I did it! I wrote something down and here it is! Hope you like it!

When their eyes locked together, Oliver's just a little too wide, Merlin crumbled at the waist. Breathing heavy into his thighs and hands holding him up at the knees.

"Bloody fucking hell, you bastard!" Merlin croaked.

"What the bleeding hell!?" Oliver cried without conscious thought. What the fuck was happening?!

"You just had to get into a pub fight in some unknown hole in the wall at the shits end of London, didn't you?" Merlin continued, without standing from his breathless position, his voice heavy in a way that made one worry that he would just drop dead.

"How did you do that?!" Oliver's voice was not getting so high only dogs could him. He just wanted to make sure that he got his shock across to his crazy thousand year old magic friend! That's all.

"Heaven forbid you to just drink quietly, get pissed, and go home to pass out face first in your safe cozy bed. No, that would make my life way too easy!" Merlin ignored the wide eyed shock of the teenager a few paces in front of him. He was much too busy trying to rant his way to calmness.

Too close.

Much to close.

It was almost over. Everything that Merlin has ever done would have been for nothing. All those years wandering the earth in a disconsolate daze, all those lives snuffed out to protect one man, all those loved one staring up at him with glassy eyes as they breathed their last breath. All of that would have been for nothing if he had just been a second later. If he had just felt the bad day attack a moment overdue.

Merlin was so relieved he could melt.

"Merlin!" Oliver squawked in confused fear. "Would you cut it the fuck out and tell me what the bloody hell is going on!?"

Merlin sucked in a final shaky breath and stood up straight. His eyes immediately locked with the meat sack holding the gun. Right now frozen in time with a look that just screamed 'I want to die right this very second'. "This piece of shit tried to shoot you and I stopped him." Merlin stated matter of factly. Coldly even. He couldn't tell what he sounded like at the moment. His ears were ringing slightly.

"Is this what you meant?" Oliver questions as he stepped closer to his friend. A friend that looks so much bigger than his thin frame would suggest. "When you told me to figure out what you were for myself?"

Merlin finally looked at the frightened teen and forced air into his lungs as slowly as he could, "I didn't mean for you to figure it out by almost getting shot."

Oliver looked around him once more, now that Merlin was here his heart started to calm down a little, and looked at the frozen bullet as if it would start moving again any second. "What did you do?" He asked in small voice.

"I stopped time." Merlin answered him. He took a couple steps closer to the slightly shaky boy and ran his hand over the bloody nose as gently as he could. Oliver flinched anyway and Merlin let his hand drop again.

"How long can you do that?" Oliver asked as he brought a hand to his nose and felt around the bone to see if it was broken. It didn't feel too bad, just tender and clogged.

"I don't know." Merlin muttered, looking around himself and making a face at the starry night sky, "I've never done it before now."

"Never?" Oliver asked in awe and, when Merlin nodded, asked "Then how did you know you could do it?"

Merlin shrugged looking a lot calmer than he felt. "I just begged the earth to stop and it did."

Oliver gave him a baffled look, "You asked the earth to stop and it just did."

"Yes."

"Of course you did. Can't do anything the normal way can you, Merlin?" Oliver heaved a great sigh and rubbed his sore forehead with his thumbs. When did his life become like this? When did he just start accepting anything that Merlin did as 'just something Merlin did'? "Do you know how to change it back?"

Merlin shrugged again, "The same why, I would assume." He stepped around Oliver with light even steps. His sneakers clicked against the concert ground as he walked over to the floating bullet. "Funny things guns."

Oliver twisted to keep him in sight. "What's so funny about them?"

"Back in my day it was more likely for a person to die by a sword than a pistol. Personally, I like swords so much better." Merlin stated matter of factly. His face didn't show any emotion. "There was something a little bit more elegant about a sword. The way you fight with it is a whole body experience. You make that thin piece of metal a part of you. You give it a purpose the same way you give your own arm a purpose. Ever movement is measured and controlled."

Oliver shivered at the cold look that was starting to seep its way over Merlin's eyes. It was an ice like anger that appeared to make all his limbs straightened and hands clench. "Merlin-"

"Guns however-" Merlin interrupted as he plucked the deadly metal out of the air. It wasn't warm in his hand. There wasn't any temperature in a place without time. "require no skill. They need no talent or control or strength." Merlin stalked over to the confined man like a panther. The man wasn't a man any more. He was pray. "Anyone can pick up a gun, point, and blow the brains out of anyone they want. What's the point in that? Where's the fun it that?"

Oliver didn't understand what he was looking at. This man was nothing like the man that grinned so wide that it made his insides melt and relax. This man was more like the indifferent trickster from all those years ago. He could only watch as Merlin circled the gunman. The look on the would be murderer's face didn't look so scary right now. He looked like a kitten compared to Merlin.

Merlin stopped facing the man's right side. He leaned forward as if to whisper in his ear and grinned a cheshire grin that showed all his teeth. They looked sharper when he smiled like that. As if Oliver's long forgotten vampire theory held more truth than he was lead to believe. Merlin placed the bullet inched from the man's temple and asked with a honey soaked tone, "Want to find out?" He straightened and brought his fingers up as if to snap them. Looking gleeful at the thought that one click of his fingers and this man with die a bloody and quick death.

"Stop!" Oliver cried and jumped forward. He clenched at Merlin's raised arm and glared up at this unfeeling man. "What the hell are you doing?!"

Merlin blinked blankly down at him and for a second Oliver couldn't breath. For a second he wondered if the Merlin that held him when he screamed inside his head wasn't real and what was real was this thing in front of him, but the moment passed and Merlin snapped back into place and Oliver could breath once more. "Killing the bad guy?" Merlin sounded like he was asking; as if he wasn't so sure what he was doing.

"Killing him won't achieve anything." Oliver stated firmly, his grip harsh but not painful.

Merlin's gaze clouded over as he stared into willful eyes.

You killed my son!

You killed my father!

The rush of metal on metal. The clang of the killing blows and the strength of the hate in the two men's glares. Merlin's panic that filled his veins not for the death of himself, or his best friend, but for the honor and justice that will forever be tainted if used for petty revenge.

The pride as Arthur held the blade to a hatful man's throat and uttered, "Odin, you cannot let it end like this. The blood will never wash off."

"Gods, I hate when you use my own words against me." Merlin grumbled with a hidden smile of glowing pride. 'All these years and Arthur is teaching me now.' Merlin thought to himself.

"What-?" Oliver started but ended the question with a jolt as Merlin snatched the gun from the frozen man's hands and smacked it against the back of his skull. As soon as the gun touched the man, time rushed forwards once more. The crazed creature fell to the ground unconscious and Merlin mutter words that Oliver didn't understand to get rid of the gun.

Merlin gently pulled Oliver's still clenching fingers away from his arm and guided them both away from the ally and to his car that Merlin had made appear.

"You are not getting away with not explaining the magic thing." Oliver told him with a hard look.

Merlin smiled his heart warming smile, as if there wasn't anything else lurking under the surface, and chuckled like he always did when Oliver tried to be serious. "I wouldn't dream of it."