Merlin died. There was no nice way to put it. No romanticized poem or vague metaphor that he could come up with. His life did not flash before his eyes, he had been dead too many times for that particular nuisance. The only way Merlin could describe it anymore would be darkness. The inherent absence of light. His mind would play tricks on him and he would think, "Maybe this time, maybe this time, I will not wake up."
He always woke up. It was agonizing, not just for the reminder that he cannot die but because it felt like being born. Odd description, Merlin would admit, but it did not make it any less true. Sound was always what came back first, his heartbeat the loudest of them all. The rush of blood in his ears made them ring. Wherever he was, footsteps echoed and made his head throb. Harsh breathing sounded like static that surrounded his body. The sharp tang of metal on marble was made, but Merlin could not focus for so much was happening all at once.
Next, came touch, almost simultaneous to hearing again. His clothes were too rough and he fought to direct his attention to what he had been wearing without opening his eyes. It was fruitless, he felt the unbearable chill of the marble on his face, he must have fallen forward. His own breath dissipated some of it but made the horrible sensation of being both cold and humid, however possible. Before he could dwell for longer, something had roughly pulled his body on his back. Sharp pinpricks burned and what he vaguely recognized as someone else's magic, preoccupied as he was, healing whatever had probably killed him.
Smell came back like ozone, and metal, and sand-blown glass. It came wild and familiar, and dizzyingly fast. It smelt like dried herbs, like Gauis. Of polish and lavender, like Gwen. His sense of smell remembered better than his brain did when he would die. What he associated with each and every person he had met, that he always tried desperately to remember when alive and breathing, always escaped but for these moments in time. It was sickening and exhilarating as it all blurred together. Merlin groaned, dreading opening his eyes. He felt the slap to his face like sandpaper still, the sound too loud to make it audible. He settled for attempting to rid the noise, his own weak hand fluttering somewhere and falling back down. Whoever it was, they were agitated and the shrill sound of metal on marble was back. It was followed by footsteps and angry breathing, angry but just as scared.
When Merlin deemed he was somehow alone now. He let himself cry, silent tears, not remembering yet how he had died or why. It felt like the first time after Camlunn after Arthur died. After Gwaine. After Gauis, Percival, Leon, and Gwen. His dear Gwen. He would remember they were all gone and it was agony to pull himself up after every sensation had settled. Things came back in bits and pieces, the cliche puzzle of his life that he would have to fit together until it all made sense again.
When he did, he rose like vengeance itself, eyes uncaring to the bright blue and eerie glow the smashed prophecies gave, uncaring to the destruction around him or his ripped robe. Unfeeling to the dead death eater he did not remember anyone hitting with a spell. What he cared about were the children he was charged with protecting, who he unknowingly sent into a battleground. He ran. He ran down the corridor, through doors as the dread in his body and magic seemed to multiply the longer he took. He stopped outside the familiar door to a black arch with greywater ripples to the world between worlds.
It was in that split second that he wished he would not have stopped for anything. In that split second he opened the door he saw Draco, slip, stumble, and fall through the veil. It was like watching Lancelot sacrifice himself again and again as it replayed in his mind. He only registered the laughter of a man, the demented sound of a father's temper and grief. It was then that Merlin stepped in, eyes molten magma in his rage, the unseen sheen of liquid making it all the more glassy and wild as the last of Draco disappeared into somewhere Merlin could not follow.
He ignored everyone in the room but for the source of the spell who had sent his student beyond the veil. Cackling as if they did not know the gravity of their mistake. Merlin fumed, a pulse of magic so strong it snapped necks and shattered the bones of all the death eaters, Lucius included. Maybe Merlin would regret it, more for Draco's sake than anything else but right now grief fueled him, and without thinking or checking on anyone else he followed after Draco.
It was silent, such opposition to his rebirth that his ears could not even ring with how quiet it was. The sound did not seem to exist here. It was as if it mourned for the souls trapped in the in-between. Desperate to make noise yet unable as mist floated around Merlin. It twined in his soul and his magic in the most uncomfortable of ways as if it knew somehow that Merlin was not supposed to be here. Was not long for this place and never would be, yet...it did not push him out, force him to leave without the person he had come in this dreaded place that haunted his nightmares for.
"Emrys..." the voice was fuzzy and distorted, croaking and old. Merlin would recognize the voice of the gatekeeper who had taken his Lancelot anywhere.
"Cailleach, where is Draco Malfoy?" Merlin asked, he oh so wanted to demand but she was still a Goddess and as such would not respond well to demands.
"Here, lost, found, taken, what is he to you, Emrys? He who would make you face such a fear to save," she sounded so genuinely curious to his answer it made his pause.
"He.. he is my student," Merlin replied, unsure of her meaning.
"He is more. Do not lie here, Emrys. In this place...to me," she stared eyes and words heavy with meaning.
"Everything, he is everything. He is Draco, a friend, a student, a reminder of Arthur. A...a son," Merlin swallowed, the truth settling deep in his stomach. He was not ashamed that he thought of Draco as a son after only knowing him for not even a full year but he did not know how Draco felt. Especially after he had just killed his biological father. Draco would blame him, hate him, he knew. He dreaded it.
"So much so you would come into my dominion when you did not so for your Sir Lancelot," she held no blame in her voice but the words struck Merlin.
"I was not given the choice!" Merlin argued back heatedly, forgetting not to anger the Goddess. "The veil closed behind him! By the time I had found the arch I had just walked through everyone I had loved had been dead for more than three hundred years!"
"And yet if you had the choice, can you say for certain you would have taken it?" She asked patiently.
"Y...No," Merlin realized, no he was not certain he would have gone after Lancelot. Arthur had still needed him. It was always about Arthur in the end. No matter how much he wished it was not.
"So do not blame me, Emrys. You will have but one chance to find him. Choose well," Merlin did not get to ask for her meaning before he was somewhere that was not grey and desolate but alive and uproarious.
~
Jazz was the first thing that reached Merlin's ears. Colorful music that belonged in a club. Women in tubular dresses that did not flatter the figure and men in evening suits for a night out on the town. The early nineteen-twenties if Merlin had to guess, after the war.
"Merlin!" a voice called and Merlin instinctively turned to the sound of his name. He was met with a roguish man, hair slightly disheveled and face flush from dancing.
"Harry," Merlin whispered in disbelief, the man's complexion reminding him so much of Gwaine, Merlin had been unable to not feel drawn to the man.
"That's my name, don't wear it out," he winked, arm coming to rest around Merlin. "Where you've been, you're late, everyone's been waiting on you," Merlin was stunned, he remembered coming here seventy years ago, meeting Louise only days ago in France to sign the treaty that ended the first war. She had been with her mother, one of the intelligence-gathering women who had been invited and had used her plus one for her daughter. Merlin had invited them both to England as her husband had died and could not afford to stay in France.
"They didn't need to wait," Merlin spoke the words coming out of his mouth on autopilot as he remembered more and more.
"You're the life of the party, Merlin," Harry laughed, shoving Merlin towards a booth in the back of the room, closest to the bar.
"I think you are talking about yourself, Harry. I've never been the life of any party!" Merlin laughed back, Harry grinning and shrugging as he took his seat.
"Are you planning on staying longer this time?" Harry asked. Merlin shook his head. "That pretty French girl got you occupied?"
"What would you know, Harry. You are a right cake-eater," Merlin grinned.
"That one of them fancy American words there, Merlin?" Harry asked. "What's it mean?"
"That you are a ladies' man, Harry. They never last long with you," making the words playful so Harry knew not to take them to heart.
"Ah, I just haven't found the right lady yet, Merls!" he laughed over the saxophone's solo. Merlin laughed with him and found himself lost in the memory for longer than he should.
"Never leave, Merls," Harry said, and it threw Merlin for such a loop that he stumbled and had to balance himself on the bar.
"Wh...what?" Merlin stuttered.
"You will never be able to leave if you stay here, Merlin. Run!" Merlin felt numb as he watched the jazz club disappear and a quieter atmosphere replaced it. Merlin ran.