For the love of Merthur

Pushing away from the window, Arthur stowed his phone in his jeans pocket and meandered down the hall. Thick rugs muffled his footsteps, which had always creaked treacherously on the old wood when he was a boy, unable to sleep, sneaking out of bed and across the house to sit below that very window which had the best view of the stars stretching out in a great carpet above the woods behind the house. The rugs had appeared by the time Arthur made his first visit home from uni. This was due to the sudden lack of children one might be tracking by ear throughout the house, ever watchful, in one’s own way.

Arthur came to his childhood bedroom. Lamp-light glowed around the edges of the door, and Arthur pushed it open.

There was his father, sitting on the side of his double bed with dark red covers he had, very solemnly at the age of twelve, exchanged in the place of his old footie sheets. Uther had his hands clasped tightly between his knees, hunched over with his glasses beside him and his head bowed, but when Arthur came in, he straightened up. For a moment, they only stared at each other. Uther’s hair—well thinning at this point, steely gray as long as Arthur could remember it—stuck up in the back as if he’d been running his hand over it non-stop. He looked tired and old.

“Please sit,” Uther said.

Arthur sat with a foot or so between them, Uther towards the foot of the bed, Arthur towards the head. Despite the distance and their rough equivalence in mass, the give of the mattress naturally pulled them toward each other and forced each to sit stiffly to remain apart.

“You know, I blame myself,” said Uther.

“Father—”

“Please, just—listen.”

Arthur folded his arms tightly across his body, so tense in posture it pulled his shoulders inward. He’d been prepared for the both of them to spend a night licking their wounds, to have a grim but cordial breakfast, then depart with only familiar hurts. But if Father insisted on having him sit here and listen while he droned on about how clearly only his parental deficiencies could have produced a son as inadequate as Arthur, well: Merlin might get his deepest desire, and not in the way Arthur had intended to fulfill any of his short-term dreams: but Arthur’s relationship with his father, such as it was, would not survive this.

Uther took his silence for acquiescence, while Arthur only searched for ice to numb what he was sure was coming.

“I blame myself, because it was I who spent every day of your life instilling the values I thought would be important in your life. I molded you into a man who would stand tall, who would carry himself with a pride he deserved, to hold convictions and fight for them against all censure and opposition. Yet I...I have had hours to think, and perhaps all these thoughts I should have had sooner.” He rubbed his palms on the knees of the slacks he still wore at this hour, then took up his glasses and wiped at them, for something to do with his hands. “I was the one who pushed you, yet when confronted with the man you have become—proud and upright and willing to fight for your convictions—I react poorly. And I am sorry, Arthur.”

“Wait—what?”

The tension slipped from Arthur’s shoulders like a too-large coat, the sort a son might throw on to playact at being his father. He leaned across the space he’d put between them.

This whole time, the two men had picked their own spots on the walls to stare at instead of each other: old rugby trophies, a bookshelf that was half suspiciously-pristine textbooks and half well-thumbed mystery novels, tape-marks on the paint where Arthur had pulled down his childhood posters and left imperfects Uther had never even tried to smooth over. But their eyes met now, and if either had a wetness that perhaps exceeded the norm, well, they were both upright and proud and all the rest, and like gentlemen, would let it go unremarked.

“You are my son,” Uther said. “If a vulgar, communistic Welshman is going to make you happy, of course I ought to give my blessing. Of course. I hope one day you may forgive me for ever acting otherwise.”

And what was Arthur supposed to do with that, other than grab his father by the shoulder and pull him into a rough hug, and perhaps drip a tear or two on his expensive businesslike sweater, under circumstances where he wouldn’t see it? Uther’s hands came up to pat his back, at first almost delicately, but then firm, clutching, a man who had seen something irreplaceable and vital nearly crushed by his own carelessness.

“He will. He already has,” Arthur swore damply, with a manly sort of sniffle. “And I will. Too. I promise.”

“Good. That’s good.”

They disentangled themselves with much dignity, then assumed identical postures alike to the one Uther had worn when Arthur came in: leant forward, hands clasped, elbows on their knees. Done with the business of emotions, they once more ceased to make eye contact, which was right, and good.

“Of course, you will have the wedding here at the house,” said Uther briskly. “You young people are prone to desiring a more modern venue, but the gardens have been recently profiled, and even if tradition is to be eschewed the historical value…”

Arthur gazes at the not-quite-man stood before him. It had been naïve of him to picture Emrys as an old man, he knew this, but at the very least he had expected, well, a man. The creature in front of him does look like a man, at first glance, but when one looks more closely, little discrepancies start to pop up, warning that all is not as it seems. Those golden eyes that seem to glow in the half-light; the long, spidery fingers that appear to taper off into claws; the hints of two stubby horns poking out from the top of his head. No, this is no man. This is a creature of magic.

“So, will you come to Camelot with me?” Arthur asks, all of a sudden feeling rather small in the vast expanse of the cavern.

“Well, it is certainly an interesting proposition,” the creature says, slinking towards him. His feet drag soundlessly across the floor, and Arthur swears he sees the outline of a tail as he adjusts his torch. “But, pray tell, what is in this for me?”

The not-quite-man is almost level with him, and Arthur had clearly underestimated his size. The creature is a whole head taller than him, and his golden eyes are locked on Arthur, drinking in the young king’s appearance.

“Well,” Arthur stammers, internally cursing the druids for leading him here without properly explaining what he would be facing, “the druids did, er, mention the possibility of, well, a marriage proposal, but I see how absurd that is now, of course.” He hastily continues, praying that the torchlight does not reveal the rather unexpected rush of blood to his cheeks. “Naturally, I have already repealed the magic ban, and I shall have need of an Advisor on Magic, or some sort of Court Sorcerer if you would prefer…”

“No,” the not-quite-man says. “I shall take up your first offer. I shall be Queen.”

Arthur’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly.

Merlin chuckles softly as he takes in Arthur’s shocked countenance. The King is rather adorable like this, all things considered, and Merlin concludes that he is most certainly the most interesting man to have ever stepped foot in his cave, and perhaps the most beautiful one as well.