AN: Fourteen year old me is here to finish what twelve year old me started (probably). I finished this at two thirty am, so it's probably bad.
Before Merlin Jethro, his name was Jethro now, could blink, the point of Arthur's sword was shoved under his chin, while the rest of the knights were quick to follow suit. The other him simply stood there, shock written clearly across his face and arms hanging limply at his sides. Arthur's eyes were narrowed, a dangerous glint directed at Jethro, sharper than the blade in his hand. "Merlin," his voice rang out clear through the silence that had fallen across the forest, and Jethro had to fight the urge to reply to the name. The other Merlin made a noise of acknowledgement, still too shocked to speak, if Jethro had to guess. "Do you know this man?" Arthur spoke with the same kind of authority and force that Jethro still remembered clear as day, even thousands of years later.
Merlin finally gathered his wits and found his tongue. "No. No I don't." That sentence was all it took for the distrust in Arthur's eyes to turn to anger. He jabbed his sword closer to Jethro's face, so close that Jethro could fog up the metal with his breath.
"You two had better start talking," Arthur swung his blade between Jethro and the Doctor, before landing back on its original target. "The only way you could possibly create such a convincing disguise is through sorcery. You could be put to death for that." The look in Arthur's eyes was unlike any Jethro had seen before. Something that told him it wasn't merely a jest between friends, that if he made one misstep, he would face a swift death. He felt something resembling dread build in his stomach. To die at the hands of the man he had been waiting for for centuries seemed like a cruel irony, but he would accept it in a heartbeat if he could spend just a minute longer with the ones he had lost, even if they had no idea who he was. He swallowed thickly, pushing back the thoughts. He was going to live, he had to. For his not-yet-returned king.
"It's no work of sorcery, I swear to you." He held his head with as much confidence as he could muster. "This is the face I have lived with all my life, and I can only hope you will allow me to continue living with it." Jethro scanned the knights faces, grateful for his years of practice reading people. All showed varying degrees of disbelief, though none quite as much as Arthur. Jethro fixed his eyes on Merlin, who stared back with an intense gaze and a protective fire lit behind his eyes.
Gwaine spoke up, "That's impossible." confusion mixed with suspicion and he let his sword drop a nearly imperceptible amount. "How can you and Merlin have the same face without magical involvement?"
Jethro locked eyes with Gwaine "I said my face wasn't due to sorcery, I never claimed there was no magic involved in the matter," he shifted his focus to the Doctor, "I stand by what I said. This has always been my face," Arthur, "It will always be mine." finally, himself, Merlin, "I am Merlin, thousands of years in the future."
AN: I'll probably be back before next year. Thanks for reading!