Work Text:
Somewhere in Merlin’s heart, there’s a portrait of Arthur. Deep deep down. Deep down where centuries and sorrow aren’t supposed to reach. It’s a mental picture of Arthur, painfully young and beautiful, bathed in the golden light of a mellow October afternoon.
It is his most precious memory, his most treasured belonging, so infinitely invaluable that he poured it into a crystal for safekeeping. Just that one blink of Arthur. Derisory but immortal at last. Safe from the passage of time. Safe from the vagaries of Merlin’s grief.
Merlin remembers that afternoon. He remembers it clearly, even as he unsheathes his sword.
It was a few weeks before the final tourney of the season. Arthur was still a crown prince in those days, and enjoying his tilting practice more than was healthy or reasonable. He was also being a supercilious prat for a change. Needling Merlin as Merlin needled him in return. Life was fun and simple, even though it certainly didn’t seem that way back then. Hindsight and all that rubbish.
The blade shines under the moonlight. Slimmer and lighter than Excalibur. Forged in a different time and for a different arm. And most importantly, forged in another dragon’s breath.
A gift to himself. Merlin named it Bròn.
It fits perfectly in his hand.
Arthur looked so otherworldly on that fine October day. So inhumanly perfect. A radiant young god doing what he loved best, riding, tilting and trading sarcasms and childish invectives with his manservant and best friend. He seemed nimbed in gold.
Many centuries later, while Merlin still had hopes of seeing his king rise again some day, he had traced back the beginning of his infatuation to that precise moment in time. The seed for the sentiment had probably been there for some time of course, but Merlin knows he irredeemably lost his heart on that day. Just looking upon the perfection of Arthur and feeling his heart squeeze sweetly in his chest with the oldest and most intoxicating feeling known to humanity.
Arthur looking back at him after a brilliant pass, his eyes shining with pride and cheek and just that shy little glow of fragile untold love. Now but a gilded memory.
Merlin kneels on the loose, wet scree. This is as good a place as any. The cold and damp seep through the denim of his jeans.
The lake is quiet – utterly uninterested, as it ever was. How many times did Merlin come to rant and roar on these thin squishy shores, hurling his grief and his anger at it, breaking his voice and shaking the foundations of the world with the fury of his despair? He’s lost count. Throughout the centuries, on this same dark grey gravel, time and time again, he poured his impotent rage, he spat at the gods, he cursed the Sidhe and he vowed to destroy the universe in general. On this same damp, grimy soil, time and time again, he collapsed and sobbed, mourning for his beloved, his lost golden king.
As soon as he understood that the mortal memories of the greatest sorcerer of all times could indeed fade away, Merlin went about protecting this one sacred mental portrait of his Prince Arthur. His king, his love. Arrested in time and untouchable, yet so beautiful, so alive, so full of promise. The picture had to endure millennia. Merlin might have failed him in life, but he would not fail him in eternity since it was all that was left to care about. It was one thing to forget Leon’s eye colour or the timbre of Gwaine’s warm laugh, but to live on without the shape of Arthur’s smile and the softness of Arthur’s gaze? No.
The crystal holding this one single flawless memory became Merlin’s treasure. More important than empires, more precious than magic, more sacrosanct than human lives. His only solace. Merlin went a little nuts from time to time, you see. As one destined to eternally fail might do. And this crystal became the only thing that could bring him back from the edge of insanity. The only thing that might shed a little hope back into his life. One look at Arthur would close the wound and reset his unmanageable sorrow to a bittersweet ache. A cathartic shock that usually dragged him back to some sense of purpose and sanity.
All was not lost. Arthur would come back. The dragon had promised.
Otherwise, Merlin was nothing but a poor gutted sod crying on the edge of a fucking pond.
Sometimes Merlin wasn’t sure what he was even crying for. Sometimes he knew too well.
“Stay with me…” I love you. Don’t leave me. I love you. Don’t you know what you mean to me? Don’t you know I betrayed everything and everyone for you? I can’t be losing you. I love you. Take me with you.
So many words left unsaid, even in extremis.
Merlin turns the sword in his hands. He’s taken good care of it over the years, decades, centuries. The blade is spotless and razor sharp.
He knows what to do. Where to place the tip so it might end up snapping his spine, making it as clean and quick a death as possible. He wonders how it will go. How soon it’ll be over.
He knows there won’t be any body to find, and he knows the enchanted sword will follow him into the void. Which is why he has no qualm about ending his existence in such a public spot. He wouldn’t want to ruin an innocent family’s Sunday picnic with his personal tragedy.
He still has plenty of questions, though. Will Arthur be waiting for him on the other side? Will Merlin even be granted another side?
He thinks of Arthur’s radiant face.
He thinks of why he can’t go on anymore.
This morning, the crystal cracked. For no reason. Just a hairline fracture, barely visible to the naked eye. But Arthur immediately began to fade, his image already compromised. And Merlin is now unravelling fast.
Once again, he has failed. His efforts, the thrashings of his love and devotion, they were all insufficient. As fucking always.
Merlin just can’t take it anymore.
He cannot live in a world without hope. And he finally understands that he was lied to.
Arthur isn’t coming back. Merlin has lost him for good and that is all there is to that story. Merlin has been waiting – for fucking centuries – for a happy epilogue that will never come.
Kilgarrah is long gone and his lie is what kept Merlin going through more than a bloody millennium. Merlin doesn’t know whether to be thankful or homicidal about that. All he knows is that, without Arthur he cannot go on. There is no point in going on.
He’s seen too much. Been too much.
He is tired.
Tired of being a desperate optimist.
Tired of keeping an eye on the news and wondering, ‘Are things bad enough yet?’
Tired of stupid mankind, inventing new ways to torture themselves and kill the planet they all live on.
All the magic in the world could never mend what is wrong with humanity.
All the magic in the world couldn’t even preserve a simple likeness of Arthur to soothe Merlin’s excruciating loneliness and fathomless heartache.
He plants the sword’s pommel in the wet gravel and points the tip at the tender hollow at the base of his tight throat. He tries leaning forward and feels the pointy bit dig into his skin. It sends a shudder of dread through him. This is the real thing he is seeking.
This is a stupid plan but it’s the best he’s got.
He doesn’t want to come back from this. Not this time.
A magical sword to kill a magical being. He knew Bròn would be the end of him, eventually. He made it for this express purpose after all. He always suspected that one day he would go off the deep end and possibly become a danger to others.
Now if only he had the courage to go through with what needs to be done.
He closes his eyes and thinks of Arthur.
The frayed remains of the fading memory paint themselves in his mind. Blurry. Distressed. Unfocused.
The smile is there, though, wonky teeth and all. And the gold of his hair. The blue of his soft gaze still peeks through the scratchy haze.
Arthur.
Merlin whimpers – he misses him so damn much.
Boy, would his king be mad if he knew what Merlin is about to do.
“Merlin?”
Merlin can almost hear him.
“Merlin, what the hell are you doing?!”
Yeah, that’s exactly what he would say.
“Merlin! You stupid… dollophead!”
An iron fist grabs Merlin by the hoodie and yanks him back and away from the sword, even as a swift, dark leather boot sends the weapon flying into the placid water.
Merlin wheezes and lands on his arse, priming himself to copiously curse whoever dared to interrupt his fucking suicide.
But damn, that boot looks familiar.
“Merlin, you utter idiot, what did you think you were doing there?!” Arthur snarls into his face, looking about ready to punch him in the mouth. Blue eyes glaring, hair damp and battle-tousled, lips pinched in a wounded, angry straight line. Nothing like the sweet golden hero of Merlin’s mental portrait, and yet…
Holy fucking ssshit.
“Arthur?”
“Don’t you ever dare do this to me, you… you… you bloody sorcerer!”
And the insult is so terribly lame and Arthur is so terribly real that Merlin can’t help but bleat a snort.
“Arthur,” he finally breathes – a wonderment and a blessing.
Arthur is panting like he’s been running. He blinks and then his expression crumples, going from outrage to some ominous watery emotion. He grabs Merlin by his hoodie again, but this time hauls him up, irresistibly, and draws him into a bone-crushing embrace.
“Merlin,” he huffs into Merlin’s neck, spreading warmth and life back into Merlin’s heart.
Merlin, barely able to believe his screaming senses, lets his arms wrap around those big broad shoulders, at last. He had dreams of this. So many dreams that they became nightmares.
“There are so many things I need to tell you,” Merlin whispers, eyes prickling with tears. Where should he even start?
“Yeah, yeah, not now,” Arthur orders gruffly, then takes his gloves off so he can cup Merlin’s cheeks and plant a rough unvarnished kiss on Merlin’s slightly wibbly lips.
Oh. Okay then.
Merlin had forgotten how ridiculously bossy his royal prat could be.
But he still kisses him back.
*Fin*