Fic: Merlin/Arthur: "Set Upon The Western Ways"
Title: Set Upon The Western Ways
Warnings: strong language, mentions of sex, and some misogynistic sentiments from ol' Arthur. There are minor spoilers for a Season 1 episode, also.
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rating: R, mostly for language
Word Count: 2497
Summary: Arthur's just had a bad break up - he just wants to drink himself into forgetfulness. He's really not expecting to drink himself into remembrance. Modern!AU
AN: For winterstorrm for merlin_santa - for the prompt: 'barman!merlin (optional) and hipbones (pleeease)!'. I'm afraid hipbones only get some love towards the end, but there is definite barman!Merlin! I hope you like it, and happy very belated Christmas/New Year!
Title is a bastardisation of a line from May Wedderburn-Cannan's poem, Lamplight.
Huge, HUGE thanks go to my impromptu beta ashling_lily, who looked this over and just about saved me from a pit of writing despair. ^_^
**
When Arthur stumbles into the bar, it’s gone midnight, and he feels like shit. He doesn’t so much as look at the barman before he orders a drink, and when it arrives in front of him, the last thing he wants is conversation.
“That good a night, is it?” is an unwelcome intrusion into his moping, and he all but snarls up at the poor guy.
“That bad,” he snaps, and grabs his drink, intending to head to one of the tables, but - he wants to be near the bar, because this drink really isn’t going to last long.
“Who dumped you, then?” the guy asks, and Arthur’s mouth thins.
“Who says I got dumped?” he demands, though he knows already that his rumpled suit and his untidy hair say he got dumped. His half-undone tie and his ordering a double jack and coke at twenty to one in the morning say he got dumped.
There are other reasons to drink bitterly in a bar at twenty to one on a Wednesday night, but getting dumped is by far the most innocuous of them all.
“Oh, barman’s intuition, is all,” the guy says, and damn him for sounding like it doesn’t fucking matter to him. Like Arthur’s heartbreak is just a way to pass the time.
“My girlfriend,” he snaps, and downs his drink.
“You want another?” the barman asks, and Arthur glances up at him, registers a pair of very, very blue eyes, and nods. “So,” the barman continues as he goes over to the optics to refill Arthur’s drink, “does your ex have a name?”
“Sophia,” Arthur mutters as he accepts the drink. His hand goes to his wallet, but the barman waves him off.
“I’ve got a feeling you’ll be here for a while,” he says with a grin that’s too wide for his thin face. “Why not pay in bulk later when I can fleece you out of more money?”
Arthur doesn’t smile. “Fucking Sophia,” he continues, sliding his wallet back into his pocket like it never caused an interruption. “Cheating bitch.”
“Sometimes you pick a bad apple,” the barman says wisely, watching as Arthur takes another deep swallow of his drink. “Doesn’t mean the whole tree’s rotten.”
“What the fuck kind of metaphor is that?” Arthur demands, and the barman just laughs at his rudeness.
“The best you’re likely to get at ten to one in the morning,” he tells him, but refills Arthur’s glass without complaint when Arthur hands it to him. “You should slow down, y’know. You can’t have a really good bitch when you’re totally shit-faced.”
“Why would I want to bitch to you?” he asks snidely, but the barman just laughs.
“Oh, man, I’m the person you always bitch to.” Arthur looks up at him for a second, but no, he really doesn’t know the man. “Guys who’ve been dumped, girls who’ve been dumped, guys who’ve lost their jobs and are blowing their last paycheques on whiskey and one last night before the dole... you name it, I’ve heard it.”
“I guess you’ve heard ‘cheating bitches who were planning to fleece me for every last penny by pretending to get pregnant’, huh?”
“The pregnant bit’s new, but it’s all a variation on a theme,” the barman tells him cheerfully.
“What’s y’r name, anyway?” Arthur asks, and it comes out a little more slurred than he’d like.
“Merlin. Laugh, and I’ll cut you off, swear to God.” Contrary to his word, he pours Arthur another - and Arthur’s not looking for long enough to see the guy put barely half a shot into the glass of coke. “So. Pregnant, huh? That must have been a shock.”
“Would’ve liked a kid,” Arthur tells him, slipping out of bitterness and into the simply morose. “I’d’ve put up with her for a kid.”
“Oh man,” the - Merlin, sighs. “Was it just so you could have a bit of her with you, or...?”
“Fuck no,” Arthur tells him, taking a long swig of his - third? Or fourth? - drink, and making a face. “I just - fuck. I was. She told me about this kid, like, fucking weeks back, and, I don’t know. I just - wanted it, I guess. I just - why aren’t there any girls out there like my sister?”
Merlin is silent for a couple of seconds - silent for long enough that Arthur looks up at him, and is taken aback by the weird look on his face. “Now that, my friend, is a new one.”
“Oh, fuck you, not like that,” Arthur tells him tiredly. “And she’s my foster sister anyway. No, I mean - Morgana’s all, fucking - she’s... she’s straight with people, you know? Says what she means, even when I wish she didn’t, and she’s, she’s - I don’t even know.”
Merlin actually pats his hand, and Arthur startles a little at the unexpected contact. It feels surprisingly nice, a zing of unexpected comfort. “Even when you think you hate them, there’s something about little sisters, I guess,” he says, and he sounds fond.
“You’ve got one?” Arthur asks. It’s getting towards that moment where it’s just a little difficult to focus, and he likes that feeling. Any further and he’ll be no good tomorrow, but this, this is nice.
“Nah,” Merlin says easily. “But my mum works with kids - I got to know a couple when I was growing up. S’nothing as great as siblings.”
“And nothing as shit as lying, cheating girlfriends,” Arthur half-agrees, staring sullenly down into his glass. Fuck tomorrow, he’ll call in sick to work and get absolutely shit-faced. Fucking Sophia, playing on him like some kind of - fuck her.
“You mentioned cheating earlier. Man, that’s rough,” Merlin nods, leaning comfortably over the bar.
“With one of my best friends,” Arthur moans, laying his head on his arm for just a second. It’s nice there - dark and enclosed. He leaves it there. “Should’ve known Gwaine couldn’t keep it in his pants for longer than half a minute.”
He hears, muffled, something which sounds almost like a snort of laughter above him, but when he looks up, eyes narrowed, Merlin’s face is perfectly serious. “Yeah, some friends are just the worst,” he agrees. “But they’ll still be your friends in a couple of years time, when you won’t even remember Sophia’s face.”
“Time, the great healer?” Arthur asks sourly, and Merlin does chuckle at that.
“Something like that,” he agrees. Arthur lets his head rest back on his arm again, holding out his glass in a silent entreaty for another refill. While he’s not looking, Merlin puts in barely enough Jack Daniels to flavour it. “So, you wanted a kid, huh?”
“Yeah,” Arthur agrees morosely, muffled by his arm. “Didn’t even tell her- didn’t want to pressure her. I treated her like some - some goddamn fairy princess, trying to make sure she had everything. I fell out with my father for her, and - and this is how she fucking repays me. Jesus.” He adds, in a tiny, tiny voice, “I really wanted that kid.”
“Some people,” Merlin agrees absently, and Arthur’s got to be imagining the hand that strokes over the back of his head, because when he glances sharply up at the barman, his arms are leant, once more, comfortably on the bar.
“How about you? Girlfriend?” he asks, rather than ask if Merlin saw anything - because, Christ, he really isn’t that drunk.
“I don’t swing that way, mate,” Merlin tells him with a grin, like two arseholes out of ten wouldn’t up and punch him in the face for that much of an admission. “But I know a lot of girls. Maybe I could hook you up?”
“I’mna give them up for the moment,” Arthur tells him grandly, spurred on by Merlin’s own confession.
“Forgive me for saying so,” Merlin says carefully, “but you don’t really seem the celibate type.”
“No, no,” Arthur says earnestly. “I mean I’mna stick to guys until the heartache passes.”
“Half of that was damn poetic, mate,” Merlin grins at him. “So, bi, then?”
“Dunno why I’m telling a complete stranger, but yeah,” Arthur nods, swerving straight back into guarded and miserable. “I have a shit track record with relationships anyway. Might as well be guys than girls. At least I have half a chance of understanding a boyfriend. Sophia was always a fucking mystery to me.”
“That was just Sophia,” Merlin tells him, taking his glass without asking, but not returning it - not that Arthur notices. “Not girls in general. There might be a nice girl out there for you.”
“Hope she’s willing to wait,” Arthur mutters, and Merlin laughs.
“Look, mate, it’s going on quarter to two,” and the blurring face of Arthur’s watch confirms this, “and we normally shut at two - d’you want me to call you a cab? Or I could give you a lift, since I can do clear-up in the morning.”
“Lemme settle up first,” Arthur starts, but Merlin waves him off.
“I’ve got a tally for you, and you need to get to bed. Gimme your name and address, and I’ll hunt you down.”
“You’re not a stalker, are you?” Arthur asks suspiciously, and Merlin grins.
“Not the normal kind,” he assures him earnestly, and Arthur actually twitches half a smile at him for that. “Seriously, I’m not trying to fleece you out of anything. Here, write it down for me, and I’ll hit you for the total when it’s less likely to make you cry.”
“That bad, huh?” Arthur says, feeling immeasurably lightened by the early, easy camaraderie of his dealings with this guy. “Gimme a pen and paper.”
Merlin duly hands over a paper napkin and a tiny pen, and Arthur laboriously scrawls out his address and name, handing them back over with a sense of accomplishment. “Great,” Merlin nods. “Now, cab, or a lift?”
To his surprise, Arthur’s not quite ready to lose this easy give-and-take. “Sure you don’t mind giving me a lift?” he asks, sobering up enough to be at least mildly considerate - as considerate as he ever really is, if not more.
“Wouldn’t have offered,” Merlin tells him cheerfully, already shucking his apron and putting Arthur’s glass in the sink.
“I’m a total stranger,” Arthur points out, and Merlin grins.
“Not so much as you’d think.” He only elaborates when Arthur gives him a quizzical look. “I know you’ve been dumped, I know your name and address, I know you want kids, and I know you’ve got daddy issues. How many of your friends even know you that well?”
Arthur nods curtly, not really willing to register the truth of that statement. “Fine. You’ve got the address-” he cuts himself off, because he realises he doesn’t really want to go back to his smart flat in Chelsea, the one he’d shared with Sophia for the last couple of months, before everything started to disintegrate around him.
Merlin’s looking at him, not sympathetic, not over-interested, just - looking. “Don’t wanna go back there?” He asks, and Arthur nods again, trying to pretend he’s not a little bit ashamed of himself. “Yeah,” Merlin nods back, “I’ve been there. Tell you what, I’ve got a king-sized bed or a comfortable sofa, wanna crash? Just for the night?”
Arthur hesitates. “I’m - I don’t-”
Something in Merlin’s eyes is immeasurably, endlessly sad when Arthur meets them, but Merlin’s nodding before he can comment. “I know,” he says, and his tone is far too intimate for the setting, but somehow Arthur just accepts it. “But you need somewhere to be away from all that, and I’m not a crazy rapist stalker or anything, so. I know it’s bad practice, but let it go for one night, OK?” Arthur must be imagining the tenderness in Merlin’s voice as he adds, “let someone else take care of you for just a little bit,” and he’s definitely hearing things when Merlin says, so low Arthur really shouldn’t have heard it, “let me take care of you.”
It’s that look in Merlin’s eyes that makes him say yes, though. For some reason he can’t even name, he doesn’t want that endless sadness in Merlin’s eyes a minute longer than necessary.
**
Arthur wakes up in Merlin’s king-sized bed knowing himself.
“Merlin,” he whispers over his sleeping lover, one hand on his hip - the sharp hipbones he had always so loved warm and solid against his hand - so he catches him from rolling away when he jerks awake.
If he had any doubts, if he had thought for one minute that this was some hangover-induced hallucination, they were swept away by the sleepy, half-awake happiness in Merlin’s eyes when he registers what he’s seeing. He’s barely awake, but he’s smiling like he’s been given the world. “Arthur,” he says, and pulls him down for a kiss which is three-parts wonderful and one-part morning breath.
“Sophia this time, huh?” Arthur asks when they part, Merlin’s lips kiss-red and wonderful under him.
“Yeah,” he agrees, hand stroking over Arthur’s T-shirt covered shoulder. “Who’d’ve thought she’d ever bring us back together?”
Arthur can’t be bothered with philosophy right now. “I didn’t even know that I missed you,” he says, torn between wonder and sorrow. He understands that misery in Merlin’s eyes now. If he’d known Merlin was out there, unable to remember him, he thinks he might have gone mad - but then, Merlin was always stronger than him in the ways that lasted.
“You never do,” Merlin tells him. The sorrow is back in his eyes, and Arthur kisses it away without a second thought, morning breath be damned.
“I’m here now,” he returns simply, gathering Merlin up into his arms in a way that is both utterly necessary and really fucking uncomfortable. He presses a kiss to the curve of Merlin’s neck, just because he can, revelling a little in Merlin’s solidity, his realness. Sophia was a drop in the ocean - Merlin is everything. Merlin is the only fixed point in time, the only anchor Arthur has ever had or wanted, and next lifetime her face won’t reawaken him to a remembrance of himself in the same way that Merlin does.
“Yes,” Merlin nods, tilting his head so it rests against Arthur’s, bone against bone. “I wish you never had to leave.”
“One day, I won’t,” Arthur promises, fierce, and lays him back down.
One day, Arthur has sworn to every God that mattered, he and Merlin will face eternity together. Not yet, he knows, as he leans down to kiss Merlin again, and probably not after his next life, or the next. Until then, they have to make do with the moments that they are given.
They’re doing pretty well at that, he thinks, one hand low at Merlin’s side, the other cupping his head, so gently, as though anything could break this amazing man. Kissing Merlin is like being given eternity.
When he pulls back, there’s no trace of sadness in Merlin’s eyes, and they are burning gold.
**
And there it is!
Warnings: strong language, mentions of sex, and some misogynistic sentiments from ol' Arthur. There are minor spoilers for a Season 1 episode, also.
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rating: R, mostly for language
Word Count: 2497
Summary: Arthur's just had a bad break up - he just wants to drink himself into forgetfulness. He's really not expecting to drink himself into remembrance. Modern!AU
AN: For winterstorrm for merlin_santa - for the prompt: 'barman!merlin (optional) and hipbones (pleeease)!'. I'm afraid hipbones only get some love towards the end, but there is definite barman!Merlin! I hope you like it, and happy very belated Christmas/New Year!
Title is a bastardisation of a line from May Wedderburn-Cannan's poem, Lamplight.
Huge, HUGE thanks go to my impromptu beta ashling_lily, who looked this over and just about saved me from a pit of writing despair. ^_^
**
When Arthur stumbles into the bar, it’s gone midnight, and he feels like shit. He doesn’t so much as look at the barman before he orders a drink, and when it arrives in front of him, the last thing he wants is conversation.
“That good a night, is it?” is an unwelcome intrusion into his moping, and he all but snarls up at the poor guy.
“That bad,” he snaps, and grabs his drink, intending to head to one of the tables, but - he wants to be near the bar, because this drink really isn’t going to last long.
“Who dumped you, then?” the guy asks, and Arthur’s mouth thins.
“Who says I got dumped?” he demands, though he knows already that his rumpled suit and his untidy hair say he got dumped. His half-undone tie and his ordering a double jack and coke at twenty to one in the morning say he got dumped.
There are other reasons to drink bitterly in a bar at twenty to one on a Wednesday night, but getting dumped is by far the most innocuous of them all.
“Oh, barman’s intuition, is all,” the guy says, and damn him for sounding like it doesn’t fucking matter to him. Like Arthur’s heartbreak is just a way to pass the time.
“My girlfriend,” he snaps, and downs his drink.
“You want another?” the barman asks, and Arthur glances up at him, registers a pair of very, very blue eyes, and nods. “So,” the barman continues as he goes over to the optics to refill Arthur’s drink, “does your ex have a name?”
“Sophia,” Arthur mutters as he accepts the drink. His hand goes to his wallet, but the barman waves him off.
“I’ve got a feeling you’ll be here for a while,” he says with a grin that’s too wide for his thin face. “Why not pay in bulk later when I can fleece you out of more money?”
Arthur doesn’t smile. “Fucking Sophia,” he continues, sliding his wallet back into his pocket like it never caused an interruption. “Cheating bitch.”
“Sometimes you pick a bad apple,” the barman says wisely, watching as Arthur takes another deep swallow of his drink. “Doesn’t mean the whole tree’s rotten.”
“What the fuck kind of metaphor is that?” Arthur demands, and the barman just laughs at his rudeness.
“The best you’re likely to get at ten to one in the morning,” he tells him, but refills Arthur’s glass without complaint when Arthur hands it to him. “You should slow down, y’know. You can’t have a really good bitch when you’re totally shit-faced.”
“Why would I want to bitch to you?” he asks snidely, but the barman just laughs.
“Oh, man, I’m the person you always bitch to.” Arthur looks up at him for a second, but no, he really doesn’t know the man. “Guys who’ve been dumped, girls who’ve been dumped, guys who’ve lost their jobs and are blowing their last paycheques on whiskey and one last night before the dole... you name it, I’ve heard it.”
“I guess you’ve heard ‘cheating bitches who were planning to fleece me for every last penny by pretending to get pregnant’, huh?”
“The pregnant bit’s new, but it’s all a variation on a theme,” the barman tells him cheerfully.
“What’s y’r name, anyway?” Arthur asks, and it comes out a little more slurred than he’d like.
“Merlin. Laugh, and I’ll cut you off, swear to God.” Contrary to his word, he pours Arthur another - and Arthur’s not looking for long enough to see the guy put barely half a shot into the glass of coke. “So. Pregnant, huh? That must have been a shock.”
“Would’ve liked a kid,” Arthur tells him, slipping out of bitterness and into the simply morose. “I’d’ve put up with her for a kid.”
“Oh man,” the - Merlin, sighs. “Was it just so you could have a bit of her with you, or...?”
“Fuck no,” Arthur tells him, taking a long swig of his - third? Or fourth? - drink, and making a face. “I just - fuck. I was. She told me about this kid, like, fucking weeks back, and, I don’t know. I just - wanted it, I guess. I just - why aren’t there any girls out there like my sister?”
Merlin is silent for a couple of seconds - silent for long enough that Arthur looks up at him, and is taken aback by the weird look on his face. “Now that, my friend, is a new one.”
“Oh, fuck you, not like that,” Arthur tells him tiredly. “And she’s my foster sister anyway. No, I mean - Morgana’s all, fucking - she’s... she’s straight with people, you know? Says what she means, even when I wish she didn’t, and she’s, she’s - I don’t even know.”
Merlin actually pats his hand, and Arthur startles a little at the unexpected contact. It feels surprisingly nice, a zing of unexpected comfort. “Even when you think you hate them, there’s something about little sisters, I guess,” he says, and he sounds fond.
“You’ve got one?” Arthur asks. It’s getting towards that moment where it’s just a little difficult to focus, and he likes that feeling. Any further and he’ll be no good tomorrow, but this, this is nice.
“Nah,” Merlin says easily. “But my mum works with kids - I got to know a couple when I was growing up. S’nothing as great as siblings.”
“And nothing as shit as lying, cheating girlfriends,” Arthur half-agrees, staring sullenly down into his glass. Fuck tomorrow, he’ll call in sick to work and get absolutely shit-faced. Fucking Sophia, playing on him like some kind of - fuck her.
“You mentioned cheating earlier. Man, that’s rough,” Merlin nods, leaning comfortably over the bar.
“With one of my best friends,” Arthur moans, laying his head on his arm for just a second. It’s nice there - dark and enclosed. He leaves it there. “Should’ve known Gwaine couldn’t keep it in his pants for longer than half a minute.”
He hears, muffled, something which sounds almost like a snort of laughter above him, but when he looks up, eyes narrowed, Merlin’s face is perfectly serious. “Yeah, some friends are just the worst,” he agrees. “But they’ll still be your friends in a couple of years time, when you won’t even remember Sophia’s face.”
“Time, the great healer?” Arthur asks sourly, and Merlin does chuckle at that.
“Something like that,” he agrees. Arthur lets his head rest back on his arm again, holding out his glass in a silent entreaty for another refill. While he’s not looking, Merlin puts in barely enough Jack Daniels to flavour it. “So, you wanted a kid, huh?”
“Yeah,” Arthur agrees morosely, muffled by his arm. “Didn’t even tell her- didn’t want to pressure her. I treated her like some - some goddamn fairy princess, trying to make sure she had everything. I fell out with my father for her, and - and this is how she fucking repays me. Jesus.” He adds, in a tiny, tiny voice, “I really wanted that kid.”
“Some people,” Merlin agrees absently, and Arthur’s got to be imagining the hand that strokes over the back of his head, because when he glances sharply up at the barman, his arms are leant, once more, comfortably on the bar.
“How about you? Girlfriend?” he asks, rather than ask if Merlin saw anything - because, Christ, he really isn’t that drunk.
“I don’t swing that way, mate,” Merlin tells him with a grin, like two arseholes out of ten wouldn’t up and punch him in the face for that much of an admission. “But I know a lot of girls. Maybe I could hook you up?”
“I’mna give them up for the moment,” Arthur tells him grandly, spurred on by Merlin’s own confession.
“Forgive me for saying so,” Merlin says carefully, “but you don’t really seem the celibate type.”
“No, no,” Arthur says earnestly. “I mean I’mna stick to guys until the heartache passes.”
“Half of that was damn poetic, mate,” Merlin grins at him. “So, bi, then?”
“Dunno why I’m telling a complete stranger, but yeah,” Arthur nods, swerving straight back into guarded and miserable. “I have a shit track record with relationships anyway. Might as well be guys than girls. At least I have half a chance of understanding a boyfriend. Sophia was always a fucking mystery to me.”
“That was just Sophia,” Merlin tells him, taking his glass without asking, but not returning it - not that Arthur notices. “Not girls in general. There might be a nice girl out there for you.”
“Hope she’s willing to wait,” Arthur mutters, and Merlin laughs.
“Look, mate, it’s going on quarter to two,” and the blurring face of Arthur’s watch confirms this, “and we normally shut at two - d’you want me to call you a cab? Or I could give you a lift, since I can do clear-up in the morning.”
“Lemme settle up first,” Arthur starts, but Merlin waves him off.
“I’ve got a tally for you, and you need to get to bed. Gimme your name and address, and I’ll hunt you down.”
“You’re not a stalker, are you?” Arthur asks suspiciously, and Merlin grins.
“Not the normal kind,” he assures him earnestly, and Arthur actually twitches half a smile at him for that. “Seriously, I’m not trying to fleece you out of anything. Here, write it down for me, and I’ll hit you for the total when it’s less likely to make you cry.”
“That bad, huh?” Arthur says, feeling immeasurably lightened by the early, easy camaraderie of his dealings with this guy. “Gimme a pen and paper.”
Merlin duly hands over a paper napkin and a tiny pen, and Arthur laboriously scrawls out his address and name, handing them back over with a sense of accomplishment. “Great,” Merlin nods. “Now, cab, or a lift?”
To his surprise, Arthur’s not quite ready to lose this easy give-and-take. “Sure you don’t mind giving me a lift?” he asks, sobering up enough to be at least mildly considerate - as considerate as he ever really is, if not more.
“Wouldn’t have offered,” Merlin tells him cheerfully, already shucking his apron and putting Arthur’s glass in the sink.
“I’m a total stranger,” Arthur points out, and Merlin grins.
“Not so much as you’d think.” He only elaborates when Arthur gives him a quizzical look. “I know you’ve been dumped, I know your name and address, I know you want kids, and I know you’ve got daddy issues. How many of your friends even know you that well?”
Arthur nods curtly, not really willing to register the truth of that statement. “Fine. You’ve got the address-” he cuts himself off, because he realises he doesn’t really want to go back to his smart flat in Chelsea, the one he’d shared with Sophia for the last couple of months, before everything started to disintegrate around him.
Merlin’s looking at him, not sympathetic, not over-interested, just - looking. “Don’t wanna go back there?” He asks, and Arthur nods again, trying to pretend he’s not a little bit ashamed of himself. “Yeah,” Merlin nods back, “I’ve been there. Tell you what, I’ve got a king-sized bed or a comfortable sofa, wanna crash? Just for the night?”
Arthur hesitates. “I’m - I don’t-”
Something in Merlin’s eyes is immeasurably, endlessly sad when Arthur meets them, but Merlin’s nodding before he can comment. “I know,” he says, and his tone is far too intimate for the setting, but somehow Arthur just accepts it. “But you need somewhere to be away from all that, and I’m not a crazy rapist stalker or anything, so. I know it’s bad practice, but let it go for one night, OK?” Arthur must be imagining the tenderness in Merlin’s voice as he adds, “let someone else take care of you for just a little bit,” and he’s definitely hearing things when Merlin says, so low Arthur really shouldn’t have heard it, “let me take care of you.”
It’s that look in Merlin’s eyes that makes him say yes, though. For some reason he can’t even name, he doesn’t want that endless sadness in Merlin’s eyes a minute longer than necessary.
**
Arthur wakes up in Merlin’s king-sized bed knowing himself.
“Merlin,” he whispers over his sleeping lover, one hand on his hip - the sharp hipbones he had always so loved warm and solid against his hand - so he catches him from rolling away when he jerks awake.
If he had any doubts, if he had thought for one minute that this was some hangover-induced hallucination, they were swept away by the sleepy, half-awake happiness in Merlin’s eyes when he registers what he’s seeing. He’s barely awake, but he’s smiling like he’s been given the world. “Arthur,” he says, and pulls him down for a kiss which is three-parts wonderful and one-part morning breath.
“Sophia this time, huh?” Arthur asks when they part, Merlin’s lips kiss-red and wonderful under him.
“Yeah,” he agrees, hand stroking over Arthur’s T-shirt covered shoulder. “Who’d’ve thought she’d ever bring us back together?”
Arthur can’t be bothered with philosophy right now. “I didn’t even know that I missed you,” he says, torn between wonder and sorrow. He understands that misery in Merlin’s eyes now. If he’d known Merlin was out there, unable to remember him, he thinks he might have gone mad - but then, Merlin was always stronger than him in the ways that lasted.
“You never do,” Merlin tells him. The sorrow is back in his eyes, and Arthur kisses it away without a second thought, morning breath be damned.
“I’m here now,” he returns simply, gathering Merlin up into his arms in a way that is both utterly necessary and really fucking uncomfortable. He presses a kiss to the curve of Merlin’s neck, just because he can, revelling a little in Merlin’s solidity, his realness. Sophia was a drop in the ocean - Merlin is everything. Merlin is the only fixed point in time, the only anchor Arthur has ever had or wanted, and next lifetime her face won’t reawaken him to a remembrance of himself in the same way that Merlin does.
“Yes,” Merlin nods, tilting his head so it rests against Arthur’s, bone against bone. “I wish you never had to leave.”
“One day, I won’t,” Arthur promises, fierce, and lays him back down.
One day, Arthur has sworn to every God that mattered, he and Merlin will face eternity together. Not yet, he knows, as he leans down to kiss Merlin again, and probably not after his next life, or the next. Until then, they have to make do with the moments that they are given.
They’re doing pretty well at that, he thinks, one hand low at Merlin’s side, the other cupping his head, so gently, as though anything could break this amazing man. Kissing Merlin is like being given eternity.
When he pulls back, there’s no trace of sadness in Merlin’s eyes, and they are burning gold.
**
And there it is!