Merlin has been diagnosed with an untreatable condition which he either refuses to or can't be bothered to learn the name of. His Mother is distraught and as she begins to lose her faith in, and love for, the world she lives in, Merlin's uncle Giaus, the strong one in the family, struggles with his own depression. Merlin comforts them as best he can but he just doesn't really seem to care about his condition. He's out all night, euphoric in the anonymity that the night affords him, and he's lost to an inner rebellion. His small family is blown apart by this grenade, this bombshell which is him, and he is nudging at the pieces but is too consumed in chasing oblivion to piece them together again. He doesn't need or want, to be saved.

Enter Arthur, who infuriates Merlin but somehow awakens his long-dormant curiosity. Arthur pushes an interest in life back into Merlin, breathes for him a new perspective.

And of course, falls slowly in love with him.

Chapter One

When he was here, enveloped in the darkness, surrounded by strangers who were faraway islands in the ocean of the music, Merlin allowed himself to relax into the safe and familiar shroud of anonymity. The beat pulsed through his entire body, making every molecule and muscle thrum with a sedate energy that Merlin's inner Magika welcomed like a lost love. Merlin was never sure when his eyes were open or closed, slow flashes of deep purple and blue strobing revealing brief snatches of blurred faces, as he sank into the embrace of this, his sanctuary.

Here there was no future planning, no past, no next step, goal or hopeful outcome. Merlin was simply existing in the music, each beat the only proof that he existed at all, and really, what sort of proof was that? His breathing was lazy, deep as the push and pull of the music, the slumber of a giant beast in each pulse and each push. It was dream-like, dark and endless, a slow, heady sort of bliss that seeped into every inch, every bone and hair and blood vessel of his body, and Merlin was at peace there, in the dark, in his anonymous ocean.

It was an almost impossible torture to extract the beat from his blood enough to leave the dance floor, his body flowing to the bar as if transcendental. The heady sensation of breathing underwater remained and had Merlin been alert and enough of himself he would have felt gratitude. But not being aware was really the point, wasn't it?

As it was he simply existed, although the harsh white light ringing the lowered bar ceiling and circling the countertop provided an edge to his existence that Merlin could use as a purchase to form enough words from the fabric of his breath to order a drink. Merlin closed his eyes and just existed some more, and when his next slow and heavy thought came, his body was in the embrace of the dance floor again, a half-full glass in hand that he barely registered, even subconsciously. He was again swaying on the seabed that was his saviour, glorious and oblivious to the earthly world, a presence in form if not soul.

It was this existence, this version of Merlin that was there when he checked out and dissolved into that push and pull beat that every cell gloried in. It was in this state, this version, that Merlin snagged himself his human embraces.

Never anything, each experience brief; long, hot kisses on the dance floor, a warm earthly body to anchor him in life again, fleetingly. Merlin did not keep track, and much of the time these partners were as unregistered as his glass, which he had at some point emptied without the burdening thought process of consciousness.