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Arthur flips on the lights and says, “This is the guest bedroom.”
It’s as close to a five-star hotel room that Merlin figures he’s going to get. The rugs are plush, and the pillows are neatly arranged and color-coordinated. There’s even a framed picture of a castle on the wall. It’s so far from the world he knows, and Merlin doesn’t know whether to be glad of it or not. His own world and all its recent turmoil seem as a dream within a dream.
Arthur says, “I’ll hope you’ll be comfortable.”
“I’ll be fine,” Merlin replies. “Thank you.”
After a hesitation, Arthur adds, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Merlin repeats, and Arthur leaves.
Merlin locks the door behind him, drops his bags on the floor, and collapses on the bed. The memories of the day start playing again in his head, and he waits for a sleep that will never come.
+
Sometimes you can barely keep your eyes open in class because you’ve stayed up all night going through JSTOR and LexisNexis with a fine-toothed comb. Sometimes the printer at the law school library jams, and then your father calls canceling dinner because he has to meet with his publicist across town. Sometimes it’s just that kind of day. So really, you’d think Arthur would be grateful when he gets back to his apartment and finds Merlin cleaning the hell out of everything he owns. The mop mops by itself, the vacuum-cleaner vacuums of its own volition, and dishrags enthusiastically wipe down the counter. In the middle of the maelstrom is Merlin, up to his elbows in soapsuds as he washes dishes in the sink, his eyes glowing gold.
"What are you doing?" Arthur demands.
“It’s no trouble,” Merlin begins, and that is just the beginning. Out comes a torrent of words, of oh he doesn't mind reallys in an energetic voice like Merlin is insisting on something they were already in the midst of arguing about. All Arthur wants to do is zone out on the sofa and watch reruns of CSI: Mercia, because after an entire day of reading case studies about the various legalized injustices carried out against the magical population, he can really go for a dose of predictable crime-solving and pretend that’s what the world is really like.
“Merlin,” says Arthur, and Merlin continues babbling on about how he hates to be useless, how he can’t sit around and just do nothing, and doesn’t Arthur ever clean around here.
Arthur says, “Merlin,” and Merlin says he reckons Arthur doesn’t, because just look at this place.
“Merlin,” Arthur says in a voice like an order, and Merlin finally shuts up and looks up. The appliances slow down around them, whirring and polishing apprehensively.
"For god's sake,” Arthur says, “you’re not my servant."
The mop, the vacuum, the dishrags – they all drop to the ground.
Merlin retorts, "What do you expect me to do?”
It’s a valid question to which Arthur has no answer, because none of his classes on the sociology of magic or international wizarding relations prepared him for this - for Merlin to be frantic and heartbroken in his kitchen washing his dishes. Arthur is forced to put a human face to the thesis he has been working on all year: here is yet another sorcerer forced into sacrifice. Merlin is not the first and will not be the last.
So yes, what can Merlin do? Keep out of sight so Arthur can get on with his life? Don’t make a sound so Arthur can continue pretending he's going to change the big picture while ignoring the little pictures in front of him?
“I never wanted to stay here,” Merlin says defiantly, but Arthur can hear the strain in it.
“Look,” says Arthur. “Maybe we both could use a drink.”
+
The entire time the police asked Merlin their endless questions, Merlin kept on thinking of physics class from high school. The speed of sound is 343 meters per second and the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second, and when Merlin raised his head to smile at the people waving from their windows, he saw the gunman's rifle kick back before he heard the shot.
"What else do you remember, Mr. Emrys?" they had asked.
"That's about it," Merlin lied, because what he remembered was how quickly the blood spread across the front of Will's t-shirt, and how tightly he held Merlin's hand before his eyes went still. The crowd, instead of dispersing, seemed to grow in number. The march turned into a mob, and suddenly Gwen was tugging him away saying, “Come on, come on, there’s nothing you can do.”
"Thank you for your time," said the police, so Merlin lied again: "You're welcome."
+
The way Merlin drinks scotch makes Arthur wince. It goes straight from the glass to the back of his throat. He doesn't even savor it. It goes to the back of his throat and straight to his head, and Arthur can tell because suddenly Merlin says, “You’re not what I thought you were.”
Arthur raises an eyebrow. “What did you think I was?”
“Something different. Something, like…”
“Something like my father?” he says cautiously.
And the hesitation that follows says it all.
“Look-“ Merlin starts to say.
“Hey,” Arthur cuts in, and then says nothing, so Merlin says nothing too.
It’s no secret. In the northeast, the name Pendragon is synonymous with sorcerer segregation and mandatory registration, and Uther Pendragon is to be thanked for that. Ever since Uther started his first term of many as mayor of Albion, tensions have risen even higher. In downtown Brookford and even uptown Kingston, there has been an increased rate of hate-related crimes from vandalism to assault and battery. Every time, his father would point to the same people and recite variations on a theme: there will be no peace in our city so long as these sorcerers are allowed to run amok.
The way Arthur sees it, he loves his father, and sometimes loving people is hard. That doesn’t mean you should stop loving them, no matter what they say, or do, or whom they hate. It is not always ideal, but Arthur is nothing if not loyal.
Maybe the scotch wasn’t a good idea. Maybe taking Merlin on wasn’t a good idea, but Gwen is persuasive when she wants to be. Arthur never even knew that Gwen is active in the magi movement, but he isn’t surprised - he should have figured. “It’s not about being pro-magic, Arthur,” she said, “but about being pro-human.” And if Gwen is involved in this, then who else is?
“Come on, Arthur,” Gwen had said. “This is the fight you’ve been waiting all your life to fight.”
“But my father-“
“You’re not your father,” she insisted.
Merlin, draped bonelessly on Arthur’s sofa, has the glassy-eyed look of someone who’s a few drinks in. He gives Arthur a look of intoxicated sincerity and continues, “You’re different, aren’t you?” and Arthur changes the subject.
After an hour’s meandering conversation about things neither of them really care about (and a fair amount of scotch), Merlin passes out. Arthur, who is busy talking about which reality show is the least horrible, doesn’t even notice until he hears the snoring.
“I didn’t think I was that boring,” Arthur says, and of course Merlin doesn’t reply.
Would it be worth it to move Merlin to his bed? Is it worth waking him up? Then the living room would be all Arthur’s and he can watch all the TV he wants. Merlin probably wouldn’t be a problem to carry. The guy is tall and long-limbed but he probably weighs nothing. Arthur could take him down easily; he could hold him down. Maybe it’s just how Merlin looks right now, like some gawky kid who can’t handle his liquor - a vulnerable appearance belying a great power. Arthur has seen Merlin in the papers and on TV, usually as a footnote to a story featuring Nimueh and how the magi movement is gaining momentum in the nation, how things are about to boil over downtown, and how the situation is and isn’t like the other pro-magi demonstrations around the world.
After finishing his drink, Arthur goes to the linen cabinet and looks for a blanket.
When he goes back out to the living room, Merlin has rolled over on his side in as fetal a position as he can on the couch, which is not very. Arthur drapes the blanket over him and, after a moment’s hesitation, tucks Merlin in. He reaches down and brushes the bangs from Merlin’s forehead. His hair is wispy, soft, and his forehead is warm, and suddenly Merlin’s hand reaches up and catches Arthur’s. He freezes, but Merlin doesn’t seem to be acting consciously. He’s still snoring.
“…rbkc,” Merlin mutters.
“What?”
“’M glad you’re back.”
“Who?”
“I missed you.”
Maybe it’s the scotch, or maybe it’s just the way Merlin spoke just now, how sad his relief sounded. Maybe it’s just been a weird day, who the hell knows, but instead of taking back his hand and leaving, Arthur sits on the coffee table and continues to let his hand be held.
“I missed you too,” Arthur ventures, hoping it’s the right thing to say.
“Mmm,” says Merlin, and grips Arthur’s hand even tighter.
Arthur grips it back.
+
In the cities, people are beginning to be openly magical. The times are changing, they like to say. We cannot help what we are, so we must not fear ourselves. No one will champion us, so we must champion ourselves.
Merlin was lured to the city of Albion by these slogans, by a nascent collective identity he hoped to be a part of. He kissed his mother goodbye on a train platform, and now he’s living in a crap apartment in Brookford, which is a neighborhood largely peopled by sorcerers, by the young, the poor, the newly immigrated, and the miscellaneous disenfranchised. This was where he met Will.
"You're a sorcerer too?" Merlin asked.
"No, but I'm good with card tricks," said Will.
This was where he met everyone. Will brought him to community meetings and house parties where people talked about systemic disadvantage and rights to heritage. Their eyes glowed gold as they casually used magic to refill pitchers and light cigarettes, and Merlin absorbed their rhetoric like a sponge. The smallest magic to the biggest; we are capable of it all and we cannot be divided from it. We have nothing to lose and our own humanity to gain. Slowly but surely, these diatribes took on the quality of truth within him, and he became heartened by the necessity of his chosen struggle.
This was how he met Nimueh.
The first time Merlin met Nimueh, he was enamored. He and Will were outside of a bar after last call, arguing about where to go next, when she tapped him on the shoulder.
“Can I bum a smoke?” she asked, and Will took out his pack before Merlin did because if Will wasn’t the kind of guy who bummed pretty girls cigarettes, then who was he?
“Of course,” said Will, and Nimueh thanked him, but she winked at Merlin.
"You know why the meek will inherit the earth?" she was saying a few minutes later, smoking Will’s cigarette as a ring of people orbited her and hung on her every word. "Because the meek will change it. The ones in power have no interest in changing the status quo. The powerless will be the ones to do away with it."
"But," Merlin cut in, "we aren't powerless."
"No," said Nimueh, "but many of us are afraid, which amounts to the same thing."
There is a natural magnetism to her, and a confidence bordering on arrogance that nevertheless held the loyalty of the community. They say she was one of the few who was in direct contact with the Dragon when he was lying low in some undisclosed location overseas. Nimueh says all the things Merlin felt and never articulated. She says them loud and clear and never apologizes for it, and she has the bluest eyes Merlin has ever seen.
He and Will went to demonstrations organized around the city, joining the throngs of people demanding equality with megaphones and homemade signs. They were struggling not just for their lives, but for their existence, for the right to be recognized as more than an aberration. And the thing is, everyone always says of course they’re ready to make sacrifices, of course they’re ready to fight. That’s what struggle is all about, isn’t it? But then one day someone gets his hand on a gun, and the police arrive too late, and there’s bodies and no killer. One day Merlin is told to hide out, for god’s sake lie low.
He hadn’t wanted to hide, but Gaius took him aside and said, “Merlin, sometimes you have to accept defeat so you can fight another day.” And when Gaius says things like that, Merlin has to wonder what the old man done in his day, or what he hasn’t.
“Stay safe,” Gaius ordered, and Merlin said he would. It’s not like he goes out looking for trouble anyway.
+
Merlin doesn’t take it well when he is told he can’t go to the funeral.
“What the fuck do you mean I can’t go?” Merlin demands into the phone, and Arthur realizes it’s the first time he’s heard Merlin swear.
Even with Merlin’s bedroom door closed, Arthur can hear snatches of the conversation, or at least the part where Merlin yells angry questions and dismisses what answers he gets. Merlin doesn’t come out of his room for the rest of the day. Arthur puts Merlin’s dinner in the fridge and eats his while watching television.
The evening news is on, and all the talking heads are still going on about the Mad Ave Mob. “A peaceful march for equal rights turned into a riot,” the newscaster is saying, “when an unidentified gunman open-fired at the corner of Madison Avenue and Chambers Street.”
The screen switches to headshots of the dead: Tauren MacAninch, William Miles, Edwin Muirden, Aulfric O’Shea, and Sofia O’Shea. Arthur wonders how close Merlin was with these people. He heard that Will was one of Merlin’s good friends, but did Merlin ever buy Sofia a drink? Did he and Tauren ever share a cab home?
“The funeral will be held on Friday at St. Mark’s,” says the newscaster, “to be followed by a march to the site of this tragedy, where a vigil will take place.”
Arthur changes the channel.
The next time Merlin comes out of his room, it’s close to midnight, but so absorbed is Arthur in editing page 27 of his thesis that he doesn’t notice until Merlin is standing in the study doorway, knocking on the wall.
Arthur looks up.
“Hey,” says Merlin, looking a bit the worse for wear, “do you have a radio I can borrow?”
“…Like a radio radio?”
“No, I just need one.”
Arthur frowns. Merlin smiles, a fragile thing that almost chases away the shadows on his face.
“Kidding,” he says softly. “Yeah, like a regular radio.”
Arthur hesitates. In the past two days, he has already lent Merlin his phone charger and a pair of headphones, and both came back suspiciously prone to inoperability. “I think I get satellite radio on my cellphone,” he finally concedes.
“Your cellphone, huh?” says Merlin. “I think I can swing that.”
+
The rumor is that the different cells and splinters of the magi movement can communicate with each other telepathically. Even if they’re on opposite sides of the world, they can magically plug in and log on to some magical global circuit to which every deviant sorcerer is connected. This is how plots are hatched, how governments might be toppled and children indoctrinated into immoral ideology.
Like all rumors, this one is partly true.
The sorcerers use radios.
“What are you doing?” Arthur asks suspiciously.
“I’m modulating the properties of electromagnetic waves,” Merlin replies, his eyes golden, “with magic.”
The sorcerers transmit over a frequency accessible only to magic-users. Not all sorcerers can do this. But once you know the physics, once you know what it is you’re manipulating, all you have to do is reach in and make amplitude, phase, and frequency dance in a way that they would never do if left in the clutches of mere science.
“After all,” Gaius said once, “what is science but a more primitive form of magic?”
Arthur asks, “Look, are you sure you know what you’re doing? That phone is expensive, and magical tampering isn’t covered under warranty.”
“I’ve done this hundreds of times,” Merlin lies. He has done this only a few times before, and not well. Merlin has a general aversion towards technology; it’s never as smooth as magic.
The satellite radio connects and the cellphone screen informs him that a Sam Cooke song is currently playing. A tinny voice cuts through the air, singing, “-aby ain’t around. Cryin’ for my baby, cryin’ all alone, waiting for y-”
The sound fizzles and warps as Merlin mumbles incantations under his breath.
“Don’t you have a thesis to write?” Merlin asks as the cellphone begins to hum a slowly rising note.
“I, uh, just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Yeah, sure, you just want to make sure I don’t destroy your phone.”
“Well, you did destroy my phone charger and earphones, so I’m well within my rights to be watchful.”
“Look,” Merlin says. “I just want to talk to Nimueh.”
The room explodes with color and light.
Merlin is dimly aware of Arthur crying out in shock, but most of his attention is focused on fighting his way through the lines of transmission that crisscross around him. Conversations in a dozen languages fly past – dukuns in Java networking with witches in California, shamans in Korea passing information to houngans in Haiti – but Merlin keeps his mind alert, electrified. (“Merlin, what is going on?!” someone demands in another existence.) Merlin keeps his mind on Nimueh.
Finally: “Hello?”
“Nimueh!” Merlin exclaims, relieved. “Nimueh, it’s me. It’s Merlin!”
Around him a hundred conversations refract and diffract, and he has to strain to hear her.
“Merlin? Are you all right? Are you still at Arthur’s?”
“Yes, yes. I’m fine, but-“
“Then you shouldn’t be calling,” she snaps. “Listen, we’re in the middle of a meeting-“
Merlin feels a flash of anger. Another thing he’s been left out of. They’re taking him out of the fight when he needs (or wants) to fight the most. “Gaius tells me I can’t go to the funeral,” he blurts out.
“You can’t,” Nimueh says flatly.
“Why not?! It’s public, isn’t it? I should go. All of Brookford is going!”
“Think about it, Merlin. Everyone who was killed was magi who were my right-hand men. Everyone except Will. Do you need it spelled out? The bullet that killed Will was meant for you.”
“Come on, they won’t attack a funeral,” he scoffs.
“They attacked a peaceful march.”
“I should go! I can take care of myself!”
“Sure, but what about everyone else? We won’t take the risk. You’d be putting everyone else in harm’s way just because you quote unquote must go.”
“Will was my friend!”
“They were all our friends,” Nimueh says quietly.
“Nimueh-“
“Merlin, don’t be selfish.”
“Selfish!” Merlin chokes out.
“This is not what the Dragon would want.”
“Fuck the Dragon! Always going on about the underground resistance or whatever. He has no idea what’s going on in Albion!”
“Merlin, listen-“
Then there is another voice - female, young, familiar: “Is that Merlin?” There is more muffled conversation, and then the new voice is on the line. “Merlin! Hi, it’s Morgana.”
The signal immediately weakens, and her voice becomes faint and crackly. Morgana is a new recruit, and only just beginning to get a handle of her powers. She still hides them from Uther and Arthur, which Nimueh doesn’t approve of, but what can you do? Maybe Nimueh has never had a secret, but Merlin has had several, and he remembers how intimidating it can be to claim a part of your identity that could get yourself killed.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Morgana says, “but we have to borrow Nimueh.”
“Yes, where would the world be without Nimueh’s leadership,” Merlin mutters.
The line crackles again, but Merlin can still hear her saying to Nimueh, “Go, go, Aglain is throwing a hissy fit. Let me handle Merlin.”
‘Handle’. Like he’s some sort of animal.
“Merlin, hey,” Morgana says. “Look, Gwen told me you’re upset about the funeral-”
“Well, make me un-upset,” Merlin demands. “None of you can stop me going, you know, not if I really want to. Why don’t we hold the funeral somewhere only sorcerers can go? Really protect ourselves this time. We’ll enchant some place. I’ll help.”
“No, we don’t w-“
“Or I won’t, whichever.”
“We don’t want to close ourselves off from the non-magical,” Morgana says. “That would be defeating the point. Besides, there are non-magical people coming to the funeral. There are going to be television cameras.“
“Oh, okay. So you’re just going to exploit their deaths.”
“No,” Morgana says slowly. “We are showing that we have nothing to hide.”
“Except me,” Merlin mutters.
“Merlin,” she says in a voice like an order, and it reminds Merlin of Arthur, the way her tone forces itself on him. He can see how the two of them might have grown up together.
“What.”
Morgana says, “You can’t take this personally.”
“How am I supposed to take it?” Merlin demands.
“Like the champ that you are. You’re not the only one who has lost loved ones.”
It is, perhaps, the chastisement that she should’ve said in the beginning, because it shuts Merlin right up. He knows they’re both thinking of Gwen. Gwen’s father hadn’t been a magician, but he was accused of being one and there had been ‘evidence’ supporting the claim. If everyone is sufficiently scared or complacent, that’s all you need to kill a man.
“How are you enjoying Arthur’s apartment, by the way?” Morgana chirrups.
“It’s okay. He’s a little uptight.”
“Uptight? Yeah. You try playing him at Boggle, you’ll see how uptight he can get.” And then someone yells something on Morgana’s end, and she says, “Merlin, I have to go.”
The goodbyes are rushed, and Merlin envies the flurry of activity going on at the other end. He wishes he were there. Around him, the lights and colors and conversations in a dozen tongues begin to fade, and fatigue trickles into Merlin’s muscles, as it always does after a large and complicated spell. Arthur is no longer standing in the doorway. Merlin takes a shaky breath and lets himself fall backward onto the mattress.
The phone crackles back to mundanity and sings, “…rise up singing, you’re gonna spread your wings, child, and take, take to the sky…”
+
“Okay,” Arthur says, pushing a mug across the kitchen counter at Merlin. “Here’s your coffee. Now what the hell was that?”
Merlin sips his coffee. “I was just making a phone call.”
“I have made many a phone call in my day,” Arthur says, “and not once did the phone ever do that. I didn’t even know my phone could do that!”
“It usually can’t,” Merlin shrugs. “I just gave the signal a little boost. Using a little magic to boost up the science. Or using a little science to boost up the magic, I forget which one it is.”
Arthur’s mouth twitches. “I don’t see why you couldn’t have just called Nimueh the regular way.”
“I’ve been trying that all day! I called everyone I knew. Either they don’t pick up or they can’t do anything.” He throws his hands up. “I called Nimueh god knows how many times. She was one of the ones who never picked up. So, you know, then I needed to switch to radio.”
Arthur raises an eyebrow, amused. “So you thought it safe to talk to her within earshot of the son of your greatest enemy?”
“Well… I guess you could only hear my end of the conversation anyway.”
“You don’t know where my loyalties lie.”
“I know where your loyalties lie,” Merlin says, “because you’re housing me. Sounds like you don’t know where your loyalties lie.”
“Ha! Is that so?“
“Yeah. Also, I read your thesis, which seems to articulate your sympathies pretty well.”
It takes a few seconds for the words to process.
“What?” says Arthur.
“You left it on the kitchen counter when you went to your conres working group. So, you know. So I looked through it.”
“It’s just a draft,” Arthur says automatically. “It’s not even finished. There are some sections that need to be moved around, and some that I’m going to have to rewrite altogether, and the introduction is-“
“It’s good,” says Merlin. “A little starry-eyed, but good. And true, which is important.”
“Starry-eyed?” Arthur repeats, trying not to sound offended.
Merlin looks into his eyes with a sincere expression that is definitely not manifesting strange butterflies in Arthur’s stomach, and asks, “Are you one of those closeted wizards?”
“What? No.”
“What got you interested in the topic? Y’know. In us? The social, uh, the legislation of…”
“The social implications of the legislation of magic in North America circa the twentieth century,” Arthur reels off.
Merlin grins. “I wonder what your father’d think if he read it, eh? I don’t think these are the social implications he’s looking for. Hundreds of thousands of dollars sending his kid to an Ivy League university only for the kid to come out the other end his enemy.”
“I’m not his enemy,” Arthur replies irritably.
“But you want to fight. I can feel it from your literature review,” Merlin grins, having a perhaps little too much fun with this.
“Look, just because I disagree with my father, doesn’t make him my enemy.”
“No,” Merlin shrugs. ”Disagreement is the spice of life.”
“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.”
“Close enough.”
Merlin stirs his coffee absently, resting his head in his hand, and Arthur finds himself following the line of his cheekbone down to his mouth, how smooth it looks, and pale. Snap out of it, Pendragon. Arthur ventures, “I’m sorry you can’t go to your friends’ funeral.”
Merlin shrugs.
“Is there anything I can do?” Arthur asks.
Merlin shakes his head.
“You want some beer?” Arthur definitely isn’t going to offer the scotch again.
“I’m already drinking coffee.”
“Or feel free to watch one of the DVDs in the living room if you want.”
Merlin shakes his head.
“Or, um.” Arthur digs deep into his brain. If he were in Merlin’s place, how would he want to be comforted? “I… also have a Scrabble game. If you happen to be interested.”
Merlin almost shakes his head again automatically, but he pauses. He looks up at Arthur, and has a considering expression on his face.
+
Arthur plays Scrabble the way some people play chess. He plans not just the next move, but the next three moves after that and Merlin’s anticipated reactions, taking into account the accessibility of Triple Word Scores and the possibility of layering words atop each other for simultaneous point maximization. Also, he played ‘oxidize’ over a Double Word Score within six rounds.
Things are not looking good for Merlin.
“’Qi’ is not a word,” Merlin protests.
“Yes, it is. It’s the vital life force in all things.”
“Isn’t that spelled C-H-I?”
“It’s the same thing. The romanization standards have changed. Now they follow the pinyin system, which favors the Q to the C-H used by the largely superseded Wade-Giles system. But it’s not as if either of them give us any clear indication of how these words are actually pronounced anyway.”
Merlin blinks. “…Uh-huh…”
“I can get out my Scrabble dictionary,” Arthur threatens.
Of course Arthur would have a Scrabble dictionary.
“Fine, play ‘qi’ if you want,” Merlin says, and Arthur does and scores twenty-two points.
For the most part it is a slow-going game. Much like a chess player, Arthur takes forever to make a move. Merlin just plays words like ‘or’ and ‘bat’ as soon as he finds them, then Arthur accuses him of not trying his best, and fair enough. He isn’t. Merlin is still exhausted from his phone call. His skin is still tingling and his vision still flickers. The fatigue creeps from his mind into his bones, mixing weirdly with the jolt of caffeine, so he’ll play ‘to’ next round if he wants to, thanks very much.
Merlin curls up in the armchair and watches Arthur plan his conquest of the Scrabble board, bent over his letters and frowning at them as if willing victory to arise from the tiles. It is, Merlin will admit, a little endearing, if a little obsessive. There’s something about the intensity in his eyes and the way he taps his lips while he’s thinking. The way he hovered at Merlin’s closed door this afternoon wondering if he should knock. Yeah, Merlin isn’t blind, he saw the shadow under the door.
“Jape?” Merlin reads. “Is that a word?”
“It means joke.”
Merlin wonders though if there can maybe be a true ally in Arthur Pendragon. Not just as someone who provides a safehouse when you need one, but as a visionary and a leader who could conceptualize, organize ,and be victorious while retaining both compassion and beneficial connections. Arthur’s thesis is sharp and attuned, and although some of his prescriptions are a mess of idealism, his passion resounds with Merlin. It is always easier to be cynical, and far braver to have faith and fight. Maybe the crossing of their paths is more fortuitous than Merlin thought. Perhaps he is a worth a second look.
“Your turn,” Arthur says. He has added ‘tory’ to Merlin’s ‘his’, and the Y is on a Triple Letter Score. Of course it is.
“Historp is not a word,” Merlin says.
“That’s not what I put-“
Merlin points his finger like a gun and casts a spell. The Y turns into a P.
“That’s cheating!” Arthur sputters.
“I’d like to see you try to find ‘historp’ in the Scrabble dictionary. And,” Merlin adds, “I’d like to see you find the rule that says you can’t magically change Ys to Ps.”
To Merlin’s delighted surprise, Arthur says, “Fine!” And storms off.
How do I pull you in, how do I pull you in, Merlin wonders as Arthur comes back his laptop and a diatribe about fair play. Merlin sits back as Arthur shows him different Scrabble rules from around the world, intent on proving the inherent immorality of using magic to win non-magical board games. There is a stubbornness about the young Pendragon that reminds Merlin of Will, and Merlin feels a little guilty for finding the similarity comforting. Arthur’s blue eyes and high ideals remind Merlin of Nimueh, but Arthur has a charisma all his own, and now that Merlin has seen the mind that fuels it, he can’t help but be intrigued.
+
They play again the next night, and the night after that. They’d set up the Scrabble board after dinner, and they play until Arthur beats Merlin by a margin of 120 points.
“So who’s advising your thesis?” asks Merlin, who doesn’t know when to drop things. “Did you read the Wizard Manifesto last year? Did you have a professor who mysteriously isn’t teaching anymore?”
“No, and no,” Arthur replies, and plays ‘pharaoh’.
“You ought to come down sometime, you know,” Merlin says. “Come to one of our meetings, that is. I think you’d find it interesting, and I think they’d find your ideas interesting.”
“Look, shut up a minute and let me play some Scrabble, okay?”
“You’re winning anyway,” Merlin mutters, but he shuts up.
On Thursday night, Arthur plays ‘will’ and Merlin frowns.
Merlin says, “I thought you can’t play proper nouns.”
“’Will’ isn’t a proper noun.”
And Merlin is about to protest, but then his expression changes from skepticism to embarrassed realization and quickly mounting grief. Merlin’s face crumples for a second and he looks away, and Arthur feels a pang of guilt at being surprised that this is still where Merlin’s mind is, where his first instinct lies. How will Merlin be tomorrow on the day of the funeral? Will he be okay, or will Arthur have to step things up to Boggle?
“Sorry,” Merlin says shakily. “I, uh-“
“It’s all right, just pull yourself together,” Arthur says reassuringly. “It happens sometimes with Scrabble, you can’t see the forest for the trees. One time, I stared at F-U-R-O-R for ages wishing I had better letters before I remembered that ‘furor’ is actually a word.”
Merlin rubs his face and says, “Please don’t tell me to pull myself together.”
“Look.” Arthur swaps the W with a G. “Look, I’ve changed it, all right?“
“Don’t. Arthur, you don’t have to do that.“
“And a G is worth less than a W,” Arthur continues, ignoring the tone of Merlin’s voice, “so that’s even better for yo-“
“Don’t do that!” Merlin exclaims, and Arthur sees the flash of gold before he sees the wave of magic pulse from him. The letters on the board jump in place and land askew, and if Arthur were looking at them he would notice something quite strange, but all his attention is on Merlin, whose grief thrums around them. “You can’t just undo things,” Merlin says in a voice like a sob. “That’s not how things work.”
“Merlin-“
“Some things can’t be undone. Sometimes you can’t change things so you have to move on, all right? You have to respect it and move on.”
“All right, all right, I’ll put the W back,” Arthur says, aware that they are no longer talking about Scrabble, but what else can he do? What can either of them do? “By the way,” Arthur says, having failed to replace the W, “what have you done to my game?”
“What?”
The tiles have no letters on them. None of them do; all are blank.
“This is sort of a Scrabble player’s dream,” Arthur hazards, “but also kind of unnecessary.”
“…I didn’t mean to do that.”
“If you really don’t like Scrabble, you could’ve said so.”
“Jesus Christ, will you shut the fuck up about Scrabble?” Merlin bursts out. “I don’t give a shit about Scrabble. I don’t-“ Merlin leans back on the sofa and covers his face with his hands. “Christ.”
A silence slithers in, and it is only after it has settled that Arthur remembers to say: “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Um.” Arthur tries to think. “Will… I hear he was a good friend of yours.”
“He was the first person outside of my mother who knew I was a wizard,” Merlin says quietly. “He was the first person I told.”
“Oh. …Wow.”
“It’s always difficult, that first person. It’s a big step, you know? It’s almost like-“ He waves his hands vaguely. “Almost like you’re telling yourself too. Like it’s real now.”
“But you’re born with magic, right?” Arthur asks. “So it’s always been real.”
“I mean…” Merlin shrugs. “Yes. Of course. But now it’s like there’s an alibi, almost…? An affirmation of sorts. Like, you’re less alone.”
“An alibi…”
“Look, I was young, and I didn’t have a clue, okay? I was a small-town boy in a big city. It was… ” Merlin shrugs again, a little more desperately. “I don’t know. Will was there, and he was someone who can say, ‘I know what’s going on and it’s okay’. Someone who’s loyal to you and you can be loyal to. You know what I mean?”
Arthur nods, smiling faintly. “That’s important.”
“Yeah,” Merlin says softly. “Yeah, it is.”
+They abandon Scrabble and spend the rest of the night working up a dull buzz drinking beer and watching TV, floating in that quiescence that hangs in the air after a storm. On Comedy Central, historian of magic Geoffrey Monmouth is tonight’s guest on the Colbert Report, and Merlin says, “They say Monmouth’s part of the movement, but he’s kind of pompous actually.”
“Revisionist prick,” Arthur agrees, and they exchange a smile.
The last thing Merlin remembers is the opening credits of South Park, and the next time he wakes up, the sky is lightening outside the window. He has a crick in his neck, and his mouth tastes disgusting. And he fell asleep on the sofa.
He’s also not the only person on the sofa.
Arthur is sleeping with one arm around Merlin, who is curled around Arthur and resting his head on his shoulder. There are, Merlin supposes, worse ways to wake up. It’s still late enough at night - or early enough in the morning - that all Comedy Central is showing are those ads for Girls Gone Wild. He lifts his head and tries to look around for the remote, but that makes Arthur shift and mumble in his sleep. Merlin’s not all awake himself, truth be told; it must be why he’s fine just lying here in Arthur’s arms. Yeah.
Not for the first time, Merlin wishes the world was like ‘Harry Potter’ and he can just say “Accio remote control!” and have it fly into his hand. Unfortunately, this is the real world and he knows no such spell, but he supposes that’s what you get when you get non-magical people writing about magical things. Still, you have to give J.K. Rowling credit for trying.
Merlin tries to crane his neck without moving. On the coffee table he sees empty bottles, bottle caps, an open bag of potato chips, an empty bag of tortilla chips, and – oh, and he sees a pen.
Okay, that might work.
With a whispered word, the pen levitates and begins to float its way over to the TV. It wobbles precariously, and Merlin is reminded of those claw games at arcades, holding your breath and hoping the claw will actually grab the fricking toy. This idea is probably good in theory – pressing the power button with the pen – but the execution is leaving something to be desired. Merlin misses and misses, and the pen tap tap taps against the television as drunken co-eds bounce around on the screen.
“…Merlin?” says a voice next to his ear, and Merlin freezes. Arthur shifts beneath Merlin, and in a barely awake voice mumbles, “What are you doing?”
“…Um,” Merlin manages.
“What is that sound?” Arthur turns his head and spots the pen hovering by the TV. “What’s that pen doing?”
“It’s… It’s trying to hit the power button.”
“For god’s sake,” Arthur mutters. “That’s what we have remote controls for.” And he pulls out the remote from what seems to be thin air, points it at the TV, and turns it off. Then he shifts so he can hold Merlin tighter, and burrows closer.
The pen clatters to the floor.
Merlin is quite awake.
Was Arthur just sleepwalking? Or sleep-turning-off-the-television, whatever? Does Arthur realize who he’s holding as he sleeps? Well, Arthur is out cold now, and it’s not like Merlin is going to wake him up and verify. Merlin will just have to keep guessing. Yes. Merlin will just have to take this in a stride.
This close, Merlin can count each eyelash. He can close the proximity between him and Arthur with a kiss, and he wouldn’t even have to move that much. Just a tilt of the head. Hypothetically.
Merlin closes his eyes, and lets himself settle into the warmth that surrounds him as his heartbeat sings in his ears.
+
When Merlin first arrived at Arthur’s apartment, Arthur had been skeptical. Standing between Gwen and a solemn man named Aglain, Merlin was dressed in a large overcoat and sunglasses, looking for all the world like a fugitive trying to not look like a fugitive.
At this time, Arthur thought Merlin was just another instrument of the revolution, controlled by it as such, but now Arthur wonders if it’s probably the other way around: the revolution grows from the people; it is rooted in flesh and blood. Merlin is real in a way that a thousand essays on the legislation of magic can never be. He is doing the things that Arthur has opted to write a thesis about instead.
“Just come with me for one meeting,” Merlin had kept on saying in the five minutes before he passed out on the couch. He reached over and clasped Arthur’s shoulder: an unnecessary gesture, but welcomed nonetheless. “You can go in disguise and wear a mustache and everything.”
“I don’t think so,” Arthur kept saying, and Merlin said, “Consider it research for your thesis.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Arthur said. “I’m Uther Pendragon’s son and I can’t just… I have to show solidarity.”
“With who?” Merlin demanded.
“You can’t make me choose between this and my family,” Arthur snapped. “There are other ways to fight this without creating more divisions.”
And then there was a pained look on Merlin’s face, and he opened his mouth as if to protest but nothing came out. Merlin chugged his beer and stared at the television screen, so Arthur did too.
Still, when Merlin slid over asleep onto Arthur’s shoulder in the middle of South Park, Arthur let him. He took the half-empty bottle out of Merlin’s hand, shifted a little bit so that they were both more comfortable, and he watched the episode as Merlin snored on his shoulder. Then Secret Girlfriend came on and Merlin made a gargling noise and changed positions, hugging Arthur’s arm like a pillow. It was, Arthur had to admit, not entirely uncomfortable. Merlin’s hair tickled Arthur’s face, and when Arthur went to smooth it back with his hand, Merlin made a contented-sounding sigh.
Arthur wakes up later than usual the next day. Merlin is no longer sharing the sofa with him, but from the kitchen Arthur can hear the clattering sounds and muttered cursing of one unaccustomed to the practicalities of domesticity. Arthur can smell coffee and burnt bacon.
“I feel bad about your Scrabble game so I’m cooking breakfast,” is Merlin’s explanation, and Arthur smiles.
“Well, thanks for feeding me my own food,” says Arthur. “You’re really stretching yourself here.”
Merlin replies, “Shut up and eat your bacon.”
They don’t say anything about sharing the sofa last night, and neither do they say anything about Arthur’s thesis or Will or the meetings downtown that Arthur apparently should go to. Arthur doesn’t say anything about how he actually has class in twenty minutes because ,just this one time, can’t he just sit back and enjoy a leisurely breakfast of undercooked eggs, burnt bacon, and the affectionately abusive conversation that might actually be flirtation in disguise?
“Maybe I should hire you for my servant,” Arthur muses, spooning up the last of his eggs. “Sign you up for cooking lessons first, though.”
Merlin grins. “A thank you would suffice.”
By the time breakfast is done, Arthur’s class is almost over, so he says goodbye to Merlin and takes off for the library.
Just as Arthur is descending the steps of the subway station, his cellphone buzzes with a text from his father: Morgana isn’t picking up her phone. Tell her to call me asap, I need to contact her Ford Foundation friend. Arthur smiles wryly, snaps the phone shut and shoves it back in his pocket.
His father would blow a gasket if he found out Arthur was harboring magicians. Arthur can see it now, the way he’d crash about and demand WHAT IS THIS OUTRAGE and WHAT IS THIS HYPOCRISY. But what if Arthur is doing this so he won't be a hypocrite?
This is what his thesis is, well, not about, but hints at between the lines, somewhere beyond the abstraction of the literature review and the analysis of case studies. The sufferings obscured by academic vocabulary and run-on sentences. When Arthur told his father the topic of his thesis, his father had nodded and said, "Good. It's good to know the enemy."
It's funny. These magicians are people who can call down the lightning and move the earth, and still they are subject to a handful of words on paper. Around the world, there are laws that segregate the magi from non-magi and laws that invalidate the humanity of sorcerers. There are laws that restrict their travel and laws that displace them, but they cannot escape being villains once the law declares them so, no matter how many lightning bolts they conjure or how their movement grows.
“But if the law isn’t fighting fair, I don’t see why the sorcerers should either,” Morgana protested during the last rare family meal.
“Laws aren’t fair,” Arthur had replied. “They should be, but aren’t always.”
Uther had said, “The law isn’t meant to be fair, it is meant to be correct. The law gives us leverage against magic. It gives us leverage against numbers. Let them pull rabbits out of hats; we have our own power, because the system they are trying to navigate is ours. They are strangers in our house, trying to use our own laws against us. That is their mistake. The law is not a means as such; it is an ends."
Morgana scowled and Arthur focused intently on his pasta pomodoro, and they let the subject drop. Arthur lets him think whatever he wants to think because maybe at some point in the future, Arthur will be able to change his father's mind. The magi community may call Uther Pendragon the patron saint of Muggles, but it’s never too late to change.
Arthur gets off at 96th Street station and takes the stairs to the street.
Autumn has come to Albion, and the days are brisk. He turns up the collar of his coat as he crosses Lexington Ave, and he takes in the sight of humanity walking all around him. How many of them are sorcerers? How many of them give a shit about the Mad Ave Mob? How many of them are doing something about it? At the library, he nods hello at the girl behind the desk and makes his way to his usual spot at the back. He takes out his laptop and his folders. He gets to work, and tries not to think of dark hair tickling his face, long limbs wrapped around him and warm breaths on the side of his neck.
+
The funeral for the victims of the Mad Ave Mob is televised live, and Merlin almost doesn’t watch it. It wouldn’t feel right if he wasn’t actually there himself. ‘Feel right’. There’s something Nimueh would have spat at. “If you’re going to fight by my side, the first thing you have to discard is the notion that victory is going to be perfect,” she had said once. It used to fascinate Merlin, how quickly she could switch between affection and straight directives.
Sometimes, he imagines Nimueh saying, you have to watch your friends’ funeral on television while you do someone else’s dishes. And Merlin can’t even figure out the dishwasher, there’s so many damn buttons. He just loads it up, slams it shut, and suddenly there’s nothing between him and the live broadcast. Nothing else for him to focus on but the images on the screen, the throng of people in mourning garb crowding the inside of St. Mark’s, occasionally interspersed by a perfectly coiffed newscaster keeping everyone updated.
“Hundreds have gathered here at Brookford’s historic cathedral to say goodbye and to remember,” the reporter says, and Merlin thinks, I should be one of them.
The eulogies take forever. The camera pans across the pews, and Merlin spots Gwen near the front and Mordred beside her, holding her hand and looking as hunted as he usually does. Only now does he finally see how tired Gwen is, how drained and frayed at the edges. He remembers how he had yelled at her on the phone and feels the guilt pool in his stomach. Everyone is hurting, and there isn’t much anyone can do.
Merlin cracks a beer open somewhere near the end of the third eulogy, and has another one after that. I can go to St. Mark’s right now, he thinks, and doesn’t. He looks at his phone and thinks, I can call Arthur, but doesn’t. He hates this, he hates doing nothing.
He wishes Arthur were here.
When the coffins are carried out, Merlin takes out his cellphone, already formulating an ill-advised text to Nimueh in his head, when the most recent text in his inbox catches his eye. It was from Will.
wher r u? im by d subway entrance.
Merlin remembers receiving this text at the exact moment he spotted Will in the crowd. He pushes through the throng as Will stands on tiptoe and looks to the left, looks to the right. He tapped Will’s shoulder and Will whirled around to face him, all smiles and giddiness and saying, “You’re late.”
Merlin presses ‘Reply’.
On the TV, the newscaster says, “It is a cool forty degrees outside and we can see everyone preparing to walk to Madison Avenue.”
He stares at the blinking cursor, and slowly punches in, I’m still here.
“Stay with us as we give you the latest from the vigil. We’ll be back after these messages.”
Merlin presses ‘Send’ and feels his face heat up, his vision blur.
“Fuck this,” he mutters, and turns off the television.
He grabs his coat, and he is out the door.
The way Nimueh went on, you'd think Merlin was going to die as soon as he sets foot outside Arthur's apartment building. The only thing that touches him as he steps onto the sidewalk is the chill wind. Merlin turns up the collar of his coat and heads for the subway. Around him, everyone and everything runs like it’s business as usual, and it’s a little disorienting after a week of being cooped up with his grief and Arthur’s strange brand of consolation. Merlin is glad when he reaches the subway station and its familiar glare of fluorescent lights.
This far uptown, the stations don’t smell as much like piss, which is always a plus. He wonders how often Arthur takes the subway, or whether he has a car and a chauffeur. He wonders what Arthur is doing now. Maybe Merlin should have sent a text to Arthur so he wouldn’t worry, but anyway the downtown train is already pulling up and it’s too late. He steps on board.
+
“I don’t know!” Arthur is yelling into the phone. “I have no idea where he could have gone!”
He rushes around his apartment a second time, checking all the rooms and all the closets like there is a chance at all that Merlin is hiding in any one of them, giggling to himself. Or crying to himself, whichever.
“Have you tried calling him?” Gwen asks.
“Of course I did, what do you think I am, an idiot? I’m not an idiot. He left his phone here.” Arthur waves Merlin’s phone for emphasis and mostly his own benefit, since Gwen can’t see. It just feels good to wave things around angrily during times like these. “Where are you now? Can you get up here?”
“I’m at the vigil. I can’t go anywhere, Arthur, I’m supposed to give a speech in ten minutes.”
Arthur turns on the TV and unsurprisingly the channel is turned to the news network’s live coverage. Arthur should have known. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone to the library today, maybe he should have just worked at home. Maybe he should have stayed just to make sure Merlin was okay, because he apparently isn’t - it’s just difficult to tell when he’s joking and cooking you breakfast, and smiling sheepishly over the eggs. Why am I so bad at noticing these things?
“He could’ve at least called me,” Arthur says, halfway between petulance and indignation.
“Arthur, I’m sure Merlin hasn’t gone far, and he’ll probably come back-”
“It’s not my fault Merlin is an idiot, just by the way. I said I'd be back this afternoon and he runs off anyway. Don't you guys have like a magical GPS that can locate him or something?”
“...Like Cerebro?"
"Yes, like Cerebro!"
"Arthur, these are sorcerers, not the X-Men," she says patiently.
“What’s the difference between mutants and sorcerers anyway!”
“Well, one lives in the real world, and one lives in comics and cartoons. Anymore questions?”
Before either of them can say anything more, Arthur hears an unfamiliar voice in the background ask, “Who are you talking to?”
“Arthur, hold on a sec,” says Gwen, and the sound becomes muffled. When she returns, she says, “Hey, I have to go. I’m handing you to Nimueh, okay?”
“Nimueh?” he echoes. “Like Nimueh Nimueh?”
But truth be told, Arthur doesn’t care too much who he’s talking to, and soon after Nimueh’s “Hello Arthur,” he is blabbing to her all the things he has already blabbed to Gwen – Merlin is an idiot, Merlin should have called, why didn’t he call, is he usually this stupid – while Nimueh goes, “Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh.”
The television shows a makeshift platform, and Arthur sees Gwen push through the crowd to get to it.
“Well, think about it, Arthur,” Nimueh says, with none of the urgency that Arthur thinks is appropriate for the situation. “Where else would he go?”
He frowns. “The vigil?”
“He will not come to the vigil.”
“He… To the cemetery!” Arthur blurts out. “He’s going to the cemetery!”
“So go and find him. Make sure he’s okay, and tell him he can come home.”
“Home?”
“We’ve adjusted the security measures. He doesn’t have to stay at your place anymore. Thanks for housing him, Arthur, we really appreciate it. I admit I was a little skeptical at first, but Gwen vouched for you.”
“I, uh… You’re welcome.”
In a warmer tone, Nimueh says, “It’s good to hear you again, Arthur.”
“Again?” Arthur frowns. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Oh, we have. I’m glad to see you’ve grown up to become an upstanding young man.”
“…Uh, thank you…”
“I would ask you to give my regards to your father, but I suspect he wouldn’t want them. Thanks again, Arthur, and goodbye.”
Nimueh hangs up.
On television, Gwen speaks, her voice steady and her head held high. “Today, we call upon the dead one last time, not so they may be homages to struggle, but so that struggle may be an homage to them. Our friends walked bravely beside us all, and now they will find rest. Let us find once more the spirit of revolution, instead of making its ghost walk again. Let us transcend our fear. Let us move forward.”
Arthur heads for the door.
+
On the train there are these two girls, maybe sixteen or seventeen, sitting across from Merlin. One of the girls' eyes glow gold as she levitates her friend's bottled water in the air, just slightly out of reach.
“Bitch, I’m thirsty,” she says.
“And short,” the other girl smirks.
They giggle and grin, they call each other names, and they don't care who sees them. It used to be that sorcerers were killed for less, but the world is different now, or at least trying to be. It makes Merlin smile, and he notices the other passengers watching the girls, and he takes note of how many of them are also smiling, how many of them are frowning, how many of them are just staring like the girls are aliens from outer space.
"I can’t believe no one is stopping them," someone mutters disdainfully behind Merlin. “Who do these girls think they are?”
Merlin’s eyes flicker gold just for the barest of a second, and the woman behind Merlin curses as her shopping bag falls over, spilling its contents on the floor. He looks away, an expression of innocence on his face and just the slightest quirks of a smile tugging at his lips.
+
St. Mark’s cemetery is located on the southern edge of the city in the farthest reaches of Albion's urban sprawl. Arthur has only driven past it before, only glanced at it in passing: bone-white headstones dot the gentle rise of a hill, interrupted here and there by saints and angels. It’s empty when Arthur arrives. The entire neighborhood seems deserted, and the only sound to be heard is Arthur’s taxi heading back uptown.
The day is segueing from late afternoon to sunset and washed over with the faintest hints of gold. He walks through the cemetery and feels a little like an intruder in the silence. Around him, the air is heavy with the names of the dead, and Arthur wishes he knew some prayer to offer, but the Pendragon household had never been religious. His father is suspicious of religion for its similarity to magic. “The weak take refuge in a belief in miracles,” he would say.
Arthur finds Merlin just over the curve of the hill, sitting in front of five graves that are surrounded by flowers, framed photographs, and candles that were once lit but have now blown out. His back is to Arthur, and he makes no sign of hearing him as he approaches. Arthur stops a few steps behind and says, “You could have called me.”
“Right, ‘cos everything’s about you.”
“Stop that. I didn’t come here to fight with you.”
Merlin looks up at him suspiciously, and Arthur can see how red and puffy his eyes are. “How’d you know I’d be here?”
Arthur lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Where else would you be?”
Something seems to soften in Merlin’s expression. “Well, kudos to your deductive reasoning.”
“Something like that,” Arthur mumbles, blushing. “Look, I just wanted to make to sure you’re all right. I don’t want a bunch of sorcerers calling for my blood because you disappeared on my watch.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t care.”
Merlin smiles – or maybe even smirks, Arthur can’t tell, but he better not be smirking after all this, goddamn. Arthur could have finished annotating his articles by now instead of chasing him across town. Didn’t Merlin ever stop and think about these things? Didn’t he say they could fight together, side by side?
“Look,” Merlin says, and gestures to something at the head of William Miles’s grave. “Do you see that?”
Arthur frowns. “Are those cigarettes?”
Merlin leans forward and half-crawls to the headstone. “These ones are cigarettes,” he says, pointing. “Parliaments, because Will only pretends isn’t a hipster. This one,” Merlin picks it up, “is what we call a joint.”
“I know what a joint is,” Arthur says defensively. Only now does he notice the variety of the objects left in memoriam. Between the photographs and flowers, there are pages torn out of books, letters, shot glasses, little dolls and figurines, all sorts of baubles and trinkets. By Tauren MacAninch’s headstone is a tattered copy of Max Wechsler’s The Druidic Ethic, and hanging around Sofia O’Shea’s is a necklace, a pair of amethyst wings on a silver chain.
“You know Jim Morrison’s grave?”
“What about it?”
“In the Père Lachaise cemetery, in Paris?”
“I know where it is,” Arthur lies.
“People leave joints on his grave all the time. Well, according to Will. He says people ought to, if they didn’t. ‘When I die, bury me like Jim Morrison and leave drugs all over my grave,’ he used to say. ‘Steal my headstone occasionally.’”
“Isn’t that a waste of drugs?”
“Just ‘cos you’re dead, doesn’t mean you can’t get high. That’s probably when you want to get high the most.”
Arthur raises his eyebrows. “…Was that something else Will said?”
“Yeah,” Merlin says with a wistful smile on his face.
“So, do they leave heroin on Jim Morrison’s grave too? Bottles of booze?”
“Well, look,” Merlin says, pointing. The shot glasses by Will’s headstone is filled with something golden brown. “’S rum.”
“Huh.”
“Hey,” Merlin sighs. “Look, I know probably I shouldn’t have taken off without notice-“
“Fuckin’ right.”
“And I know you don’t have to be running after me, you don’t have to be sitting with me right now.” Merlin looks up into his eyes, and says, “but I appreciate it.”
And Arthur thinks, I hope I’m not still blushing. He thinks, He has really nice eyes, and swallows the lump in his throat. “Well,” he manages. “Don’t do it again.”
“Have a seat,” says Merlin.
Arthur, against his better judgment, sits down.
“Hold on,” Arthur sputters when Merlin puts the joint in his mouth and takes out a lighter. “What are you doing?”
“In some parts of the world,” says Merlin, “the dead’s possessions are burned so they can be used by them in the afterlife.”
“We’re out in the open!” Arthur protests as Merlin puts the flame to the tip and puffs. “You’re supposed to be laying low!”
“I’m just delivering Will’s joint to him,” says Merlin, the smoke curling from his mouth. “He would have done the same for me.”
“Oh, so he’s as stupid as you are!”
“Hey,” Merlin chokes out. “Respect the dead, man.” He holds out the joint to Arthur, who just stares at it.
“For Will,” Merlin assures him. “For all these guys.”
“As a student of the law, I find this all very ill-advised..”
Merlin just says, “You ever smoke before?”
“Yeah… Not since college.”
“Uh-huh.” Merlin is still holding the joint out to him.
Fuck it. It’s been a weird day. It’s been a weird week.
“So,” Arthur says, taking the joint, “are we going to drink Will’s rum too?”
Merlin smiles. “One thing at a time.”
+
It gets cold quickly once the sun goes down. Arthur and Merlin stand atop the hill and watch the colors gather on the horizon – the golds and pinks leaking down from the heavens, and the strata of browns and grays rising from the smog. The city of Albion is backlit against the sky, and its skyscrapers reach upwards like the points of a crown.
“We should go back soon,” says Arthur.
“Yeah, you have to finish your bibliography, right?” Merlin asks distantly.
Arthur smirks. “It would have been finished by now if it weren’t for your bad influence.”
“You can’t blame everything on the revolution, Arthur.” Merlin nudges him with his shoulder. “That’s just lazy.” If they are standing closer after the nudge, neither comments on it.
“Well, I don’t have to anymore.” Arthur shifts his weight uncomfortably. “Nimueh says you can go home.”
“She what? When did you speak to Nimueh?”
“When I was trying to find you, ass.”
“She says I can go?” Merlin says, and is not entirely surprised to feel the lilt of disappointment in his tone. He forces a grin and says, “I bet you threw a party when she told you that.”
“Yeah, it was a real shitshow, only I couldn’t be there because I had to go all the way to St. Mark’s to and make sure you were still alive.”
“Well,” Merlin says, “I still have to go back to your place anyway. My stuff’s still there.”
Arthur nods hurriedly. “Yeah, yeah sure.”
A silence settles in – not uncomfortable, but charged, like the bones have been thrown in the air and the diviner is just waiting for them to fall. Merlin watches Arthur out the corner of his eye, and in the fading light, he cannot tell if Arthur is looking back.
In the end, it’s Merlin who takes the first step down the hill, and he hears Arthur follow behind.
“I was keeping an eye on the road,” says Arthur. “I haven’t seen a cab pass by here in a while.”
“We’ll take the subway. There aren’t as many cabs that come through here. The station’s about a twenty minute walk.”
Arthur asks, “Do I smell like it?”
“…What?”
“Do I smell like weed?”
“What? No, Arthur, no one’s going to care if you smell like weed.”
“What if someone recognizes me as Uther Pendragon’s son and I smell like weed?”
“You don’t smell like weed!”
“What if I run into a classmate.”
“Arthur.”
Arthur says, “Smell me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Just to make sure.”
“Arthur, this is your worst come-on yet,” Merlin guffaws.
“I’m not-“
“C’mere,” Merlin says, slinging an arm around Arthur’s shoulders. He turns his face towards him, and sniffs.
“Do I smell?” Arthur asks cautiously.
“Hmm, I don’t know.” He grins and tugs Arthur closer, and sniffs again. And closer, and again, trying not to giggle.
“Well?” Arthur demands. “Come on, stop joking around.”
“Arthur, you smell like crime all over, with just a touch of B.O.”
“For god’s sake, you idiot. And I do not have B.O.”
Impulsively, Merlin leans over and kisses Arthur on the cheek. “You’re fine,” he says, and pretends his heartbeat is not beating over the average rate.
“Oh, um,” Arthur breathes. “Well, good.”
Merlin takes his arm back and shoves his hands in his pockets, looking straight ahead and wondering what other ruse might let him kiss Arthur. Something harmless, something fun. Like what? If only Arthur weren’t so repressed. If only Merlin weren’t leaving soon.
“Hey,” says Arthur.
Merlin looks over. “Hmm?”
Arthur leans in and kisses his mouth.
+
They burst into Arthur’s bedroom in a confusion of shed clothes and tangled limbs, and fall on the bed with a heavy crashing sound.
Arthur lifts his head and frowns, “Did we just break my bed?”
Merlin says, “God, I hope we do,” and kisses him again.
It’s been a while. Arthur has been in over his head with work that the last time he slept with someone was months ago, and the last time he slept with someone he genuinely liked, well, that was too long ago. He hopes he won’t fuck this up. Arthur can’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction when he shoves his hand down Merlin’s pants and Merlin arches gasping against him.
The high is still sticking with Arthur and every touch tingles on his skin, every kiss has a trailing afterimage. They are less than graceful with each other, and sometimes Arthur bites too hard and Merlin scratches too deep, but Arthur relishes every cry and gasp. They wrap themselves around each other and it is not beautiful, but right, and as messy as one would expect from an exorcism of demons and a struggle for a new horizon. When Merlin pushes in, when Merlin chokes out a cry as Arthur flexes around him, Arthur closes his eyes and parts his lips and loses himself and lets go.
+
The next day, Arthur cooks breakfast as Merlin packs his things, and over breakfast they argue about the things Merlin has broken.
“It’s the price you pay for the pleasure of my company,” Merlin says affably. “Besides, your phone still works sometimes.”
“It used to work all the time. My Scrabble board, on the other hand, is permanently broken.”
“You can fix the Scrabble board with a permanent marker.”
They load the dishwasher together, and Arthur finally shows Merlin how it works. Merlin chuckles and says, “Yeah, teach me how to use it just as I’m about to leave. Perfect.”
“Go on, press the ‘start’ button,” Arthur says. “I already punched in the settings.” So Merlin presses the ‘start’ button, and Arthur grins. “I daresay you’ve gotten steadily better at doing my dishes.”
“Hey, all thanks to this paragon of the upper-crust indoctrinating me into the system, huh?”
“You’re welcome.”
Merlin clears his throat. “So. I still say you should come downtown sometime.” His tone picks up, veering between hope and persuasion. “Seriously, meet some of my friends. See what they have to say, and let them hear what you have to say.”
Arthur crosses his arms and leans against the kitchen counter, frowning. “You really think so?”
Merlin quirks his mouth. “Arthur, look at your thesis. You’re already involved.”
“A thesis is a thesis. It’s intangible, it doesn’t do anything. It’s just words and words and words.”
Merlin resists rolling his eyes, but snorting probably isn’t any less condescending. Arthur doth protest too much. “Of course your thesis isn’t going to do anything. You can, though.”
Arthur frowns. “You think so?”
“Sure.”
But Arthur just picks up the washcloth and starts wiping down the counter with that slow manner that people have when all they’re actually doing is buying time and mulling things over. “I was talking to my father the night after the Madison Avenue riot,” he finally says. “We were talking about it.”
Recognizing his role in the conversation, Merlin sits back down in his chair and asks, “What did he say?”
“He didn’t have much sympathy for them,” Arthur replies quietly. “I guess it shouldn’t be so strange to me, and I shouldn’t be surprised. I grew up hearing this stuff from him, after all. But…” He shakes his head. “My father said, ‘If they demand to be martyrs, someone will make them martyrs.’”
“Oh, yeah,” Merlin scoffs. “Being martyred, that’s exactly what we’re asking for. Yeah.”
“He’s my father, Merlin,” Arthur says insistently, ”and… I love my father. But I am not him.”
“I know that.”
Arthur says, “I think you and I, we’re fighting different battles.”
Merlin says, “But we’re in the same war.”
And Arthur just continues wiping down the counter, so Merlin takes a sponge and does the table. There’s only so much he can say. Sometimes you have to let things be, let things simmer and come to boil in their own time.
All of Merlin’s belongings fit in a backpack and a duffel bag. When Merlin heaves them over his shoulder and shuffles out into the living room, he gets as far as saying, “I cleaned the bedroom the best I can but-“ before Arthur kisses him again. Merlin closes his eyes and kisses back.
“You’re a strange one, Merlin Emrys,” Arthur says, soft against Merlin’s lips.
“Yeah,” Merlin breathes.
“Keep in touch.”
“Funny. I was just going to tell you the same thing.”
Arthur gathers his books and his laptop and accompanies Merlin downstairs, standing side by side in the elevator and watching the numbers change, the countdown to goodbye. Quicker than should happen, they are at lobby level.
“Good luck on your thesis,” Merlin says. “Keep me up to date on it.”
“Good luck with everything,” says Arthur, “and remember, you said you’d send me those interview recordings with the Dragon.”
Merlin grins. “I’ll do my best.”
“You better.”
“Or maybe I’ll get you a new Scrabble set, at least.”
“That’d be nice too.”
Merlin holds out his hand for a handshake and says, “I’ll see you around.”
Arthur pulls him into a hug and says, “Yeah, definitely.”
And if they hug for maybe a little longer than necessary, no one says anything about it.
Merlin hails a cab, and Arthur watches it go until it turns the corner. He straightens his shoulders and starts walking in the opposite direction to the subway. It’s not even noon, and he has a lot of work to catch up on.