Merlin×Arthur One Shot

I've Missed You

The old man waits by the lake watching as the water licks lazily at the shore line. He has come to this exact spot and sat on this exacts same rock more times than he cares to remember. Today marks 2,345 years since his king was laid to rest.

Every year he returns to talk to his long lost best friend, he tells him about how much the world has changed while he remained the same.

"Time has passed so slowly since you left Arthur." He mumbles into the blue waters, he is still unsure if he can be heard. Nonetheless, this helps him cope, helps him remember and it helps him remain hopeful.

Heaving a great sigh, the man pulls out an old leather bound book and with a flash of golden eyes and a mumbled word he conjures up an old fashioned quill. He writes about what he did in the time spent before this visit to the lake.

Merlin pauses in his writing to gaze across the waters again. "You know Arthur, I shouldn't be surprised you've slept this long. You've always been impossible to wake up in the mornings." He said with a bitter laugh. "Let's have you, lazy Daisy." He croaked out with a sob as tears began to fall down his face. "Gods Arthur, I love you."

He sat there silently crying as he watched the sun set over the water and he didn't leave the shore until night had completely fallen leaving him sitting in complete darkness. Merlin slowly rose from his perch on the rock with a groan as he felt his old bones creak with age and made his way to the small cabin that he had built nearby over 100 centuries ago.

The building was made from logs that he had fallen with the help of his magic and it was showing clear signs of age, but merlin had slowed down the aging process with a couple of simple spells. Even so the roof had a few leaks that tended to be troublesome in the winter and the door was barley holding on to its hinges.

The cabin had a single bedroom and in the back and a restroom with all of the modern accommodations, a kitchen with a small sink and a gas powered stove. The rest of the space was overflowing with books on both magic and literature, an overstuffed sofa, various potions supplies that wouldn't fit in the kitchen a large cast iron cauldron.

Merlin shut the door behind him and hung his thin coat on the hook behind it. He closed his eyes to concentrate as he let the aging spell slip away to leave behind the twenty five year old skinny boy with large ears and hair as dark as night. He has been playing the part of the eccentric old man that nobody knew the name of for the past twenty years. He had accidentally become popular with the local children and they had started calling him Papi.

He smiled fondly remembering the way the children's eyes would light up in excitement with he would make money appear from behind they boys' ears or flowers appear out of thin air for the girls. These kids helped him stay young, even though they referred to him as a grandfather.

Merlin went to bed that night thinking about the children with smiles lighting up their faces and he couldn't help but to imagine his king playing and laughing alongside them as he used to do with the children back in Camelot.

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Merlin woke up with a start and looked hazily around his dark room in search for the noise that had so rudely interrupted his peaceful slumber. He jumped and couldn't help letting out a startled shriek when a loud burst of thunder sounded and a strike of lightning lit up the room casting eerie looking shadows through the opened curtains.