[Merlin] Experiencing Slippage Into the Future 1/3
Title: Experiencing Slippage Into the Future
Characters/Pairings: light Arthur/Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 26k
Warnings: Angst, messing with memories, time dilation, abstract confusion, exposition
Spoilers: ...none, really. AU and all.
Summary: cyberpunk!AU. Arthur was looking for a sister who didn’t exist. Instead, he found the childhood friend he never met.
AN: First and foremost the great round of applause to greenclove for not only the art and idea for this story, but putting up with my possibly incoherent messages. XD And staubundsterne for beta’ing even though she had several deadlines coming up as well! Then the organisers of merlinreversebb, and everyone who had to put up with my craziness. I must have the most fantastic friends who just bring me food as I type. XD
This entire story was inspired and written for THIS IMAGE because is it not just amazing? Guys, guys, if you like this story or the concept or anything about it, you really have greenclove to thank! =^^=
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful queen. She had lost her mother and father long ago, but had a loving husband and a doting best friend and so many people who would have done anything for her smile. She was the fairest in all the lands, and possibly one of the most brilliant as well. She and her friend came up with ideas that would make the world a better place, and her husband spared no expense in order to make all her great ideas reality. Her people adored her, and she had everything a person could possibly want or wish for.
Everything but a child.
So one day her best friend, in attempts to give her the one thing she wanted, spoke with her husband.
Magic, she said. Magic would give her the child she wanted. I will make this happen. I will learn what it takes, and I will cast this spell.
What the spell took was the best friend, who volunteered to be the subject of an experiment that took her magical gifts and turned them into something else. But the magic was treacherous. While the best friend remained in stasis for her gifts to be used, it weakened the queen so that when the child came, it was too much for her.
The king, in his grief, punished the friend for suggesting such a procedure, destroying everything about her- but not before promising that he would also search for and destroy other people who might have the power to learn that spell. It will be wiped from existence.
And so it was.
After the nightmares (and there were always nightmares now, almost every night), Arthur would gather Merlin's shaky limbs to him in an embrace that he always imagined his mother would provide when he desperately needed comfort. The first several times had been awkward, with him not knowing what to do and the embrace meant for a child rather than someone with Merlin’s height. It was hard to tuck Merlin’s head under his chin and cradle flailing limbs without panicking him more.
Arthur would place him in the V of his legs and wrap both arms around Merlin’s skinny torso, attempting to fight and hold down bony elbows and weak hands, feeling the shift of muscle in Merlin's back and the knobby outline of his spine. He'd make hushing noises as the other whimpered and slowly clawed his way out of his own head.
It gets worse. Arthur would write, hoping that Morgana would get his messages. He never got a response, but at this stage, he didn't expect one. Morgause would have her hands full with his sister just as Arthur busied himself over Merlin.
Sometimes, on better days, he and Merlin would stroll through streets and greet familiar strangers who stopped and laughed with them, sharing a memory of the past and asking about each others' lives. Those were the best and worst days for Arthur, seeing the possibilities of all that could be and the blatant lie he had to deal with every day. He never knew any of the strangers who stopped and talked with them, and understood that they didn't know him, either.
Merlin's smiles on those days are bright, hands animated as he recalls events that never happened, memories that never formed.
-
"They're looking for you." Gwaine admitted as he handed Arthur the package he had been sent to deliver. "Your father is furious."
Arthur accepted the package, fingers tightening on the heaviness of the small box and knowing that it was filled with delicate equipment; items that would keep him one step ahead of everyone else, one step ahead of the faceless government officials sent to clean up messes. One step ahead of Mordred.
"You don't have to continue with us." Arthur told him. Gwaine was all about protesting and sticking up for the underdog, for fighting for what's right and being all stupidly noble even if the odds were a thousand to one- a million to one, against him. But this wasn't a noble quest, and it wasn't even good. Things were far too morally ambiguous to risk life and limb over. As far as they could discern, the government was actually doing the right thing this time. And Arthur had to stand against them.
"Never one to bend over for Big Brother, mate," Gwaine said, the enthusiasm in his voice never reaching his eyes. "Besides, Merlin's my friend."
Gwaine had been the one to hand Merlin's card over to Arthur in the first place. Never a better tracker, he had said that very first time they had met. If anyone can find your sister, he can. Arthur had been grasping for straws back then, having exhausted his resources in locating Morgana. He had spent eight months trying to find her again, knowing somehow that she needed his help, especially when the lines he had called to reach her claimed that she had never been to the area, and that Morgana Pendragon did not exist.
One day, he had been in regular correspondence with her, and the next day she had disappeared- disappeared with no trace of anyone even knowing who she was, and no matter what Arthur did, no trace of Morgana had been found again no matter how many strings he pulled and how much money he threw at all the right people.
"How is he?" Gwaine asked when Arthur didn't respond. "How's he doing?"
"He's fine." Arthur answered, knowing well enough that fine covered a whole variety of responses, all of them false unless Gwaine automatically translated 'fine' with 'really not fine at all.' Arthur stuffed the package into his bag, shifting around groceries to cover any evidence of electronics. Gwaine didn't pry further than that, and Arthur took his leave, hesitating only a moment to remind him, "Hey, if you hear from Morgana..."
"You'll be the first to know." Gwaine tapped his up-link. “You remember my ringtone, right?”
“Yeah.”
It was the same phrase they had exchanged in parting for the past three weeks.
-
The first time Arthur met Merlin, he had not been impressed.
"It's you." He drawled, careful to sound unimpressed despite his surprise.
It had been far too long since he had last seen Merlin, years and years since they had been children and Merlin had been trapped in a tree trying to rescue a cat but found himself clinging to the unhappy and yowling feline as a dog that had to had to have been his own height and twice as heavy as him growled at the base of the tree.
Back then, Arthur had been the child staring out his school window in boredom, having stayed later due to extra lessons offered by his teachers, tapping unhurriedly with his stylus in attempts to convey just how bored he was with his instructors.
He had perked up at the image of a boy in a tree (the only tree in the yard, the only one within the otherwise barren concrete block really), stretching his neck with narrowed eyes when he saw the dog barking, teeth bared. It had taken him a whole two minutes to leave his classroom and head down in attempts of rescuing the little boy in the tree (ignoring the startled shouts of his teachers), where he had pulled his tablets and data carriers into his bag before heading outside without the slightest plan as to how he was supposed to overcome a dog that was larger than himself.
Arthur didn’t quite remember how he fended the dog off, but he thought he did it quite admirably before he attempted to coax the boy from the tree.
Surprisingly, the boy had been ill receptive to his rescue.
"I could have done it myself!" The little black-haired boy had protested, still holding on to the squirming cat even as he attempted to carefully navigate branches with his scuffed sneakers, nearly slipping more than once and being tangled up in leaves as his shirt mercifully got caught and held him before he could fall entirely.
"No, you couldn't!" A young Arthur had retorted, more displeased than he thought he would be that the boy wasn't starry-eyed at the rescue. That was how things were supposed to happen, weren't they? "What were you going to do, throw leaves at that dog and then waited until he ate you?"
"Of course not!" The boy had to use an arm to hold on to the last branch as he tried to find the ground with his feet, still several feet in the air. The cat gave a displeased yowl and flicked its tail furiously, although it was smart enough to not struggle too hard as of yet. "But I would have taken care of it!"
It took several moments for Arthur's irritation at not being properly greeted like the heroic knight he was to disappear. Merlin wiggled, trying to get down from the tree. After a huff, Arthur reached up for the other boy's foot. "Uh-huh. Stop moving, I've got you."
"No, you haven't!"
The two boys struggled not to fall, and eventually it was the cat who decided it had enough and scratched at the boy's arms before jumping away as the dark haired boy cried out and lost his grip, ending up falling directly on Arthur.
There had been protests and cut off accusations that ended in tears and a trip to the school nurse and bandages before the boy had shyly revealed that his name was Merlin and please don’t tell my mum about this!
That had been his first encounter with the strange child called Merlin, whom Arthur soon learned liked denying things far too much. He also thought that Merlin was ridiculously nice... to animals. Nice to the point of being stupid. They didn’t go to the same school, didn’t like the same things, and didn’t agree on... well, anything. He didn’t know why he kept looking for the other boy those few weeks, but he had and Merlin was always in the same small park with the tree he had first seen him at.
“How come you’re outside, anyway?” Arthur had asked Merlin one day as they both sat under the shade of the lone tree, sharing a chocolate bar. The feeling of dirt and bark under his clothes was still a new one, especially since most children stayed indoors or at the very least met for play-dates in enclosed buildings. Outdoor parks were becoming few and far in-between, rusted and run over with wild grass and weeds.
“How come you’re outside?” Merlin shot back around a mouthful of chocolate, and yelped as Arthur leaned over to tug on his hair in retaliation for his cheek.
“I’m out here because of an idiot.” Because Merlin was interesting, which was more than could be said for his classmates, anyway. He nudged the extra sandwich he had demanded from his bewildered cook that morning toward the younger boy. Merlin looked far too small, anyway, even for his age (“I’m six! Six! ‘Course I’m smaller, but I’m not small!”), like the kids Arthur had seen around his school who got bullied by the upper years. “One who can’t keep out of trouble.”
“You shouldn’t have such a low opinion of yourself!” Merlin responded cheerfully, grabbing at the sandwich eagerly. He had a smudge of chocolate around his lips and the lingering lisp of a child who hadn’t learnt to form his words completely yet, with still chubby fingers that reached into Arthur’s lunchbox.
“I’m not the idiot- you’re the idiot.” It was a kind of argument that Arthur had grown out of the year previous, but it was all too easy to be pulled back into the juvenile retorts. He batted the smaller boy’s hands away when it reached too close to the cookies, though. “You were the one in a tree with a cat!”
Merlin shrugged. “She wouldn’t come down!”
Arthur thought for a moment. “Is she your cat?”
The dark haired boy just shook his head, though. “Nope. Just a kitty.”
Arthur balked. “She wasn’t even yours? But why would you do that?” Wild cats were dangerous! They could scratch and bite and his teachers had always told him to stay away from animals he didn’t know. “She could have had fleas!”
Merlin just took a moment to munch on another mouthful of jelly sandwich. “Sh’ whas stuck! An’ dere whas a dawg.”
Disgusted, Arthur had reached over to cover Merlin’s mouth and that just turned into a mild scuffle as Merlin flailed and protested and ended up falling over Arthur when he tried to push him off.
The first few weeks had been repeats of that.
“You,” Arthur accused through thinned lips, twenty years after their first completely unorthodox meeting. Merlin had audacity to not recognize him at first before a wide grin spread across his face (so much thinner, having lost all his baby fat and rounded cheeks and even that perpetual smudge of chocolate from all the candy that Arthur used to hand off to him), blue eyes now hidden behind a pair of black rimmed glasses and dressed... just as messily as he had been as a child.
Except he was taller. Taller than Arthur, even, and thin to the point of looking frail and slightly gaunt. His dark hair was shorter (too short to pull now if Arthur wanted his attention, not that he would ever do that to someone else. They weren’t kids anymore, after all), and his eyes were not quite so trusting as they had been years ago but still as blue as ever. With the shorter hair, his ears stood out awkwardly just to emphasize that long gawky look about him that couldn’t be covered under his layers of colourful jumpers and coats, even with the scarf and gloves.
He had the nerve to shove a gloved finger at Arthur’s face, far too close to have heard of personal space, and not pulling back even as Arthur leaned back uncomfortably. Merlin grinned widely as if no time had passed at all since they last met. “You’re Arthur!”
Still the same. He wasn’t sure if that thought was fond or exasperated, or even disparaging. When Gwaine had mentioned knowing someone who would be able to find the tech that Arthur needed... he had not imagined that someone to be Merlin of all people.
But he wasn’t eight anymore, and the situation was much more serious than a trapped cat and chocolates over lunch. And from what he knew of Merlin...
“There must be a mistake.” Arthur pushed himself back, frowning. He couldn’t associate the image of the plump cheeked child with the man here in front of him (A techmage, Gwaine had confided under his breath even as the man pulled up his collar to hide the shape of his words against anyone who might be watching. And the best one I know.).
Merlin didn’t look like a techmage. Arthur had seen more than the average person in his lifetime because of his father’s job, and every one of them looked almost stereotypically frightening with metal protrusions in their skulls. It was hard to disagree with the average consensus that techmages weren’t human when they looked like that and could do terrible things to a person or an entire country. Each of them he had seen on trial had been condemned of anything ranging from theft of government codes to mind-wipes; murders.
Techmages altered the natural chemistry of their brains and added hardware to their grey matter to integrate themselves with the Network in a way that went far past augmented reality. Information overflow. They had holes in their head and gear in their thoughts, whirring and changing things. The general consensus was that they weren’t human anymore, lost in the flow of information of the world around them. Able to change facts, change digits, change a person’s perspective and invade their minds if they were good enough. Techmages were dangerous.
And Merlin, Gwaine had assured Arthur, was very good.
It was that fact that prevented Arthur from leaving.
That and the heavy fact that he had exhausted every other option.
“Why, because I don’t look like you thought I would?” Merlin was flitting around him, the same curious expression that hadn’t changed since childhood. “Wow, you’ve gotten old, Arthur.”
“It’s been twenty years, Merlin!”
“Has it?” The curious tone didn’t dissipate even as Merlin finally seemed to get a hold of himself, and Arthur had to remind himself that he had learned how to control his previously explosive temper in his teenage years, damn it. It didn’t help in the slightest that Merlin still seemed able to invoke his irritation and exasperation from his mere presence.
“You disappeared.”
All of a sudden, it didn’t feel like twenty years at all. He remembered with startling clarity how hurt he had felt as a child when Merlin stopped showing up for their lunches, when that little park had been cleared away to create another entrance to the underground, and when that tree was cut down.
Merlin’s expression closed off, unnatural despite how Arthur had barely known him as an adult for mere moments. “I got moved.”
Moved. It sounded so simple. But Arthur wasn’t here to demand excuses, or even meet with childhood acquaintances. He was on a mission.
He pursed his lips and dug into the pockets of his coat, throwing an opened tracker case onto the table next to him, the case cracked with its shiny electronics exposed. It was a simple piece that he had gotten off a shifty repair technician, the casing a burnished metal plate with rough bumps and the size of his fist, misshapen and odd, and the inside filled with scrambled wires and softly blinking lights, a warm whirring to show it was doing... something. Something that Arthur wasn’t too sure about, anyway.
As startling as it had been to find Merlin, it was nothing more than a distraction. “Moved. Right. It doesn’t matter. Prove that you can do what I came for.”
Merlin drew back, expression hurt for a moment before he smoothed it over, scowling. Arthur tried not to feel guilty over it. They had fallen out for twenty years, and in all rights, they shouldn’t even remember each other seeing how long ago they had known each other and for the short amount of time.
“Fine.” He snapped. “What do you want?”
For all accounts, they were strangers who happened to know each other from childhood. But strangers never the less.
“I was told that you were discreet.”
“If it was Gwaine telling you this, then you should already know that. If he told you where I am, he would have told you what I am.”
Arthur’s expression grew even darker, if that was possible. He had made it a point to never associate with techmages in his life. “Yes. And that’s why I need reassure than you will be discrete.”
“Who in their right mind would listen to me? What do you want?”
They stared each other down for several moments, neither willing to back down.
“You know what,” Merlin finally said, words slow. “You can get the hell out. Tell Gwaine to forget about it. You already know about me, and you won’t trust me with whatever it is that you’re trying to do? No. It doesn’t matter. You can walk out; don’t even try to turn me in because you won’t find me again.”
Fine. It was on the tip of his tongue, to walk out and away from this chance meeting because Arthur knew damned better than to associate with techmages. He had been taught his entire life about how dangerous they were, how terrible and distorted. They were plagues upon mankind, people who twisted the technology that was meant to help people into something that could hurt.
He wasn’t about to associate with a techmage, even if it was someone he had once known. Once. A very long time ago.
He wasn’t.
Except he had grasped the last of his contacts, and come up empty. Except that he knew this was his last chance because no techmage would never willingly help him anyway, being the son of Uther Pendragon. And he was at the end of his wits; nothing had worked. And if it ever came down to how important it was associating with techmages and ruining his reputation, and finding Morgana again...
Morgana.
The thought of his sister made him tense and made him freeze and prevented him from leaving the shabby building, the small room he had found himself walking into in order to look for a techmage of all people.
Merlin’s glare was still as heated as ever.
Arthur bristled. No. He wasn’t going to rise to the bait.
“If you’re not going to help, then I’ll find someone else.” He bluffed. There was no way that he was going to give in to the other man, but it was true that no one else would help him anymore.
He turned on his heel, ready to pick up the device he had thrown down and leave.
“No one would help such a prat!”
It was irritating! No one had spoken like that to him before, especially knowing his name and who he was. Uther Pendragon had been one of the original group who advanced the world tech to the level of augmented reality. He had been one of the few who had invested in the Network with fingers in every pot there was in this business.
Arthur may have had no head for coding, but he had inherited that easy understanding of business and in his years after university had clawed his way up to the top through his own company, having to start at the very bottom because Uther refused to allow even his son a shortcut.
Arthur gritted his teeth, and turned his head back. “You can’t speak to me like that.”
“Sir Prat, then. Lord Prat?”
If anything, Merlin sounded amused. It was unbelievable.
“I could have you arrested just for being who you are.” Arthur snapped.
“And I could discredit everything you say about me before the police arrive.” Merlin said with a shrug. “It would probably ruin your reputation, too, so I wouldn’t be too keen to test that out if I were you.”
“No one can break into the records like that.”
“I can.” Merlin didn’t even sound like he was boasting, just stating a fact. “And within ninety seconds that the police take to respond.”
If there was anything Arthur couldn’t resist, it was a challenge. He had his phone out before Merlin finished the sentence, more than willing to test that theory out. If Merlin was as good as he said he was, then he would be able to find Morgana if there was a hint of her anywhere at all.
Before he could pull up the screen for emergency calls, an error message flashed in front of his eyes. He looked up incredulously at Merlin’s grin.
“Of I could, you know, prevent you from making that call at all.”
He had the audacity to turn his back to Arthur and pull out a seat, plopping down in a undignified manner and leaning his chin on his arms against the back of the chair. “Well? Do I pass?”
Arthur hadn’t even seen him pull up an interface, and he had no tablet before him. He had been hacked in moments, and Merlin donned an innocent expression.
He snapped his phone shut, half torn between disgruntled and begrudging respect. “You pass.”
With that, Arthur reached into his coat and pulled out his tablet, the screen switching on at his touch even as he tossed the thin screen on the table in front of Merlin.
“There’s someone I need you to find. You’ll be recompensed if you can do it.”
-
“You don’t have an up-link.”
“Don’t be stupid; everyone has an up-link.” Merlin didn’t even bother to look up from where he hunched over Arthur’s tablet, pen a constant staccato against the surface. Arthur thought he sounded as distracted and childish as ever. His other hand hovered over the glowing screen, typing across an invisible screen that glowed in his eyes. “I can’t be who I am without one.”
No, Arthur mused, a hand still tense on the door. Techmages usually had more than one up-link on at all times, transferring files and information even while they slept. But the up-links were visible on their skin: a node across their temple, a protrusion at the base of their skull. Sometimes an entire eye replaced by bionics to keep as an external hard-drive.
But even without being a techmage, everyone had one up-link. A simple one that rested behind one ear, nearly invisible and not very powerful. Just enough to connect to the Network for purposes of information gathering and communications as well as a GPS to guide the way. Enough that no child would ever be lost, and no student could claim not to have what they needed to do their work while no adults were allowed to slack.
Well, everyone except those who couldn’t afford it.
But Merlin’s ears were large and his hair short, and even having been reunited with him for a day, Arthur knew that Merlin had a penchant for hats. Hats and headphones and anything that would cover said ears, except he wasn’t wearing any of that right now and Arthur could see the smooth skin behind his ears.
He reached to pull on one of those ears, prompting Merlin to drop the tablet as his hands went up automatically to protect said appendages.
It was maddening how comfortable Arthur felt with Merlin, despite even knowing what he was or even as he knew; he knew there was no trusting techmages. He understood that he didn’t really know anything about Merlin at all. A few weeks back in primary school should have counted for nothing.
“What the hell!” Merlin exclaimed as the tablet clattered to the ground.
Arthur yanked harder, suddenly furious. He had fretted far too long about asking Gwaine, about finding a techmage to continue his search for Morgana, and this- Merlin didn’t even have up-links! He needed someone who could manipulate the Network the way normal users could not, not someone without even the barest up-link (and it was funny, but he couldn’t remember if Merlin had an up-link as a child).
“How can you be a techmage?” He demanded. “You can’t even- you can’t even connect to the Network!”
Merlin shoved him away with surprising strength, scowling. “I’m not stupid! Why in the world would I want to have an up-link where people could see? Do you really think that techmages would have bits of metal stuck to their face in plain sight? Who could be that stupid?”
But every mage Arthur had heard about had some kind of up-link in a clearly visible area, making them look different and branding them as something more than the average citizen. Techmages relied heavily on superior technology, not caring if the implantation of that technology would change their physical appearance.
“Prove it.” He challenged. “Prove you’re one of them.”
Merlin yanked away from his grasp, a frown that looked nearly unnatural on his face. He picked up the tablet from where it had dropped, and shoved it in front of Arthur’s face. “Here. Prat.”
After eight months of deleted information, wiped trails, and false leads, the name looked like a dream.
Morgana Pendragon.
-
“Who the hell is he?”
Not two days since meeting Merlin again, and Arthur had dragged Gwaine to a private booth in a restaurant, having flaunted his wealth for a room without any surveillance.
“Eight months.” He hissed at the detective. “Eight months and not a single hint of even her name- everything completely wiped from the Network, including her very name. No surveillance records, no videos, no photos... I’ve been to every single company with the most advanced tech, and they couldn’t do a thing to even find her name, let alone Morgana. And now this bloke managed to find her records in four hours?”
It was beyond suspicious. He would have claimed forgery if it wasn’t for the fact that everything Merlin managed to dig up was true. Her medical records (when she had broken her arm at twelve sneaking out of the house by climbing the impossibly high fence), her search history (even from the time she had tried to wipe of when she had been obsessed with that boy band), and even a message she had sent to him before her disappearance.
A message that they hadn’t been able to decrypt as of yet. Merlin was still back at the apartment trying to crack through the walls of coding surrounding it.
“I told you Merlin was good.” Gwaine responded with a knowing grin, pouring himself another drink. The man had requested an entire bottle of liquor at the beginning of the meal, and was slowing making his way through drink rather than food.
Arthur shuddered at the idea of techmages being that good. Good enough that five companies and eight months amounted to nothing more than four hours of work. How was any Network security firm supposed to defend against them?
It was disconcerting, if not frightening. The current world was comprised of information exchange; society as they knew it stood on the Network. He had always thought of techmages as a nuisance at best, a danger far away from himself at worst. A contained danger. Illegal hackers.
Not human had been a description he had heard time and time again, but not one he put any real thought into.
“He could topple governments.”
“If he really wanted to,” Gwaine agreed glibly. “Probably in hours. On a whim.”
Jesus. Arthur rubbed at his temple, resting his elbows on the table in a rare moment of appalling manners. His food was untouched on the table.
“Not that Merlin would do anything like that.” Gwaine continued, as if he hadn’t shattered Arthur’s worldly beliefs with his last statement. “He’s just that nice bloke, you know? The nice one. You know, first time I met Merlin he was standing up to this burly toff harassing an elderly lady? Guy must have been three times the size of Merlin, but there he was looking shocked as anything while Merlin gave him a dressing down on manners and how he was supposed to respect the elderly as well as the female sex.
“I pulled him out of harm’s way, I did. He wouldn’t have survived a single blow from that toff, and it looked like the man was just about to come to his senses and land a good one.”
“Nice,” Arthur tasted the word in his mouth, and found that he didn’t like it. “Makes him all the more dangerous.”
Gwaine shook a finger at Arthur, other hand clutching his drink. “He’s as harmless as a bunny!”
Arthur begged to differ. Nice people were perhaps the most dangerous of them all, especially when presented with power. If they were genuinely caring, then those people would destroy the world in their ill-advised attempts to improve things; not to mention all the others who could take advantage of such niceness, who could prey on that naivete.
“Besides,” Gwaine continued. “Merlin keeps to himself. Doesn’t like getting involved in anything. I’m the one who asked him to look into your sister’s case for you. He owed me one.”
“So he’d hack into secured files because he owed you one?”
It was the tone that finally got to Gwaine, getting the other man to lower his drink as his brow went up in surprise at the hostility Arthur was showing.
“No,” He explained, his words slow just so they’d get into Arthur’s head. “He did that because I told him your sister was missing, and that you’ve been searching for her for ages and was worried about her safety.”
Arthur scowled.
“Look, Arthur. You’re the one who nearly gave up because even your father was denying Morgana’s existence. You thought you were going crazy because every trace of her life just disappeared and you couldn’t find hide nor hair of it. Remember? I wasn’t going to let you drive yourself insane just because your father’s a piece of-”
Gwaine cut off at Arthur’s harsh look.
“You know what I mean, mate.”
It was all the more disconcerting knowing that the person who could possibly topple the work of thousands of people was Merlin. It didn’t match with his memories of the small, skinny child covered in light scratches from playing outdoors.
“You gave your word that you wouldn’t turn him in.” Gwaine reminded him.
“If he found Morgana.”
“And he did.” Gwaine gave a meaningful pause. “He found her so fast that you came to me because it unnerved you.”
Arthur didn’t bother to deny it. “It doesn’t unnerve you?”
The other man shrugged. “Maybe it would, if I didn’t know Merlin like I do. But you want to know what I like best about Merlin? It’s not just that he does things to help people, or that he has power- it’s that he does everything and doesn’t expect any praise for it.” With that, Gwaine downed his drink, smacking his lips after the liquor disappeared down his throat. “That’s how you know when they don’t have ulterior motives.”
Arthur just grunted at that, unimpressed.
The server came back then, setting down the desert plates with a smile, even though Arthur hadn’t managed to touch his food as of yet. His gut was churning with uncertainty.
Gwaine, however, was entirely charming as he thanked her and complimented her on both her quick service and eyes, making the girl blush brightly before she walked away, this time with a sway in her steps.
“Just why did you come crying to me?” Gwaine asked as he picked up a fork.
“I didn’t.” Arthur denied with a scowl. He didn’t exactly cry to anyone, and the mere insinuation was insulting. “I needed a second opinion. I should have know you would be biased.”
“I’m the one who introduced you to Merlin, mate. And really, that’s a testament of my faith in you. I don’t give just anyone Merlin’s contact, you know.”
He’s important to me was heavily laced into the statement.
“Anyway,” Gwaine said. He proved once again that his dining etiquette certainly left more to be desired by stuffing a large forkful of the thick slab of cheesecake and waved it in Arthur’s face. “How long have I know you? Three years? So at least trust me when I say that you should trust Merlin. He knows what he’s doing- well, at least he likes making it look like he knows what he’s doing. He’s probably floundering as much as we all are, but he’s good at making up solutions as he goes. And things always work out around him; must be some kind of talent.”
Arthur left the meal feeling just as bewildered as he did when he had called Gwaine up.
-
Find me.
Merlin managed to turn away politely as Arthur drew in a breath, accepting the last message from Morgana that the techmage had been able to dig up.
-
After that, there were hints and messages from Morgana everywhere. Or it felt like everywhere.
Merlin stayed quiet about the issue, sensing that Arthur’s hackles were raised as the trail of virtual breadcrumbs continued, hidden everywhere like a sort of alternate reality game that Arthur had once upon a time found himself fascinated by.
When the subject hit this close to home, though, it didn’t seem as funny. Hidden codes in places he frequented, in old messages, planted through his life: it was almost frightening. It meant that someone had the power to insert these things, and it was someone who knew him well.
It was the second day since Merlin had started working on finding Morgana, and he had already covered over half a dozen messages meant for Arthur that he had managed to overlook.
It was almost like Morgana knew that Arthur would eventually turn to a techmage to find those messages.
It became more disturbing when Merlin admitted that there was a new message since he managed to uncover the first traces of Morgana’s trail.
Stay there. I’ll find you.
“What does that mean?” Arthur had asked, frustrated.
“What it says?” Merlin said. “Arthur, these messages... there aren’t many people out there who can plant them. Your sister either has a techmage throwing these things out for her... or she is one.”
“I know my sister.” Arthur snapped at him. “And if there’s one thing she’s not, she’s not a techmage.”
Because Morgana would never be able to stand the implants and extra up-links. Her vanity came first, however much she denied it.
However, looking at Merlin and his lack of metal aberrations, Arthur had to wonder if Morgana had somehow also managed to find a way to gain the extra power over the Network without sacrificing her cover.
Or not. Or else she wouldn’t be hiding, after all.
It was one of the things that really struck Arthur after his chat with Gwaine: if there was nothing wrong with Morgana, if she wasn’t hurt in any way, then why had she disappeared? Not many people could threaten the Pendragon family with the amount of power that Uther held over the Network and the world in general. Morgana was family, and no matter how cruel threads on the Network whispered Uther’s mind was, one thing that was upheld was family. Family was important. Family came first.
That was one of the reasons Arthur had been so furious when Uther denied ever having a daughter.
“Then she’s got someone who can erase her- her entire existence. I don’t know if you know this, but people can’t do that, Arthur. A person’s virtual footprint is just about impossible to erase. There’s always a hint somewhere- she was wiped clean.”
“Not clean enough to hide from you.” Arthur said, and then thought, what about you? I tried searching for you as well as a child and couldn’t find a trace of you. Back then, he had thought it was because he was just a child, but with the way Merlin was speaking, maybe it was something else.
Merlin didn’t rise to the bait, instead handing his tablet over to Arthur.
“One more thing. This is... she’s involved in something dangerous. This was pretty highly classified.”
Category-10, it said at the top of the page.
The rest of it was in code, in a script that Arthur didn’t recognize.
“What does this have to do with her?”
“It has her name attached to it.”
Arthur turned his attention from the tablet to Merlin. “And? You can’t decode this?”
Merlin’s expression looked uncertain. “It’s not that.”
“Then what? Am I not paying you enough to break into government archives and top-secret files?”
At that, the thin man huffed. “You’re not paying me to hack into government files at all! You just said find your sister!”
“And you’re saying this doesn’t involve finding her?” Arthur raised a brow in question.
If anything, Merlin looked uncomfortable. “Look, it’s- this file doesn’t look safe, alright.”
“So you are saying you can’t decode it.”
“I’m saying I don’t want to!” Merlin didn’t do anything so dramatic as throw his arms up in frustration, but it was a close thing. “I have a bad feeling about it, alright? This-” He gestured to the tablet. “It looks like one giant trap. It’s got trap written all over it. Well, not literally, but the set-up and the secrets and password contingency loops... I managed to get to file. Making sense of it would probably alert every warning bell on the Network.”
“So you downloaded this?” Arthur asked slowly.
“Yes!”
Merlin nodded furiously as Arthur gave the tablet another glance.
“And your files are secure, right?”
“What do you take me for? Of course they are! Do you know how much trouble I’d be in if I left any trace of a trail for the information you have me dig up?”
Arthur handed the tablet back. “Then decode it. It’s downloaded and secure, how is anyone supposed to know if you managed to make sense of it?”
“That’s not- that’s not-” Merlin stumbled over his own words. Arthur just stood from where he had been sitting, and patted the other man condescendingly on the shoulder.
“I’ll expect to see it by the time I get back from take-out, then. How’s fish and chips for you?”
-
Morgause was the most straightforward woman Arthur had ever had the fortune, or perhaps misfortune, to meet.
For all of Merlin’s doubts about the search for Morgana, Arthur had been optimistic about it. He just wanted to find his sister and then get back to his life. He had already taken three days off work and knew that the paperwork would only pile up higher the more he put it off. Not to mention Guinevere kept leaving him messages that made him feel guilty just looking at it.
(It said something that he could read those messages in his head and they would contain her voice, scolding him for running off.)
He had paid those messages no mind until the day he had been yanked right out of a crowded street into a shadowed alleyway, his shoulder feeling the blunt force keenly.
“Arthur Pendragon.”
She was small and blonde, wearing boyish clothing and thick kohl eyeliner that looked too dark on her face and was too sharp a contrast against like blonde brows and curls that framed her face.
Had it not been for the tone of voice and manner in which she was standing, Arthur would have given her an appreciative look. As such, his sense of preservation kicked in enough to lean away from her and frown, yanking his arm away from her.
“My name is Morgause.” She said before Arthur could say anything. “I’m here because we have a common interest: Morgana.”
She led him to a door several blocks away with a heavily muscled man guarding the entrance who opened the door for her and Arthur when they approached. Inside looked the back room of a bar, bright but hazy with smoke. The smoke was explained when she took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one up expertly. Arthur tried not to make a face, unused to the smell knowing that most of the country had managed to wean away from the habit of smoking.
“Are you the one planting the messages for her?” He demanded the moment they sat down, bypassing introductions and common courtesy.
She blew smoke into his face. “No.”
Arthur thought about emergency calls and how quickly Merlin managed to hack his.
“What do you know about my sister?”
Morgause took her time answering, flicking the end of her cigarette at the ashtray built into the centre of the table. “I know that she’s my sister.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Isn’t it?” Morgause took another whiff, dark eyes glittering as she looked over Arthur carefully. “I thought by now you’d have the file.”
It was far too cryptic for Arthur. “What file?”
“The one about Category-10s.”
The file. That file. Merlin had refused to decode it, even when Arthur had thrown the tablet at his head.
“I got it.” Arthur responded slowly, feeling as if the conversation was a sort of power play. He was rather good at those, but not at keeping secrets. He was good at motivating his employees to work harder, but not at extracting information.
“But you haven’t read it.” Morgause quirked her lips into a smile, looking predatory. “You don’t know what they are yet.”
“They?”
“Them. Five of them. My sister’s one of them.”
“You mean Morgana.” Arthur’s face shuttered as he leaned over the table, disregarding the smoke. “What does she have to do with that file?”
Morgause extinguished the dregs of her cigarette in the tray.
“Not yet. You have to read it yourself. Do so and in three days’ time, I’ll take you to Morgana.”
“You have her. What have you done to her?”
The threat in his tone only made her laugh.
“Don’t worry, Pendragon. I’m the one keeping her safe. More than you can.”
She nodded behind him, and Arthur saw the man who had been guarding the door standing behind him intently. He was escorted away from the building rather quickly after that, all in shadows until he ended up back on the main street with the same crowd he had been taken from, frustrated and tense from the shroud of secrecy that he had never before been exposed to.
That had been his first meeting with Morgause.
-
The second time, Merlin had insisted on coming along with him.
“I just need you to decode that file, Merlin,” Arthur had drawled, wondering if it was too much if he strapped several knives on his person. Just in case. Guns might have been overboard, but he didn’t think it was a bad decision to take something to defend himself with in case something went... south, per say.
Merlin had been unnaturally quiet (and how was it that Arthur could tell that after only knowing Merlin for the past four days?), before asking, “Can’t you just bring the file to her?”
“I thought you didn’t want to expose government secrets.”
“No, I didn’t want them to track us.”
Arthur scowled. That excuse hadn’t worked with him the first time, and there was no way it was going to work now. “How are they supposed to track you on a closed network? You have the file secured, not to mention you already have the file and they didn’t even notice. How will they figure out that you’ve decoded it?”
Merlin was quiet, pacing around the room as Arthur threw on his scarf, pulling it tightly (and fashionably) around his neck and stuffing the ends into his coat. The weather was getting cold, and he planned on being back at work soon where the heaters made the air bearable rather than feeling like icicles against your skin.
It was strange. Four days of putting up with Merlin at all times because Arthur had insisted on keeping an eye on the other man (purely because he wanted to be the absolute first to know should new information come up, and that had come up in abundance the first two days) and he had gotten used to his presence around.
“Don’t go,” Merlin ended up pleading. “Maybe Morgause is keeping your sister safe. Don’t get involved. You know she’s alive and well now. Go back to your old life.”
And that was the thing: ever since Merlin had found that file, he had been acting strange. Stranger and stranger. Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“You have decoded it!” He accused. “And you’re just not letting me see it.”
“What? No. I haven’t! I just,” And this was where the other man fidgeted, looking nervous and anxious and for some reason, guilty. “I just think, I know it’s silly but, I just feel like I don’t want to know what it says. Like it’s going to say something horrible and I won’t be able to take back the information once I read it. Like I should never read it.”
His voice was quiet by the end of it, although he never stopped pacing, looking so very anxious.
Arthur took half a moment to pause what he was doing to stare incredulously at Merlin, wondering if that should be taken seriously or not before deciding that it was best for Merlin to man up. “Don’t be such a girl, Merlin. You’re the-” He made a waving gesture with his hand before finally relenting to speak the word at Merlin’s confused look, “techmage, right? Knowledge is power and all that. It could be something you need to know for later.
“It is be something I need to know, so I need you to decode it. Don’t read it if you like.”
“And how am I supposed to work on it without reading it?” Merlin sounded mildly irritated now. “I don’t have a program that does this, you know. I actually have to work on it myself.”
“Then figure out a way.” And Arthur was out the door. “But I need it by tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow, Merlin!”
Except Merlin continued to refuse even the next day and Arthur finally had to wrestle the other man down in a fit of exasperation until Merlin finally gave up and agreed to work on it (“Under extreme duress!”) and Arthur left him alone for a few minutes to leave Lancelot a message telling him and Guinevere that he was fine and that he might be back at work in a few days.
When he once again glanced back into the room and Merlin looked far too still to actually be working, eyes wide and reflected golden, the sight was so familiar to him that it made Arthur’s breath catch for a moment.
Techmages did that, he knew in a strictly textbook sense. Their eyes reflected the gold of the Network, of their up-links that were more advanced than an average person’s. That was the thing about augmented reality; there was no physical sign of keyboards and messages and flashing signs because it only showed in a person’s head, but with techmages, their connection was so strong that it would show in their eyes.
Arthur had never really paid attention to the biology of it, but he had never really seen it before. Uther had never allowed Arthur close enough to a techmage out of fear for his child, so while he had known, it wasn’t a sight he had ever really experienced up close and in person.
Except he had in the past several days with Merlin, staying in the other man’s small flat for most of the day before he left for home late at night (or lately, not at all. He just commandeered the couch for the evening and brought a change of clothes. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t conduct his business from wherever). This had actually been one of the rare times Merlin had consented to work at Arthur’s posher flat, mostly due to Arthur’s bribes of food.
Merlin was never quite this still.
“Hey,” Arthur spoke from the edge of the room, letting go of the connection he had held to his messages. “You alright?”
Merlin looked up and it looked like he was staring at a stranger.
It was unnerving, and that irked Arthur something strange.
“What?” He demanded, suddenly wondering if maybe Merlin had been right to not want to decode the file.
It took a while, but Merlin finally shook his head. He shut off his tablet and turned it over on the table.
“You shouldn’t read it.” He finally said, voice hollow. “You shouldn’t.”
Then he stood up and left the room, and Arthur was torn between following and reaching for the tablet in the middle of the room.
In the end, he stepped out of the house to meet Morgause without touching the tablet.
Next
Characters/Pairings: light Arthur/Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 26k
Warnings: Angst, messing with memories, time dilation, abstract confusion, exposition
Spoilers: ...none, really. AU and all.
Summary: cyberpunk!AU. Arthur was looking for a sister who didn’t exist. Instead, he found the childhood friend he never met.
AN: First and foremost the great round of applause to greenclove for not only the art and idea for this story, but putting up with my possibly incoherent messages. XD And staubundsterne for beta’ing even though she had several deadlines coming up as well! Then the organisers of merlinreversebb, and everyone who had to put up with my craziness. I must have the most fantastic friends who just bring me food as I type. XD
This entire story was inspired and written for THIS IMAGE because is it not just amazing? Guys, guys, if you like this story or the concept or anything about it, you really have greenclove to thank! =^^=
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful queen. She had lost her mother and father long ago, but had a loving husband and a doting best friend and so many people who would have done anything for her smile. She was the fairest in all the lands, and possibly one of the most brilliant as well. She and her friend came up with ideas that would make the world a better place, and her husband spared no expense in order to make all her great ideas reality. Her people adored her, and she had everything a person could possibly want or wish for.
Everything but a child.
So one day her best friend, in attempts to give her the one thing she wanted, spoke with her husband.
Magic, she said. Magic would give her the child she wanted. I will make this happen. I will learn what it takes, and I will cast this spell.
What the spell took was the best friend, who volunteered to be the subject of an experiment that took her magical gifts and turned them into something else. But the magic was treacherous. While the best friend remained in stasis for her gifts to be used, it weakened the queen so that when the child came, it was too much for her.
The king, in his grief, punished the friend for suggesting such a procedure, destroying everything about her- but not before promising that he would also search for and destroy other people who might have the power to learn that spell. It will be wiped from existence.
And so it was.
After the nightmares (and there were always nightmares now, almost every night), Arthur would gather Merlin's shaky limbs to him in an embrace that he always imagined his mother would provide when he desperately needed comfort. The first several times had been awkward, with him not knowing what to do and the embrace meant for a child rather than someone with Merlin’s height. It was hard to tuck Merlin’s head under his chin and cradle flailing limbs without panicking him more.
Arthur would place him in the V of his legs and wrap both arms around Merlin’s skinny torso, attempting to fight and hold down bony elbows and weak hands, feeling the shift of muscle in Merlin's back and the knobby outline of his spine. He'd make hushing noises as the other whimpered and slowly clawed his way out of his own head.
It gets worse. Arthur would write, hoping that Morgana would get his messages. He never got a response, but at this stage, he didn't expect one. Morgause would have her hands full with his sister just as Arthur busied himself over Merlin.
Sometimes, on better days, he and Merlin would stroll through streets and greet familiar strangers who stopped and laughed with them, sharing a memory of the past and asking about each others' lives. Those were the best and worst days for Arthur, seeing the possibilities of all that could be and the blatant lie he had to deal with every day. He never knew any of the strangers who stopped and talked with them, and understood that they didn't know him, either.
Merlin's smiles on those days are bright, hands animated as he recalls events that never happened, memories that never formed.
-
"They're looking for you." Gwaine admitted as he handed Arthur the package he had been sent to deliver. "Your father is furious."
Arthur accepted the package, fingers tightening on the heaviness of the small box and knowing that it was filled with delicate equipment; items that would keep him one step ahead of everyone else, one step ahead of the faceless government officials sent to clean up messes. One step ahead of Mordred.
"You don't have to continue with us." Arthur told him. Gwaine was all about protesting and sticking up for the underdog, for fighting for what's right and being all stupidly noble even if the odds were a thousand to one- a million to one, against him. But this wasn't a noble quest, and it wasn't even good. Things were far too morally ambiguous to risk life and limb over. As far as they could discern, the government was actually doing the right thing this time. And Arthur had to stand against them.
"Never one to bend over for Big Brother, mate," Gwaine said, the enthusiasm in his voice never reaching his eyes. "Besides, Merlin's my friend."
Gwaine had been the one to hand Merlin's card over to Arthur in the first place. Never a better tracker, he had said that very first time they had met. If anyone can find your sister, he can. Arthur had been grasping for straws back then, having exhausted his resources in locating Morgana. He had spent eight months trying to find her again, knowing somehow that she needed his help, especially when the lines he had called to reach her claimed that she had never been to the area, and that Morgana Pendragon did not exist.
One day, he had been in regular correspondence with her, and the next day she had disappeared- disappeared with no trace of anyone even knowing who she was, and no matter what Arthur did, no trace of Morgana had been found again no matter how many strings he pulled and how much money he threw at all the right people.
"How is he?" Gwaine asked when Arthur didn't respond. "How's he doing?"
"He's fine." Arthur answered, knowing well enough that fine covered a whole variety of responses, all of them false unless Gwaine automatically translated 'fine' with 'really not fine at all.' Arthur stuffed the package into his bag, shifting around groceries to cover any evidence of electronics. Gwaine didn't pry further than that, and Arthur took his leave, hesitating only a moment to remind him, "Hey, if you hear from Morgana..."
"You'll be the first to know." Gwaine tapped his up-link. “You remember my ringtone, right?”
“Yeah.”
It was the same phrase they had exchanged in parting for the past three weeks.
-
The first time Arthur met Merlin, he had not been impressed.
"It's you." He drawled, careful to sound unimpressed despite his surprise.
It had been far too long since he had last seen Merlin, years and years since they had been children and Merlin had been trapped in a tree trying to rescue a cat but found himself clinging to the unhappy and yowling feline as a dog that had to had to have been his own height and twice as heavy as him growled at the base of the tree.
Back then, Arthur had been the child staring out his school window in boredom, having stayed later due to extra lessons offered by his teachers, tapping unhurriedly with his stylus in attempts to convey just how bored he was with his instructors.
He had perked up at the image of a boy in a tree (the only tree in the yard, the only one within the otherwise barren concrete block really), stretching his neck with narrowed eyes when he saw the dog barking, teeth bared. It had taken him a whole two minutes to leave his classroom and head down in attempts of rescuing the little boy in the tree (ignoring the startled shouts of his teachers), where he had pulled his tablets and data carriers into his bag before heading outside without the slightest plan as to how he was supposed to overcome a dog that was larger than himself.
Arthur didn’t quite remember how he fended the dog off, but he thought he did it quite admirably before he attempted to coax the boy from the tree.
Surprisingly, the boy had been ill receptive to his rescue.
"I could have done it myself!" The little black-haired boy had protested, still holding on to the squirming cat even as he attempted to carefully navigate branches with his scuffed sneakers, nearly slipping more than once and being tangled up in leaves as his shirt mercifully got caught and held him before he could fall entirely.
"No, you couldn't!" A young Arthur had retorted, more displeased than he thought he would be that the boy wasn't starry-eyed at the rescue. That was how things were supposed to happen, weren't they? "What were you going to do, throw leaves at that dog and then waited until he ate you?"
"Of course not!" The boy had to use an arm to hold on to the last branch as he tried to find the ground with his feet, still several feet in the air. The cat gave a displeased yowl and flicked its tail furiously, although it was smart enough to not struggle too hard as of yet. "But I would have taken care of it!"
It took several moments for Arthur's irritation at not being properly greeted like the heroic knight he was to disappear. Merlin wiggled, trying to get down from the tree. After a huff, Arthur reached up for the other boy's foot. "Uh-huh. Stop moving, I've got you."
"No, you haven't!"
The two boys struggled not to fall, and eventually it was the cat who decided it had enough and scratched at the boy's arms before jumping away as the dark haired boy cried out and lost his grip, ending up falling directly on Arthur.
There had been protests and cut off accusations that ended in tears and a trip to the school nurse and bandages before the boy had shyly revealed that his name was Merlin and please don’t tell my mum about this!
That had been his first encounter with the strange child called Merlin, whom Arthur soon learned liked denying things far too much. He also thought that Merlin was ridiculously nice... to animals. Nice to the point of being stupid. They didn’t go to the same school, didn’t like the same things, and didn’t agree on... well, anything. He didn’t know why he kept looking for the other boy those few weeks, but he had and Merlin was always in the same small park with the tree he had first seen him at.
“How come you’re outside, anyway?” Arthur had asked Merlin one day as they both sat under the shade of the lone tree, sharing a chocolate bar. The feeling of dirt and bark under his clothes was still a new one, especially since most children stayed indoors or at the very least met for play-dates in enclosed buildings. Outdoor parks were becoming few and far in-between, rusted and run over with wild grass and weeds.
“How come you’re outside?” Merlin shot back around a mouthful of chocolate, and yelped as Arthur leaned over to tug on his hair in retaliation for his cheek.
“I’m out here because of an idiot.” Because Merlin was interesting, which was more than could be said for his classmates, anyway. He nudged the extra sandwich he had demanded from his bewildered cook that morning toward the younger boy. Merlin looked far too small, anyway, even for his age (“I’m six! Six! ‘Course I’m smaller, but I’m not small!”), like the kids Arthur had seen around his school who got bullied by the upper years. “One who can’t keep out of trouble.”
“You shouldn’t have such a low opinion of yourself!” Merlin responded cheerfully, grabbing at the sandwich eagerly. He had a smudge of chocolate around his lips and the lingering lisp of a child who hadn’t learnt to form his words completely yet, with still chubby fingers that reached into Arthur’s lunchbox.
“I’m not the idiot- you’re the idiot.” It was a kind of argument that Arthur had grown out of the year previous, but it was all too easy to be pulled back into the juvenile retorts. He batted the smaller boy’s hands away when it reached too close to the cookies, though. “You were the one in a tree with a cat!”
Merlin shrugged. “She wouldn’t come down!”
Arthur thought for a moment. “Is she your cat?”
The dark haired boy just shook his head, though. “Nope. Just a kitty.”
Arthur balked. “She wasn’t even yours? But why would you do that?” Wild cats were dangerous! They could scratch and bite and his teachers had always told him to stay away from animals he didn’t know. “She could have had fleas!”
Merlin just took a moment to munch on another mouthful of jelly sandwich. “Sh’ whas stuck! An’ dere whas a dawg.”
Disgusted, Arthur had reached over to cover Merlin’s mouth and that just turned into a mild scuffle as Merlin flailed and protested and ended up falling over Arthur when he tried to push him off.
The first few weeks had been repeats of that.
“You,” Arthur accused through thinned lips, twenty years after their first completely unorthodox meeting. Merlin had audacity to not recognize him at first before a wide grin spread across his face (so much thinner, having lost all his baby fat and rounded cheeks and even that perpetual smudge of chocolate from all the candy that Arthur used to hand off to him), blue eyes now hidden behind a pair of black rimmed glasses and dressed... just as messily as he had been as a child.
Except he was taller. Taller than Arthur, even, and thin to the point of looking frail and slightly gaunt. His dark hair was shorter (too short to pull now if Arthur wanted his attention, not that he would ever do that to someone else. They weren’t kids anymore, after all), and his eyes were not quite so trusting as they had been years ago but still as blue as ever. With the shorter hair, his ears stood out awkwardly just to emphasize that long gawky look about him that couldn’t be covered under his layers of colourful jumpers and coats, even with the scarf and gloves.
He had the nerve to shove a gloved finger at Arthur’s face, far too close to have heard of personal space, and not pulling back even as Arthur leaned back uncomfortably. Merlin grinned widely as if no time had passed at all since they last met. “You’re Arthur!”
Still the same. He wasn’t sure if that thought was fond or exasperated, or even disparaging. When Gwaine had mentioned knowing someone who would be able to find the tech that Arthur needed... he had not imagined that someone to be Merlin of all people.
But he wasn’t eight anymore, and the situation was much more serious than a trapped cat and chocolates over lunch. And from what he knew of Merlin...
“There must be a mistake.” Arthur pushed himself back, frowning. He couldn’t associate the image of the plump cheeked child with the man here in front of him (A techmage, Gwaine had confided under his breath even as the man pulled up his collar to hide the shape of his words against anyone who might be watching. And the best one I know.).
Merlin didn’t look like a techmage. Arthur had seen more than the average person in his lifetime because of his father’s job, and every one of them looked almost stereotypically frightening with metal protrusions in their skulls. It was hard to disagree with the average consensus that techmages weren’t human when they looked like that and could do terrible things to a person or an entire country. Each of them he had seen on trial had been condemned of anything ranging from theft of government codes to mind-wipes; murders.
Techmages altered the natural chemistry of their brains and added hardware to their grey matter to integrate themselves with the Network in a way that went far past augmented reality. Information overflow. They had holes in their head and gear in their thoughts, whirring and changing things. The general consensus was that they weren’t human anymore, lost in the flow of information of the world around them. Able to change facts, change digits, change a person’s perspective and invade their minds if they were good enough. Techmages were dangerous.
And Merlin, Gwaine had assured Arthur, was very good.
It was that fact that prevented Arthur from leaving.
That and the heavy fact that he had exhausted every other option.
“Why, because I don’t look like you thought I would?” Merlin was flitting around him, the same curious expression that hadn’t changed since childhood. “Wow, you’ve gotten old, Arthur.”
“It’s been twenty years, Merlin!”
“Has it?” The curious tone didn’t dissipate even as Merlin finally seemed to get a hold of himself, and Arthur had to remind himself that he had learned how to control his previously explosive temper in his teenage years, damn it. It didn’t help in the slightest that Merlin still seemed able to invoke his irritation and exasperation from his mere presence.
“You disappeared.”
All of a sudden, it didn’t feel like twenty years at all. He remembered with startling clarity how hurt he had felt as a child when Merlin stopped showing up for their lunches, when that little park had been cleared away to create another entrance to the underground, and when that tree was cut down.
Merlin’s expression closed off, unnatural despite how Arthur had barely known him as an adult for mere moments. “I got moved.”
Moved. It sounded so simple. But Arthur wasn’t here to demand excuses, or even meet with childhood acquaintances. He was on a mission.
He pursed his lips and dug into the pockets of his coat, throwing an opened tracker case onto the table next to him, the case cracked with its shiny electronics exposed. It was a simple piece that he had gotten off a shifty repair technician, the casing a burnished metal plate with rough bumps and the size of his fist, misshapen and odd, and the inside filled with scrambled wires and softly blinking lights, a warm whirring to show it was doing... something. Something that Arthur wasn’t too sure about, anyway.
As startling as it had been to find Merlin, it was nothing more than a distraction. “Moved. Right. It doesn’t matter. Prove that you can do what I came for.”
Merlin drew back, expression hurt for a moment before he smoothed it over, scowling. Arthur tried not to feel guilty over it. They had fallen out for twenty years, and in all rights, they shouldn’t even remember each other seeing how long ago they had known each other and for the short amount of time.
“Fine.” He snapped. “What do you want?”
For all accounts, they were strangers who happened to know each other from childhood. But strangers never the less.
“I was told that you were discreet.”
“If it was Gwaine telling you this, then you should already know that. If he told you where I am, he would have told you what I am.”
Arthur’s expression grew even darker, if that was possible. He had made it a point to never associate with techmages in his life. “Yes. And that’s why I need reassure than you will be discrete.”
“Who in their right mind would listen to me? What do you want?”
They stared each other down for several moments, neither willing to back down.
“You know what,” Merlin finally said, words slow. “You can get the hell out. Tell Gwaine to forget about it. You already know about me, and you won’t trust me with whatever it is that you’re trying to do? No. It doesn’t matter. You can walk out; don’t even try to turn me in because you won’t find me again.”
Fine. It was on the tip of his tongue, to walk out and away from this chance meeting because Arthur knew damned better than to associate with techmages. He had been taught his entire life about how dangerous they were, how terrible and distorted. They were plagues upon mankind, people who twisted the technology that was meant to help people into something that could hurt.
He wasn’t about to associate with a techmage, even if it was someone he had once known. Once. A very long time ago.
He wasn’t.
Except he had grasped the last of his contacts, and come up empty. Except that he knew this was his last chance because no techmage would never willingly help him anyway, being the son of Uther Pendragon. And he was at the end of his wits; nothing had worked. And if it ever came down to how important it was associating with techmages and ruining his reputation, and finding Morgana again...
Morgana.
The thought of his sister made him tense and made him freeze and prevented him from leaving the shabby building, the small room he had found himself walking into in order to look for a techmage of all people.
Merlin’s glare was still as heated as ever.
Arthur bristled. No. He wasn’t going to rise to the bait.
“If you’re not going to help, then I’ll find someone else.” He bluffed. There was no way that he was going to give in to the other man, but it was true that no one else would help him anymore.
He turned on his heel, ready to pick up the device he had thrown down and leave.
“No one would help such a prat!”
It was irritating! No one had spoken like that to him before, especially knowing his name and who he was. Uther Pendragon had been one of the original group who advanced the world tech to the level of augmented reality. He had been one of the few who had invested in the Network with fingers in every pot there was in this business.
Arthur may have had no head for coding, but he had inherited that easy understanding of business and in his years after university had clawed his way up to the top through his own company, having to start at the very bottom because Uther refused to allow even his son a shortcut.
Arthur gritted his teeth, and turned his head back. “You can’t speak to me like that.”
“Sir Prat, then. Lord Prat?”
If anything, Merlin sounded amused. It was unbelievable.
“I could have you arrested just for being who you are.” Arthur snapped.
“And I could discredit everything you say about me before the police arrive.” Merlin said with a shrug. “It would probably ruin your reputation, too, so I wouldn’t be too keen to test that out if I were you.”
“No one can break into the records like that.”
“I can.” Merlin didn’t even sound like he was boasting, just stating a fact. “And within ninety seconds that the police take to respond.”
If there was anything Arthur couldn’t resist, it was a challenge. He had his phone out before Merlin finished the sentence, more than willing to test that theory out. If Merlin was as good as he said he was, then he would be able to find Morgana if there was a hint of her anywhere at all.
Before he could pull up the screen for emergency calls, an error message flashed in front of his eyes. He looked up incredulously at Merlin’s grin.
“Of I could, you know, prevent you from making that call at all.”
He had the audacity to turn his back to Arthur and pull out a seat, plopping down in a undignified manner and leaning his chin on his arms against the back of the chair. “Well? Do I pass?”
Arthur hadn’t even seen him pull up an interface, and he had no tablet before him. He had been hacked in moments, and Merlin donned an innocent expression.
He snapped his phone shut, half torn between disgruntled and begrudging respect. “You pass.”
With that, Arthur reached into his coat and pulled out his tablet, the screen switching on at his touch even as he tossed the thin screen on the table in front of Merlin.
“There’s someone I need you to find. You’ll be recompensed if you can do it.”
-
“You don’t have an up-link.”
“Don’t be stupid; everyone has an up-link.” Merlin didn’t even bother to look up from where he hunched over Arthur’s tablet, pen a constant staccato against the surface. Arthur thought he sounded as distracted and childish as ever. His other hand hovered over the glowing screen, typing across an invisible screen that glowed in his eyes. “I can’t be who I am without one.”
No, Arthur mused, a hand still tense on the door. Techmages usually had more than one up-link on at all times, transferring files and information even while they slept. But the up-links were visible on their skin: a node across their temple, a protrusion at the base of their skull. Sometimes an entire eye replaced by bionics to keep as an external hard-drive.
But even without being a techmage, everyone had one up-link. A simple one that rested behind one ear, nearly invisible and not very powerful. Just enough to connect to the Network for purposes of information gathering and communications as well as a GPS to guide the way. Enough that no child would ever be lost, and no student could claim not to have what they needed to do their work while no adults were allowed to slack.
Well, everyone except those who couldn’t afford it.
But Merlin’s ears were large and his hair short, and even having been reunited with him for a day, Arthur knew that Merlin had a penchant for hats. Hats and headphones and anything that would cover said ears, except he wasn’t wearing any of that right now and Arthur could see the smooth skin behind his ears.
He reached to pull on one of those ears, prompting Merlin to drop the tablet as his hands went up automatically to protect said appendages.
It was maddening how comfortable Arthur felt with Merlin, despite even knowing what he was or even as he knew; he knew there was no trusting techmages. He understood that he didn’t really know anything about Merlin at all. A few weeks back in primary school should have counted for nothing.
“What the hell!” Merlin exclaimed as the tablet clattered to the ground.
Arthur yanked harder, suddenly furious. He had fretted far too long about asking Gwaine, about finding a techmage to continue his search for Morgana, and this- Merlin didn’t even have up-links! He needed someone who could manipulate the Network the way normal users could not, not someone without even the barest up-link (and it was funny, but he couldn’t remember if Merlin had an up-link as a child).
“How can you be a techmage?” He demanded. “You can’t even- you can’t even connect to the Network!”
Merlin shoved him away with surprising strength, scowling. “I’m not stupid! Why in the world would I want to have an up-link where people could see? Do you really think that techmages would have bits of metal stuck to their face in plain sight? Who could be that stupid?”
But every mage Arthur had heard about had some kind of up-link in a clearly visible area, making them look different and branding them as something more than the average citizen. Techmages relied heavily on superior technology, not caring if the implantation of that technology would change their physical appearance.
“Prove it.” He challenged. “Prove you’re one of them.”
Merlin yanked away from his grasp, a frown that looked nearly unnatural on his face. He picked up the tablet from where it had dropped, and shoved it in front of Arthur’s face. “Here. Prat.”
After eight months of deleted information, wiped trails, and false leads, the name looked like a dream.
Morgana Pendragon.
-
“Who the hell is he?”
Not two days since meeting Merlin again, and Arthur had dragged Gwaine to a private booth in a restaurant, having flaunted his wealth for a room without any surveillance.
“Eight months.” He hissed at the detective. “Eight months and not a single hint of even her name- everything completely wiped from the Network, including her very name. No surveillance records, no videos, no photos... I’ve been to every single company with the most advanced tech, and they couldn’t do a thing to even find her name, let alone Morgana. And now this bloke managed to find her records in four hours?”
It was beyond suspicious. He would have claimed forgery if it wasn’t for the fact that everything Merlin managed to dig up was true. Her medical records (when she had broken her arm at twelve sneaking out of the house by climbing the impossibly high fence), her search history (even from the time she had tried to wipe of when she had been obsessed with that boy band), and even a message she had sent to him before her disappearance.
A message that they hadn’t been able to decrypt as of yet. Merlin was still back at the apartment trying to crack through the walls of coding surrounding it.
“I told you Merlin was good.” Gwaine responded with a knowing grin, pouring himself another drink. The man had requested an entire bottle of liquor at the beginning of the meal, and was slowing making his way through drink rather than food.
Arthur shuddered at the idea of techmages being that good. Good enough that five companies and eight months amounted to nothing more than four hours of work. How was any Network security firm supposed to defend against them?
It was disconcerting, if not frightening. The current world was comprised of information exchange; society as they knew it stood on the Network. He had always thought of techmages as a nuisance at best, a danger far away from himself at worst. A contained danger. Illegal hackers.
Not human had been a description he had heard time and time again, but not one he put any real thought into.
“He could topple governments.”
“If he really wanted to,” Gwaine agreed glibly. “Probably in hours. On a whim.”
Jesus. Arthur rubbed at his temple, resting his elbows on the table in a rare moment of appalling manners. His food was untouched on the table.
“Not that Merlin would do anything like that.” Gwaine continued, as if he hadn’t shattered Arthur’s worldly beliefs with his last statement. “He’s just that nice bloke, you know? The nice one. You know, first time I met Merlin he was standing up to this burly toff harassing an elderly lady? Guy must have been three times the size of Merlin, but there he was looking shocked as anything while Merlin gave him a dressing down on manners and how he was supposed to respect the elderly as well as the female sex.
“I pulled him out of harm’s way, I did. He wouldn’t have survived a single blow from that toff, and it looked like the man was just about to come to his senses and land a good one.”
“Nice,” Arthur tasted the word in his mouth, and found that he didn’t like it. “Makes him all the more dangerous.”
Gwaine shook a finger at Arthur, other hand clutching his drink. “He’s as harmless as a bunny!”
Arthur begged to differ. Nice people were perhaps the most dangerous of them all, especially when presented with power. If they were genuinely caring, then those people would destroy the world in their ill-advised attempts to improve things; not to mention all the others who could take advantage of such niceness, who could prey on that naivete.
“Besides,” Gwaine continued. “Merlin keeps to himself. Doesn’t like getting involved in anything. I’m the one who asked him to look into your sister’s case for you. He owed me one.”
“So he’d hack into secured files because he owed you one?”
It was the tone that finally got to Gwaine, getting the other man to lower his drink as his brow went up in surprise at the hostility Arthur was showing.
“No,” He explained, his words slow just so they’d get into Arthur’s head. “He did that because I told him your sister was missing, and that you’ve been searching for her for ages and was worried about her safety.”
Arthur scowled.
“Look, Arthur. You’re the one who nearly gave up because even your father was denying Morgana’s existence. You thought you were going crazy because every trace of her life just disappeared and you couldn’t find hide nor hair of it. Remember? I wasn’t going to let you drive yourself insane just because your father’s a piece of-”
Gwaine cut off at Arthur’s harsh look.
“You know what I mean, mate.”
It was all the more disconcerting knowing that the person who could possibly topple the work of thousands of people was Merlin. It didn’t match with his memories of the small, skinny child covered in light scratches from playing outdoors.
“You gave your word that you wouldn’t turn him in.” Gwaine reminded him.
“If he found Morgana.”
“And he did.” Gwaine gave a meaningful pause. “He found her so fast that you came to me because it unnerved you.”
Arthur didn’t bother to deny it. “It doesn’t unnerve you?”
The other man shrugged. “Maybe it would, if I didn’t know Merlin like I do. But you want to know what I like best about Merlin? It’s not just that he does things to help people, or that he has power- it’s that he does everything and doesn’t expect any praise for it.” With that, Gwaine downed his drink, smacking his lips after the liquor disappeared down his throat. “That’s how you know when they don’t have ulterior motives.”
Arthur just grunted at that, unimpressed.
The server came back then, setting down the desert plates with a smile, even though Arthur hadn’t managed to touch his food as of yet. His gut was churning with uncertainty.
Gwaine, however, was entirely charming as he thanked her and complimented her on both her quick service and eyes, making the girl blush brightly before she walked away, this time with a sway in her steps.
“Just why did you come crying to me?” Gwaine asked as he picked up a fork.
“I didn’t.” Arthur denied with a scowl. He didn’t exactly cry to anyone, and the mere insinuation was insulting. “I needed a second opinion. I should have know you would be biased.”
“I’m the one who introduced you to Merlin, mate. And really, that’s a testament of my faith in you. I don’t give just anyone Merlin’s contact, you know.”
He’s important to me was heavily laced into the statement.
“Anyway,” Gwaine said. He proved once again that his dining etiquette certainly left more to be desired by stuffing a large forkful of the thick slab of cheesecake and waved it in Arthur’s face. “How long have I know you? Three years? So at least trust me when I say that you should trust Merlin. He knows what he’s doing- well, at least he likes making it look like he knows what he’s doing. He’s probably floundering as much as we all are, but he’s good at making up solutions as he goes. And things always work out around him; must be some kind of talent.”
Arthur left the meal feeling just as bewildered as he did when he had called Gwaine up.
-
Find me.
Merlin managed to turn away politely as Arthur drew in a breath, accepting the last message from Morgana that the techmage had been able to dig up.
-
After that, there were hints and messages from Morgana everywhere. Or it felt like everywhere.
Merlin stayed quiet about the issue, sensing that Arthur’s hackles were raised as the trail of virtual breadcrumbs continued, hidden everywhere like a sort of alternate reality game that Arthur had once upon a time found himself fascinated by.
When the subject hit this close to home, though, it didn’t seem as funny. Hidden codes in places he frequented, in old messages, planted through his life: it was almost frightening. It meant that someone had the power to insert these things, and it was someone who knew him well.
It was the second day since Merlin had started working on finding Morgana, and he had already covered over half a dozen messages meant for Arthur that he had managed to overlook.
It was almost like Morgana knew that Arthur would eventually turn to a techmage to find those messages.
It became more disturbing when Merlin admitted that there was a new message since he managed to uncover the first traces of Morgana’s trail.
Stay there. I’ll find you.
“What does that mean?” Arthur had asked, frustrated.
“What it says?” Merlin said. “Arthur, these messages... there aren’t many people out there who can plant them. Your sister either has a techmage throwing these things out for her... or she is one.”
“I know my sister.” Arthur snapped at him. “And if there’s one thing she’s not, she’s not a techmage.”
Because Morgana would never be able to stand the implants and extra up-links. Her vanity came first, however much she denied it.
However, looking at Merlin and his lack of metal aberrations, Arthur had to wonder if Morgana had somehow also managed to find a way to gain the extra power over the Network without sacrificing her cover.
Or not. Or else she wouldn’t be hiding, after all.
It was one of the things that really struck Arthur after his chat with Gwaine: if there was nothing wrong with Morgana, if she wasn’t hurt in any way, then why had she disappeared? Not many people could threaten the Pendragon family with the amount of power that Uther held over the Network and the world in general. Morgana was family, and no matter how cruel threads on the Network whispered Uther’s mind was, one thing that was upheld was family. Family was important. Family came first.
That was one of the reasons Arthur had been so furious when Uther denied ever having a daughter.
“Then she’s got someone who can erase her- her entire existence. I don’t know if you know this, but people can’t do that, Arthur. A person’s virtual footprint is just about impossible to erase. There’s always a hint somewhere- she was wiped clean.”
“Not clean enough to hide from you.” Arthur said, and then thought, what about you? I tried searching for you as well as a child and couldn’t find a trace of you. Back then, he had thought it was because he was just a child, but with the way Merlin was speaking, maybe it was something else.
Merlin didn’t rise to the bait, instead handing his tablet over to Arthur.
“One more thing. This is... she’s involved in something dangerous. This was pretty highly classified.”
Category-10, it said at the top of the page.
The rest of it was in code, in a script that Arthur didn’t recognize.
“What does this have to do with her?”
“It has her name attached to it.”
Arthur turned his attention from the tablet to Merlin. “And? You can’t decode this?”
Merlin’s expression looked uncertain. “It’s not that.”
“Then what? Am I not paying you enough to break into government archives and top-secret files?”
At that, the thin man huffed. “You’re not paying me to hack into government files at all! You just said find your sister!”
“And you’re saying this doesn’t involve finding her?” Arthur raised a brow in question.
If anything, Merlin looked uncomfortable. “Look, it’s- this file doesn’t look safe, alright.”
“So you are saying you can’t decode it.”
“I’m saying I don’t want to!” Merlin didn’t do anything so dramatic as throw his arms up in frustration, but it was a close thing. “I have a bad feeling about it, alright? This-” He gestured to the tablet. “It looks like one giant trap. It’s got trap written all over it. Well, not literally, but the set-up and the secrets and password contingency loops... I managed to get to file. Making sense of it would probably alert every warning bell on the Network.”
“So you downloaded this?” Arthur asked slowly.
“Yes!”
Merlin nodded furiously as Arthur gave the tablet another glance.
“And your files are secure, right?”
“What do you take me for? Of course they are! Do you know how much trouble I’d be in if I left any trace of a trail for the information you have me dig up?”
Arthur handed the tablet back. “Then decode it. It’s downloaded and secure, how is anyone supposed to know if you managed to make sense of it?”
“That’s not- that’s not-” Merlin stumbled over his own words. Arthur just stood from where he had been sitting, and patted the other man condescendingly on the shoulder.
“I’ll expect to see it by the time I get back from take-out, then. How’s fish and chips for you?”
-
Morgause was the most straightforward woman Arthur had ever had the fortune, or perhaps misfortune, to meet.
For all of Merlin’s doubts about the search for Morgana, Arthur had been optimistic about it. He just wanted to find his sister and then get back to his life. He had already taken three days off work and knew that the paperwork would only pile up higher the more he put it off. Not to mention Guinevere kept leaving him messages that made him feel guilty just looking at it.
(It said something that he could read those messages in his head and they would contain her voice, scolding him for running off.)
He had paid those messages no mind until the day he had been yanked right out of a crowded street into a shadowed alleyway, his shoulder feeling the blunt force keenly.
“Arthur Pendragon.”
She was small and blonde, wearing boyish clothing and thick kohl eyeliner that looked too dark on her face and was too sharp a contrast against like blonde brows and curls that framed her face.
Had it not been for the tone of voice and manner in which she was standing, Arthur would have given her an appreciative look. As such, his sense of preservation kicked in enough to lean away from her and frown, yanking his arm away from her.
“My name is Morgause.” She said before Arthur could say anything. “I’m here because we have a common interest: Morgana.”
She led him to a door several blocks away with a heavily muscled man guarding the entrance who opened the door for her and Arthur when they approached. Inside looked the back room of a bar, bright but hazy with smoke. The smoke was explained when she took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one up expertly. Arthur tried not to make a face, unused to the smell knowing that most of the country had managed to wean away from the habit of smoking.
“Are you the one planting the messages for her?” He demanded the moment they sat down, bypassing introductions and common courtesy.
She blew smoke into his face. “No.”
Arthur thought about emergency calls and how quickly Merlin managed to hack his.
“What do you know about my sister?”
Morgause took her time answering, flicking the end of her cigarette at the ashtray built into the centre of the table. “I know that she’s my sister.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Isn’t it?” Morgause took another whiff, dark eyes glittering as she looked over Arthur carefully. “I thought by now you’d have the file.”
It was far too cryptic for Arthur. “What file?”
“The one about Category-10s.”
The file. That file. Merlin had refused to decode it, even when Arthur had thrown the tablet at his head.
“I got it.” Arthur responded slowly, feeling as if the conversation was a sort of power play. He was rather good at those, but not at keeping secrets. He was good at motivating his employees to work harder, but not at extracting information.
“But you haven’t read it.” Morgause quirked her lips into a smile, looking predatory. “You don’t know what they are yet.”
“They?”
“Them. Five of them. My sister’s one of them.”
“You mean Morgana.” Arthur’s face shuttered as he leaned over the table, disregarding the smoke. “What does she have to do with that file?”
Morgause extinguished the dregs of her cigarette in the tray.
“Not yet. You have to read it yourself. Do so and in three days’ time, I’ll take you to Morgana.”
“You have her. What have you done to her?”
The threat in his tone only made her laugh.
“Don’t worry, Pendragon. I’m the one keeping her safe. More than you can.”
She nodded behind him, and Arthur saw the man who had been guarding the door standing behind him intently. He was escorted away from the building rather quickly after that, all in shadows until he ended up back on the main street with the same crowd he had been taken from, frustrated and tense from the shroud of secrecy that he had never before been exposed to.
That had been his first meeting with Morgause.
-
The second time, Merlin had insisted on coming along with him.
“I just need you to decode that file, Merlin,” Arthur had drawled, wondering if it was too much if he strapped several knives on his person. Just in case. Guns might have been overboard, but he didn’t think it was a bad decision to take something to defend himself with in case something went... south, per say.
Merlin had been unnaturally quiet (and how was it that Arthur could tell that after only knowing Merlin for the past four days?), before asking, “Can’t you just bring the file to her?”
“I thought you didn’t want to expose government secrets.”
“No, I didn’t want them to track us.”
Arthur scowled. That excuse hadn’t worked with him the first time, and there was no way it was going to work now. “How are they supposed to track you on a closed network? You have the file secured, not to mention you already have the file and they didn’t even notice. How will they figure out that you’ve decoded it?”
Merlin was quiet, pacing around the room as Arthur threw on his scarf, pulling it tightly (and fashionably) around his neck and stuffing the ends into his coat. The weather was getting cold, and he planned on being back at work soon where the heaters made the air bearable rather than feeling like icicles against your skin.
It was strange. Four days of putting up with Merlin at all times because Arthur had insisted on keeping an eye on the other man (purely because he wanted to be the absolute first to know should new information come up, and that had come up in abundance the first two days) and he had gotten used to his presence around.
“Don’t go,” Merlin ended up pleading. “Maybe Morgause is keeping your sister safe. Don’t get involved. You know she’s alive and well now. Go back to your old life.”
And that was the thing: ever since Merlin had found that file, he had been acting strange. Stranger and stranger. Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“You have decoded it!” He accused. “And you’re just not letting me see it.”
“What? No. I haven’t! I just,” And this was where the other man fidgeted, looking nervous and anxious and for some reason, guilty. “I just think, I know it’s silly but, I just feel like I don’t want to know what it says. Like it’s going to say something horrible and I won’t be able to take back the information once I read it. Like I should never read it.”
His voice was quiet by the end of it, although he never stopped pacing, looking so very anxious.
Arthur took half a moment to pause what he was doing to stare incredulously at Merlin, wondering if that should be taken seriously or not before deciding that it was best for Merlin to man up. “Don’t be such a girl, Merlin. You’re the-” He made a waving gesture with his hand before finally relenting to speak the word at Merlin’s confused look, “techmage, right? Knowledge is power and all that. It could be something you need to know for later.
“It is be something I need to know, so I need you to decode it. Don’t read it if you like.”
“And how am I supposed to work on it without reading it?” Merlin sounded mildly irritated now. “I don’t have a program that does this, you know. I actually have to work on it myself.”
“Then figure out a way.” And Arthur was out the door. “But I need it by tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow, Merlin!”
Except Merlin continued to refuse even the next day and Arthur finally had to wrestle the other man down in a fit of exasperation until Merlin finally gave up and agreed to work on it (“Under extreme duress!”) and Arthur left him alone for a few minutes to leave Lancelot a message telling him and Guinevere that he was fine and that he might be back at work in a few days.
When he once again glanced back into the room and Merlin looked far too still to actually be working, eyes wide and reflected golden, the sight was so familiar to him that it made Arthur’s breath catch for a moment.
Techmages did that, he knew in a strictly textbook sense. Their eyes reflected the gold of the Network, of their up-links that were more advanced than an average person’s. That was the thing about augmented reality; there was no physical sign of keyboards and messages and flashing signs because it only showed in a person’s head, but with techmages, their connection was so strong that it would show in their eyes.
Arthur had never really paid attention to the biology of it, but he had never really seen it before. Uther had never allowed Arthur close enough to a techmage out of fear for his child, so while he had known, it wasn’t a sight he had ever really experienced up close and in person.
Except he had in the past several days with Merlin, staying in the other man’s small flat for most of the day before he left for home late at night (or lately, not at all. He just commandeered the couch for the evening and brought a change of clothes. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t conduct his business from wherever). This had actually been one of the rare times Merlin had consented to work at Arthur’s posher flat, mostly due to Arthur’s bribes of food.
Merlin was never quite this still.
“Hey,” Arthur spoke from the edge of the room, letting go of the connection he had held to his messages. “You alright?”
Merlin looked up and it looked like he was staring at a stranger.
It was unnerving, and that irked Arthur something strange.
“What?” He demanded, suddenly wondering if maybe Merlin had been right to not want to decode the file.
It took a while, but Merlin finally shook his head. He shut off his tablet and turned it over on the table.
“You shouldn’t read it.” He finally said, voice hollow. “You shouldn’t.”
Then he stood up and left the room, and Arthur was torn between following and reaching for the tablet in the middle of the room.
In the end, he stepped out of the house to meet Morgause without touching the tablet.
Next