This was supposed to be a writing exercise - i think that recent uploads have been getting worse - but it kind of morphed into a one-shot. i quite like it though.

Anyway, please review and tell me what you think - good or bad.

Blackberries

He checked his watch - twelve thirty. There's still time.

It was always better when they had the whole afternoon, from midday until six. Six hours of... Well... The very thing his tongue needed to taste. Blackberries.

Looking left and right, he sighed, smiling as his eyes fell upon the tall green black-speckled blackberry bush. Mind awash with pleasant sweet-tasting memories, he stepped eagerly towards it, pulling the first fruit from the prickly branch. Ignoring the spiking pain as his thumb caught a thorn, drawing a crimson bead of blood - sharp against the purple of the berry.

With the first fruit, he remembered the first time he'd been here. The time they'd met, when his twelve-year old head had willingly been caught by incisively jagged words, 'I haven't seen you around here before'. Turning his head to find the source of that striking, childishly shrill voice his eyes had been twice as captivated by the sight that befell him. Golden hair, blue eyes and that red t-shirt Merlin hadn't been able to scrape enough change together to buy. In his young mind that had seemed the most important detail. Now it was nearly insignificant. Merlin wasn't annoyed at this boy for not having seen him before, despite the fact that he would come to the blackberry bush every Sunday afternoon - therefore, surely his ears - he thought bitterly - would make him more apparent. Moreover, he was the sort of boy that preferred not to be seen, and to see. So, yes, he'd seen Arthur here before, with his friends. With the tall, fat boy that Merlin hadn't ever dared to look in the eye. Too scared to. He had looked down at himself and sighed at how skinny and weak he was. No match for a boy of his stature. Shyness, also, was no match for a boy with a tongue as sharp as Arthur's.

The second bite he took brought back memories of the amount of times they'd collected blackberries for Hunith's blackberry crumble. He smiled with unreserved delight as he recalled squashing several purple fruits into blond hair, leaving a deep mauve stain that tarnished the gold - and then, as Merlin had noticed with cleverly disguised smugness, that the dye hadn't washed out the following Sunday. The blond boy had been choked halfway between tears and laughter, and thankfully, had gone for the latter. Or today may not have been happening - not how it is, anyway.

After picking another, he popped it into his mouth. Grimacing at the sourness. And that only caused that searing pain that bled into adrenaline in the base of his spine, as he thought about something that had happened two years ago. When he realised he loved him. With all his heart, loved him. That sort of deadening, mind-blowing head-swelling love that forced a usual teenage crush to bitter undistinguished darkness. When he been sat on this very spot, and admitted, sat across from the boy that occupied so many of his frequent thoughts, that he'd never seen anything other that provoked emotions such that could consumed him so entirely, and he'd never heard anything that numbed his mind and twisted his attention in such a way.

"How long have you been waiting?" A voice called, and his mind was numbed and his attention twisted, just as it always was. The voice was different to the high flowing one he'd heard in his reverie, this was harsher, and it grated ever so slightly in his ears. If anything, it tightened the muscles in his chest with greater force. It made him feel more.

Arthur.

Merlin looked around, his gaze finding the boy walking through an ivy arch that cut an angelic pathway through the hedge, smiling as he saw that same t-shirt - Arthur insisted to re-buy it in a bigger size every time he grew out of the last. Simply because he knew Merlin had wanted it - only this time, it didn't hang loose over a lanky, pubescent frame, it clung to tightly toned and perfected muscle. Something Merlin took both pleasure and pain in noticing. With empty, silent pleas and please he wished his mind could wander elsewhere, but that gaze simply refused to drop him. Instead, it continued to hold him motionlessly suspended above the sweet and sour blackberries they'd collected, made into pies, squashed into each other's hair and realised over. "About half an hour," he looked at his watch again to make certain - twelve forty-two. Okay, so not quite half an hour. In fact, not quite quarter of an hour. But Arthur didn't know that - nor did he need to know. "You're wearing that t-shirt again." He pointed out, sighing a cheek-splitting grin, and involuntarily stepping forwards, so that he and Arthur were less than a metre apart.

When he reached him, when his eyes let Merlin promptly fall back down to the patch of pavement-side grass he should be stood on, Arthur's arm spun him around, so that they were side-to-side. Merlin could feel Arthur's thigh through his trousers, his hip through his shirt, and at once he was consumed. "I know how much you like it," he teased, flexing his arms behind his back, breaking the contact between him and Merlin (that the latter needed). Merlin tutted, hiding his current enjoyment of seeing quite how talented those arms and chest probably were. It was typical of Arthur to show off in this way. If you asked him for a word that summed himself up, he'd probably say 'Muscles'. If you asked Merlin the same question, he'd probably say 'Blackberries'. Because that fruit had come to define him more than he would have thought possible.

"So. Arthur, how are you?" Routine, of course, he would pretend he didn't really care for the answer. But honestly, it had become the most influential question when it came to Merlin's own mood.

"Fine." Arthur replied, with the same essence of routine, "same as all the other times you've asked me that question."

Merlin threw his head back and laughed. The sound gripping Arthur by the jaw and turning his head to look at him with unguarded confusion. "Yeah, whatever,"

"What?"

"Well, seriously. You are the most hormonal person I know. In fact, I think I have enough fingers on one hand to count the number of times you've actually been telling the truth when you've answered 'fine' to that question."

"Don't be ridiculous, Merlin,"

Merlin stopped walking, his back to the blackberry bush, "I'm not," he grinned, laughing in the most exasperated way, "Look. Do you remember that time when you spent the majority of the afternoon crying because..." He stopped; retracting a foot that he thought was either dangerously close or over the line. He remembered the tears and knew instantly that he didn't want to see them again.

"Because of my father." Arthur confirmed. No emotion in his eyes or on his lips.

"Yeah." He apologised, hanging his head. He never liked going here, "sorry, I didn't really want to say it. I didn't want you upset again,"

Arthur grinned, and slapped him on the shoulder, "Well, as you should remember, even that afternoon I was 'fine',"

Merlin looked at him, confused; there had very distinctly been tears. Tears and wailing and undignified cries. Not that Merlin had minded, he'd just been glad he'd been given the chance, and had been privileged enough to own the shoulder he cried on. His heart fluttered. He'd been lucky that Arthur had chosen him to talk to.

"After you made me feel better," Arthur smirked, "as bony as your shoulder was, it helped. Well, that and when you tried to make me a blackberry Smoothie with nothing but your bare hands!" He laughed, and Merlin blushed - what else was a thirteen year old boy supposed to do? He couldn't think of anything else. Blackberries were so hard to fault, and would never be a mistake.

"Yeah, well." He should have finished that sentence. But couldn't bring himself to. "Then there was the time you'd been angry because you'd failed your Maths mock,"

"And, I have reason to believe you sorted me out of that one as well." He smirked, wagging a finger in a mock-pondering manner, "it's just lucky Edwin let me do a retake. My father would have been so mad," he scratched his chin and watched Merlin out of the corner of his truth-evoking eyes,

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Oh, come on, Merlin. Don't tell me you didn't have a 'quiet word' with him when you came 'round for tea that time when he was having a meeting with my father,"

"Arthur, how could you possibly suggest such a thing, as if I would interfere with a personal tutor," Merlin remembered, as if it had been yesterday, the long talk he'd had with Edwin. The tears he'd so nearly accidentally shed over the thought of another afternoon with Arthur crying because of his father's cruelty. He guessed Edwin must have seen the sincerity, and possibly the fear, because he'd given in.

"Sure, Merlin, sure."

"Anyway," he said, praying for the subject to change. With every further word he felt himself getting closer to the truth. The truth he wasn't ready to share. With every reencounter with something he'd done to help Arthur in the past - because he could devote himself without a second thought to helping Arthur - he felt the clarity of his feelings unravelling from the blur that friendship always brought - friendship undefined and ambiguous. Ducking his head, he gestured for them to walk further along the pavement, extending the vicinity that had seen his equivocal views of relationship boundaries, past Sophia's old house. A memory sparked into his head, "all right, but you can't deny that you were upset when Sophia dumped you!"

"Yes, I may have been a bit miffed - getting dumped andall - and I'll have you know, I was 'fine' after five or so minutes." He was quick to correct, and even quicker to realise his mistake. Merlin wasn't supposed to know how quickly he gotten over that. Merlin was supposed to think he grieved for at least the afternoon. How was he supposed to hide the fact that he'd only kept the tears coming because Merlin had held him... without hesitation.

"That's not how I remember it."

"And how do you remember it?"

"You were crying and moaning and just generally being really depressed for all of five hours. Five hours that I should have spent doing revision."

"Yeah, well I only kept that up because..." Arthur looked up at the taller boy, and saw the raised eyebrows and querying stare.

"Because of what?"

Arthur's stomach churned, heat rising up his neck and spreading blotchy fingers across his cheeks. Merlin frowned. Arthur rounded the dark-haired boy, never once making eye contact and picked the biggest blackberry he could find, "...you and your make-shift blackberry Smoothies are far too amusing to miss out on," he snickered.

Merlin grinned in return, but part of him sunk in disappointment - perhaps visibly. Seriously. After this many years he should know never to hope. At least not to hope for that. Merlin hit him playfully over the back of the head as Arthur tried to take a bite of his blackberry, doing that tediously long-winded way of chewing off each little bobble. Needless to say, the swift movement resulted with purple stains being strewn across his face. He cussed and slapped Merlin back, who wouldn't deny being rather relieved that he wouldn't have to watch Arthur bite into it. Watch the purple stain his lips. He didn't think he'd be able to bear that.

"Anyway," Arthur started, grabbing Merlin by the shoulder and forcing him over to a dry, clear patch of grass where he made him sit, quite forcibly pushing him down by both shoulders, "You're picking out the negative times when I supposedly haven't been fine. What about the positive times."

"To be honest, Arthur, I fail to see how your cockiness can be seen as a positive."

"You should be pleased for me, my achievements are impressive," he took a seat opposite him, so they were looking each other in the eye. A mutual gaze that should have held time itself in purgatory. Time, because it shouldn't have ever ended. But then, both had to blink.

Merlin rolled his eyes, "Really. I think 'impressive' is a little... Extravagant to describe passing the cycling proficiency test,"

Arthur fell backwards, laughing, spreading his arms wide on the grass behind him. Mind swelling with contentment, even though the burning flare in his chest was willing his to be discontented. But how could he? Being so close to the thing that mattered most. The grass tickled the back of his neck and the sun scorched his eyes and spread heat across his cheeks and forehead. The only thing that was missing was the cool of Merlin's fingers entwined with his own.

"I don't think I've ever seen you as happy as you were that day."

Arthur put bent arms behind his head, movie-like relaxation. He had the face to match it, too. "I was proud. And so was dad."

Raising a conspicuous eyebrow, he moved so he could see the laying boy's face better, "So that's the real reason, it wasn't the accomplishment."

"That. And you hugged me." His face was suddenly serious. His smile disappearing at the corners but his eyes remained content. Swarmed and swallowed by blissful reverie. Both boys were remembering the feel of the other's arms around they backs, around their waists. Only, neither knew it. However, Merlin was frowning again, surprised that this statement should be made with such gratification. Fizzy and burning from the stomach upwards, the frown widened, spreading into a beaming smile as Arthur's gaze met his. Arthur opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but then, deciding to best keep it compressed and strangled inside him, closed it again.

"Go on." Merlin prompted, playing on the trait that Arthur held that made him feel the need to tell everyone everything. Not like Merlin. He told everyone nothing. Except Arthur, who he told most things. But even that trust had its restrictions. For obvious reasons.

"It's nothing,"

"Your eyes are telling me a different story,"

Arthur half-scoffed, half-sighed, "God, trust you Merlin. The eyes." He waved a fluttering hand, mocking intelligence? - Merlin thought.

"Well, it's obvious," He settled himself kneeling beside his friend, the opportune position to watch him. To watch his features change as he thought of something, something pleasant or something that caused him distress? With Arthur it was becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the two. The only main difference being that Merlin hated to see Arthur in distress.

"No. It's not. You just look too hard." He exhaled heavily as he said it, this was typical Merlin. But then, he didn't want anything other than 'the typical Merlin' - the one who was watching him with intent and wide eyes, like a child would watch its older sibling. With an unhidden sense of admiration. That was enough to get Arthur's heart to speed up until it would be heard as little more stuttered than a hum.

'It would be impossible to look at you with any less interest', Merlin was tempted to reply. But he knew that wouldn't get him anywhere. "That's me," he sighed.

Merlin fiddled with a blade of grass between his fingers, listening as Arthur's laughter disappeared into the silence and the distant hiss of traffic. This was how moments beside the blackberry bush had always been, and he'd be lying if he said the fruit from those plants wasn't the key to his happiness. Because, if the sweetness of the blackberries brought the sweeter side of Arthur, he would eat until he was sick. Not the hostile side that he remembered seeing as Arthur was with his friends, as he'd pushed him and shoved him and got the fat boy to sit on him. He smiled at the memory, although at the time he'd found it hard to stem tears. It seemed that Arthur had been extinguished or at least drowned to flickering embers by just that afternoon. The new Arthur had come to find him as he'd huddled, sheltered by the hollow in the back of the blackberry bush that Merlin was watching now, he'd cried and he'd apologised and he'd promised he'd do anything to change it.

Merlin made him promise to meet him by the blackberries every Sunday for the next two years.

Arthur had.

When those two years were up, and Merlin was two weeks from turning fifteen, Merlin had gone to this place just because he wanted to see. He wanted to see if the fondness he'd found in Arthur, and the kindness and the difference, wasn't just because he'd promised he would. Sure enough. There, as he'd rounded the corner he'd seen Arthur round this afternoon; he'd spotted the blond head and nearly exploded with joy. Not being abandoned, even after a promise has expired, simply means that... Well, it means something more than being sat on and laughed at and pushed and shoved. It means that someone actually cares.

They hadn't spoken about this revelation, but Merlin had seen the recognition in Arthur's eyes - a similar expression to the one he was seeing now. "How many years has it been now?" He asked, although he knew the answer - as if he would ever stop counting.

There was no deliberation over what exactly it was that Merlin meant. Arthur's thoughts had been so perfectly in sync with Merlin's. "Five. And seventeen weeks, if you want to be completely precise."

"I do."

Arthur smiled. "You know what?"

"What?" Merlin asked, as if scripted, and the butterflies in his stomach were let loose,

"I think," he paused, so he could appreciate the beauty he was, for the first time, just about to speak, "I think that even as I made that promise I knew I'd never keep it."

"Arthur," Instinctively, he replied, muddled as to what his friend meant, "You did keep it. I mean, as far as I know, five years is longer than two."

"Exactly. You made me promise I would meet you for two years. I haven't done that; I've met you for five,"

Merlin thought about it, realising how long ago it was that that fairy died. Changing things was the opposite of what Merlin wanted. And he was glad Arthur broke his promise. As cruel as it sounded, he was glad the fairy died.

Arthur jumped up from lying on the ground, steadying himself as his head spun. And Merlin was left staring at the place where Arthur had a few seconds ago been laid, green blades of grass pressed down flat against the soil. Leaving an outline. An outline of Arthur. He was back within minutes, holding two of the biggest blackberries he'd been able to find. He tossed one to Merlin, whose reflexes shouldn't really have let him down. It rolled down his palm and slightly down his wrist, he tried to catch it with the other, looking up in time to see Arthur eat his own, then accidentally squishing it between two grasping hands. "Ah," he said, "I'll just get another."

Just as he was swinging a leg around to push himself to his feet, Arthur's hand reached out and grabbed his. Merlin felt the need to shiver under his dominating touch, but, using the restraint he'd had to teach himself, he refused to give in, merely watching with eager eyes as Arthur traced his fingers along the collections of juice. Merlin's mind was running wild, needless to say. Scratching slightly, Arthur's index finger touched the drying blood over where a thorn had pricked the thumb earlier. He didn't frown, just revised that area for a while longer then moved back to the largest puddle of black liquid in the centre of the palm. Merlin shifted, not uncomfortably, but to find a more comfortable position - the gentle touch was giving way to the most comfort he'd ever known.

The blond paused what he was doing, taking time to look at the tip of his thumb. Merlin looked at him suspiciously, tilting his head to the side and grinning with narrowed eyes. Then, as Merlin stupidly blinked, Arthur launched himself at him trailing a stripe of juice down Merlin's nose. Bellowing triumphant laughter as he then threw himself to his feet.

The victim swatted the air where Arthur should have been, rolling over to shield his face. Not because he was scared of blackberry juice, but just because he was playing along. But Arthur was already sprinting over to the blackberry bush and grabbing two large handfuls, thorns and all. Diving back to where Merlin was struggling to get to his feet on jellied legs, legs trembling with adrenaline, he outstretched a menacing arm.

It was too late; Arthur had him in a deathly head-lock and was rubbing the small berries into his hair. Smiling as he felt the seeds tangle between the already-forming knots - they would be a nightmare to get out tonight. The dye wouldn't change the deep russet, but it was the principle, he'd had the same done to him. Merlin was whining and yelling and screaming (although he wouldn't like to admit it) and writhing in a hope that he could free himself. Arthur let him go, pushing him in the back and full-on guffawing into the sky. Letting his head fall back and his hands gripped his chest. Merlin watched him in wonder. For he loved to see Arthur happy.

He wandered aimlessly over towards him, Arthur walking to meet him beside the place they'd moments before been sat, "I'm sorry," he said, although the tinkering remains of laughter told that it had been a lie. Regardless, he retrieved the hand he'd previously been so interested in from Merlin's side. The juice having dried now, he could no longer play with the puddles. He looked up, eyeing Merlin with the deepest caution, he wanted to try something, and he thought Merlin knew what it was - judging by how heavily the boy gulped. He lifted their hands, between the right side of his chest and the left of Merlin's and laced their fingers together. First his thumb falling beside Merlin's, then his index finger between Merlin's thumb and respective finger and so on. Each movement stirring something with more vigour inside of him and each one making him feel the need to step that bit closer that bit more. "Merlin?" he asked,

"Yes?" Merlin breathed, his voice catching in his throat so all that would come out was some breathy interpretation.

"Breaking that promise..." he started, looking back to their hands, and then up to Merlin's eyes which seemed to be fluttering closed, "...that was the best mistake I ever made."

Arthur wasn't smiling, as if his words were driving home more meaning into his own chest than they were intended to in Merlin's. "Mistake-?" Merlin tried to say, confused as to why it was - but his lips were covered by the warmth of Arthur's before he could deny them. Not that he would have. His breath began to leave his chest in unsteady uneven bursts powdering Arthur's cheeks.

He closed his eyes and let the sensation overwhelm him.

This, after all, was how he'd always wanted to be aware of Arthur. If only aware of the softness of his lips against his own, and the tongue that licked an entrance into his trembling mouth, and the curse of lean and desired fingers through black tresses of hair above his neck, and the pressure of Arthur's practised chest flush against his own. Arthur's free hand grabbed the back of Merlin's waist and pulled them ever closer together, smiling gently as one of Merlin's arms looped itself as tightly as manageable around the back of his neck and the other's hand cupped his cheek. Harshly pulling their lips closer.

What made Merlin break the kiss was something he'd felt was so familiar. Something he'd spent every summer, spring and autumn Sunday enjoying fresh from the trees, and every winter from a Sainsbury's packet. It was the taste of Blackberries. On Arthur's tongue. The afore mentioned stood, his arms held lazily in front of him and his eyes blinked open, watching Merlin as he stood, looking shocked, confused and deliberate, running one hand through his ebony hair and the other rested on his own cheek. He needn't have worried about the pause, nor worried that he'd made the wrong mistake. Merlin had leapt towards him in one smooth graceful movement within the anxious minute. Colliding their mouths together once more, this time letting Arthur's arms hang limp as he controlled his lips.

Blackberries had gone from being small quirky little bringers of memories to being the one taste that Merlin decided was sweeter than air. To him, it was more important than air.

Merlin pulled away, staring with brilliant intensity at how Arthur's eyes remained closed. His thin, long hands stayed in place on either side of Arthur's face, their tips just tingling the ends of blond strands of hair. "How are you, now?" He asked, a smile blooming into existence that thickened his lips and flashed white teeth, knowing the answer but wanting so desperately to hear it for himself.

"I'm fine," he laughed, placing his hands carefully over Merlin's, on both cheekbones, and opening his eyes - not wide and piercing, but gentle and at ease - "And for the only time, I am quite willing to admit that that's a lie,"

Merlin kissed him again. The taste of Blackberries having disappeared now, leaving the taste of Arthur and nothing else. That was enough, for now.

Arthur blinked his eyes open again, and observed the boy who had left him, the one practically skipping over to the blackberry bush and fetching his own handful. He settled himself on the grass once more, and Arthur, without hesitation, resolved to join him.

"So, who's for Blackberry Smoothies?"

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