In a land of myth, and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rested on the shoulders of a young man. At least, that was what Merlin had once thought.
A destiny that was great and would one day be fulfilled. But that was so long ago. Years. Decades. Millenia. He was so old now. Old, and tired, and rundown.
Music played softly through the headphones tucked in his ears, but Merlin was hardly paying attention to the sweeping piano melody or the violin's crescendo. Instead, his mind wandered, just as his body did.
It was one in the morning, and he walked through a vast park that was as empty and desolate as a wasteland. During the day it was often full of people jogging, walking their dogs, or playing with their kids. But once night fell, it was as if a spell encompassed the park, and no one dared to cross the threshold.
Perhaps that was why Merlin loved it as much as he did. When his mind would not quiet, he found himself walking the few blocks to the park and wandering around, enjoying the feel of the night air and the silence that surrounded him. It had been something he did more nights than not recently.
Still, he couldn't deny the beauty all around him. The trees were half dead from winter, yet still they carried the traces of hope for Spring in their weathered blossoms and fallen leaves. The stars were easily seen through the trees, though if he ventured too far to the edges of the park, the light from the city polluted the sky and made them impossible to see.
That was part of why Merlin loved this time of night, when it was quiet and dark and filled with nature. It reminded him of being in Camelot and out in the forest. Then of course there was the water.
If one went far enough into the park, took a path that few found, and went to the very center where trees hid everything else from view, you could find a fountain. Merlin loved that fountain.
It was massive, three tiered, and still ran even with the cold weather. There were no lights around, but the inside of each pool had lights shining underneath that made the water an impossible shade of blue and sparkled with the stares above.
He came to the fountain every time he was in the park, and it was one of the few things the warlock had that still brought him pure, untouched joy. Merlin stepped closer once it was in sight, and stopped when his toes touched the cold cement of the base.
He could just hear the water running over the quiet sound of his music, and he reached into his pocket to turn the volume down an extra punch on his Ipod. The water was just as soothing and calm as the instrumental music, and often times he would sit for hours and let his mind wander beside the fountain.
Leaning over, Merlin stared into the pooling water until he focused on his own reflection. He had given up on keeping his hair short, and it now hung longer, curling around his ears and the nape of his neck. Occasionally he tamed the mess, but mostly he let it do as it pleased, allowing the soft waves to fall against his forehead and forever threatening to spill into his eyes.
He also hadn't shaved in days, and scruff covered his face and down his neck, giving him an older appearance than when he was clean shaven. He could just see the top of his dark blue coat as well, and the red neckerchief that he had tied around his collar. There wasn't much he kept hold of from his previous life, but his neckerchiefs were something he was determined to keep.
Merlin knew he looked young at first glance, around twenty five, unless someone really looked at his eyes. They were old eyes, weighed down and burdened with a life full of loss and heartache and death. Many people claimed he was an old soul to explain the look in his eyes, and Merlin often laughed to himself at how true those words were. If only they knew just how old his soul really was.
Long ago he'd learned how to craft a potion that turned back the clock. Forbidden magic, Gaius once might have said, but when you're the last person alive to use such things, was anything really forbidden? But by doing so, Merlin was able to age well into his eighties before taking the potion and returning to his twenties.
He'd tried going younger once, but he'd quickly learned that there was little he could do or get away with until he was of a proper age. It was the only magic he used anymore, a potion every sixty years or so. But it was hard, and it hurt. Not just physically changing himself, but he was effectively killing who he was and starting over each and every time. It was torture.
Lowering himself to the edge of the fountain, Merlin caught his breath before slowly releasing it, the air clouding out before dissipating. He'd lived so long. So long.
He didn't remember a lot of it if he were honest, not unless he specifically went back and thought about the memories accompanied with a person or time, but the big events stuck. He couldn't get rid of them. Every war, every plague, every famine. He was there for it all. And in some cases, he was directly in the midst of it. He couldn't escape it when it hit the whole world. Twice. But what was worse to him were the people.
Merlin had loved before, more than once. A girl would catch his eye, beautiful and smart and funny, and he would let his guard down and fall in love. It never lasted though, not like him. Some were killed, some walked away, and some he outlived. Those were the hardest. The ones that he watched age and die.
He'd offered to let them live, to use the magic he kept stored away and hidden, but it was turned down. It wasn't natural, some would say. You can't change the way the world is supposed to work, others would protest.
So Merlin watched them die. Or leave. Or abandon him. And each one was a fresh cut to his heart that felt like it was made of more tape and thread than anything else at this point. And what had all of that been for? The sake of his destiny. A destiny that was now pointless. Lost. Useless. Sort of like him.
Tilting his head back, Merlin sucked in a trembling breath and felt the cold concrete of the fountain bite into his thighs as he sat on the edge. He rarely allowed himself to follow this train of thought, but tonight he couldn't seem to stop it.
He'd waited for Arthur. He'd waited for years. He'd never ventured far from the lake, and he'd clutched the hope of Arthur's return like a lifeline; close to his chest and refusing to let go.
When he'd grown older and Camelot had settled under Guinevere's reign, Merlin had built himself a home in the forest, near that very lake. But soon the years became longer, his body grew older, and carrying on every day became harder.
He was forced to watch as the people he loved died, one after the other. Time passed and Camelot fell. Wars raged and floods prevailed, and all the while Merlin stayed, waiting for Arthur to return. When one catastrophe ended and another started, the warlock would always think 'this is it, this is what will cause him to return' but Arthur never did.
Enough time passed that Merlin had been forced to join the battles that occurred. He could have fought against it of course, or perhaps used his magic to stay hidden, but he didn't care enough to bother. If he was killed, at least the waiting would finally be over. Besides, in doing so he'd managed to save a few good men, and in the end he supposed that was what counted.
But by the time he returned, everything he knew was gone. His home. The lake. Everything. There was barely anything left, only a few scraps of his past that he'd managed to salvage. It broke his heart when he discovered it, and he'd hardly been able to hold on.
Those were some of the darkest years of his life. How was he supposed to wait for Arthur when the lake was gone? He had nothing left; yet still he waited. Days. Months. Years. The world grew and changed, and Merlin felt disconnected from it all. He'd become withdrawn and closed off, and often times felt as crabby as the old man that he was on the inside.
He'd lived his life though, in bits and pieces when he could manage to shut off his mind, but in the back of his head it was always there. There wasn't a point. Arthur would never return. He was alone, and he always would be. Merlin had managed to fight those thoughts for a long, long time. But no more. He was tired, and he no longer wanted to fight for something that would never happen.
Clenching his fists, Merlin felt his fingers tighten around the glass vial that was nestled in the glove of his right hand. He didn't use magic anymore. The world had changed, and what magic had existed had dwindled away to almost nothing.
There were people here and there that carried a spark, but it went virtually unnoticed. People who were unbelievably lucky. People with the voices of angels. People who could manage to talk their way in or out of just about anything. Merlin could sense them around him, his magic reaching out to the magic within them, but it never lasted long.
The world was too jaded, too determined to believe that everything to do with magic was a myth. Even himself and Arthur had become nothing but a legend told to children to help them sleep at night. It was surreal in a way, and it was another thing that Merlin never thought on for long.
But because of it, he never dared to use the magic. If he was caught he knew he'd be imprisoned for it. For his differences and abilities. Funny, the world now days wasn't so different from Camelot under Uther's reign.
Of course, Merlin had slipped up from time to time, and the seventies in particular was a rough period. Difficult because he didn't remember much of them, his mind too clouded from the drugs he'd obtained to make himself forget.
There were many things he wasn't proud of, but the way he'd grown lax with his magic during that time was high on the list. He'd ended up with multiple witnesses once, though thankfully it was blamed on what the group had been smoking at the time.
After all, what other logical explanation was there for a group of people claiming they saw a great dragon made of fire flying through the mountains? But even without using spells or artifacts, Merlin still made potions. Potions for reducing his outward age, for curing illnesses he couldn't risk going to the hospital for, and for this. For when things became too hard.
Slowly uncurling his fist and holding the vial up to the glowing fountain light, Merlin watched as the bright green liquid sloshed inside the glass. He'd created it years ago but had never used it. He always found some reason to stay. To keep going. To not give up. He kept waiting for something to do the same for him now, but nothing had shown up.
Bringing the vial closer, Merlin reached for the stopper when a sudden shout startled him, making his head jerk up and to the left. A laugh soon followed the yell, and then another, until a chorus of four different voices were laughing in a way that only drunk kids could.
There was a college only a few blocks from the park, and Merlin was certain they had wandered their way over from the campus in their inebriated state. Either that, or they were trying to get home. A set of apartment complexes was another few blocks in the opposite direction and were popular with students. Well, students, and one eternal warlock.
Merlin knew the college well, though. Once upon a time he himself was a student there. Even though he couldn't tell anyone about it, he had degrees in just about everything now. It was a good way to pass the time, kept him up to date with the ever changing world, and kept his mind sharp. And he supposed it also offered a way to get him out of his flat on the daily.
Of course, this semester he hadn't gone. He'd barely managed to get out of bed most days the last few months. Besides, he was going for a degree in journalism this time around, and he wasn't that big of a fan of it anyway.
The students never passed by the fountain, but Merlin heard their voices fading as they walked further away. Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, Merlin carefully uncorked the vial and held it up again, trying to ignore the acidic scent that carried a touch of mint. No matter what he tried, poison wasn't something that was going to taste pleasant.
Bringing the vial closer, Merlin was interrupted again by another student, though this one was alone and had actually found his way to the fountain unlike the previous group. Merlin suspected the man was drunk, given the way he was stumbling about, barely managing to catch himself with each step.
He was bundled up well though, with a thick green coat and a black hat pulled low over his head and ears. Merlin couldn't make much else out in the darkness, but he continued to watch in silence, wondering briefly if the man needed help.
A piece of the warlock begged for that, wanting a reason to recork the vial and tuck it away for a few more years. But a piece of him didn't.
Even so, the stranger moved closer, and Merlin noted the battered brown backpack hanging over one shoulder, swinging against the man's side as he came to a stop at the other end of the fountain. He seemed peaceful, staring down at the water like Merlin had done not long before.
Turning his back to the student, the warlock clutched the vial tight to his chest and let out a breath. He needed the man to turn around and leave. Merlin didn't want to help him. He didn't want to wait.
Yes he did.
Closing his eyes tightly, Merlin bit down hard on his lip. He was scared to stop. He didn't want to talk to anyone either. So what was it that he really wanted?
He just wanted Arthur back.
Merlin's throat constricted and he let out a quiet, strangled gasp. He didn't have long to think about the answer that suddenly filled his head though, because instead of hearing the student behind him walk away, he heard a splash.
For a moment Merlin thought the man had dropped something in the fountain, and he turned apprehensively to look over his shoulder. But no, it wasn't something, but rather someone. The student was submerged in the fountain, his entire top half sunk under the freezing water. He wasn't moving or flailing, and Merlin's heart leapt into his throat as he jumped to his feet and recorked the vial.
Shoving the potion into his pocket, the warlock raced around to the other end and grabbed hold of the man, one hand on his shoulder and one on the backpack, and yanked him up. The man came out of the water with a gasp, followed by a coughing fit as Merlin tugged him away from the fountain and helped him to sit on the cold ground.
Moving around the front of him and kneeling down, Merlin watched in concern as the man hunched over and coughed hard into his hands. His body was shivering, the fridged water mixing with the freezing air, and the warlock wondered briefly if that was enough to have sobered the man up.
As the coughing began to slow, the man reached up and yanked off his soaked beanie, revealing a mess of wet, blond hair. Merlin still couldn't make out his features with the way his face was turned away and with the darkness looming over them, but he knew the other couldn't be older than him. Or rather, older than he looked.
"Are you alright, my friend?" Merlin asked, resting his arms on his knees where he squatted in front of the student.
Another coughing fit racked through the man's body before he sucked in a breath and scrubbed his hands up and down his face. "Do I know you?" He asked, his voice hoarse and muffled by his hands that had moved to rubbing at his eyes, no doubt trying to get the stinging water out of them.
Merlin couldn't help but frown at the question though, a long distant memory burning in his mind that he worked to quickly shake away. Now wasn't the time for that, and here wasn't the place.
"No," Merlin began, stretching out his hand. "I'm—"
"So I don't know you." The man muttered, lifting his hands to scrape back his hair before looking up. "Yet you called me 'friend'."
Merlin couldn't stop the gasp that left him, nor could he stop himself from toppling over, his entire body going numb. The warlock fell back and clutched the grass behind him with his hands, his eyes wide and unbelieving as irritated blue hues stared back at him. Blue eyes that he'd once known so well, and irritation directed at him that was as familiar as the back of his hand.
Oh God. Oh God. It was Arthur staring back at him. It was Arthur he had pulled out of the fountain.
Arthur Pendragon had returned.
A/N
I haven't written a chapter this quickly since I first published 'Falling On Deaf Ears' even though I waited to post this. I have been planning this story for two years now, so I really hope you guys end up enjoying it!
As always, I want to say right at the beginning that this story will have NO smut, only great angst and awesome bromance between our two lovable idiots! This story should also be about twenty chapters!
Thank you for reading, and please feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, or reviews for me!