Chapter Text
“Merlin, remind me why I let you bring us to a completely uninhabitable planet for our holiday?” Arthur looked around the main atrium of the Leisure Palace and sighed. He would much rather be on a planet where he could actually step outside the buildings. Any planet would do, even that ridiculously cold one where they had gone hover-skiing. Well, Arthur had. Merlin fell flat on his face when he first stepped on the skis and then immediately gave up.
Though, as Arthur looked out at Midnight through the atrium’s thick Finitoglass windows, he had to admit that the view of the diamond planet’s glittering surface was beautiful. The late afternoon light seemed to fracture through the thin pillars of diamonds closest to the atrium, which in turn spread tiny rainbows across the rocky ground outside. Arthur was much too stubborn to admit he thought it looked pretty to his former manservant though, so instead he settled for crossing his arms and trying (and subsequently failing) to pull off the infamous raised eyebrow of judgement that Gaius had perfected many centuries ago in Camelot.
Merlin turned towards Arthur with a wide grin and a playful look in his eyes from where he too had been gazing out the windows. “Why? Are you disappointed you won’t get to drag me on another cold, wet, and overall disappointing hunting trip where we inevitably don’t catch anything and instead end up almost getting killed by some random magical or alien creature?”
Arthur opened his mouth to protest but closed it again when he realized Merlin did have a good point. No matter what country, continent, or planet they ended up on, hunting trips with Merlin never seemed to do anything more than stir up trouble.
Looking satisfied that the former king of Camelot couldn’t come up with a retort, Merlin continued, “Plus, I thought you would at least appreciate all the spa services they have here. You can lay by the pool for hours and have waiters bring you all the food and wine you want. Maybe it will make you feel like royalty again.”
Arthur huffed and waved a hand towards one of the many sets of steel beams that crossed the glass dome walls of the Leisure Palace’s atrium, which gave it a kind of industrial and impersonal air. “Nothing about this looks regal, Merlin. And you know I’d rather be on a planet where I could step outside without being instantly vaporized. Not all of us are immortal,” he joked. He felt a bit guilty seeing Merlin’s expression morph into something more serious however, and instantly regretted bringing it up.
Merlin’s immortality, and Arthur’s perpetual reincarnations, were something of an awkward topic between them. Arthur knew that Merlin wasn’t always happy in the long stretches of time when Arthur wasn’t around, yet whenever Arthur pressed him to talk about it, he was never very forthcoming about what it was like. His silence on the matter frustrated Arthur, but he had learned long ago not to push Merlin too much about it. Though sometimes, Arthur wondered if maybe he should.
“Yeah, well, you know I can die too. It just doesn’t stick. But it’s not exactly a fun experience, and even I don’t want to get myself atomized,” Merlin replied softly, and seemed to shudder at the thought of it. His smile returned after a moment, but Arthur noticed it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Anyway, you never let me choose our holidays, and this planet is incredibly interesting. I wanted to see if I could sense any unusual magic here.”
At that, the warlock turned once again towards the large Finitoglass windows with a thoughtful expression. After a few seconds passed, he shrugged and turned back to Arthur. “So far though, I haven’t felt anything abnormal. Unless the complete absence of magic counts as abnormal, but I guess it makes sense. As far as anyone knows, nothing can survive on the surface. There’d be no life for magic to hold on to.”
Not bothering to wait for a response from Arthur, Merlin grabbed their luggage and headed off at a brisk pace towards the hallway that led to the hotel. Arthur assumed he wanted a bit of space, and decided not to follow him right away. Instead, he took one last glance at the bright, blue-white surface of Midnight, and the slowly fading rainbows on the ground. Arthur doubted that anything was out there, as Merlin said, but after seeing plenty of impossible things happen right in front of him he certainly wouldn’t rule it out either. With his gaze still directed towards the atrium’s windows, Arthur took a step to follow Merlin and immediately bumped into someone.
“Oi, watch where you’re going!” the red-haired woman he had walked straight into complained. Arthur quickly stepped back and inclined his head downwards in apology.
“Excuse me, my lady. I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings. The view is rather distracting,” he said, and began moving to the side to try and disengage from the conversation and catch up with Merlin. While Arthur had wanted to give him some time alone, he didn’t want Merlin to get too far ahead of him. The warlock hadn’t left him a map, and Arthur wasn’t entirely confident he could find their hotel room on his own. Plus, Merlin would probably steal some of the food Arthur brought with them on the shuttle to Midnight if he was left alone with their luggage too long, and Arthur would not be pleased if Merlin ate the last of the sweet rolls he had packed.
Unfortunately, the woman seemed less than thrilled with his apology, and responded, “Your lady? I’m certainly not yours or anyone else’s lady, thank you very much. And—”
“Hello, sorry, I’m the Doctor and this is my friend Donna. I’m sure this is all just a minor misunderstanding,” a tall man in a brown pinstripe suit interrupted. The woman—Donna, Arthur supposed—rolled her eyes but seemed to relax.
Arthur cleared his throat awkwardly and inwardly cursed his tendency to speak too formally, something that had been ingrained in his first life as a king and could never quite be shaken off completely, even lifetimes later. “Er, yes. Sorry again. I should catch up with my friend anyway. I do hope you have a pleasant holiday, in any case.”
The woman nodded, still frowning, and the Doctor smiled. “Wonderful,” he said. “Come on Donna, lots to see.” With that, he led her away from Arthur towards the atrium windows, and, paying more attention to where he was going, Arthur set off down the hall towards the hotel.
* * *
After wandering the hotel floors for an embarrassingly long time, Arthur finally found the room he was sharing with Merlin and was greeted by a coat almost hitting him in the face as it began hanging itself up in the closet. The warlock behind the careless garment’s antics was currently using magic to put away the rest of their belongings, and, unsurprisingly, was sitting on one of the beds eating a sweet roll.
“Merlin, if that is the last sweet roll—” Arthur began, but was interrupted as Merlin tossed another roll towards him.
“It’s not. Don’t worry, I know better than to eat the last of your food, I’d never hear the end of it,” Merlin commented, and after popping the last bite of his roll into his mouth, fell back onto the plush hotel bed with a contented sigh. “What took you so long, anyway? I thought I might have to come save your sorry arse, again.”
Arthur felt his cheeks flush slightly with embarrassment, and Merlin sat up with a laugh. “You got lost, didn’t you? The Once and Future King, thwarted by a few hotel corridors.”
“More like fifty. This place is huge. And really Merlin, I don’t think I’m entirely to blame. You’re the one with a map of the place, and you certainly didn’t bother to wait for me when you left the atrium,” Arthur complained, though it sounded half-hearted at best. After all, he had let Merlin get ahead of him on purpose.
“Didn’t think you’d take an hour to catch up to me,” Merlin responded, rolling his eyes. He then pulled out the map one of the staff members had given them when they arrived on Midnight, and with a flash of gold, a second copy appeared in his other hand, which he promptly extended for Arthur to take. “Here,” he said as Arthur grabbed the map and briefly looked it over, “now you won’t get lost when I go on the waterfall tour tomorrow.”
Arthur sat down on the other bed and put the map on the table beside it. He really couldn’t understand why Merlin wanted to spend eight hours total on a tiny shuttle bus with no windows—was a sapphire waterfall really worth such an agonizingly boring trip?—but he felt he had already criticized the warlock’s chosen travel destination enough for one day and decided not to comment on it.
“I think I can manage on my own a few hours without you, Merlin. You aren’t my servant anymore, and I am perfectly capable of handling myself appropriately,” he said instead.
“Rightttt,” Merlin drawled out slowly, looking unconvinced. “You know, you can still come with me if you want. It looks like most of the seats are still open, and Avalon only knows what kind of annoying tourists will be there. I’d appreciate the company, plus, you were always better at dealing with people than me.”
Arthur thought back to the incident with Donna and the Doctor and couldn’t help but think that he wasn’t quite as good at managing awkward encounters with strangers as Merlin seemed to believe he was.
“If you don’t want to deal with people on the ride there, why don’t you just use magic to transport yourself to the waterfall palace?” Arthur asked. Even though Merlin had tried to teach him more about magic over the years, Arthur still found himself frequently confused by it. For example, he was never quite sure why Merlin chose to do some things with magic (like put away all their luggage, he thought, as the last pair of socks wandered out of Arthur’s bag and walked into an open drawer, somehow reaching back and closing the drawer behind themselves), and other things without.
Merlin ran a hand through his slightly messy raven hair and leaned forward to explain. “The transportation spell uses up a lot of magic, especially for places I haven’t been before, and while I could probably do it, I’d be exhausted afterwards. Plus, it would take longer than I’d like to recover the magic afterwards, and I’d rather not feel drained and cold for this entire trip.”
Arthur frowned. “Why would it take longer than normal to restore your energy?”
“It’s this planet,” his friend elaborated. “Magic, it’s about life, and balance. Compared to Earth and other planets with actual atmospheres and plants, this planet barely has any life at all. That's why there's no natural magic here. I’ve got to rely on myself as the only available source of magic right now, which means big spells are going to drain me a lot faster and take longer to recover from than they normally would.” Merlin leaned back and shrugged. “It shouldn’t be a problem, though. I don’t plan on using any big spells here. Don’t need to attract any unwanted attention.”
Arthur hummed in agreement. He knew that most people in this century didn’t fully believe in things like magic, and even if they did, someone capable of wielding as much power as Merlin would likely be questioned over it, if not worse. In that regard, it unfortunately seemed like some things never changed, as much as he and Merlin had tried.
“If there isn’t much magic on this planet, are you sure you should be using it to put our stuff away?” Arthur gestured to the bags which had rolled themselves across the room and were now settling down into the far corner like two contented puppies. But if he was honest with himself, he rather enjoyed it when his friend used magic so openly in front of him. Arthur had never really gotten to see everything the man could do once he revealed he was a sorcerer back in Camelot (on account of Arthur actively dying at the time), but in each subsequent lifetime, Arthur vowed to never make Merlin feel as though he couldn’t be fully himself around him ever again. However, he definitely didn’t want the warlock to burn himself out before they had even spent a day on Midnight. Merlin never seemed to have the right level of self-preservation even before he had learned he was immortal, and that revelation certainly hadn’t improved anything in Arthur’s opinion.
“It’s fine,” Merlin replied, waving Arthur off. “It’s really just the big spells that would be a problem. Unless you would have preferred to put all this stuff away on your own.” He raised an eyebrow at Arthur, who felt somewhat frustrated that Merlin had managed to replicate Gaius’s favourite trick while he could not. “I know I’m not your servant anymore, but you can’t tell me you don’t appreciate me putting all your stuff away for you.”
“I don’t think it counts if you used magic to put it away, Merlin. But if you say it’s fine, then I trust you,” Arthur said.
Merlin smiled widely at him. “Oh, it counts. For example, you would not believe the number of times I used to use magic to polish your armour. You gave me way too much stuff to do back in Camelot. But speaking of stuff to do, since you still don’t seem to want to see the sapphire waterfall with me, what do you plan on doing tomorrow?”
Arthur leaned back against the headboard of his bed and took a bite of the sweet roll Merlin had tossed him, chewing thoughtfully. “I might go to the spa. See if you were right about it being anywhere close to royal treatment,” he responded.
“Of course, sire,” Merlin said, teasing.
Arthur groaned. “Come off it Merlin, you’re the one who recommended it. By the way, remember not to call me sire in public. I already had an unfortunate incident after you took off without me when I called a woman ‘my lady’.”
Merlin tilted his head to the side in interest. “Oh?”
Arthur nodded and tried not to act too embarrassed. “Yes, some woman named Donna. Very spirited. I swear Merlin, one day my old formal habits are really going to get us in trouble.”
Merlin laughed. “Get you in trouble, you mean. I’d probably be on Donna’s side, whoever she is. You can be a bit of a prat.”
“That’s not the point Merlin, it was a misunderstanding! Anyway, luckily the man she was with diffused the situation. Didn’t actually catch his name, he just introduced himself as the Doctor,” Arthur said. He opened his mouth to go on, but Merlin’s eyes seemed to sharpen with a sudden intensity and the warlock cut him off.
“Sorry, did you say his name was the Doctor? Just the Doctor?” Merlin inquired.
“He didn’t give a last name,” Arthur replied, confused. While it was a bit strange that the man didn’t give his full name, Arthur realized he had forgotten to properly introduce himself as well in his haste to get out of the awkward situation, so he couldn’t really judge the man over it. “Why? Do you know him? Seems unlikely we’d run into anyone we know here.”
“It’s complicated,” Merlin said, a worried frown twisting his lips. “I’ve seen him before, but he hasn’t seen me. I definitely don’t know him personally, and I’d like to keep it that way. The Doctor has a tendency to appear whenever there’s trouble, and we get into enough trouble on our own.” Merlin got up off the bed and began to pace around the small room with a sudden nervous energy. “This can’t be good. Why is he here? Does something happen on Midnight in this time? How could we be that unlucky? What am I saying, of course we’re that unlucky.”
Arthur stood up as well and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder in an attempt to stop both his pacing and rambling. “Are you saying this Doctor causes bad things to happen? Is he the reason I’m back this time?”
Merlin turned towards Arthur, and for a moment his eyes showed the weight of every long century he had lived through. Finally, he sighed. “No, he doesn’t cause bad things to happen. He usually tries to fix things, as best as he can, anyway. It’s just… he’s a time traveller, Arthur. So if he came here for a reason, that means something terrible is going to happen here. I don’t want to lose you again, not after it seems like I just got you back.” The warlock’s hands started to shake slightly, and Arthur squeezed his shoulder again softly.
“I’m right here, Merlin. We don’t know anything for sure yet. Maybe the Doctor came here for a holiday, just as we did,” he tried to reassure his friend.
Slowly, Merlin seemed to relax. “Maybe I shouldn’t go on the tour tomorrow. I should be by your side in case anything happens.”
“I don’t need you babysitting me, Merlin. As I already said, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Go see your pretty waterfall,” Arthur said, and lightly punched the warlock on the arm. Merlin winced and rubbed at it, and Arthur laughed. “You know the only reason I still do that is because it annoys you, right?” Arthur was pleased to see Merlin smile slightly.
“Yeah,” the warlock responded. “Which is why you’re still, somehow after all these years, a huge clotpole.”
“I still don’t know what that word means, Merlin.”
“Look it up in a dictionary. There’ll be a big picture of King Arthur Pendragon under the entry.”
“Merlin!”
Merlin laughed and ducked as the rest of Arthur’s sweet roll flew over his head, and the former king of Camelot smiled fondly at him. Whatever bad omens the Doctor might bring, Arthur would still try to enjoy this holiday as much as he could for now.