was william shatner involved?

[fic] we are stardust, we are golden.

2012-03-23T01:05:16Z

We Are Stardust, We Are Golden. Merlin/Arthur. PG-13. ~1600 words.
The Merlin gang does Woodstock.

warnings: a fair amount of drug use and the implied possibility of major character death.

This is a totally self-indulgent, silly little piece that I wrote basically as a warm up for my big bang, which is a different kind of '60s AU. I wanted to write about sex, drugs and rock and roll, so I wrote about Woodstock. Then Arthur had to go and turn it into a giant angst fest. Whoops. But in other news, wild child Merlin is my new favorite thing to write. And it should probably be obvious, but this is quite certainly an American AU. I've tried to keep everything true to the period, but some anachronisms have very possibly fallen through.

Thanks are owed to timewaslost for the quick beta. And as far as the lyrics go, the first song quoted is Woodstock by Joni Mitchell (the title is from there too) and the second is The I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag by Country Joe McDonald. I also have some lyrics by Francis Scott Key in there. Obviously, I own none of that stuff, or any of the rights to Merlin, and no money is being made off of this.

By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong
And everywhere was a sound and a celebration

White Lake, NY. August 17, 1969.

Merlin’s not entirely sure who’s on stage right now, Ten Years After or Johnny Winter or someone, and he can’t really hear them over the noise the sea of people all around him is making. It’s been raining for two days now and Merlin’s got mud caked into his bellbottoms, along his bare arms, even some in his hair. But the acid he dropped about an hour ago hasn’t completely worn off yet, so Merlin doesn’t really care that much right now. Right now he’s idly watching strands of colour in the sky, which he only sort of realizes aren’t real, and listening to the boom-boom-boom of a far away bass amplifier that still resonates under all the other sound.

Lancelot and Morgana are ranting about the war a few feet away. Merlin really, really doesn’t want to think about that right now, but the acid is finally starting to wear off and he can’t shut their conversation out any longer. “Well, all I’m saying is that if Nixon doesn’t bring the troops home soon, he’s going to have to answer to the young people of this country. He was elected by the people, he’d better listen to the people!” Young people, that’s what he said, young people. Sometimes Merlin wonders if Lancelot is a fifty year old in a college student’s body.

“Oh, you are so naive,” Morgana scoffs. “People can march and shout and complain all they want, but at the end of the day it is Nixon and his cronies who have all the power in this country. Do you think the men sitting down in Washington care at all about the Vietnamese who are getting raped and burned and --”

“Guys, save this for your next SDS meeting, all right” Merlin cut in, “I’m trying to have one weekend where I can just have fun and not have to think about all this shit, okay?”

Lancelot looks for a second like he’s going to argue but Morgana elbows him in the side and he keeps his mouth shut. Gwen and Gwaine show up then; they’re giggling a little bit and Gwen is carrying a joint between two of her fingers. Merlin makes grabby hands for it, but she just gives him a stern look. “Maybe you should try to not spend the entire weekend in a drug induced stupor, Merlin,” she says reproachfully.

Merlin thinks that’s a bit unfair. He’s having a rough time of it right now; if he wants to spend the weekend high, he should be allowed to do that. He’s going to have to deal with harsh reality soon enough, anyway. He sighs and rubs his hand over his face and ignores the probably imaginary fairy that’s landed on Morgana’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go see if I can get closer to the stage,” he tells them.

Gwen takes pity on him and gives him the joint after all before he leaves. As he walks into the crowd Merlin can hear Lancelot start singing to her. “Guinevere had green eyes, like yours, my lady like yours...”

It’s not very easy fighting his way through the crowd, even on the outskirts of it. Mud squicks under Merlin’s Chuck Taylor’s and the field is filled with wet, smelly people whose long hair is clinging to their faces, making facial features difficult to make out. But still, Merlin’s never seen this many people all together in his life and he probably never will again. It feels good -- like the whole generation has finally come together as one community.

He finally finds Arthur where he said he’d be, sitting behind the stage at the edge of Filippini Pond. He makes quite a sight, in contrast to the surroundings. His hair is sheared short, only just curling around the nape of his neck, and he’s simply wearing blue jeans and a white tee shirt, not the bohemian, hippie dress many of the people here have on. He’s staring unseeingly out at the pond, holding a cigarette loosely between his fingers. Merlin stands observing him for a minute, watching as Arthur takes a slow drag of tobacco.

There are several naked men and women getting in and out of the water nearby; Merlin makes a point of averting his eyes.

Eventually, Arthur looks up and their eyes lock together. Merlin wants to say that it’s like one of those moments in the movies where time stops and all that matters in the world is the two of them, but that might be the pot and the acid talking. Either way, He pads across the grass towards Arthur and sits down, cross legged, next to him, offers him the joint. “Switch?”

Arthur hands over the cigarette and takes the joint in return. “How are you doing? he asks, “Last I saw you, you were babbling about dragons in the clouds.”

Merlin gives a little laugh. “No more dragons,” he says, and gives in to temptation and leans his back against Arthur’s chest. “I came down from it and Morgana and Lancelot were arguing about Nixon’s foriegn policy, so I came to find you.”

Arthur hums in response, his arms coming to creep around Merlin’s waist, pulling him closer. They sit there together for a long time, listening to what they could hear of the music coming down from off the stage and the myriad sounds of hundreds of thousands of people milling about in a field. Finally, Merlin speaks.

“I don’t want you to go,” he says in a quiet voice.

He feels Arthur go still at his back. “I have to.”

Merlin goes from calm and melancholy to animated and agitated in an instant. “No you don’t!” he insists, jerking around to face Arthur. “No you don’t! There are -- there are options!” He’s gesturing wildly with his hands, waving them in Arthur’s face. “We can go to Canada -- I’ll come with you. It’s only a few hours from here!”

Arthur just sighs, grabs Merlin by his arms and holds him still. He’s looking Merlin right in the eyes but Merlin can see that he’s forcing himself to do it. “It’s too late,” he says, “you know it’s too late. I need to report for duty on Tuesday.”

They’ve been carefully avoiding that fact all weekend and Merlin has thrown himself into acid and reefer music, trying to make him forget. And for the most part it’s worked, ever since Morgana barged into their Lower East Side apartment and announced, “We’re going to that concert upstate,” and they all piled into Lancelot’s VW Beetle even though there were six of them, and Merlin made them all listen to WNEW through the whole traffic jam of a trip, even well passed the time they could pick up a proper signal for it, and then they arrived on a farm in White Lake and, well. It’s been sex, drugs and rock and roll ever since. (Admittedly with less sex than Merlin would like, maybe he can talk Arthur into some skinny dipping later.)

But now Merlin can’t escape from reality, no matter how much acid he’s put in his brain in the last three days. Arthur has to report for duty on Tuesday. He has to get on a plane that will take him to Saigon. And there’s nothing Merlin can do about it.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, concerned, “Merlin -- please don’t cry.” And then Merlin is being pulled by strong arms against Arthur’s broad chest and Arthur is kissing Merlin’s lips, his cheeks, his nose, under his eyes, kissing away the salty tears that are suddenly there. And Arthur is making Merlin promises but Merlin can’t even hear them over the roaring in his ears.

+In the morning, Arthur shakes Merlin awake. They’re still under the tree by the pond, but there aren’t any skinny dippers around anymore. Merlin has a crick in his neck.

“Jimi’s playing,” Arthur tells him, and that gets Merlin’s attention. He comes awake all at once as the sounds of heavily amplified guitar reach his ears.

They stand up and brush pine needles from their laps. Arthur takes his hand and leads them around to the front of the stage. “You can leave if you want to,” Jimi Hendrix is telling the crowd from the stage, “We’re just jammin’, that’s all.” As if Merlin would want to be anywhere but here, with Arthur’s arms once again around his waist, listening to Hendrix jam.

Suddenly, the nonsensical jam turns into a very recognizable tune. And even though no one on stage is singing, Merlin can hear the words as clear as day in his mind. Oh say, can you see by the dawn’s early light what so proudly we hailed, in the twilight’s last gleaming?

Arthur is whispering in his ear. “I’ll come home to you, Merlin. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Merlin tells him.

Well come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
Got himself in a terrible jam, way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun

And it’s 1-2-3, what are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam
And it’s 5-6-7, open up the pearly gates
Ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopie! We’re all gonna die

[fic] One Singular Sensation

2011-03-18T17:00:05Z

One Singular Sensation | Merlin/Arthur | PG-13 | ~5400 words | "You're too good for the chorus, Merlin," Arthur says, and it's true, he's not just saying that. An A Chorus Line fusion.

This is quite possibly the most self indulgent thing I have ever written. It's basically me completely giving in to the Chorus Line nerd in me and going I love Zach/Cassie! I love Merlin/Arthur! Why don't I just turn Zach/Cassie into Merlin/Arthur! Because I can't bring myself to actually write ACL fic. It's plainly ridiculous. I have taken liberally from the play's book, sometimes paraphrasing, sometimes quoting verbatim. If you know the show, you'll definitely recognize the dialogue. I'm not pretending that I wrote it, or that I own any of this. Thanks go out to erethesunrises and timewaslost for the betas and the cheerleading. You girls rock hard.

one singular sensation
every little step he takes
one thrilling combination
every move that he makes
one smile and suddenly nobody else will do
you know you'll never be lonely with you know who

one moment in his presence
and you can forget the rest
for the guy is second best to none, son

ooh sigh, give him your attention
do I really have to mention
he's the one

***

Merlin breathed a sigh of relief as he deposited the grocery bags on his tiny kitchen table, safely inside his tiny kitchen. He'd almost lost his grip on those bags three times as he had slowly--very slowly--walked up the four flights of stairs to his apartment, balancing them in his arms the whole way. Now, he sagged into the one chair he had next to the table and took a minute to catch his breath, staring listlessly around his nearly empty apartment.

It was minuscule. Apparently these days one bedroom, one bath meant the size of a matchbox, but at least Merlin had a place to stay. And he'd only been there about a week so the place was still sparsely decorated; it hardly felt like home yet. The only personal effects were the calendar and the postcard depicting the Hollywood sign, both stuck with a magnet to the refrigerator.

Merlin sighed inwardly as he remembered what the postcard, which had arrived only the day before, had crammed onto the backside. Hey Merlin, Man, I have to tell you that you missed a great party this weekend at Freya's. Ryan Reynolds was there! Crazy, right? We all missed you, it was a good time. And Freya's picked up some new boytoy. I guess it's alright to tell you that since you're the one who left her, right? Anyway, I hope you're settling back into NYC OK. Call me when you can. - Will. PS. I booked that part on Days Of Our Lives! So far it's only a two episode thing but you never know, they could like me. I could be a soap star in a few months!

Next to the postcard, the calendar was flipped to August, the current month, with various dates circled in red ink and addresses and times inside the rings, indicating the time and place of auditions for prospective gigs. Merlin's eyes now fell with trepidation on one particular circle, Saturday the twenty first--tomorrow. That one represented the open call for the chorus line of Andrew Lloyd Webber's new show. It was sure to be a long running gig, nice work if you can get it, and the buzz had first reached Merlin all the way out in Hollywood. It would have been perfect, had Arthur Pendragon not been directing it.

Merlin sighed in resignation again, he'd been doing that a lot lately, and rubbed his forehead in frustration. Finally, he moved the ten paces it took him to get into his just-as-tiny-as-the-kitchen living room. The room was devoid of all furniture besides a blue dance mat that lay in the center of the hardwood floor. He stripped off his jeans so that he wore only a ribbed tank top and his boxers and plopped himself down on it and began to go through his stretching routine; it had been a long time since he'd danced seriously and he'd have to practice before the audition. He shuddered to think of walking in there and blowing the whole thing by fucking up a pirouette, especially in front of Arthur of all people.

With his legs stretched out in a straight line, Merlin leaned down and reached for his flexed toes, finding more resistance than he had been used to in the past. Every muscle in his body seemed to be impossibly tight and Merlin sighed in frustration and resigned himself to his fate. It was going to be a long night.

+

Arthur woke up begrudgingly. He opened his eyes slowly and immediately closed them again, hating himself for not having the foresight to close the blinds the night before. With his eyes closed this time, he stretched his limbs out across his queen sized bed and wished he could just go back to sleep but even if he had the time, he'd never be able to. It was in the mornings that the bed felt the emptiest; even after two years, Arthur still couldn't really get used to it.

Sitting up and squinting against the sun, Arthur glanced around his familiar apartment. It was a sprawling loft, big enough for at least two people but clearly being used as a bachelor pad. Arthur was usually a very neat person and had always prided himself on keeping a clean house, but he'd been so busy and distracted lately that he had admittedly lapsed. Somehow without Arthur noticing, his clothes had begun to build up into piles around his bed and plates and take out containors littered the table across the apartment. In between the two areas, a giant flat screen television sat across from an equally giant, plush couch. There were large windows in the wall, looking out onto the skyscrapers of Manhattan and shining light in the room and onto the mantle, which bore various photographs of Arthur with Morgana, Lance, Gwen and his father surrounding the three statues proudly displayed in the center: his two Tonys (Best Direction Of A Play and Best Direction Of A Musical) as well as his Drama Desk statuette.

Finally dragging himself completely out of bed, he slowly padded into his kitchen and poured a cup of the coffee from the batch he'd made the night before. He'd never exactly mastered the art--it was always either way too weak or way too strong--but at some point after finding himself living on his own, the desperation for caffeine to get him going in the mornings had won out against taste. Now, he took a sip of the brown liquid and winced dramatically. God, it was horrible. Like water with a vaguely coffee-esque flavor, how was it even possible to screw coffee up this bad? A horrid start to what was sure to be an even more horrid day.

Today was the open call for the chorus of Arthur's new show. Two hundred desperate dancers duking it out for eight spots on the line. Arthur had been dreading this day since the moment they'd scheduled it, but it was a necessary evil. The show needed an ensemble, obviously, and it wasn't going to cast itself, so that meant spending one long Saturday in a studio wheedling it down to just four boys and four girls and coming home with a massive headache.

Still sipping his atrocious coffee, he took a minute to check his email quickly to make sure that Vivian Olafsdottir had followed through and signed off on her contract. She had. Arthur closed his eyes against the headache he could feel coming on already and silently promised himself that he would never be talked into working with his father in the producer spot ever again. Uther had coerced him into casting that diva as his leading lady because of some godforsaken business relationship with her father. And Vivian was talented enough that Arthur had no questions that she would be capable of it, but he'd known her since they were teenagers and was sure she'd be a nightmare to work with. The next few months were sure to be hell.

This whole damn show was beginning to look like a really horrible idea.

+

An hour and a half later, Arthur finally made his way into the studio they had booked for rehearsals. The audition wasn't supposed to start for another forty five minutes but the place was already starting to fill up with girls in leotards and tights and boys in jazz pants and tight shirts, stretching out and practicing various spins and jumps from ballet and jazz. They all stopped suddenly and stared at Arthur as he entered the room. One pretty girl with blonde pigtails and a ridiculously revealing two piece outfit waved flirtatiously at him. Arthur ignored all of it and made his way over to Leon, who was sitting at a table near the front door, taking the names of the dancers as they made their way in.

"Hey boss," Leon greeted as Arthur took a seat next to him. He glanced down at Arthur's sweater and looked back up with an approving smile on his face and Arthur felt a bit sheepish. Leon obviously remembered that this was the sweater that Merlin had given Arthur for Christmas the year before he fucked off to Los Angeles, the one Merlin said made Arthur look all director-y, the one Arthur had refused to wear for a year after Merlin had gone. "Does this mean you're trying to move on?" Leon inquired.

"It means I needed something professional looking but sufficiently casual," Arthur snapped back.

Leon seemed to realize that this would be a good time to drop the subject if he wanted to keep his job, because instead of going with any of the many retorts Arthur was sure had come into his brain he just turned to the sign in sheet and handed it to Arthur to examine. "Fifty eight and counting," he said as three more girls with their hair done up high in ballet style buns came through the door. "Sixty one," he amended, "How was your weekend?"

"Boring," Arthur answered. "I mostly worked on choreography and did paperwork." Arthur scanned the list; it was mostly a sea of unfamiliar names. He did notice Al DaLuca and Sheila Bryant, he'd worked with them both before, maybe he'd be working with them again.

"I suppose it would be futile to tell you that you need to get out more?" Leon asked archly.

"I have work to do," Arthur insisted. "This is a fucking Broadway musical, not a school play."

"Hey, from what I remember of high school, school plays take quite a bit of work."

Arthur just glared at him, and Leon shut up.

A few minutes followed without much happening. For Arthur, this part of the audition process -- the waiting for people to show up part -- mostly consisted of sitting behind the makeshift sign in table, being friendly but aloof and looking important. He hated it.

Arthur looked down at his watch. It was nine thirty, time to start. He was just about to get up off his rickety chair when Leon gasped audibly and the pencil he'd been idly twirling in his fingers clattered on the floor. Arthur followed his gaze to the door and that's when he saw--Merlin. Arthur blinked. Merlin was still there, in black dance pants and a bright red skin tight shirt that showed off exactly how skinny he was, awkwardly clutching the strap of his dance bag where it was slung across his shoulder and standing awkwardly in front of the door, staring unblinkingly at Arthur.

Arthur stared back for a second or two. What the fuck was he doing here? What the fuck was he doing here? Then wrenched his gaze away and this time he did stand up. He moved quickly to stand in front of the mirror wall, where most of the dancers had gathered. "Alright," he said, clapping loudly once to get their attention, "My name is Arthur Pendragon, I am the director of One." He took a minute to gather around the crowd, going for a little intimidating. He saw Al DeLuca standing near the door, glancing from Arthur and down at his wrist watch and looking around nervously. He pointedly ignored Merlin, who had come to stand with the rest of them, near the back.

"I'm going to teach you a combination now," Arthur continued. "Learn it quickly, because the second time you do it you will have started auditioning for me." He paused, a murmur of understanding came up from the crowd in front of him. "Right. We start with our feet shoulder width apart, arms straight at your sides..."

+

Merlin was already out of breath as he stood in front of the warehouse. Hours of dancing ahead of him and he was out of breath before it even started. He hasn’t gone inside yet; he’s trying (unsucessfully) to get some composure before he plunges himself into what is potentially the beginning of the rest of his life. And fuck, he’s about to be late on top of that. Isn’t that fan-fucking-tastic.

Taking one more steadying breath, Merlin makes his way to the door and pushes it open. Walking inside, his eyes fall immediately on the sign in table right in front of him. He’s more surprised than he should be to see Arthur sitting there; Merlin knew he was directing this thing, of course that’s where he is. But it’s more of a shock to Merlin’s system than he will admit to see him after all this time.

Arthur sees him then, when Leon completely fails to be subtle after spotting him first, and Merlin half wants to close the distance between them and tell Arthur that he's sorry, he should never have left, but that's out of the question. Merlin came back to New York to get his life back on track, not to make the same mistakes all over again.

Then Arthur's getting up and moving to the front of the crowd that's gathered by the mirror and Merlin rushes forward so he has a good view of Arthur. The better to learn the combination, obviously, not so that he has a better view of Arthur's ass. Of course not.

Merlin groans internally and braces himself for a long audition.

+

A few hours later, Arthur has finaly wheedled the hundreds of people who came out down to eighteen who are still in the running. Arthur would have liked to say that Merlin wasn't among them, but Arthur knows that the man is too good of a dancer to write him off before giving him a real shot at the job. And besides, Arthur would be lying if he tried to say that he's not insanely curious to know why Merlin is back in New York and auditioning for a chorus line of all things. What had happened to his career in Hollywood?

Arthur takes a seat in the back of the room, several yards away from where the eighteen are standing under the lights, each one of them looking him as though the very fate of the world was in his hands. Arthur is keenly aware of the fact that for many of them, he really does. Some of these "kids" aren't really kids at all, but getting into their late twenties, and desperately trying to eke out a career in dancing for just a little longer. Others really are kids, still in their teens, and have never danced on Broadway before, looking to live their dreams. All of them are good--even great--dancers. Now it's Arthur's job to wheedle them down to four boys and four girls who work well together and would look good together on stage, in costume, under all the lights.

A voice comes ringing out from the line. "How many people do you need?"

"Four and four," Arthur answers, speaking into the microphone on the desk in front of him, his voice booming around the room over the sound system.

"Forty four!" Exclaims a blonde girl, stepping out of the line and looking at Arthur with a panicked look on her face.

No," another, slightly older, girl standing next to her corrects. "Four and four."

"Four boys, four girls," Arthur interjects, not wanting to get too far off topic. He's already running a little late. "We're gonna go down the line and I need to know your names, I'd also like to know where you were born, and when. Let's start on the end. Stage right."

He watches as all the heads in the line snap to stage right, and a slight brunette hesitantly steps forward. She says something Arthur can't quite hear, presumably her name. "Louder," Arthur reminds her.

"Maggie Winslow!" The girl screams this time, full of forced enthusiam. Arthur groans inwardly and forces himself to pay attention as they go down the line, providing the information Arthur had asked of them. His mind keeps straying to Merlin, though, and all of the mystery suddenly surrounding him. Goddammit, Arthur had been so sure that he was over Merlin but if all the man has to do to throw Arthur's life in a tizzy is come waltzing into his auditions, maybe he's really not.

Finally, it's Merlin's turn. Arthur's eyes are riveted on him as he hesitantly stepps out of the line, looking for all the world like he'd rather be anywhere else but here. He looks beautiful, though, the lights the audition is being held under shining off of his cheekbones alluringly. Arthur shakes himself, and reminds himself that that is over and that he needs to be professional right now.

"Merlin," Merlin says simply, and at first Arthur has no idea what he means and then he remembers, oh right, he'd asked them all for their names. And then Merlin continues, "Arthur--can I talk to you for a minute?"

Arthur swallows thickly, keenly aware that Merlin has passed the ball right into his court. "Sure, go ahead," he responds. As much as he wants to dismiss everyone else and get Merlin to himself and demand Why did you go? Wasn't I good enough? Why are you back? Why are you here? I missed you, please never leave again! he's a well established, well respected Broadway director--he's won Tonys, after all--and no way is Merlin going to cause him to lose his composure in the middle of an audition.

Merlin looks a bit thrown. "No, I meant privately," he says.

"Not right now, Merlin," Arthur says, "I'm running about an hour behind." It's a bit of an exaggeration--he's not that far behind--but Arthur just can't deal with this right now, he has work to do. A hurt expression flashes over Merlin's face, but it's gone an instant later and he's stepping back into the line, while the next dancer steps forward.

+

Merlin takes a few stumbling steps back into the line in a daze. He'd been psyching himself up for his moment in the spotlight as they moved down the line, and it was a little shocking for Arthur to take such little notice of him, even as they stood there face to face, directly addressing each other for the first time in years. Merlin just wished he could tell what Arthur was thinking as he sat in the back of the room, calmly taking them through the audition proceedings. It was clear now Merlin had lost the ability to know what was going on in Arthur's head and though it's not a surprise, it stings a little.

The woman standing next to him is moving forward, saying, "I'm Sheila Bryant. Sheila Rosemary Bryant," in a voice which is imperious and is clearly going for sexy. Merlin doesn't swing that way so he can't tell how effective she's being but, he thinks wryly, it's probably not working on Arthur.

But, oh, right. Not thinking about that.

"I'm going to be thirty real soon," Sheila says in that same voice. "And I'm real glad." Merlin barely surpresses an eye roll--he is standing right next to her after all--and lets the audition wash over him. Arthur pulls an interesting trick out of the bag. He orders the dancers to talk.

"Why did you start dancing?"

The question seems simple, and if Merlin didn't know Arthur as well as he does, he may have believed that the director actually thought it was. But no. Merlin can tell that Arthur is angling to get as much information about his auditionees as possible by asking a deceptively easy question. He wonders what Arthur has up his sleeve.

The other dancers on the line seem as surprised by the development as Merlin is, they've never been asked before to do something other than dance and rattle off their height, their weight, their resume. But Mike, the twentysomething man near stage right, seems to take it in stride. "Because my sister did," he says, "she was girl. That's why she got all of the dancing lessons."

And so it goes. One by one, Merlin's fellow dancers step forward and tell their sob stories. Kristine, who's a great dancer but can't sing a note for her life; Ricky, was supposed to be a kindergarden teacher but got away from it just in time; Connie, who's struggled with being under five feet tall her whole life. On and on it goes, and the longer Merlin waits for Arthur to call his name, the more his stomach tightens with stress.

"Can we sit down now?" Someone finally asks, in a tired voice. And its not until then that Merlin realizes just how exhausted he is -- they've been talking and dancing around the stage for what must have been hours.

"Arthur, can the kids sit down now?" Leon reiterates, calling out to Arthur so he can hear him in his seat down in the orchestra.

"Yeah," Arthur answers into his microphone, "bring them downstairs and run the tap combination. And teach them the lyrics to the song." Leon gestures towards the stage left exit and Merlin sighs in relief as he and the crowd around him slowly start to move in that direction.

But then Arthur's voice comes across the sound system yet again. "Merlin -- stay on stage, please." And Merlin's heart skips several beats.

+

Arthur tries, and fails, to pretend that he's not completely freaking out as he looks up at Merlin, all alone now on the stage, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other, with his eyes flitting around the room, landing on everything in the theater except on Arthur himself. Finally, the younger man seems to steel himself and looks right at Arthur, smiles, and says awkwardly, "Well, this audition is really interesting, isn't it?"

He couldn't being forcing small talk any more if he tried.

"Yeah," Arthur agrees vaguely, but then he can't stop himself from blurting, "What are you doing here?"

Merlin looks startled suddenly. "What do you think? I need a job, Arthur."

Arthur is unimpressed. "In the chorus?"

Merlin rolls his eyes. "Look, I'd love a part, of course. But I'll take what I can get." Unsaid is the fact that if Merlin asked and looked at him with exactly the right kind of puppy dog eyes, Arthur would probably give him the lead. But Merlin would never ask.

"You're too good for the chorus, Merlin," Arthur says, and it's true, he's not just saying that. He's seen Merlin go out there alone under the lights night after night and blow audiences away with his grace, his agility, his sheer talent that Arthur had known was there since the first time he'd seen Merlin dance, when the guy was just a skinny teenager at an audition much like this one.

But Merlin immediately blows off the compliment. "Too good?" he scoffs, "I did a couple of dance parts, so what?"

"You stopped shows cold!" Arthur insists, "Your career was going fine here in New York --" he cuts himself off, still implausibly unwilling to face the fact that Merlin had ever left the city.

But Merlin quickly fills the void, jumping in like Arthur never said anything about him leaving. "I wanted to be something more than just a dancer," he says, all in a rush. "But I can't act," he chokes it out, like it's still difficult for him to admit to himself. And knowing Merlin, Arthur reflects, it probably is. Merlin is anything but a quitter. (So why did he run away from me? creeps into his thoughts and Arthur pushes them right back out again.)

Merlin is still talking. "And there I was, out in California, supposed to be some actor. But it didn't take me long to figure out I can't act." He sighs, "It didn't take Hollywood very long either."

"I did hear you were going out with some big agent, going wild, running around." Arthur blurts out, and what the hell is wrong with him? Why can't he keep all this personal stuff to a minimum and just do his job? You're a director for Christ's sake, and this is an audition, he tells himself, fucking keep it professional!

"Well, when you're a man of leisure, what else is there to do other than go a bit wild and run around?"

They stand there, just looking at each other for a few, long moments. Then Merlin sighs loudly again and says plainly, "I need a job, Arthur. I need a job and I don't know any other way to say it. Just. Treat me like you'd treat me like you'd treat anyone else."

Arthur stares back at the man under the stage lights and just lets himself give in. "Go run the tap combination," he says, and it feels like a defeat.

But Merlin positively beams, giving him that million-watt smile Arthur had missed so much. "Thank you!" he says earnestly before bustling off stage to learn the new routine.

When Leon brings the rest of the line back in a few minutes later, he smirks and gives Arthur a knowing look. Arthur ignores him.

+

They're running the tap combination. Leon is downstage center marking it so the rest can follow and Arthur is still in his seat in the back, bellowing out notes for specific dancers at random times, scaring the shit out of everyone. Merlin had been talking with Arthur when the others had learned the routine, but thankfully he's always been excellent at picking up a few dance steps very quickly. Mostly, he's just relieved that the talking has stopped now and they can get back to doing what Merlin does best -- dancing.

But suddenly Arthur is there, grabbing Merlin by the wrist and dragging him way downstage and off to the side, out of ear shot from the rest of the dancers who keep going, under Leon's watchful supervision. "What are you doing, Arthur?" Merlin snaps, annoyed. How dare Arthur pick him out, in front of all of those potential future colleagues? It's embarassing. "I was doing what I said I would, I was dancing like everyone else!"

"No you weren't," Arthur hisses back at him, and he seems angry. Merlin wishes he was surprised. "You can't dance like everyone else! You never could. You don't know how. You're better than this. For Christ's sake, you got out of the chorus when you were eighteen what makes you think you can go back in when you're twenty-five?"

Merlin just looks up at him, resigned. It sort of hurts to look up into that painfully handsome face he used to know so well and see nothing but anger and resentment there. "That's what this is about, isn't it." It's phrased as a question, but it's not really one. Merlin already knows the answer. This is topic they've been silently dancing around all morning. Or one of them, anyway. "You took me out of the chorus and you don't want to put me back in. Does it make you feel like some kind of a failure?"

"Don't you? When I got out of the chorus--"

"This isn't about you," Merlin cuts him off. "Please don't make this about you."

"Why did you leave me?" Arthur asks, and the words cut at Merlin like a knife. It's exactly what he didn't want to talk about when he came here today.

"Why did you leave me?" Arthur repeats, "I came home one day and you were gone."

"Oh, Arthur, you noticed." Merlin can't quite keep the resentment and sarcasm out of his voice.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Arthur demands, and Merlin reflects for a moment that this is escalating far more quickly than he thought it would.

"You had already left me weeks before." Merlin's voice sounds flat even to his ears.

"Left you?" Arthur is visibly confused. "I thought we were living together!"

"Sharing the same apartment maybe," Merlin shrugs, "but you were in love again--"

"I wasn't!" Arthur protests, sounding distraught now, "You know I wasn't! I was directing my first play!"

"And you were in love with it!" Merlin all but yells. He knows he's getting unreasonable, and their voices are getting louder and louder -- the last thing either of them needs right now is to alert the other auditioners to their drama -- but he can't help it. This has been waiting to be said since before he left for Los Angeles.

"You knew how important that play was to me, Merlin," Arthur says, his voice as solemn and serious as Merlin's ever heard it, "if I could prove that I could do straight drama, then maybe I wouldn't be stuck making up dance steps for the rest of my life!"

Merlin scoffs in disbelief. "You were never going to be stuck," he says. "Acting, directing, choreographing. Plays, musicals. You were gonna do it all. And you wanted me right there with you, and I appreciated that, but I couldn't keep up. I'm just a dancer."

"No you're not, you're--"

But Merlin cuts him off, he needs to finally get this out. "It wasn't when we were working together that it really bothered me, then at least I got to see you. But when we weren't...I could feel you slipping away from me bit by bit. And it hurt to much. So I left."

Arthur is looking at him with an expression Merlin never thought he'd see again. It's the one he used to get when they were first together, what sometimes feels like a lifetime ago, and he'd look at Merlin like he was the whole world and like he could do anything. It makes Merlin's heart ache in that way that made him fuck off to California.

"We can't really talk about this here..." he says, voice trailing off with a tinge of disappointment.

"I know," Merlin assures him. "We can talk later." He catches Arthur's gaze and holds it, trying to convey just how very much this means to him. "Just, please. Give me a chance. I'm just another dancer, treat me like everyone else."

+

An hour, what seems like a thousand run-throughs of the same three combinations and lots of thinking on Arthur's part later and he'd finally come up with eight people to hire. This was always his favorite and least favorite part of the audition process. All of these dancers were very talented and would be brilliant, but he could only hire eight of them. He hated the mixture of crushed expressions with elated ones. It tore his heart out to have to reject so many of these young people he'd watch improve all afternoon, but elated him to give a few of them a chance at greatness.

He had the eight names jotted out in front of him. Val, Maggie, Diana, Sheila and Richie, Mark, Al and Merlin. Those six graphite letters seemed to stare back at him from the paper, daring him to go ahead say the name out loud. Part of him was afraid to, if only for the knowing looks he'd get from their friends who'd watched them fall apart, but also because he didn't want to be the guy who hired his ex just because they'd asked him.But on the other hand, no one could deny the fact that Merlin was a good dancer, easily the best of the whole audition, and how could he turn down a guy with so much talent?

But it was all worth it. All the other expressions, good and bad, faded into the background as Merlin's grin spread across his face when Arthur called his name and he stepped down into the line designated for the hired dancers. It felt like a new beginning.

***

kiss today goodbye
the sweetness and the sorrow
wish me luck, the same to you
but I can't forget
what I did for love
what I did for love

burningqueen @ 2010-08-26T12:42:00

2010-08-26T16:42:23Z

friends cut

So I just cut like, literally, half my flist. Mostly people I haven't talked to in ages, but just generally people I felt like I had grown apart from or never been close to in the first place. I'm trying to lessen my Internet presence atm and part of that is spending less time on LJ. To those of you who I cut, there are no hard feelings towards any of you on my part and I wish you all the best.

[fic] What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game 6/?

2010-07-29T20:04:39Z

Title: What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game, Part 6
Pairings: eventual Arthur/Merlin and background Lancelot/Gwen
Rating: PG-13 for now.
Word Count: ~3900 words this part.
Disclaimer: This version of Arthur, Merlin, et al belong to Shine and the BBC, not to me.
Summary: It's 1963, the Cold War is in full swing, and Arthur Pendragon, agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service, is about to meet the Service's newest Russian double agent: Merlin Emrys.
Author's Note: Thanks once again to latenightcuppa for the beta. More notes at the end.

first part. previous part.

we gotta get out of this place
if it's the last thing we ever do
we gotta get out of this place
girl, there's a better life for me and you

Arthur and Merlin had a lot on their plate when they met again a fortnight later in mid October. Labour winning the majority in Parliament for the first time in over a decade had closely followed the recent resignation of Nikita Khrushchev from the highest Soviet office. It felt to Arthur like the whole world was in flux. Khrushchev was out, Alec Douglas-Home was out and Arthur hadn't even gotten over the shock of losing Kennedy just yet - it was almost too much. But Arthur had worked within the British bureaucracy for years and knew how to compartmentalize and so he was able to keep everything straight, but just barely.

It was the most awkward meeting they had ever had. They sat in a back room with only a thin cloth barrier separating them from the men and women dancing energetically to the music blasting from the speakers. It was October but felt more like July in the club, the air was damp and uncomfortable with humidity; cigarette smoke crept in from under the cloth and hung all around them without the air flow to keep it moving and Arthur, egged on by his nerves, fumbled in his breast pocket for his own pack. Merlin, for his part, took periodical sips from the lager he'd gotten at the overpriced bar.

"We should probably just get this over with," Merlin half-shouted into Arthur's ear so that he could be heard. The music and noise from the next room nearly drowned out their own voices, and in order to be heard they were sitting very close to each other, their legs pressed up together like they had that morning in Arthur's flat and it was really much too hot for that. The whole situation reminded Arthur of that brief, ill-advised kiss and thinking of that reminded him that Merlin could do magic and the whole thing made him decidedly uncomfortable. But instead of pulling away from Merlin like he wanted to, he forced himself to remain professional and merely nodded, agreeing to get down to it.

"Okay," Merlin continued to half-yell, "from what Will and I have heard, there was some kind of coup at the Kremlin yesterday."

That was certainly interesting, Arthur thought. "So Khrushchev was forced out?"

Merlin shook his head wryly. "I don't know exactly what happened and they're not going to tell me," he said, "but it definitely wasn't his idea."

"Maybe things are changing," Arthur mused, mostly to himself, "that would never have happened under Stalin."

"Don't get your hopes up," Merlin cautioned in response. "Nikita Khrushchev is no Josef Stalin, but that doesn't mean the Soviet bloc is going to break up. It persevered when Stalin died and it will continue after this."

Arthur sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sometimes I wish World War Three would get over and done with already, just so all the build up would go away."

Merlin reached over and placed a warm hand on Arthur's knee, squeezing ever so softly, and Arthur fought the reflex to pull away. "Don't be like that," Merlin insisted, serious and grave like Arthur had rarely heard him. "We do what we do so that there doesn't ever have to be a World War Three. And the minute you stop being optimistic, you accept defeat."

Arthur closed his eyes and let Merlin's voice and words wash over him. He tuned out the music still blaring in the club (hey! you! get off of my cloud!) and allowed himself instead to concentrate on Merlin hand’s still at his knee, just for a moment, and when he opened his eyes again Merlin was smiling at him.

"New prime minister," he said, "how are they taking that down at the office?"

Arthur shrugged. "I don't know about anyone else," he answered, "but my father isn't happy, I can tell you that."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me."

Arthur made a show out of straightening his jacket and tie, took a long, dramatic, drag on his cigarette, and did his best imitation of Uther, declaring: "Pendragons vote Tory!"

"So is that who you voted for then?" Merlin asked, taking another sip from his drink. Arthur tensed at the question and Merlin must have felt it where their legs were pressed together because his eyes went wide and he exclaimed in mock shock, "I don't believe it! Does your father know you voted for Labour, then?" Arthur blushed at that, the jig up, and Merlin patted his knee reassuringly. "Don't worry," he said, "I can keep a secret."

Arthur remembered their last awkward meeting in his sitting room and gold flashing through the other man's eyes and knew Merlin was telling the truth.

Ten minutes later they were on the street outside the club and ready to make their goodbyes. It was as incredibly awkward as the rest of the meeting. Merlin offered his hand to shake and Arthur took it hesitantly and knew he had to address the subject they'd been avoiding. "Look, Merlin," he started, "about what happened at my place..."

"You don't have to say anything," Merlin interrupted, not letting go of Arthur's hand, "it's fine."

But Arthur really did. He couldn't just let it go without acknowledgement. "No," he protests, dropping Merlin's hand because he really couldn't say it while holding the man's hand, "I just--the thing is, your secret is safe with me. You can rest assured that I will not reveal anything that happened that morning to anyone, but, well, I'm not a homosexual."

Merlin looked as though he'd been slapped. His eyes widened in shock and his mouth dropped open. "Neither am I," he said, a little too quickly.

Arthur didn't quite believe him, but he wasn't going to press the issue. "All right then."

"I'm sorry if I put you in a position that made you feel uncomfortable," Merlin said, his voice sounding as forlorn and broken as Arthur had ever heard it (although his accent was stubbornly impeccable) and his usually bright eyes had dulled. Arthur instinctively knew that Merlin was talking about the kiss, not the magic.

Arthur cleared his throat awkwardly. "Don't even think on it," he assured the other man, unwilling to admit just how uncomfortable he'd been. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Merlin said, and they walked off in separate directions.

By the time Arthur got home, he'd developed a pounding headache. He downed a glass of water and two Aspirin and lay a long time in bed, visions of Merlin's smile interspersed with the sullen look he'd worn when they parted in his mind's eye.

+

Arthur wasn't completely out of touch with feelings, and most of the time he knew better than to lie to himself, but as he lay in bed that night he consciously tried to suppress all the things he'd been unconsciously suppressing for months. Merlin. Merlin, who could do magic. Arthur's mind had been buzzing with that thought for the past two weeks. It was incredible. Arthur felt as though his eyes had been opened in a way they'd never been before. Magic had been taken out of the fairy tale world and put into the world that Arthur himself inhabited -- he'd seen it with his own eyes.

But in a way, it also made perfect sense. Arthur could still clearly remember the day when he was nine that Uther, then a field agent, had come home from a lengthy mission abroad with a large package that turned out to be a television set. The Pendragons were the first of their friends to buy one, so Arthur had never seen one before, and the wonder and awe that he experienced when he and his then new sister Morgana were seated on the sofa opposite the contraption and Uther turned it on stayed with him for the rest of his life. Moving images of live people filled the screen and Arthur watched as their mouths moved with voices in sync; it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

If humanity could invent television, why couldn't they do magic too?

So it wasn't the magic keeping Arthur awake, no, it was the fact that he could no longer ignore the way Merlin looked at him sometimes like he was the only thing that mattered in the whole world and the fact that just as often Arthur sent that look right back at Merlin.

Arthur had always assumed he was a heterosexual. There wasn't any room in his world for him to be anything else. Sure, he was aware of the existence of dark back rooms in the bad parts of town where men got up to unspeakable things and he'd seen the dramatic fall of powerful men who'd been caught with their pants down, and as a teenager he'd joked along with his school friends at the expense of the more effeminate boys in their class, but it was never something he'd taken seriously. Arthur liked women, obviously, of course he did.

Then why was it that when he tried to close his eyes and sleep all he could see was the way Merlin's eyes sparkled when he smiled?

But it didn't matter. Sodomy was illegal anyway and even the softest whisper of a rumour could seriously damage Arthur's personal reputation, the Pendragon reputation and his career permanently. No matter what Arthur actually felt, Merlin couldn't be worth all that, could he?

+

1965; the nineteenth year of the Cold War.

Life went on despite Arthur's continuing existential crisis. He suddenly felt trapped in his life and in his relationship, such as it was, with Merlin. Thankfully, they had managed to avoid letting their kiss permanently damage their friendship and soon they were back to bantering about music, films and the spy life at their rendezvous like they always had, that kiss all but forgotten. And if Arthur sometimes caught Merlin's gaze lingering on him longer than it should have, well, it was only because Arthur's gaze was lingering too, and Arthur knew better than to mention it. Still, he wanted more. He was tired of all the cloak and dagger, he wanted to be able to spend time with Merlin like real friends would. He wanted to be able to acknowledge Merlin, he wanted to be able to introduce him as "Merlin Emrys, we work together in the Service."

But there was still information to ferry from Merlin to Arthur's higher ups, though, so the status quo was still unchanged when late January came around and Winston Churchill died.

It felt to Arthur that the entire country stood still for a few days. Even though he hadn't been active in government for many years, Churchill remained a symbol for the British people. Arthur, who had been born during the war, certainly felt that a cornerstone in his life was gone, memories of grammar school lessons about the war suddenly stark in his mind.

"Are you going to the funeral?" Merlin asked first thing the next day, when they met locked in the lavatory of a small cafe near Merlin's bookshop in Covent Garden. Merlin had called him directly on his office phone a few hours before, simply saying that he needed to see Arthur.

Arthur eyed Merlin curiously where he sat on the closed toilet, seemingly examining his clasped hands. Arthur knew him well enough by now to know that he had something on his mind. Instead of pressing him to open up about it though, Arthur just said, "No. My father's going since he's a government official, but I'll have to go through the line like everyone else to pay my respects."

Arthur realized for the first time that Merlin wasn't carrying with him his usual manila folder that he used to transport documents to their meetings. And then it hit him. "You don't have any information for me, do you?" he asked, "You just wanted to talk."

Merlin looked sheepish. "Is that okay?" he asked.

Arthur shrugged, smiling a little. "Of course it's okay, Merlin."

Merlin sighed. "Some days this whole double agent lark is easier than others, is all," he said. "Some days I just get so lonely." Merlin's eyes were blue, not golden, but Arthur found he couldn't look anywhere else in the dim loo. "Sometimes I just feel so alone," Merlin continued, voice and accent shaking, "You're the only person I can trust, Arthur, did you know that?"

"I had an inkling," Arthur admitted. He moved closer to the toilet where Merlin sat and knelt in front of it, wordlessly interlocking Merlin's fingers with his own. "What's this about?"

"I don't know," Merlin answered. "Probably nothing, probably just your standard paranoia."

"What is it, tell me," Arthur pressed.

"I just -- I thought -- on my way to work this morning, I was going the route I always take, and I thought someone was following me."

"Like a tail?"

Merlin nodded. "Yeah, like a tail. But if it was a tail, he was damn good because I doubled back and couldn't find him." He sighed again and shook his head. "I think I was just making it up. I'm a little shaken up."

"I can see that," Arthur said. In one swift movement, he disentangled his fingers from Merlin's and instead wrapped his arms around the other man's back, deftly pulling him off his seat on the toilet and onto his lap, backing them both up against the wall. "You are not alone," he whispered into Merlin's hair, "I'm here."

They sat there for a few minutes, until they had to vacate the lavatory before it became too conspicuous, with Merlin clinging quietly to Arthur's jumper and Arthur dropping periodic kisses to the top of Merlin's head. And in that moment, Arthur forgot about all of his anxiety over their relationship and Merlin was just Merlin, his friend who needed him to be there right now.

+

When Arthur got back into his office, he picked up his phone and dialed Nimueh. "Could I get a protective detail for Merlin?" he asked when she picked up.

"What on Earth would Petrovitch need a protective detail for, Arthur?" scoffed Nimueh.

"He said this morning that he thought someone was trailing him on the way to work."

Nimueh's voice took on a sharp quality to it. "This morning? There wasn't a rendezvous scheduled this morning."

Dammit. "I know," Arthur admitted, "we had an impromptu meeting this morning, he was worried."

Nimueh sighed over the line, as though Arthur was a terrible disappointment to her. "You know you can't just go visit him whenever you want, Arthur," she said, "you have to go through the right channels."

"We're not stupid," Arthur insisted, "we took precautions."

"Well, it's not you're job to get so buddy-buddy with him. You're his case officer, not his friend."

Arthur flinched at that, and was thankful Nimueh couldn't see him on her end of the line. "It's my job to make sure that Merlin is safe and feels secure so that he can continue gathering information for the Service," he retorted. "So are you going to assign him a detail or not?"

"He doesn't need it," Nimueh declared shortly and hung up before Arthur got the chance to protest.

+

Things continued as normal for months after that. Merlin never again mentioned that he thought he was being trailed and, seeing as Merlin seemed determined to write it off, Arthur never bothered to look into that protective detail after Nimueh refused his initial request. In fact, Arthur put the whole incident out of his mind, chalking it up to Merlin's nerves and a busy sidewalk. Merlin had good days and bad days, and he still called Arthur to meet him off the cuff sometimes, but there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about anything.

One Saturday in August, Arthur found himself being dragged along Carnaby Street by Morgana. They were on their way to meet Gwen and Lancelot at some club called The Roaring Twenties that Arthur had never heard of but Morgana swore was "just so fab!" Arthur was sceptical of this assertion, but Morgana insisted that he had to get out of the office and have some fun for once and Arthur secretly agreed with her, so he'd given in.

The street was a blur of colour and sound. Rock music spilled out onto the sidewalk from the shops that lined it, men wearing colourful, well-fitted suits and women wearing colourful, short skirts. Everywhere he looked, Arthur saw people laughing and dancing to the music, looking as though they were having the time of their lives. In one doorway, he saw a man and woman sharing a cigarette between them that Arthur was pretty sure wasn't tobacco, but Morgana glared when she saw his disapproving expression, so he didn't say anything.

As he passed one doorway, Arthur almost ran over a man who stumbled out of a shop. He started when he realized it was Merlin. The man was dressed differently from what Arthur was used to, in denim jeans and a bright yellow cotton shirt under a tight white blazer. His hair had grown out a bit and was now all the way down to his shoulders at the nape of his neck and he held a paper bag emblazoned with a red and yellow logo. He grinned when he recognized Arthur.

"What are you doing here?" Merlin exclaimed, surprised but happy.

"We're on our way to the Roaring Twenties," Arthur answered him, and he could feel his own grin, "Otis Redding's playing there tonight."

Merlin's face took on an expression of surprised jealousy. "Otis is great!" he said and added, "I didn't know you liked him, Arthur."

Arthur shrugged. "I don't, really. But Morgana pressured me into going with her."

Merlin turned towards Arthur's sister as if he was just noticing her. "Oh, hello!" he grinned. "You're Morgana le Fey."

"Yes, I am," Morgana said, eyeing him speculatively. "You're Alexei Petrovitch."

"It's actually pronounced Alec-say," Merlin corrected her, not unkindly, "not Alex-y."

"Oh," Morgana looked a little puzzled and shrugged, "sorry."

"That's alright," Merlin assured her, holding out his hand for her to shake. Morgana took it. "Just call me Merlin."

"Merlin," Morgana agreed.

Arthur looked surreptitiously around, ever the studious case officer, and ascertained that none of the people on the street were eyeing them suspiciously. He cleared his throat. "What are you doing here, Merlin?" he asked.

"Oh." Merlin grinned impishly and held up the paper bag he carried. "Just picked up the new Rolling Stones single, is all." He pulled a '45' out of the bag whose cover featured five men in clothes not unlike those Merlin himself was wearing, with the words (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction emblazoned across the top. Arthur vaguely recognized the men as The Rolling Stones. "I've been hearing it on the radio a lot," Merlin continued, "I love it, I had to buy it."

Arthur smirked. "Still wasting your meagre income on worthless records, I see," he teased.

Merlin scoffed indignantly. "It's good!" he insisted and narrowed his eyes at Arthur suspiciously. "You like it, I know you do," he said and turned to Morgana. "He likes it," he told her, "don't let him tell you otherwise."

Arthur managed to keep a straight face, admitting nothing. Privately, he agreed that it was a pretty--what was the word?--"fab" record.

Morgana glanced down at her watch. "We're going to be late if we don't get a move on, Arthur," she said. "Lancelot and Gwen are waiting."

Arthur turned apologetically to Merlin. "I'd ask you to join us, but that wouldn't be a very good idea."

Merlin shrugged. "Don't worry about it," he said, "I have to be at the shop early anyway. But I'll see you soon."

Merlin grinned at him and Arthur grinned back and they both went on down the street in opposite directions. When they got the club, Gwen and Lancelot were indeed waiting for them and Arthur went to the bar for reparations for their tardiness in the form of liquor. Then he sat in their booth for the next few hours, letting Otis Redding's voice wash over him and trading small talk with Lancelot as Morgana and Gwen danced and occasionally being left alone when Lancelot got up for a few songs with Gwen.

+

Later that night, when the music had stopped but Arthur still heard the ringing in his ears and he had managed to drag himself home and into bed, he was woken up by a different kind of ringing. Arthur realized with a start that it was the telephone by his bed.

"Hello, Arthur Pendragon speaking," he answered groggily.

"I'm sorry to bother you this late, Agent Pendragon," the unfamiliar voice on the other end said, all efficient professionalism, and Arthur wondered why he was getting an official call at -- he checked the clock -- one thirty in the morning. "It's just that we have a bit of a situation," the man continued, "the subject of your case is in the hospital -- Agent, um, Petrovitch."

Arthur felt his heart stop and restart, even as the man's voice finished stumbling over the Russian name. He was wide awake now. "Which hospital?" he demanded.

"Sir, it isn't safe for you to --"

"Which hospital?"

"Sir, the KGB London office is sure to have eyes on his room," the man answered firmly, "you cannot go visit him."

Arthur deflated; it was true, going to visit him would only put Merlin in more danger. He sighed. "What's your name?" he asked the man, his voice softening as much as he could make it.

"Owain, sir."

"Well, Owain, can you at least tell me what happened?" he compromised.

"It's hard to say," Owain answered, "but from the information we've managed to extract from the hospital, it appears that he's been poisoned."

Arthur's breath caught painfully in his throat once again. "You mean someone was trying to kill him?" He thought wildly of that day months before when Merlin had been afraid he was being tailed and cursed himself for not taking the threat more seriously.

"We can't say anything like that until we've conducted an investigation, sir" Owain said, but the tone of his voice sounded more like 'yes, that's exactly what happened.'

Arthur didn't get any more sleep that night, and he paced his way through the next day, ignoring the way his friends and co-workers shot him wary glances as if they were deeply worried about him. Didn't they understand that it wasn't him they should be worried about? Around three in the afternoon they received word that Merlin was out of the woods and recovering and Arthur let Morgana talk him into finally having something to eat.

But it wasn't until the day after that that Owain appeared in his office doorway, carrying a note for Arthur that had been smuggled out of Merlin's hospital room. It was in Merlin's own handwriting and was only three words long.

"It was Nimueh."

NOTE: There was an insane amount of browsing Wikipedia that went on during the writing of this. A lot of "ohhh this was happening around that time, I should put it in." So a lot of "well apparently this was happening around that time.

1) Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power by a coup led by Leonid Brezhnev on 14 October, 1964. The Labour Party regained power in the British Parliament after almost a decade of being in the minority only a few days later.

2) It's important to me to portray the prejudice against homosexuality at the time accurately. According to wikipedia, "sexual acts between two adult males, with no other people present, were made legal in England and Wales in 1967." Before that, it possible to be put on trial if you were caught in a homosexual act. By the time this story takes place, people were no longer being put to death for it or even sent to work camps (like what happened to Oscar Wilde) but it was a huge embarassment and individuals would suffer a huge blow to their reputations. That's enough to discourage someone in Arthur's position from acting on it even if they really, really wanted to.

3) I have no idea if Otis Redding played at The Roaring Twenties in August of '65, I think probably not. It was very difficult to find anything specific about that, but I do know that it was a popular nightclub on Carnaby Street in London at the the time and that people like Otis Redding played thee.

4) (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones was released as a single in the UK on 20 August, 1965 and I love that song so much that I actually delayed the setting of that scene by a few months just to include it.

5) I made Merlin's Russian name Alexei because of one of my favorite movies of all time, The Russians Are Coming in which a Russian sailor named Alexei instructs his American soon-to-be-girlfriend in how to pronounce it, so I couldn't help but echo that here.

6) I'm going to be out of town for the next month or so. I will have at least intermittent Internet access so it won't be a full month before I post another part, but won't have as much time to write so they probably won't come as quickly. However, I do have a nine or so hour plane ride tomorrow and I intend to write then, so hopefully I will have the next part up by the beginning of next week. Your continued enthusiasm for this story continues to make my life.

[fic] What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game 5/?

2010-07-24T20:15:58Z

Title: What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game, Part 5
Pairings: eventual Arthur/Merlin and background Lancelot/Gwen
Rating: PG-13 for now.
Word Count: ~4200 words this part.
Disclaimer: This version of Arthur, Merlin, et al belong to Shine and the BBC, not to me.
Summary: It's 1963, the Cold War is in full swing, and Arthur Pendragon, agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service, is about to meet the Service's newest Russian double agent: Merlin Emrys.
Author's Notes: Thanks to latenightcuppa for the beta read of this part. More notes at the end.

first part. previous part.

oh yeah I’ll tell you something
I think you’ll understand
when I say that something
I want to hold your hand
I want to hold your hand
I want to hold your hand

In August, the American military entered Vietnam after two US navy vessels were attacked by the North Vietnamese navy over the course of just two days in the Gulf of Tonkin. The world collectively took a deep breath but, as often happens when there’s just nothing you can do, quickly went back to their lives and the other issues that took up much of their attention.

About half a week later, while the intelligence community was still reeling from the unanimously approved blank check the American Congress had given to President Johnson for military expenses in Vietnam, Arthur joined Morgana in going out to lunch with Morgana's sister Morgause, who was on her annual trip to London. Well, half-sister. Their father, Gorlois, had run off to America in order to find himself in his twenties and had instead found a pretty blonde débutante named Elaine. The two of them spent just enough time together to ruin the poor girl for life before Gorlois was called back to the life waiting for him as a spy for Britain and Elaine was left, alone, unmarried and pregnant, to face the disapproval of American high society just as the stock market took its fall. Gorlois later married Morgana's mother and had shortly there after been shot down by a German in his RAF fighter jet, leaving both girls to grow up fatherless. Almost twenty years later, Morgana had received a letter from her long lost sister, who now worked as an interrogator for the Central Intelligence Agency just has her father had done for the Secret Intelligence Service in its early days, and the two had been writing and visiting each other back and forth ever since, building the relationship they'd never had as children.

Morgause was obviously troubled that week. She looked as flawless as she always did, with her dirty blonde hair was pinned back neatly behind her head and her dress which managed to look professionally classy and fashionably short all at once, but she worried her lip almost constantly as she stared off into the distance while she and Arthur sat in the cafe on Wandsworth Road. Morgana had gone to order their lunch. "I shouldn't really have come," she confided to Arthur, leaning across the table, "as you can imagine we're swamped at work, but Morgana has been looking forward to my visit so much, I couldn't disappoint her."

"I'm sure the CIA is still functioning without you," Arthur assured her, "but I'd enjoy this holiday, it's probably the last one you'll get in awhile."

Morgause smiled at him, but the smile never quite reached her eyes. Arthur had noticed that it almost never did. "You'd better be thankful Britain isn't at war," she said almost meanly. "Work has been chaos ever since the attacks. People who've never had to know anything about Vietnam in their lives are now being taken away from their normal jobs to work on this. And all because the president wants a war."

"I'm sure Johnson doesn't actually want a war," Morgana chastised as she arrived back at the table and set a martini in front of both Arthur and Morgause before sitting down in front of her own, "he's just doing what he thinks he has to in order to keep your country safe."

Morgause shook her head, looking like she wasn't sure she should go on. "I'm not sure that's what it is, though," she leaned for conspiratorially. "You didn't hear this from me," she warned severely, "but there's a lot of confusion about last week. There are a whole bunch of conflicting reports going around. No one can say for sure exactly what happened on the fourth." She sat back and raised her eyebrows at Arthur and Morgana, as if to say 'how about that, eh?'

Arthur took a sip of his drink and let the information wash over him. He never pretended to quite understand the workings of the minds of heads of state, but this took the cake when it came to fuzzy motivations.

Morgause sighed dramatically. "But enough about my professional woes," she said, "what about yours, Arthur? I hear you've got some super top secret assignment you've been working on?" Arthur glanced at Morgana in alarm and Morgause laughed. "Don't worry, she hasn't told me more than that," she assured him. "But if you'd like to clue me in, I'm all ears."

Arthur tried not to look as suspicious as he was feeling and just grinned ruefully. "We can't all be as slapdash with our state secrets as you are, Morgause," he answered her and refused to say any more.

+

When he saw Merlin the next day, Morgause's antics were still very much on his mind. By letting Arthur and Morgana in on the information she had told them the day before, Morgause had opened herself up to treason charges should either of them ever do anything with it. Neither of them would, of course, but that wasn't the point. Why would she be so reckless? Yes, Morgana was her sister, but she and Arthur were really no more than acquaintances. Certainly, Arthur would never dare to throw that sort of sensitive gossip around with someone he barely knew. The conundrum distracted him through most of his meeting with Merlin.

And Merlin must have noticed because as Arthur went to stand and excuse himself as their discussion wrapped up, he reached out his hand to touch Arthur's knee, stopping him. "Are you okay, Arthur?" he asked. "You seem kind of out of it tonight."

Arthur let himself sink back down to the ground where he'd just been sitting. It was after dark and they sat with their backs up against the base of Peter Pan's statue in Kensington Park, on the far side of the footpath, so as not to be seen by any tourists who happened to wander by to pay a visit to their childhood hero. But it was late and so far no one had come, so Merlin was just sitting next to him, whispering into his ear with speculation about the Americans entering Vietnam and what Moscow thought that would mean for their hold on China, with their thighs pressed together to keep warm as the temperature dropped with the night. It had been Merlin's idea to come to this specific place, despite the fact that it was a tourist trap and really not very safe. But that was Merlin all over, whimsical and reckless and child-like. Let's go see Peter Pan he'd urged Arthur, a gleam in his eye Arthur had never seen before but wanted more of, maybe he'll teach us how to fly!

"If I confide in you about something, do promise not to tell?" Arthur asked.

Merlin huffed a laugh. "Please, who am I going to tell?"

He had a point. "Well," he hedged, plucking up the courage to actually put into words what he'd been thinking since the day before, "I had lunch yesterday with a woman who works for the CIA." He glanced at Merlin, who looked puzzled. "She's actually my foster sister's half-sister," he explained.

"That sounds...complicated."

Arthur chuckled. "A little," he agreed. "But anyway. Yesterday I met the two of them for lunch and Morgause--that's Morgana's sister--started telling us, completely unprompted, something that I'm sure was meant to be kept underwraps regarding this whole Tonkin Resolution thing." Merlin looked nonplussed, so Arthur went on. "I mean, usually it's no big deal, trading office gossip, but this sounding more like really sensitive information trying to be disguised as office gossip."

"So you think she wanted the Service to have information that the CIA was keeping from you?" Merlin asked, looking almost worried now. "Why would she want that?"

"I don't know," Arthur replied, "but right after that she segued directly into asking me about my current assignment. I think," he paused, knowing what he was about to say would sound a little crazy. "I think she might have been trying to pry information from me."

"Why on Earth would she do that, Arthur?" Merlin demanded, clearly unconvinced.

"I don't know but I--"

"No," Merlin interrupted him. "Arthur, listen to me. You need to calm down. The CIA is not trying to pry information from you through your foster sister's half sister, okay? That doesn't make any sense. You're paranoid, all right, and that's not even a good thing to be paranoid over. This morning Will almost stumbled over some of my files from the Service--" Arthur looked up in alarm, "don't worry, I've moved them now, to a better hiding place--but what I'm trying to say is, I have things actually worth being paranoid about. You just have friends who are spies."

Arthur nodded, conceding defeat. There was still a part of him that couldn't shake the feeling that Morgause had been up to more than gossip but he forced himself to let it go.

"There, that's it," Merlin said, reaching out to smooth the lapels of Arthur's jacket as they stood up and brushed the dirt off their trouser legs. "Go home and get some sleep, Arthur. I'll see you next week."

+ + +

"So what do you think of the show?" Merlin asked one night a few months later as he looked up at Arthur from where he sat on the grimy floor. Arthur mourned for his suit trousers, but Merlin hadn't seemed to notice. Arthur himself was perched on the covered toilet of the men's room they'd locked themselves up in during the intermission of Beyond the Fringe, which the Service had seen fit to send them to tonight. Arthur had already seen it, but if they wanted to send him to perhaps the finest example of comedy in decades, he wasn't going to complain.

"I liked it better with the original cast," he responded.

Merlin's eyes widened almost imperceptibly and Arthur thought for a moment that he'd just let it go, but then seemed to change his mind. "You saw it with the original cast?" he asked, obviously somewhat in awe.

"Yep," Arthur confirmed, "Peter Cook, Alan Bennent, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore. My father took Morgana and I a few weeks after it opened. Got box seats and everything," he finished with a smirk.

Merlin he shook his head as if in resigned disbelief. "Spoiled, rich bastard," he harrumphed good-naturedly, "they would have spit at you in the street back home."
A few months before, Arthur would have frozen up at that. Merlin still barely mentioned his communist upbringing. He seemed conscious of Arthur's discomfort and meant to ease him gradually into the idea. Arthur appreciated it, even if he wouldn't admit it. Instead, he teasingly shot back, "Well, you came to Britain, so you'll just have to deal with our free market ways."

Merlin gave a dramatic sigh. "You're just going to force me to make money and live comfortably, aren't you?" he said, mock-resigned.

The house lights blinked, calling them back to their seats in different areas of the theatre, and Arthur spent the rest of the play being distracted by the memory of Merlin in a suit and tie, laughing at Arthur's good natured teasing. He was beautiful, Arthur realized with a start, and tried with little effect to force the thought from his brain. Where the hell had that come from?

After the play was over, Arthur met Merlin again in the lobby and they waded side by side through the crowd trying to leave the theatre. When they finally made it through the doors and out onto the street, they lingered there a moment as the mass of people continued to poor out of the theatre all around them. Merlin turned and said, "So you're walking to the tube, aren't you?"

"Yeah, it's down that way," Arthur answered, pointing down the street where they could vaguely see the red circle blinking at them from under a street light a few blocks away.

"Okay, I'll go with you then." Merlin said brightly.

It wasn't a very good idea; they could be seen by anyone who had decided to tail them. But on the other hand, Merlin had taken precautions against being followed on his way to the theatre, besides, they were in a huge crowd and it was only three blocks. And Arthur suddenly didn't want to say goodnight to Merlin, instead he wanted to stick around for a few more of those blinding smiles. So even though he should have said no, he said, "Yeah, okay."

The crowd began to thin out as they got farther from the theatre and soon it was possible to take full steps again, much to Arthur's relief. He and Merlin laughed again at the play's jokes as they made their way towards the Underground and Arthur marveled at how comfortable he felt with the other man. He'd handled other cases before, but most of those informants had wanted to spend as little time as possible with Arthur, wary of being met by prying eyes. But Merlin was different. He was professionally cautious but never held anything back; he treated Arthur like a friend and Arthur was hard-pressed not to do the same back. When they were together they were almost as likely to be discussing music or politics or films as they were business. Arthur enjoyed Merlin's company, and the way his blue eyes sparkled gold in the sunlight was a plus.

The Underground was just across the street now and they were laughing as they crossed it. Merlin's stilted yet strangely accurate impression of Elvis never failed to be funny. Merlin's head was thrown back in his laugh at his own joke and the sinews of his neck gleamed in the street lamp light. Which was why Arthur didn't see the car whizzing in front of them as they stepped out onto the street.

As soon as his foot touched the pavement, Arthur knew something was wrong. He could feel a large presence bearing down on him and looked to the left. And he blinked. The car, which had previously been going full tilt, had stopped on a dime mere inches from Arthur's thigh. Arthur staggered a few steps back and looked around wildly, half expecting to see another one barreling towards him from the other direction. There wasn't one, but there was something even more bizarre.

Merlin's eyes, whose deep blue Arthur had been admiring just minutes before, burned bright gold. Arthur knew he was staring but he couldn't help it, it was like two suns had taken up residence on Merlin's face. "Merlin," he started "what--"

But Merlin didn't answer, he just lunged at him and pulled him back to the sidewalk. As he did, it was like the second shoe had dropped and the car lurched back into life, continuing down the street as though it had never stopped. But Arthur wasn't looking at that, he was watching as the gold faded from Merlin's eyes and they returned to their natural blue. As they did, Merlin looked down at his feet awkwardly, the bright red blush on his cheeks easily visible under the street lamp. All around them, the remains of the theatre crowd went marching by them as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.

"I, uh -- I don't suppose you could pretend like nothing just happened, could you?" Merlin asked.

"No, I don't think I could," said Arthur. "Merlin, what the hell just happened?"

But Merlin continued to stare at his shoes --nice, business shoes, good for a night out at the theatre -- and refused to meet Arthur's eye.

"Merlin, you're starting to scare me. What's going on?" Arthur could handle befriending Russian double agents who sometimes looked like he should still be in nappies and he could handle maybe having some feelings for that same man if he didn't think about it too hard, but this was something different. This was something Arthur couldn't even begin to understand, and, yeah, it scared him.

"Could we maybe talk about this sometime when it's not eleven thirty at night and we're not in the middle of a busy sidewalk?" Merlin sounded on edge and desperate and, yes, he was scared too, there could be no doubt about it.

"Merlin, seriously. What is it?"

Merlin finally lifted his head and made eye contact with Arthur for the first time since they'd come back on the sidewalk. His gaze was so intense that Arthur thought he could feel it burning into him. "Please, Arthur," he said, casting a sidelong glance at the latest couple to cast them one as they past, "not here."

Arthur took a deep breath and, finally, gave in. "Fine," he said. "Tomorrow's Sunday so I have church at eleven, but if you come 'round my flat before that we can talk then, okay?"

Merlin's expression shifted from one of misery to alarm. "Wait -- come 'round your flat? Arthur, that breaks so many protocols I can't even --"

"I'm not the only one who lives in my building, you could be coming to see anyone --"

"Who just happens to live right where you do? Oh please, Arthur, how many shop boys know people who live in Kensington?" All traces of misery had left Merlin's face now and he only looked livid. His hair was all over the place from where he had tugged at it, his bowtie had come undone and was hanging loosely down his chest, and Arthur thought some gold had returned to the boy's furious eyes.

"Look, you said you wanted to talk in private," Arthur pointed out, "this is as good as you're gonna get. Would you rather I came 'round your place?"

Merlin simply stared at him for a few seconds longer, with his eyes completely blue again and his chest heaving. "No," he said after a long moment, still sounding petulant. "I'll see you in the morning."

+

Arthur woke up with a jolt the next morning at nine when his blaring alarm clock went off. Groaning, Arthur groped around his nightstand until he found the alarm and managed to stop the noise without even opening his eyes. He struggled to sit up in bed and slowly opened his eyes, squinting against the sun that was streaming in from the windows he'd neglected to cover the night before.

Dragging himself out of bed, he reached for his dressing gown and staggered into the kitchen and put the kettle on. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a few drags while he waited for the water to boil. He was just pulling the coffee grounds out of the refrigerator and the coffee grinder out of the cupboard when his doorbell rang.

When Arthur opened the door Merlin said, "Oh. You're still in your dressing gown. Sorry."

Arthur ushered him inside the flat, glancing around to make sure no one was watching them. "It's okay," he said around the cigarette he was holding between his teeth, "did anybody follow you?"

"Of course not, Arthur, I'm a professional," Merlin answered crisply. Then, after Arthur's unimpressed stare, "I changed taxis three times, okay? Cost me a bloody fortune. Happy?"

Arthur ignored the same petulance from the night before creeping into Merlin's voice and asked, "Do you want a cup of coffee? I was just making some for myself."

Merlin deflated slightly. "Uh, sure," he said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

They had never been like this before. Even when they had first met, Merlin and Arthur had always had something to say to each other, now it felt like a great big awkward silence and Arthur hated it.

He reached into his dressing gown pocket again, pulled out another cigarette and offered it to Merlin. But Merlin shook his head. "I don't smoke. It's supposed to be bad for you, so."

Arthur stared at him in disbelief for a moment. There had been reports tying smoking to lung diseases, of course, but Arthur didn't know anyone who really took that seriously. "Suit yourself," he muttered and added, louder, "The sitting room is just through there," he gestured down the hallway, "you go sit in there, I'll bring the coffee out in a minute and we'll talk."

When Arthur returned with the coffee a few minutes later, he found Merlin sitting on the sofa, staring intently at his hands where they were clasped tightly in his lap. Arthur cleared his throat, drawing Merlin's attention, and handed him his mug, taking a seat next to him on the sofa. He gave Merlin a few moments to sip the bitter drink before he started talking. "So, are you going to explain what happened last night?" he asked as gently as he could, but he was unable to fully hide the curiosity in his voice.

Merlin closed his eyes and his knuckles whitened around the coffee mug. "Honestly, I'm not sure you'll believe me," he said.

"Try me."

"It was -- it was magic."

"What?"

"I'm a wizard."

"What."

"I told you you wouldn't believe me." Merlin sounded completely defeated, and the tone of his voice broke Arthur's heart, even as his brain whirled.

"Why don't you take a few steps back," Arthur suggested, "because as far as I know, there's no such thing as magic."

"But there is, though!" Merlin insisted. "Or, well, that's the only word I can use to describe it. It's just, as far back as I can remember, I've been able to -- do things." He stopped, gazing into his coffee mug, lost in space.

"Like what?" Arthur prompted.

"Like -- oh, I don't know. Lots of things. But mostly, move things around the room without touching them."

"Really?" Arthur felt curiosity fill him again. This was something he had to see for himself. "Can you show me?"

"Well, I'm not a performing monkey," Merlin said, indignant, but he glanced around and his gaze settled on a chair on the far side of the room. He stared intently at it and Arthur saw his eyes turn the same gold as the night before when the chair skidded three feet across the wooden floor before stopping on a dime at the edge of the carpet.

"What else can you do?" Arthur asked.

"Well," Merlin answered shakily, "time. I stop time. Not very much, but sometimes. That's what I did last night."

Arthur took all of this in. It made sense. He hadn't fully noticed the night before, but when Arthur had been out in the street with the car right at his knee, it had been like everything was stopped, not just the car, and it had all started moving again as soon as Merlin had pulled him back off the street. "Well," Arthur started shakily, "in that case, you saved my life. I appreciate it." But then a thought struck him, and he was suddenly terrified. "Is this why the KGB recruited you?" he demanded.

Merlin looked flabbergasted for a moment. "What?" he said, "No! No no no! They don't know. No one does." He looked so impossibly earnest that Arthur couldn't help but believe him, and he breathed a sigh of relief. As an afterthought Merlin added with a touch of bitterness, "Well, except my mum, but I haven't even talked to her in seven years so I don't think she's much of a threat."

"No, I wouldn't think that she is," Arthur said.

But Merlin continued to peer anxiously at him. "Is there someone you need to tell about this?" he asked. "Like, your supervisor for instance. What's her name -- Nimueh?"

"I don't need to tell Nimueh about this, Merlin," Arthur assured him and Merlin visibly relaxed. "I won't tell anyone, I promise," Arthur continued, "but just -- give me a little time, okay? To get used to it. Brave new world and all that."

Merlin was looking at him now with an expression full to the brim with gratitude, disbelief and something Arthur couldn't quite name. And now that it had all been as sorted out as it was going to be, Arthur realized with a start that they were sitting very close to each other on the sofa. Arthur's hand had come to rest on the fists Merlin was making in his lap and their knees were knocking together gently. "Thank you," Merlin said, heartfelt, "thank you so much, Arthur."

And then he leaned in just a little, but it was all he needed to do in order to close the gap between them and bring his lips to Arthur's. It was chaste, barely even a kiss, but their lips were pressed together for one long moment and Arthur had time to register that Merlin's lips were as soft as any of the women's he'd kissed before he jerked back in shock.

As he did, Merlin's eyes widened with surprise, as if he hadn't instigated the kiss. "Oh!" he exclaimed ineloquently. "Oh -- um -- sorry," he went on as Arthur continued to stare, at a loss for words. Merlin got up and nearly ran to the door. He turned in the threshold and said, once again, "Thank you for being so understanding though, I really mean that and -- I'm sorry," before he disappeared.

NOTE:
1) The Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred in the beginning of August, 1964 (it was actually two separate incidents, on the 2nd and on the 4th) when the American naval vessel the USS Maddox was fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin off the shore of Vietnam and triggered the "blank check" that was presented to the US military for use there. It was later determined that the second incident probably never occurred at all (not to mention the fact that the Maddox wasn't supposed to be there in the first place, since it was North Vietnamese waters) and that President Johnson used to the whole thing as an excuse to legitimize his already ongoing military operations in the region.

2) Beyond The Fringe was a British comedy troupe consisting of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller whose sketch comedy show opened on London's West End in 1960 and transferred to Broadway in New York in 1962. It was still playing in London in '64, albiet with another cast.

3) I think of this chapter as the beginning of the rising action. Everything before this was sort of background and an introduction to the characters, scenario, etc. and there's nowhere to go but up. This should be quite a long fic, I still have a lot of ground to cover on my outline, this is just the beginning.

4) I have now reached the point where I have no more completed parts left to post. I'm still going to say, though, that I will post Part 6 on Wednesday, or else I won't have any incentive to finish it before then. Thank you all for your continued support of this story and I will try my best to keep updates of it relatively frequent.

next part.

[fic] What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game 4/?

2010-07-21T21:53:24Z

Title: What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game, Part 4
Pairings: eventual Arthur/Merlin and background Lancelot/Gwen
Rating: PG-13 for now.
Word Count: .
Disclaimer: This version of Arthur, Merlin, et al belong to Shine and the BBC, not to me.
Summary: It's 1963, the Cold War is in full swing, and Arthur Pendragon, agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service, is about to meet the Service's newest Russian double agent: Merlin Emrys.
Author's Note: Thanks have to go out to kerrykhat for giving this one last beta. More notes at the end.

first part. previous part.

come senators, congressman, please heed the call
don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
for he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
the battle outside raging
will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
for the times, they are a-changing

They soon settled into a routine. Arthur would visit Merlin's shop every week on alternating days and if Merlin had left a copy of The Spy Who Loved Me on the front display that meant he had no information that would be of use to the SIS. If, however, he had left Live And Let Die, it meant that they had to meet. In those instances, he would approach Merlin, who would be working behind the desk, and under the guise of inquiring about one book or another, slip him a piece of paper with their rendezvous information on it. Those interactions were always a little weird. It was the only time Arthur really got a chance to look at Merlin, face to face, and he found himself taking the opportunity to really take the boy in. He seemed to be even skinnier than Arthur remembered from when he'd gone through the clearance process and as far as Arthur could tell, his eyes were even bluer than they had been before. Their hands would brush for a moment every time Arthur slipped Merlin the little slip of paper and Merlin would give him a sheepish smile even as he said things as mundane as, "No, sir, Jane Eyre was written by Charlotte Bronte. Emily Bronte was the one who wrote Wuthering Heights."

This technique of relaying messages was, of course, not the one prescribed by the Service. The Bond books had been Merlin's idea. Arthur had to admit that he found it slightly hilarious, but he didn't tell that to Merlin, and he definitely didn't tell Morgana.

Their rendezvous points changed every time. They'd sit at adjacent tables at a busy restaurant, or in a public restroom with the tap turned on so they couldn't be overheard, or in the back seat of crowded bus as it made its rounds, or back to back on a bench in one of London's many train stations during rush hour, or standing up on a crowded tube train as they held on to the railings to keep themselves from falling into one another or someone else, with Merlin whispering into Arthur's ear about the latest Soviet theory about American nuclear armament. Arthur was struck that the Russians seemed to have a habit of vastly overestimating the Americans' lust for nuclear war and he hoped for the first time in his life that the Russians also had a mole in either the SIS or the CIA, if only so that he could keep them from going too far and blowing the whole world to hell. As it was, Merlin's information on the actual size of the Russian arsenal was continuing the job Penkovsky had started of putting a lot of things in perspective for the Allied powers and Arthur was getting noticed for it at the office. People Arthur could hardly remember ever meeting before were suddenly coming out of the woodwork at the office to congratulate him on the work he was doing with The Russian Kid.

"People are surprised that he's actually trying to help us," Morgana explained to him over dinner one night when Arthur commented on how strange it was. "You know how deep the anti-Soviet hysteria runs in the world of Western intelligence. They've got all these horrible ideas about Russians wanting to take over the world and imprison us all in a communist state and make everybody work for the proletariat. They were like this with Penkovsky too, believe me. It's not just Petrovich, so don't take it personally or anything. It's just that they've been thrown the loop, even with Penkovky's precedent, and they're impressed with you. I know it's ridiculous, but it's just the way it is."

But it wasn't ridiculous, Arthur thought. It was what they'd all been taught since they were children. He could remember listening to Dwight Eisenhower's voice on the news as a teenager. "You have a row of dominoes," he'd said. "You knock the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences." The Domino Theory was what they all lived in fear of, why many of Arthur's co-workers had joined the Service in the first place; it was only natural. But now that he'd gotten to know Merlin a little (and he wouldn't exactly say he knew him all that well, all they ever did for the most part was sit back to back and talk business), he couldn't imagine that this boy who had grown up and been educated in the ways of the world behind the Iron Curtain had ever haboured ill will against Great Britain or even America.

"Have you ever been to America?" Merlin asked him meekly one afternoon as they stood in the darkened bathroom of a coffee shop in SoHo with the tap on in the background, relentlessly hitting the tile of the sink and making Merlin's voice ever so slightly difficult to hear.

"Once, for about a month, when I was a kid," Arthur answered him. "My father brought Morgana and I on a tour of the country one summer. He said it was important that we see the world. Why?"

"I'd like to see America," Merlin admitted. Arthur gave him a perhaps too surprised look. "What?" Merlin demanded defensively, "I'm curious! What do you expect? I've been hearing about that place my whole life, but I've never actually seen it. I want to see New York City, and the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, and Disneyland, and the Grand Canyon, and all the rest of it. What's it like?"

"Like Britain, but different," Arthur answered him.

"Gee, that's really descriptive, Arthur."

"Oh, shut up," Arthur snapped and tried again, "They....drive on the wrong side of the street, they pronounce their As really weirdly, they call crisps 'chips' and chips 'fries' and it's confusing and annoying, they leave Us out of their words all over the place and they overuse the letter Z like crazy. So...yeah. That's America."

Merlin laughed outright, and it occurred to Arthur that he'd never heard Merlin really laugh before.

"Morgana loved it, though," Arthur went on. “She's been saying ever since that she's going to retire over there when she's done with the Service. My father is less than thrilled by that prospect, of course, but there's really no stopping Morgana."

"Morgana?" Merlin asked, and Arthur realized that the boy had never been properly introduced."My foster sister," Arthur told him. "She came to live with me and my father when her father died in the war, so I grew up with her. You met her once. She's the one who questioned you."

"Oh," Merlin said. "Yes. Her. She seemed... interesting."

Arthur chuckled. "You don't have to be polite. There's a reason she's the Service's best interrogator. She can be pretty frightening."

"So it wasn't personal, then," Merlin said and Arthur could see in the dim light of the loo that a small, amused smile had appeared on his face.

"No," Arthur assured him. "And you think that was bad? Try being her little brother."

Merlin laughed again. "That bad, huh?"

"Yeah. She used to try and beat me up, just for fun."

Merlin raised an eyebrow at him. "She tried?" he asked, skeptical.

"Well," Arthur told him, "of course she couldn't ever actually beat me up."

But Merlin appeared to remain unconvinced. "Suuure," he told Arthur indulgently.

They stood there for a few minutes laughing together about Arthur's obvious invincibility before Merlin seemed to remember himself and cleared his throat. He reached into the passenger bag he'd brought with him and pulled out a file. "So, uh, this arrived from my superiors the day before yesterday...."

+

In August, the United Kingdom and the United States sent dignitaries to Moscow where they and the Soviet Union signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty in which the two superpowers agreed to halt the testing of their nukes in the Earth's atmosphere, in outer space and under water. It was proof that neither country wanted to blow the world to kingdom come and that they both meant to keep a world war from breaking out. Since it was in Moscow, there was no sense in Merlin being called in by the KGB to deal with it, so Arthur didn't have much to do either but the Service did sent Lancelot, because no intelligence organization worth its salt would sit out for something of that magnitude. After the treaty was signed and on its way to being ratified, the world felt like a slightly safer place. There was still a large amount of distrust between the Russians and the West, but Arthur was no longer walking around feeling like one little thing could trigger a catastrophic war at any time.

The feeling of safety and security stayed with them until the end of November, when disenchantment fell over the world like a blanket.

Arthur heard the news as he got back from picking dinner up from the deli, since it looked like it was going to be a late night at the office. "Did you hear?" Morgana demanded as soon as he got back and Arthur would have snapped at her for jumping down his throat if not for the tears he saw welling up in her eyes, threatening to spill over at any time, and the fact that Gwen looked so completely shaken. "Did I hear what, Morgana?" he asked slowly and calmly, dreading the answer.

"Kennedy's dead," Morgana told him.

There are some moments in life where you get told something that just don't fit in the world you know but you can''t deny that it's true. At first your brain refuses the process the information and you just can't believe it, but then you feel your paradigm shifting and suddenly, in no time at all, you're living in a very different world. This was one of those moments for Arthur, and for the rest of the world.

Arthur dropped the bag that held their sandwiches in shock. "What--WHAT?" he sputtered. He stumbled to a desk that certainly was not his and fell into the chair."There was a parade," Morgana told him quietly, "in Dallas. And he got shot."

They stayed like that for awhile, with Arthur sitting with his head in his hands and the girls just standing in the middle of the office, without saying anything at all. There wasn't anything they could say, their world had just been blown apart in a way no nuclear warhead could never have managed. They were not Americans, and Kennedy had not been their president, but the youth and glamour he and his wife Jackie had brought to politics had been refreshing all around the world, not to mention the sense they had that he was someone who could handle the dangerous international climate. He seemed like the man who could ensure continued peace and safety for the world. It was funny, Arthur reflected, how quickly that could disappear. "So," he said finally, as the pieces finally started to make sense in his brain, "I guess Lyndon Johnson is president now."

"I guess so," Gwen sighed, resigned, and they stayed there in silence for another while longer. They eventually made their way down to the office conference room where a crowd had already formed in front of the television where the BBC news anchor was recounting the events of the afternoon. The air was tense all around and no one seemed to have any idea of what to say, so they all just sat there, staring at the television, until they could reasonably call it a night. Then they came back to work the next day and got on with it.

The next time Arthur saw Merlin aside from his clandestine visits to the bookshop was a few weeks later, when Live And Let Die once again appeared in the window, they met this time at the far back of a cinema during a showing of Charade. As Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn ran around on screen trying to find her dead husband's money, Merlin offered his condolences as though Arthur had known Kennedy personally.

"I'm sorry," he said forlornly, voice hushed so as not to be overheard. "About the president, I mean. It's such a shame."

"Yeah, it is," Arthur agreed just as quietly. "But you don't have to apologize to me. He wasn't my president and you didn't have anything to do with it. Unless the KGB was behind the shooting?" He broke protocol and turned in his seat to look directly at Merlin as he asked it, and the boy looked back at him from two seats away. Arthur meant it to be a joke, but it didn't quite come out like one. Ever since Lee Harvey Oswald, the man they'd apprehended in Dallas, had been shot on his way out of a courthouse there had been murmurings of conspiracies. And where there was murmurings of conspiracy there was always murmurings of the KGB.

"Not as far as I know," Merlin assured him. "Of course, it's not like they'd tell me if they had been." Neither of them said anything more for a few minutes as they watched the film. Then, Merlin spoke up again. "You know, it's funny," he said. "This whole thing has made me realize that sometimes I really feel more like a Brit than I feel like a Russian." Arthur gave him a questioning look and he paused, apparently searching for the words to explain. "I don't know," Merlin went on, "when it happened. I just thought, ‘wow, what are we going to do now?' The Americans have lost their best man. I wasn't thinking about it like I was a Russian. I was thinking like a Brit."

"But you've only been here two years," Arthur said without thinking and before he could stop himself.

"I know," Merlin said, sounding miserable. """But, okay, the thing is, I was barely Russian anymore by the time I left. They had me in this training camp for years before that, teaching me how to pass as a Londoner. Teaching me how to think like a Londoner. They took me away from my family when I was thirteen,"" his voice shook and Arthur was afraid for a moment that the boy—because he was a boy, wasn't he? Arthur had never realized until just how young he could look—would break into tears but he pulled himself to finish. "I haven't seen my mum since then--she was all I had, you know, never knew my dad. She—she probably doesn't even know what happened to me, where I am. All she knows is that I'm working for the government. She probably doesn't even know if I'm still alive." He paused again and looked down at his hands, which were clenched tightly together in his lap and chuckled wryly. "And people wonder why I turned traitor," he finished, and proceeded to pick his feet up onto the seat and bring his head to rest down on his knees, curling into a ball and shaking; Arthur realized in horror that he'd begun to cry.

Arthur wasn't exactly sure what to say to that, he was taken completely by surprise. He'd known Merlin now for almost half a year, and although they had developed a bit of a rapport that didn't exactly conform to Service rules and regulations, the boy had never once said one word about his life outside of the intelligence world or his family or anything, and now he was laying his life story right out in the open for Arthur to see.

In the lull of their conversation, Audrey Hepburn, who was currently trying to seduce Cary Grant onscreen, said, "This is a ludicrous situation, I can think of a dozen men who are just longing to use my shower," and Cary Grant proceeded to get into the shower with a full suit on, but the film was the furthest thing from Arthur's mind at that moment.

Moving on instinct and without even really thinking about it, he scooted over into the seat directly next to Merlin's, covert rendezvous protocol forgotten, and swiftly wrapped his arms around the boy's shaking body. They stayed like that, with Merlin's face curled up under Arthur's chin as Arthur leaned awkwardly and painfully over the arm rest dividing their seats, until Merlin seemed to remember himself a few minutes later and pulled back abruptly.

"Oh--um--sorry," he said and excused himself from the theater quickly, leaving Arthur to sit there alone, without any idea what was going on in the film anymore, wondering what the hell had just happened.

+

1964; the fourteenth year of the Cold War.

After that, there was a palpable shift in their relationship. Merlin seemed absolutely determined to pretend that that afternoon in the cinema had never happened and that Arthur had never seen him break down over how much he worried for his mother--so unlike the way most spies behaved with their colleagues--but Arthur had realized long before the incident that Merlin was unlike any other spy he'd ever known—passionate and excitable and deeply interested in the most human details. At first, Arthur had thought that it was because of how much Merlin was risking for the operation, but he soon came to find that Merlin was just like that.

For his part, Arthur tried to keep it strictly professional and to not let things like concern and emotional vulnerability enter into something that was clearly a working relationship only, despite how Merlin's eyes lit up every time Arthur mention the tiniest detail about his life even in passing. That was difficult, however, when every time he looked at the man while asking increasingly inane literary questions once a week. Arthur couldn't help but picture him as no more than a child, being taught English and then being taught about Britain and all the while being told that it was an evil country, out to destroy the USSR through the theory of supply and demand, or remember how broken his voice had sounded as he spoke about the mother he hadn't seen in six years. Mostly, they were successful in keeping to business and not crossing any lines that the SIS would have disapproved of, but it was a near thing sometimes.

The beginning of February found them back on the same park bench where they'd had their first meeting. This time, however, they were sitting at opposite ends of the same bench instead of back to back and it was much, much colder. "You couldn't have thought of someplace inside?" Merlin hissed at Arthur from his side.

"I don't come up with these places," Arthur snapped back. "Believe me. But if you'd like to take it up with my boss, go right ahead." He bit back a laugh at the picture in his head of Nimueh's face were Merlin actually to confront her about it.

"Why don't you bring it up with her?" Merlin suggested cheekily. "She's your boss, and I can tell you're about as keen on this as I am." He made a general motion with his hands which was apparently meant to encompass Arthur's scarf that was wrapped tightly around his neck, the wool button down coat and the mittens covering the hands he had tucked between his thighs for even more heat. Arthur turned his head to look directly at Merlin and gave the boy his best impression of what was known around the office as The Uther Glare.

There was an awkward silence then, in which Arthur knew he needed to move on into business at hand, but he instead stayed silent for a few minutes, not able to admit to himself that he was waiting to see if Merlin had anything of a more personal nature that he wanted to share. At this point, he wasn't very surprised when Merlin spoke up on a totally unrelated matter about a minute later. "So, what do you think, Arthur," he asked, "have we lost the Beatles?"

It wasn't that Arthur didn't know what he was talking about--he may have had some workaholic tendencies, but he wasn't living under a rock, he knew that all anyone had been able to talk about all week was the fact that the Beatles had gone to America and had secured their places in the hearts and minds of the cousins across the pond--it was just that he didn't care. He had no use for those Northern boys with the funny hair who sang all those sickly sweet songs about love and romance and other things Arthur had no use for. They'd soon blow over and the country's youth would be taken in again by the next big thing. "To be honest, Merlin," he told the boy, "I can't say that I give a crap either way."

Merlin turned to face him, looking scandalized. "You don't like the Beatles?" he exclaimed, shocked.

"I don't see why I should," Arthur answered shortly.

Merlin gaped and seemed almost outraged. "Oh please," he said, "you are not that much older than I am. Don't pretend you're too old for them. They're good."

"I have enough on my plate, Merlin, I don't need you imposing your questionable taste in music on me on top of everything else."

"Questionable--?" Merlin sputtered, then, "Look, do yourself a favour, okay? You'll thank me in the end. Next time you're downtown, stop in a record store and buy With The Beatles, okay, it's their newest album. It's really good. You can't not like it!"

After some more grumbling on both sides--it was becoming apparent that they were both extremely stubborn in just about everything--they reached a compromise in which Arthur agreed to buy I Want To Hold Your Hand, the single which had made such big waves in America, and they moved on to their actual business. But before they left that bench, Merlin turned to look Arthur dead in the eye again and said, "I'll hold you to it, Arthur. The next time we speak, I'll expect that you've listened to that song."

So, the next day, Arthur wandered over to Berwick Street and bought I Want To Hold Your Hand/This Boy and when he got home and listened to it, he begrudgingly had to admit that maybe the hordes of screaming teenage girls were onto something.

When he told Merlin as much the next week, the boy just got a smug smile on his face that didn't quite go away until after he and Arthur had parted ways and Arthur found that it didn't make him as annoyed as it probably should have and, in fact, it made his stomach flip in an odd way he wasn't entirely comfortable with.

NOTE:
1) John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963 by Harvey Lee Oswald. Oswald was in turn assassinated a few days later, leading to many, many conspiracy theories surrounding the incident. (I think this is common knowledge but you never know.)

2) Charade was a 1963 movie starring Carey Grant and Audrey Hepburn. It's quite good and if you're into that sort of thing, I'd definitely reccommend it. The most famous scene in the movie is probably the one where Carey Grant takes a shower with his clothes on, which is why I refrenced it here. The scene can be found on YouTube.

3) The Beatles are my favorite thing in the world ever so those refrences will no doubt continue. After having been hugely successful in Britain throughout 1963, they finally broke through in America when their single I Want To Hold Your Hand reached number one in the US in January of 1964, right before their first visit there for their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964. That visit was met with mass hysteria. /Beatles geek

4) Part 5 will be up on Saturday.

next part

[fic] What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game 3/?

2010-07-18T21:39:51Z

Title: What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game, Part 3
Pairings: eventual Arthur/Merlin and background Lancelot/Gwen
Rating: PG-13 for now.
Word Count: ~4600 in this part.
Disclaimer: This version of Arthur, Merlin, et al belong to Shine and the BBC, not to me.
Summary: It's 1963, the Cold War is in full swing, and Arthur Pendragon, agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service, is about to meet the Service's newest Russian double agent: Merlin Emrys.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to latenightcuppa for beta-ing this part.

first part. previous part.

I fell into a ring of fire
I went down, down, down
and the flames went higher
and it burns, burns, burns
the ring of fire

It turned out that they didn’t put Arthur through any simulations but they sent Lancelot with him. Arthur was glad for that, actually, since despite what he’d said to Nimueh, he really wasn’t very used to being out in the field and could use someone like Lancelot who really knew what they were doing. Plus, he was always happy to have some company, and it meant that he'd have someone to complain about Merlin to, at least. The boy’s hot and cold attitude towards him in the park still stung a bit when he thought of it.

But for the most part, he and Lancelot didn't have much to say on the train. The two of them had been at the Academy together and were generally friendly with one another but didn't have much in common. As far as Arthur could tell, actually, Lancelot didn't really have much of a personality. He was very nice and very good and his loyalty and dedication to the Crown were second to none but Arthur wasn't really sure what to say to him outside of a strictly professional environment.

Needless to say, this made for slightly awkward traveling.

"So..." Arthur started, finally, "did you watch the match last night?"

"No," Lancelot answered, "I don't much like sports."

"Oh," said Arthur. He didn't bother trying to talk for the rest of the trip.

+

The Service never spent top dollar on housing arrangements for their agents, but the accommodations were never shabby either. This hotel room had windows looking over West Berlin; Arthur could see the Wall in the distance. He dropped off his bag (just a small one, he'd only be there for a few days) and sat down on the bed to go over his itinerary for the next few days. It was the early evening on Sunday and Kennedy was scheduled to speak on Wednesday afternoon. Before that, Merlin, who had flown in on a commercial flight from Heathrow using his British passport, was under orders from his Russian superiors to get into the American embassy, using fake American identification to pose as a United States citizen (apparently Merlin could adopt an American accent as well as he could an English one) and retrieve whatever it was that the Kremlin wanted him to retrieve. The Service had instructed him to bring that to Arthur at their rendezvous. From there, Arthur would send it back to London so the Service could replace it with a replica, this time with incorrect information and return it to Merlin before he was to report back on Monday. That way, the Service and their allies at the CIA would have information on what the KGB was looking for, and the KGB would be thrown off course. It wasn’t a very complicated mission as these things went, and there was very little risk as long as Merlin didn’t get himself arrested at the embassy, but Arthur found himself a little jittery anyway.

He would have liked nothing better than to take a nap for a few hours. He hadn't slept very well the night before but he couldn't sleep now; he was meant to be meeting Merlin soon.

They had arranged to meet in the Teirgarten, near to where the stadtbahn crossed the canal. West Berlin had security on the Berlin Wall just as effective as its infamous Eastern counterpart, making it almost impossible for Russian spies to get into West Berlin unless they had already made it to another non-Soviet country, like Merlin had. Because of this, it was unlikely that Merlin would be tailed and it had been deemed unnecessary for them to go to the usual lengths for keeping their meetings secret. A public park at dusk was considered privacy enough. When Arthur got there, Merlin was waiting for him, shoes off and feet dangling in the water.

"Hello," Merlin greeted when Arthur sat next to him on the grass. He didn't put his feet in the water next to Merlin’s, but he did consider it.

"Hello," Arthur returned, "what did you tell your partner?" Merlin's partner at the KGB, who also lived undercover in London, had come with him to Germany and was the one loose cannon they had to be careful of. It wouldn't do if he trailed Merlin and then reported back to his superiors at the Kremlin that the boy had turned traitor; Merlin would be locked up in the Kremlin within a week.

"Don't worry about Will," Merlin assured him, "he's out drinking German beer and trying to pick up German women."

Arthur checked his watch in surprise. "It's only seven," he said.

Merlin just shrugged. "That’s Will,” he said. He’ll be one hundred percent professional tomorrow, despite the hangover, believe me, but tonight he’s on holiday."
"Will?" Arthur asked, "That's not his real name is it?"

Merlin stared at him for a second before he responded. "You really don't have any idea what it's like to live like this, do you?" he asked, wonderingly. When Arthur just looked at him, Merlin sighed and continued, "His real name is Ioann, but he doesn't like to be called that anymore than I like being called Alexei." Arthur just kept looking at him, not sure exactly what to say. There was no chapter in the Service handbook called What To Do When The Russian Double Agent Whose Case You Handle Starts Opening Up About His Life As A KGB Spy. "It's just--weird," Merlin went on, seemingly taking Arthur's silence as some kind of encouragement, which it wasn’t, really, "I've been stationed in London for two years, that’s almost since I was made an agent. I sell books to the American tourists who come to Covent Garden. Most of them are polite, nice people. Sometimes they're rude and abrasive, but that's just tourists, you know? It has nothing to do with their nationality. Not really, anyway. It's hard to keep thinking of myself as an America hating citizen of the Soviet Union when I'm advising them on which Dickens book they should add to their collection."

Arthur could honestly say he'd never thought of it that way before. On one hand, he was glad of the look into Merlin’s psyche, it helped him understand why the boy had chosen to turn traitor. But on the other hand, Arthur barely knew this kid and wasn’t particularly comfortable with this level of emotional honesty while he was still getting used to the fact that Merlin was an honest to God Russian. He cleared his throat and changed the subject in a supremely awkward way. "Um," he started, "have they told you yet what you're supposed to retrieve from the embassy tomorrow?"

Merlin stared at him in disbelief for a moment and Arthur felt a twinge of regret for walking all over his emotional moment. He was also reminded momentarily of the coldness in the boy's voice at the end of their last conversation and wondered what exactly was going on in Merlin's head that made him such an emotional powder keg. But, Arthur supposed, if he were in Merlin's position, he'd be kind of on edge too. "Yeah," Merlin answered, "Kennedy's brought a file with him that holds confidential information about the CIA's operations regarding the Soviet Union. The kind of operations that the Agency needs to have the president sign off on. So obviously, the Soviet Union want to know what it is."

Yes, that sounded like something the Russians would very much want, Arthur agreed. But another question occurred to him. "How do you know Kennedy has it with him?" he asked.

"Oh, Arthur," Merlin chided, smiling slyly, "if you think that the KGB hasn't got anyone on the inside in America, you're very naive."

He had a point. Arthur tried very hard not to let the feeling that the Russians were always ahead of them at every turn overpower him. "I'll wire this information back to London,” he said. “Wait for my signal to meet up again, when I have your orders for proceeding."

"Thank you," Merlin said, very business-like. Arthur nodded once and waited, half expecting him to say something else. When nothing happened after a few moments, he got to his feet and began to walk away. But Merlin called out to him before he had gotten too far. "Arthur," he said, "thank you."

“You just said that,” Arthur called back.

Merlin, who had also gotten to his feet by now and was standing with his back to the edge of the canal as the last rays of sun disappeared from sky, shrugged. "For listening," he said, "This isn’t a very easy situation for me, obviously, and you’re really the only person I can talk to about it, aren’t you? I appreciate you not just telling me to shut up." Arthur once again found himself at a loss for what to say, but Merlin didn’t seem to expect a response. He just gave Arthur a small, sort of sad smile and said, "I'll see you in a few days," and with that, he walked passed Arthur and back towards the street. Arthur stood there for a few moments, waiting for Merlin to leave the park before he followed just to be safe, and thought that that meeting had been weird, but strangely nice in a way. Was it disconcerting that he was already beginning to expect that sort of thing from Merlin?

+

Arthur spent the next few days wallowing around his hotel room, not doing much of anything. He'd been to Berlin a few times before and did not feel particularly compelled to go sightseeing. Therefore having a four day layover here in this foreign city before anything interesting happened when he could be at home, actually getting work done, was extremely tedious. Sometimes the bureaucracy inherent in the Service really rankled at Arthur, and this was one of those times. Morgana called him in his hotel room on his second night seemingly for the sole purpose of teasing him for not just enjoying a holiday, but Arthur was too tense about the mission to really be able to relax. But there was nothing he could do, however, so he spent his days lounging around in his hotel room, reading the newest Fleming novel (On Her Majesty's Secret Service). He secretly loved reading about the fictionalization and idealization of his profession as written by a journalist for the masses, even though he would never admit it. He also spent some time seeing how many push-ups he could do in one minute (sixty) and listening to German radio, which he could only partially understand.

He and Lancelot went out one night, for lack of anything at all better to do, and because by that time Arthur suspected that if he didn’t get out of his room right that minute, he’d do something drastic. Unsurprisingly, it was an awkward affair, but this time not because neither of them had anything to say. Arthur found that once you got some alcohol into him, Lancelot was actually quite talkative. No, the awkwardness came mostly from the fact that in the eight years they'd at school and working for the Service together, it had taken extreme boredom in a foreign city for them to actually try and get to know each other.

After two or three beers, Lancelot started to open up a bit. "It's not that I don't like sports in general," he said, "I find football quite interesting. It's more that I don't understand why people get so worked up over them?"

"Well, why shouldn't they?" Arthur demanded, downing the end of his own second pint and banging the glass down on the table.

"It's just a game!" Lancelot answered, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation. He hadn't put down his bottle and some of the beer splashed out of it and onto the floor. Lancelot continued unperturbed, "The outcome of a match will have no effect whatsoever on anyone's lives!"

"Yeah, but that's the point, isn't it?" Arthur countered, "People like to come home at the end of the day and have something to take their minds off their stressful jobs. I mean, look at us," he gestured between the two of them, "we work all day to keep the free world safe from the threat of communism and all that. We're under quite a bit of pressure, aren't we?" He paused and looked Lancelot dead in the eye, daring him to disagree. Lancelot quirked his head to the side as if to admit agreement and Arthur continued, "What do you do to decompress from it after work?"

"I play the piano," Lancelot told him seriously.

Arthur could honestly say that he had never met any other agent in Her Majesty's Secret Service quite like Lancelot du Lac.

+

The falsified intel arrived in Berlin on Tuesday morning, which was good because Merlin said he was having problems getting Will to continue holding off on the mission (apparently he'd gotten over the German beer and German women almost as quickly as Arthur had). Arthur and Merlin met by the stadtbahn again on Tuesday afternoon to go over plans for the next day. In comparison to their previous encounters, this one was uneventful. Merlin seemed intent on being professional to a tee and Arthur, still unsure exactly what to do with his emotional outbursts in the first place, didn't have any desire to push him, even if all the time by himself he'd had to think had made him sort of want to know more about the boy, to find out exactly what it was that drove him to do what he was doing. But all that came out of that meeting was their plan. Arthur and Lancelot would arrive at the Mission Berlin—the name of the American embassy in West Germany—at 0900 and Merlin and Will would get there a 0930. That would give Arthur and Lancelot plenty of time to locate the file in Kennedy's makeshift office there and replace the report with the fake that had arrived Tuesday morning. The Americans had been alerted of the mission, so they wouldn't have to worry about that, but the real work would be not making it look too easy—Merlin had assured Arthur that despite being more than happy to turn a mission into a holiday, Will was actually very conscientious while on the job.

And so it came to be Wednesday morning at 0900. Arthur and Lancelot walked the short distance from their hotel to the Mission and announced themselves at the front desk. "Hello," Arthur said to the young woman working there, flashing her his most charming smile and his badge, "I'm Agent Pendragon, this is Agent du Lac, we're from the Secret Intelligence Service. I believe we have an appointment."

The girl behind the desk blushed. "Yes, um, I think you do," she stammered, and even with just that Arthur found her American accent jarring to his ears. "I'll just call upstairs and let Mr. Fenn know you're here." She gave him a shy smile.

"Mr. Fenn?"

"He's the special assistant to the president. You'll be dealing with him this morning."

"Thank you very much," Arthur flashed her one of his trademark blinding smiles, which were pretty effective when dealing with women, he had to admit, and he and Lancelot turned away from the desk.

A man in a dark suit came down the stairs on the far side of the lobby a few minutes later and came down to meet them where they sat in the waiting area. "Hello," he said, reaching out his hand and grasping Arthur's and Lancelot's in turn, "I'm Dan Fenn, special assistant to the president."

"Agent du Lac," Lancelot introduced himself and held out his hand for Fenn to shake, "and this is Agent Pendragon."

Arthur shook his hand and nodded in acknowledgment.

"It's nice to meet you both," Fenn said. "What is it exactly that you fellows need from us?"

“It’s a pretty straight forward switch up operation, sir,” Lancelot told him. "One of the Service's informants inside the KGB has let us know that a pair of Russian agents will be here within the hour to obtain the contents of a confidential file we understand President Kennedy is carrying with him here regarding certain aspects of the United States' policy regarding the Soviet Union." He paused and let Fenn take in the information; the man looked suitably impressed with the espionage but not completely out of his element; Arthur supposed anyone in who'd gotten up the political ranks as high as he had would have been exposed to this kind of thing at least a few times before. "So,” Lancelot continued, “what's going to happen is that we're going to give you this fake file," he gestured to Arthur, who procured an official looking folder from the briefcase he was carrying and handed it to Fenn, "and you are going to put the real file in a safe deposit box and replace it with the fake. Then, the Russian agents will come in and take the fake information back to Moscow," he paused another moment to let Fenn process it. "Can you do that?" he asked finally.

Fenn nodded decisively once. "Yes, sir, I believe I can."

Lancelot grinned and clapped him on the back. "Good man," he said.

On their way back out onto the street, Lancelot whispered to him, "This so easily could have been a one man operation, you know. You totally could have done that on your own, Arthur. What the hell did I just spend four days in fucking Berlin for?"

Arthur just shrugged and shot him a sympathetic smile. "I could say the same for you, you know," he said. "But, you know, Nimueh's stubborn and she likes to get her way in everything." He feared for a moment that he'd overstepped his bounds when it came to mentioning his frustration with Nimueh, despite the close quarters for the last few days, he and Lancelot were still not very close, and gossip always spread through the Service surprisingly quickly.

But Lancelot suprised him. “Yes, you’re right,” he agreed, "Plus, she has some weird kind of power of persuasion over your father, doesn't she?"

Arthur just rolled his eyes, not wanting to give away how thankful for this agreement he really was. "I'm glad I’m not the only one who's noticed it," he muttered darkly, thinking of the way his skin prickled every time he spoke to Nimueh.

By the time they got back to their hotel, the conversation had shifted to much more mundane ground and, unsurprisingly, soon petered out of its own accord.

+

He called Merlin's hotel room posing as room service and relayed the agreed upon coded message. ("Mr. Jones, we are out of shrimp scampi," Arthur said. "I think you have the wrong room," Merlin replied, and hung up.) They met by the canal again as people began to gather for Kennedy's speech, just to make sure that everything had gone according to plan.

"Did everything go according to plan?" Arthur asked as he saw Merlin plop down on the grass next to him out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, unless you fucked up," Merlin answered easily.

Arthur couldn't help but smile a bit at that but he was determined to keep this professional. "So, Will didn't suspect anything?" he asked, still nervous about their wild card in Merlin's partner.

"We went in and got passed security with our American visas and if they knew we were the Russians they didn’t say anything. Then we broke into the president's temporary office, stole a file and got out without anyone apprehending us, what was there to suspect?"

Arthur nodded, appeased. They were beginning to hear the noise of the crowd that was forming in the square a few miles away as they waited for Kennedy’s speech to begin, a low hum that was growing louder slowly but surely and only really noticeable because it hadn't been there before. Suddenly, a thought struck Arthur that was a little crazy, completely spontaneous and would probably break about three different case/case officer rules, but he couldn't stop himself. "Hey," he said, nudging Merlin's foot with his own, "since we're here anyway, d'you wanna go hear the speech?"

Merlin looked at him, surprised but pleased. "I'm pretty sure that would be breaking all kinds of protocol, Agent Pendragon," he said cheekily.

Arthur just smirked at him for a minute and then finally broke out into a grin, asking again, "So, d'you wanna?"

Merlin momentarily returned his grin, saying, "Yeah, okay."

+

“Two thousand years ago," President Kennedy was saying from where he stood at the podium, hundreds of metres away, "two thousand years ago—the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum, today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ich bin ein Berliner!"

All around them, the crowd roared. On all sides, men women and children chattered away in excited German, laughing and smiling and elated to be in the presence of the leader of the free world. In contrast to all the commotion, Merlin stood silently at Arthur’s left shoulder, simply staring up at Kennedy.

He turned to look at Arthur as the president thanked his interpreter for translating his German (which was incorrect in the first place, even Arthur could tell with his limited knowledge of the language) and the boy looked so sad and contemplative that Arthur had to ask if he was all right. Merlin just nodded semi-distractedly and turned his attention back to the podium way up ahead.

The president was inviting those who didn’t see the grievous international problem communism posed to come and see this war torn and divided city for themselves. “And there are some,” he said, “who say in Europe and elsewhere, ‘we can work with the communists,’ let them come to Berlin!"

Arthur’s shoulder was barely brushing Merlin’s, but he could immediately feel the man tense at those words. Arthur looked towards him and their eyes met. Merlin looked more nervous and self-conscious then Arthur had ever seen him in the short time they had known each other.

He grabbed the man lightly by the wrist and cocked his head to the side, as if to suggest a direction, “Let’s get out of here.”

They made their way out of the crowd and back to Arthur's car. Even if it would be almost impossible for the KGB to get an agent Merlin wouldn't recognize into West Berlin, Arthur was careful to make sure they weren't being watched or followed and Merlin glanced over his shoulder more than a few times as well. He could hear Kennedy's voice continue to boom across the square as they went but Arthur had stopped listening to the meaning of his words.

They made their way to where Arthur had parked the car he’d been using in Berlin. He unlocked it and climbed into the driver’s seat as Merlin let himself in on the passenger side. Once they were safe inside the car Arthur turned straight to Merlin and asked, "Are you alright?"

Merlin's posture was defensive and standoffish as he answered, "What's it to you?"

"I'm your case officer, Merlin," Arthur scolded him, "It's my job to make sure you're to be awake and alert and mentally together whenever you are on the job. You're no use to the Service if you're not all there."

"Right." Merlin said blankly. "Of course. All I am to you is an asset."

Arthur winced, realizing his mistake. "Well," he hedged, "I don't exactly know you very well, do I? How am I supposed to feel about you?"

Merlin collapsed back into the seat and closed his eyes. “I don’t know, Arthur,” he said wearily. “I—just—I don’t know.” He shifted to his side, so that he facing Arthur, and slowly opened his eyes. Blue irises bore into Arthur’s own. “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “It’s just that I’m still adjusting to all this.”

“No one expects any more from you, Merlin,” Arthur told him, as gently as he could, “That’s completely normal.”

Merlin’s eyes closed again and he shook his head. “Look,” he said, “I know we don’t know each other all that well, but would you mind if I got something off my chest? I just—I need you to understand why I’m doing this.”

Arthur smiled, more glad to hear that than he would admit. “That’s what I’m here for, mate,” he replied. “If I can’t understand your motives, it’s harder for me to do my job properly.”

It took Merlin a few more starts and stops to get going, but once the words started coming they didn’t stop. He didn’t cry but his voice was rough and raw, clearly emotional. Even his accent, which usually sounded flawlessly and naturally British, faltered and a few times some distinctly eastern European sounds bled through. “Just because I was born in the Soviet Union doesn't mean I believe in communism,” he said. “Because I don't. Really. The communist government of the Soviet Union took me away from my family when I was three years old and they taught me things about the world that just aren't true. We were indoctrinated with the same kind of prejudice against the West that Westerners are against us. That's how they make good spies, Arthur, by making you truly hate the supposed enemy. And then they sent me here. They sent me to the place they'd taught me to hate ever since I was a child. And do you know what I found out when I got here? Do you?” he paused and looked expectantly at Arthur, who shook his head. “You lot are nothing like they said you'd be!” Merlin finished.

“What did you think we'd be like?" Arthur asked, supplying the obvious follow up question.

Merlin suddenly looked down at the hands in his lap, seemingly unable to look Arthur in the eye as he talked about this. He sounded dejected as he said it, his voice completely hollow. "They said that America was going to drop the atom bomb on us, just like they did in Japan, and that Britain and the other Western countries would help them. They said that if we didn't learn how to fight against you, our lives as we knew them would be destroyed. That they’d force us all to speak English, whether we liked it or not, and to give up our Russian customs and that we'd be subjugated to the horrors of a capitalist system."

But Arthur couldn't help the smirk that crept onto his face. Merlin glanced up just as it appeared and looked horribly insulted by it. "What's so funny?" he demanded.

Arthur's smile grew some more. "It's just that they told us the same things about you," he said. "Only, we'd all be speaking Russian."

Finally, Merlin's face brightened and he even smiled a little bit. Arthur grinned back and then they were both sitting face to face in the car, grinning at each other. Arthur looked at Merlin now, really looked at him for the first time, and in some distant part of his mind, he realized that Merlin had an exceedingly nice smile.

From there, the two of them parted and went their own ways back to their separate hotels. The trip back to London the next day was uneventful and Arthur went back to work the day after that. And Merlin, for his part, went back to pretending to be British at his job selling books in Covent Garden.

NOTES:
1) Kennedy's "ich bin ein Berliner" speech was delivered on 23 June 1963 and can be found in its entirety on YouTube here.

2) Dan Fenn was a staff assistant to President Kennedy who travelled with him to Berlin in 1963. He later went on to be the first director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

3) Part 4 will be posted on Wednesday.

next part.

[fic] What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game 2/?

2010-07-15T18:51:24Z

Title: What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game, Part 2
Pairings: eventual Arthur/Merlin and background Lancelot/Gwen
Rating: PG-13 for now.
Word Count: ~2500 in this part.
Disclaimer: This version of Arthur, Merlin, et al belong to Shine and the BBC, not to me.
Summary: It's 1963, the Cold War is in full swing, and Arthur Pendragon, agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service, is about to meet the Service's newest Russian double agent: Merlin Emrys.
Author's Note: Thank you to kerrykhat for the beta. LJ/Firefox were being huge bitches as I was trying to post this, so if you see anything wonky it's probably because HTML hates me. More notes at the end.

first part.

PART TWO

lemon tree very pretty
and the lemon flower is sweet
but the fruit of the poor lemon
is impossible to eat

Not long after he left his father’s office, just before calling it a day and going home for the night, Arthur made his way down to Gwen’s desk. Guinevere Smith was Morgana’s secretary; Arthur had been known to quip when he’d had a few too many martinis at a cocktail party that Morgana had staring contest with people until they talked and Gwen filed the paperwork. She and Morgana were quite the pair. They both managed to be professional in the office while simultaneously remaining up to date with all the current styles, all miniskirts and long legs, with Gwen’s dark ringlet curls a perfect counterpoint to Morgana’s short, Jackie Kennedy-esque bob. The two of them were good friends, being two of the only woman in an office that was almost exclusively male. Arthur had always liked Gwen. She was complimentary but not to the point of sucking up and she knew where to draw the line and tell you that you were being an idiot when you were being an idiot, even if you were the boss’ son.

Arthur leaned up against her open door now, his arms crossed. “How’s it going?” he asked, jerking his head in the direction of Leon’s office. Leon Knightly was the Service’s best analyzer and had been put to work checking and rechecking Petrovich’s statement.

Gwen glanced in the direction of the office and shrugged noncommittally. “I think it’s going all right,” she responded, “he hasn’t said much, you’ll have to ask him.” Arthur sighed at that and Gwen smirked knowingly. “Anxious?” she asked teasingly.

“I am a little nervous, yes,” Arthur admitted begrudgingly, trying to smile lightly but suspecting it turned out as more of a grimace. “This is a way higher profile operation than I’ve ever been assigned before, you know.”

The smirk vanished from Gwen’s face. “Oh, yes, of course,” she stammered, “I didn’t mean to imply—I’m sorry.”

Arthur’s scowl softened into a real smile, charmed as always by Gwen’s visible discomfort at the turn the conversation had taken. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, falling into the plush chair on the near side of her desk, “you were just making conversation.” His hands tangled in his lap as he fidgeted with them nervously and he went on, “This is just such a big operation, I’d be crazy to be totally calm about it.”

Gwen smiled knowingly. “You’ll be fine, Arthur,” she said. “Don’t worry, you were born to do this.” When Arthur rolled his eyes, skeptical, she continued, “No, really. You’re as high up in this organization as you are for a reason. It’s in your blood.”

Arthur gave a short, sarcastic laugh. “It’s in my name, you mean,” he said.

“No! Don’t ever believe that, Arthur!” Gwen scolded and then sighed, leaning over the desk towards him. “Look, your father was a great field agent in his day, and he’s a fine deputy chief, but you are a thousand times better at working with people than he ever could be, and he knows it. They gave you this assignment because you’re the best case handler we have and you’re the best man to bring the Russian kid into the fold.”

Arthur huffed, not very convinced, and his skepticism must have shown on his face because Gwen just sighed again, glanced at the clock and said. “Alright, it’s almost five o’clock anyway. Hang around for a minute and I’ll call Morgana, we can all go get some beer and forget about business for a little bit, how does that sound?”

A few hours and a few beers later, a tipsy Arthur stumbled into his flat, tossing the keys away and scrounging for the lights, and realized that he’d just been successful in not feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders for awhile, only to have it all come rushing back as he saw Petrovich’s face in his mind’s eye.

+

Because Petrovich was possibly under Soviet surveillance, it was decreed that they could only meet in relatively public spaces and not in private meetings within the safe confines of the MI6 Building, which Petrovich could be tracked to. To complicate matters even further, it was not safe for Merlin to be seen associating with the son of the director of SIS. Therefore, they could never actually talk face in public and instead had to deal with sitting back to back on park benches or in train stations or open marketplaces, hoping their voices carried just enough for the other to hear, but not enough for them to be overheard and reported for suspicious behaviour, or else huddled together in a locked men’s room with the water running nosily behind them. Arthur felt like an idiot trying to have a conversation with a man facing away from him, but he sucked it up. He knew he’d have to get used to it.

Their first meeting as case officer and asset went something like this.

Arthur arrived near the pond at Hyde Park at 14:15 and sat with that morning’s edition of The Times open, pretending to read about the new so-called “Mersey Sound” music coming down from the North that all kids were going crazy over these days. (He’d have to keep this in mind when looking for presents for his younger cousins when Christmastime rolled around.) Petrovich came strolling past him at 14:23 on the dot with a copy of an Ian Flemming novel under his arm. He circumnavigated the bench and sat directly behind Arthur. A few minutes later, Arthur heard his crisp English accent quietly ask, “Excuse me, do you know who won the cricket match last night?”

“Middlesex,” Arthur replied, affirming his identity and nodding despite the fact that the boy couldn’t see him.

“It’s good to see you again, Agent Pendragon.” the boy responded, obviously pleased with Arthur’s answer.

“It’s good to see you again, Agent Petrovich,” Arthur lied.

“Oh—God—call me Merlin!” He sounded genuinely surprised that Arthur would call him by his Russian surname; he’d obviously been under long enough that the name his mother had given him sounded foreign to his ears.

“Okay,” Arthur tried, “Merlin.” The name sounded strange on his tongue, Arthur had grown up in an environment defined by formality and this was a bit too familiar for his liking, but he figured he might as well just go with it. Then, trying to get off that awkward subject and break the ice, “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Flemming fan, Merlin.”

“Didn’t you know,” Merlin shot back, a hint of humour in his voice that Arthur had never heard before, “James Bond is how the Kremlin taught us about the British Secret Service in our training.”

Arthur didn’t laugh, but it was a near thing; he could feel the awkwardness slipping away as with warmth in Petrovich’s—no, Merlin’s—voice washed over him. It was weird but nice to be joking around about a fictional agent from an annoyingly popular series of books and movies with this kid he barely knew.

Then Arthur could hear him shifting on the bench behind him and he realized the boy probably felt just as awkward as he did. “Anyway,” Merlin said, sounding a bit uncomfortable for the first time since Arthur had met him, and his voice had lost the humour, “I guess we’re supposed to talk about spy stuff now, huh?”

“Yes,” Arthur said.

“Alright, so, here’s the deal.” Merlin continued, “my superiors in Moscow are sending me to Berlin next week. It’s a retrieval operation from the US Mission Berlin.”

That was odd. “I thought you were stationed more or less permanently in London,” Arthur remembered out loud, “why are they sending you?”

“I have a fabricated British visa—one of the perks of being undercover—so I can get into the western city much more easily than an agent coming from the Soviet Union ever could.”

Arthur found that he felt more comfortable now that they were back on familiar, professional ground. Spy stuff, he could do that. This is what Arthur had been raised to do, bred to do, even. In this he could set aside all the baggage and stress that came along with this new assignment and concentrate on being at a rendezvous with a contact. He turned Merlin’s words over in his head—if the KGB wanted something from the United States' military and political headquarters in West Berlin this week, there could only be one reason. “This is about Kennedy, isn’t it?” he said.

“Of course it’s about Kennedy,” Merlin scoffed. “The president of the United States is going to be giving a speech to the people of Berlin mere miles from Soviet territory, you think they’re just going to sit around and let that go by?”

Arthur shook his head, forgetting that the man behind him wouldn’t be able to see. “Yeah, we’ve been speculating about that ourselves actually. The deputy chief was going to send Agent du Lac, I believe.”

“The deputy chief?” Merlin repeated, incredulous, like he couldn't believe Uther's son would refer to him as that, “why don’t you just suggest to your father that he send you instead? You can keep an eye on me. Don’t pretend you don’t want to, Agent Pendragon.” A lesser man than Arthur would have shivered at the sudden coldness in Merlin’s voice and Arthur cringed, suddenly feeling as though the all of Western society’s prejudice was settled on his own shoulders.

There was a pause before Arthur said anything. Finally, he simply said, “If I get to call you Merlin, Agent Petrovich, you get to call me Arthur.”

“Well, Arthur,” Merlin said, his voice now sounding slightly pleased while still maintaining a cold edge, and how did he do that? “I think we’re done here. If you need to reach me, I work at the used bookshop in Covenant Garden and you can get a message to me there.” Arthur felt his weight lift off the bench and wondered momentarily why this boy, who had been joking with him—about Ian Flemming of all things—just a few minutes before, had suddenly become so cold toward him. Where had Arthur gone wrong?

Arthur was about to chalk it up to the strange, strange mind of a Russian—and the fact that Arthur was thinking that, it occurred to him, was probably the problem—when Merlin came around the bench again, still clutching that damn Bond novel (which, Arthur had to consciously refrain himself from rolling his eyes upon discovering, was From Russia With Love) and flashed Arthur one of the most blinding smiles Arthur had ever seen. And Arthur almost couldn’t help but quirk his own lips in return.

+

As soon as Arthur got back to his office, he rang up Nimueh on her office phone. Viviane Nimueh was a middleman (though she would look you straight in the face and remind you that she wasn't a man, thank you very much, if you called her that to her face) between Arthur and Uther. Arthur had to report to her for all of his orders, which she got from his father. Arthur sometimes half heartedly wondered why he couldn't just get his orders directly from his father since he was, after all, his father, but the always quickly dismissed that and reminded himself that it was just Service policy.

After the secretary had put him through, Arthur heard Nimueh's voice on the other end. The woman didn't exactly engender the familiarity of first name basis; no one ever called her Viviane. "Yes?" she answered expectantly.

"Nimueh, it's Arthur."

"Oh, Arthur," she drawled, "how was the Russian?" Arthur cringed inwardly at the tone of her voice. There had always been something about the woman that set his teeth on edge. Nimueh had been in Arthur's life for as long as he could remember. She and Uther had worked together in the Service almost since they'd joined. The two of them had seen each other through a world war, the advent of the atom bomb and the first decade of this conflict with Russia, all in the name of Great Britain and Her Majesty the Queen. When Uther had been promoted to deputy chief, while she was just as qualified for the post, Nimueh had simply smiled, congratulated Uther, and clapped him on the back. Still, Arthur couldn't say what it was exactly, but there just seemed to him to be something off about her, but he'd never dared bring it up with his father. Uther awarded loyalty and friendship like Nimueh had displayed towards him with fierce loyalty of his own and almost unconditional defense of character, even coming from his own son. Now an agent in his own right, Arthur had to answer to her. He'd never been quite thrilled by that.

"Petrovich was fine," he told her, "he said the Kremlin's sending him to Berlin next week."

"Because of Kennedy, I assume."

"Yeah, because of Kennedy." Arthur paused, wishing he could avoid what came next but knowing he couldn’t. "Look," he forced himself to say, "he's requested that I go as well."

There was a pause on the other end. Arthur had known she wouldn't like that idea. Nimueh had been the one to assign Lancelot to that task and she didn't like to have her orders overridden. But a request from an agent who was implicit to the mission was hard to ignore and she couldn't even argue that Merlin was just a Russian, he was considered a British agent now and was to be awarded the same amount of respect anyone else would be. Finally, Nimueh spoke up again. "Agent du Lac has already been given that assignment," she said bracingly, like Arthur didn't already know it.

"I know," Arthur answered, patiently, although his annoyance level was rising, "but the man asked for me. Not Lancelot. And it's not like he's got some special skill set I haven't. I think Petrovich being sent over there puts this squarely in my operation folder."

“You’re a case officer, Arthur,” Nimueh reminded him, again unnecessarily. “You haven’t been on a field mission since you took your agent exam.”

It was true. Arthur had spent most of his working life behind a desk, coordinating missions other people went on. In truth, Arthur was bored out of his mind with it most of the time, and the prospect of having the opportunity to go out in the field was an exciting change of pace. Still, he wasn’t about to let on to Nimueh about that. So instead he simply said, “With all due respect, ma’am, I seem to remember passing that exam with flying colors.”

“That was four years ago.”

Arthur couldn’t help but roll his eyes and was thankful that Nimueh couldn’t see; she always had to make everything so difficult. Merlin was his responsibility, dammit. “Look,” he started bracingly, “Petrovich is my man. And he’s new to the Service, I think it would be wise if he had his case officer’s supervision. If this is his mission, so it should be mine too. I’ll even do a few field simulations if it makes you feel better, but I am going to Berlin.”

NOTE: Thank you to everyone who left feedback on the first part! I've been working on this story for a long time and I've put a lot into it, so it was very nice to see people enjoying it. I hope I can continue to deliver. As of right now I have about 16,000 words written and I'm steadily working on more; the plan is for me to stay well ahead of the posting and to get you guys an update fairly consistently every few days, so you can expect Part 3 up sometime Sunday.

next part.

[fic] There'll Be Peace When You Are Done 1/1

2010-07-14T19:29:04Z

Title: There'll Be Peace When You Are Done
Fandom: Merlin, with hints of Supernatural
Pairings: Merlin/Arthur
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1800 words
Disclaimer: I own none of this. This incarnation of the characters belongs to the BBC and Shine, and Eric Kripke owns the 'verse.
Summary: Arthur woke up in their motel room in Leeds (they'd just finished up a poltergeist job there) to find his sister gone and in her place a note that said, Gone to find the Oak Man, don't worry about me. Written for this kinkme_merlin prompt.
Author's Note: Apologies to Eric Kripke, but when you say ghost hunter there's only one place my mind goes. The way I think about this, it takes place in the Supernatural 'verse, but it's not a fusion. So the Winchesters are off in America doing their thing and Arthur's in Britain doing his. Thanks to kerrykhat and latenightcuppa for looking this over for me.

"This one's not gonna be easy, Arthur," Gaius' voice came over the cell phone sounding gruff as usual but barely hiding the concern and even fondness. "There's a ton of lore on this case going back centuries but no one's ever been able to even verify that this thing is real, let alone kill it. What the hell makes you think you'll succeed where hundreds of hunters before you have failed?"

Arthur sighed and shifted the phone to his other hand, rubbing the newly free one over his eyes. How could he explain this to Gaius without sounding like he'd gone completely insane? "I just --" he started and stopped, "I -- I have to try. It's the only lead I've got."

"Lead?" Gaius demanded and Arthur cringed inwardly; this slip was proof of just how close to the end of his rope he was. "Tell me this isn't about Morgana, Arthur." Arthur said nothing and Gaius continued, "You have to let go, boy. She's gone."

Arthur shook his head against Gaius' words although he knew the older man couldn't see him from where he sat on the other side of London. He had to find Morgana, he just had to. He should have known something was up -- she'd been having the nightmares again -- but she'd promised Arthur that it was nothing; then, one morning, Arthur woke up in their motel room in Leeds (they'd just finished up a poltergeist job there) to find his sister gone and in her place a note that said, Gone to find the Oak Man, don't worry about me.

Of course, Arthur couldn't help but go out of his mind with worry. The whole world was losing its head, the end of days was fucking nigh (there were rumours coming in from America about Lucifer himself roaming the Earth, but Arthur couldn't be arsed to deal with that now), and Morgana had to go and run off after some Oak Man guy in the middle of the night and not even leave him any proper leads to follow her by. Well, Arthur thought, wasn't that just perfect.

But now, after sifting through what felt like a thousand library databases searching with every possible variation on oak + man, he'd found something. In fact, considering how well known this case was, Arthur was surprised it had taken him as long as it did.

The Oak Man, it turned out, was a well known figure in Welsh mythology. No one seemed to know how exactly but every full moon this man was said to emerge just for that one night from a certain oak tree in a forest in southern Wales. Legend had it that the man was waiting for his one true love to return. Arthur scoffed at that; he had never been one for true love, he had a sister to protect and monsters to hunt, no time for love or even sex, more often than not. Anyway, that may have been the legend but Arthur had found that legends rarely told the whole story. More likely this Oak Man had been spurned and probably killed by his lover and reappeared every month seeking revenge. Arthur scanned all the reports of him through the centuries; at first glance it didn't look like there had been deaths in connection with this thing, but Arthur was pretty confident that if he dug a little deeper he'd find some.

He didn't have time to do that, though. What the hell had Morgana been doing running off after this thing on her own? Why would her dreams have lead her there?

*

A few hours later, Arthur had loaded his shotgun up with salt, checked out of his motel, packed his car and driven to the Oak Man's forest. He left his car just beyond the trees in a dilapidated car park that looked like it hadn't been used in years and made his way into the dark.

The tree that was supposed to produce the man was about a mile and a half in, so Arthur hiked along the make-shift trail that had been created by the many thrill seekers who had come on various full moons. It was a full moon tonight and Arthur worried that some thrill seeking teenagers might show up later and get in his way (What was it about kids and haunted places? Hadn't they ever see a horror movie?) but for now, it was still early; the sun had barely gone down above the trees when Arthur reached the clearing that housed the famous tree.

And there it was--old and huge, with bark that looked almost like skin and pointed leaves shining in the day's last light shining down on them. It looked ethereal, almost magical.

Arthur took a seat against another tree on the far side of the clearing and settled into a night watch. These kinds of stakeouts were lonely without Morgana to keep him company and being so far away from his car's sound system made it even worse, but this was necessary if he was going to find Morgana. He'd had plenty of coffee and the plan was basically to sit and watch the Oak Man's tree until he came out of it or the sun came up, whichever happened first.

Nothing happened for a long time. At ten thirty, about an two and a half hours into his watch, Arthur felt himself beginning to doze off from sheer boredom and broke out the emergency Red Bull, which he kept in his pack for just these kinds of situations. It was not a fool proof plan, however, and Arthur began to wish even harder that Morgana was there to make sure he stayed awake.

And then, she was there. At 11:34 sharp, Arthur heard a rustling sound behind him. He instinctively grabbed the shotgun and aimed it at the noise; it was only loaded with salt but the intruder didn't need to know it. He could see somebody standing there in the darkness but he couldn't make out any details.

But he didn't need to. "Put the gun down, Arthur, don't be ridiculous."

Arthur froze. He knew that voice. "Morgana!"

"Yes, Arthur," she responded, sounding exasperated, like Arthur hadn't been searching for her for months. "Now would you please lower the weapon, there's no reason to make this unpleasant."

"Unpleasant--" Arthur sputtered, "Where the fuck have you been?"

"Waiting for you." She stepped closer when Arthur lowered the gun and Arthur shown his torch on her to get a better look. It was certainly his sister standing there, wearing her usual jeans and stylish leather jacket, and Arthur felt his heart seize almost painfully with relief. Morgana was standing in front of him, perfectly safe, and it was all Arthur could do to stop himself from rushing to her and squeezing her tightly to his chest. But something stopped him -- this didn't make any sense.

"Why couldn't you have just brought me with you?" he asked.

"You had to find it yourself," Morgana replied enigmatically.

They waited together for a while longer, then, as Arthur's watch struck midnight (and Arthur rolled his eye at the hackneyed timing) the oak tree he'd been staring at for hours began to shift its form. It was a little hard to make out in the near pitch black of the forest, the minuscule amount of moonlight filtering down through the thick canopy being the only source of light, but the tree trunk was clearly changing shape. Arthur knew better than to get too close but he continued to squint at the tree as its bark began to form a doorway, big enough for a man to step out of. It curved into an oval shape at the top, with a pair of dragons, one on each side, carved into it as if to guard the entrance and, impossibly, the bark gleamed golden in the meagre moonlight.

Arthur reached for his shotgun and quickly checked that it was loaded. He got to his feet and trained the gun on the still morphing tree; his finger was ready on the trigger.

A spirit in the form of a man stepped out of the door about ten feet away from him. Immediately, his eyes fell on Arthur and Arthur thought he could feel the spirit's gaze burn into him. He shivered, but brushed it off as quickly as he could.

"Arthur, don't shoot," Morgana said, sounding unnaturally calm, like she was positive he wouldn't. Arthur ignored her. There was something he didn't trust about this new Morgana, who had walked out of their motel room in the middle of the night all those months ago and shown up here like clockwork.

So he pulled the trigger, sending the salt rocketing out towards the spirit.

"Ow!" his mark exclaimed, looking down at chest where the salt had made contact. That wasn't how it was supposed to work, it was supposed to blink out of existence, at least for awhile. It was almost like the spirit was -- solid?

"What the fuck did you do that for, you ass!" the not-spirit demanded and at the sound of his voice, Arthur's brain shot into overdrive.

That was my mistake, I'd never have a friend who could be such an ass.

You can't talk to me like that!

I'm sorry. I'd never have a friend who could be such an ass -- my lord.

Arthur shook his head against the influx of knowledge. Suddenly, he remembered. He remembered Morgana, his sister who dreamt the future; he remembered Gwen, his wife who loved his head knight; and he remembered--

"Merlin?"

"Yeah," Merlin said softly, "it's me." He'd come closer to Arthur now, almost within arm's reach. Arthur reached out and dragged the man to him, wrapping his arms around Merlin's solid waist and burying his nose in Merlin's solid neck. He smelled of the fires that always heated Arthur's chambers and the herbs he'd used to make his medicines and magical concoctions and of the forest. Arthur brought his lips to Merlin's for a chaste kiss, their mouths resting against each other's for a few seconds before Merlin pulled back, laughing.

"What took you so long?" Merlin asked, "I've always been stuck in that damn tree for fifteen hundred years."

"Yeah, well, maybe this time you won't go around pissing off extremely powerful sorceresses just for the hell of it," Arthur shot back. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as they say."

"Oh, shut up." Merlin shoved ineffectively against Arthur's chest before reaching up to pull his head down into another kiss.

[fic] What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game 1/?

2010-07-13T02:37:36Z

Title: What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game, Part 1
Pairings: eventual Arthur/Merlin and background Lancelot/Gwen
Rating: PG-13 for now.
Disclaimer: This version of Arthur, Merlin, et al belong to Shine and the BBC, not to me.
Summary: It's 1963, the Cold War is in full swing, and Arthur Pendragon, agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service, is about to meet the Service's newest Russian double agent: Merlin Emrys.
Author's Note: I have been working on this story for about a year now, and although I said I wouldn't post it as a WIP before it was completely finished, part of me feels like if I don't get this up here now, I'm going to explode. So although I realize it doesn't bode well to see that question mark up there next to the /, believe me when I say that this story is my baby, my magnum opus, whatever you want to call it, and I will finish it if it kills me. And before I even start, huge huge, huge thank yous need to go out to brightedelweiss and latenightcuppa who have both been goddesses with their support for this fic over the past year as well as kerrykhat, who also lent her invaluable support even though she's not even in this fandom

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone - Greece with its immortal glories - is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy.
--Winston Churchill, 1946.

+

1963; the seventeenth year of the Cold War.

if there’s anything that you want
if there’s anything I can do
just call on me and I’ll send it along
with love
from me to you.

The boy—man?—boy who sat across Arthur Pendragon’s desk tapped his pen on the table incessantly while he filled out the form. As Arthur observed him, the boy’s dark hair fell into his eyes and then was brushed away with a swipe of a pen-holding hand and the tap-a-tap came back in half a beat late afterwards.

This went on for about twenty minutes, while Arthur watched. Neither of them said anything more than this pen seems to be running out of ink and well, see if this one works and so, where do you want me to sign and date? The boy's hair was messy, ruffled and surprisingly professional. Still, Arthur suspected that if they had been anywhere besides perhaps the most important meeting of this boy's life it would look anything but professional. He spoke with an impeccable London accent, like he’d lived just outside the city since his infancy and even years later, after it was all over, Arthur would never admit to this boy that he found it unsettling. He reminded himself that this boy was likely to be a new ally, and that if he made it through the security process, the two of them would be working very closely together. It didn’t make him feel any better as the boy slowly continued to fill in each section of the form one by one. At long last, the boy looked up, put the pen down and pushed the completed form towards Arthur. “Done,” he said.

Arthur nodded. “Thank you.” Glancing down at the papers now in his hand, he could see that the boy had written an incredible amount in the relatively small space allotted. If all this turned out to be true, it could really be a godsend to their department. “We’ll have to send this down to analysis,” he said, “make sure everything checks out. If it does, we’re in business.” He tried to smile at the boy, but his heart wasn’t really in it and it turned out to be more of a grimace. If the boy noticed, he remained as quiet as he had been through the whole ordeal and didn’t remark on it.

“How long do you think that will take?” came the boy’s reply, and there was that Queen’s English again, and it was really quite disconcerting, Arthur thought.

“Maybe a week or two or three. We’ll call you when it’s done. Don’t try to contact us before that.”

The boy gave him a look that quite clearly said I am not a child, thank you very much. “I’ve been in this business longer than you have, Agent Pendragon,” he said coldly, “I don’t need a lecture from you on how this works.” And with that, he let himself out of the office, and was escorted back through the near labyrinth of tunnels he'd come in through so as not to be followed by Soviet agents and down to the street.

+

Arthur knocked on the door bearing the legend UTHER PENDRAGON, DEPUTY CHIEF in rather plain golden lettering, waiting to hear the gruff, "Enter" from inside before opening it. As he did, he was hit with a barrage of cigarette smoke that had slowly been filling the room, but it wasn’t nearly so hazy that he couldn’t make out his father looking up to see who it was. As usual, Arthur had the distinct feeling that he was being appraised. Arthur had long ago grown accustomed to being sized up on a regular basis, he’d never known anything else. Growing up as the son of the man in charge of Britain’s international intelligence, Arthur had been treated like a spy in training his entire life and any other career path had never even been considered for him, not by Arthur and certainly not by his father. If there was anyone in the world who’d been born to be a spy, it was Arthur Pendragon.

Arthur was taken a little off guard to find that this time it looked like Uther was happy to see him as he took his gaze from his son and began clearing away the files he had been reading and putting them away them neatly and in order in his cabinet. There were those who insisted Uther Pendragon had gotten where he was in life simply by virtue of his organizational skills (of course, there were others who would never believe it had nothing to do with his intimidation techniques).

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Arthur greeted, nodding his head in a respectful manner.

"Arthur," Uther returned, continuing to sound pleased, and gestured to the empty chair on Arthur's side of the desk, "take a seat." Arthur did, self consciously smoothing his tie down his shirtfront as he lowered himself into the chair. “Cigarette?” Uther offered, holding out a carton. Arthur accepted, reaching out to choose one and took a moment to light it with a match and take the first drag.

“I take it you just got out of the meeting with the new prospect, what's his name?"

"Petrovich."

"Yes, Petrovich, that's it. Anyway, how did it go?"

Arthur cleared his throat. “He’s certainly professional enough, he knows what he’s doing. Young, though. What are they doing, recruiting from grammar school these days?” He said it with a smile but it was really only half a joke. Petrovich really was quite young and they could really never be certain exactly what the KGB was doing. That was what made them such a terrifying enemy.

“Yes, I’d heard he was young,” Uther mused, “but I suppose it can’t be helped. They can’t all be colonels.”

Arthur cringed inwardly and had to stop himself from rolling his eyes; of course it would come back to the huge shoes Arthur and Petrovich would have to fill. “Penkovsky is dead, Father,” he reminded him unnecessarily, “We’re all just going to have to come to terms with that and move on with our next best option here.” It wasn’t like they had copious amounts of commie agents knocking on our doors wanting to work for them.

Uther sighed wearily. “You’re right, of course,” he conceited. “Well, alright. Get Leon working on it right away.”

“I’ve already sent him the files.”

Uther looked pleased. “Good,” he said, “tell him to make sure I receive any memos he sends out on the matter, I want to be the first to know after you when he gets cleared, understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Arthur responded almost automatically, pleased to hear that he wasn’t the only one quite sure Petrovich would be cleared for service. Although nothing was official yet, he knew that people rarely made it this far in the security process without eventually being cleared.

Then that pleasant feeling left him as Uther fixed Arthur with the intimidating stare that had been known to give some of the younger secretaries nightmares and added, “I don’t think I have to impress upon you, Arthur, that this is of the utmost importance. We cannot afford to have you fuck this up.”

Uther’s stare continued to bore into him, eyes never leaving his and Arthur swallowed. He knew the message his father was getting across. Throughout his career, Arthur’s surname had followed him like shadow he could never shake off, especially because of the speed at which he’d risen in the ranks of British intelligence. It hadn’t been exactly meteoric, but at twenty five years old, he was the youngest case officer in the Service. People constantly whispered behind his back of nepotism, he knew, and he’d spent his entire career trying his best to prove himself as his own man and not just the son of the Chief, with moderate success, but there were still plenty of people who had grumbled that Arthur was not the best man for such an important job. Privately, Arthur was inclined to believe them. But, as everyone knew, Uther hated to have his judgment questioned and he was not going to go back on his assignment until Arthur really screwed it up. But that wouldn’t stop him from putting pressure on Arthur behind closed doors to not besmirch the family name.

Now, though, Arthur just nodded stiffly, said, “Don’t worry, sir, I won’t,” and hoped to God it was true.

+

The problem, of course, was communism. Arthur and all the other little boys and girls of the Western world had been taught that from an early age. The communists had no respect for property; they’d take what you had and give it to somebody who hadn’t worked for it. They wanted to take over the world and, in doing so, would replace the democratic governments that worked so well with communist states run by totalitarian leaders who suppressed the basic human rights of the people whose interests they were supposed to be looking out for and who were honest to God psychopaths who were liable to blow the world to hell with their ever growing stash of nuclear weapons. There was not a man or woman working for the Service who didn’t believe this wholeheartedly and who wasn’t willing to risk their life to ensure the containment of that ideology and the safety of the world.

They were locked in a battle that naturally pitted the Russian and Soviet people against Americans and American allies. Arthur had grown up in a house where the hostilities between nations had not only been something on the news but a reality imbedded in the minutia of day to day life and the distrust of anyone who’d been raised in the Soviet sphere was almost ingrained in his skin. It was a prejudice he acknowledge and knew he’d have to fight against in the coming months and years as he worked so closely with Petrovich.

Because, of course, there were the exceptions. Alexei Petrovich, for one, and before him Oleg Penkovsky. Penkovsky, a colonel in the Soviet military intelligence organization GRU, had worked with the CIA and the Service since he’d initiated contact three years earlier, in 1960, and had been invaluable to the West, Arthur knew. Then, he’d disappeared, and it soon became clear that he’d been caught by the Soviets. Word had recently made it back to the Service of his execution for treason.

Arthur sighed. He’d never known Penkovsky, never even known his real name before being brought in on this operation, but the unfortunate ending of that story served to remind Arthur of the stakes he now found himself up against. Petrovich was risking his life to work for the West, not to mention denouncing his family, friends, even his way of life, all for a society who had never been anything but hostile to him.

That’s why Arthur wasn’t quite sure what to make of this boy. As he skimmed through his file and found that he had been born Alexei Petrovich to a couple of factory workers living in Moscow in 1943 and had been recruited by the KGB at the age of thirteen. Apparently he scored extremely well on the same kind of exams they used to recruit in Britain. And by extremely well, they meant scary well; Arthur could barely even believe that score, it was off the charts. From there, he had been sent to Britain to work as an agent in the KGB London office gathering reconnaissance when he was seventeen, after four years of intense training in How To Be British. He had to be able to blend in to London society, no one who was obviously Russian would be able to be a decent spy; they’d stick out like a sore thumb. Now, at nineteen, he’d sent a letter to Uther by way of a Royal Mail worker working half a mile from his house saying he wanted to turn himself in to the Service and defect from the Soviet Union. Of course, it wasn't easy to make sure that he was being truthful, and not a Soviet plant sent to get an inside look at Her Majesty's Secret Service. First, they had verified everything in that letter three times over, sent tails after him throughout most of the day and bugged his flat, waiting for him to mention his meeting with the SIS to one of his KGB contacts. He hadn’t said a word to anyone about it in the three weeks they watched him. Then, Arthur had stood on the other side of the glass and watched as Morgana, Arthur's foster sister and the Service's top interrogator, had questioned him relentlessly for hours in the interrogation room, trying to determine if the boy was exactly who he said he was and acting for the right reasons, not ones that would hurt Britain.

For Arthur, this all meant that he may soon be facing his biggest case yet. A coup such as this one would not only be watched closely by the entire service, but the CIA as well; preliminary drafts of the memo informing the Americans of their new contact were already being written up by the communications people. And Arthur was beginning to feel the strain of it all. The sleepless nights hadn’t begun yet, although he knew they would as soon as Petrovich actually started passing up to date, relevant information. All of the stress was about to begin.

NOTE: Oleg Penkovsky was a real double agent working with MI6 who played a major role in keeping the Cuban Missile Crisis from escalating into anything more because he was able to give Kennedy information about exactly how many nukes the Soviets had. He was caught by Moscow and executed in 1963, shortly before this story starts. I have included him as part of this verse, but it must be said that I am basing a lot of Merlin off of Penkovsky.

next part

[fic] When Merlin's Tree Shall Tumble Down 1/1

2010-05-19T23:39:15Z

Title: When Merlin's Tree Shall Tumble Down
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~1200 words
Disclaimer: This version of Merlin and Arthur are owned by Shine and the BBC. No one owns history, espeicially not me.
Summary: In which Arthur is Charles II, Merlin is Merlin, and there are some trees. Written for this prompt at kinkme_merlin.

I.

A few hours later, when Charles was starting to get really uncomfortable crouched there in that damned tree, footsteps returned to the clearing. The sound of branches being snapped under feet echoed in a terrifying way Charles had never thought possible and he watched as Pendrell's eyes widened dramatically in fear. One of the Roundhead's soldiers had passed right by their precarious refuge earlier and--oh, thank the Lord--not looked up, but the king's heart hadn't stopped pounding since and it was loud enough that he worried anyone who came now would surely hear it.

And sure enough, the approaching footsteps came with a man and that man stopped right below their tree. Charles looked down at the brown mop of hair with trepidation until that head titled up and a pair of very familiar sapphire eyes bore into his own. Then his heart almost stopped completely before it exploded into the largest surge of emotion the king had ever felt, even as he'd said goodbye to his father as the man had been led away to his execution.

"I think you can come on down now, sire," Merlin said, his lips curling into a smirk that was relieved, jubilant and terrified all at once.

II.

Only a room away, the abbey was filled with hundreds of his subjects; they were waiting for him to enter the hall and resume his place on the English throne. Charles steeled himself and silently made a promise that he would not disappoint them, or Merlin, or his father, who had given his life for their family's right to rule the land as God's chosen leaders. All day he'd been remembering his first coronation--almost a millennium previously--the same exact nerves that had made him jittery and easily riled then now made him quiet and pensive. The pressure had been great all those centuries ago, but now, after over twenty years of fighting for this, it was even greater.

Charles slapped Merlin's hand away as it reached out to adjust the lapels of the cape that hung around his shoulders. "I'm sure I look fine, Merlin," he chastised.

But the warlock only looked back at him earnestly and said, "You've just got--there--some lint." And he quickly darted his arm up to remove the offending spot before stepping back to admire his handiwork.

"Well, how do I look?" Charles asked, adopting his most regal tone and stature.

"Oh, Arthur," Merlin breathed, and Charles--no, Arthur, he was always Arthur with Merlin--shivered at the tone in the other man's voice.

Merlin bent down into a bow that was somewhere between mocking and exceedingly reverential. Then he straightened up and grinned widely, a hint of mischief in his eyes. He gestured to the door grandiously. "Let's get you crowned, your highness," he said.

III.

It wasn't until months later that Charles finally managed to get away from the duties of the crown and head out to Carmarthen with Merlin. Technically, he wasn't supposed to do things like that but he was the king, dammit, and if he wanted to take a visit out to Wales to celebrate his six month anniversary of sitting on the throne, he could. What was the point of being the king if you couldn't take a holiday whenever you pleased?

Merlin just stared at him indulgently as he explained this. "You're slagging off, Arthur," he said matter-of-factly. "You could at least admit that."

Charles just shoved at his shoulder lightly. "Shut up, Merlin, this was your idea. You can't complain."

Merlin shrugged and reached into the bag haphazardly thrown across his shoulders, retrieving from it a handful of acorns and holding them towards Charles in his open palm. He grinned. "Well, shall we?"

And so Charles, the King of England, Scotland and Ireland, got down on his hands and knees and helped dig a hole so Merlin could plant a tree to commemorate the return of the Pendragon line to power in the little Welsh town where he'd spent the last millennium.

(Not only that, but they'd returned to Worcester and taken them from the tree Charles had been perched in when Merlin had come to fetch him because Merlin had a thing for symmetry, which Charles only huffed incredulously at and went along with because he'd learned over the years that was best.)

It didn't take very long; the hole was dug and the acorns were put in it and then covered with the displaced dirt. When he was finished, Charles stood and wiped the soil off his hands and onto his trousers, making Merlin wince. "I think that should make a very fine tree one day," the king announced, sidling closer to where Merlin stood.

"Yes, I think it will be," Merlin agreed, and then that mischievous glint returned to his eyes and he followed it up with, "Unless you've screwed it up, which wouldn't surprise me." He too began to inch closer and closer to Charles.

"Please, I could plant a tree with my eyes closed!"

"Oh yes, sire, I'm sure you could."

"In fact, it's one of the simpler things that I'm exceedingly proficient at."

"Right. Of course." Now they were only inches apart. Charles was glad to see that this time around he had managed to come out ahead in height and Merlin was forced now to look up at him through his eyelashes. "And what else are you good at, sire?" Merlin finished mock sweetly.

Charles took a quick glance around, making sure the street was quite as deserted as he thought it was, and looped his arms around Merlin's shoulders, tugging the other man even closer to him. He murmured, "I've been told I'm pretty good at this," and softly touched his lips to Merlin's. What started out chaste quickly became not and Charles allowed himself to get lost in it until suddenly he found that Merlin's tongue was rubbing against his own and Merlin's hands were slowly coming ever closer to his arse and, dammit, they were in public!

"Could you at least wait until we've got a room to ourselves?" he chastised, praying that the beginnings of his erection would stop right in its tracks and go down.

"You started it," Merlin pointed out a bit too sensibly and Charles couldn't help but cuff him upside the head

"Shut up, Merlin," he said.

IV.

They started back for London later that day. Much later, it has to be said, after a long stop over at an inn Charles was a little nervous he'd get a disease from.

Charles went on to spend the rest of his days with Merlin by his side, running his kingdoms as their rightful king. And when the time came for him to move on from that life, Merlin stayed just long enough to make sure the true succession was in place before he said his goodbyes to the palace staff, returning to Carmarthen, that little village in Wales, to begin the wait for his king all over again and look after their tree.

notes; because it would be a shame for everyone to miss the nuances.

I don't actually know more about the English Civil War that what I learned in AP Euro so some research was required to remind myself who these people were. And I realized with only about five minute of Googling that there were two very interesting trees that could be connected to Charles II and this story quickly grew a tree theme. The first one is the Royal Oak, which is the tree that Charles II hid in to escape from the Battle of Worcester in 1651. (here is the Wikipedia page.) The second is Merlin's Oak in Carmarthen, Wales. It was planted in 1660 to commemorate Charles II's return to power and quickly grew to be connected to Merlin, whom some legends say was born in Carmarthen. The prophecy connected to both Merlin and the tree is where I got the title. (Wiki page.)

And you can find general information about the English Civil War here.)

STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND ANSWER THIS POLL.

2010-04-20T02:56:20Z

OK PEOPLE. IT'S TIME FOR SOME SERIOUS BUSINESS PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH. (disclaimer: for actual psychological research you will have to talk to someone who is not me and knows more than nothing about psych.) DO YOU THINK IN A LANGUAGE? IF SO, WHAT LANGUAGE DO YOU THINK IN?

Here's some backstory. Stephanie came over today as she often does and we started talking about languages and how we both fail at them and then the conversation drifted slightly and we realized that we'd both wondered about the same thing for awhile: WHAT LANGUAGE DO BILINGUAL PEOPLE THINK IN? Because both Stephanie and I are very language based in our thinking and since we both only speak English, we are therefore very English based in our thinking. All of my conscious thought is in English sentences that I think to myself verbally and based on what I know from overhearing people tell stories that include the phrase "and then I thought to myself," I figure most other people do too. So what of a person who grew up being actively bilingual? Or someone who grew up speaking one language and then moved to another country and proceeded to spend years and years mostly speaking another?

So I did the only think I could think of to do and that was to ask our friend Kathy (_almostparadise ) who has grown up speaking both English and Chinese and her reaction was basically, "....what are you talking about?" which is a similar reaction to one that Stephanie relayed to me earlier from someone else who had grown up bilingual. ("THEY MUST THINK IN PICTURES!" Stephanie said emphatically.)

I THINK THIS CALLS FOR A POLL, DON'T YOU? Now I now of only one person on my flist who is fully bilingual besides Kathy and she definitely learned English in school, (LOL FAIL I was trying to think of people for whom English is a second language and completely forgot the ton of you who totally speak other things as a second language) so idk how useful my base of participation will be. So I shall leave this post public and if you want to direct people to it in order to further the ~research, you are more than welcome to.

View Poll: HOW DO YOU THINK?

idk idk Kathy might write her psych honors thesis about this, so SUPPORT ACADEMIA AND STUDENTS and all that ♥

Wind Was Blowing, Time Stood Still, Eagle Flew Out Of The Night 1/1

2010-03-20T05:13:04Z

Title: Wind Was Blowing, Time Stood Still, Eagle Flew Out Of The Night
Pairings: Merlin/Arthur, background Lancelot/Gwen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~8200 words
Warnings: violence and war
Disclaimer: This version of these characters is owned by the BBC and Shine. All quotations and legends used as starting off points for this story are in the public domain. I own none of it.
Summary: Written for the kinkme_merlin prompt Arthur/Merlin, Saxons and/or Vikings. The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur penetrated the hill of Badon. In this engagement, nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the Lord affording him assistance
Notes: lol oh God, in the beginning of December I said I'd finish this in a week. Then it blew up on me a little bit. Then I got writer's block. So it's been a bit of a battle getting this done, but here you go. Many thanks to brightedelweiss , vermontypython and latenightcuppa for holding my hand through this and listening to me whine about it and also for betaing it and repeatedly telling me it wasn't total crap. I couldn't have done it without you two! Also a thank you needs to go out to kerrykhat for the cheerleading and the grammar check. The title is from Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel, and I still can't believe I named a fic after a Peter Gabriel song.

Then it was, that magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was often conqueror. [...] The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur penetrated the hill of Badon. In this engagement, nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the Lord affording him assistance. In all these engagements the Britons were successful. For no strength can avail the will of the Almighty.
--Historia Brittonum, 8th century, attributed to "Nennius," but considered by most scholars to be anonymous.

* * *

Their leader at that time was a certain Ambrosius Aurelianus, a discreet man, who was, as it happened, the sole remainder of the Roman race who had survived this storm in which his parents, who bore a royal and famous name, had perished. Under his leadership the Britons had regained their strength, challenged their victors to battle, and, with God's help, won the day. From that time on, first the Britons won and then the enemy were victorious until the year of the siege of Mount Badon, when the Britons slaughtered no small number of their foes about forty-four years after their arrival in Britain.
--The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed c. 731, the Venerable Bede.

~

Arthur let the parchment slip out of his fingers as his right hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. The king was the very picture of frustration. He sighed and peered across the table at Lancelot, who wasn't looking much better than Arthur felt, and said, "Well. We'll have to bring the army out there again, won't we?"

"We won't win, your highness," Lancelot reminded him unnecessarily, weary and wary, "Olsa's men outnumber ours three to one."

"I know," Arthur groaned and almost tore the parchment apart in frustration. It was a lost cause. They were going in circles. There was nothing for it, the Saxons had a superior fighting force. Their commander Olsa, the grandson of Hengest, the very man that had lead the foreigners into Albion to begin with, was an even more feared general than any Arthur had heard of and his men were a sight a man hoped he'd only ever see in his nightmares. And in a few weeks time, that army would devour Camelot and the Pendragon line would be no more. Everything his father had worked to build...Arthur shuddered at the thought and reminded himself to keep his head in the now. No use in focusing on the inescapable future before it arrived.

Presently, the door opened and Gwen appeared in the threshold, looking exasperated and fond, but, Arthur noticed, even she had the same lines of worry etched into her skin that he and all his advisers had. "Are you boys going to be heading to bed any time soon?" she asked, "This isn't going to miraculously solve itself just because you keep staring at that report, Arthur, so come on, get to bed."

Arthur shook his head stubbornly, feeling like a child but not willing to give up. This was too important, Camelot had too much to lose and he could not let his people down. The Saxons breathing down their necks were a barbaric people who, if they could, would overrun Arthur's kingdom and impose their foreign laws and customs on the people who had trusted in Arthur to preserve their way of life. Time was scarce and they desperately needed some semblance of a plan before they called it a night. "If I go to bed I'll never sleep, Gwen," he told her. "This isn't a problem we can ignore and hope it goes away."

Gwen nodded and let out a stressed sigh, falling into the chair next to Lancelot's. She pursed her lips and looked like she might say something, but didn't. And Arthur knew that look, that was the she has something to say and she knows she shouldn't but she's about to say it anyway look. And a moment later, sure enough, the queen hedged, "Well, you know..."

Arthur took pity on her, there was no need for her to get flustered. "What is it, Guinevere?" he asked gently. He wouldn't have prompted her if he'd known what she had in mind.

"Well, it's just Morgana--" Gwen started and stopped quickly when Arthur's hand, predictably--even he had to admit it was predictable--flew to pinch the bridge of his nose, in a gesture he always found himself making whenever the topic of his estranged foster sister was brought up. But after a moment Gwen didn't look like she was completely certain that this was a train of thought that should be completed, but seemed to decide to go ahead anyway and continued, "Morgana is living with the Druids now."

Arthur looked across the table at her, nonplussed. "So?"

"So...we could contact her." Gwen looked even less sure of herself now.

It suddenly clicked in Arthur's head. "No," he said flatly.

"But--" Gwen tried.

"No," Arthur repeated, trying to ignore the way Lancelot was looking at his wife like she'd just had the most brilliant idea in the world.

"Your highness," Lancelot cut in, his voice far more polite than it would normally be, and Arthur sighed in resignation, "she has a point." Of course Lancelot would side with his precious Guinevere, Arthur thought, with only a touch of bitterness.

"Arthur," Gwen placated, infinitely patient, "the Druids are fighting the same fight we are," she said, "and they're losing too. There just aren't enough of them to be able to mount a worthwhile defence, just like us." She paused, seeming to search for the perfect phrase.

"An alliance would be useful to both parties, sire," Lancelot finished for her. Out of the corner of Arthur's eye he saw Gwen give Lancelot a small but grateful smile, which he returned sweetly. No doubt they'd hatched this plan together, earlier. Wait until it was late and Arthur was tired and run down and have it be Gwen to come in--of course it would be Gwen, Arthur valued her sense like none other's, it was why he'd married her--and let her start making suggestions they knew Arthur would never agree to if not for his desperation.

Arthur sighed. He couldn't argue the logic, of course. The two of them were too good for that. Of course more manpower couldn't hurt their situation any and Arthur had learned from previous experience how effective magic was in a fight. He shuddered at the memory of the look on his late father's face when he'd had to tell the man that the Druid assault had forced his army to retreat. But that was it, wasn't it? Magic and all its wielders had been the sworn foes of Camelot for as long as Arthur could remember. He'd grown up with his father, the king, giving speech after speech condemning the use of magic as a dark and evil art, one that would lead to personal ruin as well as the ruin of Camelot. And Arthur had believed that his whole life.

But now Camelot's ruin really was drawing near, and Arthur was running out of options.

"Let me sleep on it," he conceded and Gwen smiled like he'd already agreed.

And when, after a largely sleepless night, he visits the queen's chambers the next morning with news of his decision to contact Morgana, Gwen and Lancelot were both pleased.

~*~

The morning after that, Arthur and Lancelot travelled together to the Druid encampment. Gwen had wanted to be there with them--Arthur knew that she missed Morgana something awful--but it would have been considered improper for her to come along and, normally, that wouldn't have stopped her but the prospective alliance with the Druids would be hard enough for the people of Camelot to swallow and Arthur wasn't about to go insulting their delicate sensibilities while he was at it. Gwen had scowled a lot but ultimately been understanding.

And so the king of Camelot and his head knight found themselves no more than a thousand paces outside of the Druids' territory. Arthur was nervous. He had led his men against these people in battle for years, he would not blame them if they turned him away and sent him back to his crumbling kingdom to face the Saxons alone. The bright side to this was that they'd soon be with Morgana. He hadn't heard from her since that day years before when he'd awoken to the sounds of the warning bell ringing and his father, the king, stomping through the castle in more of a temper than Arthur had ever seen him and a note beside his bed telling him that Morgana was sorry but she couldn't stay any longer and that she loved him, really, even if it didn't always seem that way and could he watch out for Gwen, please.

As Arthur and Lancelot neared the edge of the clearing that the Druids had made their home, two figures broke apart from the mess of tents and people and made their way towards them. It soon became apparent that one of them was Morgana. Arthur's heart skipped a beat when he saw her; he remembered afternoons in the sun when they'd sparred together in their early adolescence (and, Arthur still insisted, she'd never, ever managed to beat him) and mornings when it rained and they couldn't talk themselves out of lessons, with Morgana sticking her tongue out at Arthur behind the tutor's back as he puzzled over the Latin and then pulling her hair in return when the tutor turned his back to him. Now, his sister in everything but blood was walking towards him, looking as ethereal as ever, even more so in the garb of a Druid instead of those dainty dresses she'd worn at court. Arthur was pleased to see that she was wearing a fond, if surprised, smile and not an angry frown. They hadn't sent word ahead that they were coming.

"Arthur!" she exclaimed happily as they got within earshot, "It's so wonderful to see you." She did not bow, the sign of respect for her king that would have been assumed from her years before, but the beaming smile across her face assured Arthur that he was a welcome sight.

They embraced swiftly, a little awkwardly. "I've missed you, Morgana," Arthur told her, "we all have."

"Yes," Morgana answered him, still smiling. Then she paused momentarily and her smile faltered slightly before she looked back into Arthur's eyes and said, "I've missed you too," as sad as Arthur had ever seen her. Then, seemingly catching herself in a moment of weakness, she turned brightly to Lancelot and greeted him warmly. "I see you've managed to overcome and become a knight at last," she observed.

"I have, my lady," he told her, looking proud of himself. "Arthur saw fit to adjust the Knight's Code a bit when he came into the Crown."

"Did he now?" Morgana commented, managing to sound both approving and snide at once and turned back to Arthur, coming as close to a grin as the lady ever did. Arthur allowed himself to grin back happily. Then, someone cleared their throat.

Tearing his eyes away from Morgana, Arthur's gaze fell on her companion, whose hand was falling down from where it had been politely covering his mouth a moment before. He was a skinny, wiry fellow who, Arthur thought in his limited experience, looked exactly as a Druid should. The fringe of his not quite jet black hair fell down to almost his eyes and Arthur got the impression he spent a lot of time pushing it out of his sight line. His prominent cheekbones caught the light winding down through the trees that was also making his hair and cloak shine slightly. The fall day was warm for such a thick cloak and the man had the sleeves of the navy blue fabric rolled to his elbows, revealing two long, spidery, pure black lines of ink running up and around the pale skin of each of his arms. Arthur's breath caught as he took him in. The man was very fetching but also, Arthur reminded himself sternly, very, very magical.

"Oh," Morgana jumped. She too had obviously momentarily forgotten the man on her left in her excitement over Arthur and Lancelot. "Gentlemen," she gestured towards them, "this is Ambrosius," she pointed to the man, "Ambrosius, this is King Arthur and Sir Lancelot."

Ambrosius, Arthur thought. Yes, of course. This, then, was the leader of the Druids. The one who had not only overseen the construction of their settlement here (illegally, within Camelot's borders, Arthur remembered slightly resentfully, but pushed it to the back of his mind), he'd also built their army up to the formidable force that it had been when Arthur's men had faced them and led them in countless battles against Camelot as well as the Saxons and even finagled the signing of a handful of treaties between the Druids and nearby kingdoms such as Gwynedd and Mercia.

The Druid looked Arthur up and down, obviously sizing him up as much as Arthur had been. "So this is King Arthur," he said, sounding unimpressed. "Huh. I thought you'd be taller."

"I'm sorry to disappoint," Arthur answered him, unsure of how to respond to that. "If it's any consolation, you're a lot scrawnier than I expected."

Ambrosius' eyes flashed and Arthur could tell he'd managed to hit a nerve but Morgana intervened before the jibe could be returned. "Boys, boys," she chastised, "don't we have more important matters to attend to?"

Right. Like the imminent downfall of Camelot. Arthur nodded, "I'm sorry," he said to Ambrosius, "We've actually come because," he paused for a moment, biting his lip, finding it even harder than he had anticipated to swallow his pride, "because we need your help."

Because, yes, he had to swallow not a small amount of his pride to get the words out; he knew that what he was saying would give the stranger in front of him all the reason in the world to be smug--how long had Camelot insisted that he and his people were good for nothing and blight on the land? But Ambrosius' small smile was sad, not triumphant. "You must be very desperate," he observed, voice quiet.

"And you're not?" Lancelot interjected, defensive, but Arthur shook his head and called him off. There was no need for further antagonism. "Yes," he told them, "we are extremely desperate.

Morgana's eyes flitted between Arthur's face and Ambrosius', she seemed nervous. "Why don't we sit and discuss this elsewhere?" she suggested. That seemed to all parties to be a sensible idea and she led them into the Druid camp proper.

The camp was unlike any place Arthur could ever imagine living in. Sure, he'd spent more than his fair share of nights out in the cold woods on the ground, but he'd never seen a permanent encampment in such a wilderness before. The dozen and a half tents scattered here and there were made of the same material as Morgana and Ambrosius' clothes with fires between them burning of something sweet smelling. The camp had only been in place for a few years, but there was already ivy growing up the stone walls surrounding the place and it was beginning to look something like an old Roman ruin. Without exception, the Druid people turned to stare as they made their way by. Arthur couldn't blame them. He suddenly regretted wearing his blazing red cloak with the unmistakable Pendragon dragon on the side.

Morgana led them all into the tent on the far side of the camp. Inside another fire was burning, the smoke making its way out of the small hole at the top. It was largely barren, the only thing cluttering the relatively small space were the three blankets lying on top of a feather mattress on one side of the fire and a small, rickety wooden chair on the other side.

"So, this is my home," Morgana told them as she took a seat on the chair and Ambrosius rather gracelessly plopped down on the bed, looking about a thousand times more comfortable than Arthur felt. Arthur and Lancelot were left to stand awkwardly by the door, but Arthur was grateful for the way out if this meeting should turn sour, never mind the fact that he'd have to get out of the entire camp.

"It's a nice place, my lady," Lancelot complimented sincerely, but then again Lancelot did everything sincerely.

Morgana looked pleased and opened her mouth to respond, but Ambrosius interrupted. "Shall we get down to business?" he asked, loud and abrupt. Arthur was finding it difficult to believe that this was the same man who had literally had Camelot's troops running away from him. He seemed to be not much more than a boy and an unsophisticated one at that.

But Arthur did get down to business. "The fact of the matter," he said, "is that Olsa's men have more fighting power than either of our armies on our own, but together we might stand a chance."

Ambrosius nodded thoughtfully. "I see your point," he said quietly, shaking his head, "even we can't effectively fight against Olsa. There are just too many of them."

"So you agree to fight with us?"

Morgana shook her head, "We can't. It's not up to either of us individually. That's a decision that needs to be made by the elders. We can only make suggestions."

Well, Arthur thought, that was a supremely inefficient way of doing things. Better to just have one man making all the decisions. But he was in no position to argue with the Druids.

Lancelot, however, seemed to be of a similar mind. "But sir," he addressed Ambrosius, "I thought you were their leader?"

Ambrosius only scoffed and smiled shyly at the same time, a feat he pulled off impressively. "Yes," he said, "you would think I was, wouldn't you? Now if you two will excuse the lady and myself, we'll go and consult the elders." With that, he and Morgana left the tent, leaving Arthur and Lancelot on the own. They stood there in the cramped tent, shuffling their feet. Arthur sometimes felt that perhaps he and Lancelot knew each other a little too well; they didn't need to say anything, each knew what the other was thinking.

Eventually, Ambrosius and Morgana returned. Ambrosius gave Arthur a small smile as he told him, "The elders have decided that your proposal is a sound one. We don't have very many more options. But we do have a few conditions."

"Of course," Arthur said. He hadn't expected any less.

"Firstly, we will go into battle as nothing less than allies. The Druids will not be your subservient, King Arthur. You and I will be commanders of our own armies and we will coordinate the attack, of course, but you will have no direct control over my army."

Arthur nodded, this sounded fair.

"Secondly," Ambrosius continued in an official tone that Arthur got the distinct impression he was not accustomed to using, "although clearly there are more pressing things to deal with today, as soon as we are victorious in these matters, the Druids will expect to sign a treaty of coexistence with Camelot. You will recognize this camp as a legal fortification and cease all military expeditions against us."

This was not as easy for Arthur to swallow. King Uther had been a young king when he made it his life's mission to stamp out magic from Albion. Almost his entire reign had been dedicated to the eradication of the Druids and people like them. Agreeing to become the official allies and to grant them legal recognition went against things that had been all but bred into Arthur's bones. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and Arthur nodded his assent. "When this is all over, Ambrosius, I will be happy to host a party of the Druids in Camelot for treaty negotiations."

Ambrosius smiled almost sweetly. "Call me Merlin," he said.

"Merlin?"

The man looked Arthur directly in the eye and it suddenly felt like there was no one in the world but the two of them. “I am called many things, Arthur," he said. "Ambrosius, Emrys, Myrddrin. But my mother named me Merlin and that is what my friends call me."

"So we're friends now?"

"Allies at least, apparently. Until you break the terms of our agreement."

"I will not," Arthur told him fiercely. He was a man of honour.

"Good."

Then Arthur turned to his one time sister. "You should come home, Morgana. We miss you."

But she shook her head sadly. "This is my home now, Arthur," she told him, "But I will come for the treaty signing, if you will have me?"

"Of course I'll have you. You are always welcome in Camelot."

She smiled and turned to Lancelot. "Give my regards to the queen," she said to him.

They went their separate ways after that. Morgana and Merlin returned to the camp and Arthur and Lancelot made the trek back to the castle in Camelot. Gwen was waiting in the council chambers when they arrived. He face fell when she saw that Morgana had not returned with the men. "So?" she prompted.

Lancelot said, "They'll help us if we make peace with them. So we'll make peace with them."

~*~

Olsa and his army were on the move, marching day by day closer and closer to obliterating Camelot. Time was of the essence. A week after their initial meeting in the forest, the Druid delegation arrived in Camelot. Arthur, Lancelot and Gwen waited in the courtyard by the castle's front steps as Morgana and the man Arthur kept reminding himself was named Merlin stepped out, followed by a tall man in a red cloak who was introduced as Aglain, one of the elders.

Gwen stepped forward to formally greet them. "Welcome to Camelot," she said, curtseying. "I hope that you enjoy your stay here."

"Thank you, m'lady," Merlin replied, but he didn't bow, not seeming to understand that that it was standard procedure when addressing the queen and that the many onlookers expected it from him. Gwen, for her part, didn't miss a beat and only smiled indulgently at the man, ferrying him down the receiving line to Arthur, who tried his level best to act the part of the regal king and not get too distracted by the way the blue of Merlin's eyes seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.

He held his hand out jovially for the Druid to shake it, like he'd seen his father do when welcoming foreign dignitaries so many times before, "Welcome to court, Ambrosius. We hope your stay here is peaceful and productive one."

Merlin looked slightly pained. "I thought I asked you not to call me that," he said.

Arthur only smirked. "You have no head for formalities at all, do you?"

From there, Merlin was ferried away and Arthur greeted Morgana and Aglain before they all retreated from the summer heat into the king's council chambers, where the treaty negotiations began.

Seeing Morgana back in the council chambers was harder on Arthur than he had expected and more than he would ever to admit to anyone. She looked as regal as ever sitting there, almost like she had never left. But there were lines on her face that had never been there before and Merlin was sitting by her side, looking completely out of place in the royal environment. But somehow, Arthur couldn't keep his eyes off the man; Merlin in this setting was a sight to behold. He was focused and no amount of choreographed distraction could draw him away from his goal. The Druids were going to get their ceasefire, and may the gods help whoever got in Merlin's way.

Arthur knew that the political fallout from Camelot granting the Druids what they wanted would be severe. But then, he thought, what political fallout? The only political structure existing in Albion anymore was the Britons versus the Saxons, at this point all smaller political divisions had ceased to matter.

Across the table from Arthur, Aglain was ranting on about the atrocities against people of magic committed by Arthur's father when Arthur interrupted him. "My lord," he said, "I am confident that we can make peace with one another, no matter what unforgivable things my father did. You will get your ceasefire and your recognition. Not that it will matter much soon. The governments of Albion are crumbling, soon we will be forced to all work together, whether we like it or not. Isn't that why we're all here in the first place."

Next to Merlin, Morgana smiled for the first time that afternoon. And Lancelot and Gwen both looked suitably pleased with Arthur, so he counted it as a success.

Later, at the feast that had been thrown from the last surplus Camelot had in its stores, Merlin leaned to whisper in Arthur's ear, "Thank you, sire."

"You've never called me sire," Arthur observed.

"You've never deserved it before."

~*~

In the weeks that followed, Arthur trained his army harder than he had for quite some time. He tried to impress on them the importance of this fight, but he didn't think it needed much doing. More and more news of Olsa and the Saxons' successes were coming each day.

At last it was the day before the assault. The combined armies of Camelot and the Druids met at the appointed place and time, at the foot of Mount Badon at sundown the night before they planned to attack. As they approached the hill (because that's what it was, more of a hill than a mountain), Arthur could see Merlin out in front of his fellow Druids, riding high on his white horse, dark fringe blowing in the wind. Arthur called out to him and Merlin smiled and waved back, looking more like an excited child than a commander.

The Saxons were on the march. News had come the day before of a great massacre by the Saxons of the people of Albion in Pevensey.

The combined army made camp for the night two miles from the foot of the hill. Arthur made himself comfortable in his tent, more lavish than the rest because of his exalted position of commander and king but by no means over the top. He was sitting there, going over the strategy for the next day, trying to find any holes Olsa might notice, when Merlin slipped through the flap.

"Arthur," he greeted.

"Merlin," Arthur returned, nodding.

Merlin smiled. "Thank you for calling me that," he said, "like we're friends."

"Of course we're friends," Arthur countered, "I signed that treaty, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you like me."

Arthur studied Merlin curiously, could the man honestly think Arthur sincerely didn't like him?

Merlin shifted on his feet, looking more nervous than Arthur had ever seen him. "Anyway," he tried to change the subject, "I just--I wanted to--"

Arthur took pity on the poor man. He motioned to the bedroll next to his makeshift desk. "Have a seat," he said.

Merlin sat awkwardly, and was there anything he didn't do awkwardly? "Did you hear about Pevensey?"

"Yes. We're not going to let that happen again."

Merlin shook his head. "I'm not sure we'll be able to stop it, Arthur. Even if we do win this battle--which is unlikely--"

"Don't say that!" Arthur snapped, "You start thinking like that and the whole this is lost u it's even begun." He sat down on the bedroll next to Merlin and gripped his thigh tightly, looking into his eyes. "We. Are going. To win. Do you understand?"

Merlin nodded dumbly, returning Arthur's gaze with just as much intensity as he was receiving from king. They sat like that for awhile, not saying anything, silently reassuring each other that everything would be okay, that they were not on the precipice of a new world where they would have next to no power and no real control over their lives. When a lord faces the prospect of becoming nothing but a vassal, it terrifies him.

"My father--" Merlin began a short time later, "he was a Roman. That's where my name comes from. Aureilianus. He was a general, he lived with my mother in Ealdor for many years until they recalled the army when I was a boy."

"Ealdor?" Arthur asked, he'd never heard of such a place.

"It's a small village just over the border in Cendred's kingdom. I doubt you'd ever have heard about it, not much going on there."

"Oh, I see," Arthur teased, "you're not even really a citizen of Camelot, I shouldn't have even have granted you asylum!"

Merlin huffed and fell silent for a minute before he continued, "He wanted us to come with him to Rome, so we could be a family together, but my mother wouldn't go."

"Why not?"

"Because of me. She knew a big city like that wouldn't be safe for someone like me. My magic was too strong not to attract the kind of attention that would get me killed. So he went along without us." He paused and stared up at the top corner of the tent the walls met the ceiling, but Arthur had the distinct impression that he wasn't seeing the material. "I wish I could have known him," Merlin finished wistfully.

"Well, I never knew my mother," Arthur responded ."She died giving birth to me. So we're a pair of sorts."

"Yeah," Merlin agreed, looking back up into Arthur's eyes, "I guess we are." And they fell back into a comfortable silence.

Eventually, Merlin looked down at where his hand had come to cover Arthur's where lay on his thigh, blushed, and awkwardly excused himself. And if Arthur was kept awake that night only partly because of pre-battle nerves, well, no one ever had to know.

~*~

The next morning, Arthur sought Merlin out again. He found him climbing out of his tent, on his way to breakfast. Merlin's entire face lit up with a grin that looked like it was nearly wide enough to split his face. "Good morning," the man greeted cheerfully.

"Good morning," Arthur returned, smiling himself despite the fact that he was feeling pre-battle nerves in a way he never had before in his life. "I just wanted to say good luck out there today," he mentally winced at how awkward he sounded.

But Merlin only smiled again. "Walk with me," he said, and Arthur could only do as he was told. They made their way down towards the bank of the river and Merlin crouched down to splash some water on his face. Arthur found himself distracted by the long tendons of his neck that stuck out so much from where Arthur was standing when Merlin looked down and then, the water that trickled down from the man's cheeks and disappeared under his shift. Arthur shook himself and took a seat next to Merlin on the ground.

"You know, Arthur," Merlin was saying, "I appreciate the sentiment but you really don't have to worry about me. I can handle myself."

Arthur couldn't help but chuckle. "I know that better than anyone, don't I?" he retorted, "I was just trying to be polite."

"Of course you were," Merlin placated, with an annoyingly appeasing voice and with a smirk on his face that made Arthur sort of want to hit him. But, Arthur realized with a distressingly small amount of shock, it also made him sort of want to kiss him. That could not be good. Arthur felt his breath catch in his throat and had to look away for a moment. He glanced down at the ground he . was sitting on and saw a twig lying at his feet. Mindlessly, he picked it up and gripped it tight, making little pictures in the dirt. When he looked back at him, Merlin was staring up at him contemplatively. "Did you marry for love, Arthur?" he asked.

Well, he hadn't been expecting that. "Excuse me?" was Arthur's sputtering reply.

"Guinevere," Merlin specified unnecessarily, "did you marry her because the two of you were in love, or was it for political reasons?

Arthur had spent years avoiding having to answer that question. He knew that it was obvious to anyone who observed the two of them that he and Gwen were not the most passionate of couples, but he still lived in fear that someone would look further into it. If the truth of that matter got out, it could easily end with Gwen tied to a stake that was about to go up in flames and Lancelot either up there with her or banished from Camelot forever. Arthur would never be able to forgive himself if it ever came to that. But something about Merlin made Arthur feel that he could share this with the man. He felt certain that he wouldn't ring the alarm bells and ruin the life he and Gwen had created for themselves. He also figured Merlin wouldn't have bothered to ask if he didn't already suspect the answer.

And so Arthur found himself staring resolutely down at the twig in his hand and telling him, "I needed a queen. Someone sensible, you know. Someone who I could go to for advice and actually get a valuable opinion." He paused and looked back up at Merlin who was looking back at him, obviously paying avid attention and wearing an encouraging expression, so Arthur continued. "I've known Gwen most of my life, she grew up as Morgana's maidservant, you know, and I always thought she had this strength of character that is really admirable. She's a woman and she comes from the humblest of backgrounds, but she's not afraid to speak her mind to anyone. And she knows better than any noble ever could what it is to be a peasant. My people respect her for that. I respect her for that."

"But you don't love her," Merlin stated. It wasn't a question.

"No, I do," Arthur insisted. "She is very dear to me. But I don't love her as a husband should. It's alright, though. She has Lancelot. They're happy."

Merlin nodded sagely, as if sympathizing with Arthur for some reason Arthur himself couldn't fathom. "Yeah, but are you happy?" he asked. "Who do you have?"

"I have Camelot."

Merlin shot him a look that clearly stated that he'd never met a bigger idiot. Then, without prelude, he closed the distance between them and pressed his mouth softly against Arthur's. The kiss was chaste at first, just lips touching lips as Arthur tried to get his bearings and properly register what was happening. Then Merlin's hands slowly came up to cup Arthur's face and before he knew it, Arthur was threading his own hands through the other man's hair. Soon, Arthur's mouth was opening to accommodate Merlin's tongue, which ran up and down over and under Arthur's. Arthur thought this was something exhilarating. He'd never met anyone quite like Merlin, anyone who made him feel quite like Merlin made him feel. Sure, he had kissed men before, and women as well, but none of them had ever made his heart stutter in the same funny rhythm or his chest seize with that unfamiliar but definitely pleasant emotion. Parts of Arthur wanted to deny himself of this, but with Merlin's mouth covering his in that way, he realised he couldn't really have pulled back it even if he truly wanted to. When they couldn't put off breathing any longer. Merlin blue, blue eyes flickered over Arthur's face and Arthur's heart clenched in a funny way he couldn't quite describe. "As lovely as she is, sire," Merlin said cheekily, and Arthur could feel Merlin's breath on his ear, "I'm pretty sure Camelot won't keep you warm at night." And a small smile graced his features as he added, "Now you have me."

~*~

Arthur gathered the combined army for a pep talk. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, Merlin at his side, and addressed them. "Men," he said, "today you fight the most important fight you have ever fought. Nothing you have done, nothing you will ever do, matters as much as this. Today we fight for our kingdom's very survival. Olsa is coming to obliterate our political system and impose his own foreign ways on us all. You've been hearing about them all your lives, so have I. Olsa and his countrymen have already toppled many of the kingdoms surrounding Camelot, but let me tell you, men, it stops here!" The crowd erupted into cheers at that and Arthur waited for them to subside before he continued. "But I will not lie to you. This will not be easy and the casualties will not be few. But in this the Druids and the people of Camelot have overcome our differences and for once are fighting on the same battlefield. We have come so far from where we were only a few months ago. If we can do that, we can do anything. And if we succeed, you will be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped stem the spread of foreign influence. We have just thrown off the yoke of Roman influence and oppression, and I'll be damned if we bow to another outside force while I am king." More cheering, and Arthur glanced over to find Merlin smiling at him encouragingly. Arthur smiled back before he continued.

"Now, when we march to Mount Badon, I will lead Camelot's army up the front of it and we will engage the enemy, taking them by surprise. Now, hopefully, we'll be able to make some dent in their numbers and they will retreat. The Druid army, led by Ambrosius here," he gestured towards Merlin, "will have gone up the back of the hill and will meet them there and continue the assault my men started. If that is not the case, and the Saxons do not retreat, than the Druids will be there to provide us reinforcements. Understood?" There were general mutters of agreement and understanding among the crowd and Arthur allowed himself to smile. "Good," he said, "then let's get on the move."

~*~

The climb up Mount Badon was difficult. Any time hundreds of men trudge up a single hill together it is a challenge, but it didn't help that the wet weather recently had left the entire hill as muddy as it could possibly be. Arthur dreaded to think what it would be like at the top, where men would surely die, falling into mud and not getting up, so that those who were still alive could go on fighting, stepping over them and on them. Arthur grimaced against the wind; he'd never be able to admit it to his men, but as great a warrior as he was, he took no pleasure in the fight. He still hated battle as much as any young page on his first campaign.

By the time they reached the top trying to be as silent as possible was pointless. It was impossible to keep hundreds of chain mail clad men quiet, the armour clanged around noisily every time its wearer took a step, so Arthur could only hope that whatever level of surprise they could manage would be enough.

At the top, it was chaos. Olsa's men were quick to react, quicker than Arthur had hoped, and at first things looked dire. One after another some of Arthur's best knights fell under the Saxons' swords and Arthur could do nothing to stop it; he himself was embroiled in his own hard fought battle. The man he found himself up against was a good swordsman, and he fought dirty. Arthur was forced to stay on the defensive as his opponent lunged towards him again and again, relentless. Arthur had long been the best knight in all of Albion, so, he thought darkly, it figured that he would meet his match just now, when the stakes were so high; he knew he'd never be able to get the upper hand if he couldn't get a few good jabs in himself. Then, in a stroke of luck, the man stumbled over a root that Arthur hadn't seen there himself and Arthur was able to lunge forward and quickly direct his sword under his opponent's and get him square in the gut. The Saxon's face blanched in shock and pain and his eyes bore into Arthur's as Arthur pulled his sword out of the flesh and the man fell back onto the ground, red blood pooling on his mail and the ground by his side.

Shaking himself and willing the image to leave his memory (and his nightmares), Arthur moved on. The air around him already stank of blood. All around him knights were fighting knights and the magicians had even picked up swords of their own but, Arthur noticed, they seemed to be more interested in making the handles of their opponents' swords too hot to touch and then stabbing them in the heart while they were defenceless. Any other day Arthur would have been scandalized by the distinct lack of honour in that. War was brutal, yes, but it also had rules. There was no glory in an unfair fight. (But what was a fair fight, a voice in Arthur's head that sounded surprisingly like Merlin asked, if Arthur had brought sorcerers to a swordfight?)

The next man he faced was easier. He wasn't nearly as skilled with a sword as the first had been and Arthur got him in the chest with relative ease. But as soon as he was locked in combat with the next one, he was in trouble again. This time it was Arthur who tripped on a root but, to his amazement, as he fell backwards and the Saxon made to skewer him through his stomach, the tip of the blade deflected off his armour and reversed itself in mid air of its own accord and instead went directly through the stomach of its master.

Regaining his footing, Arthur looked around, startled, but his surprise completely disappeared when he saw Merlin standing just ten feet away, his eyes turning from gold back to blue with a cold, frightening look on his face. For the first time since they had been properly introduced, Arthur saw again the formidable opponent he had met on the battlefields of his previous campaigns against the Druids. It wasn't hard to imagine that he was standing on one of those battlefields now, Merlin's anger and aggression directed at him. The image didn't fade as Merlin took several steps forward, his arms rising slowly in front of him, fingers outstretched and a look of concentration creasing the skin between his eyes. The man didn't even say anything but as Arthur watched, Saxon after Saxon dropped their swords and fell to the ground, dead. The combined armies of the Druids and Camelot could only stand back and watch as their victory was ensured.

~*~

An hour and a half later Arthur still stood atop Badon, surveying the now quiet field. There were bodies as far as the eye could see, strewn on the ground one after the other. It was unsettling. Not because Arthur had never seen a battle this bloody before, on the contrary, in her heyday Camelot had seen more than a few margins of victory this wide, but it was that the battle actually had not been very bloody at all. Most of the bodies lying on the ground had no wounds at all, the men were just dead. And yes, it had secured the victory for Albion, but at what cost? Arthur had always prided himself on being an honourable man and there was supposed to be honour in victory, but could there be in this one? A shiver ran up Arthur's spine as he thought about it. This was the magic his father had always warned him against and he had invited it into his castle, into his life, he'd even gone so far as to let it into his heart and that should be a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life. The worst part was that he knew, deep down, that wouldn't be the case. Even then, surrounded by the effects of this magic, images of Merlin's smile, or the way he looked at Arthur when it was just the two of them, like he thought the king was something wonderful, crept unbidden into his mind and replaced the image of Merlin standing in the midst of the battle, a hard look on his face, bringing death to their enemies.

"Sire?" Lancelot approached, breaking Arthur's reverie. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Arthur insisted. He tore his eyes from gazing at the random stone on which they'd set and met his knight's eyes. Lancelot raised his eyebrows a bit, looking entirely unconvinced but kept his mouth shut and didn't press the matter. Arthur mentally shook himself and turned his attention to the matter at hand. "Do we have a count yet?" he asked.

Lancelot nodded gravely. "We lost about a hundred of our men, sire," he said.

"And the Saxons?"

Lancelot took a breath before answering, "Well, Olsa is being held down in the camp. Leon and Kay are guarding him." This was good, Arthur trusted that those two men were capable of handling even the dastardliest of Saxon commanders. Lancelot continued, "And the count isn't quite completely yet, but it looks like it will be somewhere just upwards of a thousand Saxons dead."

"And how many of those were...."

"Nine hundred and forty are without wounds, sire," Lancelot supplied, here unable to meet the king's eye.

Arthur nodded and dismissed him saying, "Thank you, Lancelot." And then he was left alone with his thoughts again.

A few minutes later, someone behind Arthur cleared their throat in a way that was probably meant to be polite. Turning around, Arthur was unsurprised to see Merlin standing there. "Merlin," he greeted, trying to sound casual, "I was wondering where you'd gotten to."

Merlin smiled at that, but it wasn't his usual smile. This one didn't quite reach his yes, Arthur noticed because he couldn't help noticing. Unlike Arthur, he had changed out of his mail and into a casual, worn out shift that he fiddled nervously with the hem of as he spoke. "I was, uh, helping them load the bodies on the cart to be buried," he said. "It's much easier with magic than by hand, so. But I came to find you as soon as I got a minute. We should talk. About what happened. Out there." He jerked his head in the general direction of the battlefield as if Arthur wouldn't know what he was talking about. Then, the man seemed to realize he was babbling unnecessarily and he stopped talking, his mouth clamping shut quickly. But his eyes continued to search Arthur's face, nervously and beseechingly. He obviously knew Arthur had been spooked.

Arthur managed a small smile, after all, this was primarily a very happy day. "We won," he remarked, "and it's all thanks to you."

Merlin grinned, for real this time, but said, "I can't take the credit, Arthur. You were the commander here today. I merely followed you."

"Do you think it escaped my notice that you saved my life out there, Merlin?" Arthur demanded, shaking his head. Without really realizing it, Arthur found himself walking towards the other man, until there was only half a foot between them.

They stood there for a minute, both unable to look the other in the face. Then Merlin sighed, brought his eyes up to Arthur's and said, "You know, I'm not proud of what happened out there, Arthur." And Arthur, who had very adamantly been not thinking about that, could have sworn his heart stopped beating for a moment before Merlin continued, "I know that it was wrong. And it's not the sort of thing I would ever condone from my men in battle. That's why we needed Camelot's help in the first place. But, just, that man was going to kill you. He was so close to killing you and I saw it happening and I couldn't just stand there and do nothing when I had the power to stop him. And from there it was just so easy to keep going and finish..." His voice cracked on the last word as he trailed off and Arthur couldn't help but wrap his arms around the man's waist and pull him close, but Merlin kept on talking. "I was just thinking that if we didn't win, we wouldn't have anything left to fight for and I couldn't..." He buried his head in the crook of Arthur's neck, taking desperate breaths.

And Arthur found himself rubbing soothingly up and down Merlin's back with one arm and holding him as close as he possibly could with another. "It's okay," he whispered, "it's over, we won."

They stood there awhile, Arthur holding Merlin so close to his chest that Merlin was almost having trouble breathing, and let their proximity reassure themselves that they had both survived the battle and the enemy had been destroyed. Eventually, though, they were forced to let each other go and return to the camp and the people under their command. Arthur was still uncomfortable with how the battle had been won but he was grateful that there was still a Camelot to defend and, he reflected as he sat by the fire that night with Merlin sending him a small smile from across the flames, he couldn't bring himself to regret enlisting the Druids' help.

And right at that second, as Arthur smiled back, if someone had told him that more than fifteen hundred years after the Saxons had achieved total control over Albion and the name of Ambrosius Aurelianus had been all but lost, people would still remember King Arthur and his wizard Merlin and still tell of the day Arthur killed nine hundred and forty men at Badon, he might just have believed it.

~

At this point, in fact, they would have collapsed completely, had not Vortigern's successor Ambrosius, the sole surviving Roman, kept down the barbarian menace with the outstanding aid of the warlike Arthur. This Arthur is the hero of many wild tales among the Britons even in our own day, but assuredly deserves to be the subject of reliable history rather than of false and dreaming fable; for he was long the mainstay of his falling country, rousing to battle the broken spirit of his countrymen, and at length at the siege of Mount Badon, relying on the image of our Lord's Mother which he had fastened upon his arms, he attacked nine hundred of the enemy single-handed, and routed them with incredible slaughter.
--Gesta Regum Anglorum, c. 1120, William of Malmsbury.

ENDNOTES
I basically flipped out when I saw this prompt on the kink meme. Because it was perfect and I was immediately a) committed to writing it and b) convinced that I MUST know the OP (and despite no one I know coming forward in the four months since then, I'm still not convinced I don't). At the time I was working on this paper on the development of the legend of Badon throughout the centuries and was parenthetically thoroughly amused that both Arthur and Ambrosius, the guy who Geoffrey of Monmouth partially based Merlin on, were cited as the British leaders at the battle and thus the premise of "hey, what if they both were there?" and combining as much of the various legends as possible was born.

Very few concrete details are known about the Battle of Badon, mostly because the historical record that does exist is pretty vague and because three hundred years after the fact Ambrosius Aurealianus is replaced in the texts by this dude Arthur and, basically, European literature never looked back but the veracity of everything became extremely suspect. (I go into more detail in the link above, if you're interested.)

All we do know is that the battle was between the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons that took place around the year 500 AD (give or take a decade or so) and that it was a British victory, probably by a fairly large margin. However, it was really their last stand in a long military struggle and although it may have served to fend off the inevitable for a generation or so, by the beginning of the seventh century the Anglo-Saxons had achieved political hegemony in Britain.

A few specifics concerning this story:

- The title comes from the fact that although it cannot really be proven sufficiently, one of the most popular theories for the location of Badon is Solsbury Hill, in Bath. The Solsbury Hill from the song. Once I read that it was impossible not to use lyrics from it.

- The main sources for the legends I used to build this story are Gildas, who writes about Ambrosius, and Nennius, who writes about Arthur (and is on the whole a fabulous read btw, if you're at all interested in the ancient history of Britain). All the other various more or less copied their ideas, with some small changes.

- The one consistant thing that is said about Ambrosius is that his parents were Roman. So as much as it pained me to ignore the Merlin canon about Balinor, I couldn't in good conscience just ignore that D:

- The native British people referred to the invaders generally as Saxons, so I have used that term in the story, but today we think of them as Anglo-Saxons. Don't assume that there were no Angles or Jutes among the enemy, the British would have just seen them as a single group of Germanic speaking people.

[fic] I Sing In Silent Harmony 1/1

2010-01-31T19:08:27Z

Title: I Sing In Silent Harmony
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairings: Merlin/Gwen
Spoilers/Warnings: no warnings, episode specific spoilers through episode 105.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and no profit is being made from it. This particular version of Arthuriania belongs to Shine and the BBC. Some dialogue taken directly from episodes 101 and 105. I didn't write that.
Summary: "Sometimes, Guinevere," he said, trying in his half drunk way to sound as sage as possible, "I wonder if you'd know who your type was if he was standing right next to you." Written for the Porn Battle IX prompt Gwen/Merlin, unspoken.
Author's Notes: My first time writing Merlin/Gwen, but it was fun. They are just the cutest, it's a shame that never went farther than it did. The title is from Guinnevere by Crosby, Stills and Nash.

When Merlin first met Gwen, he was being publicly humiliated. "I saw what you did," she said to him, "It was so brave!" And even though she went on to insinuate that he was neither strong nor classically good looking, something about her caught Merlin's attention. And she kept his attention the second, third, and fourth times they met, in the hallways as he was delivering tinctures for Gaius and she was scurrying around doing whatever it was the Lady Morgana needed of her at the moment. After the incident at the feast with Lady Helen who was not really Lady Helen and Merlin being appointed as Arthur, the prat of a crown prince's manservant, Gwen took Merlin aside to explain his basic duties and generally make sure that he wouldn't make more of a fool out of himself than was strictly necessary.

"Now, when you make the prince's bed," she told him, "be sure to leave the warming stones above the first layer of bedclothes. Boys with more experience than you have lost their jobs from that silly little mistake." She smiled at him for a moment but then her smile began to look strained and then crumbled completely. "I mean--" she stumbled, "that is to say--not that I think you're inexperienced or silly. I mean--you are inexperienced--but--not that that's a bad thing?"

Merlin smiled indulgently at her. Gwen's habit of saying more than she meant, which would probably have been annoying on any other girl, had quickly become incredibly endearing. "Thanks, Gwen," he said, "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course you will, Merlin." And with that and a shy smile, Gwen was off to her lady's chambers, glancing back towards Merlin once with another small smile.

She taught him how to apply and clean Arthur's armour, how to properly do laundry in the basins in the castle basement, about the proper etiquette for servants at feasts; and the whole time Gwen asked for nothing more than Merlin's thanks. Merlin wondered what more she could want; surely no big city girl could be quite that nice.

Things continued on like that up until the post-tournament feast during Merlin's second week in Camelot. The hall was alight with chatter about Arthur's spectacular victory over the cheating, magic-wielding Valiant, and Merlin himself was flush drink and pride at having saved the day and pleased to have been welcomed back into Arthur's employ after their falling out, even if the man was a pain to deal with. Gwen found him that night in the corner of the hall away from the crowds after she had wandered away from Lady Morgana. They were both a little drunk off the wine that was flowing freely.

"Arthur was wonderful out there, wasn't he?" she asked, the candlelight catching her hair and her eyes, making her whole face light up beautifully.

"Yeah, yeah, he was pretty good," Merlin agreed. The pang of that was pretty much all me, actually had gotten duller as the night went on, but when it was Gwen bringing up Arthur's heroics, the knife twisted again, just a little.

Gwen's eyes widened almost comically as she took in Merlin, who must have looked a bit put out. "Oh no!" she gasped, "I didn't mean anything by that! It was just--just--conversation, you know. Something to talk about."

"I know, Gwen."

"I didn't mean to imply that Arthur was better than you in any way, Merlin," she continued as though he'd never interrupted her, "I mean, yes, he's handsome and charming and brave but you--you--" she was looking at him slightly funny now, in a way she'd never looked at him before. And then, before Merlin even knew what was happening, Gwen was grabbing his face with both her hands and pulling him in for a shy, but surprisingly powerful kiss. Merlin, surprised--but not in any way unhappy about this turn of events--returned it eagerly, letting the world around them fade away until it was just Merlin and Gwen, two people sharing one perfect moment. They stayed at it for what seemed like several minutes but was probably much less in reality, until they couldn't breath any longer and were forced to let the world back in.

Afterwards Gwen's cheeks turned a shade of pink Merlin had never quite seen and she quickly turned away from him and hurried from the hall.

After that, Merlin considered bringing it up again but her look of surprise and almost regret stopped him. Yes, Gwen was a beautiful girl, and sweet, and kind, and obviously he'd been interested in her since that first day when she hadn't laughed at him in the stocks, but he just didn't know how to talk to girls, not to have that conversation anyway. In Ealdor it'd just been him and Will and sometimes they had fooled around together, and sometimes he'd taken one of his neighbours' daughters into the barn and fooled around with her--life was boring in the country, a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Camelot, and there was not much else to do--but it had never meant anything; it had never been something that he needed to discuss afterwards. But Merlin could tell that whatever it was that he and Gwen were starting or were already in, that meant something and warranted a real discussion.

But they never did talk about it, though that didn't keep it from happening. Most of the time it was the same as it had always been, the two of them meeting in the laundry room and gossiping about Arthur and Morgana and the other lords and ladies who seemed to never stop coming through the castle. Gwen told Merlin all about growing up as the maidservant to the king's ward and Merlin told Gwen about Ealdor and what it was like to grow up on a farm where your very survival depended on the success of the harvest. But sometimes, like when they both found themselves with an afternoon free and decided to spend it together in the field behind the castle, it was different. That time, it started out like any other day but before Merlin knew it, he was wrapping his arm around Gwen's waist and pulling her closer, into his embrace, with their lips locked together and her tongue down his throat. After that, he took her hand and silently walked her home and let her off at the door, never to bring up the incident with anyone ever again.

The next day was the feast welcoming Bayard and the dignitaries from Mercia. Gwen only laughed a little when she saw the ridiculous hat Arthur had made Merlin wear. But then Merlin had been accidentally on purpose poisoned by an evil sorceress disguised as a servant and the next thing he knew, he was waking up and then Gwen's lips were on his in a flurry of excitement and he could feel the blush all over his face as she stammered through an apology and he told her it was fine, more than fine, even.

And when, a short time later, Merlin found himself once again slightly drunk at yet another royally sanctioned celebration and chatting with Gwen as usual, they came the closest to talking about it that they ever would. "Sometimes, Guinevere," he said, trying in his half drunk way to sound as sage as possible, "I wonder if you'd know who your type was if he was standing right next to you."

Gwen sighed. "You're probably right," she said.

Merlin just smiled and reached for his next mug of ale.

HO SHIT I'M A TELEVISION PRODUCER, WHAT?

2010-01-28T01:18:41Z

1. Comment to this post with "I surrender!" and I'll assign you the basis of some tv show idea. (Science fiction show, medical drama, criminal procedure, etc...)
2. Create a cast of characters, including the actors who'd play them
3. Add in any actor photos, character bios and show synopsis that you want.
4. Post to your own journal.

erethesunrises gave me this prompt:AND YOUR TV SHOW? GREEK GODS IN WORLD WAR II. WHICH GODS/GODDESSES WOULD ALIGN WITH THE ALLIES AND VICE VERSA? ANYTHING YOU WANT! Also, the format of this is shamelessly stolen from her, since my imagination was drained with the rest of this.

It’s 1943 and for the second time in thirty years the entire world finds itself at war with each other. Germany, Italy, and Japan lead the Axis Powers against the Allies, who include Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States in a hard fought war which would cause more destruction than had ever been seen in such a short amount of time. But little does the world know that high on Mount Olympus, the gods have finally re-entered the game and are exacting their revenge for the thousands of years Man has forgotten them in favor of the monotheistic faiths. This war is like a game of chess to these deities, whose existence is now a closely guarded secret to those who don’t believe. It’s a secret that our hero Aeneas, the son of the goddess Venus, must keep as he travels across Europe in an effort to fulfill his destiny and return his displaced family to their roots in Axis-controlled Italy. Told with an ensemble cast in the same style as Heroes, with disparate storylines that are all somehow connected, Keep Calm And Carry On combines the Second World War with elements of The Aeneid to make it a little bit historical drama, a little bit fantasy and a little bit Roman mythology.

AENEAS (Bradley James) Previously a family man who avoided the draft because he was flat footed, Aeneas stayed at home with his ailing father Anchises, his wife Creusa and their son Iulus until their entire street was obliterated during a German air raid. Per his mother’s prompting, Aeneas has set off on an expedition to return to his ancestral home in Italy and find a place for his current family, who are waiting for him in London, to rebuild their lives and a community of believers in the gods. The problem is that to do that, he needs to get through Nazi-occupied France and into Mussolini-ruled Italy without detection. Meanwhile, he carries on his shoulders the secret of the gods and how none of what he sees around him is truly Man’s doing. Aeneas is restless and tries as hard as he can to rebel against the gods who control his life, which causes him to fall in with Dido, a beautiful and mysterious woman who could blow the whole thing. Aeneas is traveling with his sidekick Pallas, who he considers his best friend. Aeneas is prone to long bouts of self doubt and generally emo angsting.

DIDO (Carey Mulligan) The daughter of a powerful French diplomat, Dido is beautiful and wiley young woman who holds an unusual amount of personal power for a woman of her time. She takes Aeneas and Pallas into her care when they stumble into her hometown of Cassel, in the north of France, and quickly falls in love with the dashing Aeneas and then proceeds to do everything within her power to keep him with him instead of leaving to fulfill his destiny because she cannot face the prospect of living without him. This puts him in conflict with Pallas.

PALLAS (Nicholas Hoult) Pallas is the younger best friend and confidant of Aeneas. He knows about and believes in Aeneas’ destiny and his future among the gods and tries to push him to get there. He looks up to Aeneas to an extreme and is therefore frustrated by his continued affair with Dido, who he sees not only as a rival to Creusa but also a block in the road to destiny.

TURNUS (Matthew Goode) Turnus is a German soldier who is posted in Cassel who discovers Aeneas’ true mission. A true believer in Christianity, he finds Aeneas to be a blasphemer and makes it his personal mission to stop him. But because straight up killing Aeneas would give him more trouble than its worth, Turnus must find alternte ways to stop him from fulfilling his destiny and creating a community of true believers, and so he encourages Aeneas’ relationship with Dido, until his real aim is uncovered by Aeneas.

CREUSA (Allison Mack) The wife of Aeneas, who has been left at home to care for Anchises and Iulus in a homeless shelter in London. She is a very strong woman, with the thankless job of being the thing (or in this case, one of the many things) standing in the way of the show’s main couple (ie Aeneas/Dido) but she is still likable enough thanks to the fire with which she fights for the continued protection of Anchises and Iulus. She wants nothing more than to keep her family together and to hear from her husband with news that they can follow him to their new life in Italy, but she has no hopes for the posative outcome of the war and thinks that sooner or later, the whole world will be speaking German. She’s also missing the big picture because no one has bothered to tell her that her husband is the son of a goddess and is essentially the Olympians’ pawn.

ANCHISES (Michael Gambon) An old man, and a vetern of the Great War, Anchises hates being stuck in London while there is a war raging outside that he can do nothing about. He loves his family but he hates that he has the secret behind his son’s birth on his shoulders. But he does truly love Venus, even if she has largely forgotten him now that he’s aged, and looks forward to her periodic visits.

IULUS (Asa Butterfield) The son of Creusa and Aeneas, Iulus is a young boy who doesn’t completely understand what is happening around him and why they can’t go back to their house and where his father has gone. Largely self reliant, Iulus spends most of his time reading well above his grade level and beating his grandfather, Anchises, at chess.

JUPITER (Anthony Hopkins) The King of the Gods, Jupiter is pissed at having been forgotten by Man. This war was his idea, as a sort of sport for the other gods. He himself is neutral, but he’s very invested in the community of believers and if that means needing to dupe the Axis Powers to let an Englishman through their territory, he’s more than willing to make that happen. He has a short fuse with his wife Juno, who is going against him at every turn. It is Jupiter’s job to make sure that the secret of the Olympians’ existence remain a secret, at least for now.

JUNO (Helen Mirren) Juno, quite simply, is a bitch. She has never forgiven Venus for her victory at the Judgment of Paris and that hatred carries over to Venus’ son, Aeneas. Therefore, she tries to thwart his attempts at founding a community of believers, saying that she’d rather have Man worship a monotheistic god than have the community of believers be started by the son of Venus. This, of course, gets her in trouble with many of the other gods, especially those who support the Allies, and Jupiter, who really wants that community. She supports the Axis Powers in the war.

VENUS (Michelle Williams) Venus is the mother of Aeneas and takes that before anything else. It was she who appeared before Aeneas to tell him of his true paternity and heritage and charged him with his mission toward Italy. As the goddess of love and beauty, she is of course extremely glamorous and uses that to her advantage whenever possible. Because her son is an Englishman, she is a staunch supporter of the Allies’ cause and sees the war as interfering more with the lives of real people more than many of the other gods do, because of her more intimate connection to Man.

MERCURY (Colin Morgan) Mercury, the messenger god, is the spunky assistant to Jupiter. It’s his job to ferry the official messages from Jupiter to Aeneas and Aeneas’ answers to Jupiter, along with the rest of the divine to mortal correspondence that is not done in person. Like his boss, Mercury is a neutral party in the war but as it is also his job to ferry the souls of the dead to the Underworld, he sees first hand the destruction the war is causing and wants more than any of the other gods for it to all just be over.

MINERVA (Julie Andrews) As the goddess of wisdom, Minerva is drawn to the personalities of Roosevelt and Churchill, who she sees as geniuses, rather than the insanity of Hilter, Mussolini and Hirohito. For that reason she has aligned herself with the Allied Powers. Minerva carries herself with a dignity and grace unsurpassed by any of the Olympians and is looked up to by many of them. People often seek her approval in their actions.

MARS (Kenneth Branagh) As the god of war, Mars thrives on this kind of world at war environment. He’s one of the few but powerful supporters of the Axis Powers amoung the Olympians; he feels that people like Hitler and Mussolini will keep the fighting going on longer and that is Mars’ main objective. Mars is very belligerent and will fly off the hook at little things, so people tend to tred carefully around him.

NEPTUNE (Christopher Lee) Neptune joins Mars and Juno as the third of the three main supporters of the Axis Powers. Like Mars, he feels that he has the most power at a time when naval battles are happening on a daily basis, as they are in the Pacific, and he thinks that the Axis leaders are the men who are going to preserve that. Neptune is wise and usually kind, but he has a bit of a nasty streak in him that Juno frequently uses to her advantage.

APOLLO (Neil Patrick Harris) Apollo is the god of music as well as the god of the moon. He is musical and charming and funny and liked by basically everyone. He’s aligned himself with the Allies, mostly because that is who Minerva is siding with, but does not feel particularly strongly either way. Out of all the gods, he is especially close with his twin Diana.

DIANA (Billie Piper) As the goddess of the hunt, Diana is interested in the war as a journey, not as a destiny. She thrives on the fighting the same way Mars does but isn’t too concerned about keeping it going, she’d rather just enjoy it while it lasts. Like her twin, Apollo, Diana mostly sided with the Allies because Minerva did, but she’s happy to put all her energy into helping them if it makes it more fun for her.

BACCHUS (Robert Downey Jr.) As the god of wine and general revelry, Bacchus is basically just here to have a party. Anywhere he goes tends to turn into a good time to be had by all and because of that he’s one of the most popular of the gods. People like him. He’s sided with the Allied Powers, but mostly just because that’s what seems like a safe bet since most of the other powerful gods are on that side.

CERES (Elizabeth Mitchell) As the goddess of agriculture, Ceres has become despondent since Man turned away from the farm as being the focus of all life to pay more attention to machinery, making the winters on Earth harsher than they had been before the Industrial Revolution. Combine this with her constant worry for her daughter Proserpine, the wife by force of Pluto, Ceres is a shadow of her former carefree self and is the source of worry on the part of many of the other gods on Olympus. Despite her down times, though, she is still an ethereal beauty.

PLUTO (Alan Rickman) As the god of the Underworld, Pluto finds himself overworked during this time when so many people are dying. Lucky for him, he quite likes having a lot to do and for that reason he supports the Axis Powers, since he’s grateful to Hitler for the influx of work the dictator is sending his way. As a person, Pluto is intimidating, but finds himself largely isolated since he rarely visits Olympus and his fellow gods rarely visit him. He’s happy that way, though. His one companion is his wife Proserpine, who spends the winter months with him.

PROSERPINE (Kristin Kreuk) Proserpine enjoys the title of queen of the underworld, which she has begrudgingly embraced. Although she has come to love her husband, Pluto, there are still wounds there since she was forced to marry him and leave her happy life with her mother, Ceres, on Olympus in the first place. She is quiet and ethereal like her mother, but very isolated. She does not have a particular opinion on what the outcome of the war should be, but if pressed she’ll say that she’d like it to be over so the influx of souls will stop coming into the Underworld.

EVERYTHING YOU NEVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT A BATTLE YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF.

2009-12-22T17:44:16Z

So here it is. It's like 3900 words long, twelve pages, SEVEN SINGLE SPACED, WHUT. (Somehow the singled spaced thing is more shocking to me than any of the rest of it, idk.

From Gildas to Geoffrey: The Development of the Legend of Badon

Today, a British person is anyone who lives in England, Scotland or Wales and an English person is someone who lives in England specifically. However, that was not always the difference. Once, over fifteen hundred years ago, there was a big difference between the British and the English. The word ‘England’ is derived from the name of the Angles, the Germanic tribe, who along with their fellow Germans the Saxons, began invading the British Isles in the early to mid fifth century. Unsurprisingly, the native inhabitants of the land, called the Britons, fought against the Angles and Saxons with everything they had, desperately trying to hold on to their autonomy. In those days, there was a huge difference between the British and the English.

The Britons apparently referred to the Angles, Saxons and other Germanic tribes that were beginning to populate the island exclusively as Saxons, which is how the literature that is extant from Wales around this time addresses them. The British king Vortigern originally invited these tribes there. According to the chronicler who called himself Nennius, Hengist and Horsa, a pair of brothers, arrived in Vortigern’s kingdom and the king “ received them as friends” (Nennius 9) because they had agreed to help him fight against “the enemies of his kingdom” (Nennius 10) but, somewhat unsurprisingly, the brothers refused to give up their comfortable arrangement in Britain and return to Germany when Vortigern decided he was no longer in need of them. Thus began a struggle of the Britons against Germanic rule as well as a long tradition of painting Vortigern as the worst king imaginable. In the various chronicles of the time, he was called a “proud tyrant” (Gildas 9), and accused of marrying his daughter, “as if desirous of adding to the evils he had already occasioned” (Nennius 10).

But all the vilification could not negate the fact was that the Saxons were in Britain to stay and that, despite their efforts, the Britons simply did not have the means to force them out. For the most part, it appears that the Britons were largely unsuccessful in most of their military exploits against the Saxons invading their homeland and the Angles and the Saxons would become so associated with the British Isles that their inhabitants would come to be called Anglo-Saxon just as much as they are British. However, before things could go that far, the Britons do seem to have gotten one good victory in against their German rivals. This victory came at the Battle of Mount Badon (sometimes called Badon Hill or, in Latin, Mons Badonicus), which probably took place sometime in the decades before or after 500 AD. There has been a copious amount of scholarship done on this battle, with various theories on where the battle took place and who the individuals involved were, but all that is known for sure is that it was the last decisive victory the Britons had prior to the complete cultural assimilation that would soon follow between the two sides.

All the information we have about the Battle of Mount Badon comes from about four medieval texts. The first two, Gildas’ De Excidio et Conquestu Britannie (in English, On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, attribute the British victory to a man named Ambrosius Aurelianus. However, the later two, Nennius’ Historia Brittonum (The History of Britain) and the Annales Cambriae (The Annals of Wales), attribute it to Arthur, making Badon of great interest to Arthurian scholars everywhere. And the commander is not the only difference found between these texts; every time someone new wrote about it, the legend of the battle shifted slightly, each author brought something different to the story. The way each author treats the battle not only tells us something about each author individually but also about how legends such as this change and form over time.

Gildas is the earliest source extant that discusses Badon. He appears to have been a very well respected monk, known among his peers as Gildas the Wise. Later, Gildas was sainted and by the time Geoffrey of Monmouth was writing, he had become almost as legendary as Arthur. By the twelfth century, he had two biographers of his own.
Writing sometime around 540, Gildas says that the battle occurred forty-four years before that, the year he was born. This makes Gildas the only one of these chroniclers who had access to first hand accounts, making his work invaluable to those who are trying to find out exactly what happened. To those of us who are not, that is still notable because it means that Gildas is writing about something his audience remembers, or at least has heard about because their parents remember. This is important to keep in mind.

The chronicle is a run down on all of what Gildas sees as the downfall of Britain’s greatness. On the battle, he writes:

After a time, when the cruel plunderers had gone home, God gave strength to the survivors. Wretched people fled to them from all directions, as eagerly as bees to the beehive when a storm threatens, and begged whole-heartedly, 'burdening heaven with unnumbered prayers', that they should not be altogether destroyed. Their leader was Ambrosius Aurelianus, a gentleman who, perhaps alone of the Romans, had survived the shock of this notable storm: certainly his parents, who had worn the purple, were slain in it. His descendants in our day have become greatly inferior to their grandfather's excellence. Under him our people regained their strength, and challenged the victors to battle. The Lord assented, and the battle went their way.
26 From then on victory went now to our countrymen, now to their enemies: so that in this people the Lord could make trial (as he tends to) of his latter-day Israel to see whether it loves him or not. This lasted right up till the year of the siege of Badon Hill, pretty well the last defeat of the villains, and certainly not the least. That was the year of my birth; as I know, one month of the forty-fourth year since then has already passed. (Boyer)

Gildas sees Badon as the last time the Britons displayed their full potential. In his mind, Aurelianus was a great man and a worthy role model and writes that Aurelianus’ “progeny in these our days, although shamefully denigrated from the worthiness of their ancestors” (Gildas 10), as old men have been doing seemingly since the beginning of human history, lamenting that the younger generation just cannot live up to the standards set by their elders. He appears to be motivated to write about this battle primarily in order to use it to contrast what he sees as, as the title of his chronicle implies, the ruin of Britain. The section on Badon is immediately followed by this passage, which is clearly anti-Saxon propaganda:

27. BRITAIN has kings, but they are tyrants; she has judges, but unrighteous ones; generally engaged in plunder and rapine, but always preying on the innocents; whenever they exert themselves to avenge and protect, it is sure to be in favour of robbers and criminals; they have an abundance of wives, yet are they addicted to fornication and adultery, they are K ready to take oaths, and as often perjure themselves; they make a vow and almost immediately act falsely; they make war, but their wars are against their countrymen, and are unjust ones; they righteously persecute thieves throughout their country but those who sit at the table with them are robbers, and they not only cherish but reward them; they give alms plentifully, but in contrast to this is a whole pile of crimes which they have committed; they sit on the seat of justice, but rarely seek out the rule of right judgment; they despise the innocent and the humble, but seize every occasion of exalting to the utmost the bloody-minded; the proud, the murders, the combined and adulterers, enemies of God, who ought to be utterly destroyed and their names forgotten. (Gildas 11)

Whether the Saxon administrators were really this horrible will never be able to t proven, but it is hard to believe. However, it is undeniable that Gildas was writing during a period in which anti-Saxon sentiment which he is capitalizing on by harkening back to the memories of the British victory at a battle which the Britons would have at least been aware of.

And for the record, in Gildas, Badon is a hill, not a mountain, and the battle is a siege. Those details do not stay the same in later accounts.

The next author to mention Badon was a man named Bede, an English monk who completed his work the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, from which the relevant passage is taken, in 731. Known throughout history as the Venerable Bede, the introduction of the Oxford Classic edition of the Ecclesiastical History says that he “may fairly be called the most famous of all medieval historians who wrote in Britain” and that the book “has been seen as the first real attempt at a national history” (Oxford ix). As his is a much broader work than Gildas’ (or, in fact, any of the other chronicles examined here) Bede does not spend time on Badon, but he does mention it. He says:

When the army of the enemy had exterminated or scattered the native peoples, they returned home and the Britons slowly began to recover strength and courage. They emerged from their hiding-places and with one accord they prayed for the help of God that they might not be completely annihilated. Their leader at that time was a certain Ambrosius Aurelianus, a discreet man, who was, as it happened, the sole member of the Roman race who had survived this storm in which his parents, who bore a royal and famous name, had perished. Under his leadership the Britons regained their strength, challenged their victors to battle, and, with God's help, won the day. From that time on, first the Britons won and then the enemy were victorious until the year of the siege of Mount Badon, when the Britons slaughtered no small number of their foes about forty-four years after their arrival in Britain. (Boyer)

Bede is clearly borrowing largely from Gildas and does not bring much of anything new to the legend. The battle is still a siege and Aurelianus is still the commander. The only thing that has changed is that Badon Hill has become Mount Badon.
Bede wrote about two hundred years after Gildas and after the battle, but in the meantime it seems that not many of the details had changed. Bede, being the man of God he was, attributes the British victory to the will of God, but for the most part it seems that Badon appears in the Ecclesiastical History or the sake of thoroughness.

It was not until Historia Brittonum was written around 796 that things began to change drastically. This chronicle is an anonymous work, but is usually attributed to a Welsh monk (Boyer), calling himself Nennius (or sometimes Neninius or Ninnius). Whoever he was, this man made some of the most influential innovations to the legend of Badon. This is what he had to say:

At that time the English increased their numbers and grew in Britain. On Hengest's death, his son Octha came down from the north of Britain to the kingdom of the Kentishmen, and from him are sprung the kings of the Kentishmen. Then Arthur fought against them in those days, together with the kings of the British; but he was their leader in battle. […]The twelfth battle was on Badon Hill and in it nine hundred and sixty men fell in one day, from a single charge of Arthur's, and no one laid them low save he alone; and he was victorious in all his campaigns. (Boyer)

The most important and notable difference is that according to Nennius, the commander of the British is a solider named Arthur, not Aurelianus. Historia Brittonum is one of the earliest known documents that mentions Arthur by name and is often used by Arthurian scholars as evidence that the legendary king was a real historical figure (never mind the fact that his exploits in this document had previously been attributed to someone else entirely). Other than that major difference, Badon is a hill again, like it had been for Gildas, but the battle is no longer a siege and is instead the last in a series of twelve battles in which Arthur led the British army, whereas previously it had been an individual endeavor. Also, while previous accounts had put the focus of their tellings on the grace of God, which had allowed the Britons to win the day, God and religion is still present in Nennius but the focus is now on Arthur, an individual. And it would remain on him in all the subsequent incarnations of the battle.

But Historia Brittonum is not wholly about Badon. The rest of the chronicle is made up of short summaries of other notable moments in British history. It reads like a roll call of important characters in the Western literary tradition. In a segment that is nothing short of comical to modern ears in its disregard for the difference between fact and fiction, he recounts how the descendants of Aeneas had first populated the British Isles from Italy, then tells of how Julius Caesar conquered Britain for Rome, the recounts the life of St. Germanus and the story of how Vortigern welcomed the Saxons into Britain before finally getting to Arthur. In fact, Nennius only spends one relatively long paragraph about the military campaign Arthur waged leading up to Badon and only about a sentence on the battle itself.

The shift to Arthur as the commander heralds a major shift in the legend of Badon. One is that it becomes a legend. While it is worth studying since Nennius would certainly have had access to sources that have been lost to scholars today, any so-called historical document that treats Aeneas as though he were a real, living, non-fiction person can only be taken with a grain of salt in terms of how much truth there is to it. Nennius clearly was not worrying about whether or not what he was saying was true, or about instructing people in history on the greatness of God so much as he was writing to entertain. It appears that Nennius was stringing together a collection of stories that his audience, the people of Britain at the end of the eighth century, would have already been aware of. If this were not the case, he would have spent more time going into detail in each section rather than just giving them a general gloss.

Another source of information on Badon is the Annales Cambriae (the earliest known manuscript of which was actually found on the same parchment of the earliest known manuscript of Historia Brittonum). It is nothing more than a chronology with specific events listed next to the year in which . All that it has to say about Badon is this:

516 The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors. (Boyer)

This is largely like what Nennius said about it. Scholars trying to pin down exactly what happened at Badon focus on this document because it places the battle about twenty years later than Gildas, who is considered the most reliable source for dating it. Aside from that, however, it is interesting to note the fact that this document seems to highlight both Arthur and God at the same time, almost as though the anonymous author was trying to form some sort of balance between Nennius’ focus (which the author appears to have been aware of since he also credits Arthur—or that could just point to the fact that Arthur had already become commander at Badon in the popular consciousness) as well as Gildas and the rest of the people who came before them.

As a side note, Annales Cambriae is also notable to Arthurian scholars because it records that “The battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell” took place in 537.

It was not until three hundred years after Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae, in the twelfth century, that Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote Historia Regnum Brittaniae (in English, The History of the Kings of Britain), in large part standardized the legend of King Arthur and kicked off the golden age of Arthurian literature. In the centuries that followed Geoffrey’s book variation upon variation of Arthur’s life and the lives of the people who supposedly surrounded them were put down in books and spread by the bards to the people.

Geoffrey’s passage on Badon (which, interestingly, never explicitly calls the place of the battle takes place by name) is much too long to quote here in its entirety, but it is important to note that instead of the battle just being a matter of the Britons wanting to fend off the unwanted occupation of the Saxons, the Saxons have personally impeded on Arthur’s honor. The passage begins:

From thence they pursued their furious march to the town of Bath, and laid siege to it. When the king had intelligence of it, he was beyond measure surprised at their proceedings, and immediately gave orders for the execution of the hostages. […][Arthur] addressed himself to his followers in these words: "Since these impious and detestable Saxons have disdained to keep faith with me, I, to keep faith with God, will endeavour to revenge the blood of my countrymen this day upon them. To arms, soldiers, to arms, and courageously fall upon the perfidious wretches, over whom we shall, with Christ assisting us, undoubtedly obtain the victory." (Boyer)

Geoffrey did not just make that change so that the battle would be more personal for Arthur and make the audience sympathize with him. It is important to remember that Geoffrey was living in a completely new world than the one we have seen previously. Unlike his predecessors in chronicling Badon, Geoffrey was writing in a post-Norman Invasion world. The Saxons had long since assimilated into British life and the enemy of the Britons were now their French occupiers. The people of Britain would no longer be able to understand the vilification of the Saxons on the same level as they had been in the eighth century and before.

In fact, in the decade or so before Historia Regnum Brittaniae was completed, two other texts had revisited Badon and laid the groundwork for Geoffrey’s reworking of the subject. In Gesta Regnum Anglorum, William of Malmsbury does not refer to Arthur’s enemy as Saxons, but instead as “the English” (Boyer) (pointing to the fact that there was still a big difference between the English ad the British and that the difference was not entirely amicable):

With his decease the Britons' strength withered away, and their hopes dwindled and ebbed; at this point, in fact, they would have collapsed completely, had not Vortigern's successor Ambrosius, the sole surviving Roman, kept down the barbarian menace with the outstanding aid of the warlike Arthur. This Arthur is the hero of many wild tales among the Britons even in our own day, but assuredly deserves to be the subject of reliable history rather than of false and dreaming fable; for he was long the mainstay of his falling country, rousing to battle the broken spirit of his countrymen, and at length at the siege of Mount Badon, relying on the image of our Lord's Mother which he had fastened upon his arms, he attacked nine hundred of the enemy single-handed, and routed them with incredible slaughter. On the other side, the English, through the sport of Fortune's wheel, made good their wavering ranks by reinforcements of their fellow-countrymen, and more boldly rushed into the fray; so, little by little, as the natives retreated, they spread over the whole island, not without the favouring providence of God, in whose hand is every change of lordship. (Boyer)

It is also interesting to note as an aside that apparently by this time the legends of Aurelianus from the pre-Nennius depictions of Badon and Arthur had coalesced into one legend in which the two leaders work together to fend of the invasion.

And then just a few years before the completion of Historia Regnum Brittaniae, in 1133, a man called Henry of Huntington wrote Historia Anglorum, which heavily harkened back to Nennius when he reached the section on the twelve battles Arthur fought against the Saxons. On Badon, he says:

The twelfth was a hard-fought battle with the Saxons on Mount Badon, in which 440 of the Britons fell by the swords of their enemies in a single day, none of their host acting in concert, and Arthur alone receiving succour from the Lord. These battles and battle-fields are described by Gildas the historian, but in our times the places are unknown, the Providence of God, we consider, having so ordered it that popular applause and flattery, and transitory glory, might be of no account. At this period there were many wars, in which sometimes the Saxons, sometimes the Britons, were victors; but the more the Saxons were defeated, the more they recruited their forces by invitations sent to the people of all the neighbouring countries. (Boyer)

Clearly, apart from just borrowing Unlike William, Henry seems to have no qualms about calling the Saxons by their traditional name. The entire format of this section and what directly precedes it is clearly taken straight from Nennius and, like Nennius, the focus remains on the individual Arthur. Henry gives credit for the victory to the grace of God but Arthur is clearly the hero and the center of attention. Also, his complaint about the “popular applause and flattery” seems to suggest that the legends of Arthur and Badon were widespread even before Historia Regnum Brittaniae.

All in all, it boils down to this: fifteen hundred years ago, there was probably a battle at an unknown location in either Wales or England in which the Britons stood up to the Saxons and were successful for what may have been the last time before the Saxons got a firm hold on Britain that they would never let go. We will never be able to know for sure exactly what happened there, but it is clear that in the millennium and a half since the story of the Battle of Badon has morphed ad grown and taken on a life of its own. And because of Badon’s consistent presence in the literature pertaining to the development of the Arthuriania, it gives us a unique perspective on the development of those legends and others like it.

Today it is remembered from the line in the Monty Python film Holy Grail that describes “Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot…who had personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill.” With a literary tradition as strong as Badon has, it would be difficult for it to ever fully leave the popular consciousness.

Bibliography

"Annales Cambriae 447-954 (The Annals of Wales)." Medieval Sourcebook. Web. 21
Dec 2009. <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/annalescambriae.html>.

Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999. Print.

Boyer, Sam. "The Battle of Mount Badon: Annotated Bibliography." The Battle of
Mount Badon. Spring 2004. University of Rochester, Web. 21 Dec 2009. <http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/badon/badnbibfrm.htm>.

Gildas. "Gildas (c. 504-570): Works." Medieval Sourcebook. Web. 2 Dec 2009.
<http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/gildas-full.html>.

Nennius. "Historia Brittonum." Medieval Sourcebook. Web. 2 Dec 2009.
<http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/nennius-full.html>.

maybe if I get this out of my system, I'll actually be able to work.

2009-12-07T19:08:46Z

Some meta about the events of Saturday's Merlin and how it's all Merlin's fault, because I have this burning need to discuss this with people.

Gaius: The future is as yet unshaped. It is we that shape it. It is you, Merlin. The decisions you make, the actions you take. Remember that.
-The Witch's Quickening.

So I've been thinking about how everything that went down in The Witch's Quickening is basically all Merlin's fault. And you know how Gaius said that thing about everything being a choice and people's decisions shaping the future? I think the writers may have actually thought this through for once.

Not that I don't love Merlin a lot a lot a lot, but if he hadn't relied so heavily on his feelings about Morgana (and Mordred) and took some time to heed people like the Dragon's advice, all of this could have bee avoided. (Not that I can talk, I rely heavily on my feelings regarding people too, ha.)

There are a couple of key moments that I keep coming back to where Merlin could have stopped this, where he made a conscious decision, sometimes knowing there would be consequences, and let it happen anyway.

1) The first scene in (the aptly titled) The Beginning of the End. Admittedly, Merlin was doing what any decent human being would do in saving Mordred, but if he had let the guards get him, none of this would have happened. Then he brought him to MORGANA'S chambers for some reason (because that was the first place they came to?) and sparked off that whole relationship.

2) Later in that episode, the Dragon tells Merlin that Mordred is destined to bring down Arthur and after some ~internal struggle~ Merlin decides to not go through with the plan and let the guards recapture Mordred. However he backs out and eventually does participate in the escape plot WHILE KNOWING MORDRED HAS A DESTINY IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO HIS OWN.

3) The Gates of Avalon happens and it is brought to Merlin and Gaius' attention that Morgana is totally a seer. Gaius instructs Merlin not to let Morgana know and even though that sounds cruel and unnecessary, here I think his reasoning is sound and Merlin goes along with it.

4) Then there's the again aptly named The Nightmare Begins. When Merlin goes to the Dragon to ask him for information on the Druids, the Dragon warns him that "the witch" cannot be trusted and that it would be better if she never knew the true extent of her powers. He reminds Merlin that he'd failed to heed his warnings in the past and that it had brought grave consequence. Merlin insists that "she not a witch, she's [his] friend" and that he knows her and she has a good heart and that he would not abandon her. Again, Merlin could have heeded the Dragon's advice and Morgana would nevr have learned of her powers. Instead, he leads her right to the Druids.

(It's this scene that really illustrates to me just how betrayed Merlin must feel in The Witch's Quickening. He put his neck out for her and gave his word that she would not go and do exactly what she did with Alvar.)

5) In The Nightmare Begins, Morgana learns once and for all that she has magic. Gaius still insists that Merlin not tell her about his own magic. And here's where I break with Gaius because at this point it's pretty clear that Morgana would not have turned him in and kind of really needs to talk to about this. In fact, she says in this episode and again in The Witch's Quickening that she "feels so alone."

In fact, at 39:39 in that episode, during the scene in which we were all pulling our hair at and yelling JUST TELL HER, DAMMIT at the screen, there is a moment where it's pretty clear that Merlin is working himself up to and seriously considering telling her about himself. He pauses for a long time and says "ummmm....it's good to have you back." and totally chickens out. IF HE HAD TOLD HER, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE FELT SO ALONE AND WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SO INCLINED TO TURN TO ALVAR. (Which is not to say that Merlin didn't have good reason to withhold that information from her from his perspective; he's lived in fear of people finding out his entire life and Morgana is still Uther's ward, but from an omniscient perspective, it's a major facepalm.)

And then he pretty much ignored her for the rest of the season up until this point and then it was too late. And I think that this is the most tragic part of the whole thing. Morgana could have been something different, but because of Merlin's mistakes, she will become the evil witch we know from the legends.

And I think that even though people have been grumbling about Morgana's relative absense during the season, when we look back on series two, we're going to remember it as The Morgana Season, with some Arthur/Gwen thrown in.

I have resisted making this post for like a week.

2009-11-13T03:55:08Z

So you know how everybody either secretly or totally openly loves extremely cheesy pop music? Yeah? WELL NOW YOUR LOVE FOR EXTREMELY CHEESY POP MUSIC CAN GO TO A GOOD CAUSE. And all you have to do is buy one song from iTunes!

SO HERE'S A MUSIC VIDEO THAT KIND OF EXPLAINS ALL THIS OK. They're trying really hard to get it into the UK top 40 but even if you don't live in the UK, the money still goes to Children In Need so you should buy it anyway. I did and I have been rocking out to it for three days.

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UM YES I HAVE NOW OFFICIALLY DONE MY PART.
(also this is a public post so if you want to spread the word about this WHICH YOU SHOULD but don't want to bother to post the video you can link back here.)

Now I have to go write that paper ughhhh I have been asleep more than awake today idek.

Though The Legends Cannot Be Trusted 1/1

2009-10-04T19:57:23Z

Title: Though The Legends Cannot Be Trusted
Fandom: Merlin, with Greek mythology.
Characters/Pairings: Arthur/Merlin, Achilles/Patrocolus
Spoilers/Warnings: spoilers for The Iliad; canon character death.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count ~2,400
Disclaimer: This incarnation of Merlin and Arthur is owned by Shine and the BBC. I don't think The Iliad is owned by anyone, but I certainly didn't come up with it. And I don't own Sherlock Holmes either.
Summary: Arthur would never admit it to anyone but himself, but he's always quite liked reading. Because Merlin/Arthur and Achilles/Patrocolus are basically the same ship.
Notes: An idea from j_apollo. She thought of it at dinner and then turned to me saying "you have to write that!" Then she read it through and gleefully added a few Us. It's her payback from having to live here, under the oppression of American grammar. Beta'd by latenightcuppa, who is awesome and also encouraged me to write this in the first place. Some knowledge of Achilles and Patrocolus is kinda sorta required.

THOUGH THE LEGENDS CANNOT BE TRUSTED

Arthur would never admit it to anyone but himself, but he's always quite liked reading. Not so much histories and boring accounts of ancient wars and the political maneuverings of the Romans, but the fiction that the so-called civilized people from a peninsula almost a thousand miles away had brought with them when they had come to Albion, replacing the Old Religion with their own gods and setting up their own system of government, putting themselves in charge because they said so.

For four hundred years the Romans had dominated Albion and given the land all the stability it had. Then, when the political situation in Italia had become too shaky for anyone to care about their little far away province anymore, they had pulled out and gone home, leaving Albion in a power vacuum which gave way to the warring kingdoms still dominating well into the reign of Uther Pendragon. Arthur knows that there were many who still look back on the good old days with the kind of fondness that can only exist generations later and others who still resent the Romans for abandoning them and leaving them at the mercy of ruthless kings who only look out for themselves. But Arthur cannot rightfully resent the rise of the kingdoms for one day he will rule one, and that would not do. All Arthur really thinks of them is that he is thankful for the stories of war and of heroism and bravery, which were infinitely more exciting then the tales the bards brought with them to court around feast time.

Not too surprisingly, his favourites have always been the tales of Trojan War. Arthur would never want to be taken away from Camelot on a ten year campaign, he wouldn't wish that on any man (and all for the love of a woman! It's ridiculous, and Arthur would never in a million years go to war over such a thing.), but he found he could relate to the story of Achilles, a great and ferocious warrior who was just out to prove his honor and bring glory to his people. He's reading of Achilles now, imagining himself dragging Hector's lifeless body around the walls of Troy as even more revenge for the killing of his dear friend Patrocolus. Hector should not have slaughtered Patrocolus like that. Patrocolus should not have died, not like that.

In Arthur's mind, the memory of Patrocolus bears a striking resemblance to Merlin. It's not surprising. He's the natural counterpart. Arthur looks down at the boy's sleeping figure curled up against his own side and sighs. If someone were to ever hurt Merlin, well, Arthur isn't really sure what he'd do. But it wouldn't end well for the one who did the hurting.

+ + +

"Don't, Merlin."

"Hmmm?" Merlin responds distractedly, putting the finishing touches on the application of Arthur's armor.

"Don't follow me and the other knights out to the battlefield," Arthur elaborates and, at Merlin suddenly pulling an expression of extreme indignation, quickly adds, "and don't try to tell me you won't, idiot, I've known you long enough now to know that you can hardly help it."

"Well," Merlin says cheerfully, all traces of indignation gone, "if I can't help it, then you might as well not even try and stop me."

"I mean it, Merlin," Arthur insists, voice stern and possibly louder than necessary. "You will obey me and you will stay here. I can't be worrying about you out there." He puts his hand on Merlin's arm and pats it rather awkwardly, hoping to convey his affection for the boy. But Arthur's never been particularly good at conveying affection. It's really a miracle he and Merlin ended up as anything more than a master and his servant in the first place, considering how rubbish they both are at discussing their emotions. (That's not really a bad thing though, Arthur reminds himself, it's not like they're a pair of girls.)

Merlin's expression makes it clear that he realizes how much Arthur cares and Arthur sees a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be the one time his manservant listens to him and stays behind. He kisses Merlin quickly on the lips, with a passion suited for a much longer kiss, trying again to reinforce his message of stay here, stay out of trouble and then turns and leaves to the room to join his men at the front door of the castle and ride out to battle.

+ + +

Merlin doesn't listen to him and he doesn't stay behind. Of course. Arthur had been foolish to ever think that maybe he would in the first place.

The only time he sees Merlin during the fighting is when he happens to glance to his left and see the boy a few feet away, clashing swords with a soldier wearing Mercia's crest. As Arthur watches, the opponent's sword turns bright orange, like it's heating up, and the man drops it, burned. Arthur looks away in a rage and a panic. This just proves that Merlin is the first among idiots, to come out here and use magic so obviously! Here, where anyone of his father's army could see him (the knights may be under Arthur's command, but there's no denying the fact that their loyalty lies with the king, not the prince).

In the middle of a swing of his own sword, a flash of white light momentarily blinds Arthur and the man he is dueling almost lands a blow. It only lasts a second, but for that one moment Arthur is far away, standing instead in a tent which he knows to be his own but isn't the one he slept in the night before. Merlin is there, wearing armor that is Arthur's but not any that he's worn in this life. Merlin is going into battle in Arthur's stead. He's under explicit orders to come back once he's done, but this is a memory, so Arthur remembers that this is the last time he'll see him alive. He wishes he had reached out and kissed the man one more time, but that's not how it happened and the man who looks like Merlin just walks out of the tent, only looking back once, with a small, reassuring smile on his face. He's not going to come back, but he never did listen to orders anyway.

Later, when the fighting is over (a victory for Camelot, and Arthur can return home with his head held high and without dread for his father's expression), he finds Merlin unconscious in the camp's impromptu medical tent with one of the women who'd tagged along with the army to care for the wounded leaning over him, trying to stem the bleeding from the gaping wound in the boy's side.

"Is he--?" Arthur asks in a panic, the thrill of the win fading fast.

"He's going to be okay, sire," says the reassuring voice of Sir Kay comes from behind him. It's a very poorly kept secret that Merlin is more to Arthur than just his manservant, or even just his friend and it is clear Kay knows how potentially devastating this is to his crown prince. "He's lost a lot of blood, but it is not a mortal wound."

"It's true, sire," said the maid behind Kay as she stood up from leaning over Merlin, "this boy will be shaky on his feet for a few days, but soon he'll be good as new. The dagger was just plunged right into his stomach, it didn't hit anything important, and now we've got the blood to clot."

But as she moves away from Merlin and Arthur sees him lying there, it happens again. The light is back, and Arthur is back in that familiar tent that was his but wasn't. Antilochus comes through the door. "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you, son of Peleus. Patrocolus, dearest of your friends and closest to your heart, has been killed. Struck down by Hector, the son of Priam." And just like that, Arthur's world is shattered.

But just as quickly as it had come, the strange deja-vu is gone and it is only Merlin, lying wounded but not dead on a bed roll in a dingy tent. Arthur brushes it off.

+ + +

Arthur finds it difficult to sleep that night. Merlin is still in the medical tent and so Arthur is alone, but that's not it. No, it's a name that is keeping Arthur awake, nothing more. Patrocolus. Arthur knows the name, of course, knows it from those stories of that ancient war. But that's all they are--stories. So why is that man--character--creeping, unbidden, into Arthur's annoyingly distracting and poorly timed daydreams? If Merlin hadn't been such an idiot and gotten himself stabbed, Arthur could ask him.

With that thought, Arthur sighs and rolls to his side and falls asleep at last.

+ + +

Only it doesn't stop. Merlin brings in Arthur's breakfast in the morning, and Arthur has a vision of Patrocolus serving tea. Arthur training with a sword, with Merlin watching off to the side, and then suddenly they're both throwing spears at the mark, practicing together, because now they're both warriors. They're lying in bed at night and suddenly they are transported to another bed in another time in another place. Patrocolus who looks like Merlin calls Arthur "Achilles." And Arthur has never been more confused, not when he realized that maybe he didn't care so much about women and would rather be bedding men, not when he found that he had somehow fallen a bit in love with his idiot manservant, and not even when he discovered that said idiot manservant was actually a powerful sorcerer and therefore in contradiction to everything Arthur had ever been taught.

One night, with Merlin in his arms as they're drifting off to sleep, it happens again. Suddenly, Arthur and Merlin are Achilles and Patrocolus. Afterwards, when they are returned to their own bed, Merlin's questioning gaze is looking up at Arthur. "You too?" Merlin asks and Arthur feels for the first time that maybe he's not alone in this after all.

Arthur just nods. "I..." it's hard to actually talk about this, to acknowledge that maybe it's true, maybe he's not going crazy. "I thought it was just a story."

Merlin nods into Arthur's neck and Arthur feels it rather than sees it. "I thought so too," he mumbles. "But now I think that maybe...maybe we are them."

"How is that possible?"

"Have you ever read any Pythagoras, Arthur?" Merlin asks.

"I prefer fiction."

Merlin chuckles at that. "What, not enough excitement in your own life?"

"Shut up," Arthur mutters darkly, but with more than a hint of affection in his tone.

They lie there together in companionable silence for a few moments and then Merlin seems to remember himself and clears his throught. "Anyway," he says, "the Pythagoreans believed that there was a clear division between the soul and the body. After the body died, the soul would enter into another body and complete that life and then another and another forever."

"Did you get that in one of Gaius' books?" Arthur asks.

"I prefer science to fiction."

"So," Arthur begins, trying to wrap his mind around this new concept. "what you're saying is that the reason I keep having these weird flashes of memory things is that...I used to be Achilles."

"Yes." Merlin's voice is level and sure, obviously meant to keep Arthur calm.

"And you..." Arthur continues, still not quite believing it, "used to be Patrocolus."

"Yes."

"Woah." That's really all there is to say to something like this.

"Yeah," Merlin agrees. "I know."

They lie there in silence for a some time, Arthur can't tell how long it is because his head is hammering almost as much as his heart. He still can't quite believe it yet, but there's one thing he knows for certain. "Merlin," he says, voice deathly serious, "I don't ever want to to hear you've been killed. Do you understand me? Never."

Merlin nods against his chest. "I understand."

+ + +

Neither Arthur nor Merlin ever fully remembers Achilles and Patrocolus. They only get flashes of their time together without any real cohesion. But Arthur knows that he had loved Patrocolus fiercely and that the viciousness with which he had killed Hector and defiled his body had been all but completely necessary and he knows that if anything were to happen to Merlin, the culprit would find a similar fate awaiting him.

+ + +

It's years later, at Camlann. Mordred is there, and Morgana, and there's a big fuss because Arthur is lying in the mud, gasping for breath. This time the wound is mortal. And Merlin pushes his way through the small crowd forming around Arthur to come and kneel by his side.

"I told you not to come," Arthur says.

Merlin tries to smile but can't quite manage it. "You knew I wouldn't listen to you."

For a moment, they both just look at each other, not quite sure what to say. Then Merlin leans down and presses a quick, chaste kiss to Arthur's lips. "I'll see you again," he says. "This is not the end for us."

Arthur grimaces up at him, the pain is becoming too much. "It won't be the same," he tells the warlock.

"No," Merlin agrees, sad, "but that doesn't mean it'll be bad."

"I love you," Arthur whispers and then he is gone.

Merlin slowly gets to his feet and walks slowly back into Arthur's empty tent.

+ + +

Holmes lies in bed, watching as Watson carries in the breakfast tray he'd gotten up to fetch from the kitchen. For a moment, he doesn't see Watson but instead a skinny boy with black hair and a red scarf standing with a different tray in a bedroom that is not Holmes'. But as soon as the vision came, it's gone and once again it's Watson standing in the doorway in his dressing gown. Holmes shakes his head and tries to ignore the strange visions which are becoming more and more frequent. He puts down his copy of Le Morte D'Arthur--he's always been fond of the Arthurian stories--and sits up a bit straighter.

"Ah, Watson," he says, "I had the most peculiar dream."

+ + +

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted --
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.
-from The Triumph of Achilles by Louise Gluck.

finis.

the excessively long endnotes;
01. I cannot tell you how good it feels to finally have finished something and gotten it posted. I have two or three much longer stories which have been ~in the works~ for ages now and are basically coming along at a snail's pace. This, on the other hand, came together over the span of a weekend and it's awesome.
02. My English professor would probably have an aneurism if he ever found out one of his students had written this. He dismissed the possibility of Achilles and Patrocolus having anything beside a platonic friendship in about ten seconds. But ten seconds on Wikipedia taught me that even the Greeks themselves assumed that their relationship was sexual.
03. Incidentally, it's very strange to be writing this at the same time as my major, formal paper on The Iliad. I'm finding it difficult to get back into the paper now. Also, I'm still not quite over the fact that I BASICALLY JUST WROTE FANFIC FOR THE ILIAD WTH.
04. This whole thing is a combination of definite and purposeful historical accuracy and wild inaccuracy. Do I really think they had any idea about blood clotting back in the day? Of course not. And I highly doubt Uther's Camelot would have access to the works of Pythagorus or even The Iliad, since that and the rest of the Roman and Greek lit didn't make its way back into the west from Byzantium until a bit later than when I would date Merlin (the early to mid sixth century). But I'm taking a course called "the medieval world 400 to 1000" and that beginning bit about the downfall of Roman Britain is straight from that class. I really enjoyed writing that bit. (And I must admit that I definitely paused when I used the word "government" because we totally had a discussion in that class on Friday about how there was no real concept of government at the time because it was just taken for granted.)
05. The use of Pythagoras was totally me just Wiki-ing something quickly because I needed some way to explain it all. I was like, "quick, Greek reincarnation. Ok. got it." So if I screwed that up, it's because I don't really know what I'm talking about.
06. I knew that I wanted to use another similar pairing for the very end, and it took me about twenty minutes of brainstorming to come up with Holmes and Watson. It needed to be a pair that had the dominant/submissive thing going on (but not like that, come on!) and I initially thought of Bruce Wayne and Alfred but then immediately rejected it like OH GOD NO EW WTF. I felt a bit weird writing that part, though, since I know basically nothing about Sherlock Holmes. So hopefully I didn't include anything that is in glaring opposition to that canon. (I am excited for that movie, though!)
07. The poem at the end (which is also, obviously, where this story got its title) was handed out to me in English as part of our discussion of The Iliad and when we got to that stanza I could hardly believe it wasn't written about Merlin/Arthur. It was the icing on the cake of proving that Merlin/Arthur and Achilles/Patrocolus are the SAME EXACT SHIP and therefore needed to be included here.

burningqueen @ 2009-09-27T22:51:00

2009-09-28T02:56:37Z

FRIENDS CUT.

I literally just cut about half of my flist. So. Yeah. If you cannot see THIS POST then you have been removed and I'd appreciate it if you'd remove me too. I just have a bunch of people here who I either never talk to or only talk to because I feel obligated to and I hate that because if we're going to be friends, you deserve it to be real.

AND THE FACE OF....A BEAR.

2009-09-27T15:41:04Z

MERLIN: THE ONCE AND FUTURE QUEEN (2X02)
REWATCH PARTY.

I HOPE YOU'RE ALL SET TO BEGIN AT NOON EASTERN STANDARD TIME, WHICH IS ROUGHLY TWENTY MINUTES FROM NOW.
here are a bunch of streaming and download links if you haven't got it yet.

EDIT: OK PEOPLE I'M HAVING AN INTERNET EMERGENCY, SO I'M POSTPONING THIS UNTIL TEN MINUTES AFTER THE HOUR.

{In my life, I love you more.}

2009-09-09T23:42:11Z

So, for reasons I'll go into later, it has transpired that I will not be getting the box set today/tonight/in the next couple days after all. I am very down about this, but I already had this whole thing typed up, so it would be a shame to not squee.

So, today is the moment I've been waiting for for years - the release of the digitally remastered Beatles albums! People have been clamoring for his for the longest time because, um, the last time they did this was when they were first released on CD, in 1987. AKA MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS AGO, AND BEFORE I WAS EVEN BORN. Hence my continued stance of, Beatles Rock Band? What? Who cares, WE CAN NEW CDS! So I just wanted to do something a little special (but not that special) to mark this auspicious occasion.

First, though, I just wanted to write down something I was thinking about last night. Just that, wow, I love the Beatles so fucking much. And, yeah, you know that. But I'm not sure you realize how much, and what exactly they mean to me. (Maybe you do and I'm being overdramatic, idk). There are Beatles fans and then there are Beatles fans, people who don't just love, appreciate and enjoy the music, but spend their lives in pursuit of new information, pictures, knowledge of the four boys, (who will always be boys or lads forever, despite the fact that their 70th birthdays are approaching). I am a Beatles fan To me, the Beatles are SO MUCH MORE than a band. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are more like demi-gods in my life, people I feel as if I know and have known forever, who have been there with my all along, not only helping me but also forming who I am as a person - my interests, my philosophy on life, maybe even my personality. I love Colin Morgan because he's cute and adorable and makes me squee; I love Paul McCartney because he's the greatest person EVER as far as I'm concerned and has given me more than anyone I've ever personally known, with the exception of my parents. Similarly, when I think about Merlin my chest constricts almost painfully in the glee I get from that show and its cast, but it's an obsession that is fleeting and in time I'll move onto something which gives me similar joy. I will never move on from the Beatles, I will build my entire life around them - I already have - and when I think of them (and now for the prose I thought existed only in romantic fanfiction) I get this really soft, happy feeling in my chest, like the feeling from Merlin, but deeper, and I think that's what love feels like. The Beatles are the love of my life, and no person or thing will ever compare. /huge, humongous, tremendously embarrassing sappiness.

13. Yellow Submarine (1968)
Hey Bulldog, All Together Now, Only A Northern Song, It's All Too Much

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In a lot of ways, this barely even counts as a proper album. If it weren't for the sake of thoroughness, I would argue that it's not. Released as a companion/soundtrack to Yellow Submarine, the film, this is more or less a compilation of all the songs from previous albums which are in the film. Only four original songs are on here. But it must be said that those four songs are something. "All Together Now," like "Yellow Submarine," the song, itself, is one of Paul's kid sing-a-longs and is incredibly charming, but also undercuts that image with lyrics like "black white green red / can I take my friend to bed?" and It's All To Much bears the dubious title of being the only song every written by a Beatle during an acid trip. Make of that what you will. Personally, I love all four songs immensely, but that might just be me.

12. Beatles For Sale (1963) No Reply, I'm A Loser, Baby's In Black, Roll And Roll Music, I'll Follow The Sun, Mr. Moonlight, Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey, Eight Days A Week, Words of Love, Honey Don't, Every Little Thing, I Don't Want To Spoil The Party, What You're Doing, Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby

Wow, I am so incredibly meh about this album. It's just....blah. Filled mostly with forgettable covers, it's saving graces rely mostly on Paul's absolutely stunning I'll Follow The Sun and and the (covered) medly Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey. There's also the hit Eight Days A Week, but that was a single and therefore on later albums wouldn't even be included on the LP.

11. Please Please Me (1962) I Saw Her Standing There, Misery, Anna (Go To Him), Chains, Boys, Ask Me Why, Please Please Me, Love Me Do, PS. I Love You, Baby It's You, Do You Want To Know A Secret, A Taste Of Honey, There's A Place, Twist And Shout

As the Beatles' debut album - recorded in the impressive span of only twelve hours - this one has its fair share of classics. I Saw Her Standing There, Please Please Me, Love Me Do, and Twist And Should are all easily recognizable to even the most casual fans. Plus, there're gems like Ringo's cover Boys (in which the lads basically ignored the fact that it's clearly A Girl Song), Baby It's You, Do You Want To Know A Secret, PS. I Love You and A Taste of Honey. But this album's downfall comes in the mediocre covers that liter the first half. Still, a very impressive first outing.

10. A Hard Day's Night (1964) A Hard Day's Night, I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, And I Love Her, Tell Me Why, Can't Buy Me Love, Any Time At All, I'll Cry Instead, Things We Said Today, When I Get Home, You Can't Do That

The soundtrack for the Beatles first (and understandably and rightly most critically acclaimed) film, A Hard Day's Night was the first and only Beatles album to be filled solely by Lennon-McCartney compositions. There are none of the covers that had previously but never would again take up about half of the space, and George had not yet come into his own as a songwriter. Instead we get a poppy and danceable, if not sophisticated, album with hits like A Hard Day's Night and Can't Buy Me Love, not to mention the first of Paul McCartney's Great Love Songs, And I Love Her and John's great and beautiful If I Fell.

09. Help! (1965) Help!, The Night Before, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I Need You, Another Girl, You're Gonna Lose That Girl, Ticket To Ride, Act Naturally, It's Only Love, You Like Me Too Much, Tell Me What You See, I've Just Seen A Face, Yesterday, Dizzy Miss Lizzy

Help! may be THE GREATEST FILM EVER MADE, but its soundtrack album admittedly pales in comparison. It's clearly going for the folk-rock feel the boys finally got later that same year with Rubber Soul, but at this point they couldn't quite reach. Still, it almost makes up for it with hits like Help! and Ticket To Ride and other greats like You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I've Just Seen A Face, I've Just Seen A Face and You're Gonna Lose That Girl. Still, the song that secures Help!'s spot above A Hard Day's Night is unquestionably Paul's Yesterday, the song recorded by more artists than any other ever and arguably not only the great Beatles' song, but the greatest song of all time.

08. With The Beatles (1963) It Won't Be Long, All I've Got To Do, All My Loving, Don't Bother Me, Little Child, Till There Was You, Please Mister Postman, Roll Over Beethoven, Hold Me Tight, You've Really Got A Hold On Me, I Wanna Be Your Man, Devil In Her Heart, Not A Second Time, Money (That's What I Want)

"But Celeste," you say, "most of the songs on here are covers! What makes this one any better than Beatles For Sale?" Well. You see, these aren't just any covers, they're REALLY REALLY FANTASTIC COVERS. Paul's version of Till There Was You (originally from the musical The Music Man and sung by a girl) is my favorite song of all time, followed by George's rendition of Roll Over Beethoven, both of which are on here. Then there's also Please Mister Postman, You've Really Got A Hold On Me and John's fabulous version of Money (That's What I Want). Plus, the great little Lennon-McCartney number All My Loving and Ringo's version of the Rolling-Stones-cover-except-not-really-because-John-and-Paul-wrote-it, I Wanna Be Your Man.

07. Let It Be (1970) Two Of Us, Dig A Pony, Across The Universe, I Me Mine, Dig It, Let It Be, Maggie Mae, I've Got A Feeling, One After 909, The Long And Winding Road, For You Blue, Get Back

This is where I stop having any real criticism of these and start ranking them based on my personal preference. As Eric Idle put it in his mockumentary The Rutles, a paradody/homage of the Beatles, "Let It [Be] was released as a film, an album, and a lawsuit." It was the last of their albums to be released (but not to be recorded) and there is a shitload of drama associated with this album, and it's true that the boys were hardly happy while recording it, but that doesn't stop this one from being kickass. It includes two of Paul's best ever ballads, Let It Be and The Long And Winding Road as well as John's stunningly beautiful Across The Universe. But it also gets back to good old fashioned rock and roll with songs like The One After 909 (written in 1961, it is probably the earliest Lennon-McCartney song to make it on an album), I've Got A Feeling, Maggie Mae (the first cover to make it on an album since 1965), For You Blue and, of course, the classic Get Back.

06. Rubber Soul (1965) Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), You Won't See Me, Nowhere Man, Think For Yourself, The Word, Michelle, What Goes On, Girl, I'm Looking Through You, In My Life, Wait, If I Needed Someone, Run For Your Life

Rubber Soul is essentially The Beatles' Dylan Album. It accomplished what they had been trying to do earlier in the year with Help, which was to get away from the poppiness of their earlier work and create more of a folk rock album. Rubber Soul marks a very important turning point for the band; they started looking into things other than what they had been doing for the last three years and it would change the course of popular music. But aside from all that, Rubber Soul is a beautiful album. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) - the first Beatles song to exhibit the Indian influence, with the use of the sitar, is a steller story song, Nowhere Man, which holds the distinction of being the first Beatles song to not be in any way about love, is also a steller message song. There's also John's haunting Girl and absolutely beautiful In My Life, as well as Paul's English and French medly, Michelle, which one one the 1966 Grammy for best song. It's bookended by Drive My Car and Run For Your Life, two songs I associate with each other for some unknown reason, both of which are good examples of rocky pop.

05. Revolver (1966) Taxman, Eleanor Rigby, I'm Only Sleeping, Love You To, Here There And Everywhere, Yellow Submarine, She Said She Said, Good Day Sunshine, And Your Bird Can Sing, For No One, Doctor Robert, I Want To Tell You, Got To Get You Into My Life, Tomorrow Never Knows

Revolver opens with George's first great song Taxman, ushering him in as a notable songwriting force in his own right (even if no one noticed for years after) and is followed by songs like Paul's sad a lovely Eleanor Rigby and his romantic ballad Here There And Everywhere (plus the foot-tapping Good Day Sunshine and the pretty For No One). John's contributions are less memorable, but that's not to say bad, excluding his trippy could-never-be-produced-the-same-way-again Tomorrow Never Knows, which, like the album as a whole, foreshadowed the even more groundbreaking work the Beatles would be doing shortly.

04. Magical Mystery Tour (1967) Magical Mystery Tour, The Fool On The Hill, Flying, Blue Jay Way, Your Mother Should Know, I Am The Walrus, Hello Goodbye, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, Baby You're A Rich Man, All You Need Is Love

So, yes, okay, the movie was kind of a dud. But the soundtrack album Magical Mystery Tour is perhaps the best collection of Beatles songs that there is. It includes The Fool On The Hill, I Am The Walrus, Hello Goodbye, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane and All You Need Is Love - masterpieces all. Plus, one of my personal favorites, Blue Jay Way, as well as the peppy Magical Mystery Tour and the dancehallish number from Paul, Your Mother Should Know.

03. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, With A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Getting Better, Fixing A Hole, She's Leaving Home, Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite, Within You Without You, When I'm Sixty Four, Lovely Rita, Good Morning Good Morning, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise), A Day In The Life

Sgt. Pepper is the most groundbreaking album of all time. The thing is a work of art. An idea originally conceived by Paul - that the Beatles would leave their actual personas at the door and become the Lonely Hearts Club Band - made it one of the first concept albums, and certainly the one that popularized that. I don't consider it the Beatles' best, but there is no denying that it is one of great, great albums of all time. Highlights include Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, When I'm Sixty Four and perhaps the Beatles' ultimate masterpiece, A Day In The Life. Also, one of my personal favorites, Paul's gorgeous She's Leaving Home.

02. The Beatles [the white album] (1968) [disc 1] Back In The USSR, Dear Prudence, Glass Onion, Ob-la-di Ob-la-da, Wild Honey Pie, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Martha My Dear, I'm So Tired, Blackbird, Piggies, Rocky Racoon, Don't Pass Me By, Why Don't We Do It In The Road, I Will, Julia [disc 2] Birthday, Yer Blues, Mother Nature's Son, Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey, Sexy Sadie, Helter Skelter, Long Long Long, Revolution 1, Honey Pie, Savory Truffle, Cry Baby Cry, Revolution 9, Goodnight

The Beatles returned from their trip to India in early 1968 with a boatload of songs they had written there. Some of them became Let It Be, but a large amount became The White Album. This album is the band's most diverse, with songs ranging from Long Long Long to Helter Skelter to Honey Pie to Revolution 9 - and that's just the second disc! The Beatles on this album are post-psychadelic and they've returned to the more subdued feel of some of their early-middle era works. And for such a huge collection of new songs, there are very few duds. The number one standout here George's masterpiece While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which proved to the world that he could compete with the quality of the insurmountable Lennon-McCartney team. Also notable (but not necessarily because it's really great) is Don't Pass Me By, Ringo's writing debut. And to pick other highlights is almost impossible because an argument could be made about every single song here. But...well, they could have left of Revolution 9, in my opinion.

01. Abbey Road (1969) Come Together, Something, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Oh Darling!, Octopus' Garden, I Want You/She's So Heavy, Here Comes The Sun, Because, You Never Give Me Your Money, Sun King, Mean Mister Mustard, Polythene Pam, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight, The End, Her Majesty

As the last album they recorded, if not the last released, Abbey Road is the Beatles' swan song. It proves that whatever personal issues they had between themselves in 1969 did not interfere with their ability to make music in any way because it's their tightest album. It contains two of George's greatest songs, Something and Here Comes the Sun, as well as John's Come Together and the breathtakingly beautiful Because, plus Ringo's fun Octopus' Garden and Paul's morbidly hilarious Maxwell's Silver and the rocker Oh Darling!. Then there's the medly. The second half of the album (or, as I'm given to understand although never experienced myself, the entire second side on vinyl) is made up on short little vingettes from John and Paul cut together into one huge continuous piece of music, ending with Paul's summation of the Beatles, The End: "And in the end / the love you take is equal to the love you make" <3.

I've always said I'd never do something like this, but imagines got it in my head that I should do something for ~~09.09.09~~ but I didn't know what until brightedelweiss linked me to Entertainment Weekly's rankings (which I cannot find on their site anymore, wtf?) and I was like UM, WTF, NO, HERE'S THE TRUTH and thus, this was born.

somebody needs to say it and apparently it's going to be me.

2009-09-07T21:40:19Z

At the top of the list of Things That Are Harshing My Squee is the amount of Arthur/Gwen hate that has exploded since the trailer was released. People, they're obviously going there, there's nothing you can do, so deal with it. I'm not absolutely thrilled either, but I hope that they do it well and that, even if they will never compare to my lovely Merlin/Arthur, I can enjoy them and their story. Let's not turn this into a bash fest full of negativity. Right now, I don't even wanna glance in merlinxarthur and that's not cool. I don't like it, and I don't want to have to put up with it all series long. Yes, I survived the Smallville fandom, but that doesn't mean I want to do it again.

I now return you to your previous scheduled squee.

{Can anything harm us, Mummy, after the nightlights are lit?}

2009-08-06T06:22:14Z

There are quite a few here because, well, I've never done a Merlin rec list before, so this will comprise of every story I've ever read in this fandom worth reccing. So.
# denotes stories which are not Merlin/Arthur, just so you can find them more easily
*** denotes stories which you absolutely need to read

10,000 Nights Of Thunder by harboo_smirks / hints of Merlin/Morgana, Arthur/Merlin, Arthur/Morgana / PG-13 / ~7,300 words / modern!AU / The call comes around noon and changes all their lives.

Written for the original reel_merlin, as an Iron Man fusion. So, Tony Stark!Arthur and Pepper Potts!Morgana. YES PLEASE.

A Fortunate Fall by raspberry_pop / Merlin/Arthur / R at times / WIP (complete), modern!AU / Single father Arthur Pendragon, at the end of his rope, finds a miracle in the form of a young cashier boy at the local convenience store. As for Merlin, he's not quite sure about what to make of his new job as an au pair for the wealthiest man in town; but he does know that his employer has more than a few skeletons in his closet.

I think of this as a really typical WIP. And I haven't really read one of those since I stopped reading Clark/Lana in the SV fandom. Which was a very long time ago. So, to me, part of this story's charm was just getting into the rather formulaic plot and going along for the ride. It was a lot of fun. And, I mean, my saying that it's formulaic does not take into account that a lot of it really isn't formulaic at all and instead is one of the most interesting uses of Gwen I've ever seen in a Merlin story. Arthur's backstory is handled very, very well.

A Very Gratuitous Holiday by dollygrip / Merlin/Arthur / PG / modern!AU / Arthur is on holiday. Merlin keeps taking his table.

There isn't anything to say about this story besides that it's good and worth reading.

Abide With Me by dansenocturne / Merlin/Arthur, possible Morgana/Gwen / R / ~28,000 words / modern!AU / An aggressive blood disease epidemic wipes out Britain. Twenty-eight days later, four of the last survivors in London must try to make it out alive.

This was also written for the original round of reel_merlin for the 28 Days Later prompt. I've never seen that movie and never plan to, but regardless, this is a very, very good story. It's a serious business zombie apocalypse story (as opposed to Undead, below) and somehow that works really well.

***At Least It Would Seem That We Don't by derryere / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / ~15,800 words / reincarnationfic, modern!AU / warning: twincest / One time they get reborn as brothers.

Yeah. I know. I know. And so it is with much shame that I tell you that this really is an excellent story and that you should read it. It may be the angstiest thing I've ever read, and a little squicky, but somehow it ~works, IDEK. But I find myself completely engrossed in this little world that's been constructed and I can't help but want you yell NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAAAAAND THEM AND THEIR TWISTED LOVE, WOE. D:

August by rageprufrock / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / canonverse / Merlin looked uncertainly to Arthur. “Have you ever made bread?” he asked. / “How hard could it be?” Arthur said.

A sweet story featuring slightly slutty!Merlin. Yay!

#The Battle of Tulgey Wood by normalhumanbein / Merlin, Arthur / G / ~1000 words / crack / Hast thou slain the jabberwock?

Heeeee! Arthurian legend, with some Carroll thrown in! Fun times.

Because (The World Is Round) by dollygrip / Merlin/Arthur / worksafe / reincarnationfic, almost modern!AU. / The extremely long and epic adventures of M+A in the 20th century (and some before then)

So, assuming that I could have resisted an M/A story named after a Beatles song - which I couldn't ever have, obviously - then I would have been hooked because HELLO, TWENIETH CENTURY, ILY. And I'm recommending it now because it is beautiful. And because of closested hippie!Merlin. :D Also, I think this is where I originally got the idea for a 1960s-set story and how much fun that would be to right.

***Be Resigned by frantic_allonsy / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 at times / a lot of words / WIP (incomplete), modern!AU / The first time Lt Arthur Pendragon properly met A1C Merlin Emrys, he was doing push-ups on the floor of the Fort Campbell weather station.

An American Air Force!AU. Just read it, okay, it's absolutely fantastic.

Boys Being Boys by anonymous / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / modern!AU / from the prompt: Arthur is the rich and spoilt bad-boy chief-jock, with leather jacket and bike, of Camelot High. New scholarship boy Merlin, strict Catholic and pledged virgin, becomes his new target.

IDK, I just like it.

Breed by ifyouweremine / Merlin/Arthur, Arthur/Morgana / NC-17 / 585 words / AU, mpreg / Morgana buys a breeder that looks like her.

This is a really fucked up science fiction-y AU, and somehow, the mpreg in this story is vitally important to the plot but somehow incidental overall. This broke my heart into a million pieces, just a really intriguing, beautiful story. I feel like there could be so much more done with this verse, but it's just so short - less than 600 words!

#Bringing Up Baby by oxoniensis / Arthur, Merlin / G / 2558 words / canonverse / Arthur has never held a baby before.

I don't usually like to refer to exploding ovaries, but THIS STORY MADE MY OVARIES EXPLODE. It made me realize that daddy!Arthur is possibly one of my most favorite things ever, and sad because King Arthur never had children (I don't think Mordred quite counts, do you?)

Completely Inappropriate by glimmergirl / Merlin/Arthur / R / ~5000 words / modern!AU / in which Arthur teaches freshman comp, Merlin spills coffee, and they both spend too much time in Arthur's office.
sequels: In Media Res (which is basically straight PWP) and June Gloom

I've seen far more beautiful prose written in this fandom than this story, but this 'verse feels real - all the little details and references to various literary works, it really feels like this takes place in a college English department, and that's just really engrossing and fun to read.

***Cost/Benefit Analysis by derryere / Merlin/Arthur / PG-13 / ~3,800 words / canonverse, fluff / Arthur is trying to figure out how much Merlin is costing him.

OMG, this! Words cannot describe how much I love this story. It is so brilliant and sweet and lovely. I love, love, love it.

The Dark Knight by dansenocture / Merlin/Arthurish / Rish / ~5200 words / modern!AU / Merlin Emrys lands a job as a gardener for the enigmatic playboy Arthur Pendragon, and discovers that what he gets up to at night is not necessarily drinking with celebrities.
sequels: North American Songbirds As Ranked By Fierceness and Lick Your Cigarette, Then Kiss Me

This was supposed to be an ongoing series, but it hasn't been updated in awhile. IDK. BUT, YOU GUYS, IT'S A DARK KNIGHT!AU. LIKE, SERIOUSLY. ARTHUR IS BRUCE WAYNE. :Fjngfnznxlkjsaflkvjbzl.

***Drastically Redefining Protocol> by rageprufrock / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 at times / a lot of words. really. / modern!AU / In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose.

I've seen this described as the Harry Potter of Merlin fanfiction. And I can see why they would say that. So, read it.

Emergency Rescue Plan Alpha by such_heights / Merlin/Athur / PG / 500 words / canonverse, fluff / Merlin had been kissing Arthur for about a minute now.

OMGSOCUTE!

Fiscally Speaking by daisyfics / Merlin/Arthur-ish / more or less worksafe / hardly any words / modern!AU, crack / "Oh god, we're gong to jail, aren't we?" Merlin whined. "Even more so than the last time."
also, the sequels: Labor Relations and Legacy Assests

So, so, so much fun! I love this 'verse to death!

Fleet of Foot by linckia_blue / Merlin/Arthur / PG / 5054 words / canonverse, bit of a futurefic / These days, Arthur is as grey as the sky and she wants to cry for Merlin’s absence because Arthur won’t, but they are playing a waiting game and soon enough the King will be made of light again.

A very, very nice little story, featuring the return of exiled!Merlin, King Arthur and an actually very well done OC. It's also in reverse chronological order, which is fun.

Four Times Arthur and Merlin Made It Work (And One Time They Didn't) by flash_indie / Merlin/Arthur / R / 1320 words / reincarnationfic / that one reincarnation they don't talk about, when despite all the efforts (because it's destiny, isn't it?) a love relationship didn't work out.

The one thing that annoys the crap out of me about this story, is that the sixties section is set about three years or four years too early. Just, know that. Because it drives me fucking crazy. But other than that, I really, really, really like this story.

***From Russia With Love by anonymous / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / modern!AU, PWP that ended up with plot / Arthur is in Russia (working for the Crown?) on some shady mission, Merlin is the prostitute he hires. Things kind of spiral out from there, a little.

Probably where I got the idea to write about Russian spies. I have gone back to read this story more times than I am willing to admit. Have I mentioned I have a thing for slutty!Merlin?

From Where I Stand, You're In My Sky. by paperclipbitch / Merlin/Arthur (past Merlin/Will, slight Arthur/Superman - it makes sense in context!) / NC-17 / 17,520 words / AU / Arthur looks away from the terrified, accusing dark eyes of the man on the newspaper, and turns his attention to his breakfast. A Watchmen-esque AU.

This is in the same vein as We're A Storm In Somebody Else's Teacup (see below), but also completely different. IDK. I guess I think that because they're by the same girl. This story manages to capture the same kind of terror and prejudice we see in the canon of Merlin, but in a completely outlandish world where superheroes are outlawed instead of magic. It's very good.

***The History of Two Conversations (On Paper) by takadainmate / maybe slightly higher than PG-13 / 11,114 words / canonverse / Books are defaced. But it's all for a good cause. Really.

Gosh, I love this story. Merlin and Arthur being cute. Gaius being funny. The magic book (TM) getting defiled. It's all awesome.

The Incident With The Thingy, or Arthur's Adventures In Spying by sparky77 / Merlin/Arthur / R / crack, modern!AU / Arthur is a spy. Merlin is his handler.

Just a really fun piece of crack, featuring James Bond!Arthur, what's not to love?

Inevitability by tierfallen / Merlin/Arthur / PG-13 / 3255 words / modern!AU / "I think accidentally signing up for a sex change trumps getting caught masturbating." An American college!AU
sequel: Collective Bed of Sin

This is how college AUs should be written! I love this so much. It makes me wish like nothing else that I had had a cool roommate last year (but not necessarily one that I would I have slept with, jsyk). And the Merlin in this story is basically the guy I want to be my boyfriend.

Ink And Dragons by anevivi / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / ~6900 words / modern!AU / this one is about Arthur wanting a tattoo and finding Merlin, mostly but not entirely by accident, in a shop called Avalon.
sequel: Ink and Symbols

Merlin needs to have tattoos, like, all the time. I love these stories. ESPECIALLY the last scene of the second one. I've been desperately awaiting another follow up ever since, because I need to know where that goes.

Inside Outright by frantic_allonsy / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / modern!AU / Arthur would probably have forgotten about him, looked away and maybe had one more drink before heading home because he rather desperately wanted to be curled up in bed with his cat, Sasha, watching Lost and drinking hot chocolate (absolutely no one knew of this ritual except, of course, Sasha, who had promised never to tell). But suddenly the guy opened his eyes and looked directly at Arthur, and something in Arthur felt total, final recognition. Whatever was in this skinny, awkward kid's eyes was exactly what was inside Arthur-- a deep-seated, unending loneliness, the knowledge that there could never be anybody who understood or wanted him.

New York City club scene!AU. This is another one that is notable for its interesting setting, but it's also very well written. It's another one of those stories that's tempting me to love Arthur more and more, and the Merlin in here is also very endearing.

I'm Gonna Burst Right Out Of This World by kaizoku / Merlin/Arthur / PG / ~2300 words / canonverse, crack / The one where Merlin and Arthur raise hatchlings because it is Their Destiny.

UM, MERLIN AND ARTHUR RAISE THE SLASH DRAGON'S HACHLINGS. READ THIS.

It's All In The Timing and its various sequels by srin / Merlin/Arthur, Gwen/Morgana / NC-17 at times / ongoing series, reincarnationfic, modern!AU / Merlin and company have been reborn over and over, but things aren't quite the same this time around.
note: this links to the tag page, the first part is at the bottom

This is my favorite of all the reincarnation stories out there, methinks. I couldn't even tell you what exactly it is that I love about it, but I just really do. Maybe it's the details thing again, it feels like it really is a world where these characters live and have their own little dramallama.

It's Not Deja-Vu, It's the Time Warp by pforte / crossover with Torchwood and Harry Potter / Merlin/Arthur with Jack/Ianto and Remus/Sirius / R / not too, too many words / meta, crack, humor / “We’re secondary characters in a children’s fantasy series. Remus doesn’t like the name but we’re calling this little group PISSA. Means Popular and Ill-treated Slash Ships Anonymous." “A self-help group for the unluckily slashed,” Remus added helpfully.

Even if you don't ship every single one of these ships (Remus/Sirius is not my cup of tea) this is more than worth reading, because who doesn't love meta?

The Lies My Father Taught Me by pforte / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / canonverse, which is slightly AU / Arthur had been taught right from wrong and this, this was wrong!

This is one of two stories I've come across that deal with homophobia, and this one also looks at what would happen if Christianity were in the mix in the canon. It's very well done and just a really good read, if I little dark and grim.

Lying In the Dust by faynia / Merlin, Arthur / PG / 1145 words / modern!AU, fluff / He was eleven and slowly beginning to resemble the Arthur Merlin had once known. Bright eyes, soft hair, charming smile; Merlin felt a bit heartsick and silly.

A little kids!AU. The cutest thing. Ever.

Millions Of Peaches by dsudis / PG / 4274 words / canonverse, fluff / "I know what this is, Merlin."

Just some very well done fluff, because who doesn't love that every once in a while?

Never Pay The Reaper With Love Only by little_giddy / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 at times / ~19,000 words / modern!AU / "You think they're making Merlins," Morgana commented very quietly.

Another one written for reel_merlin, this time based on The Incredible Hulk. So, you get Bruce Banner!Merlin. If that's not enough to make you want to read it, then you're a lost cause. Because, BRUCE BANNER!MERLIN.

No Ordinary Groupie by toestastegood / Merlin/Arthur / PG-13/R / 3566 words / modern!AU / As an up and coming rock star, Arthur Pendragon is used to having people fall at his feet - and Merlin, a thoroughly unimpressed technician, is the only one willing to put him back in his place.

I love both the Merlin and Arthur in this, especially Merlin. And, IDK, the indie music scene is an interesting place to set a fic, right? Look, I just like this. That's it.

Not A Farcical Aquatical Ceremony by srin / Merlin/Arthur, Morgana/Gwen but mostly gen / PG-13 / ~2200 words / crack, humor, futurefic / In which there are baby animals, social and economic revolutions, and happy cows

Basically, Arthur leaves Morgana and Gwen in charge of the kingdom when he and Merlin go on a quest, which was probably a really bad idea. I laughed so hard at this.

Of Pandas and Poltergeists"> by kathkin / Merlin/Arthur / PG / 2566 words / modern!AU / Arthur was a bloody nuisance. He really was.

Sweet and sad. Just lovely.

The One Where Arthur Despoils Merlin In A Cave Because, IDK, It Was Necessary For The Plot Or Something by ifyouweremine / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / 1893 words / PWP, crack / “Yes I know what sex is, I’m not an idiot!” said Merlin. Arthur quietly disagreed.

Cracky PWP at it's very, very best.

*** #Only A Model by twoskeletons / gen / G / not too many words at all / crack, humor / Let's not go to Camelot, it is a silly place.

BEST MONTY PYTHON CROSSOVER EVER.

Past Imperfect by thehoyden / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / canonverse / "You're being annoying, so no, I'd have to say this seems perfectly normal."

Just a bit of fun, with an interesting ending.

Pavlov Penis by derryere / Merlin/Arthur / R/NC-17 / ~7000 words / canonverse / In which Merlin is hot for Arthur's bed, Arthur's hot for the laundry, and there's this big fucking heatwave, all over the place (?!)

You know you want to read a story with a summary like that. It's just a lot of fun.

Practical Adventures And Auspicious Pursuits by stillane / Merlin/Arthur / PG / crack / It starts with dead goats. A dead goat morning never ends well.

This story starts out as unrelenting crack, but turns into quite a sweet reveal fic. :D

Punarbhava by rotrude / Merlin/Arthur, Merlin/Will / PG-13 / 4154 words / Arthur is certainly not at all jealous of all the time Merlin spends with Reincarnated!Kitty!Will

I love cats, and also not-at-all-jealous!Arthur, so this story makes me happy.

Quickening Days by fahye_fic / Merlin/Arthur / R / 22,174 words / canonverse / Merlin and Arthur get stuck in a Groundhog's Day kind of scenario.

HEEEEEEEEEE I love this story! It's just so brilliant. I remember that it was when I read this story that I thought to myself, "now how come I can't come up with plots like the stuff the people who write for this fandom come up with?" Also, this is one of the first stories in which I saw Merlin wear a dress. This was before that was a cliche.

(Self-)Preservation by sometimesophie / Merlin/Arthur / PG / ~2900 words / canonverse / It’s a gradual realisation. But a month after the attack, five days after the fever breaks and his mind is finally his own, Arthur realises Merlin is long gone.

I've gone back and read this story, and it breaks my heart every single time. This was also back when exiled!Merlin was a relatively new thing (or, at least, not horribly overdone), but I think it holds up to the other things written about that. It's just beautiful.

The Seven Worst Kept Secrets In Camelot by linckia_blue / Merlin/Arthur, Lancelot/Gwen / PG / 1460 words / futurefic / Detailing those certain things which every child of Camelot grows up hearing stories about and would swear on their life to have never heard.

This is in the same vein as Fleet of Foot (see above) and they're actually written by the same people, but doesn't quite accomplish it as well. Still, it's worth reading. This story helped shape my personal canon of the future more than anything else.

Silent Night by fresica / Merlin/Arthur, Arthur/Morgana / Rish / modern!AU / It was an accident, that first time. They never meant for it to happen – it shouldn’t have happened, not ever, but especially not then, not like that.
sequel: Snapshots of Winter

A story about how Arthur cheats on Morgana with her brother, Merlin, over Christmas. It shouldn't be good. I should be disgusted by it. But it's not just good, it's really, really good. :O

Snow Scorching Sex by egorio / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / PWP, crack / In the winter months, Prince Arthur knew one extraordinarily effective way to warm up, and that was rolling around in bed with the pretty manservant-slash-super-secret-sorcerer, Merlin. In fact, he was so convinced of the effectiveness of this tried and perfected warming method that he believed their love could burn through anything. And by anything, what he meant was he desperately wanted to try everything.

Um, I usually feel really weird about reccing porn - and now is no exception - but this is just really hilarious. Also, quite hot.

Soar by transtempts / Merlin/Arthur / R / canonverse / Arthur grows wings.
sequel: Fealty

I'm not sure exactly what about this story sticks out so much to me (probably the wings, actually) because it's not the greatest thing ever written, but it's steller, you know. And, actually, its sequel started the line of thought that eventually led to my still-barely-started-but-I-swear-someday story about the Druids.

So, Merlin Emrys, Here Is Your Holiday by crazyboutremmy / crossover with Harry Potter / Merlin/Arthur / PG-13 / 3462 words / reincarnationfic / A reincarnated Merlin and Arthur attend Hogwarts.
also: Merlin and the Triwizard Cup rated G.

This may not be the best fanfic ever written, but it's the best HP crossover I've seen come out of the Merlin fandom, and you'd think there'd be more, you know? Seeing all of Hogwarts absolutely agog over The Great Merlin is really terrific.

Soundtrack To The Apocalypse by phantomjam / Merlin/Arthur / R / ~7700 words / AU / The best thing you can have during the apocalypse is a healthy sense of irony. Or a decent car, infinite replenishing supplies and magical powers, but the irony helps.

This story is so creepy. I love it. And also rather SPN-y, not least of which because of the awesome use of music here.

They're Like Fire by brightedelweiss / Merlin/Arthur / PG-13 / 1312 words / futurefic / In a summer storm of lightning, rain and magic, Merlin and Arthur are tied to the land.

I really, really like this story. It's so pretty. Eva told me she was writing it while I was away and I had to wait to get back and read it and - gah. It was so worth it.

#Thirteen Kisses Before The End by kepp0xy / PG-13 / Merlin/Morgana / canonverse / Thirteen kisses before Morgana leaves Camelot.

I haven't read an awful lot of Merlin/Morgana (and I wouldn't be adverse to some recs, LYDIA?), but this is by far the best story I've found thus far.

***Truth Is A Whisper by seperis / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / canonverse / Words can also be mightier than the sword.
sequel: Ten Weeks by shinetheway

Ahhh, the story that made me realize I love slutty!Merlin. There's so much more to it than just that, though. It's another one of those that's just a really, really solid story and totally worth reading.

#Undead by twoskeletons / gen / Z for zombies / not many words / crack, humor / The zombie apocalypse comes to Camelot.

If you can resist a zombie fic, you are stronger than I am. This is the cracky version, as opposed to Abide With Me (above), and it is so much fun. Even now, months after I've read it, sometimes the image of Arthur screaming BORS!!!!!!! pops into my head, IDK why. And I can't help but really want to know what was up with Gaius here.

Until The Pieces Fit by anonymous / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / It’s an accident, really, Merlin shoving his nose in where it’s not supposed to be, instead of attending at the feast, but once he’s there it’s too late to close his eyes

This is just really fantastic.

***Users Are Losers by sparky77 / Merlin/Arthur / R / crack, modern!AU / “Destiny is outlawed, you know,” Arthur says. Merlin laughs. “You try telling destiny that.”

This is one of my very favorite AUs ever! I think it's the reason I have a bit of a thing for slutty!Merlin. Just - it's brilliant. A perfect way of bringing The Magic Issue into a modern enviornment.

The Weight of the Words by waldorph / Merlin/Arthur / NC-17 / 6995 words / canonverse / Camelot is all about lying.

This was actually the first ever story that I bookmarked, so it was a long time ago. But I remember that it was just so sincere, and it really made me look at Arthur in such a different, better light (I'm naturally a Merlin fan, but I've learned to love Arthur a lot more than I did). And I love the way the author mixes Camelot politics into the mix.

*** ***We're A Storm In Somebody Else's Teacup by paperclipbitch / Merlin/Arthur, Lancelot/Gwen / NC-17/R at times / a really huge amount of words / WIP (complete), modern!AU / In which Gwen’s passive-aggressive revenge leads to, amongst other things, Merlin making a new friend. A Heroesesque AU.
note: this link is to the tag page, the first chapter is at the bottom.

This story currently holds the position of my FAVORITE FANFICTION EVER and has since I read it months and months ago. The amount of love I have for this truly cannot be articulated. Really, it's just all kinds of amazing. SO YOU MUST READ THIS. It goes on forever and some more after forever but I assure you that you will enjoy every single second of it. And the summary here is really quite inadequete, but I will let you find out what goes down as you get to it.

#What Counts by anonymous / Merlin/Gwen / PG-13 / canonverse / leading up to Merlin and Gwen's first proper kiss

Honestly, this is the only Merlin/Gwen story I've ever found that's worth reading. Do these two even have proper shippers? They should - they're so cute together!

*** #Wherein Colin Is Bradley's Babymomma by ifyouweremine / Colin/Bradley / R / 3223 words / RPS, mpreg, crack / “My super-potent sperm has knocked up Colin’s man-uterus with a demon child or possibly a ginger. Please help!” said Bradley.

Look, I'm the kind of girl who, when faced with either RPS or mpreg runs as quickly as possible in the opposite direction, so I never expected this to be THE GREATEST THING EVER and for me to wonder after reading it how I ever lived without it in my life.

Jesus, this took for-fucking-ever!

THIS POST IS DEDICATED TO STARRY.

2009-08-03T07:31:39Z

15. gilmore girls;

This show makes the list primarily because it's one of those things that I grew up watching, and which I really love. But besides from nostalgic purposes, it's also a very, very good show. It's an incredibly smart, literary show - no one person will ever be able to get all the references in it simply because they are far too spread through the reference spectrum - and it's funny and just lovable. Plus, the characters are extremely endearing. All of them. And it's got an ensemble cast. Plus, Luke/Lorelai is one of the most OTP OTPs of all time.

14. the legend of the seeker;

I've only watched a few episodes of this so far, but I really, really love it. What's not to love? It's a fantasy show about a chosen one who has to save the world (which is not our world, btw, it's some other world somewhere, obvs, because it's fantasy) from an evil tyrant. It's got kickass slow motion fight sequences, magic, a fantastic canon ship you can totally get behind, pretty people and just an overall epic feel. It's highly enjoyable.

13. the black donnellys;

This show got cancelled way, way before it's time. It lasted only about six episodes (although they made thirteen, all of which are on the DVD) before NBC canned it, making it my first show to be cancelled. But it's absolutely fantastic. It's the story of four Irish-American brothers growing up in the New York mob community and how they take care of each other. It's not like other shows I normally watch, and it's not like anything else that's been on television since The Sorpranos, but it's superbly written and well acted and I miss this show like crazy.

12. skins;

Like I said at the time, I never thought I'd love a show that made me go OMG SHE'S PREGNANT!!!!!!!1!!!! quite as much as I love Skins. The only word I can use to describe Skins is decadent. Everything is over the top, everyone is having too much sex and taking too many drugs and not paying nearly enough attention to their families and their school work and it's just a blast. It completely changed the way I look at British teenagers, which is bad, because I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to live like that and actually stay alive, but oh well. The third series went down hill a little when they changed casts, it's just not the same, but I was more attached to the first generation than any other set of characters I have ever been on the whole. And it gave us some brilliant young actors.

11. being human;

Being Human takes a ridiculous concept - a werewolf, a ghost and a vampire sharing a house in Bristol - and makes it real. Makes it human, if you'll pardon the pun. It's just a very steller show, with good characters you really care about, despite the fact that they're monsters, interesting villans and a mythology all its own. It's like a mix between Buffy and a character drama.

10. how i met your mother;

This is the only sitcom on this list and it's on here because it is so much more than a sitcom. With a cast including Alyson Hannigan, Jason Segal and the incomparable Neil Patrick Harris, HIMYM has given us more catch phrases and ongoing jokes than any other show I watch and two ships (Barney/Robin and Marshall/Lily) that is it almost impossible not to ship. This is another cast of characters which are extremely endearing, especially the awesome Barney Stinson.

09. veronica mars;

This is the reason Kristen Bell is who she is. And it's well deserved. She is Veronica Mars, the teenage private detective living in Southern California. I know it sounds kind of campy, but it's really not. KBell owns the show as the lead, but the other characters are also well fleshed out and lovable and the story arcs are some of the most chilling I've ever watched. This is just really, really good storytelling. And it's one of those shows you just have to watch, you know?

08. pushing daisies;

;_____; I'm still not over this show getting the boot from ABC. It was so, so lovely. Beautiful, well acted, well written, quirky and just lovely. Visually, it's the most stunning show I have ever seen, it's got the cutest canon ship in the history of the world, and LEE PACE. Besides, who doesn't want to watch a show about a baker who can bring people back from the dead and uses this mysterious power of his to solve murders with his PI friend and his alive again girlfriend who he can't touch without her dying?

07. fringe;

Personally, I was hooked on this show from the pilot. I was watching it through my fingers going THIS IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING BUT I CANNOT LOOK AWAY and that was that. I needed to know what was up with the Pattern. ~~I needed Peter and Olivia to hook up.~~ And from there it just got better. It's one of those shows with a ~mystery. The premise is that technology is moving too fast for us to keep up with and now terrorists are using it against us to....do what, besides kill tons of people and create huge, disgusting crime scenes? Or something. And by the end of the season, there is some serious shit going down, that was just amazing. You must have heard about the cliffhanger by now. Plus, the main character, Olivia, is one of the strongest, most kickass women on TV and that is just awesome.

06. chuck;

This show is so awesome, it got saved from almost certain cancellation. How badass is that? Here's another show with some of the most endearing characters, with one of the biggest hearts on television. It's a comedy about a nerd who gets all the United States government's secrets downloaded into his head, and then the CIA and the NSA send out agents to watch over him. It's a comedy (or dramedy) about spies. Awesome, yes? And, of course, Chuck/Sarah is another one of those ships you can't help but root for.

05. buffy the vampire slayer

If you haven't watched Buffy yet, where the hell have you been? It's one of the best shows ever, and just one of those that you have to see. You will love it, I promise.

04. supernatural;

Supernatural is one of my favorite shows. It makes me sad that the fandom is so insane and that it's on the CW because I think it gets written off by a lot of people when it shouldn't just be over looked. Give Supernatural a chance. It's the best show on the CW. And yeah, that's really not saying much, but it's light years ahead of anything else on there tbh. Jared and Jensen (especially Jensen) are absolutely amazing actors who are fated to not ever get the credit they deserve, unfortunately, and it's got one of the best supporting casts around. Plus the story telling his far from shabby. Four seasons in, the show is still as fresh and even more thought provoking and swinging from hilarious to cracky/meta to scaring the shit out of you as it ever was.

03. lost;

If anyone tells you that Lost is too confusing, they're wrong. The truth is that Lost is just confusing enough. Yes, you have to pay attention - close attention - but if you're up to date, everything makes as much sense as it's supposed to. And, really, the headache is part of the fun. Lost is the best show on television right now, hands down. It has the best writing, some of the best acting and the best twists and turns of anything. Once you get into it, this show grabs you and won't let you go and you will be crying and laughing and WTFing the whole way through. I cannot overstate how fantastic this show is, and how much you need to be watching it.

02. doctor who & torchwood;

The word I always use to describe Doctor Who is magnificent. It's really like nothing else you've ever seen before. It's science fiction to its core, but it's not like other science fiction. Maybe because it's so absolutely British, idk. But it has a certain charm about it which is like all its own. And if you're not watching it, you're missing out on one of the most enjoyable shows I have ever seen. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll never look at blue port-a-pottys the same way ever again. And Torchwood, it's HELLO WE ARE AN ADULT SHOW WITH SEX AND VIOLENCE AND SWEARING AND GAY PEOPLE spinoff, has it's own little charm as well. It's campy and ridiculous and filled with sex and violence, but it's also got a heart of its own. Which will break yours before it's through, undoubtedly - Who will do that as well - but it'll be a fun ride.

01. merlin;

Heh, you all saw it coming. What can I say about Merlin that I haven't already? But seriously. This show creeps up on you. I was skeptical about it too, when I started watching. But stick with it for a few episodes, pretty soon you'll find yourself obsessed with it without being quite sure how that happened and then you'll thank me. And really, the young actors on this show are truly superb. Not only are Colin and Bradly ridiculous and ridiculously good looking, they're also ridiculously talented. And that goes for Angel and Katie as well.