So this was sort of inspired by "Kids In Love" by Mayday Parade, sort of inspired by "The Night Before (Life Goes On)" by Carrie Underwood, and sort of inspired by "Summer Love" by One Direction.

Also: Modern Day AU. Just so you know.

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin or any of the songs that inspired this.

Summer Magic

*.*.*.*.*

Arthur was restless, itching to get out of that bookshop and start in on their summer fun. Maybe play some football or—or something, as long as they were outside and not lounging about this boring bookshop, Arthur didn't much care what they did.

But, Leon insisted, they had to wait for Lancelot to get off work so he could join them. He would be working mornings there all summer, so he would have afternoons and evenings to hang out with them and the rest of their friends. Maybe. Arthur had been watching Lance the entire half-hour he'd been waiting and noticed his friend had been making goo-goo eyes with a girl working there, so he had a sinking feeling that Lance would be spending less time with them and more time with her that summer.

Traitorous bastard.

He was knocked from his thoughts, a bit foul though they were, by someone bumping into him, multiple thudding sounds echoing in the small space they were occupying as Arthur turned his attention to them.

"Jesus, mate!" Arthur hissed, glaring at the mess of dark hair that belonged to whomever had just bumped into him. "Watch where you're going." He added as they knelt down to gather up the pile of books they'd dropped at Arthur's feet.

"How about you don't stand in the middle of the god damn way?" The person demanded, looking up to glare right back at Arthur.

And in that moment, when his eyes caught on Arthur's, fierce and more than a little pissed off, cheeks stained red, the color settling high on his glorious cheek bones…

In that moment, as Arthur found himself, without thinking, sinking down to his knees to help him gather up his books, even though he was supposed to be waiting on Lance and looking very put-off by the whole waiting thing…

Arthur knew that whatever plans he'd previously had for that summer didn't matter anymore.

*.*.*.*.*

"His name's Merlin." Lance told Arthur when he finally got up the nerve to ask about the guy from the bookshop.

After Arthur had helped the guy with his books, he'd flashed him a smile that as good as made Arthur see stars.

"I'd say 'thank you' but it's kind of your fault anyway." He had said.

And then, before Arthur could think of anything witty to say in response, he'd gone off to the counter to pay for his things. He and Lance had seemed friendly enough, so Arthur decided he'd just ask his friend about the mystery boy, who looked like an angel, when he had the chance to.

He had put it off for a few hours but then, as they sat down for lunch at some fast food joint… he couldn't wait anymore. He had to ask.

"Merlin Emrys." Lance added. "He's in there all the time; he's an avid reader. And he asked about you, too, actually."

"Really?" Arthur asked, trying to maintain the thrill that sentence had sent through him.

"Yeah." He nodded. "He said, 'who's the god looking prat blocking traffic and glaring at everyone'?"

Arthur laughed, scoffing at the notion. He hadn't been glaring at everyone, just the ones who had the gall to bump into him and look that attractive while doing it.

"He thinks you're a god, you think he's an angel—sounds like a match made in heaven, if you ask me." Leon grinned.

Arthur rolled his eyes at the terrible joke. This summer was supposed to be about them, their friendships, being young and dumb while they still had the chance...

But Arthur wasn't so dumb that he would let someone like Merlin come into his life for thirty seconds and never see him again. He wasn't that dumb at all.

"Do you happen to have his number?"

*.*.*.*.*

Lancelot, in fact, did have Merlin's number—they were actually pretty good friends, as it happened—but he would not give it to Arthur. His refusal had led to a barrage of pleas and threats from Arthur and then the odd chip thrown across the table until Arthur gave it up, slumped down in a huff and called Lance a twat.

As soon as he finished chuckling at the performance, Lance informed him, "If you want his number so badly, just come to the shop and wait for him to come back. Like I said, he's in there all the time, so it shouldn't be more than a day or two, at most."

Arthur felt as though it was borderline stalkerish to do something like that, but then Merlin's face flashed through his mind and he decided fuck it, and resigned himself to just waiting it out at the bookshop for him to come back. He was sure it wouldn't be long, if what Lancelot said was true, so what was a day or two of his summer break if it meant seeing him again, and perhaps getting his number and a date?

He wound up there, at that bookshop, moping about, doing the odd chore or errand for Lance or Gwen, the girl who worked there and whom Lance had a thing for, for three days until he came back. Three long, agonizing days.

*.*.*.*.*

Arthur was slumped in the old leather chair that was tucked away in the back of the bookshop, flipping through a book that was full of tales of Robin Hood and his merry men. In the three days that Arthur had been there, he found that if he picked up a book and kept himself busy reading—or pretending to read—Lance and Gwen tended to leave him to his own devices and quit badgering him about his whole reason for being there—which Gwen thought was sweet and not at all stalkerish.

Needless to say, he'd been reading quite a bit while he waited for Merlin to return to the bookshop. Honestly, if Lance had just given him the damn number in the first place…

"You've not really been here for three days, have you?" At that sound, the sound of a voice Arthur had only heard say a couple of sentences but would recognize any day, nonetheless, he looked up, eyes scanning the surrounding area until they fell on him, his hair messily sticking up, a sly sort of smirk on his face, hands thrust into his jeans pockets as he quirked an amused sort of eyebrow at Arthur, awaiting a reaction he would not give him.

Carefully, and in a controlled manner, Arthur closed the book and put it down on the arm of the chair he was sitting in.

"I'm… persistent." He shrugged, because there was no use denying it, Lance, the traitor, had obviously told him all about what Arthur had been doing; it would be more embarrassing to deny it than not to at that point.

"Some might say stalkerish." Merlin quipped.

"I prefer persistent." Arthur smiled.

"And what makes you think I'm interested in the prat who blocks bookshop traffic and snaps at the people he makes drop stuff, anyway?"

"You told Lance you think I look like a god." Arthur said, more than a little smug that he had the opportunity to throw that in his perfect face.

Instead of blushing, however, Merlin shrugged and grinned. "And you told Lance you think I look like an angel."

Arthur grinned right back. "So… Can I have your number, then?"

*.*.*.*.*

Merlin hadn't had any qualms about giving Arthur his number, he'd even asked for Arthur's in return and told him if he didn't call within the day to make plans of some sort, he'd be the one adopting stalker-like tendencies to track him down. Arthur wondered why they couldn't do something together then—both of them were there, both of them were free, after all—but then Merlin told him he actually had come to the bookshop for a reason, and needed to go about with it. He'd only ventured that far back in the shop because Gwen had informed him of Arthur's three-day stake out, which, he had admitted to Arthur as he walked off, he found more sweet than stalkerish.

Go figure.

Despite his urgency to find and get in touch with Merlin, Arthur waited a little over a day and a half before he called him, just to make him squirm with the same agitation and impatience as Arthur had for those long three days.

Merlin called him a sadistic bastard for pulling such a stunt—how the hell was he supposed to know that Arthur had been waiting for him to come back in, after all? But they both knew Lance had told him that Arthur would be waiting for him there. They both knew—but agreed to the movie date, anyway, which actually, turned into them spending the entire night at a restaurant talking about things that didn't matter in the scheme of things—things like what TV shows they enjoyed watching and what music they listened to when they were pissed off at the world—but that felt like the most important things in the world on a cool summer evening when it was just the two of them and nothing else mattered at all.

*.*.*.*.*

The one date turned into a thousand, so it seemed, and before Arthur could blink, he was spending all his time with Merlin. They called, texted, hung-out, went on dates—it was supposed to be the summer that Arthur said a proper goodbye to his friends, to being young and stupid, because as soon as summer was over, they were all going their separate ways, and things would never really be the same afterwards—not really. But, somehow, it turned into the summer of Merlin instead, and if all his friends hadn't quickly taken to Merlin, Arthur might have felt bad about that.

Well, no more bad than Lance might have felt for spending all his free time with Gwen, anyway.

*.*.*.*.*

"How many times have we been here by now, do you think?" Merlin asked, his fingers tangling in Arthur's, a warm, pleasant sensation spreading through Arthur's being as he did so. The sun was just going down, and they were walking down the beach—it was such a cliché date, Arthur had teased once, but Merlin loved it, loved the way the sand felt under his feet, loved the way the salt air tasted on his tongue, tasted on Arthur's tongue, so they went there often—talking about nothing, about their families, about their friends, about other summer days they'd already spent together and the ones they were going to spend together.

"Mm, hard to say. At least a few dozen times, I'd say."

"It can't be that many," Merlin rolled his eyes, squeezing Arthur's hand playfully. "We've not even been together a month yet."

"Not even a month?" Arthur asked, taken aback. It felt like they'd been together for years rather than weeks, like they'd known each other for an entire lifetime—had they really only known each other for a few weeks now?

"Feels like longer, doesn't it?" Merlin asked, voicing Arthur's thoughts for him in way that he always did.

"Yeah. Feels like forever." Arthur nodded, turning his head to the water, to the way the colors played across the sky and beyond the waves. Without another word, he lowered himself down to the sand where he stood, tugged Merlin down with him until they were sitting close together, the beach almost entirely empty save for them and a few other stragglers.

As Arthur laid his head on Merlin's shoulder, Merlin asked, "It feels like it will be forever, doesn't it?"

Arthur looked up at him, at the way his eyes were crinkling at the edges, the way he was smiling and blissful, and he couldn't help but feel it too. "Yeah. It does."

*.*.*.*.*

"You know," Arthur began one afternoon, licking up a line of ice cream that trailed down his cone. "You've never told me why you're always in that bookshop. I mean, we've been together almost every day this summer and I don't think I've ever seen you read any of the books you buy."

"I would ask how you know what books I've been buying, but," Merlin ducked his head and licked up the mess of vanilla ice cream that had painted its way down Arthur's hand and across his knuckles, sending a bit of a thrill through Arthur as he came back up, smacking his lips triumphantly. "We've already established your stalker-like qualities."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a stalker, I've kidnapped you, you're the victim here, I'm forcing you to date me, making you lick ice cream off my hand—I'm the devil and everyone knows it." He nudged Merlin carefully, trying not to make him drop his cone onto the ice cream parlour's floor. "So why don't you tell me why you're always buying so many books so I don't have to resort to dirty tactics?"

"What kind of dirty tactics can one employ in an ice cream parlour with impressionable children everywhere one looks, exactly?" Merlin challenged, his eyes daring in a way that Arthur both loved and hated at once.

"Well," He shrugged, face smug and innocent at once. He swiped his finger through his ice cream and dabbed it across Merlin's nose. Before Merlin could say a word, insult his tactics, Arthur leaned over and kissed it off, let his lips trail down to his cupid's bow, licked the chocolate off the edges of his lips, barely touching his lips themselves until Merlin whimpered, his eyes sliding shut as Arthur's tongue worked around.

"Not. Fair." Merlin hissed when Arthur finally leaned back, smirking at him.

"Dirty tactics, Emrys. And trust me, I can get dirtier, if I need to."

"You are an evil man, Arthur Pendragon." Merlin told him, narrowing his eyes as he licked a line of his chocolate ice cream off the cone. "My Uncle Gaius," He began a second later. "Is… I don't know, a researcher of sorts? I don't know what he does, half the time, but I've been living with him for a few years now and I've learned not to ask so many questions. Anyway, for whatever it is that he does, he needs… books. He… collects them, studies them—it's quite fascinating, actually. He'll send me out with a list of books to get for him and the money to pay for them, disappear into his office for a couple of days, come back out, send me to buy more books." He shrugged. "He's a wise man, knowledgeable on a lot of subjects—probably because of all the books. Every month or so, he comes out with an armful he doesn't need any more and gives them to me, and then I read them, try to learn even a fraction of what he knows."

Arthur nodded, listening intently, greedily. They rarely talked like this—about family, friends outside the ones they already knew, about things that mattered outside of summer, really. But when they did… It enthralled Arthur, made him grin wider, listen closer, talk more carefully. It didn't matter where they were when these conversations happened—an ice cream shop, the book store, the beach, Arthur's car, tucked into some corner at a party Leon and Lance had dragged them to—because when they did, the rest of the world just melted away and all that mattered was the way Merlin's lips turned and whatever cheeky or serious thing came out of them.

In those moments, Arthur felt himself falling in love with Merlin before he could ever dream about placing the feeling.

*.*.*.*.*

They were back at the beach, but, instead of walking along it, they were leaning off a pier, watching the people below it play and frolic and enjoy the sweltering heat and the cool water the daytime brought with it. They were just enjoying each other's company, really. Merlin, even, was silent, a content smile on his face telling Arthur that the silence was fine, he was just enjoying Arthur's company as Arthur was enjoying his.

But, being Merlin, Arthur knew the silence couldn't go on forever, so when he finally broke it, Arthur smiled fondly at him. "This is where I first kissed you, you know." He said.

"I remember." Arthur nodded, grinning widely at the memory.

It had been something like their second date—or not, because it was fuzzy what they considered actual dates and what they considered not-dates anymore, because of all the time they spent together—and, of course, it had been nighttime, Merlin's favorite time of day. They had been talking about a band they both enjoyed; Merlin had said something funny, and just as Arthur threw his head back to laugh, he'd planted a kiss on his open mouth, quick and chaste and something like magic, before Arthur grinned at him and leaned in for another—their first proper one, he liked to call it teasingly, just to see the look that flashed across Merlin's face before he kissed him hard and flirtingly to shut him up or prove a point, Arthur was never sure which.

Merlin smiled at him shyly, the memory dancing across his face, and leaned in slowly, licking his lips just the second before he caught Arthur's against them, warm as the summer around them, cool as the ocean below them, right as anything in the universe would ever be.

*.*.*.*.*

It was two months after they met. Two months since they started dating. Two months. Roughly sixty days. Arthur couldn't be in love after only sixty days—could he?

"Why not? Lance has only been with Gwen a few days longer than you've been with Merlin and they've been saying it for ages now." Leon said when Arthur asked him about it, when he sought out the advice of his best friend on a subject that he, quite frankly, knew little about. He'd never been in love before, had never looked at a person and felt such a stirring deep within, warm and scary and comforting and confusing all at once.

But then Merlin had come into his life. And the way he kissed Arthur tasted like an eternity rolled into a single kiss at a time; the way he looked at Arthur made him feel insecure and comfortable; the way he held Arthur in his arms made him feel at home and right for the first time in his life. Arthur looked at Merlin, and he could see love, could think of nothing else, once the thought first occurred to him.

"Yeah, but… I'm not Lancelot. And Merlin isn't Gwen. We're not… It's different with him, that's all." Arthur said, failing to appropriately convey what he meant.

Leon, though, nodded in understanding, almost sadly at his friend. "That's what everyone says about their summer love, Arthur."

"Merlin isn't just—"

"Arthur." Leon sighed, shaking his head like he didn't want to say whatever he was about to. "Think about it: After the summer is over, what are you doing?"

"Going to uni in London." Arthur said, the words heavy with something too much like reality as he said them.

"And what is Merlin doing?"

"I… I don't know."

"Probably not going to uni in London." Leon said softly.

Arthur shook his head, refusing to think about it, refusing to accept that their days were numbered.

But he had no choice, now that Leon had pointed it out, made him face the reality of things.

One month. If they were going their separate ways at the end of the summer, they only had one month left together.

The stabbing realization of that… Well, it was almost enough to overshadow the fluttering sort of feeling he had in his stomach whenever he thought about Merlin, thought about his other recent realization. He loved Merlin. But… If their days together were really numbered... was it worth it to tell him? To continue with what they had? Would the pain be worth it at the end of things? Was Merlin worth the pain?

*.*.*.*.*

Arthur was waiting on the pier—the one where Merlin had first kissed, him. The sun was going down, so, under normal circumstances, they might have just met on the beach to watch it set and snog a bit, but… Somehow, it wouldn't be right to do this anywhere else.

"Beautiful night out, isn't it?" Merlin asked, sidling up to Arthur on the pier, his grin falling to the wayside the second Arthur took him in his arms and kissed him, all passion and something like a lingering sadness from the conversation he'd had with Leon just a few hours ago.

"I love you." Arthur said the second he pulled back, watching Merlin's blue eyes soften from bliss and desire into happiness and realization as the words sank in across his features.

"I love you, too." Merlin sighed back, tugging Arthur for a kiss even more magical than their first one had been.

And whatever happened a month from then… Well, it just didn't matter right now.

*.*.*.*.*

Arthur was not a touchy-feely sort of guy by any means—he'd had girlfriends and boyfriends break up with him because he was too distant with them, too afraid to show too much of himself to them at a time—but with Merlin… He wanted to touch him all the time, hold his hand, steal kisses, play footsie, kiss his neck, hold him in his arms, tell him he loved him—something about Merlin, about the way their days together were so limited and looming over their heads, made Arthur want to be different with him, to take advantage of this light, freeing, blissful feeling that he filled him with.

Sometimes, Merlin looked at him like he, too, knew their days were numbered; sometimes he kissed him like he missed him already, and it left Arthur with a pang in his heart, so he always kissed him again, trying to coax a different sort of feeling out of him with a particularly provocative twist of his lips and tongue.

*.*.*.*.*

Arthur couldn't believe how quickly the days were passing, how the summer sun hadn't somehow slowed down the clock—and really, when he thought about it, it wasn't fair; summers in the past always seemed to drag on, last for months like they were supposed to, whereas this one summer that he needed to last forever… Well, it barely felt like it was lasting for days, let alone weeks and months.

But, still, with the amount of days they had together dwindling, they never talked about it, about plans and the future—it seemed to be an unwritten, unspoken, sort of thing between them—but… Arthur needed to. He needed to burst their bubble—just for one night, just… just to talk about it, so it wouldn't come as such a shock when the day finally came…

"You're not going to propose this time, are you?" Merlin teased when he approached Arthur on that same pier they always seemed to be meeting at these days. "I mean, first I kissed you here, then you told me you loved me here—not many other firsts we can do, unless you're an exhibitionist as well as a stalker?"

"Shut up." Arthur rolled his eyes and kissed him, a lingering, sweet sort of thing before he sighed and looked across the edge of the pier, standing in comfortable silence as Merlin slipped his hand into his.

"I was wondering…" Arthur began then, looking at Merlin out of the corner of his eye. "What… are your plans for this fall?" He asked slowly.

Merlin nodded, catching the double meaning to his words instantly.

"My mother called me today, actually." He said slowly, twisting his fingers around Arthur's playfully, absently. "And she wants me to come stay with her. There's a university near her that she thinks I should attend next year—because it's too late to apply now, obviously—and in the meantime, she has a friend who's willing to give me a job so I can save up to pay for school when I do attend. What about you?"

"Uni." He answered, swallowing a lump in his throat. "In London."

"When do you—"

"Two weeks. Two weeks exactly."

Merlin nodded again, let out a long breath. "I don't have to leave until I want to, so… I won't go until you do. We'll milk the hell out of these last two weeks together, Arthur." He assured him.

"Yeah. Yeah, we will." Arthur agreed, leaning down to kiss him gently on the head to seal the agreement.

*.*.*.*.*

"You've never tried to get into my pants, you know." Merlin declared curiously, almost asking, begging, Arthur why he hadn't. They were in Merlin's bedroom at his uncle's house, lounging about in the cool air instead of the sweltering heat—it was a hot summer that they had so far been able to handle, but they had been experiencing a bit of a heatwave as of late and had taken to spending their time indoors instead of outdoors if they could help it.

"Nor you mine." Arthur told him, looking up from the book he was flicking through. Merlin hadn't been kidding when he had said that the house was full of books. Arthur didn't know where his uncle put them all, actually, or why he kept needing so many, but Merlin had said not to question it, so he really tried not to.

They were both spread out on Merlin's bed, each of them reading, hands roaming to find the other's over the course of the afternoon, doing little else until Merlin started talking.

"Fair point. But," Merlin added, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "You're the persistent one, if I recall."

"Are you ever going to let that go?" Arthur snorted.

"That you literally hung around a bookshop for three days just so you could see me again? Nope, never."

Arthur sighed and closed the book he was reading, looked over at Merlin. "It's not that I don't want to have sex with you, Merlin—because I do, more than anything else in the world, I do. But… Saying goodbye to you… it's going to be hard enough as it is, if I knew what it was like to be with you like that… I wouldn't be able to do it, Merlin. I would not be able to do it."

Merlin nodded then, silently accepting his explanation of things, and then he leaned over to kiss him, as innocent a kiss as they came, but a spark still passing between them that Arthur came to expect with every touch they shared, and that he would come to miss, in only a week.

*.*.*.*.*

"I leave first thing in the morning." Arthur said the second he felt Merlin come up to him, slide his arm around his shoulders and rested his head there, just in the crook of his neck.

"I know." Merlin said simply, a catch in his voice that had been plaguing Arthur all day. They had spent the day together, of course, at the bookshop, the ice cream parlour, along the beach, at Merlin's house, at Arthur's house—because Merlin had never actually seen it before, and it was better late than never—and everywhere else they could think of going on this, their last day together. Merlin had slipped away for a few minutes to do something he wouldn't disclose to Arthur in the moment, but he had promised to meet him at the pier—their pier—as soon as he was finished doing whatever it was he had been doing.

"It's… going to be… so different in London. Without you."

"It's going to be different without you, too." Merlin agreed.

"Why don't you just come to London with me?" Arthur suggested, turning to Merlin with a spark of hope in him that he knew had no right to be there. Merlin couldn't go to London any more than Arthur could go to Ealdor, the city where Merlin's mother lived, where he would be living while Arthur was in London. And they both knew it.

"I love you." Merlin said, kissing him instead of slashing at that hope. God, they kissed so much and so often, but Arthur would never be used to it, to the thrill it sent through him, to the way he felt empty whenever Merlin pulled back. He would never be used to it, and he would never have the time to grow used to it. And it wasn't fair.

"I'm going to miss you. More than you'll ever know." Arthur told him, his throat aching with the few tears that slipped past his eyes.

"We're not…" Merlin shook his head, tears of his own quietly streaming down his face. "God, Arthur, we're not going to be that couple that says—"

"We'll write and call every day? And then doesn't do it? And then ends up more heart broken than they would have been if they had just said goodbye in the first place?"

"Exactly."

"I don't want to be that couple, Merlin."

"Neither do I, so… That means…"

"This is it. Goodbye."

"Not forever," Merlin said quickly, a pleading tone in his voice. And Arthur could see in his eyes that he needed this as much as Arthur did—that slim hope of everything sort of… working itself out, sooner or later.

"No. Not forever. Just until next summer. You are coming back here next summer?"

"If you are." Merlin nodded, the promise sealed with his tone of finality.

Silence hung over them, then, as they watched the last sunset of their summer, hands tangled, heads too close together, lips dancing desperately for every last kiss they could managed to get out of the other until it was dark, the sun gone, sky moonless, stars twinkling almost sadly for them.

"Next summer," Merlin started, his voice a whisper. "No matter what—if we're… seeing anyone else, if we're deathly ill, if we're stalking other people… we meet right here. Just to see if… the magic is still here. Just to know this summer meant something."

"Next year, on the first day of summer break, Merlin Emrys." Arthur nodded. "I will meet you on this very spot. The spot you first kissed me at, the spot I first said I love you at, and the spot we first said goodbye at. I will meet you right here, you have my word."

Merlin let out a shaky breath, something like a laugh and a sob at once as he drew Arthur near and hugged him tightly. Arthur wrapped his own arms around his wiry frame and inhaled his scent, burning it deeply into his memory—the salt air, his shampoo that smelled like wild flowers and grass, and his aftershave that smelled like a stroll through a forest on a crisp autumn day.

Arthur drew back finally, he had to face this moment. Whether he wanted to or not, it was time to say goodbye, time for them to go their separate ways, time for Arthur to leave his heart on a pier in a town he wouldn't see for something like five or six months—longer if he decided not to return for holidays; his father wasn't likely to miss his company anyway, and Merlin wasn't likely to come back either, so there would be nothing there for him until the following summer.

"Before we go," Merlin said hurriedly, reaching behind himself for a parcel Arthur hadn't noticed before. It was wrapped in the sort of giftwrap that he recognized as the sort the bookshop that Lance worked at used. "This is for you. So you don't forget me." He added, slightly teasing as he handed it to Arthur.

"I didn't know we were giving going-away presents." Arthur said, clutching the gift tightly in his hands as he promised himself he wasn't going to cry—not as badly as he wanted to, anyway.

"We weren't. This… was sort of last minute, I guess you could say. If you want to give me something, though… one final kiss to hold me over until next summer?" He asked shyly.

Arthur nodded, smiling in good humor as he wrapped his arms around Merlin and held him close, kissing him for as long as he could until he realized he was half crying through it, and Merlin was, too. Sheepishly, Merlin gave him a forced half smile as he pulled back and pecked him on the lips.

"I love you, Arthur."

"I love you, too, Merlin." He said in response, even though he could feel his heart breaking as he said the words. He looked out at the ocean waves for a few long moments, then, just so he wouldn't have to see Merlin leave him, just so he wouldn't have to watch him go.

When he felt like he was composed enough to head home and finish packing up his things, he remembered the gift Merlin had left him with and slowly opened it, his curiosity winning out over his heartache as he carefully slid open the paper.

Sitting in his hands, then, he found a book full of tales of Robin Hood and his merry men—the very book Arthur had been reading the day Merlin had found him in the bookshop, waiting for his angel to come to him. And now... Now he was waiting again, already counting the minutes until they'd be reunited once more.

*.*.*.*.*

The first day of summer break, Arthur didn't quite make it to the pier. Or the second day. Or even the third. He was afraid, in the back of his mind, that Merlin had forgotten about him, that maybe he'd fallen in love with someone else, that he didn't think about Arthur as often as Arthur thought about him. He was afraid that Merlin didn't look at sunsets and think of him, that he didn't taste ice cream and remember that day in the ice cream parlour, that he didn't kiss someone and think that Arthur's kisses were sweeter.

Arthur was just afraid… that he'd been forgotten.

But he had to go eventually—he had given his word after all. And what if Merlin was there? Waiting for him? He couldn't just leave him there like that...

Cutting his way through the early summer crowds, after he decided he just needed to face whatever was awaiting him at that peir—Merlin, or... No Merlin—Arthur found his way to the pier easily, with only a little hesitation, with his heart in his throat, and worry on his face.

But when he finally got there, when he caught sight of that mess of hair that he first saw only over a year ago… He broke out into a grin, relief making his voice crack just a bit when he said, "You've not really been here for three days, have you?"

Merlin jumped and turned around, grinning as he shrugged in response, "I'm… persistent."

And the magic, Arthur found, was still very much there indeed.

*.*.*.*.*