.
.
The drilling goes on for hours. Merlin begins keeping count of how long.
It echoes deep in the earth, trembling the glow-faint crystals around him, vibrating it all.
Little do they know—what they are truly looking for will be him.
A crackle of light spills in balmy and warm summer air. It chases away the dry and sour quality of the air within Merlin's cave. He sits, unmoved, as the crackle widens to a proper crack, emitting soft, yellow light. Merlin's nails scratch thin pale marks to a self-made rock bench. Debris and flecks of stone-dust rains from the ceiling above.
Soon, he hears multiple voices among the drilling equipment, and soon, the crack is large enough for someone to slip through.
There's talk of "fucking hell" and "need the harnesses, Lance".
"There's someone here!" calls one of the workmen. The bravest, no doubt.
He's let down with fluorescent-bright ropes, his helmet shining a single beam.
His face is fresh and young, like Merlin's, except broader in jaw, cleaner. No dirt, no bloody fingers still scratching at the side of the rock bench. No thin layer of dark stubble like on Merlin's cheeks and jaw.
At the glimpse of the man's eyes, a pocket of heat erupts Merlin's chest. And he understands.
He understands why the ground has been buzzing, why the wind has been howling for him, the humming of his own magic and the whispers in Merlin's head, telling him wait wait waitwaitforhim.
They are bluer than any memory of laughing and running barefoot in warm cloudless summer.
Warmer than the air entering the cave.
The man seems to regard him curiously once he finds footing, wordless for the moment.
Merlin doesn't let him get a syllable.
He grabs the man's face, thumbs pressing to sun-browned skin, smashing their lips together. The man utters a pained grunt, raising hands to push at Merlin's shoulders before digging his fingers into Merlin's tunic.
Arthur always smelled like this on the surface—fresh perspiration, and a hint of steel. Always, always like the sunlight. How it soaked into his hair and his flesh. And sometimes on his clothes when Merlin laundered them in the middle of the night, rubbing his nose into a wool shirt.
A bit wild for it, craving more and more of what he could gain, Merlin pries the man's lips apart with his, thrusts his tongue in forward. Tasting spit and sweet-dark like flavoured beans. He growls, less throaty-human and more animalistic when the man who was Arthur finally pushes him off, swatting Merlin's bloody and dirt-covered hands away.
"Christ," the man swears, blue eyes bright as gems, wide, "who are you?"
"Judas," Merlin answers, grin stretching his now swollen pink mouth.
He doesn't know him. Doesn't know anything. Doesn't know his own curse, the deeds Arthur had a hand in committing. Merlin can see this plainly as the crack of yellow light above them.
The man who was Arthur gapes at him before shaking his head, the single light on his helmet bobbing in place.
"Look, mate," he says, carefully. "You're in shock. There's been a cave-in somewhere. Let me get you some help. Do you know where you are?"
Merlin nods. His voice thick with ancient dust.
"I am where I am and where I've always been." He stares expectantly. "Do you know who you are?"
Obviously not, as the workman stares back in confusion. Maybe a touch frightened.
The heat in Merlin's chest dims sadly.
"James," the man murmurs, hand to his tool-belt. "My name is James. My crew and I are demolishing the area under a contract—"
"What the BLOODY HELL are you doing down there? Find some buried treasure?"
The man picks out his communicator from his belt, eyebrows furrowed. As if he had forgotten what his real purpose was down here. "There's been an accident." Arthur—he IS Arthur—tells the radio, tone brisk, "I've found someone injured down here. Call an ambulance."
More hushed swearing, but through the tinny of the radio communicator. "How injured, James? Can you get them out with you?"
"How about it, mate?" The man who was Arthur asks him, blue eyes on him now and gentler.
"…What say we get you out of this hellhole?"
Merlin imagined leaving.
Imagined blasting his way out.
Ripping apart the smallfolk who tortured him, bled him, left him to die. Looking into Arthur's face, watching his expression fall into despair and awe as his king witnessed the bodies nailed to the trees in the Darkling Woods.
But he never did leave.
Not for the first hundred years, not for the last.
"I'd say what was taking you so long," Merlin said blandly, smiling. The coy and wicked intent of Merlin's smile is either ignored or unquestioned, because Arthur's own smile grows on his sun-browned face.
"Hang on tightly to me, that's it. That's very good," Arthur says, keeping an arm to Merlin as he fixes the harness and its cords around them safely. "I'm not going to let you fall, I promise."
When Merlin says nothing, his own blue eyes unblinking, Arthur tugs on the cords several times, giving the ready signal.
They begin to rise.
The sun feels good on Merlin's starved skin. He lets himself be seated on the grass with a paramedic checking his vitals. With a little push of magic, the woman dreamily forgets, hazy-eyed, leaving Merlin alone.
"Can you reach your family?" Arthur comes up to him a few minutes later, helmet removed. His hair golden and flattened to his skull.
Merlin eyes him. Informing Arthur that they had been dead for centuries might be rather alarming. But he was sure he could… persuade another family to welcome him in with open arms, temporarily.
"I can," he says, accepting Arthur's outstretched hand to help him back onto his feet. "And maybe I'll see you again," Merlin adds, dropping his eyes on the other man's lips, "To thank you for saving my life."
"I—sure," Arthur breathes, and he clears his throat, turning red.
"Looking forward to it, mate," Merlin says, grinning again, watching the man retreat as someone waves in their direction.
You're mine this time.
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