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Destiny looks at each other, and revels in the opposites.
Gold eyes meeting blue.
Sword versus magic. Hunt or gather. Kill or maim. Mercy or torture. Attack or defend. Embrace or reject. Against or towards.
He stretches out his hand.
“We’re two sides of -“
---
Arthur lays in bed at night and thinks about it. When it’s way past midnight, and even the latest servants have retreated to their chambers, he twists his legs in tangled sheets to stare out the window, listening to the silence. It’s often silent nowadays. It rests in his chest like mist. Cold, white smoke where the anger should be.
He wonders if he had any nightmares.
He knew Merlin didn’t sleep much. Always tinkering away with some task, late at night, that should’ve been done during the day. Coming into Arthur’s chambers much later than he ought to, gently looking at him from the doorway. He knows it happened because he’d wake from it, probably not always, but sometimes. Merlin’s silent, calm breath from the doorway. Not entering, never approaching, just silently watching Arthur in bed from the threshold for a moment.
In hindsight, it’s unlike Arthur to let himself be watched. To lay in bed undressed, defenceless against Merlin’s wakeful eyes, and to just let it happen without question. It wasn’t at a loss of what to say that kept Arthur from mentioning it. Something about it made him feel safe. Watched over. Protected. And Arthur had liked it, and let it happen.
There were other signs. Dark circles around his eyes, cheeks sometimes seemingly hollow. The haunted shadows in his eyes, how twitchy and nervous he could get. Lost in thought, dropping tools, forgetting tasks. Arthur has seen it before. Should’ve recognised it, would’ve, probably, had the circumstances been different. Had it been someone else. Someone other than Merlin.
In the darkness of his own chambers and the silent promise that no one was awake enough to sense his thoughts, with the moon holding his gaze through the chamber window, Arthur lets himself think.
What he would’ve done.
What he could’ve.
He wonders if Merlin has ever killed. If he’s killed many.
Arthur remembers his first kill. It was awful. And Arthur - trained to kill since birth, a mould of violence to grow into, raised around haunted men, he knew what it meant, and didn’t cope.
He’d laid awake at night, that first night, face hot and body shivering, pulse ringing in his ears with a headache that forced his eyes open against his will. Too hot to sleep. Too cold to cool himself. All limbs, stiff and aching, tensing and relaxing and tensing again. The hours had passed so slowly. When the morning came, he hadn’t slept at all.
Did Merlin know what it meant to kill? Little defenceless Merlin, who tumbled in from a small farming village without a care, did he know how to cope?
Arthur remembers his eyes, the first time they met in the courtyard, how they shined as he smiled. He’d swung at Arthur unguarded, a weak, unsure punch. How could he possibly have been prepared to take a life?
He lets his mind wander as a pale cloud passes over the crescent moon, as if it’s blinking in the spotlight of his hard gaze.
What would he have said?
From warrior to warrior. Knight to knight.
Envisions Merlin’s lanky frame in the castle corridor, restlessly looking out the window. The moon is the same as tonight.
Arthur is in his nightshirt.
“Merlin”, he says, and his voice is calm but Merlin flinches anyway, whirls around a little too fast.
His eyes are wide and sad.
What would he say?
There’s nothing and so, so much.
Arthur could’ve taken him out in the courtyard. Walked around the castle at night, with only the stationed guards there to see them. Walked next to each other, maybe talking, maybe in silence, as the cold midnight wind ruffles their hair and playfully lifts the edges of their tunics against their hips, ushering them along. Merlin’s jacket would’ve made that loud flapping sound it always does when it’s windy, too flimsy not to wave like a rag in the wind. Walked that anxiety, the stress, off beneath a sky full of glittering stars.
Arthur could’ve brushed his shoulder against Merlin’s, maybe even grabbed his hand, to get Merlin to relax. He would twitch at first, like he always did. Then Arthur could’ve said something offensive, smacked him over the head, and Merlin would be too offended to be scared and sad, and when he looked up at him there would be that twinkle in his eyes again, the light that Arthur never wants to lose. The light he’d chase forever like a dog hunting a rabbit. Just letting his fast legs sprint as fast as they could, tire himself out endlessly, eyes focused only on that target. It’d be alright if he never even reached it, as long as he’d keep track of it forever.
Arthur would tell him about his first kill. He’d tell him about his second, third, and fourth. He’d tell him about the fear and the regret and the weight of the world on your shoulders. The worry that maybe it was all for nothing. He’d remind him how to shoulder it. How to squash it down and silence it, override it with conviction.
Had Merlin ever heard that before? Would it be the first time?
Maybe Arthur would take him to the left tower, up on the highest balcony where the winds are so strong they feel like they’re going to rip you off your feet and send you flying across the kingdom. He just knows Merlin would want to stand right at the edge, lean against the bricks and out towards the high drop fall like the idiot he is, stretch his arms out like a bird. He’d laugh, too, that unguarded, happy laugh that made his shoulders shake so hard you could see it through his jacket. He probably wouldn’t, that night, and Arthur would feel it in his chest like a drop when his eyes only look at the view without making an attempt at reaching for it, but Arthur knows Merlin would want to. Deep down. He can’t picture a Merlin so haunted he’d lose that reckless, enthusiastic part of himself.
Maybe there, in the loud screams of the wind ripping against their ears, they’d find enough peace for Arthur to ask how many, and why.
Maybe there, Merlin could open up and tell him.
Maybe there, he’d be honest.
What kind of warrior wisdom could he bestow him, from one man to another? What would be needed? So much blood spilt, so much violence practised, all for nothing when his closest friend has sacrificed a life for the greater good for the first time, and has to carry the burden alone.
What was he made for? All they could’ve shared. All they could’ve been. Closer than ever. More alike than Arthur had ever dreamed of. The one thing Arthur can do, the one thing he’s good at, the one thing he can provide - the art of violence and what it means, and Merlin didn’t even want it.
All those nights Merlin didn’t sleep, all those nights he watched him from the doorstep, did he wait for a moment to wake Arthur up? To ask him for help, for guidance. Is that what he wanted and couldn’t ask for?
Maybe in the tower he would.
Maybe in the tower he’d tell him everything, and they’d be equals.
Arthur looks in Merlin’s deep blue, worried eyes and hugs him so hard he can hear the air being squeezed out of his lungs and feel the bones of Merlin’s frame poke against his chest, pulls him back as the wind roars around them and ruffles Merlin’s thick, dark hair, and as they lock eyes everything is maybe not okay, but it’s better.
Except it isn’t. Reality sucks Arthur back into his body as if he really made that drop from the balcony for real, because Merlin is banished for treason on Arthur’s command, and he hasn’t seen him for longer than he wants to think about. The thought of it always makes the mist in his chest swirl and twist unpleasantly until it becomes something so much like sorrow that Arthur can’t bear it, and he doesn’t notice when he falls asleep or when he stops looking at the moon and wonder if Merlin is looking up too, that if he looks long enough he’d catch the moment Merlin does, and they’d be looking at the same time.
---
The grass tickles his bare feet in a field under a sky full of stars. His fingers and toes are cold, but it’s not unpleasant. On the opposite to him, on the field, close enough to reach out and touch, is Merlin.
Arthur looks at Merlin.
Merlin looks at Arthur.
He stretches out his hand.
“- the same coin.”
(Arthur wakes. He rushes up to the window and looks down in the courtyard. )