Part two.
"Yes."
"For all this time."
Merlin stumbles to his feet and walks away. Arthur is not surprised by this sudden dismissal. Not anymore. If anything, he feels very much like the untried youth kneeling at the feet of a wizened elder.
It is not that Merlin is more acustomed to the ways of the world than Arthur. If anything it is the reverse. In the decade since he'd appeared in the likeness of a child on the earthen slopes of Caerleon he had assimilated to the modern world, both its technology and its culture. Merlin, in the weeks since he had become a man once more, had refused any contact with the wider world. The village of Camelot, with a courthouse, a grocerers, and a pub as the sole public buildings, is enough for him. Even Arthur's presence is more tolerated than welcomed.
It is not that Merlin acts as if he has any wisdom or special insight to bestow. If anything he reveals no other sides than those of tired of life and angry at it in turn.
It is more that Merlin's anger is so all encompassing, his shame so deeply rooted, his grief so secretly hidden, that Arthur is left incapable of understanding the intensity of the emotion. It overwhelms him and leaves him behind while his friend stomps off again.
"Merlin!"
Arthur tosses some change on the counter and runs after him. Outside the sky is too blue to be believed and directly above the town streaks of gold create a permanent sunset, residue from the magic released upon Merlin's awakening. Chaos is already rearing its ugly head as powers absent from the world for centuries suddenly make themselves known... and utilized. Merlin had saved the world of magic when it was unable to sustain itself and Arthur had been revived to restore magic to the world and protect Albion throughout the upheavel of its return.
But before all that, Arthur is determined to heal his friend.
"Merlin! Wait up will you? I'm not letting you run away, you idiot!"
The elderly persona halts in his tracks.
"What did you call me?"
Arthur catches up but remains standing several feet behind his elderly seeming friend.
"Idiot. I called you an idiot."
Merlin turns. The process is so incremental that Arthur wonders if Merlin has half forgotten he's human again, with a human's reflexes in place of a tree's.
"And just why, would you use that particular word to insult me?"
His voice is gravelly with fury and something else that Arthur can't quite put a finger on, but fury, yes. Merlin is furious and Arthur has no idea why. Uncertain of cause and unable to predict what might set him off furthur, he elects to tell the truth.
"Becuase you are an idiot. You always have been and I suspect you always will be."
He is half expecting his words to ignite a magically inclined fit against his person. Instead, to his complete confusion, Merlin's golden eyes release a tear.
"Hey now. No need to cry. Being an idiot isn't all bad. I, for one, have noticed their knack for a certain... well its not precisely wisdom mind you, but..."
His attempt at humur falls flat as far as he can tell. Another tear joins the first and then Merlin is clinging to him, his wiry muscles and brittle bones surprisingly capable of keeping him completely immobile.
"Merlin! Merlin! Merlin?"
He recieves no response beyond the tears soaking through his sweater and weting his t-shirt. The silent tears turn to racking sobs and it's all Arthur can do to haul his friend off of the main street into the private garden of a mutual aquainence.
Merlin's face is a blotchy red through his straggly beard and Arthur is begining to worry that he'd accidentally broken his friend irrepairably when at last Merlin's incorherant sobs give way to words- fragments of sentences that are so charged with emotion that Arthur loses focus of anything else.
"Arthur... Arthur... Arthur... really here... You're really real... not just a dream... oh gods... not a dream...'m so sorry... Arthur... gods... Arthur..."
There, hidden away in the yard of a small cottege, in an insignificant village, in one of the smaller countries in a world on the verge of collapse Arthur finally learns something about the boy who'd challanged a prat to a fight all those years ago in Camelot. He was an idiot and a fool and he was an all powerful warlock who also happened to be immortal. But he was also a man who didn't see people... he saw souls. He saw light in the darkness and wonder in the trees. For the man he'd once been the world was full of life, every spawning insect and every dying man a part of something greater than any possible understanding and something more intiment than any concivable denial. Life was love.
And Merlin had lost that. He had been destined to protect the one person whom he loved more than any other, with a love far deeper than that of lovers, deeper than those of familial bonds, as deep as the very bond between man and God. He had been born solely to ensure the life of that one man, and had failed.
Was it any wonder then, that Merlin had died slowly and painfully in a process that drove away those he might have saved and abandoned those who still cared? Was it any wonder that fury warred with shame when Arthur finally returned? Was it any wonder that he remained incapable of expressing his grief and therefor incapable of remembering how to experience joy? how to live?
Merlin lifts his hands, tracing Arthur's face in phantom gestures that don't make contact but memorize every change. His faded appearence darkens, the grey hair turning black, gray skin warming to a pale tan, faded cloathing brightening to a cheery compilition of red and blue and brown. And at long last Merlin is truly alive again.
Eventually the two young men stand together and meet eachother's gaze. Merlin frowns.
"Never leave me again."
"Never." Arthur promises.
He never does.
So... What do you think? I've a mind to add a follow up or two if enough readers want to see them. Otherwise I'll probably leave these two stand on their own. Comments, critiques and the lot all welcome and asked for (though I won't give you anything for them except perhaps some virtual chocolate cake :)