Once Again

Awakening

Merlin 'Emrys' Benton had a lot on his mind, so he could be excused for ignorance. At least he always liked to think so. Not the least of the things to clutter his overfull mind was 'The Day' that happened two months before his 14th birthday when his school had dragged the lot of them to Kew Gardens.

Merlin had been raised in a tiny flat in central London, his mother working three jobs to keep them there. He'd attended a school two blocks down the street and passed seventeen trees there and back again each day. High school had been a tube station away and he only passed seven trees each day. They'd all been nice trees, mellow, maybe lonely, but who wasn't? He'd never given them more thought than he did the neighbour who smiled at him each morning or the ones who always shouted late at night. Not until Kew Gardens.

He went into the gardens with a friend by his side, a ready smile and the knowledge that back home he had a mother who would always love him. He left with all that and the added knowledge that he would never be alone again.

He'd always known how a plant felt – he just hadn't realised he wasn't supposed to. The cacophony of noise when he passed each bed in the gardens had been staggering, driving a migraine straight into his skull with overwhelming overstimulated noise. When he'd asked them, politely, to be quitter they'd become agitated and couldn't stop. Confused as he was, and curious, they'd lent in towards him, wanting, straining, striving to see and reach him. To be with him.

Will had asked him if he was okay and that's when Merlin had realised it was just him. No-one else was been swallowed under a melee of noise. No-one else could feel the pulse of the earth below their feet, through the thick plastic soles of their shoes, past cracked sidewalks and down down down to the core of the world. None of them actually knew when a tree was sad, or a flower was smitten, or the water was angry. They'd said things to make him think they did; "Yes the tree looks happy today, Merlin", "No I don't think grass can be suicidal, Merlin", but they didn't know. Had never known.

He'd run; away from Will, away from the teachers, away from the other students who never quite liked him anyway. He'd run until the noise was just a rush of air in his ears (he'd always liked wind) and he found a little tree, old but sturdy with drooping boughs. He'd crawled in under the soft patient thing and it protected him, blocked the rest of them out until he'd found his equilibrium, until the noise was no louder than a school of students on a field trip – eager – loud and excited, but just noise. Just chatter and apologies and his guarding tree's crooning.

He'd fallen asleep under that tree, curled in against the dirt, grounded with bare arms dug into rotting leafs and old sticks. He'd gone to sleep exhausted from strain and woke an hour later, a fox curled into his lap and Will staring wide-eyed and awestruck at him. Will had told him never to do it again, whatever it was, and Merlin had said yes and no more.

Merlin never explained it to his friend, but he did learn from it, and once he began to learn everything had fallen into place.

Magic.

He had something in him that reached out to the natural world and it reached back. He was some sort of myth and fantasy and it was useless, but also nice. Because who else had friends wherever they went?

He had two months of peace after that, and then he dreamt of a boy named Arthur. No face, no body, just the knowledge of this boy and the rampant red dragon staring down from the top of a white castle. It had come with purpose. Purpose so strong it ached in his bones even when he had woken the next morning.

Then Will had snickered at him for scribbling 'Arthur' reverently in the margins of his school books. Snickered and said, he didn't care if Merlin was a poof but, for the love of God, Merlin was to avoid anyone named Arthur, what had his mother been thinking? That was when Merlin realised the extent of how fucked he was. He also hit Will for the poof comment and went about his adolescence with his nose in books about Arthurian legend. Because Magic, and Destiny, and Reincarnation had all become part of his vernacular and he would be damned if he would face it blind.

He was Merlin, Emrys, magician and sorcerer of the Once and Future King, and he could be excused for not reading, not even seeing, a tabloid in the last eight years. That's what he told himself when all was said and done. It helped… a little.

His first Arthur had been five weeks after the first dream, and only one week after Wills mocking but useful revelation, when he'd been fresh faced and ready to deal with destiny without even really knowing what that meant. First Arthur had been a boy in his school, a year above Merlin, with dark curls and a crooked smile. Merlin had followed him like a lost puppy (against Will's snickers and eventual begging) until on the twelfth day First Arthur lead Merlin into an empty bathroom and had tried to shove his hand down the front of Merlins pants without permission.

Merlin, devout, loyal, expecting a king and destiny, had frozen and so had everything, and everyone, around him. Unwilling to second question his magic he'd wiggled away from First Arthurs clutches and never spoke to the boy again. First Arthur was scratched off the list. Future Kings did not do that, they'd at least ask first, Merlin was sure of it.

Will had suspected First Arthur of taking advantage of Merlins puppy dog eyes and optimism and had reiterated that 'Arthur' should be avoided. Any Arthur, apparently the name was jinxed; "Because Jesus Merlin, you're too easy to manipulate as is."

Merlin had agreed readily and secretly applied himself to trying to figure out what a Once and Future king had actually looked like – and would that even be relevant? And how one would behave. Shoving hands down Merlins pants was an instant strike, but Merlin hoped that wouldn't be one he'd have to deal with again in any near future.

The Second Arthur he met on Oxford Street, by Primark. He'd been sitting on the side of the building looking every bit as above his surroundings as a King ought to be – and he looked like some sort of Grecian god – or at least a lead singer in a band for teenage girls (Merlin loved those bands).

Merlin had been going to ignore the man (clearly older than Merlin himself and Merlin wasn't completely insane when it came to who he was going to ogle) after the first glance until the mans beautiful girlfriend had cried out "Arthur" and tumbled into the stranger with clinging bejewelled arms.

It rang familiar.

Merlin had frozen on the pavement, staring, bags of shopping at his side forgotten. When Second Arthur saw him gapping Merlin had gotten the full attention of blue eyes from a man with a girlfriend tangled around him. He'd tried to look away, but he kept seeing arms, decked in jewels, throwing themselves into an embrace and it made him stare gobsmacked.

The encounter had been confusing, and interesting, and Merlin never told Will about Second Arthur because the man had pushed his girlfriend – a hand on her arse into the store with platitudes and the mention of a smoke. The moment she'd been gone he'd turned sharp blues back onto Merlin and proceeded to ask Merlin what he was doing for the next fifteen minutes because… well he was free. Merlins brain had taken long blank moments of staring to put tone and words together and realise he was being propositioned.

Merlin had fled – then spent a good two weeks reading through doctorates about the relationship between the Merlin and Arthur of legend. He'd become very disturbed with the amount of violence, and rape, and incest, and everything else in the stories (how had he missed that the first time around?), but was very clear that Arthur had loved Guinevere and Merlin had been very much the old wizened man throughout Arthurs life. Merlin contented himself that he could now rule out any Arthur who looked at his arse. It wasn't a great victory but Merlin would take what he could. Really Arthur was a disgustingly common name and it was going to be hell finding the right one. Merlin began to compile a proper list, not just the mental ones he'd been building before then.

Will dragged him away from Third Arthur when Merlin was sixteen. His mother helped with the dragging. Merlin reasoned, a month of sulking later, that if Third Arthur had really been the Once and Future King he probably would have noticed that he'd spent a charmed year where everything went right for him – so long as that annoying twig of a boy was nearby. He also would have invited Merlin along to Oxford when he enrolled instead of never mentioning it and having Merlin try to run away from home to follow. Because, damn-it, what was his school career verses the future king of Great Britain (or Albion? Or the world? Merlin wasn't quite clear on that)?

Merlin didn't actually mourn Third Arthur so much as relish his free time once his year of servitude had ended. He ruled 'prats' off his list of King Arthur spotting hints and found Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Arthur all in a week – the first picked his nose (disgusting), the second was too nice to be a king (nobody can be that nice and rule a country) and the third had been eight years old and even Merlin had felt skivvy following him around so had written him into a newly made 'maybe' column in his Once and Future note book. He'd check back on the boy in another ten years.

University had been a disaster – too many Arthurs. Besides what was he supposed to study? He vehemently refused to be the boy named Merlin who studied Arthurian legend (even though he'd read through more thesis's and source materials on the subject than most post grads). Physics and the sciences pained him with it's contradictions to his magic. And generally he made a mess of anything with numbers, they never did sort themselves out properly for him.

In the end he dropped out, but not before Arthur Thirty-two had taken him out drinking then sucked him off in a backstreet near his dorm. "Defiantly," Merlin decided when he woke with his hangover the next day, "not a future king," and left all the Arthurs behind him to find Will and confide in him – because he was NOT telling his mother about it all.

Will, good trusty Will, Will had a panic attack, followed by an episode of complete denial, then had sat down and commanded; "Show me," and for an insane moment Merlin thought he meant the blow job (and how was he supposed to do that?) until he realised Will meant the magic. Merlin was miffed, the blow job had clearly been more life changing than magic he'd known about for years, but did his best friend duties and obeyed Wills demand. He'd save the whole 'got off with a guy' thing for afterwards.

He'd fumbled around the kitchen for something he could do and grown Will some old sprout seeds from the cupboard (after soaking them in water, he didn't feel like straining himself) and despite Wills ribbing about how useless the demonstration was ("They grow that fast anyway Merlin!") they both ate the damn things for dinner;

"Isn't it strange? They're like your babies!"

"Do you want me to starve? You do don't you? You're a horrible friend!"

He was twenty-one when he met his Fifty-second Arthur and he was becoming desperate. There was no way to define it. He'd never dreamed of the boy again, had no obvious hint that anything had to be done, but something in his stomach, in his muscles and innards, knew that in a visceral, undeniable, absolute: Arthur would need him and that he would be, like the Merlin of old, the shield that protected and the hand that guided.

Fifty-second Arthur was a little taller than Merlin (that was good, kings were tall), had sandy blonde hair down to his shoulders (which meant nothing but it was well enough) and had worked hard and done amazing things in his life. He also had an affably drunk friend two steps behind him was answered to Gwaine and seemed as likely to share a drink with as shag you. He had other friends too, none of them counted.

Merlin tossed Fifty-second Arthur aside after two days, but kept the knight because a little part of his stomach untwisted whenever they spoke, and Merlin knew for the first time in seven years that when he met the right Arthur he would know. The magic would make it clear. He felt instantly liberated and secure, all he had to do was run into stupid Arthur and his Future Kingness and everything would become easy and make sense.

Gwaine had every intention of tumbling Merlin, Merlin realised this after two weeks in the mans company. Waking (still clothed) and wrapped up in Gwaines nimble arms had made that plain. And Merlin had every intention of taking him up on the offer so he took Gwaine out again glad that there wasn't an Arthur in sight (it really was embarrassing having all his sexual exploits, as they were, linked to one Arthur or another and even Gwaine seemed a deviance from the theme… if only a little).

So when he woke up after all his careful plans, wrapped in naked limbs and decidedly not a virgin anymore (in any sense of the word) and rolled over to find not-Gwaine, it was very much the start of Destiny and quite ironically destiny had started by fucking him up the arse.

Notes:

Yes... I wrote that last line. 0.0

This story will be up on AO3, same author name, same story name. (I will put up a link in my profile)