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Merlin’s training journey technically begins the second time they see each other. Not that Arthur’s thinking about it, at the time, or planning for the encounter to progress the way it does but—well.
But, in hindsight, he supposes there was really no other way that particular conversation could’ve gone.
The point is that he usually limits himself from starting spontaneous fights with perfect strangers to his knight-wannabes and the occasional, oddly placed adversary. Perhaps, at the time, he’d been more inclined to think of Merlin as an opponent, then, because he sure as hell wouldn’t pass for a knight, even in Arthur’s half-hearted mental justifications.
And, in hindsight, maybe that’s even more ridiculous. Not just the idea of Merlin being an adversary, but any too-skinny peasant boy wandering his kingdom with a sharp tongue and no sense of propriety.
Whatever. The point is, Arthur technically started training Merlin from the very start. Or at least started sizing him up to later begin training him.
That’s how he used to test the men who traveled far and wide to become knights under him, after all. How he used to get an idea of their raw skill with a weapon—any makeshift weapon—and how he used to assess their proficiency when there were no rules and no forewarnings and no real guarantees that Arthur would stop so as not to injure or humiliate them in front of everyone. It’s how he used to monitor the way they used the environment around them.
Well, when he could get away with it, anyway. His father largely left him to it, after Arthur had proven himself capable and deserving of the title of first knight, but he does know that the king was less than amused by this particular...method of his.
Of course, Merlin’s skills with the mace were—are—absolute rubbish. If Arthur really had been sizing him up for knighthood, he’d have written him off the second he’d thrown the weapon at him, which he’d proceeded to fumble. Would have written it off as yet another idiot with too much confidence, looking for a fight he could never win.
As it was, Arthur was not sizing him up as a knight. Had, in fact, already deemed and confirmed his idiocy the day before. As it was, Arthur really had no expectations for Merlin to not meet, and so was actually rather impressed by the entire sordid thing.
He’d watched Merlin stumble back but resolutely stay in the fight; remembers thinking to himself, he’s not a complete lost cause. Remembers not even being adamant on backtracking that particular statement when Merlin lost due to pure idiocy.
No, not a lost cause at all. Sure, he’d stumbled, but he’d never fallen. And maybe the mace wasn’t his weapon, that’s no real problem—Arthur didn’t expect everyone to feel comfortable with every weapon in their hand, especially not some random peasant boy who looked like a fleck of dust landing on his shoulder might knock him off his feet.
Not a lost cause at all, because with every fumble and wrong move and weakness, he’d still made do.
Arthur had watched him assess every new location they ended up in, trying to find any small thing to turn to his advantage. He’d seen, too, how an over-assessment ultimately led to his own defeat. It’d been very impressive, actually, up until those last few seconds.
Almost on par with the men Arthur would have consented to formally considering as knights, even. He remembers thinking that with enough effort and dedication (and many, many hours spent on footwork alone), Merlin could even be quite a good fighter. Though maybe more so with a sword. He was already showing potential to be a strategic one—a stealthy, proficient one wasn’t so far out of possibility.
(And he does, actually, still stand by this. Quickly parsing out a person’s talent and skill with any weapon, what kind of fighter they are, has always been one of the most important parts of his job. Not only is the knowledge useful during actual fights—in wars, against bandits, during tournaments; any situation where he needs to quickly adapt to an unfamiliar rival, really—but it’s also particularly necessary as first knight. He’d get nowhere picking his knights—nowhere teaching them and training them in order to build the best army in the five kingdoms—if he couldn’t track their beginning and progress with a fair (near excellent, actually) amount of accuracy. He’s confident in his original assessment of Merlin’s potential—if only Merlin would take it seriously.)
But those were all just idle thoughts, at the time. None of the information he’d gathered about Merlin in those few minutes had actually mattered at all. Not only had Arthur been sure that they would never see each other again (strange as it was, that they’d crossed paths twice in as many days), but—even on the off chance that they did, he highly doubted training would be a likely topic of conversation between them.
No, not with the spark of antagonization running between them that neither could help feuling. Nor, Arthur had thought with mild amusement, with the state of things. It had been appallingly obvious that Merlin was not, in fact, anywhere close to touching nobility—wouldn’t know how to act like it even if the spirit of a long dead king, who was particularly fond of that sort of chivalry, possessed him. Which meant that any knighthood, and subsequent professional training, was out of the question. Not with his father’s dearly protected laws still intact, anyway.
So he’d tried very hard, in the hours and days after the fight, to put Merlin out of his mind.
(It’s strange to look back at a time where that wasn’t the impossible dream it is now. Arthur imagines that he succeeded quite commendably in the endeavor to forget Merlin, then, in fact. But it’s difficult to imagine doing so with any such ease, now, and so it feels much more comfortable to insist that, even back then, he could only merely try, and leave it at that.)
Except then Merlin had saved his life, landing himself the job of Arthur's manservant, stubbornly and firmly banishing any possibility of the two of them going their separate ways.
It was on Merlin’s first day on the job that things became much more intentional, where training him was concerned. Very little technicalities were left.
Though, perhaps that’s misleading.
When he’d summoned Merlin to train with him that morning, he hadn’t actually done it with the explicit intention to train him in mind—in fact, Merlin’s training couldn’t have been further from his thoughts.
No, Arthur had done it for himself. There was an upcoming tournament that day, and his father had been as he always was: expectant.
So Arthur had needed to train, alone, and had needed his manservant to do it. Had needed to hone his skills and remind himself that he did, in fact, have them.
The trouble with tournaments, anyway, is always the beginning. The moments leading up to the fights, just before he gets in the arena and the start of the match is called. The trouble is really just the anticipation and the king’s hard expectations (that might even be subtle threats, if Arthur allows himself to be a little too honest). The trouble is when letting his father down is not an option but still technically a possibility; when he can’t stop himself from humoring the what ifs and maybes that otherwise leave him alone in every other situation.
Otherwise he’s okay. Actually, when the matches start, he always calms down considerably, even begins to have fun. Arthur knows the weight of his sword in his hand better than he does anything else—he’s not just confident with it, he’s comfortable with it, too. It's like breathing, at this point, sizing his opponents up and adjusting his style accordingly.
He knows how to fight. He knows that if he’s smart and quick and strong enough, he will win. He knows that he can be smart and quick and strong enough, especially when his life is on the line. Especially when his father’s expectations are breathing down his neck all the way from that damned throne that Arthur despises.
He's had a lifetime of training, and he hasn’t wasted a minute of it. He doesn't doubt his own abilities during the heat of the fight.
It’s just the before.
So that morning, he’d summoned Merlin as a means to get some physical activity in and shed some of the stress and anticipation away. Nothing more, nothing less.
But then he’d watched as Merlin, looking like a squire trying on his master’s armour in the helmet Arthur had thrown in his arms, had held his trembling (but never faltering, he’d noted approvingly) shield up, covering half his face behind it. He had looked like he was one cold breeze away from shivering worse than a leaf, but he’d also looked Arthur head on.
Ah, yes, Arthur had thought. You were full of surprises in this, too.
(Merlin, he’d later come to learn, is full of surprises in a number of things. A surprising amount of things, in fact. Annoyingly.)
So, at least on that first day of Merlin’s employment, there was a marginally more focused and decisive idea in his mind.
He’d imagined Merlin as a particularly dense and easy opponent in the lower towns, not once entertaining the thought of him being a knight but still allowing small credit where credit was due. Had fought him for his smart mouth and ridiculously enraging gull.
When he’d launched the first attack (and, well, every attack after—it was training, after all) early that morning, though—when he’d watched the way Merlin reacted and how proficient he was at using the shield to block his attacks (because it became immediately clear that the sword in his grip was going to remain limp and unused)—there was a bud of intent, outside of his own training, in Arthur’s brain during it.
He’d watched Merlin stand back up after being knocked down the first time, the second time, the third time—phantom clanging in his ears and all. Whinging and glaring and being ridiculously annoying about it, yes, but getting back into position all the same. Every time.
He hadn’t realized it then, but while swinging the mace around his head, trying not to think about the way Merlin had looked half bathed in sunlight in the lower towns—the same way he’d looked at that moment, lying stiff on the grass, face delightfully twisted in horror—something had clicked.
No, it was Lancelot’s introduction—or perhaps it could have been their time spent in Ealdor—that’d done the trick.
“He saved my life,” Merlin had said, harried from the weight of Arthur’s armour as they walked the lower towns, trying to keep up.
He’d only replied with a throwaway insult, one he couldn’t even remember now, choosing to focus on Merlin rather than Merlin’s praise for some man Arthur had never met. But even after Lancelot left and the griffin had been dealt with, the conversation lingered in the back of his mind.
A nagging voice, irritating and hunted, wouldn’t stop the incessant and concerning string of what ifs.
What if Lancelot hadn’t been there? What if Lancelot hadn’t been quick enough? What if it happens again, and no one else is there? What if, what if, what if.
Because it wasn’t even unjustified. On the contrary, the more the voice nagged, the more startled Arthur became regarding just how likely every what if scenario was. And that was only accounting for the ones his mind could conjure up—he became even more concerned when he was reminded that this was Merlin, who always, one way or another, managed to exceed expectations, and would no doubt exceed these ones; go above and beyond by landing himself in the most ridiculous and impossibly dangerous scenario imaginable. Really, knowing Merlin, it wouldn’t even be imaginable.
No, not unjustified at all. Especially not after the idiot started following him on any excursions away from the castle, suddenly (and without consulting Arthur) deciding that going on quests and patrols and fighting bandits with his flimsy skills (skills. What a laugh) was also part of his duties.
Which, actually, up until that point, it was not.
(And okay, fine. So maybe now those things are, decidedly, part of his duties, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s his own fault, anyway, Arthur always reminds him—had he just done as he was told from the beginning, Arthur would’ve gone on, content with the way things were. He himself had been loudly against that particular whim of Merlin’s, the first few times, complaining and glaring rather witheringly for the entire time they set out. He really had rather preferred to have Merlin out of the way—just for a moment of silence, but also away from any danger, he’ll admit, not wanting to face Morgana’s wrath and Gaius and Hunith’s despair in case—so that he’d focus on his actual chores in the castle, instead. But, well. Now patrols and hunts feel too quiet and wrong without Merlin there, so.)
(He did valiantly try to sneak away from the castle for a few particularly dangerous quests his father sent him on, for a little while longer, after annoyedly giving in to Merlin’s presence in the other excursions. However, all that had gotten him was a wretchedly disorderly room, neglected for days in some form of protest, and several withering glares. Now he takes him everywhere, and—hysterically, but only in the most maddening way—now that he does require Merlin’s presence, Merlin complains.
Not unrelatedly at all, Merlin is wretchedly horrible at being a servant.)
So somewhere between Lancelot’s unforgettable first impression and the hour before they fought in Ealdor—when Merlin had gazed at him through his lashes and admitted fear, the two of them stuck in a rather characteristic quiet moment just before a fight, the scent of fresh grass everywhere and the sun slanting in through the windows of Merlin's childhood home—Arthur had come to the realization that Merlin’s well-being had become somewhat of a concern. Somewhat of a big concern, really. To him, Arthur. Outside of other people’s reactions to Merlin not being well and how they might take that out on him.
As in—well. As in he apparently began caring for the idiot.
For the idiot who could not fight and kept putting himself in danger.
Which was, surely understandably, quite upsetting.
But since Arthur could do nothing about the putting himself in danger problem, it became very clear very quickly that he’d just have to settle for doing something about the could not fight problem, instead.
Which, on the surface, actually seemed very doable. After all, he already had a rough estimate regarding Merlin’s talents with weaponry from their one on one training sessions. Only a rough one, since he’d mostly been a target during those, rather than an opponent.
But that was neither here nor there. Arthur was confident that he’d had a good understanding of Merlin’s potential as a fighter, and that was good enough.
What he did not have a good understanding of, but really, really should have, though, was Merlin’s complete allergy to just doing as he was told.
No, because while Arthur had been vaguely aware of it (it’d slip through his attitude towards his chores, sometimes, but Arthur had just assumed it was because they were chores and everyone hated them, not because Merlin was just inherently contrary), he’d never really seen it in its full glory.
Not until he’d tried to teach Merlin chess, and was immediately faced with Merlin’s sudden conviction to do everything in the world in order to not learn chess under any circumstances whatsoever.
So, he’d learned with no small amount of misery and irritation, he could not simply tell Merlin that he intended to teach him how to use a weapon. No, that would not end well at all.
(Arthur has this very vivid vision of Merlin sneaking out of the castle, lugging an impossibly large, clanging bag filled with every weapon, or potential weapon, they have in the castle behind him, and throwing it all into a lake somewhere. He’s not entirely sure that Merlin isn’t capable of this, or that it isn’t an entirely plausible outcome.)
Instead, Arthur came up with a plan. It’s not his best plan, but Merlin’s an idiot so he’s sure it’ll work anyway.
***
Which leaves them here, a year and a bit after they fought in the lower towns, awake before most of the kingdom, and training.
Well, Arthur’s training. Merlin thinks he’s here just because it’s his job and Arthur is a tyrant of an employer. It’s easy to play into that belief—helps his plan to remain subtle, in fact—and Merlin’s fury is an incomparable delight to revel in.
Arthur watches him from the corner of his eye, twirls his sword, and runs the overly complicated drill again.
A crisp morning breeze gently cards through his already sweaty hair, rushing over his face and soothing his lungs’ desperate need for it. The sun isn’t even fully above the horizon, yet—the air around them a cold, washed out blue.
“It's quite a simple move, actually,” he lies nonchalantly, once done. Takes a gulp of water.
Merlin raises an eyebrow. “Right.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, of course I do, sire.”
“Because it would be considered treason to doubt your prince’s word, Merlin,” he threatens.
Merlin rolls his eyes, huffing out an exasperated breath, and Arthur doesn’t think he’s being taken seriously enough.
“I wouldn’t,” he raises his hands, a mockery of surrender. Then, almost like he can’t help himself, wonders, “but if it’s really so simple, why are you so red?”
(Literal treason. Just by the way.)
“It's warm out.”
“It's nearing the end of autumn.”
“Well, physical activity and having more than two layers of paper-thin skin to cover one’s bones does actually tend to warm one up.”
Merlin snorts in derision, turns his back. He’s a study in contradictions whenever Arthur manages to irritate him in this particular way: all jerky movements and haughty tones. After a moment, he shrugs the shoulder he's looking over to say, blasé and with not even an ounce of believable innocence, “Ah, I see. You mean the fat.”
Arthur slaps him upside the head. “It's muscle.”
“Of course it is, sire.”
“Merlin,” Arthur warns, trying to pretend like the hint of threat in his voice has ever worked with his idiot manservant. Merlin turns around fully, amused now, and pats his shoulder. Shoots him a grin.
Even if the threat ever did work, those days are long gone now, living only through Arthur’s wistful reminiscence. Now all it does is make Merlin smile at him, or poke fun at him, or laugh at his expense in that rather lovely way of his.
Arthur tilts his head back and takes another gulp of water, trying to stay focused.
They’re standing too close, is the thing. Well, they always stand this close and it’s always too close but—but. But, the thing is that it’s usually bearable because Merlin only rarely stands this close and grins and touches him and looks at him a little fondly and a little exasperatedly. And now he’s doing all of those things at once and Arthur's throat is a little dry, despite the goddamned water.
He forgets, for a moment, what they’re talking about and what he’s doing and what the plan was and why there even needed to be a plan?
Then Merlin's eyes flicker down, and he doesn’t dare—would never allow himself to—track their movement where. He swallows and tightens his grip on the hilt of his sword just to stop himself from doing something stupid, and throws the waterskin in Merlin’s face, just to get him to stop looking.
“Anyway,” Merlin says, giving him an annoyed look, “I just mean that it didn’t look so simple, is all.”
It really is very easy to steer him to a particular direction in a conversation, sometimes. Arthur vaguely worries about how he’d hold up during an interrogation, if he were ever to be kidnapped. It almost feels like all one would have to do is make a comment about how he’d never tell them the information they want, and Merlin would end up doing it just to spite them.
“Well of course it doesn’t look simple to you,” Arthur waves off, turning away. “You probably can’t tell the difference between the hilt and the blade.”
A sputter and half protest stumble through the air between them, right to Arthur’s ears, incoherent but still somehow scathing, and Arthur allows himself a single moment to smile while his back is still turned.
“Not to mention how utterly hopeless you are on your feet,” he adds, looking over his shoulder and pausing to consider him. “Really Merlin, of course it looks difficult to you. A simple lunge is probably beyond your skillset.”
The goading really is all for the sole purpose of getting the plan in action, truly, but he can’t deny the fact that it’s also a little fun to rile Merlin up. It’s not like none of it is true, anyway.
Yes, Merlin can call him an ass, but at least he can never accuse Arthur’s asshole-ness to be built on lies.
Again, Merlin sputters, and his cheeks flood with a soft, delightful blush. His eyes, on the other hand, narrow into harsh slits. A study of contradictions, indeed.
The pink next to the blue is a vivid contrast of colour that Arthur has seen before but is still confounded by. Merlin looks a bit like he’s glowing, the peeking sun highlighting the outline of his body from the back, and Arthur has to look down just to remind his body that it’s not frozen. He’s unsure why the need to smile is so persistent or what the hell the coiling in his stomach is or why there’s this sudden, disquieting need to tell Merlin he’s a little bit lovely that’s weighing down his tongue, and he’s even less sure where any of it comes from.
“I can too lunge,” Merlin snaps, wrestling the sword out of Arthur's grip. It doesn't take much effort on Merlin's part, because for some reason Arthur keeps getting bloody distracted (and forgetting basic actions, like how to grip his damned sword), but it does snap Arthur back into the present, at least, so he doesn’t scowl for too long at the sudden robbery.
Not that he doesn’t have better things to do than stand there uselessly to scowl, anyway. Merlin's form is pathetic at best and abysmal at worst. The sword looks too big and awkward in his hands, ridiculous in the same way a child swinging around a fallen branch that’s three times its height is.
“No,” Arthur tsks, genuinely a bit affronted by how little Merlin knows. He moves behind him, valiantly trying to salvage the situation, and resolutely remains not-thinking about the line of heat that’s Merlin's body pressing against his own. “Like this.”
***
Of course, Merlin being a big enough idiot to allow the half baked plan to proceed with success is one victory. The fact that Arthur now has to actually train him without him knowing, listen to his ever increasing complaints, suffer through his smug satisfaction of getting something right that a nine year old is expected to know, and put up with his clumsiness (and all the injuries they both get from that alone) is a loss that Arthur, in all honesty, should have had the sense to foresee.
You win some, you lose some, Gaius used to say when Arthur was younger and just learning how to negotiate with Morgana (she could train with him secretly, without worrying about his father knowing, only if she shared those honey-glazed pastries that only Gwen’s mum could make correctly with him). Just as he did back then, Arthur sourly notes that he’s decidedly lost a great deal more than he’s won.
“I think there’s a problem with your sword,” Merlin says, after five minutes of silence in which they’ve done nothing but lay in the frozen grass of the training grounds. It's a cool, quiet morning, the wind sharp wherever it brushes over a wet patch of his skin, but Arthur barely feels any of it. His body’s hot from all the exercise and frustration that’s making the blood rush through his veins.
With the sword, right.
Rolling his eyes, Arthur lets out a steady breath and listens to Merlin's heavy panting for another few seconds. They’re lying angled so that their legs pan out and their shoulders are inches apart. Arthur can both see Merlin's breaths in the air and hear them getting carried by the wind right to his ear. It feels intimate, as if he’s only a few centimeters away.
Arthur shivers, and it’s easy to blame the collision of sweat and wind on his neck.
“I have the best sword in the kingdom,” he replies, belatedly, distractedly, and sees Merlin’s head turn towards him from the corner of his eye. He also sees Merlin rolling his eyes, and knows suddenly that he turned specifically because he’d known that Arthur would be watching him, and thus would see the eye roll. Arthur scowls.
They’ve been doing this, more or less, for about two weeks now, which means that Arthur’s still easing Merlin into taking the sword from him to try on his own (and ‘annoy’ Arthur into watching and correcting him) (well, it is annoying, but it’s also Arthur’s plan, so Merlin isn’t actually as convincing as he thinks he is) as discreetly as possible. Which means that he’s still using Arthur's sword. Which means that he’s still only doing anything with a sword when he’s alone with Arthur, for maybe three quarters of an hour, and even then they’re passing it back and forth.
Which means, of course, that everythings going by rather slowly. So Merlin’s still not quite used to holding, handling, or moving with a sword—is, in fact, still quite stubbornly rubbish at everything regarding swordsmanship. Which is a problem.
At this rate, Arthur's pretty sure he’ll start losing his own skills before Merlin actually picks any up. A horrifying thought.
“Alright, fine,” he huffs, pushing himself up.
A good servant would scramble to their feet as well, following their master’s example.
Scratch that, a good servant wouldn’t be lying down in the first place—would already be on their feet and ready to attend to their employer and answer his every beck and call. Or, actually, a good servant wouldn’t even be in this situation because they’d know how to just do as they’re told and not come on excursions that they’re told not to come on. Or at least obey commands that they need to learn sword fighting since they’re so adamant on coming anyway, instead of doing whatever they bloody well please, thus forcing their masters to go to frankly ridiculous lengths to teach them sword fighting discreetly so that they will actually learn it, instead of being contrary to the very last and doing everything to not learn it.
(There are times where Arthur genuinely thinks that Merlin gets his blood pumping more than any battle or fight ever could. If it wasn’t so irritating, he’d be quite intrigued.)
Merlin, being the worst servant in the five kingdoms, just looks at him lazily from his place on the ground. During their secret-but-only-to-him sword fighting lessons. That he needs because he wouldn’t just listen to Arthur.
Arthur clenches his jaw, choosing to refrain from saying anything, and walks away without another word, going to retrieve another sword. It’s been long enough that Merlin will just assume he’s giving in, anyway.
He briefly considers getting a wooden sword instead, the ones they give pages who are just beginning their training too, but decides against it. They’re too light and short for Merlin to properly learn anything from them, anyway.
Still, it would have been funny to see Merlin's offended sputtering at being given those instead of a real weapon.
“Here,” he says, upon his return, holding the weapon out as an offering—a bribe to get Merlin off the ground and back into the actual reason why they’re here. “Take this one.”
“You’re giving me a sword?”
“I’m lending you a sword.”
Merlin looks at him suspiciously, like he’s just suggested that they put flowers in each other’s hair. “Why?”
Arthur rolls his eyes, and it takes everything to quiet the strangled noise of utter disbelief and contempt and frustration before it forces its way out of his throat. It’s important that he responds correctly to this. “Because if you insist on wasting my time with this sudden whim of yours, I will be able to get this over with faster if we don’t keep having to take turns with mine alone.”
There, he thinks, that’s not even a lie. Merlin grins at him and takes it happily, no doubt beyond satisfied to be the cause of so much irritation.
Arthur shakes his head and sighs, chest inexplicably warm and full. And then he does it again when Merlin gets into the wrong position.
***
It’s almost painful to admit, but Merlin's a fast learner. Which Arthur notes with grudging admiration, annoyance, and a small bit of angry offense.
It’s just the fact that he very well can learn to be a proper servant—since that can’t be more difficult than wielding a sword—and just doesn’t that’s infuriating.
Especially because he becomes an even worse servant, as if he cannot possibly bear to be competent at multiple things that Arthur requires him to be competent at at once.
And he doesn’t even note this change lightly, because Merlin being able to be an even worse servant than how he started is actually saying a lot. But then again, since he was barely doing anything properly before, it isn’t that earth shattering when those last three things that he was getting right also start becoming things he gets wrong, so.
Still, it’s annoying and inconvenient.
Arthur glares at Merlin's bent head, where he’s sitting at Arthur's table and eating Arthur’s food. Exhibit a, he thinks, of how much worse he’s gotten. At least before all this rubbish he respected some boundaries dictated by propriety—namely, not sitting at the crown prince’s table in his personal chambers and stealing his food. All that is out the window, now, apparently.
Arthur doesn’t even know how they bloody got here.
“Merlin,” he says, voice controlled and teeth grit. “You do know that that's my food, yes?”
Humming, Merlin takes a bite of his bread and offers the other half to him, grinning guilelessly around it, and Arthur’s not fooled at all. He isn’t. In fact, he means to berate Merlin for being so obvious, means to scowl over his food being stolen right in front of him without even an ounce of shame. Really, he does.
But it—he doesn’t even know why, but it just becomes a bit difficult to make his thoughts progress past Merlin and smiling really big and looking at me and candlelit and right there. Arthur looks at him stupidly, hazily thinking that he should probably see Gaius about a potential illness, and takes the offered bread without another word.
Merlin's smile sharpens into a smirk, like maybe he knows something, but Arthur's entirely too occupied being startled and trying not to panic over what the hell just happened to his brain to think about it for too long.
“Have you polished my armor?” He asks, suddenly desperate for him to leave.
Merlin frowns, looking at him closely. “Yes,” he says, slowly, dragging out the vowel. “Arthur, you were here while I did it an hour ago.”
Ah, yes. While he was checking over grain reports.
“What about the stables, did you muck them out?”
“What? You didn’t—Arthur—”
“Sire.”
Merlin grins, sudden and blinding and bloody hell it’s happening again. “Well, really I prefer Merlin, but—”
“Merlin—.”
“Very good, sire.”
For a second, Arthur mourns the divide between them that his desk causes, limiting his reach. He gloomily lets go of the need to hit him, and lets himself get lost in the fantasy of a large, rotten tomato hitting Merlin directly in the face, instead. It calms him down a bit.
“Shut up.”
Shrugging, Merlin ducks his head and goes back to picking at Arthur's food.
Arthur rubs his face with both his hands and, not for the first time, curses the upcoming Yule. The weather’s too cold to put anyone in the stocks.
It’s also too cold to train in, unfortunately, so he can’t even fight Merlin and take his frustrations out on him like that, justifying it in the name of training. Not that he needs to justify it with training, since Merlin’s allergy to obedience would be enough, but. Whatever. It’s a good excuse to have, especially because he’s pretty sure Merlin’s even at a stage where it may benefit his skills (that might just be the itching need to use his sword again, though).
They’ve already been more or less cooped up for four days. Arthur's not sure how many more days they’re gonna miss due to the weather, but the fact that they won’t be able to go back out as soon as tomorrow does not bode well for anyone.
Not for Merlin’s (still practically nonexistent, but growing) sword wielding skills, nor for Arthur’s own peace of mind, which he is slowly but very surely losing being stuffed in the castle—in this room—with Merlin's constant presence. Something just keeps making his brain lag and his stomach turn and his fingers itch to just reach out to touch—
And all he can do is just sit there and watch Merlin’s hair turn a warm brown under the firelight as he steals Arthur’s food, heedless of Arthur’s threats.
He takes a breath. Merlin needs the practice if they want any hope of him actually improving, and more importantly, Arthur needs that physical exertion to keep himself sane.
Merlin hums again, lightly kicking Arthur’s foot with his own under the table. His lips are quirked, where he’s looking down at the plate, and Arthur knows it was on purpose.
There’s also—well. He’s also come to somewhat enjoy those two hours of training they get together, is all. Training with Merlin is different from training the knights; from having him in his chambers—on the job or like this—or being with him during patrols or quests or hunts.
There's no crushing weight of obligation to make sure Merlin’s in excellent shape because Camelot’s wellbeing will depend on it that’s bearing down on him. They’re not as careful or removed from each other as when they are playing master and servant, nor are they as candid as when they get to shed the farce away at a distance from the castle. It's also not really as intimate as the nights they spend in each other's company like they’re doing now—a closeness Arthur gets too cautious around and doesn’t know how to handle to ever be able to fully enjoy.
No, training sessions are a whole new aspect to their dynamic, and Arthur wonders how many different ways they’ll find to fit together so well. Those two hours are one of the only times Merlin actually listens to him; one of the only times when Arthur doesn’t need to keep his distance—in fact, has to touch and lead by physical means. It's the only place where being kind or patient without snapping and backtracking doesn’t make him feel stupid and raw, because he knows it’s needed to help Merlin improve. It’s the only place where the intimacy doesn’t make his skin too tight and his father’s voice in his head too loud.
But also—a sword in his hand is where Arthur feels the most himself. Being able to banter with Merlin in that state of mind, not being overly cautious of holding himself back in a million different ways, is—nice. Freeing, almost. It never fails to bring him a sense of peace and make the rest of the day just a little bit easier to bear.
In a lot of ways, one on one training sessions with Merlin are the most comfortable Arthur has ever felt.
They have a hundred other moments where they’re more vulnerable with each other (which, concerningly, are seeming to become more prevalent), or where they have more fun together. Arthur thinks he’s even getting better, in general, at not letting his own doubts make him snap an insult right after a moment to ruin it for his own peace of mind.
But the training sessions are very rapidly becoming important to Arthur in their own way, just like the lone hunts and quiet nights and constant, fun (albeit exasperating) back and forths.
And even beyond that, the lessons are lessons in themselves: just more ways to learn about Merlin. The way he moves and the way he learns and the way he feels pressed along Arthur's body; things he can’t learn otherwise and desperately wants to know. Every new thing learned makes Arthur curious about a thousand more, and every new curiosity makes the need to know that much more insistent. What would be Merlin's weapon of choice? Does he enjoy the moving around as much as Arthur does? Did all this lean muscle come from his years in Ealdor, working with his mother, or under Arthur? What kind of a fighter is he?
(And other questions, too stinging to bear, like: how does he look, flushed like that, but bathed in candlelight instead? How much would it take, in another circumstance, to make him sweat like that? Is he always this warm, pressed along Arthur's front, or is it just the physical excursion making him so?)
That last one is especially intriguing, and all the more reason to curse the weather and delay because Arthur was only just starting to get a small hint.
It’s still too early yet for the whole picture, of course. Or even a tenth of it: it takes years of rigorous training for his men to become the best of the best; to become ready in battle; to start showing personality when they fight, and Merlin is neither close to that nor will he ever be close to that.
But, still. It’s not as if Merlin's the simple type of person—that is abundantly clear—so it’s understandable that a slight bit of his personality has already started bleeding through.
He fights—he has the potential to fight—just as Arthur had imagined he would: stealthily, cleverly, resourcefully. He's honorable and fair.
He’s also not very much of a fighter at all, if he can get out of it.
Mostly, it’s everything Arthur had seen in their fight in the lower towns but with context and more exposure than a few minutes, that makes it obvious. Those traits take on a slightly different form, with a sword instead of a mace, but otherwise they’re the same. He's sure that Merlin finds a sword easier to control, even, because he does actually use it (now, anyways. He’s started to, at least, even if it’s a tiny bit) instead of fully depending on his surroundings.
Three main problems still reside at the core of Merlin's fighting, though. For one, he always stalls his victory until either he gets distracted, or his opponent finds a way to get away. This was how Arthur managed to win their fight in the lower towns, but was something that he had hoped wouldn’t be a genuine problem.
He doesn’t know why he expected any differently than for distraction to be part of Merlin’s weakness, to be honest. That should not have been a surprise. But the stalling—that’s something he’s still trying to figure out. There are so many moments that Arthur has let him have, just to see if he’d take them or not, only for him to stall striking, or hesitate. The only remedy to this seems to be when he’s in a high stakes situation (or a highly emotional state of mind).
It's therefore good that he’s teaching Merlin to wield a sword solely for the purpose of surviving through those high stakes situations. Still, Arthur doesn’t think it would hurt Merlin's experience and learning if he were to actually take one of the opportunities he gives him to disarm and win. But whatever. It’s not necessary.
Merlin's second issue during a fight is that he’s all lean lines and long limbs and has exactly zero coordination to regulate any of them. It was rather amusing at first, if Arthur's honest, watching him flail about, but it’s gotten to be just concerning, now. All he keeps thinking about is Merlin getting in the middle of some bandits, tripping on a tree root, and impaling himself with his own sword before they even have a chance to threaten him.
The thought makes him shudder—Arthur does not want to have been responsible over someone with such a ridiculous death. His reputation would never recover. It’d be humiliating.
So far, no amount of footwork has helped.
Anyway. The third and final (well, obviously there are other small, nit-picky things that Merlin is hopeless at, but that's neither here nor there) and perhaps easiest problem to correct is the fact that a sword is obviously not Merlin's weapon of choice. Not that Arthur really thinks there’s any weapon Merlin would choose to want to master, because he’s lazy on the best of days and for some reason completely resistant to fighting with weapons (no, Merlin would rather use his words and fists. Because he’s an idiot. And Arthur does not think of this odd preference with even a hint of fondness, because that would be insane). However, if coerced using the most extreme measures, Arthur's sure he would not choose a sword.
He has a few ideas of what may fit better in Merlin's hands, but that will have to come later. First, he will learn to use a sword in the most basic way. Other weapons can come later. Arthur hadn’t expected for any weapons to come later, but it surely can’t hurt Merlin’s survival to be adequate at more than one.
Merlin, who is still sitting across from him and still eating his food and looking soft and vulnerable in the firelight from the hearth behind him. He eats the last bit of cheese on Arthur's plate, and Arthur can’t bring himself to be too annoyed by the fact that Merlin ate all his cheese, because he’s too busy watching the way the bones of his wrist—delicate and sturdy—shift under his almost translucent skin.
The skinniness is another thing. Makes him look like an easy target. Arthur needs to find a way to trick him into eating more.
He watches as Merlin glances up when he steals a piece of meat now, grinning at Arthur's unimpressed look, and thinks that at least that’s easy enough. He rolls his eyes and watches in hidden satisfaction as Merlin chews away happily.
(Nevermind that just a minute ago he’d been ready to throw Merlin in the stocks for so audaciously stealing his food and carelessly ignoring propriety.)
***
Spring blossoms, shedding away the barrenness of a long winter, but Merlin’s skills decidedly do not. It's like he peaked around a month ago and then steadied out, completely refusing to progress past this point.
They’re still working on his swordsmanship by the time the grass dews and flowers begin to bloom, and Arthur is at the end of his wit.
“No, no—what on earth are you doing?”
“It’s the mud,” Merlin scowls, “It’s slippery. I'm trying not to slip.”
Which probably says something about his improved coordination (or at least about his awareness of his own lack thereof), but Arthur's entirely too annoyed to be understanding. It’s not like slipping wouldn’t add something to this session, anyway, Arthur thinks. Some entertainment, at least.
“Maybe we should wait until tomorrow,” Merlin tries. He uses his sword more like a cane than an actual sword. Arthur feels his expression darken.
“Bandits aren’t going to postpone an attack just because the weather isn’t to your taste, Merlin.”
“Well, granted, but it’s not like I’m going to be fighting bandits.”
Right. Arthur sighs and drops his head, just barely resisting the urge to curse at the sky. He keeps forgetting that Merlin doesn’t have a brain to use. How remiss of him.
Instead of telling Merlin this, however (insulting his intelligence doesn’t get Arthur anywhere anymore, just makes Merlin roll his eyes and smile indulgently as if he thinks Arthur's insulting him for the sake of insulting him and not insulting him because he actually means it. Which he does. He has never meant it more, actually), Arthur elects to just shake his head.
“You may as well be prepared for it,” he reasons through gritted teeth, as if this hasn’t been the entire point all along.
Merlin gives him a skeptical look, almost like he’s ready to call the whole thing off now that there’s a spoken purpose to this other than annoying Arthur (bloody predictable idiot). But Arthur will be damned if these last few months of utter hell and frustration (and not so much hell, and less frustration than delight) have all led to Merlin quitting because being able to defend himself and save his own stupid life is now a possible consequence.
“Come on, Merlin, I don't have all day. Again. And stop leaning on that sword, you look like you’re about to faint like a girl.”
“I am not—”
Arthur glares at him, and then keeps glaring after Merlin rolls his eyes until he actually listens.
His movements are still too stilted and shaky, and it almost feels like he’s gotten worse than when they started, months ago. But then, Gwen once told him that Merlin used to knock on swords to test their quality before they started, so perhaps that’s impossible.
Slowly walking towards him, Arthur takes a breath. In truth, some of it is his own fault. It's been increasingly difficult being near Merlin—touching him and being close enough to feel or even just get reminded of the feeling of his body heat. Arthur's going back and forth between acting like everything’s perfectly normal and keeping as much distance between them as possible.
Today is one of those keeping distance days, which is perhaps also why he’s in such a foul mood. Not that Merlin’s proximity doesn’t inspire its own wretched feelings, but those are—different. Unbearable for a completely different reason.
In all honesty, Arthur doesn’t really understand what's happening with him when it comes to Merlin, but he does refuse to investigate it. Whatever it is, it's only been a few months of steady build, he reasons. It’ll come to a head and then dissipate just as it came. That's how things work.
“Here,” he sighs, all the clipped annoyance from a moment ago bleeding out of him. Even thinking about the damn thing makes him tired and weary.
Arthur ignores Merlin's raised eyebrow and gently cups his elbow, adjusting it. He taps the inside of Merlin's feet with his own to widen his stance, so light it’s almost more of a suggestion than a pointer.
It’s just that it’s different with Merlin. It’s just that, even though he wants to both ignore and deny it, he can’t.
Merlin’s body is a beacon of heat in the otherwise colder-than-usual morning; a hard and lean line pressed steadily against his chest.
Suddenly he’s five again, watching the sunlight dance along the glinting blade of his father’s sword. Eight again, mesmerized by the stark brightness of his hearth fire’s flames against the shadowy tendrils consuming his room. Eleven again, reminding himself that he can’t touch—the tip of a sword, the dancing embers—not even to see if it will actually hurt, no matter that it never looks like it should.
Twenty-one now, still fascinated by both the fire and the steel; wondering what the sun would look against translucent skin, mesmerized by the contrast of the pale stretch of it against raven hair.
Always wanting to touch. Always needing to remind himself that he can’t.
Arthur’s pathetically glad that he doesn’t need to think about drills to run them, anymore.
“Like this?” Merlin asks, out of breath and so, so close. Arthur doesn’t think he’s leaning forward, but Merlin surely can’t be leaning back, so he steps away in order to stop himself from acting like more of a fool. He clears his throat, tries to think about anything at all that will fill his mind enough to push out the memory of how Merlin sounded and looked at him before he stepped away.
“Close enough,” he nods, even though he wasn’t paying attention at all.
Merlin grins, pleased, and that simply won’t do.
Arthur narrows his eyes, forced to snap out of it, and says, “For now,” because indulging Merlin too much is never a good idea. After a second, he adds, seriously, “But you will need to learn how to adapt to the weather.”
A groan. “Unless, you know, I stay inside during bad weather like a normal person.”
Arthur ignores the pointed tone and tries to find comfort in the insinuation that Merlin doesn’t consider him normal. He’d have to kill himself if he’d been normal to Merlin's standards.
“Ah, but I would never allow you to rob yourself of that experience,” Arthur smiles back, saccharinely, hoping it makes Merlin seethe. This is the least of what he desrves for making Arthur forget how to think and breathe, anyway.
“You’re an arse, sire.”
Merlin stomps away, leaving Arthur torn between feeling bewildered or amused. Breathing and thinking become tremendously easier, though, so he doesn’t complain. Doesn’t even linger on the oddness of his chest tightening.
He has to be very strict with himself to not seek Merlin out more than necessity calls for for the rest of the day.
***
Once it becomes clear that Merlin just will not get better with the sword, Arthur stops trying to beat the dead horse.
He doesn’t exactly stop training Merlin with a sword, because he doesn’t think moving on entirely will do anything except allow Merlin to forget months of acquired skills, but he does shift the focus off of the swords once summer starts to slowly creep in. He’ll occasionally provoke Merlin into silly fights, just to make sure everything Arthur taught him still comes naturally (or, at least, as naturally as it was ever going to get with Merlin), but the lessons mostly stop.
The point had always been to teach him how to defend himself adeptly with a sword, not turn him into any sort of knight, which he is more or less capable of now.
Well. Capable enough.
He can lunge, anyway.
It’s of no consequence. There are still a handful of weapons that Arthur wants to get to.
“But I don’t want to learn about crossbows,” Merlin scrunches his nose. He looks—he does not look adorable, no. He looks like—Arthur clenches his jaw. He looks like a pain in the ass, that's what he looks like.
“Would you prefer that we go back to the mace?”
“Absolutely not—”
“Well then,” Arthur turns away, “Now—”
“Can’t you just,” Merlin waves his hand around in an incomprehensible gesture, like a lunatic. It takes everything in Arthur to force himself not to put his head in his hands. “Do it alone? With the targets?”
Arthur scoffs, mostly to stall having to answer that right away, because aim and shooting are, in fact, easier practiced alone. But if he admits defeat to that line of reasoning, then he’s not only admitting defeat to Merlin (which is unacceptable and out of the question), but he’s also losing the only leverage he has against Merlin’s laziness and general distaste for using and learning about weapons, and for doing as he’s told.
Conceding here would mean having no means of tricking Merlin into wanting to be trained, which means having no means of getting Merlin trained (Arthur strictly tells himself that Merlin needs to be trained with a multitude of weapons for his own safety. After all, he’s not always going to have a sword in hand. No, this has nothing at all to do with the fact that Arthur doesn’t want to stop training Merlin; doesn’t want to let go of the dynamic they’ve fallen into).
Everything is so complicated with him for no reason. Arthur's the bloody crown prince—he should not be wasting his very important and limited time thinking about this.
“You’re just scared your aim is so abysmal that you’ll accidentally kill someone, aren’t you?”
Of course, that doesn’t stop him from wasting time on it, anyway.
“No. I will have you know that I am actually perfectly capable—”
Arthur tsks, cutting him off. “Of course, for the safety of my people, I must agree with you. Nevermind, then.”
He turns his back, so there’s no way to tell how red Merlin’s face actually gets, but judging by the sharp breath he lets out, Arthur’s sure he’s pretty red. He could tear down and rebuild the entirety of Camelot with the effort it takes to keep his face void of any smugness or amusement.
Goading Merlin into practicing is perhaps the most fun part of this entire ordeal, unfortunately for Merlin.
From the corner of his eyes, Arthur watches as Merlin stomps over to the tent, cursing under his breath. Biting the inside of his cheek doesn’t work at all, and a small grin still manages to struggle its way onto his lips. Though he does usually mean it as an insult (though it hardly evokes any amusing reactions anymore, unfortunately), there is a rather dormant part of Arthur that’s quite seriously sure that Merlin would’ve made a very excellent jester.
If his insolence, inability to keep his mouth shut, and no concept at all of class and propriety weren’t all rather glaring problems, that is.
Merlin stomps back out of the tent, still cursing under his breath and glaring daggers at Arthur. Arthur rolls his eyes, because annoyance and exasperation are the only emotions Merlin evokes—well, should be able to evoke—from him, and is impressed to note that the crossbow in his hand is actually a decent one for practice.
“Perhaps I should clear the area,” Arthur muses, just to make him angrier. “To avoid any accidental deaths.”
Merlin keeps glaring at him with pure, unadulterated hatred in his eyes, muttering, “If I do kill someone, it won’t be accidental.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, sire,” Merlin’s grin is acidic with fake cheer, but the sting of it is rather quickly soothed by the way he jumps ten feet into the air when he accidentally shoots the arrow that’s already loaded in the crossbow into the ground a few feet away. Arthur stares at it for a minute, neither of them saying a word, and sighs. He gets a sheepish look in return.
Really, he should know better than to joke about Merlin's incompetence—there’s no overestimating him and his ability to be completely clueless about something.
“Right,” Arthur says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Put that down. Gently. Maybe we should start in the forest.”
Merlin scowls, but even he must know that he has no leg to stand on, so it doesn’t last long.
Sunlight beats relentlessly against his head and back, but Arthur finds the way it pools in Merlin’s eyes too captivating to have any real complaints. Besides, he’d missed the heat and freedom to be outside.
Merlin’s back is an elegant curve where he bends to do as he’s told, and Arthur idly wonders if perhaps he’s making a mistake—if maybe the crossbow isn’t going to be Merlin’s weapon, after all.
***
It is a mistake. It is such a big mistake.
Unfortunately, though, not in the way he’d feared—expected.
No. In fact, what he once feared he now longs for. Craves. Mourns. Pitifully prays to have back. Who would have guessed Arthur Pendragon would so desperately loathe being excellent at what he does.
The thing is that Merlin's progression with the sword had been slow, steady, and obviously leading nowhere extraordinary. He’s still pretty convinced that Merlin could have been a proficient swordsman, maybe on par with some of his better knights, had situations been different, but alas.
(For example, if Arthur had enough time to dedicate to training him for goals more ambitious than adequate enough to defend himself for long enough in a surprise attack until someone else comes to his rescue. Unfortunately, Arthur does not have the time. Nor does he have any way to justify putting that much effort into training a single servant. He barely even has enough time for the one on one training sessions that they do have.
There is also the slight issue that Merlin really does not care about progressing past the most basic levels of swordsmanship. He’d begun because Arthur had goaded him into it, and thus had only endured as long as was necessary (well—as long as Arthur deemed necessary. Which was a length of time that he had been desperate and tempted to shorten considerably many times, on account of Merlin’s incessant complaining and constant zoning out. And also other things that aren’t important at all. Stupid things that made him confused and ill and—well, whatever).
The point is, there’s no use teaching someone something when they clearly do not care for it, and Merlin has never cared for knighthood or proficient sword fighting skills, so. That was that.)
So, anyway. Merlin’s progression with a sword wasn’t anything special or particularly impressive.
Merlin’s progression with a crossbow, however—
It's only halfway through the second month, and his aim is steadily getting better. His form is almost good, now. The way he handles the crossbow. The way it looks cradled in his arms.
But Arthur does not think about that.
The thing is this:
Merlin's aim used to be laughable when they started, and now he can six out of ten times hit the bullseye. Which is—truthfully—quite excellent, if extremely skeptical and off-putting.
And this excellence is good. Great, in fact. Arthur had scarcely let himself hope that Merlin would ever actually tap into the hidden potential underneath his skin for handling weaponry with admiring proficiency. Yes, except for the fact that Arthur’s the one who has been suffering hell—no, something even more wretched than that—in order to teach him.
That thing, again, about losing much more than he ever seems to win.
Because in order to teach Merlin how to aim, Arthur has to get very close. Completely draped over Merlin's back, close. Chin an inch from touching his shoulder, close. Hearing but more importantly feeling every goddamned breath he takes, close. Needing to lean back every time Merlin so much as turns his head in order to avoid the brush of Merlin's nose against his cheek and the feel of his breath washing over his neck, close. Being able to study the exact curve of Merlin’s smirk because the bastard can feel Arthur's ridiculous, physical reactions, close.
Maddeningly, paralyzingly, in some weird way humiliatingly, close.
It’s quite possible that, as Merlin has gained whatever skills he now has with a crossbow, Arthur has lost bits of his sanity. Which is not an unheard of ailment in his family line, meaning the fear can’t even be classified as a melodramatic reaction to a phenomenon he’s going through that he doesn’t understand. So he’s quite concerned.
This all was supposed to be dwindling by now, Arthur thinks a bit hysterically as he watches Merlin laugh on the other side of the training grounds. This was supposed to be going away. It was not supposed to be a thing that’s still building all these months later.
Sir Leon—who’s making him laugh on the other end of the training grounds, not that it matters—claps Merlin on the back and begins walking away. Arthur wonders what they were talking about and berates himself for wondering because, well. Perhaps it would be perfectly normal to be mildly curious, but the odd tug in his stomach and sudden desire to go over there and say something idiotic, just so Merlin will laugh while looking at Arthur like that instead, sort of makes Arthur think that mild curiosity is not actually what it is.
He turns around and walks away. There are big, important, princely things he has to do, and despite what his traitorous brain thinks, staring at Merlin across a field and wanting him near is not one of them.
***
The events after Morgana’s kidnapping render any form of training impossible.
In the first month, their days are filled with strategy planning and resource gathering and inventory. Inventory of the number of casualties, ruined homes, orphaned children, crumbling castle wings, destroyed weapons—just, a never ending list, every single day.
(It becomes a blur of misery, really, even in memory:
It’s unbearable, unmanageable, hopeless. Gaius tells them about Balinor, and still, despite the renewed rush of blood in his veins, Arthur cannot help but wish for just a moment of rest. Cannot help but curse the bone-deep ache of days worth of hopelessness catching up to him again, and how utterly worn it makes him feel.
Of course, the plan to find the dragonlord falls through, and as he watches Balinor die in Merlin’s arms—as he tries his best to pretend he doesn’t see Merlin’s body racking with sobs for a man he doesn’t know—Arthur wonders how he didn’t see that coming. Thinks of nothing but the inevitable defeat that was probably inevitable from the beginning—who did they think they were, trying to fight a creature forged with fire and magic with cold, ordinary steel?
His chest is heavy with the thought.
In the afternoon sun, only hours after their empty-handed return, Arthur memorizes the shape and layout of his chambers one last time. He muses that it’s perhaps an odd thing to mourn one's own room when faced with death, especially when there are so many other things that—
Merlin’s fingers never stumble anymore, when they fasten his armour. He lets the ebb and flow of pressure lull him into a sense of calm. The stir in his stomach that started so many months ago it may very well be a year now settles into something warm and resigned and heavy.
It’s not uncomfortable, really, but it is unbearable. Merlin’s sweating, and his eyes are still red from when he’d cried in the forest.
Or maybe he’s just cried again, Arthur thinks.
Just before he leaves, probably for the last time, Merlin grabs his sword and tells him—doesn’t ask, doesn’t offer, announces—that he will join them, that he will fight this dragon with Arthur.
And—hell. As much as Arthur suddenly does regret teaching him how to use a sword, because now he cannot even use Merlin’s complete cluelessness as an excuse to keep him out of the field, away from immediate danger, he’s ashamed to admit that mostly, he doesn’t regret that it’s allowing Merlin to be at his side one last time. That at least Merlin will be there, at the end of everything.)
In the second month, and subsequent year, their every waking moment becomes focussed on finding Morgana.
(In some ways, the months after the dragon’s defeat but before Morgana’s return are even worse than the neverending attacks and countless deaths of his people:
The kingdom shows impressive signs of progress, rebuilding and getting back to normal, but the search for Morgana becomes less promising by the day.
His father treats Morgana's absence just as he did the dragon’s attack: he deals with it by confining himself to certain parts of the castle, not really giving orders beyond find her now, and by yelling at, questioning, and admonishing Arthur every night that they return without her.
It’s nothing he didn’t expect from his father, but the cold glares and silences and the humiliating, public, verbal punishments sting all the same. Merlin is a steady presence at his back or by his side, one he perhaps takes for granted and mistreats too often, but one that’s also the only thing that keeps him grounded.
He learns that he doesn't like the look Merlin gets whenever Arthur snaps or yells at him, too upset with his father to not be an idiot about where his frustration should be directed. He learns that everything’s easier to forget in the harsh morning light, but easier to acknowledge and apologize for under the blanket of the night.
Their mornings are tense and—in Arthur's case, because Merlin's been more solicitous and tolerant than Arthur ever expected he'd be, these days—guilt ridden, but their nights are then soft and too overwhelming to be insignificant. He finds himself missing their training sessions the most during the nights, when the sky is the darkest it's ever going to get and Merlin's asleep somewhere far away, and the embers of his fire are still dying out.
He doesn’t like the cycle they get stuck in, as long as he’s near Uther, so Arthur starts making sure they spend time away from the castle and the city more than they do inside either of them. It's easily justified and completely harrowing—every day another failure added to the list of ones he’s already shouldering—but still not worse than what his father has waiting for him.
Arthur learns that he likes the way he and Merlin fit together like this, too: when they both silently agree to distance themselves from everything else that’s too overwhelming. When they both quietly understand that a bubble forms around them when they get away like this, and how it’s a bubble worth protecting.
They’re not alone, with the dozens of knights that Arthur takes with them, but they’re still isolated together. He likes that. He learns to look for the signs that tell him Merlin likes it, too.)
(In other ways, the months after the dragon’s defeat but before Morgana’s return are like a breath of fresh air—like freedom thrumming in his veins and whistling in his ear:
The search for Morgana is really one of the first times Arthur’s been given leave to travel and visit every far corner of the kingdom, something he’s dreamed of doing for years now. He meets villagers that did not previously know what he looked like and drinks mead that seems to taste better (not that he’d ever admit it) than the ones he sometimes tries in the lower towns.
Merlin laughs more, remembering how to be annoying and contrary with everything Arthur says, and lays to rest closer every night they’re away. Arthur finds that he cannot help imagining that this is what it would be like if they were getting farther and farther away from the castle every day for an entirely different reason.
After seven months, Merlin starts only joining him when they take larger parties—when there’s something actually leading them somewhere instead of Arthur’s own group of handpicked men searching forests listlessly only because the king would not stand for them doing nothing.
The days drag, as they have been doing since Morgana’s disappearance, but there’s something particularly slow and grating about the one’s Merlin’s not there for. They all try their best to keep spirits high—or at least above ground—though, with stories and challenges and an easy flow of teasing conversation throughout the day.
Sometimes, during breaks where two knights challenge each other to a light-hearted duel, Arthur lets himself acknowledge his thoughts of Merlin. Lets himself wonder, in those moments, whether he’s forgotten the basics of a sword and a crossbow completely, or if he’s still practicing himself, regardless of Arthur's absence.
The day they find Morgana, just before she stumbles out of the trees, he spots Merlin crouching behind a tree and lets that answer the question for him.
“You didn’t see what I did,” Merlin protests, and if Arthur wasn’t still riding the high of actually having found Morgana and having her back, he’d be more annoyed that months—years, goodness—of training have all been undone because Merlin couldn’t get his lazy arse up to practice for just one hour every day.
As it is, he’s feeling rather benevolent, so he just gives Merlin a condescending look and deems it enough when Merlin looks even more peeved in response.
“Because you were hiding behind a tree.”
“No, I—” Merlin snaps, then cuts himself off, annoyed but almost hesitant.)
In the first week after Morgana’s return, spirits are entirely too high—the kingdom entirely too buzzed with cheer and his father too indulgent with any and every form of entertainment in order to please Morgana—for Arthur to even think about training Merlin, again.
He’s too busy and, anyway, a little bit annoyed that Merlin would just let a year’s worth of hard work slip through his fingers. Maybe, Arthur thinks, some things are better left alone.
In the second week after Morgana’s return, Cenred’s army comes in heavy and ruthless.
When the army of skeletons also attack, Arthur watches Merlin hold his own against one of them—even managing to free it of its arm—and reluctantly admits that whatever the display was back in the forest, perhaps it had more to do with the fact that Merlin had no weapon, rather than with the fact that he didn’t know how to use one.
(Although, really, those skeletons could not fight worth shit. So it’s not really that impressive that Merlin got in a good strike. Arthur’s pretty sure he himself would’ve killed, like, three dozen of them in ten minutes if they could die.
Indeed. Which means that he’ll have to restart those lessons.)
***
He doesn’t actually get to renewing the damned things until Gwaine more or less forces his hand.
I stepped in to help Merlin, rings in his head until his skull feels like it’s going to burst, and Arthur quietly admonishes both himself and Merlin for forgetting that basic swordsmanship is more important than any other skill that Merlin picks up with any other weapon. Above everything else, it’s the basic defense with a sword that Merlin needs to have ingrained in his brain—it’s those instincts that will protect him.
He stares at the canopy of his bed, the night after Gwaine and the melee and his father’s same old routine of doling out subtle warnings to win or else disguised as faith and trust in Arthur's ability to do so. It’s not so much that Uther trusts that Arthur will do him proud, Arthur thinks resignedly, just that Uther trusts that he understands the consequences and humiliation that will come should he fail. Trusts that Arthur will do everything before letting that happen.
He’s tired and his entire body is sore, almost like he’s new to this. He keeps picturing Merlin on the end of another noble’s sword, who has too much pride and no anger management, and thinks that he’s maybe a little bit nauseous, too. Arthur promises himself that he won’t be so remiss where Merlin’s training is concerned ever again, turns on his stomach, and is annoyed when the change in position and decision aren’t enough to lull him to sleep.
The next morning he drags Merlin to the training field, ignoring any and all complaints except for when a scathing, sort of hurried, if you’re going to insist upon being so allergic to propriety that you risk your life over it, then you will damn well learn to at least defend yourself slips out. Which, to be fair, completely breaks his own rule of never letting Merlin know that there’s a purpose to Arthur's insistence and instruction, other than Merlin's own goading, but he’s entirely too annoyed and agitated (and worried, goddamn it) to really care. It’s only practice with the sword now, anyway. That doesn’t count.
Merlin grumbles but Arthur thinks he gets a glimpse of him directing a smile to the grass. An odd and confusing gesture that makes Arthur's cheeks redden, which makes it even more confusing.
They stay on the sword exclusively for days, until he’s taken his own agitation out on Merlin’s ever quickening steps and improving form. He hates that Merlin could’ve died by those bastards’ hands—hates that he wasn’t there and that there will likely come a time where he’s not there again. But Merlin actually listens and only complains as much as is expected, not really more, and Arthur feels himself relaxing enough to allow some time to be delegated back to the crossbow.
Merlin grins at him when he sighs very heavily, very put upon, but undoubtedly agreeingly, and it’s only a little bit striking and only because he never imagined Merlin would be enthusiastic about any sort of weapons training. Arthur rolls his eyes just to make sure he doesn’t smile back or say something completely ridiculous about how he enjoys the time he spends with Merlin like this more than really anything else (besides maybe their early mornings and quiet nights where Merlin still steals his food and glows with whatever light is hitting him).
When the swords are away and the targets set up, Arthur muses how it’s actually very impressive that Merlin’s more or less remembered how to handle a crossbow.
“I practiced while you were away looking for Morgana,” he shrugs, once he catches Arthur staring at him, startled, when he hits the target exactly. “There wasn’t much else to do between helping Gaius.”
“Missed your chores that much, did you?”
Merlin snorts in derision, and aims again. Hits bullseye again.
And Arthur knows he was annoyed weeks ago over the probable occurrence that Merlin hadn’t practiced anything and had forgotten everything because it would’ve felt like all that effort and suffering was in vain. The feelings and confusion and trouble breathing and the heavy burning in his chest that aches, even now, just a little, when Merlin’s too close but still untouchable; unthinkable. He knows it would’ve been more frustrating to watch Merlin aim and miss.
But Arthur stares at him and bites his lip and still thinks, this is so bad, because Merlin kept at it and he’s already the one person Arthur’s fond of—he will never admit this, he’d rather die horribly and painfully—above almost all others, but this—
The affection and, to be quite honest, admiration, build until it hurts even more than the burning, pushing against every last inch of Arthur’s skin. Merlin can never, ever know.
Arthur clenches his jaw, swearing he will never tell, and wants to call everything off this instant, too scared he’ll do something catastrophic like grab Merlin’s face and snog him silly and then promise him everything within his power and then tell, tell everything, anyway.
But then Merlin, not paying attention (distracted again—Arthur had thought he’d worn this out of him), tries to shoot the bloody crossbow without reloading it—tries to shoot it with no arrow in it, and—
And, really, the feeling doesn’t go away at all. But the dizzying fondness does make room for exasperation, refreshing and so wonderfully familiar that it’s enough to loosen his shoulders.
It relieves him so much, in fact, that he starts laughing until there are tears in his eyes.
His knights look at him with abject horror on the other side of the field, like they’ve finally figured out his certain descent into insanity, but Merlin only scowls and huffs out an embarrassed breath. Arthur's too busy to really take the details in, but he fancies, for a second, that he watches the sun just barely catch the edges of a swift, there-and-gone twitch that tugs at the corner of Merlin’s lips.
He doesn't know how long the both of them stand there on the field, staring and smirking at each other, but he’s entirely sure he never wants to find out.
***
Morgana’s betrayal hangs in the air around all of them, insistent and rotten and particularly harrowing. She’d love that, Arthur thinks, once it’s all said and done. She’d love the way she’s still everywhere—would relish, even, the knowledge that she’d left in her wake something irreparable.
He wonders if she still has the dagger he gave her, or if it’s somewhere sitting, gathering dust in her old chambers. Or if she just threw it away the very same night he gifted it to her.
But that’s neither here nor there; Arthur has better things to think about—more important ones, by far.
(Here’s what he doesn’t think about:
The tolling warning bells that were meant to be disabled. The inexplicable, sudden victory. Gaius’ presence.
He doesn't ask them what they were doing or why the bells were still intact. The two of them offer no story, either, and Gaius pretends to be (is, probably) too occupied with his father to explain his own part in all of it.
Arthur doesn’t think about it—decides to let it go. This one thing, he allows himself to let go of.
He trusts Merlin implicitly, perhaps more than anyone else he ever has before. Lancelot, too. He does not want to begrudge them this one discrepancy—not now. Not when everything seems like it’s going to be alright.
So as they walk through the lower towns and begin helping the people rebuild, mend, and start anew, Arthur lets himself feel smug—relieved, content—when he overhears Lancelot boasting about Merlin’s sudden—surprising—adequacy with a sword to the other knights. He lets himself grin at Merlin, smug, while the others shout in surprise; lets himself laugh at Merlin's exasperated, covert eye roll in reply.)
***
A year passes and Morgana comes back with the dorocha. Arthur realizes, a little annoyedly and a lot pitifully, that he’s begun keeping track of the passage of time by things Morgana does: her absence and her betrayal and her attack.
She becomes a nonsubject, by some silent rule. On his worse days, Arthur’s almost even glad for it. On his better ones, he can admit—at least to himself, if no one else—that it’s harder to just suddenly act as if she were never there; as if she were never more than a person to fight and bring to justice.
This has always been the way with Morgana, though. Never was one for neutrality—it was always an extreme with her. Arthur doesn’t know why he’s surprised that this part of her remains, even in her absence.
He misses her and hates her and wants her back and doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to face her again. He can’t help but feel she took something fundamental with her when she left, can’t help but look for any scrap of evidence that she was on his side, at least at some point, that she might’ve left behind.
They do look for her every day, though, despite the avoidance. Arthur wonders if anyone else can see through his uncertainty that the search is for an arrest, rather than being exactly the same as what it was two years ago when she’d gone missing the first time.
For the most part, however, when the sun isn’t so elusive behind the clouds, things feel content. The castle seems to bustle with noise and a sense of cheer and stability that’s unbecoming for a kingdom with a frail king no longer fit to rule. He feels the shame of it burn a hole through his stomach every time he visits his father, but even Arthur cannot deny his people their joy. Cannot pretend it doesn’t bring him some joy, as well.
It's a small price to pay, anyway, to see everyone shed whatever shadow Morgana had cast during her reign.
“I miss her, sometimes,” Gwen says, as they watch the ongoing feast from the sidelines. She’s staring at the back of a noblewoman’s head—one with raven hair and delicate beads adorning the complicated weave that it’s in. Arthur is tired of the way his throat closes up. “For a moment, only. I forget there’s no one to attend to—no one to wake up and look after.”
“I understand,” he says, though he doesn’t—not in the exact way she means, anyway. Him and Morgana were never that amiable with one another. Whatever time they used to spend together was never that long. Gwen's eyes find him, still a little hazy—still a little lost in her own thoughts of Morgana—and she smiles softly, sweetly, like she knows. Arthur sips his wine, annoyed by how much he hates it and drinks it anyway, and looks towards his knights.
Merlin’s saying something that has Leon looking more scandalized than Arthur’s ever seen him. He can’t control the snort that the sight causes, but doesn’t really care about the slip once Gwen, having followed his gaze, starts to giggle. Elyan reaches over to clap Leon on the back, making the scandalous look turn to him, and Arthur expects Gwen to laugh again.
She doesn’t. She sobers up very quickly.
“It’s all for a moment, though. Then I remember how she lined them up and shot at the unsuspecting crowd.”
Arthur swallows, tastes something more bitter than the wine. He knows this. Leon himself told him about it, one very difficult, very hazy night. Arthur had even reached out to the families. He knows what Morgana did—what she became.
Gwaine throws his head back, laughing, and pulls Merlin’s sleeve until he sits down in the empty seat between him and Lancelot. Percival's absence still catches Arthur off guard. He wonders if they’re speaking of him.
Merlin leans back in his seat, rests his hand on Lancelot's shoulder, and says something that makes him laugh when he looks up from his drink. It’s a muted and small thing, barely a shadow of a hint of Lancelot’s past serenity and contentment, but it’s still more than anyone else has gotten from him.
Arthur takes another sip of wine and wishes he didn’t care so much about propriety so that he could chug it when Merlin turns in his seat and meets his eye.
The noise of the hall drains out like water pouring from a pitcher, and the constant movement of everyone in his periphery falls away. Arthur knows he can’t see the blue of Merlin’s eyes—not in this light, and especially not this far away—but he thinks he can see the way they soften and change. His shirt is stupidly, gratifyingly purple (Arthur had thrown it at his face months ago—had told him to keep it), and his neckerchief is stupidly falling apart at the seams as it ever is, and Arthur stupidly misses him.
Stupid, because it’s not like he isn’t there. He’s still manservant to the crown prince; still comes on the occasional hunt and patrol and other excursion he has no business to come on. They still occasionally share dinner, much to Arthur’s (less convincing by the day) chagrin. He’s still there.
It’s just that he’s there a lot less.
They’ve been too busy, for it to be any different. Too busy looking for Morgana and dealing with her betrayal and too busy riding to Arthur's death to defeat the dorocha and too busy splitting up praying to every god that Merlin doesn’t share his fate and then too busy dealing with the aftermath of Percival’s sacrifice. He’s lost count of how many times they’ve rebuilt the people’s homes in the lower towns.
(Arthur thinks of the way Merlin's back used to feel against his chest. The way the shift of muscle felt so new and breathtaking and addictive. How he took note of it like it was an entire area of study he’d one day need to know. How easy those cold mornings feel in retrospect and how significantly they and their absence have affected him.)
Merlin grins at him, soft and private and wide, looking like the idiot that he is, and something vague and foolish about cupids and arrows and Merlin's improving aim flashes across Arthur's mind, like a lingering memory of a nightmare. And that, as horrific as it is, is at least an efficient and convincing argument to himself that he’s had too much to drink and not nearly enough sleep. Arthur thinks he scowls, more at himself, but Merlin catches it and doesn’t need to know, because his face suddenly lights up even more, teasingly, before he winks and turns away.
Even Arthur can’t blame the wine for the minute of dumbstruck silence that wink leaves him in.
“It’s hard not to miss her,” he confesses, still caught off guard by Merlin and momentarily unaware of the significance of the admission.
The edge of a feast is no place to discuss this. There are too many people and the risk of being overheard is too high—and perhaps it’s something better taken to his grave, anyway—but he turns to Gwen regardless.
The music’s loud, the hall orange and glowing and hot from all the candles and fire and bodies, and no one pays him less attention anywhere else.
“It's unthinkable, what she did. But—”
Arthur thinks back to a summer, years ago, when he’d sit in Morgana’s room every day and argue with her as they ate grapes. Gwen, who used to stand just behind Morgana’s chair, would look at them with wide eyes—blushing and smiling sweetly when Morgana asked her to sit and eat with them, too. He’d only just started getting along with her, then; had only just accepted her call for a truce and begun to actually spend time with her.
He thinks about what a revelation it was, the first time she had yelled at Uther for one thing or another, and how annoyingly fun it was the first time they fought together with their swords (even though she later went around lying to everyone about having beat him. Which never actually happened). How it was Morgana that argued with and yelled at him until he took a step back to rethink. How Morgana was the first person to believe he was worth bettering—the first person who believed he could actually be someone good. Really, the first person who tried with him.
How he couldn’t do the same for her.
Arthur sighs, tired again. Gwen smiles at him, dreamily, like she’s remembering something too.
“Yeah,” she says, soft and aching. But.
This, at least, he understands fully.
Arthur catches Merlin moving in the corner of his eye, probably making some ridiculous, wild gesture, because the knights erupt in laughter loud enough to pierce the already noisy hall. He wants to be there with them. Wishes his worries and responsibilities were back to being only what they were when he was first crowned prince.
The burst of noise seems to make something snap in Gwen. She takes a sharp breath, straightens up, and bows her head forward a little.
“I should get back to my duties,” she turns to him, smile at first distant and mechanical, and then softening considerably once their eyes meet. With a hand on his arm, she says, sweetly again, “Happy birthday, sire,” and walks away.
Arthur doesn’t stay for very long, after that.
Everyone's too caught up in dancing or talking or drinking themselves unconscious to really notice him leave, anyway. Or to leave themselves. He stumbles into the corridor, stunned still by the sudden drop of temperature and of the night’s blue.
It's hard not to imagine himself, twelve, and Morgana, fourteen, meeting after midnight in one of these empty halls, shushing and shoving and glaring at each other as they snuck around exploring the hidden parts of the castle they weren’t allowed in during the day.
It's hard not to imagine them, a decade ago now, sneaking their way into the kitchens to finish off the pastries the cook always specially made for Arthur's birthday.
(She makes them for my birthday only, thirteen year old Arthur had said, smug and satisfied. They’re just fattening you up to feed you to the witches, Morgana had replied, pityingly.)
A memory of Morgana sitting next to him on one of the kitchen counters crashes over Arthur so violently that he stumbles back, only managing to not fall on his arse because one of the guards stationed by the door catches him, quickly righting him and turning away. Her hair had been long and so black that it’d looked blue, even in the darkness. She’d split the last remaining pastry to give him half, and had hummed next to him as they ate it in relative silence, kicking her dangling feet as she chewed.
Morgana's betrayal is a constantly bleeding wound, but her absence, her memory, in every nook and cranny of this castle is the gaping hole that’s too large to let it heal.
He takes another gulp of breath, letting the cold, sharp air sting his throat and make his nose burn, and heads the long way to his chambers.
Merlin's already there when he finally falls through the door.
“Oh good,” he says pleasantly, “I thought you’d been kidnapped.”
All this without even a trace of relief that Arthur was not, in fact, kidnapped.
Arthur rolls his eyes, grumbling under his breath, and unbuckles his belt with a bit of difficulty. He’s not drunk, but he is still a bit unsteady from all the Morgana thoughts. “So you decided to just stay in my chambers instead of informing anyone?”
Merlin grins, shrugs. “I didn’t say I was upset about it.”
“Merlin,” he says warningly, even though that never works. “That’s treason.”
“But it’s allowed if my lord is a clotpole and therefore deserves it, right?”
“Calling me a clotpole is also treason.”
“That's not what the law says,” Merlin disagrees, walking towards Arthur.
“It does too.” Well, maybe he’s a little tipsy. “I wrote it in myself, specifically for you.”
“You flatter me, sire.”
And he is going to reply to that—no, really—but then he notices Merlin's hand on his shoulder, helping him shrug his jacket off, and immediately forgets how to use his mouth. Part of Arthur still thinks that he should’ve been over this by now: this issue with Merlin's proximity he’s found himself plagued with. It should’ve died out months—god, years—ago.
It hasn’t. He doesn’t know anymore if it ever actually will.
“Well we can’t have that,” Arthur sighs, tilting his head back so that he’ll look at the ceiling instead of Merlin’s bent head and soft hair and flushed cheeks and rather lovely hands as they move—
He hears Merlin hum, feels his arms go around his waist to finish undoing his belt. The sounds of a clucking tongue and a muted clang follow after, and Arthur mourns the lost weight of his dagger. The role of a manservant, he thinks, nowhere near the first time, is entirely too intimate. Anyone else who’d dared touched that blade would’ve been bleeding by now.
“How was your birthday?”
Merlin cups the back of his head and tilts it forward. Arthur fears, for a moment, that he’ll gasp, but pleases himself when he doesn’t. Instead, he lets his head be moved and raises his arms when Merlin gestures for him to, closing his eyes as his tunic gets dragged off. A part of his brain wants him to protest and insist that he can take it from here, but Merlin's hands are oddly soft and smooth for a servant’s, even after all these years, and they’re steady and warm where they run and linger across his skin, and Arthur has missed his touch. He should’ve stopped it before the belt came off, anyway.
Drunk on either the proximity or the touch or the wine, he doesn’t know, but the fog in his brain makes it difficult to keep to himself. “I never imagined I'd spend it alone so soon again.”
“You weren’t alone—come on, sit on the bed,” he kneels to tug Arthur's boots off, flashes him an unreadable look. Arthur falls back until he can see nothing but his bed’s canopy.
“Without both my father and Morgana, I mean.”
“Again?”
Arthur sighs. “It was always more my mother’s—” he waves his hand, still unable to actually voice it without feeling stupid and guilty.
He wonders if maybe he was never meant to have a proper family. If that’s what all this is.
Lamely, he adds, “After Morgana came to stay with us, it changed, but.”
His father, too, it seems, used to track the passage of time with what Morgana did. Her arrival and her developing tastes for noble life and—now—her betrayal.
Everything starts and stops with Morgana.
Merlin's hand runs down his calf, an attempt to soothe that works entirely too well for Arthur to want to acknowledge it. They stay like that for several minutes, breathing in the quiet, empty space. Arthur doesn’t mind ending the first day of his twenty-fifth year like this.
The fire cracks in the hearth, bright and warm. He wants to sit in front of it and be able to stare at it with a content mind. He wants Merlin to be beside him and be, if not the only reason, then the biggest reason for that contentment. He wants to sit in front of the fire with the knowledge that his sister is only a few chambers away; that his knights are all well and in their quarters, and chosen on proper terms; that he could reach over and touch Merlin and have it be welcomed and familiar and a prelude to a million eternities.
He wants to not fear or cringe at these thoughts that are only able to make it out of the depths of his mind because he’s, apparently, drunk.
“Maybe your father will be there next year,” Merlin suggests. He’s standing next to the bed, now, and leaning over, inserting himself into most of Arthur’s line of sight. He blurs for a second, making Arthur’s head hurt, but comes back into focus as wretchedly lovely as ever. Arthur lets his gaze trace the exact curve of the bow of Merlin’s lips; the shape and color of his eyes.
He wants to know what those lips taste like. He wants to know how they feel in every way. He wants that knowledge to be so ingrained to his very being that it rivals the knowledge of what a sword hilt feels like in his hand. That last thought, more than anything, startles him.
Arthur does not think he enjoys being drunk very much.
“You know as well as I what Gaius thinks.”
Merlin leaves his sight. The bed dips by his arm, and Arthur's too melancholic and tired and self-pitying (and stunned and flustered, perhaps) to be scandalized by Merlin's audacity and forwardness. Sitting on the crown prince’s bed, for goodness’ sake.
“Gaius could be wrong,” he offers, gentle and utterly hopeless at keeping his skepticism out of his voice.
Arthur shuts his eyes, breathes. Doesn’t dignify that with a response.
“If this is your attempt to distract me, it's completely abysmal. Don’t think I didn't notice you neglecting your duties tonight,” he says instead, “Honestly, Merlin.”
An amused huff, maybe even the feather-light touch of a finger tracing something on his brow. “You seemed to have survived just fine without a perpetually full cup of wine, sire.”
“Is mere survival all the crown prince should strive for at the celebration of his anniversary?” Arthur demands, sitting up to lean on his elbows in order to fully showcase the depth of his outrage.
Merlin rolls his eyes, pushes Arthur to lie down again (which is quite well done of him, because the sudden movement had made Arthur extraordinarily dizzy) (and Arthur does not linger on the heat that flashes at the pit of his stomach, nor on the way his breath catches, at the action).
“Some humbling is good for you,” he replies, placating and patronizing and insolent as ever. “Consider it my birthday present to you, sire.”
Arthur sputters, taking a swipe at the air close to where Merlin's body is still dangerously near his own on the bed. “Sabotaging the crown prince’s birthday festivities is treason, you know.”
Merlin's entire existence could be summed up as treason, at this point, Arthur thinks resignedly. The fact that he refuses to be cooperative and stay out of Arthur's head not being the least of his crimes.
Something like a strangled laugh struggles out of Merlin's throat and Arthur doesn’t want to admit that it had been Merlin's company that he had missed by his side the entire night, rather than any wine. His clumsy, accidental touches and abhorrent manners and tragically amusing running commentary on everything and anything.
The way Gwaine had grasped Merlin’s sleeve to tug him down; the way Merlin had sat with a huff of laughter, relaxing back into the chair; how casually he’d joked and touched the knights in public—it all flashes in Arthur’s mind. He wishes he’d been there with them, among them.
“Well, it’s probably best to stave off on sending me to the stocks—with winter approaching and all.”
Arthur hums, blinking to get himself out of his head. Merlin's not any easier to be around—exposure seems to make him even worse, really—but Arthur's been getting better with his own recovery time, at the very least.
“We wouldn't want the people to starve because you’re an idiot,” he agrees, smiling when Merlin tsks.
It’s not the best birthday he’s ever had—though far from the worst, he supposes—but Merlin wishes him a quiet, tender happy birthday, sire, as he lightly brushes the hair on Arthur's forehead to the side, when he thinks Arthur's fallen asleep. So—
It ends well enough.
***
“I've never even seen you use a dagger in a fight,” Merlin complains.
“Do you ever not complain?” Arthur scowls.
“Do you ever not scowl?” Merlin glares.
“I never scowl when I speak to perfectly sensible people,” Arthur glares back.
“And I don’t complain when there is no cabbage-headed king endangering my life because he’s bored.”
Arthur ignores the ridiculous insult in order to roll his eyes. “Don’t be such a girl, Merlin. I'm teaching you how to use a dagger to defend yourself, that’s quite literally the opposite of endangering your life.”
“Don’t you have kingly stuff to do,” Merlin demands, instead of giving in and admitting that Arthur's completely right and then begging for his king’s pardon for doubting his word (oh, well. Arthur can still dream).
“Don’t change the subject,” he snaps, because he does, in fact, have quite a few kingly stuff that needs doing that he’s running away from by forcing Merlin into a training session. But that’s neither here nor there.
Tricking Merlin into taking up the dagger hadn’t been as easy as the other two times he’d convinced Merlin into taking up a weapon (mostly because Arthur’s been using the exact same tactic of goading Merlin into it with all three, and even Merlin’s bound to be suspicious after the third time), but it had grudgingly worked thus far.
Today, though, Arthur has no patience for any of it, and so he’d forgone the entire ordeal of easing Merlin into the conversation that would result in a sudden lesson, all to work later in some bigger plan. No—no patience for it at all. His head is filled with grain reports and ridiculous arguments between even more ridiculous nobles, and Arthur is not going to keep up a complicated, ridiculous pretense with Merlin, too. Not today.
Which means that they’re trying to train with a dagger—okay, fine: it’s more like a surprise sparring session, whatever—instead of actually doing so. Because Merlin keeps complaining.
“If you accidentally cut an artery and I die, I'll haunt you.”
He ignores the ridiculous notion that any damage he’d cause with a dagger would be accidental. That he doesn’t know where to cut. “Haunting the king on purpose is illegal.”
“There's no law stating that,” Merlin protests. “Besides, what can you even do to my ghost?”
“I'm king, my word is law.” Arthur scowls then pauses, thinking for a moment. “Trap it in a jar?”
“I'm a ghost, Arthur. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get out of any jars.”
“I could ask a sorcerer to magic your ghost so you won’t be able to get out of being trapped in a jar.” He straightens a bit, wondering. “Or perhaps magic the jar?”
“That's even more illegal,” Merlin sniffs primly, blatantly ignoring his very valid concerns regarding the logistics. An expression that Arthur doesn’t recognize flickers across his face for a second.
“It's only more illegal if I say it is.”
“I see your morals are sturdy as stone, sire,” Merlin says dryly, giving off the distinct air that he’s unimpressed—something he learned, undoubtedly, from Gaius.
“Shut up, Merlin.”
“No, really. I'm flattered you’d unban magic just to make my ghost suffer for haunting you.”
Arthur raises his chin haughtily, almost unconsciously. “No measure is too extreme as long as you learn your lesson.”
This, for some reason, makes Merlin grin. A wide, rather demented sort of cheeky grin that Arthur is immediately suspicious of.
“Wow, that important, am I?”
He narrows his eyes, tries not to pity himself for how horribly close to the truth this one teasing comment is. “Don’t be ridiculous. It's just that the king’s manservant cannot be seen behaving so wretchedly, that’s all.”
“I'll be a ghost!”
“Well that’s no excuse. It’ll show people how seriously I take these things, if nothing else” Arthur reasons.
“So not only do you accidentally kill me, but you punish me for trying to get revenge from beyond the grave, too. Great. What happened to the superstition of never upsetting vengeful spirits?”
“I'm taking care of the superstitions by trapping you in a jar,” Arthur says, slowly, because Merlin really can be an idiot sometimes. “Anyway,” he mutters, “who said anything about accidents?”
“Oh, lovely, sire,” Merlin drawls sarcastically. “What was that about this being the opposite of endangering my life?”
“Shut up, Merlin.”
Arthur gestures for him to get back into position and readies himself when he does. And then groans when he gets out of it again.
“For goodness’ sake, Merlin. What?”
“Look, what if I accidentally kill you, though? I really don’t want to be tried for regicide no matter how much you deserve it, and—”
Arthur kicks his shin, too offended to find any pleasure in Merlin's indignant squawk.
“You think you could accidentally kill me? You can’t even manage a punch and you—”
“Ow!” Merlin yells, interrupting him pointedly.
“No, shut up. Get in position, I will not ignore that one. You think you can accidentally kill me—?”
Merlin huffs out an aggravated breath. “Oh, but you’ll ignore the part where I—quite rightly, by the way—said you deserve—”
Arthur kicks him again, glowering. “Well if you insist that I acknowledge it—”
And then Merlin tackles him to the ground.
This isn’t a problem. Arthur is much stronger and quicker and far more in control of his limbs than Merlin could ever hope to be. His victory is more or less set in stone.
Scratch that—
It shouldn’t be a problem, because Arthur used to be much stronger and quicker than Merlin, and that used to be enough.
But whatever muscle Merlin had lacked when they first met, he’s not lacking now. And well, that, in addition to the surprise and the dizzying hell of trying to deal with Merlin's proximity (let alone the entire length of his body pressing right into Arthur's), makes it—more of a problem. Than it once would have been.
Merlin grins down at him and, with false contemplation, says, “You know, maybe sparring isn’t so bad.”
Which, of course, simply won’t do. Arthur may feel all his dignity seep out of his bones every time his mind goes blank when Merlin grins, or every time his heart lurches when Merlin gets too close, or even every time his skin prickles and his mind wanders when Merlin’s fingers brush over his skin, but—
But Arthur is a knight. He is a leader of men, a reigning monarch, for goodness’ sake. He has been sparring and training and fighting and wrestling since before he could even fully read. Like hell will he let Merlin best him in any physical activity just because his brain and body are so ridiculous that they insist on shutting down every time they realize that Merlin’s just a little bit lovely sometimes.
With a complicated twist that isn’t really complicated at all, just too new for Merlin, Arthur switches their positions. He’s straddling him (and very pointedly not thinking about the fact), leaning over him to pin his arms above his head with one hand and pointing his dagger at his throat with the other.
Arthur smirks. “See Merlin, this is your problem. All talk and no skill.”
Merlin rolls his eyes, a defeated puff from his lips tickling Arthur’s wrist.
He lets Merlin's hands go and sits back, tucking his dagger back on his person without taking his eyes off the content, open expression on Merlin’s face. A long eyelash, the colour of soot, is resting on his cheek, and Arthur wants to swipe it away.
He pushes himself to the side, lies down beside Merlin in the grass, instead. There’s a longing that keeps making his stomach and fingers clench, like they’re trying to grasp something—he doesn’t know what; so much—that he’ll never actually have within reach. All he can ever seem to do in the face of it is move away, too sure that there’s nothing waiting for those itching fingers but air.
“Don’t think you’re let off the hook that easily.”
Merlin groans. “You know that I'm not your dummy knight, don’t you? This isn’t actually part of my job.”
“It’s part of your job if I say it is, Merlin.”
“But why—I can handle a sword just fine—”
Arthur snorts. That's a bit too generous of an assessment. He’s only barely passable with a sword. Merlin nudges their shoulders together, too light and teasing to actually be annoyed or offended.
“—Shut up, sire. And even you have to admit I'm good with the crossbow.”
That, on the other hand, is too humble. As painful as it is to admit, Merlin’s quite excellent with the crossbow. Better than most of the knights, even.
(He’d beaten Leon, once, for goodness’ sake, after the knight had jokingly challenged him to see who was a better shot. Mostly, they—well, except for Gwaine—try to not bring the defeat up for Leon's sake, but Merlin still gets sly winks and subtle well done!’s from everyone. In all fairness to Leon, though, even Merlin had seemed surprised by the turn of events.)
Arthur makes a noise at the back of his throat, whether in vague agreement or exasperated disbelief at how Merlin over exaggerates his skills when he sucks and undermines them when he’s rather proficient, he doesn’t know.
“You’re not always going to have access to a crossbow or a sword,” Arthur replies. “A dagger, however, you can carry with you.”
“I don't have a dagger either.”
“Honestly, Merlin, even you know how to rectify that.”
Merlin huffs out a breath of irritation. “I don’t have money to buy a dagger, then.”
Arthur's head snaps towards him. He doesn’t know if he just doesn’t believe Merlin, or if the outrage hasn’t fully built up, yet.
“You do too. I pay you more than enough to be able to afford a dagger. A good one, at that.”
“That's not what I meant,” Merlin rolls his eyes. He turns to his side to face Arthur fully, putting a hand under his cheek like he’s about to take a nap on the grass. “I just mean that I send most of my money to my mother, since I live and eat with Gaius anyway, and of the sum that I do keep—I don’t want to waste it on a dagger.”
“Well, what else are you going to use it for?” Arthur demands, tamping down the sulky and affronted reply that it wouldn’t be a waste to get a dagger; they’re exquisite weapons, in Arthur’s professional opinion. He eyes Merlin unfavorably. “It's not like you’re buying yourself any decent clothing.”
“Oi! My clothes are just fine.”
“I've seen mold that’s better quality than that fabric.”
“Not all of us have such delicate skin that it can’t withstand anything but the softest silk, your highness,” Merlin mocks, smirking.
There’s nothing else to do, really, but turn back to the sky and roll his eyes. Arthur wonders how much worse he would’ve fared had he decided to teach Merlin manners, instead of weaponry.
The scope of that failure makes him shudder.
A light breeze makes it feel like his lungs can expand further and easier, and he takes a slow breath. It has been a bit too long, since he last felt such serenity.
Minutes or hours pass as they lay there, their conversations starting light and without much commitment. At some point, when the steady movement of clouds becomes too hypnotizing for Arthur to focus anywhere else, Merlin starts humming.
Eventually, in a careful voice that Arthur's only rarely heard Merlin employ, he says, “I've never heard you mention magic so casually.”
“It was just a joke,” he replies, failing to sound exasperated and annoyed—sounding cautious, maybe confused, instead. Unsure of why Merlin brought it up or even why he’s annoyed with him for doing so.
One day, Arthur will accept that so much caution around Merlin isn’t necessary for everything—anything. Today, though, Merlin's just stopped being annoying and resistant to training (perhaps because they are not training anymore), and Arthur isn’t in the mood to be as uncertain as the topic surrounding magic makes him.
“Still,” he hears shuffling, feels the intense gaze of someone who knows him too well to not need to study him. “You don’t usually joke about it, either.”
Merlin’s tone is deceivingly light, and Arthur's used it too often himself to think it can be pinned to a specific reason. Part of him wonders how Merlin can do it so well—he can only really tell because he’s listening so closely—wonders if it's only in this situation, only with his voice, that it seems so effortless to him. Wonders what it means if it’s not.
“Well,” Arthur says, and doesn’t know how to continue.
He thinks he feels Merlin's gaze on him for a long time after that.
***
On a perfectly lovely night, a week after the summer solstice, a very bitter voice in his head whispers to him that Merlin's much better at using a figurative knife than a real one. Knows, almost like it’s inherent, just how to twist it to get the best, most devastating results.
Arthur hushes the voice away, too angry and confused to entertain any ridiculous thoughts, and tries to step back.
The thing is that Merlin hadn’t taken to the dagger as he had to the crossbow; hadn’t tolerated learning it as he had the sword. They don’t have lessons so much as they do nights where Arthur manages to get away with ordering him into a quick, half an hour at most, sparring session.
The thing is that the nights they do spend together are already so difficult. With Merlin constantly close, always just a breath and a half away; with Merlin soft and tantalizing in the firelight. Everything so domestic and so completely isolated from whatever else Arthur's life is.
The thing is that the nights are already so difficult to bear with any trace of dignity, and sparring with daggers has always been so much more intimate. They’re both focusing directly on each other—like the sword but different from the crossbow—and Arthur can feel the drum of his pulse whenever they press close and hard enough—like the crossbow but different from the sword.
And now Merlin’s standing in front of him, his hands refusing to surrender their grip at the bottom of Arthur’s tunic. He’s biting his lips and breathing erratically, the dagger Arthur had secretly (though, he’s not sure how successful a secret it is) gifted to him somewhere across the floor.
His hands start aching from where he’s gripping the hilt of his own weapon and Merlin’s jacket sleeve, and both of those are rough and painful against his palms in different ways.
The thing is that the nights have always been difficult. But this—
Merlin's eyes dart to the hand that isn’t holding him in place. The room is too dark to even really be able to tell Merlin's eyes are blue, but Arthur thinks the fear is bright enough to light an entire kingdom, let alone a room. Merlin doesn’t move away, but Arthur drops the dagger like he can feel the heat of the sun on its hilt, anyway, because as wrong and painful as the swirling gold in those eyes was, there is something even more off-putting about the fear being there. The fear being there because of him.
The clang makes Merlin flinch, and his shoulders don’t fall from any fading tension, but the corners of his mouth do soften. He hasn’t looked away from Merlin's eyes once since they’d flared gold, but it still feels like seeing him anew when their gazes meet again.
A lot of things try to push and shove their way into Arthur's head, but it almost feels like a wall of steel has erected around his brain, keeping any and all thoughts hazy and muted. A slight shift of fabric against his skin, like a tug, tells him that Merlin’s twisting the bottom of his tunic, tightening his grip.
“You’re a sorcerer,” he says, wishing he sounded more angry and accusatory than far away. The arm that was holding the dagger hangs limply at his side.
“Arthur—”
“You’re—”
“Arthur—” Merlin pleads, voice wet and nothing more than a breath. Arthur's mouth snaps shut.
***
Unfortunately, his resolve to never speak to Merlin again does not last nearly as long as he’d expected of himself. Part of him, even as he’d threatened Merlin to leave and never come within Arthur’s eyesight again, had already resignedly admitted (which was hard enough, for all the bruising it caused his ego) that neither Arthur’s convictions nor Merlin’s obedience would last overly long, but still. A week and three days is pathetic. Morgana used to ignore him for missing their secret sword practicing sessions by accident for longer than that. For longer than double that, in fact.
Except, around the fourth day, when the wound had emptied out the last of the rushing blood and he was more inclined to never trust anyone ever again, rather than punch anyone who so much as insinuated he was anything more to them than a king meant to be respected but pointedly left alone, the thought had occurred to him. And he’d tried to let it go and write it off as nothing important—because truly, it’s nothing important—but night after night, without fail, the thought (well, alright, alongside a lot of other thoughts that had bigger tolls and were more valid and important, but whatever) would rob him of any hope of a peaceful rest.
And really—his inability to leave something alone, his constant demand to be answered: Arthur should’ve known that would be his downfall.
So a week and four days after Merlin ruined everything, Arthur storms into Gaius’ chambers and buries a dagger into the wooden table that he’s spent countless minutes sitting or laying down on, as Gaius patched him up again and again. Mostly he does this to look angry and frightening, hoping that those things will be enough to divert the utter humiliation that’s drenching him from being the first to crack.
Merlin stumbles back from his place on the other end of the long table, where he was reading some damned book, eyes wide like he cannot fathom Arthur's actual presence. His mouth opens and closes, no sound ever escaping, like some kind of idiot.
“You don’t even need a sword, do you?” Arthur snarls, fully aware of how ridiculous this is but also too aware that any awkward and icy greeting would only lead to his own ruin.
“I—”
“I've been wasting years of my life teaching you how to bloody use weapons that you don’t even need!”
Which is not strictly true, because it's only really been half-assed sessions for about an hour most days every few months for a couple of years—which Arthur supposes, all added up, really isn't that much time comparatively—but whatever. Those relatively short sessions feel like they’ve taken years off Arthur’s life expectancy, so.
Merlin swallows, taking short breaths, and he finally looks like he’s finding his ground again. Good. Arthur’s watching his jaw work from where he’s grinding his teeth together, and tries not to admire the smooth ivory of his clenched fists.
“Is this really—” Merlin cuts himself off, voice clipped and frustrated and confused. “Is that what you want to talk about?”
“Well that’s what I'm here for, isn’t it?”
“That’s—that’s the most important thing on your mind about this?” Merlin demands, red in the face and breathing heavily, and Arthur cannot for the life of him think of why Merlin should be the one who’s this frustrated.
“Don’t be such an idiot, of course it isn’t. That doesn’t even rank—”
“So then why would you—!”
“Because I’ve been wasting my time on you!” Arthur yells, unfortunately also breathing heavily now, trying to pretend that it’s always been this difficult to swallow. “Years! I've put years worth of commitment into this and you’re not even who—you didn’t even need it.”
It's entirely possible that the reason why this has been the persistent thought these last few days is because it is not, in fact, about the redundant training at all. Arthur grinds his teeth together to stop himself from saying how he wasted years wanting someone who was never really there.
Merlin bites his bottom lip and, impossibly, looks more hopeful; looks less upset. Looks like maybe he thinks—realizes—this is not, in fact, about weapons training at all, too. He steps forward. “But, Arthur, I wanted it.”
And well, that’s a bit of a punch to the gut.
“No,” he rolls his head back to look up at the ceiling, trying to look put out and yet biting his lip sheepishly. All those hours Merlin could’ve been lazing about instead of trudging behind Arthur as he ranted about Merlin’s grip and form. So, perhaps they both have some confessing to do, then. “No, you just wanted to prove me wrong.”
“What are you—I'm the one who forced you to teach me the sword and crossbow!”
“No, Merlin, you didn’t.” He looks back down and glares at the befuddled expression on his useless manservant’s face. Maybe if Merlin could just think for a second, then Arthur wouldn’t have to actually voice it out loud.
“I think I would know, you prat,” Merlin snaps back. He’s closer now, would almost be close enough to touch if one of them reached out.
“Well,” Arthur replies scathingly, “that shows perfectly well how bad you are at thinking then, doesn’t it?”
“What are you even—!” Merlin takes a deep breath. “Arthur.”
But he won’t hear it—doesn’t want to. Turning away, Arthur waves a dismissive hand, and pretends to look around for a seat until he actually finds one and decides that sitting down wouldn’t be so bad.
“I'm the one who pushed you to it,” he confesses, collapsing into the wretchedly uncomfortable thing with a sigh. How does Gaius even move, sitting in these damn things for hours on end?
“Oh,” Merlin says, but it’s not the breathless, betrayed realization that Arthur only sort of expects. He doesn’t sound like years worth of calculated remarks from Arthur are flashing across his head, all suddenly in a new light; with a new meaning. Doesn’t sound like something’s clicking into place, or like his whole world is reordering itself into something that makes him uncertain and frustrated and befuddled.
No, he just sounds exasperated and annoyed.
Arthur's eyes snap to him just in time to catch his (overdramatic) eyeroll. “You mean those rubbish attempts to annoy me into it.”
Which is—which.
“What?”
Merlin rolls his eyes again. “It was obvious.”
“It was not,” he sputters, offended and for a second unaware of just how completely off guard it catches him. “Wait. You knew?”
“Obviously,” Merlin replies, unimpressed. Gaius really has rubbed off on him quite a lot. A bit too much, some (Arthur) might even say. And then he shrugs.
Arthur eyes him, forgets himself and the situation for a second, and snorts. “No you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You’re a child,” Merlin seethes, but the corner of his lips twitch like maybe he’s amused and trying not to smile. Which makes Arthur scowl more. “Of course I did. You had the same tactic every time.”
“But—but then if you wanted to learn, why were you acting like such a bloody girl about it?”
“Well I didn’t want to at first, but then it just—honestly, Arthur, I figured it out after the fourth day you tried to goad me into learning how to use a sword. After that it was just—fun. I wanted to go along with it.”
And Arthur doesn’t really know what that means.
“Go along with—you idiot! Couldn’t you have just been normal and listened to me when I told you to practice?”
“Well if you’d gone about convincing me normally,” Merlin yells, finally enraged, instead of smug or amused or fond or whatever. “Then I wouldn’t have to—”
“The only reason I had to trick you into it is because you’re bloody allergic to just listening—”
“Trick is a bit of a generous word—”
“Merlin—”
“—And it would’ve been a ridiculous order, anyway! Why would I even need a sword?”
“Because you keep putting yourself in danger with no way to defend yourself!”
“I have magic—”
“I didn’t know that, you idiot! That’s the whole point of this—”
“—and I only did it to save your arse!”
Arthur scoffs. “I can use a sword. I do not need saving.”
“And what are you going to do with a sword? Slice the curses in half?” Merlin snaps.
Unable to believe the nerve of him, Arthur crosses his arms over his chest. Repeats, “I do not need saving.”
“You’re a reckless clotpole,” Merlin cheers, forcefully, “and wouldn’t last a day without me.”
The truth is that a lot of falling branches and other obvious-in-hindsight but inexplicable-or-at-least-easily-ignored-at-that-particular-moment things had started running through Arthur's head in the last week and three days. As loath as he is to admit, or even think about it, Arthur's pretty sure he knows what Merlin's talking about.
Well. Most of what Merlin's talking about. Apparently there’s a lot about Merlin he thought he knew but obviously doesn’t.
Looking to the side, Arthur tries to relax the clench of his jaw, and only ends up failing; ends up clenching it harder and glaring more at one of the many stacks of books Gaius has lying around.
“Arthur?”
“Why did you even bother?”
He means with all of this—with everything—not just the weapons training, but doesn’t want to say it out loud. Doesn’t want to voice that there’s no reason for Merlin to have bothered, in fear that Merlin might only now realize it himself and finally walk away.
Merlin stares at him for a moment, then pulls up another chair across from him and sits down.
Gaius is still doing his rounds. Arthur's the king with lots of things to do and lots of people adamant on finding him and complaining and then annoying him into doing them. This is nearly five years worth of secrets and shredded trust that they’re not going to have time to cover, here. The chance of being interrupted is too great.
Still. When Merlin takes a breath and opens his mouth, Arthur only stares at him; a challenge (a sort of plea) to continue.
***
A month passes, and if Merlin were a knight, Arthur would’ve beaten him in training until he was little more than one big bruise by now. He’s not a knight, nor a particularly skilled swordsman (despite Arthur’s somewhat meager efforts), so unfortunately he can’t—has no way to justify it, in any case—but it is a rather lovely daydream to indulge when council meetings begin to drag. Helps him go to sleep nice and comfortable at night, even.
They are doing better, though, much as it feels the opposite sometimes. Loath as he is to admit it. Merlin's still in the process of telling him things that are extremely startling to not have known before now and Arthur—is doing his best to respond better than he did the first time.
For the most part, it’s working. Working enough, anyway, to help them move forward, despite some setbacks. Arthur still yells and Merlin still snaps and Arthur sometimes says things that he’s still trying to unlearn, or at least be more careful about, and Merlin occasionally storms out and says other things he may not actually believe. But Arthur’s been better at figuring out a way to make up for it, if not always with a spoken apology then at least with food or a silent bearing of Merlin’s scathing reproaches, which never fail to make him wince. And Merlin, too, always comes back with his own apology or full plate or cautious, sheepish grin.
And they both keep at it, and it gets easier by the day.
Merlin’s started lingering, again, during the nights, too, and it was an utter tragedy to discover that those Really Unfortunate Emotions And Feelings he’d harbored for Merlin for all those years (good fucking god—since that first year) hadn’t subsided at all in what Arthur’s taken to calling The Week Of Blinding Rage And Horrible Loneliness But Astounding Productiveness (To Everyone’s Amazement And Delight And Perhaps Fear).
Anyway. The good thing is that the longing has become so familiar that Arthur sometimes forgets it’s there. Forgets that there was a time where he didn’t feel it; forgets that it’s not actually usual.
The bad thing is that, sometimes, little things Merlin does (or says or—anything, really) catch him off guard. Remind him again that there is an ache so deep and present that it almost fills the lack of every way Merlin isn’t in his life. Like, if he could cup it in his hands, it’d seep through his fingers and take up the spaces he wishes Merlin’s fingers would slot into place.
Arthur gets sick and tired of the feeling quite quickly in those moments, but there are a few minutes at first, just as it hits him, blunter than any sword hilt could strike a head, where he goes a bit dizzy with the pleasure. There's something equally harrowing and comforting about wanting Merlin—familiar like an old but still sensitive scar with sentimental value. He doesn’t understand it at all. He doesn’t want to understand it, either, for fear that he’ll stumble across a word much bigger and more alarming than want.
In either case, he prefers this to hating Merlin, which was just a miserable feeling all around, no hidden cracks of daylight anywhere to be found.
“Can I—”
Arthur looks up from Leon’s damned inventory report, idly wondering how he would justify ordering everyone to start writing their reports in the form of an adventurous tale, to make them more entertaining. Or at least even moderately engaging. Or at least not boring enough to rival the efficiency of Gaius’ sleeping draughts.
Goodness, he’s already forgotten what it’s an inventory of.
Merlin’s sitting in front of the hearth, on the floor, not looking back at him. His gaze is fixed on the fire.
For a moment, Arthur wonders if maybe his mind is so bored it’s started hallucinating, but no. Merlin’s biting his lip, gnawing at it like he’s resolutely looking away—like the disconnect is on purpose. He watches the skin of Merlin’s knuckles glow where he curls his fingers in Arthur’s rug, and unconsciously straightens his back.
“What?”
Merlin’s eyes flicker to his, then. After a tense pause, he tilts his head towards the fire, one of his hands making an aborted move to gesture at it.
Arthur understands.
He jerks his head, having to force a stiff nod because his voice will not work, even if he tries. Most of what he’s seen from Merlin’s magic has been through the medium of fire.
Watching with an intensity he barely expects from himself, he can just barely see the way Merlin’s eyes flash gold from this distance. It startles him, how hungry he is to see Merlin this way, despite how wary these moments still make him. How desperate he is to make this normal and how, if he’s really honest with himself, it’s not exactly abnormal. As if now that he knows Merlin can use magic, it's obvious that he was always meant to.
His head knows it—Arthur’s still trying to force his body to react accordingly.
Gold and orange embers start to form the vague shape of a dragon—and it’s almost always a dragon, Arthur thinks, ever since the first time he showed him. He can’t bring himself to believe it means nothing, not with his name and crest being what they are—and upon fully forming, it takes flight around the room, illuminating any darkened patch it passes.
Arthur feels its heat curl around his shoulders, the shape of it just a bit too bright in his periphery, as it glides a bit too close for comfort.
The thing is that Arthur’s still getting used to the magic. That's no secret to anyone who knows. He’s still quite a long way from being used to the magic, in fact. Not the gold eyes or the knowledge or even the other information, really; the magic.
Because it’s one thing to keep learning about years worth of rescues and side quests and whatever else in the span of a month. It's one thing to learn about all of it in the span of a month, while also trying to simultaneously unlearn everything he’d been hounded about and beaten for and taught again and again until he got it right from his father for his whole life—everything he more or less believed for his whole life up until last month.
It's something completely different to learn all of that, unlearn all of the other things, and also see it constantly, used in a way he never thought it would be used, by a person he never thought would use it, in his room, with his permission.
So he’s still getting used to the magic. Obviously. And sometimes, Arthur has his bad days.
But—but.
But sometimes he has good days, or nights, where he’ll more or less be completely at ease, and the sudden buzz of the air, letting him know that Merlin’s doing magic right now, will be momentarily startling, sure, but otherwise all right. Normal, even. Welcome. A little mesmerizing and awe-striking, but in a familiar way that's becoming more admiration and idle appreciation than either full on amazement and reverence or harrowing dread.
He prefers the good days—prefers natural acceptance to reverence or distrust—and knows that Merlin does, too.
Tonight is one of the good ones.
There's no particular feature of the dragon that makes it any different from the vague outline of the Pendragon crest on some of the older, worn cloaks, besides the fact that this one’s animated, but Arthur still thinks it's rather an ugly looking one, all things considered. He swallows down a smirk and watches in silence as it traces a golden path around his chambers, embers lingering for a few seconds in its wake.
The dragon itself may be ugly by Arthur's silent, personal decree, but as he leans back in his chair, forcing himself to fully relax as the warmth approaches again, he allows himself to admit that the magic itself is rather a lovely display.
Beautiful in a way only magic can be, he supposes.
Minutes or hours pass, and the dragon eventually fades, sizzling out of existence quietly and peacefully (nothing, at all, like the last dragon Arthur faced—who isn’t, apparently, even fucking dead. But whatever. He’s still getting over that bit of information).
Merlin’s silent for a long time, after the last of the embers dissipate. Arthur watches him, not really thinking of anything so much as he is cataloging every detail; from the way his back is rigid, his hands clenched in fists, to the way his chest moves up and down at a practiced rhythm. From the way the firelight outlines the shape of his nose and sets the tips of his messy hair aglow to the way his throat moves around a swallow.
The ache in his chest sinks deeper, the longing grows arms.
Arthur tries to keep his gaze steady when Merlin finally turns to him, biting his bottom lip and frowning. For all intents and purposes, he looks confused. Curious. Like he’s puzzling something out.
“Does it scare you, still?” He asks, head tilted.
Yes, for all intents and purposes, Merlin looks and sounds curious. Like he’s trying to parse Arthur’s reaction; like he’s purely after the answer.
But Arthur has known him for years, now. Has trained him and obsessively studied his tells for just as long, in an attempt to get more of him. So he knows to look for the miniscule twitch of his left eyebrow and at the corners of his lips; knows to look at the way Merlin’s fingers tug at each other; knows to watch out for the small, barely perceptible roll of Merlin's shoulders.
He knows what Merlin looks like when he’s resigned, and upset, and maybe a little bit afraid; what he looks like when he’s bracing for a blow. He knows that Merlin is not actually detachedly curious at all—that he is instead resigned, and upset, and afraid, and bracing for Arthur to say, Yes. Yes, I'm still cautious, still scared.
But he’s—not. Not now, anyway. Not about this.
Because magic was never really the problem, not where Merlin was concerned. Arthur’s sure there are still instances where he’ll fear it—fear it like he did before he became a knight, like whenever it’s something he’s never seen before, something he doesn’t know how to fight; like whenever it’s from Morgana—but in the month that he’s known, in the month that he’s had to face it more than all the past twenty-five years combined, he’s never really been afraid of Merlin’s magic.
He’s been afraid of Merlin leaving; of Merlin not being who he believed he was; of a million other things. So many other things, in fact, that it never even occurred to him to be afraid of Merlin’s actual magic.
“It never scared me, Merlin,” he replies, voice quiet and soft, carried by the heated air and stillness of the room from his end to Merlin’s. “Not from you.”
He thinks he can hear the way Merlin’s breath shakes in the immediate exhale that follows the confession. After another moment of silence, Arthur pushes his chair back, standing up.
He doesn’t approach Merlin with caution, even though he’s sorely tempted to, but he does hungrily watch the way Merlin’s eyes track his movements. The way they seem momentarily startled at Arthur’s sudden getting up, before settling back once he realizes Arthur’s moving towards him. The way his gaze gets sharper as Arthur draws nearer, like he’s sizing Arthur up—looking at him intently like he’s an opponent who’s next move he’s trying to figure out. With mild amusement and no small amount of shortage of breath, he thinks that this is the most concentrated he has ever seen Merlin look.
Arthur collapses on the ground, profile to the fire so that he can continue watching him, and stretches his legs. A moment later, Merlin mirrors him, gaze not wavering once.
“You know,” he says, lightly, once his shoulders finally drop from the tense line they always draw when he does magic in front of Arthur. This is the shortest amount of time they’ve stayed like that. He kicks Arthur’s thigh gently. “You haven’t forced me into any lessons with the dagger, lately.”
By lately he means since the last time, which was, of course, when everything had changed between them. Arthur gives him an annoyed look, kicking him back.
“As if you need them,” he mutters, eyes stuck on where the toe of his boot is still pressed against Merlin’s leg.
“I might.”
Arthur looks at him incredulously. Merlin grins in response, fully back to himself, and a stab of something familiar and wretched and searingly pleasant in his stomach makes Arthur’s breath catch. He wishes he wasn’t this easy; wishes his dignity cared more about not being this obvious.
“For what? Learning how to carve a nice figurine for your opponent before blasting them seven feet in the air?”
The night is warm and clear, and he takes a deep breath when Merlin shrugs, shifting his gaze to contemplate the closeness of their legs. “I'm sure they’d appreciate that more than being blasted into the air with no compensation.”
Arthur snorts, leans back on his hands, and tilts his head back to look at the ceiling. It always seems like it’ll be more interesting than it ever actually is.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“So? Aren’t you at least a little curious to see how well your lessons have held against the test of time?”
“Lessons,” Arthur scowls, ignoring the crick in his neck. “Don’t be ridiculous. Those were barely lessons.”
“You were teaching me for a certain amount of time. That's a lesson.”
“I was not teaching you, you were whinging and on the verge of throwing a tantrum the handful of times we just barely sparred for longer than ten minutes,” Arthur replies flatly.
Merlin kicks him again. Because of course he does.
“You know, sire, if you don’t think you can match my newly acquired, epic skills, you could just say that. There’s no shame in a king losing a silly match against his manservant.”
“Epic skills?”
Merlin nods solemnly. “I’m really quite the natural, I hear.”
Which is—well, frankly, it’s ridiculous. Just a flat out lie.
Arthur raises an eyebrow, unsure if he’s more amused or exasperated at his gull. “You hear? From who, then?”
“Oh, you know. From here and there.”
“The voices in your head, maybe? I’ve been meaning to talk to Gaius about that mental affliction of yours, actually.”
“Prat,” Merlin glares. Then sniffs imperiously, “Word is that I could even beat you.”
This time, Arthur laughs, unable to help himself. “I’m sure.”
“Careful, Arthur, the last person who underestimated me was Leon, and we both know who won that one.”
“Dumb luck,” Arthur waves off. “Besides, that was the crossbow. The dagger is a much more elegant, much more advanced weapon. ”
“You’re full of shit.”
“You still can’t talk to me like that.”
“Fine. You’re full of shit, sire.”
Arthur dazedly wonders how it’s possible that Merlin hasn’t changed a single bit since that day in the lower towns.
His stomach swoops. Oh, but he does quite miss sparring with him, despite all his protests—he doesn’t even know why he’s not jumping at the opportunity, other than to be contrary (so, perhaps he and Merlin have that in common. Whatever. It’s more endearing when Arthur does it).
“Well, at least some things never change,” he says, eyeing him unfavorably. It’s only half-hearted contempt at best.
Merlin smiles at him like he’s just come out of a tournament as the victor. The same smile he’d directed at him when Arthur had caught up with him on his way to Ealdor, that first time. The same smile that turns his eyes into crescent moons and lights up his whole face. The same smile Arthur—if ever tortured within an inch of his life—might one day admit to being ready to die for.
“Can’t let you get bored,” Merlin shrugs, and Arthur knows that this is just another one of their stupid, unimportant arguments—where they bicker for the sake of bickering and everything besides the entertainment of it is pointless—but still. A soft, fond thing makes his own lips quirk.
“That will never happen,” Arthur assures him.
“No,” he agrees. “And once we spar and I beat you, it’ll be further proof.”
“You cannot seriously expect me to believe you could beat me.”
Merlin bites his lip, looking like he’s caught between a laugh and a wince. “I’ve beaten, like, half the knights.”
“You’re an abysmal liar, Merlin.”
His eyebrow twitches. “Well—”
Arthur shoots him a withering glare, knowing exactly what’s about to come out of the idiot's mouth. “Don’t even think about it.”
A smirk, followed by Merlin throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “I was just going to say that I’d never lie to my liege.”
“You lied about finishing your chores half an hour ago.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“Merlin—”
Waving his hand dismissively, Merlin sits forward. Raises an eyebrow in challenge. “So maybe I’m exaggerating a small bit.”
“Small bit.”
“Okay, fine. So maybe I made up the whole thing.” He stares at Arthur, leans closer. “Well?”
“Have you been on the cider?” Arthur asks, suspiciously, after a pause.
Merlin only smirks at him, not backing down—looking at Arthur expectantly.
And the thing is, right, that Arthur, despite what the last month has made him reconsider and doubt, is not actually an idiot. Not like Merlin is. He knows what Merlin’s trying to do. It’s his own tactic, for goodness’ sake, of course he bloody well knows what Merlin's trying to do and how he’s trying to do it.
The challenge is a trap and Arthur is cleverer than Merlin can ever hope to be, so he knows it.
Except it’s—
Well. However.
He’s just never backed down from a challenge before, is the other thing. Even when it's been known to be a trap, he has always—always—faced any challenge extended to him. In tournament arenas, in council meeting discussions, in negotiations, back during his and Morgana’s old screaming matches, during training with the knights, and—most especially—whenever it comes to Merlin.
Especially when it comes to Merlin. While they go out on hunts together or while they walk the corridors or while they sit in Arthur's chambers and bicker: whenever Merlin issues a challenge, Arthur physically cannot back down. Not when it has to do with their approaches to the kingdom’s problems differing (and what a thing that is to remember—Merlin and him arguing over matters of the state) nor when their own opinions regarding other aspects of Arthur’s personal life clash (apparently Merlin thinks he has no sense of self preservation and can’t be trusted with his own life. Which is just rich coming from him, of all people), nor anything in between.
So he’s not exactly—used to backing out of a challenge. Not in any situation, but especially not when Merlin’s the one dealing it. And he’s not inclined much to start backing out now, despite the warning bells echoing in his skull, screaming that this is a trap he’s using your trick against you if you accept this you will be assumed to be the idiot do not—
“Fine. If you insist,” Arthur glares, effectively silencing the voice in his head. As a matter of principle, he always keeps a dagger or two on his person, or at least has one close enough to reach at all times. This is handy in many different ways: it can be a form of entertainment (for himself, when he has nothing else to do with his hands), comfort (who doesn’t feel better with a weapon in their palm?), security (assassination attempts are, annoyingly, something he cannot avoid), and is also a very efficient way to threaten people.
Right now, however, it serves him such that it allows for a swift, sudden attack. Merlin, of course, has his own dagger—and Arthur notes, without a small bit of satisfaction, that he’s also begun carrying it everywhere—so he’s prepared. Whatever.
They grapple a bit, on the floor, before springing up and apart. Arthur notes with mild approval that Merlin’s stance is not, actually, all that abysmal.
“I think I've glanced at dandelions more threatening than you,” Arthur muses, while they circle each other. Merlin quirks an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth curling up, but otherwise ignores the taunt.
Overall, he has to admit even to himself that Merlin has improved, drastically, from the last time they did this. Arthur has half a mind to put an end to it then and there—pin him to the ground and demand to know how Merlin improved so suddenly, in the past month or so, when it sure as hell hasn’t been Arthur teaching him.
It’s possible that there’s an ugly thing heaving in his chest, perhaps in jealousy, making his blood boil. Just a tiny bit. He doesn’t know which one of his knights have been giving Merlin extra lessons (if any, whatever), but Arthur’s not going to let whoever it is have a single muscle left that isn’t sore by next week.
Merlin must see something on his face—maybe in his momentary surprise after Merlin’s first defense, or in the suspicious narrowing of his eyes when Merlin moves a little too quickly—because after his second offensive attack (paired with a lunge, also much improved), he grins at Arthur.
“I’ve been practicing.”
Okay, so maybe no knight. Good. Arthur’s pretty sure he’s using magic to enhance his skill, though. Their first fight with the mace in the lower towns comes, unbidden, as a fond memory to the forefront of his mind. Once a cheater, always a cheater, Arthur thinks resignedly, trying not to smile.
But, suddenly being in a much more agreeable mood, he decides to keep that to himself. It doesn’t matter much, anyway.
“You’ve been doing work on your own volition?” He asks, widening his eyes to portray and over-exaggerate innocent surprise.
Merlin laughs, his eyes sparkling, and Arthur feels that soft, warm feeling he always feels at random things Merlin does trickle through his veins. As they circle each other again, Arthur eyes him, thinking, and makes a decision.
He gives Merlin an opening, just like he used to all those years ago when they’d first begun training with the sword.
Back then, Merlin would always hesitate—always stall—before taking the opportunity. Only rarely had Arthur actually found himself in a position that had signaled undisputed victory for Merlin, in those days. Well, never at all, in fact.
No such hesitation lingers, now. The second Arthur gives him the chance, Merlin takes it with a speed and efficiency that's almost dizzying. They’re on the floor, the unforgiving stone painful where Arthur’s back and shoulder blades hit it, in seconds. He's on top of Arthur, leaning over him with the tip of his dagger’s blade pressed threateningly to the hollow of Arthur's throat, his other hand gripping Arthur’s wrists above his head, almost instantly after.
Arthur grits his teeth to stifle the pained breath threatening to escape his lips, caused by the nauseating collision of his scalp against the floor, and looks up at Merlin.
This, actually, is probably the most concentrated he has seen Merlin look.
Without blinking, or letting himself think about it, Arthur slowly tilts his chin up. Watches Merlin watch the way he bears his throat, gaze sharp enough to draw the blood itself.
Merlin sways down, warm breath washing over Arthur's chin.
And maybe it is the dangerous position Arthur’s in, just one wrong move from getting his throat ripped open, that’s making his heart jump and his body shiver. Maybe it’s the roar and heat of the hearth's fire so close that's making him overheat.
Most likely though, Arthur thinks, it's the way Merlin's pressing him down; the way Merlin's face is only a few inches away; the way Merlin's looking at him, with all the intent and calculation in the world.
“Do you admit defeat, sire?”
Arthur doesn’t speak—he can’t, not if he wants to start bleeding—and instead watches as Merlin’s gaze flickers down again; watches as Merlin tracks the way the tingling skin of Arthur’s throat scraps against the tip of the blade when he swallows. He tilts his chin further, just a little more.
The most fascinating part of it is how Merlin’s eyes go black at the gesture. How he huffs out a breath, like it’s been punched out of him, before slowly tracing the sharp tip down to the top of Arthur’s sternum. Arthur wonders if that’s how he’d go about doing it, if ever he decided he wanted to cut open his throat. It would definitely cut it open wide.
Merlin doesn’t increase the pressure of it, but he does keep it there for a second or three longer before drawing the dagger back. Arthur doesn’t breathe as the glinting metal draws back, slow, feeling a little like he’s in a dream.
But the slower, even more surreal part of it, really, is when Merlin replaces it with his lips.
Arthur chokes on a bitten off gasp, heat shooting through his stomach in a flash, and arches up before he can get a grip on himself. Merlin’s lips are dry and cracked and cushiony where they brush over his skin, scratching him where they press light as a feather, and they’re nothing at all like what he imagined they’d be, because he’d never been able to imagine them.
Merlin’s hand lets go of his wrists, forearm coming down to brace on the ground beside Arthur’s head while the other hand—the one that had held the dagger who’s location Arthur barely has enough sense to wonder about—cups the side of his neck.
It fits almost too well, like a puzzle slotting perfectly into place.
At the back of his mind, Arthur's fully aware that this is perhaps a moment he’s been refusing to let himself think about for the past five and a half years. A moment he’s only thought of in flashes, one that only lingered in echoes because that's the only way he could have it: fading and intangible and, in the end, only a ghost of a thing. A moment that he’s spent years trying to banish from his head; one that’s already branded itself into his mind.
Thumb pressed to the underside of his jaw and fingers digging into his nape, Merlin forces Arthur’s head back even further. Gives himself easier access to his throat while his mouth presses down a little harder—becomes a little more solid as it trails wet kisses up, up to the other side of Arthur’s jaw. Up until his tongue is tracing a half-moon on Arthur’s overheated skin before he starts sucking a bruising kiss just underneath Arthur’s ear, at the corner of his jaw.
He can’t stop the shaky moan that passes through his lips, nor his hand bumping against Merlin’s ear when it shoots up, trying to find purchase on something—anything—and ends up clutching the fabric of his stupid, worn brown jacket’s shoulder. Teeth digging into his bottom lip, Arthur hazily notes the rest of Merlin’s weight pressing him to the floor, and how it’s so very similar to previous positions when they’d sparred but so, so very different.
Merlin nips at his earlobe, traces the tip of his nose against the bone of Arthur’s jaw, and Arthur shivers from the way his breath hits the wet skin he’d only just detached himself from.
His fingers curl tighter into the fabric, he can tell from the way they ache and the way the jacket bunches up over Merlin’s shoulders. He doesn’t have any recollection of doing it on purpose, though.
Merlin starts sucking another kiss a little further down from the first one, on the same side.
It’s further down, but still too high. Probably even more visible, Arthur thinks distantly. He won’t be able to do anything about either of them. He swallows thickly, closing his eyes and wishing he cared more.
As it is, he lets his other hand slide to the back of Merlin’s head—fingers sliding through silky hair and tingling like he isn’t a king, familiar with the finest and softest materials—and cups it; pushes it closer.
He wants the mark. He wants to not be able to do anything about it.
Of course, in this one thing at least, Merlin obliges with no fight at all.
The ground underneath him is uncomfortable and rough and only bearable for so long—only ignorable and overshadowed by everything else for so long. Arthur groans a little, and starts tugging Merlin’s hair to lift his head where he was pushing it down a minute ago, meaning to scold him for doing this on the stone floors, of all places, when Arthur’s own bed—comfortable enough to satisfy a king’s expectations, he’s told—is only a few bloody steps away.
Merlin lets out a wet breath, a quiet moan, and the hand he’d been using to cup Arthur's neck, tilt his head, strokes down over his chest and stomach to grip his hip.
The movement forces him to shift his weight, which now presses even more solidly from the waist down, and that’s startling enough to remind Arthur that Merlin isn’t actually supposed to be doing this at all.
“Merlin—” he tries, then immediately cuts himself off by clenching his teeth to muffle it. It’s not the patient, slightly expectant tone he was aiming for. Comes out pained—a low, strangled gasp that Arthur will deny for the rest of his life—instead.
Unfortunately, however, it has the desired effect of making Merlin pull back enough to lock their eyes together. Unfortunate only because the second Merlin stops, Arthur realizes that he might actually die if Merlin doesn’t continue. Hazy blue eyes watch him unwaveringly, intense and black and inescapable.
He forgets what the point of stopping was.
“Arthur?”
He’s probably heard Merlin sound like that before. He can’t begin to imagine why or in what situation, but it must have happened before, otherwise Arthur’s mind is going to start collapsing in on itself from the idea that this is the first time—that it’s the first time and it’s in this situation and position and directly as a result of him.
Which means that Merlin’s low voice cannot be something new to him. The scrape of it like metal dragging on stone has to be completely familiar, just as the shudder that wracks through Arthur’s body in response to it must be.
Gaze darting between Merlin’s red, newly spit-slicked lips and dark, slowly focusing eyes, any thought that passes through Arthur’s head comes and goes without much fanfare; slow and thick like molasses, and they all refuse to stick.
Not that any of them matter. The thoughts barely arrive before the need behind them becomes null, anyway—he thinks about wanting to know the feel of Merlin’s lips against his own, not just his neck, and Merlin’s leaning down again, spurred by his silence, and they’re there half a second later. He thinks about how he wants Merlin closer, pressed so close it’ll be hard to tell where one of them ends and the other begins, and he’s already there. He thinks about wanting Merlin’s hand to move, to grip his hip tighter until Arthur’s sure there’ll be smudged bruises colouring his skin; about wanting it sliding lower to grip his thigh in the same way, wanting it to palm the hard line straining against his trousers. And, like clockwork, in each place, it’s there.
Arthur’s breath catches and shakes with each dart of Merlin’s tongue as it licks a slow, wet path underneath the line of his bottom lip. His breath gets trapped between their lips when Merlin then moves to do the same to the seam of his mouth, prying it open with his tongue just to dip inside and lick along his teeth. He cups Merlin’s face with the hand that isn’t clinging to his shoulder, and memorizes the feel of the smooth skin and the defined bone pressing against the pad of his thumb.
Kissing Merlin is its own epiphany. Natural like breathing and still so new that he keeps trying to snap himself out of it. Soft and wet and real, and still as overwhelming as drowning in a cascading tide. A slick, smooth glide, like the best choreographed dance at any feast, and yet also a frantic grapple of lips and bodies with no rhyme or reason.
Arthur wants to study it and pick it apart the way he’s learned to do with new opponents in tournament arenas. He wants to never figure it out. He needs this experience burned into his brain, and yet wants it to elude his memory every time, just so he has a reason to do it again, if the opportunity ever comes up again.
He needs to remember how the wet slide of Merlin’s lips feel against his own; needs to remember what Merlin tastes like on his tongue and the exact path to trace to resemble the slopes and dips of Merlin’s face. He needs to memorize the pressure of Merlin’s chest crushed against his own, how his weight bears down with even less give than the floor he’s pinning Arthur to, and the way that restricts his ability to take any deep breaths.
He needs this moment immortalized, carved so deeply, so clearly, in his brain that the simple conjuring of the memory will be enough to pretend to be living it. So that the memory will be enough to distract himself if the opportunity doesn’t present itself again—if all he gets is this one thing that will eventually end up gathering dust in the corner of a long-abandoned pocket of time.
Merlin licks into his mouth without a single bit of hesitation, curls his tongue around Arthur’s and digs his fingers into Arthur’s waist.
And why would they do this again anyway, Arthur thinks, letting Merlin swallow his jagged breaths while he tilts his chin up. Arthur’s been here, wanting this, for five and a half years. Merlin only just looked at him with a fraction of the same desires reflected in his eyes.
At best, it’s a momentary thing; a sudden flash of desire that’ll burn away quicker than it came. At worst, it’s not even that. Rather, just a thoughtless thing to do because there is nothing else and Arthur—of course—is willing. Eager.
But it’s hard to concentrate on so many things at once, especially when Merlin’s sucking his tongue into his own mouth and sliding his hand down until it’s gripping Arthur’s thigh. Especially when Merlin's knee is wedging itself between Arthur's legs, and he’s shifting his weight until he’s grinding down. Especially when his thigh is an unrelenting, inescapable pressure against Arthur's cock.
Arthur breaks out of the kiss with a gasp, unused to and overwhelmed by so much pleasure and so many impossibles happening at once. Merlin stills his hips but rubs his knee against Arthur’s groin and looks at him.
Tilting his head back, he digs the back of his scalp into uneven stone and thinks that the pain is still more bearable than watching the way Merlin seems to be tracking every last one of his reactions.
Another dizzying moment of pressure makes Arthur realize that his own hips are hitching up. That his own thigh is grinding against a long, hard outline. That he’s chasing Merlin’s thrusts with his own. He doesn’t know when he started doing that, but Merlin lets out a low moan after the next one, dropping his head until it hangs low enough for their noses to bump, so he supposes it doesn’t matter, in the end.
Merlin takes a breath. Leans down, pressing a sweet—soft and chaste and completely out of place amongst everything else going on at the moment—kiss to the corner of Arthur's bruised lips. He can feel the shape of Merlin's smile when he does, and can picture the exact curve of it in his head.
This whole thing has sent him reeling, of course—has caused an inescapable fog to engulf his mind and incapacitate his higher brain functions (and all the other brain functions as well, in fact)—but it’s the image of the small, stupid, Merlin smile flashing in his head that breaks him entirely open. Fondness swells thick and discovers sedentary in his throat, and his chest feels so full and light that Arthur worries, for a moment, that he’ll get ripped open from the inside out. Worries more about this than he did his throat, foolishly.
I love you, he wants to say, when Merlin presses another kiss to the other corner of his lips. To the tops of his cheeks and the corners of each of his eyes.
You’re so stupid and I'm even worse because I think I've loved you this entire time, he wants to say, when Merlin presses another kiss—lingering and much more solid than the rest—to his forehead.
“Arthur,” he breathes, resting their foreheads together, nuzzling Arthur's nose with his own, and then pressing as close as possible so that they share every breath. Their lips brush every once in a while, as light as air.
Merlin doesn’t kiss him again, and they’re too close to keep eye contact, but the painful line of stone digging into his shoulders fades, as does the ache in his tailbone.
“Merlin,” he says, in a voice he only idly recognizes as a rendition of his own. “What’d you do?”
“Magic,” he whispers back. Arthur feels his grin against his mouth and smiles too, distractedly, because he likes Merlin's teasing more than he’d care to admit. Especially now. Especially between them, like this. “The stone was hurting my elbow.”
He rolls his eyes and huffs out a breathy laugh that was actually meant to come out more like an exasperated groan, but whatever. “Serves you right for doing this on the bloody floor.”
Merlin lightly nips the top of his cheek in retribution—perhaps reproach—but otherwise stays silent. It’s only a hollow complaint, anyway. He's a lot more comfortable himself now, too.
Arthur slides one hand under Merlin’s torn, offensively low-quality tunic—noting the hitch in his breath when the cool metal of his ring meets Merlin’s feverish skin—and lets it explore and memorize the plane of his chest; the feel of hair and how it tickles the bottom of his palm.
His hand finds the place it was aiming for, just over Merlin's heart, and Arthur memorizes the rhythm of this, too: the stutter and fast-paced beating that greets him over and over again.
Merlin leans down closer, chokes out a wet, “I’ve wanted—” and cuts himself off with a sharp breath.
If Arthur were better, perhaps, he would’ve said his own stilted reply to that, not fully sure where it was going, but honest enough to admit that Merlin deserves at least the same vulnerability from him back. He would’ve confessed his own years-long desire just as awkwardly, so as to absolve Merlin of the perceived need to keep going, no matter how difficult it is.
But Arthur—
Arthur is not, in fact, a better man. Not when it comes to this. He will give his life for his people—bleed for them and rip himself into chunks the size of grains of sand for them; die for them a million times. He will shove every last one of his knights behind himself in battle to give them one last second, if they want it. He’ll do a million things and he’ll do them without a second thought, but not this.
Merlin, unfortunately, has always been the one person he has not been selfless with.
Five and a half years of being stalked and haunted by this overwhelming—something. Want. Desire. Love. Anything and everything in between those three things. Everything beyond them. Five and a half years spent in silence just waiting for it to leave, since it would never have a companion, anyway.
Five and a half years of nothing and only ever allowing himself to expect nothing. It's not difficult for Arthur to convince himself that he deserves at least this one thing.
“I've wanted this for years,” Merlin says, eventually, voice somewhere between a plea and a growl and something much, much more fragile. “I've wanted you since—god. Before that. Maybe before we even met. Arthur—”
Arthur crashes their mouths together, again, because he doesn’t know what Merlin means but also he thinks he knows exactly what Merlin means. Thinks that maybe he’s been missing Merlin his entire life.
“That's ridiculous,” he gasps, anyway, between one kiss and the next. “Completely idiotic thing to say.”
Merlin grins, ruins their kiss just to laugh into Arthur's mouth and nudge their noses together again, gently. Adoringly.
“It's destiny.”
His heart trips. Steadies. Feels weightless and solid, suddenly. Fuller.
“Shut up, Merlin.”
A huffed laugh. “Yes, sire.”
Arthur gently nips his lip, now, in retribution, and then slides the hand over Merlin's heart to his back, fascinated by the shifting muscle beneath his smooth skin, scattered with the occasional scar. Merlin’s all long limbs and lean lines and smooth, sinuous movements. All corded muscle and soft skin and a bone deep, simmering, mesmerizing sort of desperation that Arthur only suddenly recognizes.
His breath catches, nails digging into four parallel points on the line of Merlin’s spine, when a calloused hand slips beneath his trousers, gripping him tightly.
A strangled, “Merlin—” gets drowned out by a wet kiss, and his hips twitch up in a frantic, needy thrust. Arthur’s pretty sure he loses his last remaining thread of sanity in the next few moments, only really aware of Merlin’s rough hand stroking up and down one, two, four times through a foggy haze.
He thinks he maybe pulls Merlin’s hair a little too hard, rocks up in response a little too eagerly, because Merlin is suddenly biting into his shoulder to stifle a moan that’s ripping its way out of his throat, and Arthur cannot for the life of him figure out what caused it.
The bite, paired with everything else, makes Arthur's vision flash white for a minute; makes the whole world go quiet and get a bit too far out of reach—makes that fact completely unimportant.
Awareness trickles back slow and sweet as honey, and as pleasant as the afterglow is, the wet stickiness of his pants is horribly uncomfortable. Merlin’s collapsed completely on top of him, soft against his hip as well, and his hand is no longer down Arthur’s pants. Rather, it’s curled against his back, palm fit snugly around the curve of his ribs underneath his shirt.
That’s wet and disgusting, too, and Arthur never wants it to stop, because he doesn’t remember Merlin ever being this close just for the sake of it before.
“That was cheating, I think,” he says, after whoever knows how many dumbstruck minutes of silence, most of which he’d struggled trying to get even one thought to stick. He ignores how hoarse his voice sounds; ignores how ridiculous and laughable it is, trying to convince anyone, even himself, that he’s unperturbed and only just mildly disapproving rather than completely wrecked. Completely and utterly content and gleeful.
Merlin turns his head where it’s been buried against Arthur’s throat. Arthur wonders if the bruises forming there are at all visible already.
“What?”
“You cheated,” he repeats, his false and pointed, though light, annoyance completely belied by the way he’s tracing shapeless things across Merlin’s shoulder blades.
“You cannot be serious.”
Arthur shrugs, feeling the way the action smushes Merlin’s face against his jaw, and tries not to laugh. “That was an offensively obvious display of foul play.”
“Foul play—!”
Merlin props himself up, glaring daggers at Arthur. He starts to think that if looks could kill, he’d be torn to shreds by now, and then remembers that, in Merlin’s case at least, looks can, in fact, kill. Arthur really should start remembering that.
He raises an eyebrow, just because it’s extremely fun to rile Merlin up (and, apparently, because the reminder of being able to die from a look alone is not, at all, enough to change this).
“Well?”
“Well,” Merlin mocks, scathingly. “Well, sire. I will have you know I actually won before all of—this—”
“I could’ve gotten out of it,” Arthur protests.
“You could not. It’s not good for a king to lie.”
“Oh, but it’s okay for you to seduce me in the middle of—”
“That is so not the same thing,” Merlin yells, seething. “And you are such an ass.”
Then, in a stunning display of contradiction that only Merlin could pull off, he crashes their mouths together again.
The kiss softens rather quickly, and Arthur cups Merlin’s face in both his hands—gentle and adoring, because he’s more precious than anything else in the world—and grins at his suspicious, though slightly dazed, look.
“You will not tell anyone you beat me, then,” Arthur requests, trying and failing to focus on Merlin’s eyes when his lips are swollen and wet and red, right there.
Merlin raises an eyebrow. Leans down to mouth at Arthur’s cheek, ire hopefully forgotten, for the moment. His breath tickles where it trickles over Arthur’s skin. “And who will stop me?”
“Merlin,” he warns, pinching his waist. Then sighs. “Well, it’s not as if anyone would believe you even if you did.”
“They might!”
“With all the other delusional lies you tell? I think not.”
“When have I ever—”
Arthur lifts an eyebrow, raising the pitch of his voice to redeliver a mocking, “I’ve beaten, like, half the knights.”
Instantly, Merlin’s offended scowl melts. He grins sheepishly at Arthur, pecking his chin. “Well, alright. But I save all of those only for your ears.”
“Fine, then,” he smiles back, soft and utterly endeared by the way Merlin looks, this close. “They’d immediately dismiss the idea based on the universally known fact that you are utter rubbish with a dagger. And also that I’m unbeatable.”
“You’re truly the pinnacle of humility, sire.”
“I do try.”
Merlin hums, dragging his nose across Arthur’s cheek. “I trust me beating you helped strengthen that particular virtue of yours?”
Arthur turns his head until their lips meet in another chaste kiss. “I suppose there had to be something you’re not terrible at,” he sighs.
“And keeping you grounded is it?” Merlin laughs. “It’s a never ending list of impossible tasks with you.”
“Hmm.”
The truth of it is that Merlin’s actually quite excellent at many things—their recent activities being no exception. Obviously, he’s always been good at the important, sort of intangible, things: a good friend; good company; smart in the most random ways a normal person would never expect; brave, loyal, good in a way very few other people are—in a way knights strive to be but only achieve in tales and speeches.
But ever since his magic was revealed, Arthur’s been faced with the fact that there are other practical things Merlin’s good at, as well (his aim with the crossbow also being no exception, nor the minor things like cooking and mending Arthur’s tunics). Like anything and everything regarding magic (except for healing, which Arthur had a good laugh about upon first realizing, given the irony of it—what irony, Merlin had snapped, oh come on, Arthur had replied, grin a little too satisfied to perhaps not be a little mean, you’re a physician’s apprentice and the most powerful sorcerer in the world, and yet healing is your one weakness. Only you, Merlin. Merlin hadn’t found it funny at all, but Arthur still smirks at him sometimes whenever he catches him studying normal, non-magic remedies).
Merlin laughs again, and starts trailing more earnest kisses across Arthur’s skin—licking a long and twisting path down to his collarbones.
His hand tightens its hold on his back, coaxing Arthur to arch it
“Again?” He asks, voice low and mouth quirked in a small smile, peering up through his lashes to meet Arthur’s newly half-lidded gaze.
Arthur nods, already slightly jarred by the sudden switch in mood, and loses himself in the space between a breath and a moan.
It'd been a blow to his ego, a bit, when Merlin had first told him that he’d known of Arthur's subtle attempts to trick him into learning how to handle weaponry. He can admit that.
But here, in the warm summer night, on the floor of his chambers—made soft by Merlin’s magic—with Merlin’s sweat on his tongue and Merlin’s body as good as fused to his own, Arthur thinks that maybe he still managed to win that one over him, in the end.
After all, Arthur's been trained to kill since birth—has always been a weapon first and everything else last, and Merlin knows exactly what to do with him. His fingers trace every muscle and bone and tendon like their shape is already memorized, just as one would memorize their own weapon by touch. His lips slide against Arthur’s lips, move against Arthur’s skin, like they know exactly where to go and how to get there in order to leave nothing but ruin in their wake, just as one would know how to sharpen and efficiently use their weapon for the most devastating results. His hands grip and stroke with every arch, his hips meeting every thrust, anticipating Arthur’s movements and reactions with the same innate knowledge one has of their own weapon’s reach and movement.
Merlin clutches at him harder, mouth still working on his collarbone and arm still curled around his back, caught between Arthur’s body and the floor.
Out of every weapon he’s seen in Merlin’s hands—even the crossbow, even the magic he sometimes uses to fight (even though magic’s not a weapon, Merlin had scolded—glaring at him for an entire week until Arthur had repeated it dutifully, with sincere belief—despite the fact that it can sometimes be used as such)—none of them compare to this.
Arthur, smiling, runs his hand through Merlin’s hair again, and muses that perhaps he’s just been teaching Merlin how to handle him this entire time.