Tuesday

[million_star]

Title: Tuesday

Author: millionstar

Pairing:  Merlin/Arthur

Rating:   PG

Warnings:  Slight angst.

Summary: For Merlin, memory begets action.

Disclaimer: I don't own this version of Merlin & Arthur, the BBC/Shine do. No profit is being made and this is fiction.

Beta/Support:  As always, dolce_piccante, who I cannot thank enough. \o/

Author's Note:  Just a ficlet, something to get my Merlin/Arthur mojo rolling again.  I had asked for prompts on twitter and I got "hands" and "wounded" - from whiteapricot and hannah_chapter.  Thanks, gals!  This was the end result and I guess it's technically my first reincarnation fic.

On a Tuesday, under a sky filled with clouds, he tucks an unruly lock of ebony hair behind his ear and stares into the water calmly, losing himself in myth.

There are a myriad of things that Merlin remembers from that life, senses and facts that are indelibly seared into his psyche.  The way the grass in Ealdor felt beneath his bare feet in the summer, the taste of the apples from a specific tree on the outskirts of the castle, the mere sight of Camelot itself, its spires cutting into the sky, sharp and exact.

These things are of memory, representative of emotion at their core.  Yet, despite all of them, they are not always at the forefront of Merlin's mind.  No, the one that he remembers the most is decidedly tactile in nature.

Something representative of touch.

Arthur's hands, above all else, stand out in his mind.  He remembers them in glorious, vivid detail.  Every wrist and palm and digit has been committed to memory, as familiar as Merlin's own reflection in the mirror in his small apartment that he hates because it's not a home.

As the breeze picks up, Merlin remembers one scar in particular, more so the treatment of said scar.  Arthur had returned from combat, broken and low, but barely wounded, save for a deep cut on his left palm.  They had sat on the floor together in Arthur's chambers, in front of the fire, as Merlin dressed the wound.  Merlin hadn't been prepared when Arthur silently pulled him into his arms and simply rested against Merlin, as though doing so were the only thing that could purge the memory of battle from his mind.

That night, Merlin fell asleep holding Arthur's wounded hand between both of his own.

Merlin's own cuts were, and still are, decidedly different.  They do not mar the flesh -  unlike Arthur's, his wounds might not be visible, but they are ever present.  They compose a part of him that he longs to be able to shed and yet knows he would mourn if he ever did.

Without warning, Merlin's magic reacts, it blossoms with a specific energy that he hasn't felt in a hundred lifetimes, and before he realizes what he's doing he's standing at the edge of the water, scanning it with frantic purpose.

When the hands that have haunted him for desolate centuries finally breach the surface of the lake, Merlin cannot help but smile through his tears.  It occurs to him that perhaps now his small apartment can finally become the home he's wanted for so long.

He's waited forever to hold these hands again.