"Arthur's learned this lesson before."

Arthur is working for Saito at Fischer-Morrow. Robert notices.

This time, Arthur has a secret.

The reason SAS Captain Arthur Pendragon can't keep a communications specialist in Team Excalibur because none of them are good enough. And then Lieutenant Merlin Emrys gets assigned to his squad, and Arthur does everything he can to prove that Merlin isn't good enough, either. Except he is.

He tells himself he’s healing because it sounds healthy and well-adjusted and like him, and James has stopped showing up to contradict him.

Arthur likes to find his inspiration in other people's dreams. Mal holds the secrets of a princess in a tower. Eames wants to cross the bridge and burn it behind him. And Saito's most popular author can't (or won't) finish her greatest work...

Saito's job referral draws Arthur, Eames, and Ariadne together for an extraction in Finland that proves unexpectedly dangerous and difficult, pushing the three of them past all limits and into a precarious and tender three-cornered relationship. In which Ariadne loses the future she'd planned, Eames loses the past he thought he'd already thrown away, and Arthur loses his distance, secrets are revealed and a dance for two becomes a tango for three.

This is what you get for being the only son of forgotten Bavarian royalty, the last vestige of an ancient, magical line, left to rot amongst some pretty skirts and terrible attempts at intelligent conversation.

Athos lies, and drinks, and remembers.

Charles, a miner from a poor village in the countryside, saves the life of Erik Lehnsherr, scion of a successful business family and the richest man on Eisen. Charles is a telepath and somewhat anxious about it, while Erik abstains from relationships because the lights flicker and doors open and electronics vibrate when he gets too excited.

Also features a long-suffering sister, a foul-mouthed bodyguard, and a best friend with a heart that is definitely not gold.

In which there are princes, spaceships, long journeys, and old secrets uncovered. (An AU sci-fi fairytale)

“Raven,” Siri whispers, and the moonlight streams silver onto his scales. He’s a chameleon, a rabbit, a fluttering bird, landing on her shoulder and digging with tiny claws. “Raven, someone’s coming.”

Or, X-Men: First Class with daemons.

Harry Potter has only ever had two goals in life: to defeat Voldemort and to bring his followers to justice. One, he's done. The other is in progress. It should be simple, except there's one former Death Eater who doesn't meet the right criteria.

XMFC/Inception fusion AU. Erik is an extractor, Alex is his point man. They're assembling a team to go after the most dangerous mind in dreamsharing: Sebastian Shaw. But unless Alex and the team can keep him in check, Erik's desire for vengeance might just rip the whole job apart around them -- and then there's the shade that haunts his dreams...

Arthur found himself staring deeply into Eames' eyes, which were very serious. "Don't worry," Eames assured him, "I'm a level eighty-five ret paladin."

People are dying, and Charles has to do something. Erik makes a rather serious error of judgment.

"Simply put, dear Arthur, we go off to dreamland, I ask you some questions--"

"And then we see how long it takes for you to shoot him," Yusuf finishes.

Of all the many things Merlin had ever worried about getting arrested for, despoiling the king's ward hadn't been one of them.

Merlin meets Morgana Le Fay at a support group for People With Freaky Unnatural Powers. Alright, it’s not technically called that, but it might as well be.

The king has been ever more obsessed since Merlin. Searching through the surrounding villages, posting guards at the castle gates to check anyone who enters. The executioner has been kept busy these last few months.

So this is what it felt like to be normal. Merlin opens his eyes to the cool, shining metal of Arthur's unsheathed blade. "Sorcerer," Arthur spits.

Closing his eyes, Merlin sucked in a breath. "Kill me, Arthur," he said.

There was once boy Merlin came to the court to ensnare the prince in his grasp, for he was an evil wizard, determined to destroy all of Albion. He bated his time, and made the prince believe he was his friend, someone to be trusted until two Augusts after his arrival, the good King Uther Pendragon recognized that his son’s illness was related to the boy who never left his son’s side for a moment. When the evil wizard Merlin was burned, Prince Arthur emerged from confinement healthy and strong again.

Arthur is an Oxford Blue. Merlin is an Oxford cox. Lancelot is Merlin's romantic-dalliance-loving friend. Morgana is horribly clever; Gwen is cleverly waiting for Lancelot to grow up. Merlin and Arthur rub each other the wrong way, at first, but it soon becomes clear that Arthur is a university-class rower with a world-class heart (yes, I typed that). Clichés ensue.

When Merlin woke the next morning, he spent a good ten minutes staring at the canopy, trying to convince himself he didn't remember where he was and didn't remember exactly what he was doing there and how many times he had done it.

Arthur is a rich business man - Merlin is the down-on-his-luck hooker he picks up almost by accident one night. Things Happen Between Them - and not just the things Arthur paid for.

justice is hot: hi
justice is hot: a/s/l?
Yagami Raito: Oh, but I'd much like you know your name, first.
Yagami Raito: Maybe you can send a picture of yourself, as well?
justice is hot: initial reaction to strangers similar to that of kira's... 80%, now

She isn’t exaggerating when she says that there have been rumors about her and Arthur since she was a child, but none of them have ever been true before.

"It is time for Mordred to whet his appetite in battle," Morgana said.

Lancelot was not a great man, sprung as he was from common blood and barely proven. It was not for him to cut away that magic, steal for himself a little piece of a power that could render Albion mighty. It was neither right, nor his right.

Betrayal is one thing Arthur cannot live with.

But L's only good at cryptography, not dealing with Raito when he's acting like a fourteen year old girl--serial killer or not, he still whines like a teenager.

"How long do you think it will be, before Uther learns the truth and both your lives are forfeit? Come with me and he will keep his life. By all the ancient gods I swear it."

He stores it up for later, all that raw hysteria, to relish in a moment when he is alone. He stores L’s stricken look away too, and can barely contain himself. The weeks without the Death Note have given him time to imprint L’s face on his mind – he can see it, the gaze of friendship, the eyes that are by now too comfortable watching him, too warm, even as they widen in suspicion.

It wasn't always like that. Because when Dumbledore had paused before the cluster of four boys--and they were still boys, Sirius knew now--on their last day at Hogwarts, and told them that they were bound for extraordinary things, he'd been right.

Her first kiss occurs when she is fourteen with Lucius Malfoy, outside the broom cupboard near the dungeons, after Potions. He had been escorting her to Defense for no significant reason except that it was a good and beneficial decorum for a Malfoy and a Black to be seen together. "The Malfoys are a respectable people, Andromeda," said Mother once, clean and polished fingers holding a wine glass to her mouth. 'The Blacks are a respectable people, too. Do you understand?'

L will probably never know – and knowing him as he does now, Light doubts he would have cared of he did – that he is largely responsible for Kira's persistence and ruthlessness.

Regulus comes to terms with his brother, his family, his Lord, and himself.

There’s a photograph of Arthur throwing his copy of Superman onto the bonfire; headlines screaming 'Ten Thousand Comic Books Burned,' news cuttings pasted into albums his father won’t look at but is proud of nonetheless.

"Oh MERLIN. STOP WRIGGLING OR I'LL HEX YOU! This is a rule. There is a KNICKERS RULE!"

It is a full moon on the night of October thirty-first, nineteen eighty-one, and therefore Remus has the best Halloween costume in most of England.

James Potter était assis à son bureau et corrigeait des copies. Lorsqu’il arriva à « Lily Evans », il sourit de toutes ses dents, sourire de séducteur qui lui avait permis de tomber tant de filles jusque là et, ne prenant même pas la peine de lire la copie, il y plaça un gros « D » à l’encre rouge (il ne s’en servait que pour les Serpentard). Cette rouquine l’énervait au plus haut point. Voilà un mois qu’elle jouait la Miss je sais tout dans son cours. Si elle croyait se le mettre dans la poche de cette manière là, elle se fourrait le doigt dans l’œil madame la préfète.

James Potter's luck was bound to run out. Who knew he'd take Remus Lupin's along with it?

Until the liberation of Warsaw in 1945, many men and women risked their lives trying to help Jews escape Nazi persecution. Merlin tried to help as best he could and it was in doing so, that he was reunited with Arthur.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the Sorting Hat announced, and Remus scurried over to the Hufflepuff table, hoping he could make friends there while still keeping his secret.

You don't know it yet, but this is the last time you will ever touch him like this.

"There is only one truly effective and permanent love potion, Miss Black. You won't find it in books, because it is difficult, deeply personal, and useless."

Yes, Merlin understood Morgana. Because he knew all too well that before long he’d be following a similar path, and telling Arthur – no matter how tempting – was something he couldn’t afford to contemplate. It was for Arthur’s sake, and Merlin could not stand to be ordered to stay.

Arthur had been taught right from wrong and this, this was wrong!

"I realise this may come as a shock to you, but our investigations have been going on for some time, and we’re quite sure. Your mother Lily Evans was not, as we had all previously believed, of pure Muggle stock. One of her ancestors was a Veela."

"Chris, works of art are for admiring, humans are for fucking. Which position would you rather have in my life?"

No matter how fast he runs, he can't run away from himself.

After his father casts a mysterious curse on Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy is forced to try to make things right.

By the time he is twenty one summers old, Arthur Pendragon is perfectly cold enough to be king of Camelot.

Finally decided to get up, did we. Still lazy as ever, I see, your Majesty."

Remus isn't a very good story teller, but there are things Harry wants to be told. Then again, there are some things Remus can never say, things that burn to think about. Betrayals and other things he keeps to himself. Secrets from when it all fell apart.

She freezes, looking up at Abraxas Malfoy's portrait. It--he--has always been civil to her, but not what she'd call friendly, certainly never paternal. Now he is smiling down at her, with more warmth and force than a swath of canvas has any right to project.

I’m not sure why I responded to the ginger-haired girl the way I did. I’d seen a hundred of her type before--pale and skittish at finding themselves here, but arrogant, too, never worked a day in their life, likely to look down on a woman like me who makes a honest living through trade. They pretend like they’ve been to Knockturn Alley before, like they know what they’re doing, like they know what they want. They rarely do. I take their gold anyway. I need it. We’ve all been screwed over by somebody--and I’m the first to admit it happened to me--but if they pay me enough, I’ll help them act like that’s not true.

Everything's better with pirates. Including Camelot.

Arthur closes eyes, turns his face into the pillow, and promises himself that it’s only the sunlight refracting, even though they only make love with the curtains drawn in the darkness of night.

"Can the most famous film star in the world fall for just an ordinary guy?"

Then that particular group of girls who always sit together—and out of all there's only one he thinks is hot but she never looks up at the right time—sitting next to Heineken, a broody kid who takes his skateboard to class, and whose real name is forever lost due to a supposed incident during first year introduction that involved a beer bottle, an unsavoury way of putting it to use and a partner too drunk to care.

"The sorceress has a destiny that must be fulfilled. She shall return. She will be called Nyneve, and she will be given another chance. Are we in agreement?"

The first time Merlin had burst into flames (and Arthur made a note to remind Merlin, the next time Merlin complained about a 'life of forbearance and servitude to a man who makes no allowances for his advisors, and is in fact so unyielding, so sulkingly unyielding, that he will not even wear the thicker-soled boots with the yellow stain on the heel unless it is the second hunting Tuesday of the month, even when it is clearly raining outside', that Arthur’s thoughts regularly featured statements such as 'the first time Merlin had burst into flames')—the first time Merlin had burst into flames, absolutely without warning, Arthur had not managed even the moment of calm he was desperately grasping at now.

"Let me guess. He was talking about getting the band back together," he said. Zach nodded. "JJ gets that itch every six months. I have the emails to prove it."

One time they get re-born as brothers.

Arthur and Morgana are Metropolitan police officers drawn into a strange case involving robbery of ancient artifacts. Merlin is a graduate student at Imperial College studying the healing plants of Ancient Britain under Gaius – or at least that's what he tells everyone. Soon they, along with Gwen, Lancelot and Uther, will be facing a battle for the future of the country. Can they defend the realm from those who would seek to destroy it?

Merlin is content, but not exactly happy, in Ealdor, so when his mother's friend Gaius' shows up with a tale of dragons under castles and priestesses and an exiled prince, Merlin is thrilled to listen. The reality, however, isn't so great: the priestess is a killer, the prince is a prat, and the dragon sure does have some curious ideas about them. But Gaius is saying it's Merlin responsibility -- destiny, even -- to help Arthur win back his kingdom, and to evade all the forces amassing against him on the way. This would, of course, be a whole lot easier if he could stand to be in the same village as Arthur for enough time for them to stop arguing.

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.

Cool. Oh - my name's Faith, by the way. I'm a vampire slayer. Or maybe The Vampire Slayer in this universe. Since we're being all honest and shit.

L dislikes: socks; uniforms; spinach; driving; having to carry heavy objects; large, exuberant dogs with muddy paws; people who talk in the cinema; pan pipe renditions of popular hits; getting rained on; durian; cabbage; criminals.

Ryuzaki seems surprisingly unembarrassed by this intimacy, seems to regard it as an inevitable consequence of his decision to have them handcuffed together, no worse than having an audience when he uses the lavatory, no worse than being a third wheel on Light's dates with Misa. Since he is pretty certain that Ryuzaki has never shared a bed with another person before in his life, Light had expected the other man to be rather more sheepish, and is irritated to find him so matter-of-fact about it all.

In which Captain Malcolm Reynolds, formerly of His Majesty's Navy, finds himself with a stowaway aboard the sailing vessel "Serenity."

Frank Hallie never meant to be the wicked stepmother in the story.

To be voiceless was terrifying, but to use silence as a weapon was somehow worse.

This has been the worst day of Arthur’s life. Arthur shoves Merlin into the lockers as hard as he can, relishes the thud of Merlin’s body against metal and the whoosh of his lost breath. "You little fucking shit," he says.

A Merlin-Supernatural Fusion. After a bitter parting and four years of silence, Merlin is contacted by Arthur to help find Uther, who has disappeared on the trail of Nimueh. Merlin is drawn back into the hunt, criss-crossing Britain in a vintage Jag with Arthur at his side, tracking ghosts, spirits, fantastic beasts, and Nimueh, the being responsible for the deaths of Ygraine and Hunith, years before. As well as the hunt, they must deal with their own relationship, and Merlin's special gifts that have begun to re-emerge.

Gwen and Lancelot cannot be allowed to get away with their betrayal of Arthur.

What really happened was that when Prince Arthur was born the King started boasting of his manly virility, saying that Nimueh's magic had been a fraud and that only he was responsible for the Queen finally begetting a child. And so, when Nimueh heard about this she enchanted the King and all his subjects, as well as all children born henceforth on Camelot soil with the most fitting curse she could imagine.

Merlin was never an old man when Arthur was crowned, just an old soul.

Can the most famous film star in the world fall for just an ordinary (well, kind of) guy?

This is the punishment Arthur devised for him, he realizes; betrayal and disloyalty repaid with unforgiving, implacable forgetfulness.