aeris444Title:Secret Garden
Rating:PG
Pairing/s:Merlin/Arthur, Merlin/Aramis
Character/s:Merlin, Arthur, Aramis
Summary: Arthur wants to hear about Merlin very long life without him
Warnings:None
Word Count:582
Prompt:99. Crossover
Author's Notes: Crossover with "The Musketeers". Thanks to the lovely
derenai for the beta.Merlin sat next to Arthur on the couch and put the two teaming mugs of tea on the table.
“So? What kind of film do you want to watch tonight?” he asked.
“I want to hear more about your life,” Arthur answered with a shy smile.
And Merlin knew what Arthur wanted to hear. Since he had come back from the lake, he had often asked Merlin to tell him more about his very long life.
Merlin recounted everything about it. About the great figures he had met, about the commoners. It was a form of relief to be able to tell somebody about it as Merlin had never met any friend he trusted enough to confess his magic and his immortality.
Nobody but one man. A man he never talked about. A man whose memory he kept in the depth of his heart.
He had met Aramis in Paris, by accident, tumbling in front of his horse in a muddy street of the lower town. Aramis had immediately dismounted to check on him. Merlin’s back hurt and Aramis offered to have a look at it. That’s when Merlin discovered he was not only a Musketeers but that he also had some medical knowledge.
Later, as Merlin was resting in Aramis’ house, the Musketeer offered him to be his servant. Merlin accepted. He felt strangely safe with the man. He remembered him of Lancelot, the only man apart from Arthur for whom Merlin had had deep feelings for.
Merlin stayed alongside Aramis for nearly twenty years. He was his servant but soon became his confident, his friend. Two years after their first meeting, Merlin ended in his bed and never left after.
He followed him and his friends in all their missions, to the war. Once again he was protecting a King but this time, it was the Musketeers that held his heart.
Once again, though, Merlin had to leave the man he loved behind. He wasn’t ageing and staying twenty years at the same place was already a risk. If Aramis had known about his magic for years, it was still a secret he had to keep from the others. For nearly two years, Merlin had tried to leave but never found the courage to. One day, he woke up and looked at his lover lying by his side. He was still the man he had met twenty years before but the passing of the time was leaving marks on him. The wrinkles around his eyes, the grey strands in his hair, the bending of his back.
Merlin had known then that he had no other choice than leave. Of course, Aramis had tried to make him stay. They made love one last time, fell asleep in each other arms and the next day, Merlin was gone.
“Merlin?” Arthur asked softly, “Are you okay?”
Merlin was back in the present, next to Arthur, the man he loved more than life, the man he had waited for for so long. He shouldn’t dwell on a love long gone.
“Yes… I was just thinking about somebody I met.”
“Tell me about him?”
Merlin hesitated.
“Not today… Want to hear the story of my meeting with Shakespeare?”
Arthur nodded enthusiastically. He had just finished reading some of his sonnets and was starting “Romeo and Juliet”. Merlin had even promised to take him to the Globe when the season would start.
Merlin knew that one day he’d tell Arthur about Aramis. Not that night, though.