i'm on the right side (with you)

Chapter 2

In the morning, Merlin finds that the power is still out. The rain has stopped but the sky is a brooding grey, it's decisions undecided as it hovers as heavy clouds. Merlin thinks about how he won't need to water his garden for a few days. He feeds Archie to keep himself busy, cursing the power-cut because he'd rather not have to deal with defrosted dog meat and resetting the time on the oven. Merlin waters the plants in his kitchen, bleaches the toilet, collects the ash from the fireplace and refills it with wood and kindling. It's easy to stay preoccupied until lunchtime, and he's just about to head into the kitchen to make something to eat, when Merlin sees the sun appear in a gap in the clouds and suddenly it feels like his head has been cracked open. He's blinded by the soaring pain that hits him tenfold and he drops to the floor as a deafening crack of thunder fills the air.

As if on instinct, Merlin pulls himself to his feet with his head still feeling like it's splitting into two, but all that matters is what he sees outside the window. His vision may be unfocused but he knows that his eyes aren't betraying him. Merlin would know even if he was blind, even if the light had left the earth.

He doesn't remember leaving the kitchen, but now Merlin is running, not caring that the water logged ground is ruining his boots and the damp air is seeping into his coat. He runs, towards the lake, his chest aching with every breath that he takes. Merlin stops abruptly at the edge, and hesitates.

If a thousand years had not passed, then Merlin would have sprinted knee deep into the lake. He would have taken no care for the sharp, cold cutting edge of the lake as it would seep into his clothes and startle his skin. A twenty-seven year old Merlin would have rushed into the depths, with the soles of his feet digging into the coarse dirt beneath as he would push against the water.

If a thousand years had not passed, then Merlin would have made any means to reach Arthur, his king who stood detachedly in the middle of the lake. Desperation would have seized him, snapping the careful control inside, making him want to feel, to touch, to grab every single fibre of Arthur, to make sure he was safe.

But a thousand years has passed, and with the sight of a man in chainmail standing in the very lake he should've stayed under, bones and metal rotting away, Merlin doesn't do what he would have done if he'd been ignorant of the thousand years to come. All Merlin does is stand there. He doesn't touch the lake. He doesn't go near it.

The man in the middle of the lake sees him. Recognition springs in the young man's face, and a laugh that belongs to Arthur echoes out of his mouth. The man starts towards shore, where Merlin is stood.

Merlin is having some sick and twisted nightmare. The man from the lake would pull him under. The lake would draw out his last breath, and he would feel and hear Arthur, the real Arthur, for a split second until Merlin will choke on the air and grab the white sheets that are wrapped around him.

Just like the rest of his dreams, Merlin can't move. He stands, transfixed, as the man comes closer, with a face etched with every detail of what Arthur had looked like on that bleak and dreary morning when Merlin had held his gaze for the last time.

Unlike the rest of his dreams, it all feels too real, as if Merlin could touch the surface of the water and feel how tangible it is, how truthful the world around him is.

As the man reaches the edge of the lake, causing the water to lap less cautiously over the grass bank, he stumbles. As if it is instinct, Merlin catches the man, hands grabbing his arms. Merlin feels the contact trip the fuse of his magic, like how a spark dangerously ignites for a split second in a damaged cable, almost causing him to pull away from the electric shock that pinches in the nerves of his hands.

Merlin's head snaps up, locking eyes with the man.

Dream or not, Merlin is drowning.

The man is looking at him with delight and astonishment.