Okay. According to the reviews (which I promise I read) this is a chapter that a lot of you have been waiting for. This is a chapter that I have been waiting for, too. Lots of pressure. I have written it many times. I care about these characters a lot. I hope it's what you want, because it's what I wanted it to be. I also like feedback! This story started as a plot experiment- I never expected to get so invested in it, nor for other people to be so invested in it. Of course, there are other angsty chapters to come, but this is Merlin and Arthur actually talking to each other. I can only hope I did them justice.

I really hope you enjoy!

~Ra1n

Previously...

"Yeah," he said quietly, tentatively. His eyes were shining, this time with something other than fever. "I will ask. This is it, Gaius," he was speaking about the documents in his lap. His voice had gotten louder. "This is what we've been waiting for."

He wrote something else in the margin, flipped the page over, and set the quill down. Then Merlin looked at Gaius and said something he never thought he would hear Merlin say again:

"Can you send Arthur in?"

Arthur stood very still as Gaius shut the door behind them and took up a position in the corner of the room, watching. Merlin was sitting on his bed, the crumbled bits of wall between them. His eyes were dark and shadowed and calculating, his brow furrowed. He was reading Arthur like a book, and Arthur could feel him turning the pages.

Arthur felt very small and cornered; like a child cowering before the monster under his bed. Except Merlin looked nothing like a monster, and Arthur had to remind himself that if there was a monster in the room, it wouldn't be Merlin.

(He refused to think about how only weeks ago, he would have seen Merlin's small frame and golden eyes and declared him something less than human.)

The wood of the door felt solid against Arthur's back when everything else felt like it was falling out from beneath him.

Give it back, Merlin wanted to demand the moment Arthur walked into the room, dragging Merlin's own magic behind him. It wasn't Arthur's to carry. It wasn't Arthur's at all. To Merlin it seemed like an infection, the way the magic surrounded Arthur. Like a foreign contaminant. Like Arthur was a splinter. There was a time when Merlin would have seen it as beautiful, the way Arthur's eyes flashed with gold, the way he felt like an extension of Merlin's limbs, the way he could feel Arthur breathing. It might have, once upon a time, felt like a comfort.

But not now.

Now, all Merlin could feel was the ache of his lungs. All he could hear was the whistle of his own breaths as he tried to slow them down. He refused to feel anything else; not the way Arthur's own feelings tapped at the back of his mind like an itch he couldn't scratch, not the way his magic settled in his own shoulder blades.

Give it back.

Arthur felt the words in a way that felt like his own thoughts. Not a voice in his head, nor a feeling, but something that came to him as knowledge.

But he already knew the magic wasn't his. He already knew it was a borrowed thing.

I don't know how, Arthur wanted to respond.

He didn't.

Merlin's gaze was full of hate. Arthur was reminded of his father during a sorcerer's trial- something hot and uncontained and disgusted behind his eyes. Something barely bitten back. He could barely hear Merlin where he was, but he was too afraid to move further into the room.

At least Gaius seemed ready and eager to jump in at any moment and lead Arthur out.

Merlin cleared his throat again, a deliberate, grating sound, and then looked directly into Arthur's eyes as he spoke to Gaius:

"Can you give us a moment?"

Gaius looked nervous. He glanced at Arthur, then Merlin, then Arthur again.

"Merlin…"

Merlin cut him off before the question could even be spoken. "I am sure, Gaius," he said, not breaking eye contact with Arthur.

Gaius hesitated for another moment. Finally, he moved to the door, and Arthur was forced to take a few steps into the room in order to accommodate Gaius's shuffle out.

The silence he left behind was long and thick and stifling.

"...How dare you?"

It wasn't what Merlin had meant to say; he'd meant to demand, in a clear voice, "Give me a space to practice my magic." But that thought had gone out the window the second Merlin had opened his mouth, and now all Merlin could see was before:

Arthur's face through the bars, his carefully neutral gaze peering down at him. All Merlin could feel was the nausea in his stomach, the burn and itch of the collar, the panic of dear lord, he knows, paired with the panic of Arthur, please don't leave me down here-

And Arthur's face. His face, saying:

You can't leave, but I am not going to kill you.

I'll come back.

I'll come back, I promise, just hold on.

"Y-You," Merlin started again, his face contorted with something between rage and grief, something that filled his eyes with tears and made his voice shake and deepen in his chest until it was barely a whisper. It was something that should have been shouted but was too sticky and heavy to make much noise at all.

Arthur was forced to take a few more long, halting steps into the room.

Merlin's finger jabbed at the bed. He put the documents to the side and rose up onto his knees. "You did this," he managed, voice breaking.

He looked like a king above a ruined kingdom: debris scattered in a wide arc before him, blood and ink on his face, righteousness in his shaking limbs.

He was a man who had lost everything.

Arthur could feel Merlin's magic pick up just as surely as he could feel his own breathing pick up, and he'd nearly forgotten they were still connected in that way- could Merlin feel Arthur's breathing? Did Merlin know how much shame Arthur felt in every one of his bones?

Did Arthur know how much shame Merlin felt in his?

"I'll come back," Merlin was saying, spitting Arthur's own words at him. Arthur could almost hear himself say them, could feel the way his mouth had felt when they'd been said- he was in the dungeons again, too.

His voice was full of venom. "I promise. Do you remember?" He was making full eye contact with Arthur. "You promised. Y-You said-" he took a shaky breath, "you can't leave, but I am not going to kill you."

A few stray tears rolled down Merlin's cheeks. He did not blink. He was not sad- he was furious. "And you didn't break those promises," he hissed. He pointed at Arthur with a trembling, unhealed finger. "But you damn well tried, didn't you?"

No, Arthur wanted to say, because he'd never thought, during Merlin's captivity, about what he'd do if Merlin had actually died- but he nearly had, hadn't he? And he would have. Arthur would have killed him, would have had him tortured to death. Had planned on it, even- even if it wasn't consciously. How long had Arthur planned on Merlin surviving anyway?

It made Arthur too sick to think about. Maybe it would have made him sick back then, too, and that was why it had never occurred to him.

Not that it mattered. When Arthur had freed Merlin, he'd already been dying. It had been pure luck that he wasn't already dead when he'd carried him to Gaius. It was pure luck that he was alive now, and conscious enough to point a shaking finger at Arthur and demand reparation.

Merlin's jaw was clenched as he studied Arthur's face. "Yeah," he said when Arthur came up speechless. "That's what I thought."

"I'm sorry," Arthur finally managed out. It sounded pathetic and small and utterly baseless. He'd said it before. He'd say it again. It didn't change anything, but there was nothing else to say.

"Me too," Merlin mocked. He gave him a twisted little half-smile. "Me too."

Arthur suddenly wished that Merlin could remember the strange dreamscape of the collar, wished he didn't need to have this conversation all at once- he wished Merlin realized he'd already had it, in pieces, in shambles, in scatters between different Merlins- but that wasn't fair.

Merlin deserved this. Merlin deserved more than this, had always deserved more than this.

Merlin took a deep breath and threw his legs over the edge of the bed, wincing."I was born with magic but I'm sure somebody has told you that already," he said in that breath. He was focusing on his knees, like the words were coming out unbidden and un-thought-out. "I was given it for you, and I believed in you, and I used it for you-" he flexed his toes, coated in wall-dust. He took another deep breath, then looked at Arthur. "And I was given promises. Not just by you." He pushed himself up off the bed and held onto the edge of it to keep himself standing. "I was told a lot of things would happen. And apparently, I wasn't told about a lot of things that would happen."

He released the bed, standing on his own. He wanted to be standing. He hated the way he looked in his own mind's eye- small and broken and scared and weak, something that everybody had used, that everybody had relied on, had lied to. He hated the thing that destiny had made him. He hated the thing that Arthur had made him. Whenever he looked down at his own chest he saw a creature, a monster, something scarred and misshapen.

He'd lost himself in that dungeon, had huddled on the floor and forgotten things, had become a prisoner without a name. There were some things he was never going to get back.

His pride, though- he could get that back, maybe, if he could just stand and face this, face Arthur, face the thing that had stared at him in his nightmares, the thing that had opened and closed his cell door, had asked him questions, had made him forget how to be just Merlin.

"But you could have been one of the good things," Merlin said, his voice getting louder. He took a step towards Arthur, and this time the anger wasn't strong enough to hide the tears. "You didn't have to be the worst part of my destiny. You were supposed to be the reward! You were supposed to be the greatest. You were supposed to be-" He took another stumbling step, and Arthur made a half-aborted move to help him from across the room. He only made it a half-step before Merlin flinched away. "No!" he hissed, his magic pressing the word into Arthur's skull, pressing Arthur back towards the door. Arthur stumbled back, caught his footing, straightened. Merlin was already down the stairs. He stopped when he was only a step in front of Arthur. He could feel Merlin's magic buzzing in his own hands and eyes.

"You ruined everything," Merlin said, "and I hate you for it." His knees buckled, and he grabbed Arthur's shoulders, his face inches from away, his breath sharp and hot. Arthur could see the yellowing bruises, the fresh blood, the greasy hair. "Do you understand?" He was shouting. His fingers dug into Arthur's shoulders, heedless of the splints that bound them. Arthur had to fight to not pull away or close his eyes. Merlin stopped, breathing hard.

His voice switched to a whisper. "I hate you," he said, "and I will not help you."

He let go of Arthur's shoulders. He went to push him away, but didn't quite muster the strength. Instead, we found himself sinking towards the floor, and Arthur instinctively reached towards his waist to keep him from falling-

...And they stood like that, frozen, for a moment: Merlin's head bowed, his chest heaving, hands falling to clutch Arthur's forearms for stability. Arthur tried and failed to catch his eyes. He needed to see them, to see if the hatred was real, if there was any forgiveness there.

-But then the moment passed, and Merlin snarled and shoved him away. There was no power behind the push, not physically, but something in Arthur's gut forced him back. There was a weight in his chest, in his throat. There was nothing for him to hold onto to keep his mind from spinning with the words on Merlin's lips and in his own head.

Merlin's legs were trembling as he turned and grabbed the edge of Gaius's examination table. He looked at it instead of Arthur, taking slow breaths.

"I will face Morgana," he said slowly. His voice was cold. "But it will not be for you. And it will not be for destiny. And- " his face crumpled. "-it will not be for Camelot." He motioned behind him. "It will be for me. It will be so those bloody documents can be passed. It will be to protect myself from you- to protect people like me from people like you and Morgana."

Merlin sat heavily at the table. Arthur was frozen to the spot, caught between saying thank you and I'm sorry, between feeling the awful realization that Merlin didn't forgive him- that he'd been compared to Morgana- and the relief that there was hope for the kingdom.

Merlin squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, pressed a hand to his temple. He didn't look at Arthur.

"Give me a place to practice magic," he said finally, all in one breath, and it didn't come out as commanding or clear; he just sounded exhausted.

"What?"

"A place. To practice."

"Of course," Arthur said, before even considering where that place would be, "of course- I will find... I will find a place." His mind was still reeling.

Merlin looked up from the table with a strange look on his face. "You will," he said, and it didn't sound like a question, but it didn't sound like a statement, either.

Arthur nodded. "Yes."

"And there will be no guards."

"No," Arthur said, utterly perplexed. "There would- there would be no need for that."

"No," Merlin said, more to himself, "there wouldn't be." His eyes were focused on something far away.

"Um- You can have the armory," Arthur said, just to say something. "Or the- the throne room-" he paused. He had no idea what kind of room was needed to practice magic. Did Merlin need to be outside? His magic seemed pretty much exclusively focused on nature. "Or- the courtyard?"

Merlin smirked a little. It was pained; there was no mirth or maliciousness. It was like a memory, an impulse. "The throne room will be fine," he said, but his eyes were still searching for something far away. Arthur shifted his weight. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. His fingers itched.

Merlin nodded once to himself, as if he'd made a decision.

"Don't you want to see it?" he asked. He gave Arthur a sideways glance as his voice went up at the end. He still sounded exhausted, but he was nervous, too. Nervous and...angry?

"Um-" This was a test, Arthur could feel it. He just didn't know what the right answer was. Was there a right one?

"You've given me the throne room," Merlin said, "and you don't want to see it?"

Merlin had already looked away and raised his hands, his wrists resting on the edge of the table, his fingers trembling. Apparently, he wasn't expecting an answer. He looked hard at the space in front of him. Merlin shot Arthur a look of trepidation just for a moment, and then he began to speak, his hands shaking harder:

"Gewyrcan blóstmá lif."

Arthur was startled by how natural the foreign words sounded coming from Merlin's lips. There was knowledge there, a depth to Merlin that Arthur had never known existed. Arthur wondered if he needed to study, or if the language simply came to him. He thought about how the same voice who wrote his speeches for him also spoke magic like a mother tongue.

"Upastige."

The hair on Arthur's arms stood up, but if anything else happened, he couldn't see it. Merlin frowned and focused harder on his hands. "Upastige lif," he said, with more force. "Blóstmá."

There was a popping of pressure in Arthur's ears, and Merlin's eyes flashed a warm shade of gold, so different than that of Morgana and even of Emrys in that dreamscape- and yet, somehow, exactly the same. He supposed it was because they were all different people wielding the same thing. What did Arthur's eyes look like when he cast?

Merlin glanced at Arthur again, sheepishly, as his eyes faded back to blue. It was almost like he was daring Arthur to get angry, like he wanted to see how Arthur reacted to the change in his eyes and the foreign taste of gold in the air.

This is all a test, he thought again, and suddenly knew the correct answer.

Merlin had cupped his hands together, and his eyes were full of anticipation as he opened them now, slowly, still trembling. He saw the contents first, and his eyes lit up with something between relief and bliss. Arthur craned his neck, still a meter away from the table.

Merlin tilted his hands towards him, tears forming in his eyes. He was cradling the shape of a tiny rose, as red as the cloaks of Camelot.

Arthur let out a breath. The rose was small and fragile and its petals trembled with Merlin's hands.

Merlin was the most powerful warlock to walk the earth; this was the first time he was allowed to do magic in front of his king.

And… it was this.

A tiny, delicate blossom, blood-red and wilting already.

"It's beautiful," Arthur finally said. And he wasn't talking about the rose, not exclusively.

He was talking about all of it- the magic, the way Merlin cradled it like a child, the way the rose was as delicate as Merlin was now and as bold as he was before, as bold as Camelot's army. He meant the way Merlin's voice grew soft and powerful and his eyes flashed gold, as if that was what he was meant to sound like, to look like. Something a little bit more than human.

Merlin was still staring at it, watching the petals as they curled and browned. It was a short-lived spell and it was even shorter now, with his magic the way it was.

"Yes," Merlin said finally, laying the flower on the wood of the table. "It can be."

He wiped at his tears, sniffed once, and suddenly he was cold again, although his voice was softer. He looked at Arthur.

"When will the throne room be ready?"

Arthur did his best to shift back into neutrality, but for once in his life, wasn't as good at it as Merlin was. (But then, Merlin was actually perfectly capable of hiding and lying and remaining calm, wasn't he? Just in a way Arthur had never needed to understand.)

"I'll… just need the documents," Arthur said. He motioned towards the bed.

"Take them."

Arthur did.

"And…" Merlin hesitated. "...leave," he finished, just as Arthur crossed the threshold of his room, picked up the papers, pen, and inkwell, and turned around.

Arthur nodded silently, but realized Merlin had returned to looking at his rose. It was already brown.

"Do you do that spell often?" He asked in the silence.

Merlin smiled bitterly, still staring at the dead flower. "No," he said, and there was grief there. "Only once."

Arthur walked back to the table, trying to catch Merlin's eye. He wondered when Merlin had time to summon roses; why he'd done it only once. He knew Merlin had cast some powerful spells for Camelot, but who did Merlin cast the delicate spells for? He tried to think of a scenario where Merlin would summon roses. Who did he trust that deeply? Not Arthur. Not Gwen. Not the knights. He doubted it was for Gaius.

The thought made Arthur profoundly sad.

He grabbed a piece of blank parchment from Gaius's desk and laid the papers down in front of Merlin.

"There's something else I need you to sign," he said, writing something on the blank piece.

"Fine," Merlin tried to sound bored, but his tone did nothing to hide the sadness in his eyes. Arthur turned the paper around, sliding it across the table towards Merlin. Merlin pulled it towards him and read it silently.

The position of Court Sorcerer and Magickal Advisor is thereby offered

to the Warlock Merlin,

whose bravery, loyalty, and knowledge of royal and magickal affairs

have been invaluable to the King of Camelot

for upwards of five years and some months.

Merlin touched the words with his fingers, as if that would somehow help him comprehend it better.

"Just an offer," Arthur said quickly. "Not an order."

"Right," he said finally. "I shall let you know, then. Later." Merlin folded the paper in half carefully.

Arthur stood there for another moment, feeling as though there was more to say but unsure what that was. When nothing was forthcoming, he turned and left the room, Merlin's silence clinging to his back. He didn't think Merlin looked up from the paper once.

As he pulled the door shut, Merlin spoke:

"Are your feet burned?" he asked. Arthur blanched.

"Uh—" he looked down at them, startled. He realized he'd been barefoot the entire time, only the bandages protecting him from the ground. Had he really walked through the castle like that? "Not anymore," he said quickly. He was unsure if he should go into detail or leave it at that, but Merlin didn't ask for any more information. He went back to staring into space, chewing on his lip. He was frowning.

Arthur closed the door. Did Merlin know why his feet were burned? He wasn't sure what Merlin had and had not been told. He decided that was a thought for later.

What had just happened?

Arthur decided that was a thought for later, too.

The hallway was very quiet. Arthur blinked a few times, waiting for everything to come into focus. In front of him, the worried faces of a half-dozen druids, Gwaine, Percival, Gwen, Iseldir, and Gaius were looking at him expectantly.

Arthur held up the documents, covered in Merlin's handwriting. There was something caught in his throat. The privacy of the conversation stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He thought of roses and golden eyes. He said nothing.

They must have seen something in his face, though, because without a word, they parted to make way for him.

"I need Gaius and the Druids to follow me," he finally managed, not turning around. He was heading towards the throne room.

He was still barefoot, but he didn't care.

He had a magic training room to set up, and he had absolutely no idea where to start.

Magic Glossary:

Gewyrcan blóstmá lif. = "Summon blossom life"

Upastige = "Rise"