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Arthur stared at him with his mouth slightly agape.
There hadn’t been a choice. On one of their many hunting trips into the forest they had been ambushed by a horde of bandits. Only this time there had been too many for Arthur to fight off alone. They had been intent to kill leaving Merlin with no other choice.
The decision to save Arthur had been easy. It didn’t matter if he’d just revealed his magic and sealed his own death sentence. Arthur was safe and alive and by the shifting look on his face furious.
Surprise and shock had morphed to pure rage. It radiated off of him in waves.
The bandits had run away in terror after Merlin’s attack leaving Arthur standing there holding his sword in midair. He drew it up and Merlin closed his eyes. With his last few moments, he prayed that Arthur would be merciful and make it a swift clean blow. If he was to die at Arthur’s hands than he would accept that fate, but he wasn’t too much of a coward to admit he didn’t want to suffer.
That single moment stretched into two, then three. He dared to open his eyes to see that Arthur hadn’t aimed for him, merely sheathed his sword and began grabbing his hunting gear. He didn’t say a word to Merlin as he marched straight into the forest.
Merlin didn’t know what to do. Was he supposed to stay here? Was Arthur leaving him in banishment? Or maybe he was supposed to silent follow to be marched to his death at the pyre? Arthur was always more than happy to boss him around and tell him exactly what to do. His silence was a worse punishment than anything else.
As Arthur moved further out of sight, Merlin realized he had to make some decision. Stay or follow. Both, for him, were equivalent to death. Either fast or slow, burned or broken. For a moment he wished Arthur had just struck him down with the sword.
Hurrying after Arthur, Merlin decided it best to follow. At least then he could spend a few more hours with the man he was secretly in love with. It was pathetic, he knew, to pin after someone so unattainable. A servant in love with his prince. But the dragon had told him that they were two sides of the same coin. He always told himself that there was nothing wrong with being in love, madly in love with the other side of your soul.
No matter what Arthur decided to do with him, he would follow until his last breath. That was his true destiny. He lived to protect Arthur and serve him. He only wished those two duties hadn’t forced him to lie to Arthur for so long.
The lies were always the hardest. Every time he did so it felt like he’d been chipping away at his own heart. Yet, he knew that his pain was nothing compared to the anguish Arthur must be feeling in that moment. He had just discovered that his best friend had been lying to him, for who knew how long Arthur might be imagining. Would he think it was something new, that Merlin would have been stupid enough to train in magic in the heart of Camelot. Or would he assume that everything from the beginning had been an elaborate scheme to gain Arthur’s trust.
Merlin would have given anything for Arthur to turn on him and demand answers. He didn’t care how much Arthur raged at him. His rage was familiar compared to this silence. It was as if Merlin didn’t exist. Like it didn’t matter to him whether Merlin was there or not. Arthur didn’t say a word in the hours that they walked back towards Camelot. Merlin didn’t dare break the silence for fear Arthur might leave him behind.
Occasionally, he would turn to look at Merlin behind him. That only made him angrier. Merlin began to put more space between them, hoping to make this all easier for Arthur. It would probably be difficult enough to put your manservant to death for using magic. The last thing he needed was said servant at his heels like some puppy. Yet, every time he accidently left too much space, he swore Arthur slowed down a bit.
It was probably his imagination or at least his desire that was making him see things.
They were barely an hour outside of Camelot, an hour away from Merlin’s certain death, when they came to the ravine. The river cut swiftly through the rocky hillside making a deep crevice in the earth. It was a thirty to forty foot drop straight into the raging rapids below. Only a rope bridge allowed one to cross.
Few used this route even though it was the fastest. On the way out for their hunting trip Arthur had taken them around it. Now it seemed that he was more worried about returning to Camelot quickly to burn Merlin than the risks involved.
Merlin wanted to protest that it was too dangerous. He had seen the old ropes and how worn they were, and alarm bells went off in his head. But as he opened his mouth to give warning nothing came out. Arthur was already crossing.
It appeared to hold his weight without any trouble. The wind rocked it gently and the boards groaned under his feet, but it seemed safe enough. Merlin pressed a nervous foot onto the first board.
On a normal trip, Arthur would have turned and called him a dozen names for acting so timid and Merlin would have teased him back. He wished he could have heard Arthur call him a girl one more time. His thoughts were so lost in what would never be again that he didn’t hear the first snap of rope.
The bridge swayed dangerously, knocking Merlin off his feet and flat on his back. Arthur turned around his mouth open for the first time as if to yell at him for messing around. But his eyes went wide as he saw what Merlin now heard. The second rope snapped completely dropping the end of the bridge straight towards the ravine.
Merlin barely grabbed onto the remaining rope before the whole contraption slammed into the rock face. He saw stars for a moment but didn’t let go. He was dangling with only one hand keeping him from certain death. Yet none of that matter.
“Arthur!” Merlin looked up and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Arthur had faired a little better than him. He had nearly been to the end of the bridge when it gave so he was close to the top of the cliff. Both his hands were holding onto the rope. It would be easy enough for him to pull himself up to safety. Yet it almost looked like he was climbing down.
Behind the ringing in his ears for a moment he thought he heard Arthur calling to him to hold on. Man his mind was just trying to torture him, to trick him into thinking that Arthur cared enough about him not to want him dead.
He didn’t have time to figure out if it had been real because the bridge gave another groan as the third rope began to fray. It wasn’t strong enough to hold them both. They had precious minutes before the whole thing fell into the rapids. Arthur must have realized the same thing as he looked back and forth between Merlin and the rope with fear in his eyes.
Merlin knew what he had to do. It was the only choice he could ever make.
“I’m so sorry,” he screamed it as loud as he could over the roar of his fate below. “I never meant to hurt you, Arthur. I know how much you hate me, and I know you wanted to carry out my sentence yourself by burning me on the pyre. But I…I love you too much to let you die. Goodbye, Arthur. Be the king I always knew you would be.” A tear fell from his eyes as he let go.
Arthur screamed. His heart felt like it was ripping in two as he watched Merlin, his sweet beautiful, infuriating Merlin, fall. Knives twist in his heart as he watched his body be enveloped by the rapids. Still, he screamed for him. Desperately calling his name. Praying that he would see him miraculously come up for air.
But he was answered only by a deafening silence.
This was all wrong. None of it was real. It couldn’t be happening!
It had all gone wrong in that moment in the forest. They had been outnumbered and the bandits were out for blood. Arthur had done everything in his power to protect Merlin. But even as the best swordsman in the land there was only so much, he was capable of doing. He had accepted they were both going to die, yet he planned to protect Merlin with his last breath.
Only it had seemed that he was the one being protected as suddenly magic had burst from Merlin’s hands and taken out the bandits.
Arthur’s mind had gone blank trying to fit together the pieces that were in front of him. Merlin. Magic. Merlin. Magic.
It all made a weird sort of sense. Looking back there had been many times they shouldn’t have made it out alive from a bandit attack. How had he been so blind as to not notice his best friend had magic. Then the reality of it came crashing down.
His best friend had magic! He had lied to him for who knew how long.
Arthur had been too angry to say anything. The last thing he had wanted to do was hurt his friend out of anger. He had hoped that the walk back to Camelot would give him time to calm down and gain some perspective or at least figure out what to do with the moron.
After the first hour, the initial anger had passed. Still, he didn’t say anything to Merlin who silently followed behind. There were a dozen questions he knew he needed answered, but for now Arthur was happy with the silence and to put his thoughts together.
Merlin had magic, which meant that under his father’s laws he was subject to die should anyone discover the truth. Arthur had to find a way to protect his secret, so his father never found out. He knew it would be infinitely safer to send Merlin back to Ealdor where his magic at least wouldn’t be a death sentence. Yet the very thought of sending Merlin away from his side made him sick. He needed Merlin. He wanted Merlin to stay with him.
God, Arthur wasn’t certain when Merlin had gone from being his manservant to his best friend to the boy he couldn’t get out of his thoughts to realizing he was in love with him. Arthur had been sitting on that little revelation for weeks unsure what to do about it. He had thought to tell Merlin the truth about his feelings, but Arthur was never very good at talking about his feelings.
All this magic stuff had thrown a giant wrench into that. Now he had to sort things out with Merlin. It was time that they were both honest with each other.
Then they had come to the bridge. Arthur was just drafting what he should say in his mind. He swore to himself that the moment they made it across they would talk this out when the bridge started to break.
As the first two ropes broke, Merlin has screamed for him. He appeared dazed but had held onto the bottom half of the bridge, barely. “Hold on!” Arthur desperately shouted at him. “I’m coming!”
He knew Merlin wouldn’t be strong enough to pull himself to the top alone. Arthur began climbing down to help him when the other rope began to fray. There wasn’t enough time. If he didn’t move fast Merlin would fall. Merlin couldn’t fall. No one could survive the rapids below.
Arthur looked down at Merlin and nearly froze at the sad expression in his eyes. Something was wrong, very wrong.
“I’m so sorry,” Merlin shouted at him, a broken sob hidden behind his voice. “I never meant to hurt you, Arthur.”
Hurt him? Merlin had saved his ass.
Still, Merlin continued, barely able to meet his eyes. “I know how much you hate me,”
What! Hate Merlin. Was he really so blind as to not realize he was everything to Arthur?
“And I know you wanted to carry out my sentence yourself by burning me on the pyre.”
Arthur’s blood ran cold. Merlin believed he was going to burn him. Hell no!
“But I…I love you too much to let you die.” That was the moment Arthur realized what he was doing. No. No. This couldn’t be happening. Yet Merlin rushed on too fast for him to interrupt. “Goodbye, Arthur. Be the king I always knew you would be.”
Those were the last words Merlin spoke to him.
Shaking himself from his shock, Arthur forced himself to climb back up to the top of the cliff. Every muscle was numb as he stood on his feet. He couldn’t give up. He couldn’t live in a world without Merlin. In a world where Merlin left him believing that he was unloved by his prince.
Arthur kept screaming his name as he made his way down river and searched for any sign of him. It was long past dark when he finally stumbled across a bank and saw a dark shadow in the shallows.
“Merlin!” Arthur ran into the water, scooping Merlin’s limp body into his arms.
Even though it was summer, and the water was quite warm, Merlin’s skin felt like ice. His eyes were closed. His chest too still.
“No!” Arthur pulled him out of the water and leaned in to listen for his heart.
There was nothing. No sound.
Tears choked him as he brushed the wet mop of hair from his face. “You’re such an idiot, Merlin. Why did you…? How could you…?” Every time he tried to speak his tongue twisted in his mouth knowing that Merlin wouldn’t be answer him.
“It’s all my fault.” He finally sobbed. “I should have realized you would have taken my silence for hatred. You’ve lived for the past few years in fear of what would happen if anyone discovered your magic, knowing the punishment was death, and I let you think I would hurt you because of some stupid law. I’m the real idiot. I never told you. I was never brave enough to tell you what you meant to me. God, Merlin I couldn’t hate you if I tried. Not even when you put my things away in the wrong place or when you wake me up at some ungodly hour with your stupid phrases. I couldn’t hate you when you tell me what a prat I’ve been or chastise me for not treating everyone equally. Because despite you being the worst servant in the world you have the most beautiful smile. Everyday I look forward to hearing your laugh and the way you say my name. I was a fool for never telling you how much I love you and now…”
He stared down at Merlin’s body.
“Now it’s too late.”
He gathered Merlin’s wet body, cradling his head beneath his chin and wrapping his arms as tightly around him as he could. “Please, don’t let it be too late. Come back to me, Merlin. Don’t leave me. I can’t live without you. Please. I love you. Please.”
Arthur had been so busy sobbing that he missed the golden tendrils of magic that swirled around them both. He also hadn’t heard the tiny gasp as air returned to Merlin’s lungs. But he didn’t miss the way live lips pressed up against his own. They were still cold, but they moved against his, opening slightly and inviting him to deepen the kiss.
When they broke apart Arthur could still see the gold shimmering in Merlin’s eyes in the dark.
“Merlin?” There was hope in his voice.
“I’m here. I’m real.” Merlin said. “I heard you. All of it, somehow. There was nothing but the sound of your voice surrounding me. Then when you ordered me to come back, well, I guess my magic listens better to you than I do.”
At that Arthur laughed, pulling him into another kiss. They still had a lot more to talk about, but for now, they were both more than happy to remain silent as they basked in each other.