As it happens, imagination once prompted won't let go…
Chapter 2: Arthur's Mage-Guard
"This is the gym," Arthur tells Merlin, hands on his hips as they stand in front of the wall of hooks and cubbies, for shoes and coats.
It's noisy and smelly, lots of kids already there, though never so many that it feels crowded and unwelcoming.
"Wow!" Merlin says, bouncing on his toes and trying to get Arthur to bounce, too. "It's big! It looks like fun!"
"It is fun," he says. "They don't have anything like this in the country, I bet. Just the city. Look – there's the low obstacle course, and there's the high one. There's foam pits and trampolines – and away across there is for the big kids, rings and bars and weights and stuff. I'm in a class, but a lot of the stations, you can do your own thing."
"Wow!" Merlin repeats.
Arthur turns away to hang up his jacket, and when he kneels down to untie his boots, Merlin plumps right down on the floor to take his off, too, tugging with both hands.
"What's that?" A voice speaks beside Arthur, and he turns.
Gwaine's next-oldest brother, the one Arthur likes least, and Leon his instructor's son, with a couple of Leon's friends, who are Older. Ten years old, maybe.
"It's my mage-guard," he says. "His name's Merlin." Behind him, Merlin is trying to match their boots into adjoining cubbies.
"You're not old enough to have a mage of your own," Gwaine's brother protests immediately.
"So?" Arthur answers back.
"He's not supposed to be here like he's a normal kid," one of the bigger boys points out.
Arthur doesn't know what to say; his father had told him to take Merlin everywhere with him, but he never thought about rules against mages.
"Hi!" Merlin chirps, jumping up excited to meet them.
Arthur dearly hopes he won't try to hug any of them. "He's supposed to stay with me," Arthur says to Leon, who is watching Merlin.
Merlin sticks out his hand for shaking, just like Arthur taught him. "I'm Merlin!"
"Hi," Leon says, shaking his hand only a little awkwardly. "I'll ask my dad, Arthur… He's pretty new, though, isn't he? Are you sure he isn't going to…" He waves a hand like he's not quite sure what trouble a brand-new mage might get into.
"I'm going to do everything!" Merlin announces, not really understanding, either.
Leon's friends snicker. Arthur begins to wonder if they should've had Gaius come with them, after all, even though Merlin's presence is intended to make the old mage unnecessary for Arthur's safety.
A whistle splits the noise of the air momentarily, drawing their attention to their instructor, who's clearly waiting for them to begin the class with stretches and drills, on a soft mat in a circle. Leon's friends respond immediately, and Leon trails them with a friendly You-coming? sort of smile and lifted eyebrows for Arthur. Gwaine's brother sneers and runs off before Arthur can ask if Gwaine's coming today.
But he's only just into the second stretching position on the mat with the others when Gwaine hustles in the door and toward their group, half bent beneath Mordred – who's just had his first birthday and can walk four steps in a row – chubby legs around his neck, and out of breath.
"Sorry I'm late," Gwaine gasps to their instructor. "My brother was supposed to watch this one today…"
He swings Mordred down into his arms, straightening and searching the busy gym for his next-oldest brother, the one Arthur doesn't like. Leon helpfully turns to do the same, but the instructor, Leon's father, scowls with impatient disapproval for the tardiness and disorganization.
And Merlin bounces up from his attentive crouch, eagerly focused on Mordred – maybe the first person he's met who's smaller than he is. Mordred stares back for a second, then leans forward in Gwaine's arms to snatch at Merlin's black hair.
Arthur has an idea. "Gwaine!" he says. "Let Merlin look after Mordred."
"Huh?" Gwaine responds, abandoning the search for his next-oldest brother to notice Merlin for the first time.
"Merlin," Arthur repeats. "My mage-guard."
Gwaine sends a glance down Merlin's silver-gray uniform to his bare feet. "Mage-guard? Really?"
"Boys!" the instructor warns, intolerant of interruptions to their class time.
"Yeah, okay," Gwaine agrees quickly. He sets Mordred down and steps on the heels of his boots to take them off, before tumbling into the fourth stretching position with the rest of them.
Arthur does the same, aware that behind him, Merlin is down on his knees extending his arms to Mordred. He suggests cheerfully, "Hugs?"
That's all right, then. And a moment later Arthur turns his head to see Merlin staggering away with Mordred plastered to his front in a clinging-monkey hug, Gwaine's boots banging against them both as he carries them back to their proper place by the wall-cubbies.
Halfway through the class, while he's waiting for his turn to run the obstacle course, he notices Merlin and Mordred on a nearby floor-trampoline, both bouncing delightedly with the baby's hands in Merlin's for stability and balance.
"When did you get him?" Gwaine asks in Arthur's ear, behind him in line.
"This week. Next week I can take him to school, if my dad says he's adjusted well enough."
"Do you have to teach him everything?" Gwaine questions. He has four younger brothers; he's well acquainted with what little boys have to be taught.
"Not really," Arthur says. "I mean, he can talk and feed himself, and only has to be shown once, things like how the bathroom works-"
"And he does whatever you tell him to do?"
Arthur hesitates. "Not really…"
"Pendragon! Pay attention! It's your turn – go!"
By the end of the hour, Arthur is tired and sweaty and content that he's done his best, and improved. And there hasn't been any interruption or trouble from Merlin or Mordred.
They're waiting for Arthur and Gwaine by the cubbies, when the class dismissed makes its straggling way toward boots and jackets and the outer door. Mordred is sitting on his bottom on the floor, kicking his feet periodically as Merlin, sprawled on his belly facing the littler boy, attempts to lace the tiny boots – and both of them giggling over the game.
One of the older boys says, quite loudly behind them, "No, he's not real. Mages aren't real."
Arthur slows to look back, and catches Leon's hesitation, like he wants to contradict the statement but can't do so confidently.
"He is too real," Arthur tells the older boy; he doesn't know his name. "He eats and sleeps and… learns things. And laughs."
The boy sneers. "Does he cry?"
Arthur stops to think about that, because Merlin has been unfailingly cheerful in the days since he was made. "I guess… he hasn't yet. Why would I want him to?"
"Bet I can make him cry," the big boy boasts, pushing past Arthur.
"Hey, wait," Leon protests, trying to catch him. "He's allowed to defend himself, or Arthur, with magic."
Gwaine didn't hear this conversation; he went on when Arthur stopped, to kneel and finish Mordred's boots. Merlin scrambles up at their approach with the same uncomplicated enthusiasm he displays for every new person or process he encounters.
"Hi! I'm Merlin!" he says to the big boy, sticking out his hand for shaking.
"Huh! You're stupid, is what you are," the boy sneers, slapping his hand away. The others crowd close behind their shoulders, curious and interested.
Merlin looks around at them, contemplative rather than intimidated. Arthur doesn't know how to rescue his mage-guard or himself, or even if he should. "I'm… not stupid," Merlin says. Then, more decisively, "I'm just new."
"New – and little – and ugly!" the big boy jeers, stepping so close that Merlin has to move back to look up at him properly.
The others laugh and Gwaine stands, slinging Mordred onto his hip and scowling. Merlin's black brows draw together, and his lips purse like he's pouting – or thinking. He looks at Arthur as if perfectly aware that Arthur's choices had set his physical parameters.
"Am I ugly?" he asks Arthur.
"No!" Arthur says emphatically, and Merlin's face clears.
"I'm not ugly," he informs the mean boy cheerfully.
"You're too stupid to know you're ugly."
Merlin's grin lights with unintentional mischief. "You're repetitive," he announces.
Too much for Gwaine, who cackles out loud. And Gwaine's laugh is irresistible, catching most of the rest of them. Arthur giggles too, watching the big boy – who can't think of an adequate insult - redden with temper, turn his back and leave in a huff.
"Well done, Merlin," Leon says, following his friends.
"He's funny, Arthur," Gwaine says, his grin brightening his eyes. "Would you trade him for-"
"No," Arthur says happily. "He's mine."
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Within the first month, Arthur has occasion to test both his declaration of ownership, and the question of whether his new mage-guard brother can cry.
'No hugs' progresses and expands into a whole list of prohibitions for Merlin, a couple of which are Gaius' idea, but most of which are meant to train Merlin in Proper Behavior, as Arthur himself has been trained by his father. He doesn't know if Uther would ever change his mind and make Arthur get a new mage, but he doesn't want him to, either.
So there are Rules. Like, when his father is home, Merlin isn't to speak unless he's answering someone, and he isn't to sit unless he's told to – and if Arthur's father is busy in his office-nook, they are still to be Careful and Quiet.
And, even when Uther isn't home, there's no running in-quarters, and no throwing balls in-quarters, and no leaving wet towels or game pieces on the floor. And no talking with food in your mouth, and no singing at the table, and no sneaking out of bed after lights-out.
Tonight, Arthur isn't sick, exactly. It's just, the second day he has a runny nose, and the tickle in his throat is making it feel sore. And he can't get to sleep because he can't quit coughing a dry little cough, and trying to swallow when he doesn't have any spit.
"Arthur?" Merlin whispers in the dark of their shared room. He doesn't have a bed like Arthur's, just a cot with blankets and a pillow, but he's delighted that they're his.
Sleepy and petulant, Arthur says without thinking, "I want a drink."
The cot frame squeaks, and a line of light opens at the doorway. Arthur sits up in bed, wider awake now from alarm.
"No! I didn't mean it! You're not supposed to!" he hisses – and then has to cough again.
"Be right back," Merlin whispers, and slips out to the hall.
But the lights mean someone is still up, and it won't be just Gaius without Uther. Arthur tries to hold his breath, listening for Merlin to make it to the bathroom and run a rinse-cup of tap water… He waits. And waits.
And then hears raised voices from much further away than the bathroom at the end of the hall. His father's voice, sounding irritated – then angry.
Arthur clutches his blanket, trying to will Merlin back into the room, the whole thing over and forgotten – but it doesn't happen. And it's his fault that Merlin broke a Rule – he shivers, throwing off his blanket and creeping out to the hall.
"…Bought and paid for you, and this is the thanks I get!" his father growls. "I can delete you just as fast, boy…"
Down the hall by the closed transporter panel, Uther looms over Merlin, gripping a fistful of silver-gray tunic so that Arthur's little mage-guard is up on his toes and bent backwards.
"No, please! I wasn't – Arthur wanted a drink, and citrus is good when you're sick-"
"You're a liar and a thief," Uther declares, and Arthur freezes at the hard, ugly sound of the words. His father gives Merlin a shake that throws the little boy off balance. "Arthur's been asleep for an hour, so you thought you'd play with the kitchen-comm and order yourself an extra measure of-"
"No, sir!" Merlin protests. And Arthur cringes because it's a Rule, that his father is never to be contradicted, doesn't Merlin remember that?
Uther uses his free hand to cuff Merlin on the side of his head, and then Arthur darts down the hallway, breaking Rules himself.
"Father, please!" he says, and has to stop to cough. "I told Merlin to get me a drink – I thought, some water from the bathroom-"
Uther spares him a surprised glare – but isn't appeased. "See?" he demands of Merlin, shaking him again. "No one gave you permission to requisition-"
"He was just trying to be nice," Arthur interrupts. And it is Wrong, to interrupt and contradict.
"So he breaks the rules and encourages you to defiance," his father spits wrathfully at Arthur. "Who is training whom? Maybe I was wrong, and you're not old enough to handle a mage of your own properly!"
"It isn't his fault!" Merlin speaks up. "He tried to tell me – I didn't listen!"
"Shut up!" Arthur's father barks.
Deliberately, he slaps Merlin again – this time harder, and Merlin cries out, flinching and lifting his arms to cover his face and head, palms out. Arthur thinks for a panicked moment that this might be the first time Merlin has experienced pain – and wonders if he's going to do magic to protect himself. To hurt Arthur's father back.
"Don't you dare raise your hands against me!" Uther bellows, releasing his hold on Merlin's tunic in a shoving gesture, and cuffing him again.
Merlin can't retreat farther than the wall, and stumbles, crouching down in his first real display of fear – and it makes Arthur feel sick to his stomach. Worse than if Merlin had fought back.
Uther makes to swing at Merlin again, and his fingers are closed into a fist.
"Stop it!" Arthur shouts, darting between them with his back to his father, hugging Merlin's head. "He's just little! He's still new, he'll learn better. And he's mine anyway, not yours – you said so, that I would have to punish him. Not you. He's mine."
Merlin is trembling against Arthur. Uther breathes heavily twice, before Arthur dares to let go of Merlin and turn to face his father's fury, hoping he's diverted it to himself.
"Fine, then," his father says, his eyes narrowed. "Your mage breaks the rules again, and you'll be the one to hit him. Do I make myself clear?"
Arthur's throat hurts when he swallows; he manages a nod.
"Back to bed," Uther orders. "And not another noise out of either of you – I've important work to get done tonight."
"Yes, Father," Arthur mumbles.
Uther moves back, and Arthur drags Merlin to his feet, tugging him in a scamper back to their room, before his father changes his mind and decides to hit one or both of them again. At the door, Merlin resists his hold, and because Arthur's father has moved out of sight, Arthur stops.
Tears roll down Merlin's face, the skin of his cheeks bright red on one side and ashy-pale on the other. "I'm sorry," he whispers miserably. "I forgot – I didn't think."
"It's not your fault, it's mine," Arthur whispers back. "I'm supposed to teach you."
"I won't make you have to hit me," Merlin promises – and Arthur silently vows never to hit Merlin, no matter how he disobeys.
The next moment, Merlin's expression clears – and he's reaching for Arthur's throat. For one startled moment Arthur begins to draw back from the abrupt touch on such a vulnerable part of him, but the next second Merlin's eyes flare gold.
And the tickle is gone. Arthur swallows some spit, and it doesn't hurt.
Magic.
"Get in bed," he orders in a hurried whisper, stuffing them both through the door and closing it behind him. "And go to sleep."
The cot frame creaks. "Good night, Arthur."
He dives into his own blankets, trying to cuddle them into a safe little nest where he can forget the look on his father's face – and the one on Merlin's.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Arthur stands on a low stool before the dressing-room mirror, scowling in his concentration on making a perfect knot in his sash – over one shoulder of his fitted jacket, down to his hip to meet the length that circles his waist. He squirms with the need to do the knot at his belly button so he can properly use both hands, but that always makes it turn out crooked.
Behind the bath-curtain, Merlin hums and splashes in a way that tells Arthur he's playing, not washing. Sometimes he wishes he was still young enough for toys in the bath – or that he can conjure them like Merlin can.
"Arthur," Merlin says. "Teach me to whistle?" He makes several hoarse, spitting sounds in a childish attempt.
To show his superiority in all things, Arthur lets out a shrill whistle, designed to call attention on a busy ped-walk. "It's easy," he says. "You squeeze your lips together and curl your tongue a little, and take a deep breath-"
"I thought that was for kissing," Merlin says.
"Merlin!" Arthur exclaims, scandalized; though he doesn't really understand, he knows his mage-guard has said something Naughty.
Unseen behind the curtain, Merlin's snicker sounds very self-satisfied; Arthur can't help smiling, though he tries.
Merlin seems to take it as his job – along with protecting Arthur with magic – to make Arthur laugh. To shock or pester him out of the Proper Behavior ordered by his father. Because ever since things went Wrong at Merlin's creation – the column exploding and the magic quantity gauge not working, and Merlin emerging with his own name – the younger boy laughs out loud at the Rules when he's alone with Arthur. Or when it's just Gaius, or Hunith, the cafeteria tech who most often delivers their meals to their apartment, or gives them snacks when they sneak down to the kitchen level.
Arthur's sash is behaving as Merlin does – which is, contrarily. Arthur gives up and turns around to sit on his bottom on the step-stool, elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.
"You're going to make us late," he observes, not really caring. School isn't interesting unless it's something he can tell Merlin afterwards, like how a flying dragon is really a lizard, but it can glide forty feet from tree to tree. Merlin always remembers everything he tells him about school. However, any breaking of Rules is usually reported to his father, who will then be Disappointed.
"No'm not." Splash, splash. "We've got twelve minutes til we have to leave. That's plenty of time."
"How can you know that, and not know how to whistle?" Arthur asks, mildly exasperated.
Merlin makes a sound like I-don't-know with all vowels, unconcerned.
Sitting like this, Arthur's nose is less than a yard from Merlin's gray mage-suit. Buttoned tunic, trousers, buckle boots. It is, he understands, part of Merlin somehow, an extension of his magic. It won't hold a spill or stain – they once spent a messy hilarious afternoon in the kitchens proving it, while Hunith and the other workers pretended not to watch, or chuckle - and it will grow along with Merlin. Also, it won't let anyone else wear it. They proved that also – the garments kept shrinking and shrinking when Arthur tried to put them on, but when Merlin touched them to shove an arm or leg in, it fit perfectly. So far he hasn't grown, though – maybe because he hasn't had a chance to use a great deal of magic – so they can't prove the other part of the claim about mage-suits.
But… that doesn't mean that Merlin has to wear it, does it?
"Hey," Arthur says aloud, slowly, still thinking. "What if… you wore some of my clothes one day? Saturday, when we go to the gym again?"
The curtain parts to show a triangle of the bath, and Merlin's puzzled face. All his black hair is plastered down in front, and sticking up in the back. "Yours would be too big for me," he says. "Anyway, why would I want to wear your clothes? Those are mine."
Arthur warms to his idea. "They don't have to fit perfectly. And then, people won't know you're my mage when they look at us."
Because people look at Merlin differently than they look at Arthur, even when they're walking side by side. He doesn't understand that any better than he understands kissing, but it bothers him.
"I like the way people look at us," Merlin informs him. Briefly he inspects the insides of his hands – likely pruney; he always stays in the water that long – then hangs onto the side of the bath to paddle with his feet, invisible in the water behind him.
"They look at us like –" Arthur is still dissatisfied – "like I'm a spoiled brat, and you're an untrained were-pup."
Merlin grins. "They look at us like they know you're important, and I've got the best job in the world. Protecting you with magic. I like it that people know that."
"You like pickles on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich," Arthur reminds him. "You're weird."
Merlin hums, content to be weird, and disappears behind the curtain again. And his towel rises from the bar next to Arthur's – they'd have separate facilities when they got as old as his father and Gaius, but for now it's sharing – and flows through the air and over the curtain, as the vac-drain sucks at the bathwater. Sometimes Arthur worries that these little bits of spontaneous magic will use Merlin up – but he still looks two years younger than Arthur, so that's okay for now.
"I'm going to wait by the transporter," Arthur says, pushing up from the stool and leaving the bathroom.
"I'll be a minute and two-thirds," Merlin answers.
There's a rug at the end of the hall before the doors of the personnel transporter connecting them to the lobby – and theoretically to the other quarters on other stories of the building, if permission has been granted – and Arthur waits there, counting seconds by the time-keeper strapped to his forearm, over the sleeve of his shirt and under his tunic.
At 7:24, he hits the button for the transporter. Eleven seconds later the proximity alarm chimes, and the door whooshes open.
Merlin appears at the far end of the hall, buckle-boots clomping as he sprints to slip through the closing doors – eyes flashing gold to delay them one second – and crashes into the back of the transporter next to Arthur, panting and grinning.
"I said you were going to be late," Arthur reminds him.
"Well, I wasn't," Merlin says cheerfully.
"Only 'cause you skipped combing your hair, again." Arthur tries to get the half-dried flyaways to curl in the same downward direction. Merlin bats at his hands – he slaps at Merlin's, and one of them flashes out to rumple Arthur's properly-combed hair.
Then it's war. And they arrive in the lobby giggling and disheveled, still trying to hit each other's hands more often than being hit.
Merlin throws his head back and laughs right out loud just as the door of the transporter slides open into the wall, and the sound echoes through the lobby of the building, flexiglass-metal-duracrete. Making grown-ups and strangers stop and look at them and Arthur's embarrassed because he isn't acting Properly, and because he's older than Merlin. And his owner, sort of.
"Be quiet, and come on," he hisses furiously, squaring his shoulders and stomping toward the door, not looking around, like his father does when he's mad. Merlin skips along at his side, unbothered by anyone watching.
Once outside the door, the air feels cool and whirled, as always, by the high-speed hover-carriages just beyond the ped-walk. And the people using it are even further strangers than the familiar faces in the lobby of their own building. Arthur turns on Merlin, scowling, not slowing as he heads for the cross to the school, where they go right down the stairs and under four tracks of hovers before coming back up to ground-level.
"Why can't you ever act Proper?" he demands. Of course it's an exaggeration, Merlin is always Proper when Arthur's father is present, and then Arthur doesn't like it. "I'm supposed to be training you!"
"Is that why you want me to wear your clothes?" Merlin says, cheerfully unrepentant. "So people don't see your mage-guard not acting Proper?"
"No, that's not –" Arthur can't explain if Merlin doesn't understand, and that makes him impatient.
"But see, if I was wearing your clothes, and had to do magic –" Merlin dances back a step as a man using the ped-walk like the track of a gym sprints past. "We could both be in Big Trouble. I'm supposed to look like a-"
His last word is lost in the growl-roar of a were-dog, its huge muscular body thudding into the pavement before leaping forward again – evidently in pursuit of the runner. But in the scattering crowd of the ped-walk, it lands too close to Arthur and Merlin – probably because it can't see short children very well – and when it launches itself again, momentum and proximity and Arthur's own reaction sends him stumbling back.
Off the curb.
Into the flow of hover-traffic.
And Merlin is with him, light as a feather and smaller, his hand just brushing the top of Arthur's sleeve. His head turns toward the oncoming carriages.
His other hand rises, palm outward.
For an instant Arthur believes Merlin is going to halt the hover in midair before it can splatter them both all over its front. But though every hover-carriage is built with collision repulsion above and below and all the way around, it can still happen, especially if one stops suddenly in the middle of the track – and then the next and the next and the next in an enormous pile of collided hovers-
The next instant the heavy vehicle flows upward and over them effortlessly, with no more than an extra gust of warmer air stirring through their hair like mischievous fingers. Like the hover-carriage has suddenly become a higher-flying rocket-carriage.
And the next. And the next. And the next.
Up on the ped-walk Arthur can see strangers' legs running, standing, darting forward, retreating. He thinks he hears someone screaming over the buffeting of the wind underneath hover after hover – all of them sliding heavily right on down the track without so much as an extra bounce.
He looks at Merlin, who still has his palm raised toward the oncoming stream of hovers. Merlin looks back at him, pleased and unafraid and golden-eyed.
"Maybe get back up on the ped-walk?" he suggests.
"At the same time as you," Arthur answers, dazed and dry-mouthed.
" 'Kay," Merlin agrees, turning his touch of Arthur's sleeve into a request to hold his hand, though usually Arthur doesn't, anymore.
Whoosh. Whoosh. And the next and the next-
Arthur grips Merlin's small, fragile-feeling hand and together they step up on the ped-walk.
Other hands immediately snatch at him, pulling him back, lifting his shoes right off the ground, but even then, the hovers keep flowing smoothly, the invisible air-lump they made in the track flattening out gradually as Merlin follows Arthur.
Voices babble, asking questions, laying blame, exclaiming disbelief. He's patted and turned and ruffled – and after a moment he realizes that there's applause, and he's being patted in congratulation, not examination.
He thinks it's for making it back to the ped-walk unharmed, til he notices that Merlin isn't getting the same attention, and he guesses that – "Well done, boy!" "So amazing, so young!" – is for him as the mage's master.
Then he resists – but Merlin is bouncing on the toes of his boots, gleeful at every compliment Arthur gathers, proud to be the reason for the public's admiration of Arthur.
Well, if Merlin is happy…
But then the people are talking about more serious things. Incident report – how can there be, nothing happened – get the were-dog's handler – inform his parents, at least?
The last thing Arthur wants is for his father to be informed of Merlin's magic, though he doesn't examine that impulse.
"I'm going to be late for school!" he declares loudly, flailing to catch hold of Merlin's hand again, and begins to drag him forward.
"Oh!" Merlin says, remembering – and then there's a clear tunnel through the crowd of people toward the school crossing, and they can dash forward unhindered.
Merlin is flushed and breathless and alive with triumph when they arrive at the district education complex.
And Arthur's sash and careful knot is perfect.