Ghostofafruit

Merlin had been crushing on Leon for months. Look, they were friends. Sort of. He had a strange thing going with Arthur, with meant he'd been pulled close to the group. But he couldn't just outright tell Leon! Not when so many people might turn up at any moment. Because Arthur's little group went anywhere they wanted without care, most of the time. They'd be interrupted if it wasn't in private.

Sure he could invite Leon over. But it wouldn't just be Leon. He'd tried that before, and Elyan and Arthur, and even Gwen had showed too. He couldn't have the conversation he needed to have with a crowd. Not with onlookers so nearby.

Merlin trusted Leon. He did. And he wanted to have a relationship. It might just be wistful thinking, but he was pretty sure Leon wanted that too.

There were only two things standing in his way. His inability to get Leon alone, and the secret he harboured close to his chest. The secret that could at worst get him sentenced to death, or at best sentence him to a long and lonely life in the castle's deepest prison. The castle's prison was reserved now for magic users, for it's centuries of defending against magics of all sorts made it all that more impossible for magic users to escape. That, and it kept them somewhere the ruling elite could keep an eye on them.

Arthur was next in line to the throne, though he didn't always act it in their fancy school. A fancy school Merlin had only gotten in to for Gaius's petitioning. The majority of his little group (their little group, Merlin supposed) was made up of those that would one day hold power around the ruling of Camelot. Not that they acted like it often.

He couldn't date and keep that secret, so he had to trust it to Leon. But only after he knew for certain he could trust Leon. And those conversations could only happen in private.

Merlin's noticed, in the past few weeks, how busy Leon has been. How quick Leon is to run away, to hide in a crowd. As if avoiding Merlin.

It was only by chance they end up in the school's cleanest bathroom, alone. Merlin hadn't arranged for it, but he wasn't going to pass up an opportunity. Though he was sure, with Leon's habits, that their time together, alone, would not last.

Merlin kept his eyes down, staring at his hands in the sink. Leon was doing much the same, but he couldn't risk his eyes being seen, a far too obvious sign of the truth of what he intended to do.

Unlike most others Merlin did not need spells and charms and incantations for his magic. He was something older, something more innate. A magic that did his bidden without spells and words to dictate it's path, though it could be woven through spellcasting and incantations of Merlin thought it necessary.

The door to the bathroom didn't have a lock. It was a simple push door, but with a thought and a tug of magic, the door jammed, impossibly stuck and locked. Trapping them.

A good thing too, because as soon as Merlin felt the magic click into place, Leon was rushing for the door. He pushed against it, almost walking into it with the muscle memory that kept him going.

"Leon wait," Merlin said, though he knew Leon had no choice, 'trapped' as they were.

"The door is stuck," Leon mumbled.

"There's something I wanted to talk to you about," Merlin went on, as if he hadn't heard Leon, hadn't seen him push against the door with all his might.

"Merlin, the door is jammed," Leon said louder.

"Ah," he said, not having thought out to talk around the obvious. "Someone will find us soon enough," Merlin said finally.

"We'll be late for class," Leon muttered, as if that actually mattered. They'd be excused because they were trapped.

"I think we should talk," Merlin said instead of anything helpful.

"Now isn't the time, we're trapped in the fucking toilets!" Leon said, not turning to face Merlin. Merlin wanted to go about it gently, wanted to ease in to it. But Leon was making that impossible.

"I have a crush on you," Merlin rushed out. Leon said nothing, but he stopped his useless shoving against the door.

"Now," Leon said, audibly swallowing. "Now isn't the time Merlin. We're trapped in here."

"Oh come on? That's all you can say?" he asked, raising his voice slightly.

"What do you want me to say Merlin? We are trapped in a bathroom! This isn't the time or the goddamned place for this conversation!"

"And when is?" he asked. "When is? When you hide from me? When you run before I can you ask to go somewhere private? When we're surrounded by our friends?"

"Just, not now Merlin," Leon said quietly.

"Why are you running from me?" Merlin asked. Leon swallowed, and finally turned to look at him.

"In some lights your eyes look almost golden," Leon started. "In some lights it is as if your eyes turn golden when a branch snaps as Arthur climbs a tree, a branch he hadn't stepped on but might've because he over-estimated it's strength."

It was Merlin's turn to swallow. Fear rather suddenly flooding him. Perhaps, he thought distantly, he should've trapped them somewhere with more than one entrance so that he may run for a change.

"And in some lights it is as if your room tidies itself. As if the hoover goes on it's own, and the t-shirts hang themselves in your wardrobe," Leon went on. "And in those lights, I can't quite find it in myself to care despite what it might suggest, what it might mean. I am loyal to the country, to the throne, to the land and it's laws. But in those lights I can't find it in me to be loyal to what those laws demand of me."

"You know, then," Merlin forced out, frozen still by the sink.

"I have for some time, I think," Leon admitted, turning his eye away. "I don't think there is any place for this conversation, least of all a bathroom."

"I was going to tell you," Merlin admits quickly. "But, only after I knew if you wanted me the way I thought you did." Leon shakes his head, and Merlin isn't sure if it's a denial of the words themselves, or a denial of the feelings Merlin had assumed were there.

"That's the problem," Leon whispered, his words seeming to almost echo in the school bathroom. And Leon had been right, the school toilets were no place for this conversation. But Merlin had been right too, there'd be no other chance.

"I do have those feelings Merlin, and it is blinding me from the duties I've been sworn too since birth," he admitted finally.

"Is it right to lock me, to lock anyone up for something they might not have chosen?" Merlin asked. Leon stood silent for a time, back to the forced closed bathroom door. He didn't know if Leon knew he was the one keeping it shut, or if he believed it to be a coincidence.

"Magic is deadly," Leon said finally.

"Magic is tool, a tool some chose and a tool others are forced to wield," Merlin said, parroting Gauis's words. Leon smilled just slightly.

"Did you choose it?" he asked. Merlin swallowed, and shook his head.

"I did magic before I could walk, before I could crawl," Merlin admitted, voice barely a whisper. But in the echoing quiet of the bathroom Leon heard him.

They did nothing for a time. Leon looking right at him now, but Merlin only managing to stare at Leon's shoes. The silence suffocated them, swallowed them whole, kept them in it's embrace they accepted all that had passed in the school bathroom.

"I like you Merlin, I do. But perhaps that's a conversation better saved for sometime after you get us out of here," Leon said. Merlin swallowed again, a promise of something maybe. If Merlin was lucky.

In a burst of confidence, he looked up and met Leon's eyes. They flashed gold as the door unjammed, free from the spell Merlin had forced upon to keep it closed.