with his coordination skills, despite only working part time. They were still working on filling the gaps left by Sanchez and Remington, but Merlin didn't doubt Mordred would pick the right people.
As for his day though…he'd woken up again thanks to his stupid nightmares and he knew Gwaine was starting to suffer from it. Ever since the fifth punching bag broke, his man had started getting quieter, his eyes duller and darker, and to say he was worried was an understatement. He wasn't eating near as much anymore, and the other day when he'd reached out to touch him, he'd flinched. It was slowly driving him mad, and when Gwaine had burned himself when he'd jumped at Merlin's voice had taken the cake. Merlin wasn't feeling well, his man was suffering, the anxiety was getting to him, and Arthur's handwriting looked like chicken scratch- practically indecipherable.
So, really, the kid came on the wrong day, but Merlin just wasn't able to bring himself to be angry.
"You need something?"
Well, really angry.
The kid- Good grief, that's some weird genetics right there- nodded weakly. "I…I have information, I guess- A-about Edwin Muirden?"
Merlin's heart stopped.
Finally.
The world rushed back into focus and he scrambled through the papers to the phone on his desk. Motioning the man to sit in one of the chairs, he jabbed the number for Gwaine's extension. "Hi, yeah, I need you up here now. There's someone here who says he's got info on him."
The man, who was already looking skittish, now looked positively petrified. Merlin smiled gently at him, standing up. "So, do you have a name?"
"Kieran Gonzales."
Mixed blood then, that'd do it, but the outcome was certainly pretty. Merlin approved, and seeing as he was the product of an Irish woman and a man with what they assumed was Arabic-Chinese-Scandinavian heritage, he was all for multi-cultural love. (Kilgarrah much later would explain to him that the first Dragon had been Chinese, and the Dragonlord one of the Assassin's out of the Hashashin order during the Crusades, and that the two had mixed and mingled over time.) He surveyed the kid with the critical eye he reserved for potential clients and the days where Gwaine came home a bit too drunk. The kid squirmed.
Clean hands, nails trimmed almost to the quick, suggesting he worked somewhere that needed to be sanitary and had carried it over into his personal life. His shirt was loose, with long sleeves that didn't quite come to his wrists, similar to a chef's jacket- perhaps that was his occupation. He wore jeans that were too worn to be new or even just bought abused, so old and probably well cared for. His shoes were also immaculately cleaned, with only a few splotches of mud on them from where he'd walked in. It had been raining heavily all week, that wasn't surprising. His eyes were haunted- Merlin knew the look well. He'd spent enough time in Shanghai whore houses hunting his next targets to know where that sort of look came from.
"Come on in."
/
Five minutes later, Gwaine, Merlin, and Arthur sat staring in horror at the kids back.
The stitches were neat, like Gaius did them, and would leave the skin smooth as possible, but there was no disguising the words, or the thick, terribly elegant "B" that sat, in Medieval script, between the young man's shoulder blades. It was a dark purple at the moment, Kieran's body trying to adjust and heal.
"We've got to find him," Gwaine said bleakly, and went over to Kieran, helping him with his shirt. The man had explained everything to them in halting, hesitant words, looking delicate and fragile. Merlin had wanted to punch something when he told them in a soft half-whisper about what Edwin had done, how he'd defiled him and broken him. He fought down the urge and kept calm for Kieran's sake though, and as his man gently pulled up a chair for their guest, he felt a pang of guilt.
I should have just killed him and been done with it, he thought bleakly, watching as Arthur handed him some water and Kieran timidly accepted.
Arthur came back to sit on his desk, eyebrows furrowed. "What do you think?" he asked in Mandarin as Gwaine struck up a conversation. Merlin raised an eyebrow at the words. Arthur had clearly been practicing a bit, he thought absently, and returned his attention to Kieran and Gwaine. "Well?" Arthur asked again, quietly.
Merlin shrugged helplessly. "Well, we know he's in the city at least. And he was trying to send a message, which is worrying. I'm wondering about the black guy, though- we haven't heard anything about him."
"Perhaps The Boss himself."
"Gwaine met the Boss, and he was white."
Arthur snorted softly. "If you were The Boss, would you show yourself to a person you're later going to dispose of?"
Merlin considered this and shook his head, watching as Kieran quietly told Gwaine about going to cooking school. He was steadily calming down, it seemed. Gwaine had that effect on people. "No. You're right."
"As always."
"Shut up."
"- New roommate, the one who found me, his name's Will-"
For the second time that day, Merlin's heart stopped dead still. Shoving off the desk, he rushed over. "Will? He wouldn't happen to be William Smithson?"
Kieran looked startled, and nodded warily. "Yes, he's the one paying rent for me right now-"
"Where is he!?"
Arthur was at Merlin's side then, pulling him back away by his waist, trying to whisper for him to calm down, but Merlin was fighting him, head turned frantically to Kieran, demanding to know where Will was. The man looked terrified, and Gwaine looked like someone had picked up a hammer and slammed him in the face.
Gwaine recovered as Arthur wrestled Merlin to his chest, shoving his face into his shoulder and snarling, "Take him into the antechamber- I'll get him calmed down." Gwaine did just so as Merlin thrashed violently, trying to get away, sobs and curses coming from his throat. The door shut, and Arthur hit him hard in the face. That was enough to shock him out of it, and Merlin stared at him blankly for a few seconds, only to slowly fold to the ground and curl up, eyes blank and teary.
Arthur sighed, sitting down and pulling Merlin's head into his lap. "Get a grip," he said, not unkindly. Merlin let out a weak sob at that, burying his face in Arthur's legs, and broke.
/
Fifteen minutes later, a red-eyed Merlin and a rather exasperated Arthur came out of the office to see Gwaine talking soothingly to Kieran, who looked rattled. Gwaine abruptly stopped talking, and an incredibly awkward silence descended.
"I'm sorry," Merlin said quietly. "Will and I were close friends growing up. He…he left my life in a very painful way when I was 16, and I've been looking for him ever since."
Kieran swallowed hard. "It's fine…you just kind of startled me. I…I could arrange for you to talk, or-or something…" his voice trailed off helplessly. Merlin smiled weakly at him.
"I'd like that," he said. The tension in the air broke apart, and everyone breathed a little easier. Merlin straightened a bit. "There's just some last things I'd like to go over."
Kieran nodded, and Gwaine rose, letting Merlin take his chair beside Kieran. Arthur inclined his head toward the office door, and Gwaine obediently followed him inside, his emotions in turmoil. The second the door slid shut, he demanded, "Who the hell is Will, and what did he have to do with Merlin?"
Arthur sighed, rubbing his forehead and looking about twenty years older. "Sit down," he said tiredly. Gwaine wavered, and then threw himself into a chair. Arthur went around the desk and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, filling both. He pushed one towards Gwaine, who took it, and knocked the other back. Wincing slightly, he began speaking in a tired monotone. "His mother never married his father, you know that." Gwaine nodded silently. "Did you know she was married when Merlin turned 16?"
"He mentioned something about it, yeah."
Arthur drank a bit more, and sighed. "Hunith… Hunith loved Merlin, but she didn't make the grandest of choices in a husband. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Merlin was about 7, so he told me, when he and Will met, and they hit it off right away. Best of friends, adored each other to no end- They lived in the bad part of town. Will took a bullet for him once, not that Merlin will tell me about it, but they were so close. So, they're about 13 and both realize that they don't really like women. And then they realize that they like each other, and one thing happens after another, until they lose their virginity at 14- four teen, Gwaine- to each other, under the goddamn bleachers at the school, to each other. And they're in love, and the world is sunshine and rainbows and unicorns and happy, and then there's Kanen. And Kanen falls for Hunith, but not for Merlin, and who, Merlin told me once when he was drunk enough to talk about it, hates Hunith's little faggot of a son and doesn't mind telling and showing him when she's not around. So Merlin runs off for a bit, stays with Will and his dad, but things are going steadily from bad to worse. Then Kanen shows up drunk, with a knife, and tries to kill Will when Merlin's out getting food for Will's dad, who's dying of cancer. Will fights him off, but Kanen tells him, very clearly, that if he continues to see Merlin, he'll kill Merlin and that it'll be all his fault. So Will calls Merlin, sobbing and miserable, tells him he has to break it off and the reason why, and whispers the words "I love you" into the phone- which abruptly goes dead. Merlin panics, runs to the house, but Will is gone and his father's unconscious. The place is turned over, everything of value's been left, the only thing missing is Will, and his father dies before he even gets to the hospital."
Gwaine just stared at him, glass lolling in his hand.
Arthur stared blankly at the bottle of whiskey before filling his glass again. "So Merlin's stuck at home with a man who hates him and beats him whenever he gets the chance, and once does much, much worse, but only when Hunith's gone. So eventually he just runs away, finds Gaius, and begs him into taking him in as his ward."
He knocked back the entire glass this time, and Gwaine just stares blankly at the desk. It's not the story that bothers him, it's the monotone misery that tells him it's only the simple repeating of facts.
"And that, Gwaine, is how I met Merlin."
Gwaine put the glass to his lips, and drank deep.
/
Merlin knew the second that Gwaine walked out of Arthur's office, Arthur had told him. He felt his head droop as his man walked straight past him and out the door, not even pausing to look at Kieran before he left. Kieran watched him with concern, and looked back at Merlin.
"Did… Did I do something wrong?"
Merlin sighed. "No. I…I hadn't ever talked about Will with him though."
Kieran nodded understandingly. "I get it." His eyes got sad. "At this point I just wish I had someone that I could argue with in a relationship."
Merlin scrutinized him. There was something there… "You're in love with someone, aren't you?"
Kieran's smile was heartbreakingly sad. "Yes. He lives across from me, in the building next door. And he plays the violin on his fire escape, and he's beautiful and so talented…And his eyes. Oh, his eyes, they're this wonderful ice blue that makes you feel like you're falling into a glacier made of lava, if that makes any sense, and his hands! His hands are long, and the fingers…I could write sonnets about his fingers, really, they're magnificent. And his eyebrows. I could write sonnets about his eyebrows, if only because they're inhumanly beautiful-"
Merlin smiled, reaching out and gently ruffling his hair. Kieran smiled a bit brighter, letting his words trail off.
"Listen, Kieran…does Will need a job?"
"You mean one that doesn't pay by commission, so's to speak?"
Merlin's heart clenched, but he nodded. "Yes. We need another Page."
"…What's a Page?"
Merlin grinned. "Hold on, I'll have Mordred come up here. Just…don't tell Will about me yet? I'd prefer to talk to him on my own." Standing, he was about to head to his desk and call the extension, but Mordred promptly flounced through the door, announcing, "Really, Merlin, I can't handle it any more, we need another Page, we've slowed down so badly-"
Merlin grinned. "We may have found one for you."
"We?"
Merlin took his arm and turned him to see Kieran, who looked up through his wavy hair and let out a little gasp, eyes widening.
"Mordred Arthmael, this is Kieran Gonzales…" Merlin trailed off when he saw the way Kieran slowly rose from his seat, eyes locked with Mordred's, and felt the attitude of the room shift. Releasing Mordred's arm, he stepped back and watched as the two slowly walked to each other, Mordred's eyes wide and suddenly shy, Kieran looking like he'd just seen the heavens.
They reached out, slowly taking each other's hand, and just sat there, smiling oddly, shyly.
"I…I see you play," Kieran said softly, his cheeks beginning to pink, and Merlin's jaw dropped. This could not be happening, he thought frantically, but it was, as evidenced by Kieran continuing with, "You've got an incredible talent."
Mordred's blush came in full force. "Really, I'm not that good- the acoustics in my apartment are just terrible- y-you hear me play?"
Kieran's eyes lit up, and a small smile brightened his entire face. "I live across from you- the other building, in the one with the fire escape with the roses."
"I've, ah, been meaning to compliment you about that, but you've never been outside when…when I am. I…I wondered who lived there. I often saw ones like it in China- where did you find them?" Mordred asked, and Merlin retreated to his desk before he fell over in shock. Mordred's tone was positively demure, and he seemed totally riveted by the man opposite him. Shaking his head, he returned to his paperwork and let the two make small talk about roses and violin strings and that fantastic smell coming from Mrs. O'Neil's place, and yes, his family was Spanish-Irish, you lived in China? Well yes, but that was a while ago and d-do you have anything going on tonight, because, well, you see, there's this fantastic Chinese place and great good gods your eyes are beautiful, and of course I'm free, 7:00 is good, and thank you, most people just notice the hair and skin tone, ha-ha.
And then Kieran was gone, cheeks flushed a soft, pretty shade of red, and Mordred was standing pole-axed in the middle of the room.
"I'm in love," he announced, and drifted out the door, grinning like a loon.
(Or, as much as loons can grin, Merlin thought in annoyance, seeing as they are birds and aren't much in the way of smiles.) Sighing, Merlin returned to his work, gloomy with the knowledge that while Mordred apparently believed in love at first sight, his own lover was probably not very happy with him.
/