The king has returned: A Merlin/Arthur reincarnation fic rec list
Old Love, But In Shapes That Renew And Renew Forever by leopardwrites
People accept that an old man might live alone. People accept that he might have lost the greatest love he has ever known.
we have the chance to turn the pages over by HalfFizzbinIt doesn’t take Merlin long to figure out that he doesn’t age the same as everyone else.
Hold My Heart Until it Beats by ingberryArthur dies and waits for Albion to need him again. But most of all he waits for Merlin.
Firsts For Everything by bevinkathrynSometimes, people seem to forget, in all this fighting for equal rights, that ‘gay couples’ are just ‘couples’. Merlin and Arthur, and a first-time hundreds of lives in the making.
As a forgotten continent by ca_teDestiny sometimes plays tricks…Merlin and Arthur are born again as brothers. They have been strongly connected since when they were kids, but at a certain point, when they both are teens, something shifts in the balance of their relationship. How will they cope with it? And what will happen when Merlin starts to understand that the recurrent dreams that he has been having since when he was a child are something more than simple dreams? Will they manage to truly find each other in this new lifetime?
PLOT: Neither of them can resist; neither can turn away.
RATING: NC-17 (Arthur/Merlin, canon!verse)
#Word count: 2,300Night after night, though, when Merlin leaves Arthur’s chambers, the prince is alone, pulling the heavy curtains closed around his bed or hunched over reports at the table, his shadow in the flickering candlelight his only companion.
Type: One-shot
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-15
Summary: Since Arthur had become king, Merlin never really saw him anymore. So Arthur started leaving him little notes.
BROLIN
Colin, Bradley, Angel and Katie play a particularly stupid version of spin-the-bottle which, de facto, isn’t spin the bottle at all.
Featuring: a trip to Paris, a visit in London, clueless Bradley and a Colin who falls asleep in beds other than his own.
Colin is quite brilliant at matchmaking. Except when he isn’t.
On his twenty-first birthday, Bradley receives an old photo of a beautiful young man with astonishing cheekbones and a loving smile, along with the message, ‘Come find me’. There’s only one catch - the message was sent over a hundred years before.
Did you hear about the Morgans?
A misprint in the Gay Times leads to Colin’s mother assuming that Colin and Bradley have eloped. Unfortunately, they hadn’t.
Do you wanna come over and kill some time?
Colin Morgan is a bit of workaholic. It has been, give or take, six months since Bradley realized he fancied his co-star; that he wanted to do with him all the things people on the internet speculated they did. Possibly forever. Half that time he wasted bollocksing about having a bit of a sexual identity crisis and being totally oblivious to Colin’s totally obvious reciprocal feelings, and then the rest of it was mostly taken up with filming, so he feels he cannot be blamed, truly, for wanting to take advantage of a night off.
Bradley James and Colin Morgan are in a theater play together, in which they play gay lovers. The show is directed by their Merlin co-star, Richard Wilson.
Five times Colin fell in love with Bradley (the Bradley James version)
Read the title. Enough said.
How to woo your co-star in five songs or less
In which Bradley attempts to become indie, if only he knew what indie was.
If we sleep together (Will you be my friend forever)
According to Wikipedia, and I quote, a bromance or “man-crush” is a close but non-sexualrelationship between two men. Bradley James does not read Wikipedia.
The Colour of Cartoon Sunshine
As filming for the second series draws to a close, Colin thinks his biggest problem is evading one of Bradley’s goodbye hugs. It isn’t. It’s that he’s about to do something that’s fourteen different kinds of stupid: fall in love.
Merlin is finished, and despite their vehement protests, Colin and Katie are whisked off to Italy with some of the other young cast members before they have to say goodbye and move on with their lives. Problem is, Colin thinks he might possibly be in love with his (straight) on-set best friend - and neither of them are terribly good at communicating.
Two weeks of misunderstandings, blanket forts, sofa-sleeping, and way too much alcohol leads to something pretty close to happiness.
MERTHUR
AU:
High school AU. In which Arthur is (A) the best captain that the volleyball team had seen in ages, (B) too handsome for his own good, and (C) decidedly not gay; although Merlin agrees with the first two, he is willing to bet that (C) is open for discussion.
Accidental Memory In Case of Death*
Tony O does not befriend losers. Tony O is not gay, not crazy, he is not particularly nice and he is most definitely not royalty. Destiny disagrees.
An AU based on the movie Love Actually, and more specifically, the story arch with the Prime Minister and Natalie, featuring Arthur as the Prime Minister and Merlin as Natalie.
Arthur is not amused when his (probably insane) father decides to hold a Secret Santa exchange for the entirety of Pendragon Corporation. He’s even less amused (and more than a bit panicky) when he draws Merlin’s name.
An exercise in holding one’s breath
Arthur’s been in love with Merlin since he was five years old, and, twenty three years on, not much has changed.
For the last twenty two years Uther Pendragon had been waging war on magic. Now his son Arthur has been framed for a magical crime and sent to the prison for magic users. Arthur is instantly targeted by the inmates, but mysterious top dog Merlin takes him under his wing. They form a bond, and Merlin decides to help Arthur clear his name.
In which there is pining, Merlin bakes, Arthur borrows batteries he doesn’t actually need, and did I mention the pining?
Wherein Arthur and Merlin are dating, save for the part where they aren’t. Also there needs to be a girl version of ‘bromance’, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Drastically Redefining Protocol
In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell breaks loose.
Three years ago Arthur Pendragon was part of a group that resisted the Government’s ban on magic, and the automatic death penalty for anyone who practiced it. Now, he is alone and in desperate need of the very last person he wants to see- Merlin.
Arthur and Merlin in NYC. Five random days and everything that’s attached to them. (Or, really, just Merlin and Arthur being completely dumbface in love.) Followed by And then they Kiss.
Forget Me Not (And Remember Me Soon)
A sort of 50 First Dates meets Reincarnation fic. What if an accident prevents Merlin from remembering Arthur?
In which Merlin is a web comic artist, and Arthur keeps checking his FAQ page.
The Good Times Are Killing Me*
In which the boys pretend to still be together for Christmas (and there is more than one kind of charade.)
Heartbreak, Secret Friends and Stupid Doodles
Merlin has a secret crush on Arthur, who has no idea who he is. When Arthur has a bad break up, Merlin takes it upon himself to cheer him up. Secretly, of course.
Arthur and Merlin are best friends, and neither of them are a member of the Magic Club. All is as it should be, until it isn’t.
It’s Not the End of the World (But You Can See It From Here)*
Arthur, Prince of Wales, finds it hard to accept that he and Merlin have no future. Then he finds out that neither does anyone else.
Arthur can’t let go. Merlin forgets.
Merlin Emrys is normal. He is ordinary and lives with his two friends in an ordinary flat in Surrey, he writes for a bi-monthly magazine and writes for himself during dark nights and much-too-early mornings, he has too many feelings and grudges himself for it. He figures the only thing that makes him extraordinary are his dreams that don’t feel like dreams at all -they feel like memories-, his magical powers that are turned on and off like a switch and the fact that a beautiful man just entered his life like a whisper and he’s slowly falling in love.
In which Arthur goes on blind dates, Merlin is his waiter, and everyone takes a ride on the crazy train.
Uther is violent at home and Arthur has to hide the bruises in school. New pupil Merlin sees through his popular bullshit at once and discovers the truth.
Arthur is a world class violinist, trapped in Sydney, Australia, by his fear of flying. In the wake of a mediocre concert, vicious critics and with barely a month to go before his next (hopefully reputation-saving) recital, Arthur is almost at breaking point. When his accompanist, Morgana, breaks her wrist in a car accident, Arthur is more or less doomed. And the story begins, when the Maestro at the conservatoire, Gaius Stresemann, recommends his protege Merlin Emrys to step in. Merlin, who plays by ear, as he pleases and really just wants to be a kindergarten teacher. Well. The story really starts six months previously when Arthur passes out drunk outside Merlin’s shoe-box apartment.
Possibly Maybe I’m Falling For You
Merlin walks into his favourite coffeeshop one morning to find the Prince of Wales behind the till. His life only gets more surreal from there.
Merlin is an emo/scene kid. Arthur is a jock with a secret kink for emo/scene kids. They meet at a club and chaos ensues.
The summer Arthur turns 16, he meets a boy called Merlin, and falls in love.
A Modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love…
Arthur had had it all figured out. And then Merlin shot him in Beijing.
CANON:
Merlin and Arthur begin to realize their feelings for each other go beyond friendship. But will they be able to admit it? Followed by Broken andLove’s Fealty.
Arthur is so stricken with grief that he goes on a mad quest looking for a sorcerer to bring Merlin back to life. When it finally happens, Merlin is horrified because it’s truly impossible to just bring someone back to life like that and he’s fairly certain he’s some kind of half-dead abomination. Arthur doesn’t care.
Uther fears his son’s power, and Merlin has helped Arthur flee to escape imprisonment. Now the two of them must fight to regain Arthur’s rightful place in Camelot.
Post!S3, canon era fic. Between the trees of Cenred’s ruined kingdom, a heartbroken Arthur and an orphaned Merlin discover new feelings for each other, but quickly learn that nothing is promised, and no lie can stay hidden forever.
And they dreamt of his greatness.
Arthur has a heightened sense of smell (whether by magic or training, or if it’s natural) and he loves smelling Merlin. He can also smell things like Merlin’s arousal or fear, etc. and he responds very assertively to them—like he can’t help himself.
Merlin has more than one secret to keep. Merlin was born with angel wings. All his life, they were small and flat enough to hide beneath his shirt, but when he falls in love with Arthur, they grow humongous.
The World Is Changed (Because You Are Made of Ivory and Gold)
In which Arthur gives Merlin a ring (but no one’s on their knees).
* fandom favourites