Merlin Fic: The Time That Merlin Met Jack
Title: The Time That Merlin Met Jack
Fandom: Merlin (BBC) / Torchwood (BBC) Crossover
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin, Jack/Merlin
Author: Kagedtiger
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Merlin belongs to the BBC, not to me. Dr. Who belongs to the BBC, not me.
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Arthurian myth and for the end of Season 2 of Torchwood. Also, warning: kind of angsty.
Summary: A prequel to Endless Midnights. In the comments of that fic, user selannia said, "Tell us about when Merlin met Jack." So, well, here it is. As requested.
All in all, the turnout was larger than Jack had expected. He still wasn't certain if this was a stupid idea or not. It had certainly felt like a stupid idea at the time. But after several close scrapes (and one not-close-but-actual-hit where he'd had to administer retcon to an entire building full of people in order to convince them that there never had been a tenth floor, and none of the people working on it had ever existed), Jack was finally forced to admit that he couldn't do this alone.
He wanted to. More than anything, he wished that he could just keep at it by himself - no need for fragile human comrades, who could die so easily, giving in to fear and despair where Jack couldn't. No more metallic glints of death in the hands of friends, no more murder for the sake compassion. He couldn't go through that again, couldn't stand coming back to find the base full of corpses and madmen. He couldn't do it again.
But he also couldn't do it alone. He remembered holding Allison Hayes's head to keep her from banging it on the desk as she collapsed, telling her through her retcon-induced haze that she had never had a fiance, that she'd never met Tom Arnolds, that there was no such man. All around them sleeping bodies were strewn about the office like a battlefield, all of them dreaming and forgetting about friends they'd known for years. It was too much, too much death and loss, and he couldn't do it alone - too many people would suffer.
Still, Jack was a bit new to this recruit-people-for-a-super-secret-extra-governmental-alien-catching-organization thing. He wasn't sure where to go. He couldn't recruit from other Torchwood units - he already knew he wanted this one to be different, wanted to cut ties with the old regime. Everyone else was too brainwashed, trained to be clinical and disdainful and shoot before asking questions. That wasn't the sort of Torchwood Jack wanted to run.
He wanted this Torchwood to be different, so he'd decided to recruit in a different way. But maybe this wasn't the right way to begin the new regime, either. Jack looked around in a sort of despairing amusement at the motley assemblage that had gathered in the Hub's waiting room. The fake tourist help center was fairly chock full of freaks and weirdos. Jack wasn't even sure where to begin. About half of the two dozen or so applicants were obviously antisocial nerds, of the unwashed, sunlight-fearing variety. The other half were… well… strange.
Jack's gaze roamed over them. A man in a long, dark cloak, who looked like he hadn't slept in days, and might keel over at any moment. A younger man, about Jack's own apparent age, with messy brown hair and ridiculously large ears. A stooped old man looking like a character from a cartoon - complete with two-foot-long white beard and wooden cane. A woman in full vampire getup, complete with red-velvet lined cape and fake fangs. A man who could very well be a club bouncer, by the size and general demeanor of him. One man and one woman who were very obviously homeless, and quite possibly crazy. And an assortment of others. Jack sighed. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd been hoping for, but this hadn't been it.
It had seemed silly, that was for sure, but in a way it was so simple that he'd hoped it might work. An open casting call. A simple ad in the paper - "Interested in a career dealing with the paranormal? Do you have unique skills that might be useful to such endeavors? We're looking for the best, brightest, and the fittest. Long, unpredictable hours, and routinely dangerous situations. If interested, apply this Sunday at 4 PM, at the Tourist Center by the wharf, around the side of the Roald Dahl Plass."
Jack supposed he should have known better. But since they were there anyway, it couldn't hurt to give them interviews. Well, the ones that were really serious, anyway.
Jack took his gun out of his jacket and pointed it towards the ceiling. This was not going to be cheap to repair, but it'd be worth it. He fired. Almost immediately, the candidates were scrambling over themselves to get out of the building. All the fanboys and most of the others tripped and stumbled their way to the door, running as fast as they could (which, Jack was disappointed to see, was not actually all that fast) away from the madman with the gun. When the dust settled, only three candidates were still sitting in the waiting chairs, and they were looking at him curiously. One was the sick-looking man in the cloak, the second the young man with the big ears, and the third was the homeless man.
Jack smiled and put away his gun. "Well, that narrows it down then. Welcome, Gentlemen. Tell me a bit about yourselves."
The three men looked askance at one another, and then the one with the ears spoke up. "Well," he said, gesturing to the homeless man, "this man has a serious mental illness, and thinks the government has planted some sort of spying device in his brain, which is not true. Although you might want to scan him anyway, just in case. And this man," he gestured to the man in the cloak, "is actually a hostile alien who is going to try to kill you in a moment."
The man in the cloak swung his head around to look at the man with the large ears in horror and surprise and then, apparently flustered, pulled a complex-looking gun out of his cloak and pointed it at his accuser.
Jack was already behind him, disarming him swiftly with a twist of the man's arm and delivering a blow to the back of his neck that would knock an ordinary man unconscious. But the man in the cloak seemed unaffected, whirling around to face Jack, and suddenly his eyes were a strange greenish color, and when he hissed - hissed! - at Jack, he bared a pair of very sharp-looking fangs.
Jack reached into his jacket for his gun, but before he could do more than that, the man in the cloak disintegrated into small, fiery fragments, falling to the ground as a fluttering collection of ash.
Stunned, Jack looked beyond the explosion to see the man with the ears standing, looking rather self-satisfied, and holding a gnarled wooden staff (which Jack was positive he didn't have before) containing a large blue stone, only just now starting to fade from its formerly bright glow. The young man smiled and held out a hand to Jack.
"Merlin," he said. "It's nice to meet you."
"Captain Jack Harkness," said Jack, feeling like the world had just rotated underneath him and he hadn't been prepared. He shook the young man's hand, and then glanced down at the remaining candidate. The old homeless guy was clutching his knees, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself.
"What d'you say we ditch the old guy and go get us a drink?" said Jack.
"You know the Doctor?" Jack said eagerly, leaning forward. "How do you know the Doctor?"
Merlin shrugged. "I've lived a very long life. We were bound to run into each other once or twice."
Jack's eyes sparkled with an excitement verging on madness. "Do you know how to contact him? How I can find him?"
"Sorry." Merlin shook his head. Jack's entire body slumped back into his chair, disappointment flooding through him just as quickly as hope had. "I mean, I've run across him here and there, but he didn't exactly give me his calling card. From what I understand, he can be a notoriously difficult man to track down."
"You're telling me," Jack muttered. He looked Merlin up and down, torn between delight and skepticism. "So, you're him then? The actual Merlin? Like, the Merlin?"
Merlin nodded. Jack thought how incredibly normal he looked, in the corner back booth of the pub. And how young.
"Just how old are you?" Jack asked curiously.
"Just over fifteen hundred years now," said Merlin.
Jack gave a low whistle. It occurred to him suddenly that this person, more than anyone else in the universe - except perhaps the Doctor - was in a unique position to understand him, perhaps even offer him advice. This man who had lived through the ages, and somehow managed to cope.
"How do you do it?" he asked softly. Because he wasn't sure that he could. That he could last as long as Merlin had, as he himself might yet have to. He wasn't sure how long he could stand it.
Merlin swallowed, staring down at his beer. He took a sip. "I'm waiting for someone," he said after a moment. "The hope… the need to see him again keeps me going."
"King Arthur?" Jack hazarded, guessing the most obvious.
Merlin nodded. "He's coming back. At some point. And I need to be here when he does. To protect him. To help him. To…"
Jack could feel what Merlin was not saying. He felt it because he could feel it in himself as well - a longing, wistful love. After several hundred years, Jack still felt the hollow ache inside him of missing the Doctor. Wondering why he'd been abandoned. He couldn't fathom how bad it must have been - must still be - for Merlin, waiting for over a thousand years.
"Isn't there a bit of an age difference?" Jack asked, his smile, as always, charming in proportion to the pain it was hiding.
One side of Merlin's mouth twisted upward in a sort of half smirk. He didn't look up from his beer. "Common misconception," he said. "Actually, he was about a year older than I was." He frowned. "Or, I suppose that was true when he died. I'm not certain how time is reckoned in Avalon."
Jack felt an odd twisting in his gut. There was something so familiar in Merlin, so much like himself, that he couldn't keep his own pain from rising in sympathy. Jack didn't deal well with pain, at least not the emotional kind. He never had. It was bitter, rising like bile in his throat, and he had an instinctive feeling that if he ever allowed himself to feel all the pain he'd always held back, he'd drown in it, drown deep, never to be found again.
So instead of merely putting a hand over Merlin's and telling him that it was going to be okay - even though he had no idea whether that was true - Jack slid himself along the circular booth couch until he was right next to Merlin, thigh to thigh, and slung an arm over his shoulders.
"Well, it sounds like we've got a lot of time," he murmured, voice husky. "Wanna help me pass some of it?"
Merlin pulled out of Jack's embrace as much as he could from where he was sitting, but his smile when he met Jack's eyes was kind and indulgent. "Thanks for the offer," he said, "but you're really not my type."
Jack was a bit put-out. Fifty-first century pheromones had worked pretty well for him up until now, and he wasn't used to being brushed off so easily. Still, he respected Merlin's space and pulled back himself a little. But he stayed close enough to swoop back in if called for. "Not your type?" he laughed, trying not to sound hurt. "That's one I haven't heard in a while. Well then, what, pray tell, is your type?"
"Blond," Merlin replied immediately. "Tall, blond, and handsome, bordering on beautiful, with an air of self-confidence, perhaps even imperiousness. You almost make it, honestly, but your hair, and your accent, and… I don't know. You're not quite… no, not mean. Mean isn't the word I'm looking for. You're not quite… royal, enough, I suppose."
Jack laughed - it was easy to figure out who he was talking about.
"That's a pretty strict type." Jack took a sip of his own beer. "So you only sleep with people who remind you of him, huh? That must be pretty slim pickings."
"I don't just sleep with anyone who reminds me of him," Merlin protested. "In fact, I've met quite a few people who were a lot like him who I never slept with. I don't like to do it very often. Even though he's… gone… it still feels a bit like cheating. Like I'm being insincere, or not… not waiting for him, as I should be. I only do it when I get very lonely, and can't stand it anymore."
Jack raised his eyebrow. It was sort of touching, but nearly inconceivable to Jack. He wasn't sure he could ever be so loyal to someone that he would only have sex once every couple years out of desperation. How would he have any fun?
"So then, when was the last time you got some?" Jack would've added, 'if it's not too personal to ask,' but of course he was Jack Harkness, so he didn't.
Merlin looked thoughtfully and somewhat wistfully at the ceiling. "Must be, oh… two hundred years or so now."
Jack choked, spraying beer all over the booth table. Merlin had to lean back to avoid getting spat on.
"Two hundred years?!" Jack yelled incredulously, attracting the startled attention of other bar patrons.
Merlin smiled sheepishly. "Well, I guess it has been a while. I mean, like I said-"
"That's it," Jack interrupted. He stood from the booth, grabbing Merlin's arm. "We are going to a club, we are finding you someone of your type, and we are getting you laid. Now."
"Uh, but-" Merlin gestured helplessly at their as-of-yet unemptied beer mugs.
Jack just tugged on his arm, dragging him out of the booth and towards the door of the pub. "We'll get more drinks at the club. Come on. This is an emergency. It's time for some dire intervention!"
This, Merlin thought, sipping his drink, was a bad idea. He stared morosely out at the dance floor, watching as Captain Jack schmoozed his way through the crowd, chatting up anyone vaguely fitting the description Merlin had given him. Merlin shook his head. It wasn't like he was desperate or anything. He probably should've insisted, but Jack was a difficult man to say no to, and in that way, he did sort of remind Merlin of…
Merlin took another gulp of his drink and winced. Too sweet. Jack had ordered him something pink, sugary, and full of crushed ice. Modern drinks were all bollocks. What he wouldn't give for some real mead. He hadn't had mead in nearly five hundred years. Merlin sighed.
Jack was chatting with someone now that Merlin couldn't see, hidden within the gyrating bodies of the crowd. It was an interesting club - Merlin would give Jack that much at least. The bar at the back of the large warehouse-like space was lit with various lines of neon, and colored spotlights rained down occasional haphazard illumination on the packed dance floor. The ceiling was hung with bizarre, abstract shapes in some kind of modern art style that just bordered on pretentious. The crowd glittered with enough glowsticks that Merlin figured it probably constituted a rave, although there seemed to be a lot less of the drug-popping, pacifier-gnawing action going on than a rave would see. The same amount of skimpy clothing and slutty dancing, though.
Jack was gesturing back towards the bar, looking in Merlin's direction, so Merlin assumed this meant that he'd found an appropriate target. Merlin rolled his eyes, turning around on his swivelly stool to face the bar again. Well, the sooner Jack brought someone over, the sooner Merlin could turn him down and get this farce overwith. He didn't want to be here. He disliked crowds at the best of times - an ingrained fear that came from having to continually hide his magic, even though he'd grown quite adept at doing so. And this club, with its incessant, throbbing techno, was certainly not the best of times. He'd just tell this stranger that he wasn't interested, and ask Jack if they could go home. Merlin took another sip of his drink.
"Merlin!" came Jack's voice from behind him. "I'd like to introduce you to James!"
Merlin turned around, mouth open, dismissal on his lips, and then stopped.
The man looked so much like Him, it was startling. Merlin felt his heart clench painfully. No, no man should look so similar. Unless this was, but no, it couldn't be, could it… But as he stared, his heart began to calm. No. No, this young man was subtly different - in the way his cheekbones met his nose, in the slight difference of eye color, the length of his lashes, a slightly weaker chin… no. Not Him, but so close that it made Merlin's groin ache with the reality of just how long two hundred years had been.
"Merlin," Merlin found himself saying, raising a hand to shake the young man's.
"Yeah?" said the young man - little more than a boy, really, thought Merlin - taking Merlin's hand. "Like the wizard, yeah? Epic." The boy's voice, with its 'I couldn't care less' sort of accent, grated slightly on Merlin's nerves, but his face - that face! And that body, so familiar, yet subtly different, in tight black jeans and a shirt that only came down to about an inch above his navel, leaving most of his midriff exposed.
The boy's eyes raked over Merlin in a casual appraisal, and he grinned wolfishly. Merlin's heart gave another little spasm at that smile - it was too much, too much!
The grin widened, and Merlin realized that he was still holding the boy's hand. James tilted his head in the direction of the bathrooms. "Wanna get out of here?" he asked, his voice soft, but pitched high to be heard over the music.
Against his better judgment, Merlin found himself standing, following along in the wake of James's persistent tugging. He glanced back at Jack, only to find the captain leaning on the bar, leering at the disappearing couple, and sipping Merlin's unfinished drink. He winked at Merlin and gave him a thumbs-up. Then Merlin lost sight of him through the swirling crowd.
They were not, by any means, the only couple that had decided to use the club bathrooms for this sort of activity, but there were a few stalls on the end still open, and James led him into one. Merlin wasn't sure he wanted it to be this way - in the bathroom of a seedy club, with a man he'd met less than a minute earlier. But his libido, dormant so long that Merlin often forgot he had one, was stirring in earnest in response to such a familiar face, and in the dim lighting he looked all the more like Him.
But Merlin had no opportunity to voice any of this before James's hand was down his pants, his body weight shoving Merlin against the side of the stall. Merlin groaned as the boy grabbed his cock in a familiar fist, teasing the skin lightly with his fingertips. He grabbed James's shoulder for support, and felt the boy's body lean into him further.
supporting the heavy weight of His body, feeling the wet hot drip of blood as it rolled down his arm
James's breath was hot against his neck, and Merlin knew he should reciprocate, reached forward in an attempt to do so, but found himself blinded by white flashes of pleasure behind his eyelids, and barely able to keep himself upright, let alone coherent. It had been so long…
heat, and the weight of the body, but mostly the heat of the blood, and Merlin felt strangely relieved that the blood was still warm - still warm was good - still warm meant alive, nevermind the way it was gushing over his arm and his robe, staining everything crimson
Merlin felt himself sliding down the wall, unable to support his own weight, and Arthur shifted him, settling him down onto the edge of the toilet, grabbing the waist of his jeans and tugging them down, along with his boxers, using spit to moisten his hand as he continued his attack on Merlin's sanity. Merlin's hand clenched tightly on Arthur's shoulder, feeling the throb of the vein in his neck, pumping blood through his body at an elevated pulse.
blood, so much blood everywhere, pumping over his hands, and he wasn't sure how much further he could carry Him, even if he'd had enough magic left to help bear the burden, and then He was looking up at Merlin, with those blue, blue eyes, and that smile that made Merlin's heart break with 'No! No! Don't say you're dying! No!' and the cracked lips had whispered, "Merlin… Merlin…"
"Merlin! That hurts!"
Merlin blinked, and realized that his hand was clenched painfully tightly on James's shoulder, digging into the flesh like the talons of an eagle. He also realized that his entire body was shaking, and he didn't know why, whether from pleasure, fear, adrenaline, sorrow. His face felt hot and tight, as well - he was crying, tight sobs clenched, unreleased, in his chest, stopping him from breathing.
With a major effort, Merlin managed to pry open his fingers, at which point James stood up, taking a step back. He was scowling at Merlin. "Whatever," he muttered darkly. "I didn't sign up for this shit." He swept out of the stall as Merlin slumped to the side, leaning his head against the cool metal of the partition. His shaking was getting worse, and his vision seemed tinged with a blood-red haze.
Merlin slid from the toilet to the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest, eyes staring blankly into the distance. He wrapped his arms around himself, shuddering with the unsobbed mass in his chest, desperate to breathe, but unable to make himself do so except in the tightest of slim gasps.
Some time later - probably no more than a few minutes, although Merlin was in no condition to keep track of time - he caught sight of the hem of Jack's coat sweeping along below the edges of the stalls towards him. "Merlin?" came the concerned voice. "Merlin? I saw James running out of here. What-"
Merlin found himself looking up at Jack's face, noting with an almost detached intellectualism how the captain's expression went from vaguely worried to a sort of horrified surprise. He knelt down next to Merlin - or maybe he had already been kneeling, Merlin couldn't tell - and put his hands gently on Merlin's shoulders.
"Come on," he murmured. "Let's get you out of here. This was a bad idea."
'I could have told you that in the beginning,' thought Merlin.
Merlin took the cup of hot tea from Jack's hand gratefully and sipped it once before clutching it to his chest. His whole body still felt slightly cold, but the tea helped, and at least he was no longer shaking. "Sorry," he muttered sheepishly, as Jack took a seat next to him on the cot.
"Are you kidding?" said Jack. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I had no idea… I shouldn't have pushed that on you. Sorry. I forget sometimes that not everyone handles pain and loneliness the same way that I do."
"It's okay. You were just trying to help." Merlin took another sip of his tea, and they sat in somewhat awkward silence.
Finally, staring off into the distance rather than looking at him, Jack said, "Tell me about him."
Merlin smiled to himself. "He was a stupid prat," he said without hesitation. "Really horrible, but so noble… it took your breath away, really. Under all of it, he was a good person. Cared about people. When people were under his command or his rule, he cared for them, you know? He felt responsible for them. He understood his duty, and respected it, like no one else I've ever met. And I… I love him. So much. I was hopeless from the start. Never stood a chance."
"When's he going to come back?"
"I don't know. 'When he's needed,' they said. Whatever that means. I wish… I wish I could just sleep, like him, wait for him to come back like that, not have to live so long alone like this. It gets… so unbearable, sometimes."
Jack leaned back against the wall that bordered the cot, slumping. "Tell me about it."
"You're waiting for him too, aren't you? The Doctor?"
Jack snorted humorlessly. "Yeah, if he ever shows up here. I don't know. Sometimes I think it's a wild goose chase, expecting him to come to the rift like this. But then, I've got nothing but time."
"I don't like it here," said Merlin, somewhat suddenly. "The rift, I mean. This close to it. I felt it a little bit in the visitor's center before, but this close…"
Jack turned to look at him, surprised. "What do you mean?"
"There's no magic. All around here. I couldn't light a candle if I tried, this close to it. The rift is like a… like a magic void. Magic comes from living things, and it can't grow near the rift. I'm not sure how to explain it. It's like being in a desert."
"Huh," said Jack, looking around the Hub. An interesting revelation, and something he'd definitely have to study later.
Merlin drained the last of his tea, and then stood. "I should probably be going," he said quietly.
Jack caught at his wrist. "Stay," he said firmly. "At least for the night. You still don't look so good."
Merlin allowed himself to be pulled back down, and the empty teacup taken from his unresisting fingers and set aside. Jack took both of the warlock's hands in his own and held them tightly together. "Your hands are still cold," he said.
"It's the lack of magic," Merlin muttered. "It's a part of me. Keeps me warm."
Jack reached up a little further and began chafing Merlin's arms, trying to warm them. Merlin felt absurdly touched by the gesture. He couldn't remember the last time someone had tried to keep him warm. He reached out, laying his own hands on Jack's forearms, halting their motion.
Jack looked up, staring at him for a moment. Then he smiled - a painfully honest smile, somehow - and leaned forward, kissing Merlin lightly.
Merlin leaned forward as well, pressing their foreheads together. When the kiss finally broke, he could feel tears standing out on his cheeks. "I miss him so much," he choked out.
"I know. I know." Jack's hands were on the sides of his face. "But as long as we're missing them, we might as well miss them together, yeah?" He kissed Merlin again.
He was sort of similar, Merlin thought. Imperious, cheeky, insistent upon getting his own way. Handsome, certainly. Perhaps there was some of Him in Jack after all. A glint of that old rakishness that he missed so much. And underneath, the same kindness. The same devotion.
"Just tonight," Jack said as they broke apart once more, pushing Merlin down onto the cot. "Just tonight, let me take care of you. I won't say I'll make you forget him. We both know I can't do that. But maybe… maybe for a little while I can make you forget he's gone."
And that, Merlin thought as he reached up and pulled Jack down on top of him, that could possibly be enough for one night.
"Take care," Merlin said with a smile, clasping his hand warmly. "And for heaven's sake, don't advertise in the paper again, yeah? You're just asking for crazies."
Jack grinned, showing all his teeth. "Oh, I don't know. I got you, didn't I?"
"My point exactly," responded Merlin. He held Jack's hand another second, and then let it fall. "Sorry I couldn't join you."
"Me too," said Jack sincerely. "You're sure I can't change your mind?"
"I don't think I could handle working here. The lack of magic throws me off too much. And besides, I don't do too well staying in one place. I need to travel. Wander a bit."
"Are you sure?" Jack asked, feeling full of mischief. "I could dye my hair blond. We could have a grand old time."
"Thanks, but no thanks." Merlin's grin became slightly more somber. "Seriously though, Jack. Take care of yourself."
"You too. He'll come back, someday. And you need to be ready, right?"
"Yours will too," Merlin said with an enigmatic grin. "Trust me. Goodbye, Jack!"
And he turned, and walked away. Jack watched him go somewhat wistfully. But he wasn't too sad; as Merlin had said, with lifespans that long, they were bound to run into each other again.
He turned back into the Hub, already planning another scheme to find his new team members.
-----------------------
End Notes: I wasn't originally going to have them sleep together. That was not in the plan. But god damn Jack Harkness just can't seem to wiggle his way into a fic without also wiggling his way into someone's pants. ::sigh:: I blame him. He is incorrigible.
Fandom: Merlin (BBC) / Torchwood (BBC) Crossover
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin, Jack/Merlin
Author: Kagedtiger
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Merlin belongs to the BBC, not to me. Dr. Who belongs to the BBC, not me.
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Arthurian myth and for the end of Season 2 of Torchwood. Also, warning: kind of angsty.
Summary: A prequel to Endless Midnights. In the comments of that fic, user selannia said, "Tell us about when Merlin met Jack." So, well, here it is. As requested.
All in all, the turnout was larger than Jack had expected. He still wasn't certain if this was a stupid idea or not. It had certainly felt like a stupid idea at the time. But after several close scrapes (and one not-close-but-actual-hit where he'd had to administer retcon to an entire building full of people in order to convince them that there never had been a tenth floor, and none of the people working on it had ever existed), Jack was finally forced to admit that he couldn't do this alone.
He wanted to. More than anything, he wished that he could just keep at it by himself - no need for fragile human comrades, who could die so easily, giving in to fear and despair where Jack couldn't. No more metallic glints of death in the hands of friends, no more murder for the sake compassion. He couldn't go through that again, couldn't stand coming back to find the base full of corpses and madmen. He couldn't do it again.
But he also couldn't do it alone. He remembered holding Allison Hayes's head to keep her from banging it on the desk as she collapsed, telling her through her retcon-induced haze that she had never had a fiance, that she'd never met Tom Arnolds, that there was no such man. All around them sleeping bodies were strewn about the office like a battlefield, all of them dreaming and forgetting about friends they'd known for years. It was too much, too much death and loss, and he couldn't do it alone - too many people would suffer.
Still, Jack was a bit new to this recruit-people-for-a-super-secret-extra-governmental-alien-catching-organization thing. He wasn't sure where to go. He couldn't recruit from other Torchwood units - he already knew he wanted this one to be different, wanted to cut ties with the old regime. Everyone else was too brainwashed, trained to be clinical and disdainful and shoot before asking questions. That wasn't the sort of Torchwood Jack wanted to run.
He wanted this Torchwood to be different, so he'd decided to recruit in a different way. But maybe this wasn't the right way to begin the new regime, either. Jack looked around in a sort of despairing amusement at the motley assemblage that had gathered in the Hub's waiting room. The fake tourist help center was fairly chock full of freaks and weirdos. Jack wasn't even sure where to begin. About half of the two dozen or so applicants were obviously antisocial nerds, of the unwashed, sunlight-fearing variety. The other half were… well… strange.
Jack's gaze roamed over them. A man in a long, dark cloak, who looked like he hadn't slept in days, and might keel over at any moment. A younger man, about Jack's own apparent age, with messy brown hair and ridiculously large ears. A stooped old man looking like a character from a cartoon - complete with two-foot-long white beard and wooden cane. A woman in full vampire getup, complete with red-velvet lined cape and fake fangs. A man who could very well be a club bouncer, by the size and general demeanor of him. One man and one woman who were very obviously homeless, and quite possibly crazy. And an assortment of others. Jack sighed. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd been hoping for, but this hadn't been it.
It had seemed silly, that was for sure, but in a way it was so simple that he'd hoped it might work. An open casting call. A simple ad in the paper - "Interested in a career dealing with the paranormal? Do you have unique skills that might be useful to such endeavors? We're looking for the best, brightest, and the fittest. Long, unpredictable hours, and routinely dangerous situations. If interested, apply this Sunday at 4 PM, at the Tourist Center by the wharf, around the side of the Roald Dahl Plass."
Jack supposed he should have known better. But since they were there anyway, it couldn't hurt to give them interviews. Well, the ones that were really serious, anyway.
Jack took his gun out of his jacket and pointed it towards the ceiling. This was not going to be cheap to repair, but it'd be worth it. He fired. Almost immediately, the candidates were scrambling over themselves to get out of the building. All the fanboys and most of the others tripped and stumbled their way to the door, running as fast as they could (which, Jack was disappointed to see, was not actually all that fast) away from the madman with the gun. When the dust settled, only three candidates were still sitting in the waiting chairs, and they were looking at him curiously. One was the sick-looking man in the cloak, the second the young man with the big ears, and the third was the homeless man.
Jack smiled and put away his gun. "Well, that narrows it down then. Welcome, Gentlemen. Tell me a bit about yourselves."
The three men looked askance at one another, and then the one with the ears spoke up. "Well," he said, gesturing to the homeless man, "this man has a serious mental illness, and thinks the government has planted some sort of spying device in his brain, which is not true. Although you might want to scan him anyway, just in case. And this man," he gestured to the man in the cloak, "is actually a hostile alien who is going to try to kill you in a moment."
The man in the cloak swung his head around to look at the man with the large ears in horror and surprise and then, apparently flustered, pulled a complex-looking gun out of his cloak and pointed it at his accuser.
Jack was already behind him, disarming him swiftly with a twist of the man's arm and delivering a blow to the back of his neck that would knock an ordinary man unconscious. But the man in the cloak seemed unaffected, whirling around to face Jack, and suddenly his eyes were a strange greenish color, and when he hissed - hissed! - at Jack, he bared a pair of very sharp-looking fangs.
Jack reached into his jacket for his gun, but before he could do more than that, the man in the cloak disintegrated into small, fiery fragments, falling to the ground as a fluttering collection of ash.
Stunned, Jack looked beyond the explosion to see the man with the ears standing, looking rather self-satisfied, and holding a gnarled wooden staff (which Jack was positive he didn't have before) containing a large blue stone, only just now starting to fade from its formerly bright glow. The young man smiled and held out a hand to Jack.
"Merlin," he said. "It's nice to meet you."
"Captain Jack Harkness," said Jack, feeling like the world had just rotated underneath him and he hadn't been prepared. He shook the young man's hand, and then glanced down at the remaining candidate. The old homeless guy was clutching his knees, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself.
"What d'you say we ditch the old guy and go get us a drink?" said Jack.
"You know the Doctor?" Jack said eagerly, leaning forward. "How do you know the Doctor?"
Merlin shrugged. "I've lived a very long life. We were bound to run into each other once or twice."
Jack's eyes sparkled with an excitement verging on madness. "Do you know how to contact him? How I can find him?"
"Sorry." Merlin shook his head. Jack's entire body slumped back into his chair, disappointment flooding through him just as quickly as hope had. "I mean, I've run across him here and there, but he didn't exactly give me his calling card. From what I understand, he can be a notoriously difficult man to track down."
"You're telling me," Jack muttered. He looked Merlin up and down, torn between delight and skepticism. "So, you're him then? The actual Merlin? Like, the Merlin?"
Merlin nodded. Jack thought how incredibly normal he looked, in the corner back booth of the pub. And how young.
"Just how old are you?" Jack asked curiously.
"Just over fifteen hundred years now," said Merlin.
Jack gave a low whistle. It occurred to him suddenly that this person, more than anyone else in the universe - except perhaps the Doctor - was in a unique position to understand him, perhaps even offer him advice. This man who had lived through the ages, and somehow managed to cope.
"How do you do it?" he asked softly. Because he wasn't sure that he could. That he could last as long as Merlin had, as he himself might yet have to. He wasn't sure how long he could stand it.
Merlin swallowed, staring down at his beer. He took a sip. "I'm waiting for someone," he said after a moment. "The hope… the need to see him again keeps me going."
"King Arthur?" Jack hazarded, guessing the most obvious.
Merlin nodded. "He's coming back. At some point. And I need to be here when he does. To protect him. To help him. To…"
Jack could feel what Merlin was not saying. He felt it because he could feel it in himself as well - a longing, wistful love. After several hundred years, Jack still felt the hollow ache inside him of missing the Doctor. Wondering why he'd been abandoned. He couldn't fathom how bad it must have been - must still be - for Merlin, waiting for over a thousand years.
"Isn't there a bit of an age difference?" Jack asked, his smile, as always, charming in proportion to the pain it was hiding.
One side of Merlin's mouth twisted upward in a sort of half smirk. He didn't look up from his beer. "Common misconception," he said. "Actually, he was about a year older than I was." He frowned. "Or, I suppose that was true when he died. I'm not certain how time is reckoned in Avalon."
Jack felt an odd twisting in his gut. There was something so familiar in Merlin, so much like himself, that he couldn't keep his own pain from rising in sympathy. Jack didn't deal well with pain, at least not the emotional kind. He never had. It was bitter, rising like bile in his throat, and he had an instinctive feeling that if he ever allowed himself to feel all the pain he'd always held back, he'd drown in it, drown deep, never to be found again.
So instead of merely putting a hand over Merlin's and telling him that it was going to be okay - even though he had no idea whether that was true - Jack slid himself along the circular booth couch until he was right next to Merlin, thigh to thigh, and slung an arm over his shoulders.
"Well, it sounds like we've got a lot of time," he murmured, voice husky. "Wanna help me pass some of it?"
Merlin pulled out of Jack's embrace as much as he could from where he was sitting, but his smile when he met Jack's eyes was kind and indulgent. "Thanks for the offer," he said, "but you're really not my type."
Jack was a bit put-out. Fifty-first century pheromones had worked pretty well for him up until now, and he wasn't used to being brushed off so easily. Still, he respected Merlin's space and pulled back himself a little. But he stayed close enough to swoop back in if called for. "Not your type?" he laughed, trying not to sound hurt. "That's one I haven't heard in a while. Well then, what, pray tell, is your type?"
"Blond," Merlin replied immediately. "Tall, blond, and handsome, bordering on beautiful, with an air of self-confidence, perhaps even imperiousness. You almost make it, honestly, but your hair, and your accent, and… I don't know. You're not quite… no, not mean. Mean isn't the word I'm looking for. You're not quite… royal, enough, I suppose."
Jack laughed - it was easy to figure out who he was talking about.
"That's a pretty strict type." Jack took a sip of his own beer. "So you only sleep with people who remind you of him, huh? That must be pretty slim pickings."
"I don't just sleep with anyone who reminds me of him," Merlin protested. "In fact, I've met quite a few people who were a lot like him who I never slept with. I don't like to do it very often. Even though he's… gone… it still feels a bit like cheating. Like I'm being insincere, or not… not waiting for him, as I should be. I only do it when I get very lonely, and can't stand it anymore."
Jack raised his eyebrow. It was sort of touching, but nearly inconceivable to Jack. He wasn't sure he could ever be so loyal to someone that he would only have sex once every couple years out of desperation. How would he have any fun?
"So then, when was the last time you got some?" Jack would've added, 'if it's not too personal to ask,' but of course he was Jack Harkness, so he didn't.
Merlin looked thoughtfully and somewhat wistfully at the ceiling. "Must be, oh… two hundred years or so now."
Jack choked, spraying beer all over the booth table. Merlin had to lean back to avoid getting spat on.
"Two hundred years?!" Jack yelled incredulously, attracting the startled attention of other bar patrons.
Merlin smiled sheepishly. "Well, I guess it has been a while. I mean, like I said-"
"That's it," Jack interrupted. He stood from the booth, grabbing Merlin's arm. "We are going to a club, we are finding you someone of your type, and we are getting you laid. Now."
"Uh, but-" Merlin gestured helplessly at their as-of-yet unemptied beer mugs.
Jack just tugged on his arm, dragging him out of the booth and towards the door of the pub. "We'll get more drinks at the club. Come on. This is an emergency. It's time for some dire intervention!"
This, Merlin thought, sipping his drink, was a bad idea. He stared morosely out at the dance floor, watching as Captain Jack schmoozed his way through the crowd, chatting up anyone vaguely fitting the description Merlin had given him. Merlin shook his head. It wasn't like he was desperate or anything. He probably should've insisted, but Jack was a difficult man to say no to, and in that way, he did sort of remind Merlin of…
Merlin took another gulp of his drink and winced. Too sweet. Jack had ordered him something pink, sugary, and full of crushed ice. Modern drinks were all bollocks. What he wouldn't give for some real mead. He hadn't had mead in nearly five hundred years. Merlin sighed.
Jack was chatting with someone now that Merlin couldn't see, hidden within the gyrating bodies of the crowd. It was an interesting club - Merlin would give Jack that much at least. The bar at the back of the large warehouse-like space was lit with various lines of neon, and colored spotlights rained down occasional haphazard illumination on the packed dance floor. The ceiling was hung with bizarre, abstract shapes in some kind of modern art style that just bordered on pretentious. The crowd glittered with enough glowsticks that Merlin figured it probably constituted a rave, although there seemed to be a lot less of the drug-popping, pacifier-gnawing action going on than a rave would see. The same amount of skimpy clothing and slutty dancing, though.
Jack was gesturing back towards the bar, looking in Merlin's direction, so Merlin assumed this meant that he'd found an appropriate target. Merlin rolled his eyes, turning around on his swivelly stool to face the bar again. Well, the sooner Jack brought someone over, the sooner Merlin could turn him down and get this farce overwith. He didn't want to be here. He disliked crowds at the best of times - an ingrained fear that came from having to continually hide his magic, even though he'd grown quite adept at doing so. And this club, with its incessant, throbbing techno, was certainly not the best of times. He'd just tell this stranger that he wasn't interested, and ask Jack if they could go home. Merlin took another sip of his drink.
"Merlin!" came Jack's voice from behind him. "I'd like to introduce you to James!"
Merlin turned around, mouth open, dismissal on his lips, and then stopped.
The man looked so much like Him, it was startling. Merlin felt his heart clench painfully. No, no man should look so similar. Unless this was, but no, it couldn't be, could it… But as he stared, his heart began to calm. No. No, this young man was subtly different - in the way his cheekbones met his nose, in the slight difference of eye color, the length of his lashes, a slightly weaker chin… no. Not Him, but so close that it made Merlin's groin ache with the reality of just how long two hundred years had been.
"Merlin," Merlin found himself saying, raising a hand to shake the young man's.
"Yeah?" said the young man - little more than a boy, really, thought Merlin - taking Merlin's hand. "Like the wizard, yeah? Epic." The boy's voice, with its 'I couldn't care less' sort of accent, grated slightly on Merlin's nerves, but his face - that face! And that body, so familiar, yet subtly different, in tight black jeans and a shirt that only came down to about an inch above his navel, leaving most of his midriff exposed.
The boy's eyes raked over Merlin in a casual appraisal, and he grinned wolfishly. Merlin's heart gave another little spasm at that smile - it was too much, too much!
The grin widened, and Merlin realized that he was still holding the boy's hand. James tilted his head in the direction of the bathrooms. "Wanna get out of here?" he asked, his voice soft, but pitched high to be heard over the music.
Against his better judgment, Merlin found himself standing, following along in the wake of James's persistent tugging. He glanced back at Jack, only to find the captain leaning on the bar, leering at the disappearing couple, and sipping Merlin's unfinished drink. He winked at Merlin and gave him a thumbs-up. Then Merlin lost sight of him through the swirling crowd.
They were not, by any means, the only couple that had decided to use the club bathrooms for this sort of activity, but there were a few stalls on the end still open, and James led him into one. Merlin wasn't sure he wanted it to be this way - in the bathroom of a seedy club, with a man he'd met less than a minute earlier. But his libido, dormant so long that Merlin often forgot he had one, was stirring in earnest in response to such a familiar face, and in the dim lighting he looked all the more like Him.
But Merlin had no opportunity to voice any of this before James's hand was down his pants, his body weight shoving Merlin against the side of the stall. Merlin groaned as the boy grabbed his cock in a familiar fist, teasing the skin lightly with his fingertips. He grabbed James's shoulder for support, and felt the boy's body lean into him further.
supporting the heavy weight of His body, feeling the wet hot drip of blood as it rolled down his arm
James's breath was hot against his neck, and Merlin knew he should reciprocate, reached forward in an attempt to do so, but found himself blinded by white flashes of pleasure behind his eyelids, and barely able to keep himself upright, let alone coherent. It had been so long…
heat, and the weight of the body, but mostly the heat of the blood, and Merlin felt strangely relieved that the blood was still warm - still warm was good - still warm meant alive, nevermind the way it was gushing over his arm and his robe, staining everything crimson
Merlin felt himself sliding down the wall, unable to support his own weight, and Arthur shifted him, settling him down onto the edge of the toilet, grabbing the waist of his jeans and tugging them down, along with his boxers, using spit to moisten his hand as he continued his attack on Merlin's sanity. Merlin's hand clenched tightly on Arthur's shoulder, feeling the throb of the vein in his neck, pumping blood through his body at an elevated pulse.
blood, so much blood everywhere, pumping over his hands, and he wasn't sure how much further he could carry Him, even if he'd had enough magic left to help bear the burden, and then He was looking up at Merlin, with those blue, blue eyes, and that smile that made Merlin's heart break with 'No! No! Don't say you're dying! No!' and the cracked lips had whispered, "Merlin… Merlin…"
"Merlin! That hurts!"
Merlin blinked, and realized that his hand was clenched painfully tightly on James's shoulder, digging into the flesh like the talons of an eagle. He also realized that his entire body was shaking, and he didn't know why, whether from pleasure, fear, adrenaline, sorrow. His face felt hot and tight, as well - he was crying, tight sobs clenched, unreleased, in his chest, stopping him from breathing.
With a major effort, Merlin managed to pry open his fingers, at which point James stood up, taking a step back. He was scowling at Merlin. "Whatever," he muttered darkly. "I didn't sign up for this shit." He swept out of the stall as Merlin slumped to the side, leaning his head against the cool metal of the partition. His shaking was getting worse, and his vision seemed tinged with a blood-red haze.
Merlin slid from the toilet to the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest, eyes staring blankly into the distance. He wrapped his arms around himself, shuddering with the unsobbed mass in his chest, desperate to breathe, but unable to make himself do so except in the tightest of slim gasps.
Some time later - probably no more than a few minutes, although Merlin was in no condition to keep track of time - he caught sight of the hem of Jack's coat sweeping along below the edges of the stalls towards him. "Merlin?" came the concerned voice. "Merlin? I saw James running out of here. What-"
Merlin found himself looking up at Jack's face, noting with an almost detached intellectualism how the captain's expression went from vaguely worried to a sort of horrified surprise. He knelt down next to Merlin - or maybe he had already been kneeling, Merlin couldn't tell - and put his hands gently on Merlin's shoulders.
"Come on," he murmured. "Let's get you out of here. This was a bad idea."
'I could have told you that in the beginning,' thought Merlin.
Merlin took the cup of hot tea from Jack's hand gratefully and sipped it once before clutching it to his chest. His whole body still felt slightly cold, but the tea helped, and at least he was no longer shaking. "Sorry," he muttered sheepishly, as Jack took a seat next to him on the cot.
"Are you kidding?" said Jack. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I had no idea… I shouldn't have pushed that on you. Sorry. I forget sometimes that not everyone handles pain and loneliness the same way that I do."
"It's okay. You were just trying to help." Merlin took another sip of his tea, and they sat in somewhat awkward silence.
Finally, staring off into the distance rather than looking at him, Jack said, "Tell me about him."
Merlin smiled to himself. "He was a stupid prat," he said without hesitation. "Really horrible, but so noble… it took your breath away, really. Under all of it, he was a good person. Cared about people. When people were under his command or his rule, he cared for them, you know? He felt responsible for them. He understood his duty, and respected it, like no one else I've ever met. And I… I love him. So much. I was hopeless from the start. Never stood a chance."
"When's he going to come back?"
"I don't know. 'When he's needed,' they said. Whatever that means. I wish… I wish I could just sleep, like him, wait for him to come back like that, not have to live so long alone like this. It gets… so unbearable, sometimes."
Jack leaned back against the wall that bordered the cot, slumping. "Tell me about it."
"You're waiting for him too, aren't you? The Doctor?"
Jack snorted humorlessly. "Yeah, if he ever shows up here. I don't know. Sometimes I think it's a wild goose chase, expecting him to come to the rift like this. But then, I've got nothing but time."
"I don't like it here," said Merlin, somewhat suddenly. "The rift, I mean. This close to it. I felt it a little bit in the visitor's center before, but this close…"
Jack turned to look at him, surprised. "What do you mean?"
"There's no magic. All around here. I couldn't light a candle if I tried, this close to it. The rift is like a… like a magic void. Magic comes from living things, and it can't grow near the rift. I'm not sure how to explain it. It's like being in a desert."
"Huh," said Jack, looking around the Hub. An interesting revelation, and something he'd definitely have to study later.
Merlin drained the last of his tea, and then stood. "I should probably be going," he said quietly.
Jack caught at his wrist. "Stay," he said firmly. "At least for the night. You still don't look so good."
Merlin allowed himself to be pulled back down, and the empty teacup taken from his unresisting fingers and set aside. Jack took both of the warlock's hands in his own and held them tightly together. "Your hands are still cold," he said.
"It's the lack of magic," Merlin muttered. "It's a part of me. Keeps me warm."
Jack reached up a little further and began chafing Merlin's arms, trying to warm them. Merlin felt absurdly touched by the gesture. He couldn't remember the last time someone had tried to keep him warm. He reached out, laying his own hands on Jack's forearms, halting their motion.
Jack looked up, staring at him for a moment. Then he smiled - a painfully honest smile, somehow - and leaned forward, kissing Merlin lightly.
Merlin leaned forward as well, pressing their foreheads together. When the kiss finally broke, he could feel tears standing out on his cheeks. "I miss him so much," he choked out.
"I know. I know." Jack's hands were on the sides of his face. "But as long as we're missing them, we might as well miss them together, yeah?" He kissed Merlin again.
He was sort of similar, Merlin thought. Imperious, cheeky, insistent upon getting his own way. Handsome, certainly. Perhaps there was some of Him in Jack after all. A glint of that old rakishness that he missed so much. And underneath, the same kindness. The same devotion.
"Just tonight," Jack said as they broke apart once more, pushing Merlin down onto the cot. "Just tonight, let me take care of you. I won't say I'll make you forget him. We both know I can't do that. But maybe… maybe for a little while I can make you forget he's gone."
And that, Merlin thought as he reached up and pulled Jack down on top of him, that could possibly be enough for one night.
"Take care," Merlin said with a smile, clasping his hand warmly. "And for heaven's sake, don't advertise in the paper again, yeah? You're just asking for crazies."
Jack grinned, showing all his teeth. "Oh, I don't know. I got you, didn't I?"
"My point exactly," responded Merlin. He held Jack's hand another second, and then let it fall. "Sorry I couldn't join you."
"Me too," said Jack sincerely. "You're sure I can't change your mind?"
"I don't think I could handle working here. The lack of magic throws me off too much. And besides, I don't do too well staying in one place. I need to travel. Wander a bit."
"Are you sure?" Jack asked, feeling full of mischief. "I could dye my hair blond. We could have a grand old time."
"Thanks, but no thanks." Merlin's grin became slightly more somber. "Seriously though, Jack. Take care of yourself."
"You too. He'll come back, someday. And you need to be ready, right?"
"Yours will too," Merlin said with an enigmatic grin. "Trust me. Goodbye, Jack!"
And he turned, and walked away. Jack watched him go somewhat wistfully. But he wasn't too sad; as Merlin had said, with lifespans that long, they were bound to run into each other again.
He turned back into the Hub, already planning another scheme to find his new team members.
-----------------------
End Notes: I wasn't originally going to have them sleep together. That was not in the plan. But god damn Jack Harkness just can't seem to wiggle his way into a fic without also wiggling his way into someone's pants. ::sigh:: I blame him. He is incorrigible.