Archive of Our Own

The summer is hot and heavy on Merlin’s skin when he finally arrives in Motta Visconti, Italy. He has been sweating since nine in the morning, and dearly regrets wearing his grey denim jacket. London had been rainy when he’d left, the darkness still covering the familiar, grey roads. Merlin would’ve guessed that it would be a gloomy day in the depths of England’s urban life, when he’d arrived at the airport, so early in the morning it might as well have been the middle of the night.

Motta Visconti feels like a different world entirely, a two-and-a-half hour flight and a two-hour train ride away from that bleak sky. Even the two white, puffy clouds he spots in an otherwise perfectly-even blue stratosphere look like they barely cast any shadows on the mainland, and they certainly aren’t enough cover to protect Merlin from burning to a pale, English crisp.

The train station is small, with only one track, and even that seems nearly abandoned. Apart from one elderly man and a young couple, no one else has even left their cabin. Merlin checks the ivy-overgrown nameplate of the station, and sure enough—this should be the place. Motta Visconti. 

Behind him, the train starts moving again, sluggish and heavy as if it’s suffering from the heat, too. Merlin runs a sleeve over his forehead, feeling his hair plaster to his brow, and puts down his suitcase so he can finally take off his jacket. He fumbles with it, awkward, and can only be grateful there is no one around to see him right now; the oddly unprepared Englishman, unready for the oppressive heat of Italy bearing down on him. He ties the sleeves around his waist, and feels more like a tourist than he’s ever been.

“Merlin!” He turns around, nearly knocking over his luggage. A familiar woman appears, hurrying down across the station. A gust of wind tugs at her white polka-dotted dress; her golden hair shines in the sun. There is not a single bead of sweat on her tanned face, and Merlin feels oddly jealous for a moment before he’s swept into a motherly embrace.

“Hi, Professor du Bois,” he says, and pats her shoulder fondly. 

“Did you have a good trip?” she demands, and before he can even answer, waves him along with her. Merlin hastily grabs his suitcase, the sweat on his palms making his grip less firm than he’d like it to be as he jogs alongside her. “The planes are just terrible, aren’t they, all that time trapped in a metal box? The people are usually lovely, though, but I prefer taking the train to England, and just watching the world pass you by.”

Merlin has often felt like the world passes him by, and it’s not as lovely a feeling as she is describing. He smiles nonetheless, because his supervisor is nothing if not a kind woman, full of anecdotes of academic life and warm affection for her students. Merlin has been her TA for a year now, and Ygraine has taken him under her wing since that very first day.

“I didn’t mind,” is all he says, trying not to sweat too obviously when they reach her car—bright yellow and small, much like Ygraine herself—and he lifts his luggage into the back. The car sags down remorsefully under the weight, and Merlin doesn’t voice his doubts about whether the vehicle will even be able to carry both of them.

The car holds them, after all, even though it creaks in protest when Merlin sits down on the aged leather inside. It even smells like summer, and it sticks to his arms. Ygraine’s home isn’t too far away, which is fortunate, since the car doesn’t have any sort of air conditioning; Merlin rests his head against the window frame and lets the wind rush through his hair instead. 

“Have you read Monmouth’s latest theory on the vowel lengthening of the third-conjugation stems?” Ygraine starts. “He’s very direct about it, don’t you think? I think his theory about reduplication is a little far-fetched as he presented it, but perhaps with some more concrete examples he can build a case—”

“It’s a theory that was already falsified in ‘94,” Merlin mutters, eyes still closed. “Norton and Lodge, I think, although they discussed the infixes more generally…”

“Oh, that’s what I told him,” Ygraine says, and winks. “Just making sure you’re keeping up to date with all your reading, even when you’re off having fun in the summer. I hope you are ready to embrace the life of an academic, Merlin! You’re never off the job.”

Merlin has spent the past three weeks doing barely anything but reading, so all he does is crack open his eyes and offer a weak smile. “It’s not a job,” he says. “It’s a lifestyle.”

She laughs. “It truly is.”

~*~

The Pendragon estate is perhaps the most beautiful home Merlin has ever set foot in. It’s not overly large, but its off-white walls and the stained glass speak of a forgotten decade of laughter and love. It’s not so much the building itself, but its character that really speaks to Merlin. Its lack of modernity combined with its timeless plaque and overgrown garden appeal to the city boy in him who’d wished he’d been born in a faraway place.

Then again, Merlin has always loved old and distant things.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Ygraine says, and waves a hand at his luggage. “We can carry that up to your room later—my son, Arthur, he’ll help you set everything up. He’s about your age—you are twenty-four, aren’t you?—and he’s home for the summer, so I’ve been enjoying having him around! I hope you’ll be friends while you’re staying here.”

Merlin smiles awkwardly. “I’m sure we will, Professor du Bois.”

“Oh, call me Ygraine while you’re here,” she says, and tugs him along to her study, her hand firm on his shoulder. He knows it’s hers at once, because it is the same style as her office in London. Several familiar copies of linguistic books are strewn about. Ygraine is the least tidy person he knows, and it's almost a miracle the towering pile of books haven't fallen over yet. They are precariously unbalanced as they are, and Merlin runs his finger over the spine of the Oxford Latin Dictionary that sits on her desk.

“When do you want me to start working?” he asks, because really, this isn’t meant to be a vacation. “I had to be up early to catch my train, so I think I’ll be going to bed early, but otherwise—”

“Oh, Merlin,” Ygraine says, and pats his hand. “You work too hard. We can go over everything we need to do tomorrow, don’t you think? My husband will be home in an hour or so, and you’ve had a long trip. Why don’t you sit down—oh, Arthur!”

Merlin turns around, blinking at the fair-haired figure that has quietly appeared in the doorway. He is broad-shouldered and fit, his nose a little crooked and his eyebrows raised high as he leans against the wall. “This is your TA?”

“Hi,” Merlin says, and brushes his sweaty palms along his jeans in what he hopes is a discrete movement before he sticks his hand out to the newcomer. “I’m Merlin Wyllt. You must be Arthur? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Likewise,” Arthur says, although he doesn’t stop frowning. He also doesn’t take Merlin’s hand, and Merlin drops it awkwardly. He shuffles where he stands, feeling a twinge of embarrassment at the thought it only took him two seconds to make Ygraine’s son dislike him.

“My boy,” Ygraine says fondly, and presses a kiss to Arthur’s cheek. “I told you to be nice. Merlin will be your roommate for a month, and I expect you to be on your best behaviour.”

“You did tell me that,” Arthur says, and Merlin thinks he can hear something faintly Italian in the crisp quality of his consonants, maybe, but otherwise he speaks British English with an accent reserved for the posh boys at law school. 

“Sorry,” Merlin offers, and tilts his head towards the door. “Should I—”

“Don’t be silly, you’re our guest,” Ygraine says. “Arthur, show him to your room, won’t you? Merlin, we’ve fixed an extra bed for you, but if it’s too old or creaky, I hope you know you can just tell us—”

“I’ll tell you if it’s creaky,” Arthur says, and grins. “I hope you don’t talk in your sleep.”

“Not as far as I’m aware,” Merlin tells him, taken aback. When Arthur turns on his heels, he stops for a moment and watches Ygraine, trying to gauge what is expected of him. Ygraine has already disappeared with her nose in her books, however, and Merlin stares helplessly back at the doorway. He slowly leans back, trying to figure out if Ygraine needs his help with any sorting she may want to do, when Arthur peeks his head back in.

“Well?” he says in annoyance. “Are you still coming, Merlin?”

“Oh,” Merlin breathes, and as if he wasn’t already burning alive in this weather, he feels the heat rise to his cheeks. “Sorry—yeah, okay.”

Arthur isn’t waiting for him again; he’s already halfway up the stairs by the time Merlin even makes it out of Ygraine’s study, the sunlight falling through the bars outside the window and creating dappled patterns on Arthur’s skin. Merlin hasn’t stopped sweating since his plane touched down in Milan, and even the short walk up the stairs has him red-faced. He wishes he’d brought more t-shirts instead of long-sleeved button-ups, suddenly, because he’ll run out of summer clothes within the week at this rate.

“This is my room when I’m here,” Arthur says unceremoniously when Merlin has made it to the first floor. He doesn’t look at Merlin at all; his arm is against the mahogany door, keeping it open, and his neck is stretched out towards the bed. It has been perfectly made, with an orange-yellow quilt on top of a raggedy duvet. There are two single beds on either side of the room, the one at the window clearly taken by Arthur.

“Cosy,” Merlin comments. If Arthur is anything like his mother except for the head of blond hair, it has yet to show. Books and old DVDs are scattered haphazardly over the wooden floor and the rug, and Merlin has to step over a hoodie with a logo from the University of Oxford to put down his bag next to his own bed.

“I thought they’d put you in Morgana’s room, truth be told,” Arthur says and shrugs as he sits on his own bed. A beam of light falls across his hair, turning it golden and luminous. He isn’t particularly tan, but there is a sun-kissed quality to his pale skin that makes him look like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “But Father is apparently using it for his own study now. Elections, you know.”

Merlin does not know, but he takes the hint as intended. “Yeah,” is what he says. “Morgana is—your sister? Sorry, I didn’t know Ygraine had a daughter. She’s mentioned you before, but—”

“She’s my sister,” Arthur says. “But not my mother’s daughter. It’s complicated, and it’s probably for the best if you don’t ask. She’s studying in Paris—she’ll be here for a couple of days in two weeks, so you’ll see her. Actually, I’m not quite sure what they are planning on doing with the sleeping arrangements at that point.”

He crosses his legs on the bed, muddy Nikes and all, and leans his head back against the window. Merlin can’t help but stare at him, the strong calves that are bared to the world under Arthur’s denim shorts, the Adam’s apple that bobs forward in the long line of his throat. Heat prickles at his neck, for another reason than summer entirely, and Merlin turns back sharply.

“So you study at Oxford?” he asks lightly, and lamely grabs his own London University shirt from his suitcase. It’s grey, soft, and the logo has long faded, the red and blue not nearly so bright as they used to be when his mother had bought the shirt for him on his very first day.

Arthur swings his legs off his bed. “Right. Sure. You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Do what?” Merlin asks.

“We’re not friends,” Arthur points out, and scowls. It morphs his entire expression into something broody and dark, and the sudden oncoming storm takes Merlin by surprise. “I didn’t invite you here, and I’m not sure why you’re so eager to be taking on work even during the summer, but let’s not pretend it has anything to do with my family. You’re my mother’s TA, and that is all you are, as far as I’m concerned.”

Merlin barks out a laugh. “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me.”

“I heard you being an arse,” Merlin says, and finds he’s clenched his fists unconsciously, his nails digging hard into his skin. “Haven’t you ever heard of manners? Small talk? Just because I’m trying to be nice doesn’t mean I’m—that I’m going out of my way to try to befriend you. I’m just being a decent person, if you’ve ever heard of that.”

Arthur stares at him. Merlin huffs, and turns back to his bag. His back is probably drenched with sweat, and his hair is plastered to his forehead, but it doesn’t matter. Arthur is quiet behind him, or maybe Merlin doesn’t hear him over the loud beating of his own heart echoing in his chest or the way he loudly throws his bag on his bed. He’d unpack, but he feels mostly unwelcome and vaguely desperate to get out of Arthur’s way, so he only grabs Virgil’s Aeneid to amuse himself with.

And he allows himself to flee.

~*~

“So you’re Merlin Wyllt, are you?” Uther Pendragon says. Merlin knows of him, mostly through his marriage to Ygraine du Bois—the most successful British classicist since the ‘70s, London University likes to boast, even if she’s British-French—and, more notoriously, because of his work in politics.

Not that he is well-liked in politics, or even particularly influential. Uther Pendragon has been a backbencher for nearly a decade, but he’s so loud about it on Twitter that he’s become something of a joke. Not one that Merlin is particularly eager to repeat in his estate, though; the Pendragon family is also shockingly wealthy, apparently being fourth cousins to the royal house, or something equally unimportant.

The man is a little scary, though, with sharp eyes and a mouth the corners of which are seemingly always turned down. “Yes, sir,” Merlin manages. “Nice to meet you.”

“Charmed,” Uther says, and seems to already forget about Merlin’s presence when he turns to his wife. “You’ve never needed a TA over the summer before, darling. If you needed more time or help, we could’ve—”

“It’s not just about the work, love,” Ygraine says, and Merlin sees a summer full of sugary pet-names flash before his eyes when Uther kisses her cheek a little too enthusiastically. “Merlin is a wonderful student, and the experience will help brush up his CV that much more before I send him out into the wild unknown. Besides, he’s Arthur’s age—and God knows that boy could do with some peers around.”

Arthur huffs, already seated at the dinner table, but doesn’t say anything else. When Uther and Ygraine take their seats, though, the chairs scraping over the grey tiles of the backyard, Merlin has no choice but to join them. He focuses his eyes on the creamy pasta dish in the centre of the table, and despite himself, his stomach rumbles.

“Did you have lunch, Merlin?” Ygraine asks immediately, and grabs his plate. “You must’ve grabbed something on the train—”

“It’s fine,” Merlin says, a little embarrassed. “I wasn’t hungry until now. It smells lovely, Prof—Ygraine, I mean.”

“She’s a fine cook,” Uther says proudly.

“Only when it’s pasta,” Arthur says, and Ygraine ruffles his hair when she returns Merlin’s plate to him, filled to the brim with tagliatelle. It does smell very good, admittedly, especially in the cooling, fresh outside air. The heat is finally manageable, and Merlin feels his skin prickle with sunburn and the awkward sensation of joining a family that isn’t his own.

“You boys should be glad I’m even cooking for you at all,” Ygraine says, and turns a kind smile towards Merlin. “Do you have any talent in the kitchen, Merlin? It seems I can use a hand or two there as well.”

Merlin presses his lips together to keep himself from smiling awkwardly. “I’m afraid not,” he admits, and doesn’t say anything about his attempt at making noodles for himself the night before, in which he hadn’t added enough water to the bowl, apparently, and his noodles hadn’t cooked the right way. They’d been crunchy on one side and soft on the other, and they had been absolutely inedible.

He hadn’t thought it possible to muck up instant noodles, but he hadn’t had enough energy to find something else, so he’d just eaten it. In comparison to that, any finished meal would’ve been a masterwork.

“Well,” Arthur says, and raises his eyebrows at him. “I suppose you can’t be good at everything, can you?”

But before Merlin can ask what that means, Ygraine declares dinner time to have begun, and Uther starts a monologue about a politician Merlin has never heard of. The odd sensation of intruding in a place he doesn’t belong stings in his chest, but then the wind picks up as he’s twirling his fork around the pasta, and Ygraine asks him his opinion on a widely-disliked professor, and it all mutes like the evening sun.

~*~

“Want a cigarette?” Arthur asks, offering one to Merlin even as he comes to lean against the outside wall that Merlin’s found himself sitting against. He comes as unexpectedly as he did yesterday, and Merlin finds himself blinking against the sun, trying to see more than the mere silhouette of Arthur’s figure.

“No, thanks,” Merlin manages, and closes his book. The spine feels familiar against his finger, as he unconsciously rubs his thumb past it, and self-consciously stares up at Arthur. “I don’t smoke.”

“Neither do I, really,” Arthur says, and easily plops himself down next to Merlin. He’s wearing a short pair of khakis, which will presumably stain in the grass, but Merlin doesn’t say anything. His lips brush against the butt of the cigarette, and he grimaces. “It tastes terrible. I’ve never been quite sure how people get addicted to these.”

“Don’t have to like them for that,” Merlin tells him, and doesn’t know why he plucks the cigarette from Arthur’s fingers and takes a drag himself. The smoke wallows up into the stark blue sky, trailing far above their heads. They both look at it, and Merlin tries very hard not to cough at the burn in his throat. “This is horrible. Why do you have one, if you don’t smoke?”

“Morgana left a package in her room,” Arthur admits, and raises his eyebrows at Merlin when he puts the cigarette between his lips again. “I thought I’d teach her a lesson.”

“The lesson not to leave your stuff behind when you’ve got a sibling in the house?” Merlin asks dryly, and offers it back to Arthur. He thinks Arthur might refuse for a second, but then he grabs it tentatively, holding it delicately between his fingers as if he’s only ever seen people in films do it.

Arthur only plays with it, though, tapping it when the tip of it slowly burns away. “You say that as if you have experience. Do you have any siblings?”

Merlin thinks back to his home in Ealdor, for a second, and lets himself remember the nostalgic cheer of his childhood. His mother hadn’t been well-to-do—still isn’t, really—and all the joys of Merlin’s life had been simple ones. His chest aches at the thought of it, and he’s not sure if he feels stuck in that past or so erringly absent from it that his memories feel as distant as the history he’s reading in the Aeneid. 

“No, not really,” he says. “Foster brother, though.”

Arthur nods slowly. “Still counts, I suppose. Morgana isn’t truly my full sister either—well, as I told you yesterday, it’s complicated, and there’s no good in dredging up the past.”

“You’re talking to a classicist,” Merlin tells him, and waves the Aeneid at him. “I don’t know how to leave the past alone.”

Arthur makes a face, and finally puts the cigarette between his lips again. He scrunches up his nose at it, and then puts it out against the wall, letting the stump of it fall between them. “That’s history that no one can remember. It’s different.”

“Not really,” Merlin says.

The sun hits Arthur’s bare feet as he stretches out his legs. Two strips of skin on his ankles are more tanned than the rest of it; the bit where the skin shows between his trousers and his shoes, Merlin guesses, and stares at it. The hairs on Arthur’s leg are blond and coarse, and Merlin feels a tantalising need to run his hand over them.

“Are you close to your foster brother?” Arthur asks, and leans back against the wall, his eyes closed. “Because if you’re anything like Morgana and I, you won’t have stopped tormenting each other simply because adulthood hit. Some childhood rivalries only become worse with time.”

“I don’t know,” Merlin says. “Maybe it would’ve. He died, though.”

“Oh,” Arthur says. There’s no awkward I’m sorry that follows, nor one of those pitiful looks that tell Merlin all he needs to know. Will was his closest friend and his most trusted confidant, once upon a time, and Merlin can’t quite ever think of him the way he was without tragedy being drawn all over the image.

That’s the way it often works with tragedies, though. He sort of likes that; they’re always coloured by their ending, and on a reread, you can’t really manage to ignore that gnawing sense of dread. Merlin remembers Will, and thinks only of the way his throat constricted too badly for him to scream when his best friend lay bleeding on the ground.

“Pushed me out of the way of a car when we were seventeen,” Merlin says, though he doesn’t usually volunteer the information. “He died in my arms two minutes later. So we never really got past the childhood rivalry stage. But we were thick as thieves, even if he never quite forgave me for applying to university. I like to think he would have become used to the thought in time. You never know, I suppose.”

Arthur is silent for a second. “And now you study history.”

“Yeah.”

“One would think you’d prefer to focus on the future,” Arthur says mildly, and works himself to his feet in one fluid motion. He stretches out a hand to Merlin, and Merlin takes it. Arthur hoists him up, and Merlin feels himself flush even in the shade’s cool air when Arthur’s hand drops. The bridge of Arthur’s nose is a bit burnt, some of his skin peeling, and it makes him look younger.

“Tragedies are a good way to deal with the world,” Merlin tells him. “It’s catharsis.”

“I’m not an idiot, Merlin,” Arthur says. “Honestly, I doubt that’s what you need all the time. Are you with your head in a book every minute of the day?”

“It’s called being academically inclined.”

Arthur sighs. He leans back his head, his lips forming some sort of prayer that Merlin can’t hear but can see the shape of—Dio dammi la forza—and grabs Merlin’s arm. His palm is warm and firm on Merlin’s pale skin, and Merlin swallows.

“Time to live in the moment, Merlin,” Arthur says. “Come on. I’ll show you something.”

~*~

The sun isn’t nearly as heavy in the air as it was the day before, and Merlin finds himself enjoying the warmth on his skin. It’s still unbearably hot in some ways, but Arthur has graciously—for him, this means with a minimum number of Italian insults, Merlin is quickly learning—offered to share his water bottle, and it takes the edge off the summer.

Besides, there’s a welcome breeze by the river, and Merlin has made his home where the trees cast their shade. It’s nearly comfortable to be outside, with this heat.

“Try this,” Arthur says, and leans up to grab an orange from one of the trees. Technically, this must be someone’s orchard, but Merlin hasn’t asked who it belongs to. This feels like a day of summer that shouldn’t belong to him, who has only ever gone as far as Cornwall on vacation with his mother. 

Arthur’s white, linen button-up rides up, billowing around him, and Merlin finds himself staring unabashedly. Arthur is pretty, even if Merlin can’t quite figure out why he acts the way he does, and he has one of those v-lines that slopes down and Merlin isn’t allowed to see all of, and he has lovely plump, red lips that he unconsciously licks when he’s drunk something.

He’s a bit of an arse, but he is alright today, and Merlin thinks this may be one of those times where he can have the summertime fantasy and indulge in thoughts of desire, and in the heat fluttering in his belly as the sun strokes his skin, and be safe in the knowledge that none of it will ever leave this tiny Italian town.

Arthur tiptoes, stretching to his fullest, to grab an orange from the tree, and the twig snaps. He sits down, cross-legged, next to Merlin, and offers it up to him. Merlin wordlessly takes the fruit and rotates it slowly in his hand, watching the perfect imperfections of the orange, the colour vivid even in the shadow.

“Don’t you want one?” he asks, and slowly starts to peel it. The skin of the orange paints the underside of his nails a dreary yellowish colour, and the juice sticks to his thumb. 

“They’re not ours, really,” Arthur says. “Annis won’t mind if it’s you, though. She likes guests.”

Merlin waits for an explanation about who Annis is, but Arthur doesn’t seem intent on explaining, so he just leans back and focuses on peeling the orange. It is slow work, because he’s bitten his nails short on the plane ride to Italy, and the heat makes him languid and drowsy. Arthur doesn’t say anything, though, just leans back in the grass with his eyes closed.

He parts the orange in two when he’s finished. The juice streams over his wrist and upper arm, and he licks it off absentmindedly before he hands over one half to Arthur. Arthur hesitates for a moment, something strange flickering over his expression before he takes his part.

“They’re best shared,” Merlin tells him, and puts a slice to his lips. The orange is juicy on his tongue, the flavours bursting in his mouth. He closes his eyes and lays on his back on the ground, letting the blades of grass tickle the shell of his ear. 

“You’re going to ruin your shirt,” Arthur says, his voice amused somewhere next to him, and Merlin keeps his eyes closed as he pops another slice of orange in his mouth.

“I thought you wanted me to live in the moment,” he murmurs. “I’ll wash it later.”

He can hear Arthur shuffling for a second, and then a short groan before there’s a body next to him. Merlin keeps his eyes pressed closed as the sun-kissed warmth of Arthur’s arm presses against his own.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Arthur says. His voice is a quiet baritone, rumbling from deep in his chest. “We didn’t get off to a good start. I didn’t—my mother has done more devious things in the name of motherly love, and my father… well, I’m never entirely sure what my father thinks.”

“I’m not here to amuse you,” Merlin says and pops his eyes open. “If that’s what you think. That is—what parent would do that?”

“A well-meaning one.”

“You need more friends, if she thinks you need her personal TA to socialise with you,” Merlin says bluntly, and enjoys Arthur’s quiet huff of laughter. It’s a rhythmic sound, and Merlin twitches his arm so that he nudges Arthur for a second.

“I’ve friends in England,” Arthur says. “She never seems to believe me, though, when I say I prefer to be by myself when we’re in Italy.”

Merlin has friends of his own in England, but they feel very far away right now. Italy doesn’t seem just a few borders away, but as if he’s halfway around the world without any way to get in touch with home. He hasn’t responded to any of Gwen’s messages yet, nor to his mother’s, but now that he’s lazing in the shade of the orange trees, he thinks it might be better if he can shut the world away for a few more days.

“I can’t imagine why,” is what he says instead. “Who’d like to hang out with Oxford twats when you don’t have to?”

Arthur makes a noise of affront, but Merlin ignores him and finishes his orange. Even when they return to the Pendragon Estate, and Merlin is ushered into Ygraine’s study to help her sort through her former PhD students’ dissertations, he still tastes the sugar-sweet stickiness on his lips, and remembers the muted sunlight brushing through the leaves of a tree, mottling Arthur’s skin.

It makes him feel more at ease, and he licks his lips to hold onto the memory.

~*~

It is a small universe that Merlin has fallen into.

Everyone in the village knows each other. He goes with Ygraine and Uther to the market on the first Saturday he’s there, even though Arthur stays at home to hole himself up with—well, Merlin doesn’t really know what Arthur does when he’s not scowling at his father or interrupting Merlin’s reading time.

Uther seems to have come to accept Merlin’s presence in the way that he’ll ignore him unless it suits him. After one gruelling dinner where he’d attempted to weasel Merlin’s voting history out of him, he must have decided it was easier to disregard him altogether. Not that he’s in the house all too often; it turns out he has a small office in Motta Visconti that he uses most of the time, and Merlin only runs into him in the evenings.

Ygraine is as lovely a host as she is a professor. As it turns out, most of the help she needs is with organising, really, and Merlin spends his mornings leafing through unfinished essays on various Latin and Old Greek works and sorting through several classic Language and Culture theses that Ygraine has held onto. Some are nearly two decades old, with fonts that have gone out of usage in academia since then, and Merlin runs his fingers over the black, bold letters as if to assimilate history into himself. The classics haven’t changed, but the people writing these essays have. Most of the names are unfamiliar to Merlin, and he wonders what happened to the students.

If they still live in their history, or if they’ve long moved on from their days in university. 

For those first few days, that is the rhythm of Merlin’s life. He goes to bed and huddles under the thin duvet, which he only really uses for the weight of it. Even the evenings are comfortably warm, to the degree where Arthur only sleeps in boxer shorts, and Merlin, when he wakes up at the crack of dawn, can watch him, as his own blanket has slipped to the floor.

They don’t really do anything together, but he can feel Arthur’s eyes on him sometimes. Merlin watches him, too, and feels the crackling thunderbeat of his heart when their eyes happen to meet. One week in, Arthur leaves an orange for him by his bedside, and Merlin doesn’t know what it means.

All in all, life in Motta Visconti is idyllic. Merlin has had a sort of mental picture of vacations in Northern Italy that has been proven both wrong and right at the same time; there are no tan, Italian hunks with dark, smouldering eyes driving around offering any rides or pulling him into a dance, but the summer heat has proven tangible and there is a sense of peace in the lingering sweetness of oranges. 

Until that peace is broken, rather rudely, by Arthur and Uther.

~*~

“—as conservative as you, but that doesn’t mean—” is the first snippet Merlin hears when Ygraine and he step through the front door. Merlin’s hair is matted to his forehead, and he shifts the boxes of groceries in his arms when they hear the shouting.

“Merde,” Ygraine mutters, and pats Merlin’s shoulder. “Merlin, love, could you take these to the kitchen for me? This won’t take a moment, please pour yourself a drink and go outside, the weather’s too nice to be stuck inside all day—”

She whirls away before she’s even properly finished her sentence, and Merlin is left standing in the hall. A door slams upstairs, and Arthur’s voice comes rather clearly, “and I don’t think that you should have a say in it to that degree, simply because you think that people are not using their chances—”

“—they certainly like to portray it that way,” Uther’s booming voice interrupts. “And you’re naive to think—”

“It’s not naivety!”

“—you know nothing about politics, boy, you’ve clearly—”

Another door slam, and Merlin winces and moves to the kitchen. The sounds are muffled from there, and he slowly puts the fruit in the basket as he guiltily listens to the raised voices, feeling as a voyeur to a world that isn’t his. He hasn’t felt this out of place since he first arrived, and he shuffles awkwardly around the kitchen when he’s done putting away the groceries. When the yelling doesn’t stop, he grabs a glass of water and heads outside.

The Pendragons have a large garden, but the place Merlin loves best is just on the edge of the mansion’s estate, near the overgrown trees that cast their shade at any time of day. Merlin likes to sit on a particular tree stump and read, but his book is still upstairs and he doesn’t want to interrupt a family fight, so he resigns himself to lying on the grass next to his stump and watching the clear blue sky.

There is an odd sort of boredom that comes with the fairytale romantic air of the Pendragon mansion. Merlin stares at the two little clouds passing by, and wonders if people ever get tired of having their lives fit so perfectly with everything they’ve ever wanted. Perhaps the argument is a good reminder that not even a picturesque mansion in northern Italy is a sign of happiness.

Merlin feels as if he’s been shocked back into real life, though. It writhes uncomfortably in his veins as a reminder.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, and Merlin starts, lifting his head to see Arthur standing there. His expression is oddly twisted up, and in the afternoon sun he looks like he’s glowing golden. His shoulders are tense, and Merlin feels his own exhausted state drain away at the sight of him.

“Hi,” he says lamely. “Sorry, I didn’t know—I thought no one would… Sorry, are you okay?”

“That’s two apologies in one sentence,” Arthur says, without bite, and unexpectedly sits down on the stump, next to Merlin. He towers over Merlin, that way, and Merlin can only see the outline of him as he stares up. Arthur’s jaw is tightened, and he doesn’t look down at Merlin, but instead peers determinedly back to the house. “Even for you, that’s excessive.”

“Sorry,” Merlin offers. Arthur smiles wryly.

“He’s an arse, don’t you think?” Arthur says, and shakes his head. “No, don’t answer that. You’re the perfect son, aren’t you? You know exactly where your passions lie, and you’re even sacrificing your holiday to help out a professor with her dusty belongings. Doing a PhD, and getting impeccable grades, surely?”

Merlin blinks. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Arthur says. “How can you not know?”

“I don’t think that’s what matters for being a son.”

Arthur bites his lower lip and stares away again. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. My father does, though. If you were his, I’m sure he’d think you were perfect.”

“Oh, come on,” Merlin says in exasperation. “Your father loves you. A blind man could see it, Arthur, the way he talks about you. He’s so proud of your achievements, and didn’t he say just yesterday that your grades might get you into a PhD too? And just because you don’t agree on everything doesn’t mean—”

“On anything,” Arthur corrects.

 “What?”

“You said we don’t agree on everything.” Arthur’s gaze is sharp, and Merlin feels oddly unsettled as it bores into him. “But we don’t agree on anything. And I think that love is largely dependent on that, you know. I can’t condone his worldview—indeed, judging by the number of votes he gets, most of Britain doesn’t.”

“I don’t think it is about agreeing on everything,” Merlin manages. “Love, that is.”

Arthur raises his eyebrows at him and leans down on his elbows. It brings his face close to Merlin’s. “You don’t?”

“No, I don’t.” Merlin tilts his head, and tries not to focus on Arthur’s lips. He thought he should keep his distance, Arthur’s behaviour being as erratic as it is, but he still feels his heart speed up. “I think it’s—like falling, most of the time. And not in the falling in love way necessarily, but it’s like—you can’t stop falling, can you, once you’ve gone and tripped? That’s what I think it is. It’s something you can’t stop doing once you’ve gone over the edge. All you can do is hope you land softly.”

Arthur’s gaze is intent, deep. “Is that the way the classics describe it?”

“Not all my life experience comes from reading, you do know,” Merlin says, and rather unexpectedly, Arthur’s hand settles on Merlin’s jaw, and then he presses his lips to Merlin’s.

Merlin closes his eyes as Arthur’s thumb presses against his throat and his tongue drags over Merlin’s lips. Neither of them move away; instead, Merlin feels oddly relaxed as he settles his own hands in Arthur’s hair, keeping him tethered. Arthur’s lips are feather light over his own, teasing and exploring, as if he’s used to doing this but has forgotten how. 

Merlin has kissed, and been kissed, before. There usually seemed to be more rational thinking involved, however, which feels odd for something that is largely dependent on emotions. But Merlin has never kissed anyone out of the blue, after a near-insult. It feels oddly right with Arthur, though.

“You taste like strawberries,” Arthur whispers against his lips, and Merlin opens his eyes. Arthur’s irises are the same colour as the sky. 

“I had some in the marketplace,” Merlin replies in the same hushed tone. His hand is still in Arthur’s golden-blond hair, and their noses are still pressed together. “What are you doing?”

“I thought it made sense,” Arthur says. “You’re aggravatingly pretty.”

“Well, that’s lovely,” Merlin sighs, but then Arthur kisses him again, more determinedly this time. He towers over Merlin and presses him into the grass, leaning over him. Merlin’s heartbeat speeds up, and his hands slide down from Arthur’s hair to his broad shoulders, slowly moving under the t-shirt. Arthur seems content to take his time to explore, though, unhurried and purposeful but for the way he’s running his fingers across Merlin’s ribs, making his breath hitch even as he tries to kiss Arthur back with all the force he has.

Ygraine’s distant voice breaks them apart, calling out Arthur’s name from the house. Arthur frowns, and Merlin gives in to his instinct and presses a finger on the skin between his eyebrows and pushes a bit. Arthur wobbles and lets himself fall on Merlin; he’s heavier than he looks, and Merlin wheezes.

“You’re a prat,” Merlin says, a bit accusingly, even as Arthur smirks at him. “You do know you’re being one, don’t you?”

“I’m glad you have me all figured out, Merlin,” Arthur tells him, and raises his eyebrows at him. “I certainly can’t say the same of you.”

“You kissed me.”

Arthur shrugs, and slowly gets up. As much as Merlin is glad that the weight has been lifted off his midriff, he misses the press of Arthur’s warmth against his own in a way he can’t quite quantify. He never considered Arthur to be quite so tactile, but Arthur makes it seem so easy. As if he does it all the time. 

The anxiety slips back in, just a little bit.

“Maybe I thought it would help me figure you out,” Arthur tells him, and then raises his arm to muss up Merlin’s hair. “Or I did it because I wanted to. If you understand me so well, surely you know which one it is.”

“Prat,” Merlin repeats viciously.

“I’ll see you at dinner,” is all Arthur has to say to that, and Merlin has to watch him as Arthur jogs back to the mansion, waving at his mother cheerfully as if he wasn’t just snogging her TA within an inch of his life.

He doesn’t have to understand Arthur Pendragon to know he’s kind of an arse, in a way. And not at all, in many others.

~*~

Merlin can’t sleep. It’s not necessarily about how Arthur is quietly snoring in bed on the opposite side of the room, although that surely isn’t helping. No, it’s also searingly warm in their shared room, and he’s been bitten by a total of five mosquitoes already. He’d go hunt them down, but then he’s sure to wake Arthur up, and he isn’t sure if he can deal with him right now.

Arthur has been a surprisingly acceptable roommate, for the most part, if one ignores his cold behaviour of that first day. He keeps to his own area, and he doesn’t make a mess, and usually doesn’t instil the kind of complicated emotions in Merlin that he did today.

After the sixth mosquito takes a bite out of him, Merlin slowly opens the creaking door, making sure to check if Arthur’s breathing is staying consistent. Then he slowly sneaks out, and hopes the gracefully-aged mansion’s floorboards don’t give away his insomnia. When he finally manages to escape through the back door, the nighttime air feels like a gift.

He huddles, arms around his legs, on one of the chairs. The cold metal sticks to his thighs, but he enjoys the cool, smooth touch, and presses his forehead to his knobbly knees to try and breathe a little easier. 

“Merlin?”

“Oh, sorry,” he says, awkwardly, at the sight of Arthur’s half-clad figure in the doorway. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Just—couldn’t sleep, that’s all.”

“I wasn’t actually sleeping,” Arthur admits wryly, and takes the other chair. He doesn’t try to keep quiet at all; it scrapes loudly against the tiles as he sits down on it, leaning with his arms on the back. “I just thought you’d find it uncomfortable if I was awake, too. You don’t always need to be making small talk, you are aware?”

“Sorry,” Merlin offers.

“Has anyone ever told you that you apologise too often?” Arthur says, without bite. After a beat of silence—mostly because Merlin doesn’t know how to tell him that most people don’t listen carefully enough to tell him any such thing—he continues, “It’s fine. I thought you might want to talk about this afternoon.”

“I don’t,” Merlin says.

Arthur nods slowly. “That’s good.”

The night is as full of sound as the day is in northern Italy. Perhaps it’s the same in London, Merlin considers, but only because they’re both loud, full of people wanting to be heard and failing to listen as they shout to be heard over one another. Motta Visconti is a concerto of birds chirping and owls cooing, women humming and children laughing; in the nighttime, the wind plays its gentle song on the tree branches.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Merlin offers.

Arthur laughs, low and vibrating. “Not particularly.”

It stings, if only a bit. Merlin inhales deeply, and smells the crisp air of midnight; he shivers at the cold of it, and rubs his own legs. Arthur just stares at him, so Merlin looks away, trying to count the stars. He knows a fair bit about constellations, and there is much more to see here than he ever has elsewhere. The existence of constellations had felt as much of a myth as the ones they were based on, when he’d been in London.

“What do you want to talk about?” Merlin asks, suddenly.

Arthur taps his fingers against his knee, and smiles wryly as he looks at Merlin. “I’m mostly thinking about how badly I want to go back to bed.”

“I’m not stopping you,” Merlin says. He feels something defensive prickle all over his skin. Arthur doesn’t have to spend time with him to amuse him—he’d made it very clear how he felt on that front the first day Merlin arrived. “I’ll be quiet. I won’t wake you when I come back in, but if you’re really worried, I can sleep on the couch—”

“Oh, you moron,” Arthur says, and holds out a hand to Merlin. “Come on. This isn’t doing you any good.”

Merlin shouldn’t take the offered hand, and his pride wins out for two seconds—but then, the same tingling sensation that had taken over when Arthur had kissed Merlin that afternoon takes over, and he finds himself squeezing Arthur’s fingers. Arthur tugs him upright, and doesn’t let go of his hand at all when he guides Merlin back upstairs. He walks up the stairs quietly, skipping the creaking stairs, and Merlin mimics his example.

Arthur doesn’t say anything, or even look back at him, but Merlin’s heart feels lodged in his throat regardless. Arthur tugs him towards his own bed, the covers unmade and the sheets wrinkled, and only lets go of Merlin to tap meaningfully on the spot next to him.

“Arthur, it’s twenty-six degrees,” Merlin says. “I’m not sharing a bed with you.”

Arthur tilts his head and raises his eyebrows. “It’s not the heat keeping you up, is it,” he says. “I could hear your mind racing from the other side of the house. Please, if heatstroke is what it takes to get you to stop thinking so loudly, I’ll take it. Do us both a favour and get in, Merlin.”

Merlin hesitates for a moment, and then slips in. Arthur’s bed is still comfortable with residual warmth, and then Arthur carefully pulls up the covers and tugs at Merlin. Merlin instinctively rolls towards him, nose burrowed in Arthur’s throat. It is rather warm, but Merlin doesn’t dare move away. His legs are entangled in Arthur’s, and he can feel Arthur’s toes pressing against his calf.

“I lied,” Merlin murmurs. “I don’t actually think you’re a prat.”

“Yes, you do,” Arthur says, and Merlin can feel his throat vibrate with the words. “Go to sleep, Merlin, for God’s sake. And don’t wake up before a decent time, or I’ll strangle you instead of kissing you next time.”

But Merlin doesn’t think Arthur’s lips against Merlin’s forehead are a mere coincidence, and he falls asleep strangely easily, despite the warmth.

~*~

“Oh, Merlin,” Ygraine says, right as she’s hurrying out the door. The hat on her head is half-tilted, nearly falling off, and her fair hair is tousled in a way that wouldn’t seem so artful on anyone else. “Can you drive Arthur into Milan today? You can use my car, it’s just—he said he needed some books, and Uther is busy, and Arthur doesn’t have his driver’s licence, so I thought—if you’ve got anything else planned, though—”

“No, that’s fine,” Merlin says faintly, and doesn’t give voice to the dozen questions he has.

“Lovely,” Ygraine says, and she means it, and Merlin feels oddly guilty for having spent last night in her son’s bed, never mind the fact Arthur just about dragged him in with him. Besides, it’s not as if anything happened, and Merlin had nearly sprinted out the moment he’d woken up. Arthur’s face had still been slack with sleep and the morning sun had painted his hair golden, and Merlin wouldn’t have been able to keep his fingers to himself if he’d stayed, pressed against Arthur’s drowsy warmth.

So he’d fled. Because, at heart, Merlin’s a coward. And now, he’s supposed to drive him into Milan? God. He’d thought he could at least avoid Arthur for a day, maybe two if he’d stretched out his reading time until well past Arthur’s bedtime.

“Yes,” he wrangles out of his throat. “Lovely.”

Not that Ygraine hears it—she presses a kiss to Arthur’s cheek when he follows her into the garden, and then she’s gone. Merlin vaguely remembers her mentioning something like a book club. Perhaps it’d been something else entirely.

Arthur stares at him. Merlin would’ve fled further, except he’s clearly a bit rubbish at making escape plans, or maybe it’s just his bad luck that Arthur got up before mid-afternoon on this particular day. Except that’s not fair to Arthur; Merlin has heard him stumbling about the house earlier, but whatever he’s doing, he usually doesn’t make it outside until well after Merlin has.

“Good morning,” Arthur drawls, and the ruddy flush of Merlin’s cheeks cannot be blamed at all on the sun, and he can’t even pretend it can, because he’s hidden in the shade of the mansion, sitting on the ground against the wall.

“Hi,” he says defensively, and holds up the Aeneid as he peers up at Arthur . “Sorry if I—well. I wanted to read a bit before the start of the day.”

Arthur raises a single eyebrow. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me, you know.”

“Well,” Merlin mutters. “I didn’t know—I wasn’t sure…”

“If you apologise one more time, I’ll really start minding,” Arthur tells him.

Merlin swallows down the desire to say Sorry, and keeps his lips pressed tightly together to regard Arthur. It should be no surprise that Arthur looks as lovely as he always does, but then there’s something lighter and more amused touching Arthur’s lips, and he closes the distance in two strides and leans down to kiss Merlin on the mouth.

He parts his lips immediately, closing his eyes as his heart beats fast. Arthur moves in tune with him, crouching and holding his balance with one hand on Merlin’s knee. His touch is feather-light, and Merlin feels nearly delirious with the want that surges up in his chest. The open pages of the Aeneid are creasing against his legs, and he doesn’t care.

“Arthur,” he whispers against Arthur’s lips, not even having broken their kiss, really, but rather sharing his breath. Arthur’s nose is cold against his, and he slowly presses closer, more in a facsimile of a kiss than a real one.

“Come on,” Arthur says, suddenly pulling away, but it’s alright, because he’s taken Merlin’s hand in the process and entangled their fingers. “My mother was right, I do need to be in Milan, and with her car, it’ll take us double the time it should. We'd best get moving. Perhaps I can show you the bookshop.”

“My Italian’s a bit rubbish,” Merlin feels the need to point out, even as Arthur drags him along.

Arthur shrugs. “Maybe I can read it to you,” he says, and Merlin’s heart does not skip a beat at all.

~*~

Merlin has not seen much of Milan except from the air, but it seems Arthur has been here many times. They’ve spent their summers in Italy since he was two, he explains in the car, and his father used to have a small office here before he’d rented one in Motta Visconti, so Arthur—and Morgana, apparently, the mysterious sister who is Arthur’s greatest enemy and fondest childhood memory at the same time—had spent their days running around the city.

Merlin feels a little foolish admitting he’s spent most of his summers catching butterflies by the small stream in Ealdor and begging his mother to read him The Hobbit while doing the voices.

“So what are we really doing here?” Merlin asks, because Arthur went to a phone shop first thing, talking in rapid fire Italian. Merlin knows bits of broken French and sometimes catches himself thinking in Latin, but he can’t quite keep up with Arthur. It’s an odd switch when he goes back to his posh English, and Merlin has to blink.

“Buying another phone,” Arthur says easily, and holds up the bag with the newest Samsung. “My father has restricted my access to my first one, and my mother doesn’t agree, obviously, but she’ll keep the peace. We all did, for a long time, but no longer.”

“You could’ve borrowed mine,” Merlin tells him.

Arthur stares at him. “Well, yes,” he says. “But I’ll need one regardless, won’t I? And how would I text you from your own phone, Merlin?”

“You don’t even have my phone number.” It doesn’t seem to matter to Arthur, and Merlin throws up his hands helplessly. In Milan, summer seems to have increased in intensity; the number of people bumping into his shoulder and the heat are nearly unbearable, and maybe Arthur senses it, because he takes Merlin and steers him into a near-empty alley.

“I hardly think I need to text you, with you snoring away in my bed,” Arthur says easily, and Merlin’s stomach flips. “Now, I think I promised you a bookshop, and my mother will be expecting us to bring home books. Besides, maybe I’ll pick one or two for myself.”

They take the long way to the bookshop—or maybe they don’t, because how would Merlin know, but it surely feels like it, because they go through a dozen tiny, small passages only to wind back to one of the main streets, one that Merlin might recognise if he were a bit better at remembering directions. The point is that Arthur holds his hand through it all, and Merlin wants to ask him why he needs a phone, but also doesn’t want to ruin the vague dampness of Arthur’s palm in his own, warm and grounding.

The bookshop is small, and it smells like dust and yellowed paper, and there is no catalogue at all; everything is scattered, old little sci-fi novels sitting in between German-Italian dictionaries and self-help books. Merlin absolutely loves it, and Arthur smiles indulgently, even when Merlin picks up an Italian translation of the Aeneid and a dusty romance novel from the ‘70s with ambiguous art on the cover.

“Haven’t you already read that? Twice?” is all Arthur asks in mild, faked exasperation, and Merlin merely shrugs.

“It’ll help me with my Italian,” he says. “Since I already know what happens on all the pages.”

“Oh, fine,” Arthur huffs, and pays for both of Merlin’s books and one of his own, with a title of which Merlin only understands the word politica—politics.

Merlin doesn’t comment on that either, and Arthur buys them both two scoops of ice cream and then proceeds to lick Merlin’s. Merlin just laughs, and pushes him away, and Arthur’s ice cream falls to the ground when he pushes Merlin to the wall and kisses him senseless. His breath is cold, and he tastes of pistachio, and Merlin can’t imagine a more perfect day.

They share Merlin’s ice cream, after that, until it’s melted all over their faces.

~*~

The bed creaks, and the mattress dips. Merlin wakes up, sluggish and only half-able to discern between reality and dreams, to the faint outline of Arthur’s face; his slightly crooked nose, the perfect jaw.

“Can I come in?” he asks quietly, with the soft volume of the night, and Merlin wordlessly shuffles to the side. Arthur’s feet are cold, pressed against Merlin’s, but his lips are as warm as ever.

They haven’t slept in the same bed for two nights, and truthfully, Merlin thought that might have been the end of it. Arthur’s mood had soured the evening after they’d returned from Milan—Merlin isn’t entirely sure what happened, but Arthur’s swift turn in temperament had made him aware of how fleeting joy could be, and he had shut himself up in Ygraine’s study for some TA work when he’d heard Arthur shouting at his father again.

We all kept the peace, Arthur had said, but no longer. Maybe Merlin shouldn’t be so concerned with his own summer experience, with the arguments raging in the mansion, but he can’t help but feel a little snubbed anyway. And that is foolish, because Arthur isn’t anything to him, in the strictest sense.

Still, he feels a bit as if he was stolen from, and in the same turn, feels annoyed for thinking so.

“Can’t sleep?” is all he asks, because if Merlin has learnt anything about him, it’s that Arthur won’t open up by himself. He hasn’t before, and Merlin thinks he never will if he doesn’t ask. There’s a part of Merlin that thinks he won’t like to hear what Arthur thinks, actually, and so he hasn’t dared before. Night and near-sleep makes him feel bolder, though, or maybe that’s just Arthur’s toes curling against Merlin’s ankle.

“No, I can’t,” Arthur murmurs, his chin pressed uncomfortably against Merlin’s shoulder. “I think I might try this method. It worked well last time.”

For you or for me, Merlin doesn’t ask. Instead, he twists in the bed so their noses are pressed together and he can see Arthur’s eyes glinting in the dark. “Yeah.”

“Why do you keep reading that book?” Arthur asks, sudden and unexpected, in no more than a whisper. “You must’ve finished it two times since you came here. I thought—I know it’s about a trip to Italy, so I suppose I must’ve thought it was simply irony—”

“Have you read it?” Merlin whispers.

“In school,” Arthur tells him. “I thought it was very dull for something that included so much adventure.”

Merlin smiles and runs a hand over Arthur’s ribs, simply because he can. “The Aeneid,” he starts slowly, “is a story about persevering, in essence. And not simply because everything that happens to Aeneas is hard, or makes it hard for him to found the city of Rome—it’s about overcoming our own failures. Actually, you might like it if you read it now. It’s about good judgement, and leadership by example, and justice. Mostly, it just—reminds me that there’s a road we’re meant to travel, and it will be hard, not just because of outside influences, but because of us. Because we make things hard for ourselves sometimes. It tells me that we can always learn to be better.”

He swallows hard. He’s rarely talked about the Aeneid since his friends stopped asking, since they clearly didn’t understand why he feels the way he does about it. It has been tucked in his pocket since he was sixteen and read it for the first time, and didn’t quite understand why it was so important to him.

“I’ve met some of my mother’s TAs,” Arthur says quietly. “I’ve always thought that classicists were some of the most self-important people I’ve met, and were too caught up in the intricacies of the past to care much about the future. But you—you mean it, don’t you?”

“These stories are preserved,” Merlin tells him, “because they are worth being preserved. We still think about them because the future should be shaped by everything we’ve learnt in the past, no matter how long ago, and no matter—” He stops, and exhales loudly. 

No matter how stuck we are in it, he was going to say. 

“I might have to reread it,” Arthur murmurs, and presses a kiss to Merlin’s throat. “I’ll have to find a version in English, because believe it or not, my Latin has never been great. Or maybe you can read it to me?”

Merlin hums. “Are you going to read my romance book to me?” he asks, his voice dry, and Arthur just grins, wickedly and sincerely at the same time, and he looks golden even in the moonlight. Arthur’s hand slowly settles on Merlin’s thighs, and he presses into him, skin-to-skin and heart-to-heart.

“If you want me to,” Arthur says, and kisses him more deeply than he ever has before, and Merlin gets lost in him—in his touch on Merlin’s skin, and when they discard their clothes, the breeze from the window does little to cool them off.

And Merlin doesn’t think he’s ever been in love, and surely this is nothing more than a whirlwind romance; surely Arthur wants him only because he is here and because they’ve shared a dozen summer-sweet kisses in the sunlight now. He is not the type to fall so deeply, or to diverge from the same path he’s always walked before—Merlin can only live in the present when he’s being kept there, by sensations like the warmth of the sun or the sticky juice on his lips or Arthur’s hands on his naked legs as he presses them apart, and Merlin’s mind has never been enough to keep up with anything but stories of a long-forgotten past.

Arthur kisses him, and his lips taste like orange juice, soft and sweet and sticky, and Merlin’s breath hitches as Arthur kisses every inch of his skin, nosing the tender area around his hips and murmuring noises of encouragement when Merlin flushes.

“I want you to,” Merlin whispers, as if speaking any louder will break this spell, and Arthur’s smile grows soft and secretive as his fingers dig into the tender flesh of Merlin’s backside, and Merlin wraps his legs around Arthur’s middle to pull him closer. 

This, he thinks, as Arthur’s ragged breaths warm Merlin’s skin, and he finds them both an ecstasy that Merlin hasn’t felt in years—this he will remember.

~*~

“I’m glad you boys are getting along so well,” Ygraine says, setting down the picnic basket. Uther is gone for the day, but perhaps that’s for the best; the tension between him and Arthur has been thick enough to cut into, and with Uther’s absence, Merlin can let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. He wasn’t aware he’d been walking on eggshells as much as he had been, up until then. “Arthur is so rarely interested in making new friends in Motta Visconti. I blame ourselves, really, taking the children everywhere together in their youths. There’s no surprise the two of them latched onto each other as much as they did.”

“I didn’t latch onto Morgana,” Arthur says, aggravatedly. Merlin just smiles indulgently, and slowly unfurls the blanket to soar on the breeze for a second before he lets it settle on the grass. Ygraine picked Annis’ meadow, the green patch with the orange trees, and Merlin can’t help but think of the fruit’s sweetness and Arthur’s body pressed against his own, even before they had slept together.

“If you say so, love,” Ygraine says, and winks at Merlin. “You’ll like her, I think, Merlin. She’s very sharp, but don’t let that fool you—Morgana is very kind at heart, the same way that Arthur is.”

“Mother,” Arthur says sharply.

“I’m thrilled to meet her,” Merlin says. “Your family’s been very lovely to me, Ygraine.”

He does enjoy the way that Arthur reddens a bit, suddenly a little too attentive in the way he unpacks the picnic baskets. Merlin sits down next to him, and Arthur scowls as Merlin helps him set up the several bottles of juice.

“Well, you’ve been a lovely guest, Merlin,” Ygraine says. “I can’t believe time is going by so fast! Summer has a way of feeling like forever, doesn’t it, even though you’ll only be here for two more weeks. And then back to England, I suppose. Have you arranged for everything yet? I’ve heard you’re moving apartments?”

“Not until September,” Merlin tells her. 

“Oh,” Ygraine says, and puts a hand to her forehead. “That reminds me! I was supposed to call the faculty today! I’m changing offices, too, you know how it is—I completely forgot in all the rearranging you’ve been helping me do, Merlin—oh, you two boys won’t mind if I leave you alone, do you? There’s plenty of food, I’ll just come back later—”

She’s hurrying away before she’s even received an answer, already picking up her vividly red bike from the ground. The gravel crunches underneath her tyres, and Arthur shakes his head at her disappearing form.

“If her head wasn’t attached to her body,” he says, but he sounds more fond than anything else. “I’m not surprised she needs a TA to come and help with her papers. You should’ve seen her office two days before you came, Merlin; she tried to make it at least seem passable before you came here, but now she’s foisted it all off on you, happily.”

“I don’t mind,” Merlin says, because he doesn’t. He enjoys his mornings working through Ygraine’s documents and sorting everything. There’s an easy sort of calm to turning off his mind and just working through Latin and Old Greek papers and dissertations, creating some sort of order in the storm. Ygraine’s office has plenty of sunlight in the morning, and he can always hear the birds chirping when he opens the windows.

Really, it seems like the only place he can be alone, at times, like his own little academic bubble in the middle of Italy’s idyllic nature.

“Well, now that it’s just the two of us,” Arthur says, and leans back, regarding Merlin with a pleased little smile. Now Merlin is the one who blushes, if only because he remembers panting Arthur’s name in the crook of his neck in the depths of the night, and he’s rather sure Arthur is thinking of the same thing.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Merlin says. “You crawled into my bed.”

“And what will the price be for your inestimable hospitality?” Arthur asks agreeably, and snatches at the Italian translation of the Aeneid safely hidden in one of the picnic bags before Merlin can. “Do you want me to read this to you? Let me see—Canto le armi, canto l'uomo che primo da Troia venne in Italia, profugo per volere del Fato sui lidi di Lavinio—”

“You’re reading it too fast,” Merlin lies, and grabs the Aeneid back. “You’re not mature enough to fully appreciate this, anyhow.”

“I was required to read it at thirteen, Merlin,” Arthur says. “I hardly think they keep twenty-four-year olds from reading the classics on the basis of immaturity. Besides, you do it, so it can hardly be a sign of intelligence.”

Merlin flushes. “If that’s what you think—”

“Oh, dear God,” Arthur says, and grabs Merlin’s arm. Before Merlin knows it, he’s been twisted underneath Arthur’s hold, with Arthur climbing on top of him, the sun a halo behind his head. “Of course I don’t think that, Merlin, but what do you want me to say? I can read it, if you want to. I’d like to, if it means a lot to you.”

“I do think you’d like it,” Merlin says, a little quietly.

“And why’s that?”

Merlin shrugs under Arthur’s grasp. "Aeneas reminds me of you. He's a man apart, having set himself above all else. He's devoted to his people, and he wants to build them a world where they can live—in peace, in prosperity, and he’s so sincere. He doesn't lose faith in the world he’s building, Arthur, and I think that's you. I think you've got that same faith."

Arthur stares at him, his eyes unbelievably blue in this light. “You hardly know me.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Merlin says, wryly, “But you’re planning to go into politics, aren’t you? Except you’re studying business, is what I’ve been told, so I’m not sure why you are as involved in it as you are, unless you feel it's your duty. You want to, but it's more than that.  Like… it’s a moral obligation to make things better for everyone.”

Arthur lets go of him and rolls to the side. Merlin leans on his elbow, quietly looking at Arthur as Arthur looks back at him. He hopes he’s on the right track, or at least hasn’t made an absolute fool of himself; but mostly he hopes that Arthur knows that Merlin can’t judge him for it, not in that way at all.

Merlin only wishes he were as brave.

“I haven’t told anyone that,” Arthur says, and furrows his brows as he stares at Merlin—as if Merlin is the one who needs to be figured out.

“I don’t think you’d fight your father nearly as hard if you didn’t care so much,” Merlin murmurs. “And the book you bought in Milan—not to mention the phone, and everything you’ve been doing in the mornings that you haven’t told anyone about, because he wouldn’t approve, would he?”

“I’m dropping out of my degree,” Arthur admits suddenly, and Merlin blinks. “I need the phone to make the final arrangements without my parents knowing, and I can’t just—I’ve never wanted to go into business, not really. I thought, even if it wouldn’t make me happy, I might learn to like it in time. But I haven’t. I won’t. And I see what my father thinks, what he does—and he isn’t getting votes, of course he isn’t, but the people who are, they’re wrong as well, aren’t they? I’m not a moron for wanting to do something more for England?”

“I don’t think you are,” Merlin tells him, and smiles. “In fact, I think we could do far worse than a politician who cares.”

And he kisses him, right there and then, on his nose. It feels a little silly, but Arthur smiles, and gently—tentatively, as if he’s afraid Merlin is fragile enough to break—cradles Merlin’s head and kisses him back.

Then Arthur reads him the Aeneid with a lilting voice in perfect Italian, with Merlin settled in between his legs as he tells of Aeneas’ losses in the storm, with his nose pressed into Merlin’s hair.

~*~

It’s late afternoon when Morgana arrives, and Merlin feels as if he is soaking up the heat like a sponge. It’s been over thirty degrees Celsius since the afternoon hit, and even in the airiest shirt he owns, there’s not nearly enough of a breeze to help him cool off at all. Mostly, he has been hiding in Ygraine’s office, but the heat had been bad enough for him to admit that he hadn’t really gotten any work done.

And Arthur had been mercilessly squirting him with his water bottle, until Merlin had finally taken the hint and joined him—along with his parents—on the well-shaded porch in the backyard, with plenty of orange juice to keep them hydrated. Arthur’s feet had kept knocking into Merlin’s under the table, until Merlin had finally caught one between his ankles, and had not let go.

That is, until a red, flashy car nearly crashes onto the driveway, and out comes a particularly gorgeous, dark-haired woman, only a year or two older than Merlin and Arthur, sunglasses firmly perched on her nose above her scarlet-painted lips.

“Morgana,” Uther says, more warmly than Merlin has heard him talk to anyone barring Ygraine, and stands up to hug the smartly-dressed woman in killer high heels. 

“Father dearest,” Morgana says, not nearly as friendly, and just pats Uther’s shoulder before she marches past him towards Ygraine, and kisses her on both cheeks in a decidedly Parisian fashion. “Ygraine, hi. Arthur. And who’s this?”

Merlin has, in the two weeks he’s been here, grown used to the small life that Motta Visconti and, in particular, the Pendragon mansion offers. So he feels rather unprepared for the cold blue gaze of Morgana Pendragon, as sharp as Uther’s and with none of Arthur’s familiar sort of bluntness. Merlin blinks, and immediately misses Arthur’s presence when Arthur subtly withdraws his feet to keep them to himself. 

“Uh,” he says, cleverly. “My name is Merlin Wyllt? I’m Ygraine—uh, Professor du Bois’ TA. I’m helping over the summer.”

“Aren’t you just,” Morgana says, tutting her lips, and turns to Arthur. “I didn’t think of you as the type to make friends, mon Artur. But I suppose there are still some mysteries left in this world.”

“I doubt you’d know how to make friends at all, so I’m not surprised,” Arthur snipes back. He sounds less vicious than she does—more fond, even though there is certainly a bite to his words that Merlin hadn’t expected.

Morgana just smirks and waves away the insult, and Merlin wonders if it’s just been implied that he’s Arthur’s friend, and if Arthur had just accepted that statement. 

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” she says, suddenly, and then presses two kisses to Arthur’s cheeks as well, and then leans in to Merlin. He accepts, bewildered, and Morgana smells sharply like mint, and her lips are soft as flower petals. She lingers for a second, and murmurs quietly in his ear, “and I’m very curious to see who you might be, Merlin Wyllt.”

“You don’t come around nearly often enough, Morgana,” Ygraine says, and pats the chair next to her. Uther has slunk back to his own seat, a little dejected, and Merlin suddenly wonders how Morgana fits into all of this. She is Arthur’s half-sister, and from what he’s pieced together, that means she is Uther’s daughter but not Ygraine’s. Still, that doesn’t really explain any of this.

In comparison to her, Merlin feels a bit like an unkempt doll. His sweaty hair still sticks to his forehead in what must be a very unattractive way, and his damp shirt clings to his skin. He swallows, suddenly, and wonders what she sees when she looks at him—what Arthur sees, and what Merlin might be missing.

“She comes around often enough for me,” Arthur mutters, and slowly his feet work their way over to Merlin’s ankles again. The relief is bone-deep, and Merlin presses his lips together to keep from exhaling.

“Oh, you love me, mon chéri,” Morgana dismisses, and launches into a story about Paris without further pause, and Merlin can’t help but wonder just what kind of family he’s found himself tangled up in.

~*~

“I hope you don’t mind her too terribly,” Arthur mutters, that night, into Merlin’s throat. They’re on Arthur’s bed, the way they have been for the past few nights. And it’s not that Merlin isn’t used to it, although he very much isn’t—he’s still new to having a warm body pressed against him and wandering hands over his back and kisses against his chin. It’s mostly that Merlin has always had those nights where the loneliness nearly chokes him, and the absence of them now is a solace, so much that the fear of returning to England alone crushes his windpipe.

They haven’t even talked about it, and Merlin has never had a boyfriend or girlfriend before. He doesn’t know how to, really; he has friends, plenty of them, but in the dead of night, he’s always been alone, and he has never known how to be anything else. Arthur doesn’t seem anything remotely like that, of course, but Merlin likes him, no matter how prattish or selfish he is, or… how fondly he looks at Merlin when Merlin’s going on about the Latin case system… or how lovely his lilting voice is when he’s reading the Aeneid in Italian…

Merlin has no illusions about what this is, so he’d rather not talk about it at all, and he files the memories away as another tragedy-to-come, a tragedy in the personal life of Merlin Wyllt, even if it’s not one in the classical sense.

“Hope I don’t mind who?” he asks, absently, because Arthur’s nose is tickling the space under his skin and it’s all he can do not to melt into him. “Oh. Morgana?”

“Of course Morgana, you dolt,” Arthur says, and Merlin can hear the scowl rather than see it. “Who else?”

“Why would I mind her? She seems lovely.”

Arthur hums and bites Merlin’s collarbone softly. “Seems is the operative word,” he says, and tickles his fingers over Merlin’s naked thighs. Merlin squirms under his hands, but can’t quite make himself pull away from Arthur’s gentle touches. “She’s a witch when she wants to be.”

“I don’t understand,” Merlin says. 

Arthur sighs, and heaves himself up so he can look at Merlin properly. “Morgana is the only one who tells my father what she really thinks,” he murmurs. “It caused a lot of fights when we were younger. When she was sixteen—I was fourteen—she packed her bags for France and left. I didn’t know until later, but they’d just told her that Ygraine wasn’t actually her mother. My father had cheated, and the woman—Morgana’s true mother—had abandoned her. As you can imagine, this caused a lot of resentment.”

“You could make a soap opera about your family,” Merlin says, and Arthur runs a hand across Merlin’s cheek. Merlin doesn’t dare to breathe.

“Classical stories and bad telly,” Arthur murmurs fondly. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“They don’t have anything else on at 2am that's worth watching,” Merlin defends himself. “It’s good for when you can’t sleep. Anyway, we weren’t talking about me.”

“I suppose you never want to talk about you,” Arthur says, and before Merlin can ask what he means by that, Arthur continues, “I didn’t know that she wasn’t my full sister, at that point—my mother never wanted her to feel left out, so they didn’t tell either of us. Anyway, Morgana left—we were living in Surrey at the time—and never came back to live at home. I think she hates that she’s like him, in so many ways. My mother and I, we kept the peace for a long time, but I understand why Morgana left.”

“But you never did,” Merlin says.

“Not like that, no,” Arthur says, and burrows his face in Merlin’s throat again. “I don’t think I could’ve borne it to break his heart like that. Not the way she did, and still does. My father and I don’t agree on anything, but he isn’t… he’s still…”

“Your father.” Merlin buries his fingers in Arthur’s golden hair, and Arthur shifts quietly to press them closer together. They’re both naked under the covers, but Merlin has never felt more at peace and less eager to do anything except to just breathe. “I think that’s very kind of you.”

“That’s not what Morgana thinks.”

“Well, it’s not her decision, is it,” Merlin says lightly.

Arthur hums. “Perhaps,” is all he says, and pushes up to kiss Merlin more deeply, but Merlin pushes him away.

“No, wait,” he says, and doesn’t know why his chest feels so tangled up in all these complicated knots, but the thought of Arthur carrying the weight of his entire family’s problems and not even giving himself the grace of acknowledging it is sour in his mouth. “Arthur, you’ve got to know that, don’t you? You can’t blame her for leaving, I understand, but neither should you blame yourself for staying. You’re doing what is right for you, for your family—and I know how much it costs you, to follow these dreams that aren’t even yours, and to have to keep your lips pressed tightly together to not shout at him every day—”

“What do you know,” Arthur says brusquely.

“Nothing,” Merlin says, feeling a little helpless. “I don’t have a family to hold onto like that. I’ve got my mum, and my father ran out on us before she even could tell him they were having me, and Will’s been dead and buried for years. But isn’t that the point? If I had a father, even the worst one, as long as he was there—I would’ve clung to him just as hard. So that’s not wrong, Arthur, and that’s not at all weak, either . You’re brave, that’s what you are.”

Arthur stares at him, and Merlin feels himself staring back, panting in the quiet of the night. For a moment, he wishes he had kept his mouth shut, because this isn’t really his place. He and Arthur are undefined, tentative, an oh-nothing-really, and Merlin’s just gone and blabbered about Arthur’s personal business as if Merlin knows the first thing about what it’s like to have a father.

But then he imagines his mother, alone in her living room since the moment Merlin stepped out of his childhood home, feeling like the worst kind of son for leaving, and he clamps his jaw shut. Even if Arthur won’t accept this from him, there are some things that Merlin thinks he knows something about, simply from the absence of them.

“Nothing could have quite prepared me for you,” Arthur says instead, and his hand is warm on Merlin’s nape as he pushes them together, and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him.

~*~

Morgana has brought the unbearable heat back with her, Merlin thinks sourly, tipping back his head as he rolls his ankles in the kiddie pool that Arthur had set up in the garden that morning. It’s too hot to even read, if only because Merlin thinks the sun is boiling his brain inside his head.

Of course, Arthur still looks gorgeous, and Merlin now has to endure the sight of him without a shirt and in swimming trunks, lying on his back in the pool. His hair is dripping slightly, so brightly blond that it nearly hurts to look at, as his head rests on the plastic edge of the pool. Morgana doesn’t seem affected by the warmth at all, casually reading a magazine on the edge of the garden. She’s not even lying in the shade, and Merlin is pretty sure she isn’t wearing sunscreen despite being as pale as he is.

Maybe she truly is a witch, he considers. He feels his nose burning even though he’s put a generous glob of sunscreen on it only an hour earlier. Only Arthur is slightly tanned, but Merlin is sure that underneath the colour given to him by the Italian sun, he’s the same shade of milky white as Merlin’s skin. Except Merlin tans in an unattractive red.

“You could join me, you know,” Arthur says casually, cracking one eye open to look at Merlin. Merlin considers the size of the kiddie pool, and then Arthur’s unfairly attractive abs, and then Morgana with her oversized sunglasses perched on her nose only a few feet away.

“We can’t fit both of us,” he says, and for emphasis, kicks a couple of water droplets towards Arthur with his feet. “Although I suppose I should be glad you’re so considerate.”

“Who says chivalry is dead,” Arthur tells him cheerfully, and returns the favour by splashing Merlin back. Merlin makes a point of scowling, even though the water on his skin is welcomingly refreshing.

“Boys,” Morgana says, and waves her hand at them. “Go on, don’t hold back on my account. Surely Arthur must’ve taken you to Annis’ orchard, hasn’t he? The way he’s pining for your attention, mon Dieu.”

“What?” Merlin squeaks. 

“Oh, spare me,” she murmurs, and takes off her glasses to peer strictly at Merlin. “Arthur’s so particular about his romances. He rarely has them, you see, because he’s one of the few boys of his age who’s actually interested in true love and all that rot, and couldn’t bear anything casual to save his life. So he’s done it twice, as far as I know, in all the years we’ve been here. Vivian, wasn’t that her name? And of course she broke his heart rather cruelly, and then we had Mithian, I think, who was a touch more kind about it. And now you, with Arthur so clearly trailing your every move—”

“Morgana,” Arthur says.

“Sorry,” Morgana bites. “I thought you’d like me to tell him what you’re risking, dear brother. Since you’re so clearly intent on not telling him.”

Arthur presses his lips together, his eyes cloudy, and Merlin looks between the two siblings. 

“Sorry,” he says, and then laughs. He can’t actually help it—it just bubbles over, like the water of the kiddie pool does when Arthur sits up suddenly.

“Merlin?”

“No, hang on, Morgana,” Merlin says. “You’ve been here a day, and you think you understand everything that’s going on so perfectly? It’s just—you so desperately want to get back at people who’ve done nothing to you that you think you’ve got any right to spill anyone’s heart for them, and then you’re also so convinced that you can do it with any accuracy?”

“I’ve known Arthur my whole life,” Morgana snaps.

Merlin withdraws his feet from the pool. “And that gives you the right to tell me everything that’s happened to him?” he asks. “God, I thought you were going to come in and—tell me to back off, tell me anything else except that. Why?”

Morgana blinks. 

The water sloshes even more heavily out of the pool when Arthur gets up, but Merlin has the advantage of dry ground, and this time, no books to carry. “All of that,” Merlin says, “and to get it so wrong.”  

He hurries away before Arthur’s even had the time to grab the towel.

~*~

He shouldn’t have expected to be able to hide from Arthur. It’s Arthur’s home, obviously, and Merlin has been here for barely two weeks. Still, Merlin is a bit annoyed that it takes only five minutes for Arthur to sit down next to him on the roof, right outside the window next to Arthur’s bed.

“I’ve spent hours here,” Arthur says, before Merlin can even open his mouth to ask him how he’d known Merlin would be here. “I figured it’d be just the sort of spot you’d like. I was planning on telling you about it tonight.”

“She had no right to say any of that about you,” Merlin says, leaning his chin in the space between his knees. He refuses to look Arthur in the eye, simply because he’ll lose all his anger too easily, and he doesn’t want to. His heart beats treacherously hard, and he can only be angry on Arthur’s behalf and not on his own, because it wasn’t really him that Morgana was aiming for.

He’s just collateral damage, when it all comes down to it.

“No, she doesn’t,” Arthur says easily, and Merlin can’t help himself; he whips his head around to look at Arthur, because he’d expected him to defend her. Arthur just shrugs. “You’re right. She has a hard time being home, and I’m the easiest person to take it out on, and I think she may be upset because she expected to be the focus of my attention when she got here, and she isn’t.”

“I don’t understand your relationship with her,” Merlin says tiredly. 

“Neither do I, really,” Arthur murmurs, and trails his fingers over the soft hairs on Merlin’s arm. “But it’s worked for us. I’m not even truly mad at her, if I’m entirely honest. Well, perhaps a bit.”

“Arthur,” Merlin says hopelessly, and falls silent.

“She didn’t get it wrong,” Arthur says abruptly, and stills his movements on Merlin’s skin. “Not really.”

Merlin blinks.

“Sorry,” Merlin says, and even as he says it, he thinks back to Arthur that one time Merlin snuck away in the night, saying has anyone told you that you apologise too often, and winces as he hears the word pass his own lips. “That’s just—what?”

“It’s nothing,” Arthur says, crossing his arms. He looks oddly young, and Merlin hasn’t seen him like this before, with this naked insecurity in every line of his features. It pulls at his lips, and it scrunches up his eyebrows, and Arthur feels further away than he’s ever been.

“No, what does that mean?” Merlin presses, and leans forward so he can watch Arthur’s face. “She didn’t get it wrong? So the whole thing, with the oranges and Milan and everything you’ve said to me—Arthur, you didn’t even like me when I first came here. I still don’t know why you like me, really, or even if you like me—”

“You’re a moron, Merlin,” Arthur snaps, “and really quite rubbish at reading people. Are you really so socially inept that you can’t tell when someone might actually enjoy your company, or are you too busy wallowing in the tragedies of your past? Please enlighten me, I would love to know.”

“I’m a moron? ” Merlin says incredulously, and balls his fists in frustration. “At least I’m not so much of a prat that I’ll insult a complete stranger, then suddenly become so friendly that you get whiplash! I don’t know what you want, Arthur, and I’ve been just going along with it—”

“—Going along with it!—”

“—Because God forbid I might wonder why you’d want to kiss someone like me,” Merlin finishes, the heat rising to his cheeks, so scalding that he thinks he might be sunburnt. The sun bears down on them still, orange and heavy in the sky, and Merlin doesn’t know if he wants to shout or cry. “I can’t read your mind, Arthur!”

“No, that’d require me to think in Latin or Old Greek, wouldn’t it?” Arthur spits back. “Nothing else seems to hold your attention, since you’re so stuck in the past, so unwilling to even think about what could be—”

“I don’t want to think about what could be!” Merlin yells at him, and Arthur falls silent. It’s so sudden that Merlin can hear his heart beating loudly in his chest, and he uncurls his fists; tiny crescent-shaped indents are red on his palms, and Merlin’s shoulders slump. He climbs over Arthur, a little awkwardly, to get through the window back to the bedroom. Arthur just lets him, which is the only consolation Merlin thinks he’ll get.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, peering after him. And Merlin didn’t come here to get his heart broken; thinks it’s an unfair bargain for everything he came in expecting, which is nothing. He’d come into this expecting nothing, and then there was Arthur.

“You know,” Merlin murmurs, “you were the first person I thought might actually…” He trails off, looking down—he doesn’t know why he even started to say it, because there’s no finishing that sentence. He can’t even think it. But maybe Arthur does understand, despite everything, because his face drops.

Merlin walks away. This time, Arthur doesn’t follow.

~*~

Dinner is an awkward affair.

“So, what did you three youngsters get up to?” Ygraine asks, and perhaps she picks up on the atmosphere, as she frowns a little bit. It’s the same expression Merlin has seen on Arthur’s face many times now, the one he always wants to smooth over. He saw it on her face first, actually, he recalls with a flash—it’s how Ygraine looks anytime a student she likes doesn’t get the score she expected. 

Somehow, he always sees Arthur’s face first, in his mind.

“Not much,” Morgana says, picking at her lasagna, eyeing Merlin. “We spent most of it in the garden, really.”

“That sounds lovely,” Uther says, and Morgana scowls. 

“I’m sure it does,” Arthur mutters. “Merlin went up to read a book, didn’t you? I wasn’t sure where you went off to.”

Merlin wants to disappear off the face of the Earth, or maybe catch the next plane back to London, whichever one takes him away from here fastest. He’d be alone in his small apartment near the university, with no one there to bother him, because Gwen is hiking in Switzerland, and Lancelot is staying with his parents. Not that he could really tell them everything that’s happened; he doesn’t think his desolate feelings are suited to the English language.

“Oh! Lovely,” Ygraine says, grabbing onto that topic with both hands. “What did you read, Merlin?”

“Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” he says, though he doesn’t even have the book with him. “I felt it was the weather for it.”

“Isn’t that the one in which she loves someone she’s not allowed to?” Arthur asks pointedly, eyebrows raised.

“Yes, that’s Hermia,” Merlin says, and does not break his gaze. “And Helena loves a man who doesn’t love her. It’s a bit about the difficulties that love can cause, you see, and how imbalanced it can be. I’ve always thought it was more accurate than rom-coms.” He thinks about the Italian romance novel he bought in a bookshop in Milan, and Arthur’s promise to read it to him, and has to look down anyway.

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” Ygraine quotes, and Merlin blinks.

“Surely that must be true,” Morgana says, sharp as a whip. Merlin isn’t sure why she’s involved now, but there’s something crisp in her consonants and unforgiving in the lilt of her accent that means she is interfering once again.

“Oh, shut up,” Arthur snaps, and Morgana eyes him fiercely.

“The classics are very well-acquainted with themes like love, Arthur,” she says, and tosses back her hair as her eyes flick towards Merlin once again. “And they do so like to complicate things, don’t they?”

Merlin stands up. He doesn’t realise he has until it’s already done, and four pairs of eyes are aimed at him. He clears his throat, and nods towards the mansion. “I’m just—excuse me. I’m not feeling very well.”

He’s quickly running out of places to flee, he finds, as he makes it upstairs to his bed. It doesn’t feel like his room as much as their room, and his sheets are cold and smell like lavender soap. Merlin hates it a little bit, because if he’d been sleeping in his own bed, as intended, that washed smell would’ve faded by now.

Instead, he’s been spending his nights in Arthur’s arms, despite the lingering heat in the nighttime, and now he feels cold despite the fact it’s still above twenty degrees Celsius. He crawls under his blanket, his head turned away from the door even though he hates lying on his right side like that, and presses his eyes shut.

No one comes in, and Merlin loathes himself for wishing someone would.

~*~

Merlin blinks himself awake, only to be nearly blinded by the sun streaming in his eyes. It falls over Arthur’s bare backside, and he gently kicks his legs in the air as he reads a book on his pillow—the Aeneid, Merlin recognises instantly from the briefest glance at the cover.

“I can’t believe you’re reading that now,” he says, his voice still creaky from sleep, and Arthur blinks up at him.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, and shuts the book without even putting a bookmark in between the pages. Merlin stares at the cover rather than at Arthur, because one is infinitely easier than the other.

Outside, morning beckons, the gentle light falling into his bed. It’s still early enough that the dew would be cool against Merlin’s toes as he walks in the garden, and he could disappear into the shade. He could shut everyone away, and escape whatever Motta Visconti has become.

But Arthur won’t let him.

“You should leave it, Arthur,” Merlin says quietly, and swings his legs over his bed. “It’s not—it’s fine.”

“And let this be just another one of those tragedies you’re so stuck in?” Arthur says, not unkindly. “Merlin, you’re a moron. You said I’d be the first . Now, I’ve waited all evening and night to ask you—the first what?”

Merlin casts his eyes downward. “Come on, Arthur,” he says gently.

"I'm the first person to actually like you," Arthur says pointedly, eyeing him intently. "Or, I suppose, what you really mean is that I'm the first person to see you as you are, and still want you. Which, admittedly, Merlin, I have a hard time believing. I've got another theory, if you're interested in hearing it."

“Oh, of course you do,” Merlin scoffs, although his heart lurches at Arthur’s words, and it’s all he can do to meet Arthur’s gaze. “What’s that, then?”

“That you’re too much of a moron to notice,” Arthur says, and then tilts his head up, as if to send a quick prayer to the gods. He gets off his bed, nearly jumping to his feet, and holds out his hand to Merlin. “I’ve got to show you something.”

“Arthur,” Merlin murmurs, and draws his knees up to his body. He isn’t even sure what he is protesting, just that he is. Arthur doesn’t let it go, though, and clambers on top of him. With everything that’s been said and done, Merlin isn’t sure how to respond. He stares blankly at Arthur, whose grin shouldn’t be so familiar.

“Merlin,” Arthur returns, and kisses his jaw. “Won’t you let me show you? I’ll get you ice cream, afterwards, in town. Strawberry.”

Merlin has become far too used to Arthur in a short time, but this still feels alien to him in another way; all this languishing in bed, his legs and Arthur’s tangled in Merlin’s sheets, and Arthur’s lips dragging over Merlin’s day-old stubble. His heart beats fast, and he runs a hand over the soft, blond hairs of Arthur’s arm, as if he can’t decide whether to push him away or pull him in.

“You can’t bribe me,” he whispers.

“Oh, believe me,” Arthur says lazily, and stretches all the way over Merlin’s body. “I do believe I can. I’m your host, Merlin, and as such, you are legally required to listen to me.”

“Oh, right,” Merlin murmurs. “Is that under Italian law, or British?”

“British, clearly,” Arthur says, and kisses him. Merlin goes pliant under him, pressing his eyes closed; if he just focuses on the feel of Arthur on top of him, perhaps he can tuck this sensation away in his memory, and he will never forget the press of Arthur’s body against his own, the sunlight covering them in a blanket of warmth.

“Arthur,” Merlin says, when Arthur’s hands start wandering. “I’m not—fine, fine, consider me bribed, you overgrown child. Strawberry ice cream it is.”

“Wonderful.” Arthur wastes no time in squeezing Merlin’s thigh and hauling himself out of bed. Merlin knows he’s the one who put a stop to it, but still he misses the intimate warmth of him immediately, and then Arthur grabs his arm and hoists him up, too.

Merlin is immediately treated to the sight of the graceful arch of Arthur’s naked back as Arthur grabs his clothes—and Merlin’s, in the process, throwing them at his head before Merlin can even duck. Merlin knows the intimacy of undressing, of course, and of kicking off your trousers and breathing each other’s breath between taking off each other’s shirts, but watching Arthur dress still sends another thrill of fondness through him.

“Where are we going? ” Merlin asks pointedly.

“Didn’t Morgana tell you?” Arthur says. “The only place I know to take someone, apparently.”

~*~

There is something timeless about the orange field, Merlin has decided, as the blades of grass tickle his ears. Arthur lies half on top of him, and half with his nose in the Italian version of the Aeneid. Merlin looks at the spots of orange fruit in the trees and lets Arthur’s voice wash over him, even if he’s long lost track of the story in a language he barely speaks.

“You’re not paying attention, are you?” Arthur murmurs, just as Merlin closes his eyes.

“Of course I am,” Merlin protests, and at Arthur’s raised eyebrows, he shrugs and adds, “Well, paying attention to you. If not the story. Didn’t I tell you my Italian’s rubbish?”

“More than just your Italian, clearly,” Arthur says, and closes the book with a flourish only to burrow his nose in Merlin’s throat. “You’re not being very appreciative of my attention, Merlin.”

“I’m plenty appreciative,” Merlin says, and pats Arthur’s hair. “You’re just also sweaty.”

Arthur lazily swats at him, and Merlin laughs. They’ve found a nice place in the shade, and even if Merlin still feels like he’s about to have a heatstroke and may have lost his sanity, it’s nice. He’s not wondering what Arthur means, at least—or maybe he’s convinced that Arthur, who is so blunt those rare times he actually says what he means, doesn’t mean badly after all.

Maybe it means that Merlin just needs to be here.

“You do know,” Arthur murmurs, when Merlin had nearly thought him asleep, “that you’re a bit impossible, don’t you, Merlin?”

“I don’t,” Merlin says.

“I've never met anyone who sees the world the way that you do," Arthur says, and taps the Aeneid lazily. “As if the passing of time is optional, or just not very important. My father always wanted me to focus on the future, so I suppose it didn't make sense to me at first.”

Merlin hums. “I'm an open book.”

“Written in Latin,” Arthur finishes for him, and kisses his shoulder. “I don’t think I'll ever fathom you out, but sometimes I think... I understand you better than I've ever understood anything else.”

“You know,” Merlin says. “I think you are very kind, and not necessarily nice. Or you are, but not when you don't want people to know. And you clearly didn't want me to know. I didn't see that at first, but I do now. I understand you better than I've ever understood anything else, too.”

“You just like to compare me to Aeneas,” Arthur says grumpily.

“Maybe I've seen your type before,” Merlin murmurs, and brushes a hand over where Arthur's blond hair sticks to his forehead. “You have that spark in you that I've spent my whole life reading about—that spark that wins wars and fights for a better world for everyone. That makes you willing to weather any storm to attain your ambitions. I can recognise it beyond the stories. Or,” he adds more lightheartedly, “perhaps it was just a lucky guess.”

“I’m sure,” Arthur says, and gets up for another orange. Merlin watches the strong lines of him, the openness of his face, and can’t help close his eyes before Arthur comes back. Not to commit it to memory, this time, but to see the faint figure of Arthur against the red, warm vision that comes from having the sun out when you close your eyes. “And I don’t mind, you know,” he adds, sounding a little smug. “Being the first. In case you thought I would. In fact, I think it’s a little romantic, if I dare say so.”

“You’re not so bad,” Merlin says, his eyes still pressed closed, and adds, “For a prat, that is.”

“I’ll cherish those words forever,” Arthur says dryly, and Merlin feels rather than sees him sit down next to him, Arthur’s breezy trousers soft against Merlin’s skin. Then something cool presses against his lips, and Arthur tells him, “open up, then, and I’ll sweeten the deal for you,” and pops in an orange segment.

And it tastes like summer.

~*~

“Oh, sorted it out, have you?” Morgana says when they’re hurrying back to be in time for dinner, and Arthur grunts something vaguely rude at her, and Merlin flushes darkly and pretends it’s just from the sun when Ygraine fusses over how red he is. 

But it’s all rather lovely, as things go. Morgana is still pointed in her remarks to Uther, but maybe Motta Visconti has mellowed her out a bit, because she kisses Arthur’s cheek and pats Merlin’s shoulder when she excuses herself later, and asks them to come along with her to town the day after, to go to the market. Ygraine excuses Merlin from his duties before he’s even had the time to ask, and by the pleased look in her eyes, it’s clear that she really doesn’t mind.

It means they have to get up early in the morning so they can buy the sweetest fruits and the freshest vegetables, but that’s alright with Merlin, because he gets to see the morning sun spill over Arthur’s hair, and he gets to entangle their fingers to squeeze Arthur’s hand when he threatens to fall asleep in the car. He doesn’t even mind Morgana’s knowing smirk, and just shrugs when she raises a solitary eyebrow at him.

“You know,” she says, and casts a look at the backseat to look at Arthur, clearly halfway to dozing or at least nowhere near conscious enough to pay attention to her, “I am sorry about what I said the other day. Even if I was right.”

She’s clearly just as skilled at apologising as Arthur is, Merlin considers. “And why did you say it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says off-handedly, but tilts her head away from him to look in the side-view mirror. “I hadn’t seen Arthur in such a long time, but I’ve seen this song and dance from him before. Perhaps I was trying to protect him from yet another ill-advised holiday romance.”

“Or perhaps you were feeling a little vicious,” he responds dryly. She’s like a cat with claws, Morgana, hissing and clawing at anyone who comes too near. 

“Oh, I do like you,” is all she says to that. “Perhaps I was, yes. It’s a complicated family, Merlin, and if I’d met you before you came to Motta Visconti, I’d have advised you to keep the North Sea between yourself and the Pendragon family in their full force.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Merlin says, and dares to risk a glance at Arthur, his hair a mess, pressed as it is against the cold car window. Merlin leans forward, his elbows on the front car seats to get closer to Morgana. “I think it’s mostly Uther that you have a problem with, and I can’t fault you for that, honestly, after what I’ve heard of him. But you do know Arthur is standing up to him in his own way, don’t you? And for all of Uther’s faults, he loves the two of you.”

Morgana makes a dismissive noise. “Arthur’s his son, and he’s always thought the sun shone out of Uther’s arse,” she says. “He studies whatever Uther wants him to, in the university Uther picked for him, and most of his friends are sons of Uther’s associates. Believe me, Merlin, Arthur may not be Uther, not in the ways that matter most—but he’s still awfully close to it, in some aspects.”

Merlin leans back, thinking back on the new phone Arthur bought. Morgana has been away from home too long, but he won’t be the one to tell her that. She’ll learn by herself, and Merlin rues it a little bit that he won’t get to be there when she does.

“You’ll see,” he says, and pokes Arthur in the thigh again to wake him up.

~*~

Arthur comes to join him on the roof when Merlin’s been reading for five minutes, squinting down at the page in the sparse moonlight. For once, it’s cloudy enough that he can’t read at night, and he silently mouths the words to himself as he runs his finger past them in an attempt to figure out the letters.

“You’re going to need glasses,” Arthur says.

“I already wear contact lenses,” Merlin tells him, and raises his eyebrows when he sees what’s between Arthur’s fingers. “And that is a dozen times more unhealthy than reading in the dark.”

“Only a dozen?” Arthur asks lightly, and puts the cigarette between his lips. He settles in next to Merlin and holds a lighter to the end of it. Slowly, it starts smouldering, and Arthur takes a puff. “Morgana’s going to be so mad when she figures out I’ve stolen her stash.”

“All of it?” Merlin repeats, and Arthur wiggles his nose and offers him the cigarette. Merlin huffs out a laugh and takes it. “You know, I hadn’t tried smoking in years before you offered me that cigarette a couple of weeks ago.”

“It’s a horrible habit,” Arthur says. “She should be glad I’m trying to rid her of it.”

Merlin coughs on both a laugh and the smoke, and Arthur steals the cigarette from between his lips. Merlin likes this side of him in the night, a little softer, a little less that perfect golden boy he is during the day; quieter and more content with life, as if he’s not pretending to be something he’s not. He blows out a ring, and eyes Merlin very smugly, as if they’d entered some competition Merlin didn't know about.

“Is that what they teach you in uni?” Merlin asks dryly, and jostles his shoulder against Arthur’s as he finally puts down the Aeneid between his legs; it almost glides off the roof as they lean against the dark red tiles, but he presses it between his thighs before it actually does fall down.

That would be a little hard to explain, he wagers.

“I wouldn’t know,” Arthur says. “Not in my classes, at least. They’re all frightfully dull.”

“And going into politics isn’t?”

Arthur shrugs. “It means something. Like your stories.”

Merlin glances away, if only because he can’t blame his red cheeks on the sun this time. He’s managed to tan, the slightest bit, although he’s sure it will fade away within a day of his return to London.

“When are you going to tell them?” he asks instead, and watches the smoke drift out of Arthur’s mouth. He’ll be impossible to kiss like that, Merlin knows, just as well as he knows that he’ll kiss him anyway, despite the horrid taste. “That you’ve changed degrees, I mean?”

“Oh, hopefully not until they start asking about when I’m graduating, and I’ll have to explain that it’ll take several more years,” Arthur murmurs, and closes his eyes. He leans his head back, and Merlin can see the pale stretch of his neck, strong and gently curved. Arthur takes the cigarette from his mouth, and it lingers between his fingers, embers slowly drifting down. Merlin takes it from him, hands touching as he does so, and scrunches up his nose at the awful taste in his mouth. “Probably earlier, though. It’ll be a bit awkward if my mum comes to visit and she drives all the way down to Oxford only to figure out I’m in London.”

Merlin coughs loudly. “London?”

“You’re truly horrible at that,” Arthur says easily, and fishes the cigarette out of Merlin’s mouth to put it out. He flicks it down into the gravel. “Yes, London. I won’t run into Mother too often, probably, since she’s in another faculty entirely.”

Merlin swallows hard, his tongue dry. “I didn’t know you were switching universities.”

At that, Arthur stills. He turns towards Merlin, an incredulous look on his face. “I didn’t mention it?”

“No!”

“Oh.” He blinks, biting the inside of his cheek. “Well, now I have.”

The distance between Oxford and London is not so insurmountable, but truth to be told, Merlin hadn’t even imagined Arthur as a reachable entity in England. Arthur seems to belong to Italy’s golden sun and its sweet oranges; to the blades of grass pricking your back and the birds chirping in the early mornings; to the chlorine of swimming pools and to barefoot walks.

Or perhaps that is just this holiday, Merlin thinks, and feels a little lightheaded at the thought of Arthur in London—as if that’s truly stranger than the thought that he’d never get to see Arthur again, the way he’d assumed it would be, all this time, without even realising it.

“Right,” he says, and his voice sounds far away. “Alright.”

“Is it?” Arthur asks carefully.

Merlin shrugs, trying not to let the fragile hope spill out. “Why wouldn’t it be?” Even to himself, the casual tone sounds wobbly. “You’ll be in London, and you’ll study—what will you study?”

“Politics and International Relations,” Arthur says.

“Right, you’ll do that, and I’ll be doing my PhD for another three years,” Merlin says, and waves vaguely at the sky, “and we’ll both be in London, and that’s—not a problem, of course. Maybe I can… show you around, if you want.”

In London, Merlin thinks to himself giddily, because obviously Arthur isn’t familiar with their capital city at all. 

“Perhaps you can,” Arthur echoes, and adds, “you truly are a moron, aren’t you, Merlin? Yes. You can show me around, and I expect a tour of your apartment to be included as well, obviously.”

Merlin lets out a shaky laugh, feeling far lighter.

~*~

Morgana sticks around for four days before she returns to Paris. They develop a tentative friendship in that time, where she’ll make fun of Arthur and Merlin will join in; but they don’t mention that first day, and Arthur doesn’t actually seem to mind it when they team up against him.

Besides, Merlin always makes it up to him at night, their fingers tangled together and Arthur’s breath almost unbearably hot on Merlin’s skin; and in the mornings, they share half of an orange, and Arthur smiles at him like it’s a secret, and they always taste so sweet on Merlin’s tongue that he’s not sure he can bear it.

When Morgana leaves, it’s with a hug and three kisses on his cheeks—à la parisienne, as she calls it—and a promise to come visit him in London next time she’s there. She’s even wrangled Gwen’s number from his phone, for reasons only she knows; all in all, Merlin just shakes his head at her and stops trying to understand.

Merlin only has a few days left in Motta Visconti himself, when she’s gone.

~*~

“Oh, Merlin,” Ygraine says, waving him over to look at the stack of papers she has in front of her. “Will you get these sorted for me? I think these must be the last of the unfiled research proposals—oh, it’s such a mess, I’ll be so glad to have everything digitised—”

“I think that may be the last of everything,” Merlin says, a little wistfully. “I’ve been through all the theses and dissertations, and they’re all scanned and sorted now, and the papers are sorted by author in the cabinets.”

“You’ve done a marvellous job,” Ygraine declares, and grabs his shoulder to kiss his cheeks. “I’m very glad to have had you over the past few weeks, dear Merlin. You’re an angel.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he says, awkwardly.

“No, it’s not nothing,” she says, and gives him a meaningful look. “Not just with this, either. Arthur has been so much calmer with you here. I’m so glad the two of you hit it off—I’ll admit, I had my doubts, because Arthur’s a lovely boy but he so rarely seems to make genuine friends—”

“He’s been very kind,” Merlin says, and tries to keep his blush at bay as he thinks back to Arthur’s arm slung over Merlin’s chest this morning, and the way Arthur had burrowed his nose into Merlin’s neck as his strong fingers had dug into Merlin’s legs. He has been kind, of course it’s true, but there’s more to it.

Ygraine just smiles. “Perhaps you can come by next year as well,” she says. “Oh—if you don’t have any summer plans of your own, of course. And I won’t have any work, but you’re always very welcome to come back, Merlin. The house is going to feel empty without you, these last few weeks!”

Merlin just smiles and grabs the final stack of papers. Most of them include the same information, all the drudgeries of PhD proposals and research ideas and grant requests; dozens of would-be researchers have written their proposals in hopes of receiving a grant, and most of them have been turned down. Most of these have never even been turned in, and Merlin feels nostalgic as he thinks back on the painstaking way he’d pored over his own research proposal when he’d applied for a PhD.

And now he’s here. He wonders what the future holds, suddenly; if he’ll have his own overflowing stack of papers, in fifteen or twenty years, and his own PhD student helping him sort everything that he’s managed to accumulate over all that time. 

And he grins at the thought of it.

~*~

“I can’t believe I’ve never met her,” Merlin says, gesturing at the orange trees.

“Who?” Arthur mutters into Merlin’s arm, half-asleep in the warmth. Merlin insisted on bringing towels to lie on, this time, because he doesn’t want to have grass stains on clothes that he’ll have to wash himself in London—he’s pretty sure his brand of laundry detergent isn’t strong enough to get it all out.

“Annis,” Merlin says. “Isn’t she the one who owns the trees?”

“Oh.” That seems to wake Arthur up, because he lifts his head to look at Merlin. The creases of Merlin’s linen button-up are pressed on his face, and Merlin smiles fondly at the sight of them. “It’s a bit of a joke, really. Annis was the woman who lived here years ago, but she left the orchard to the town when she passed away. Everyone can come here to pick the oranges—they don’t belong to anyone.”

Merlin blinks. “Oh.”

“Did you think I was stealing for you?” Arthur murmurs, and smirks shouldn’t be allowed to be so beautiful on anyone’s face. He runs his fingers past Merlin’s jaw, and kisses his nose gently. “I’m to be a politician, Merlin. I can’t have that on my record, or surely I’ll do as badly as my father does.”

“Not if it’s stealing for a noble cause,” Merlin tells him, and leans on his elbow. “Stealing for your hungry guest, that is.”

Arthur’s smile fades. “For one more day.”

Merlin can tell himself that Arthur will be in London all he likes; they still haven’t discussed much beyond this one summer, the one month that Merlin has managed to steal away with him. They have made this world their own for the moment, and Merlin likes it that way—likes that Arthur and he are so intently focused on what they have now that they barely think about all that has gone by, or all that comes next. They have met perfectly in the middle, but afterwards is looming, and it makes Merlin all the more aware of how the summer is slipping from their grasp, slithery and smooth.

“You can bring me to the train,” Merlin murmurs, and runs his thumb over Arthur’s lips before he kisses him. “It’s another day. I have the evening flight back to London—I swear, I’m not leaving a moment before I have to.”

“I can bring you to the airport in Milan,” Arthur offers.

“You can’t drive,” Merlin reminds him, with a whiff of humour. “Do you really want your mother there, lovely as she is?”

Arthur rolls his eyes, and cradles the back of Merlin’s neck to press him closer, kissing him intently. It’s still as sweetly mesmerising as that first kiss, the one that Merlin never saw coming. He thinks he’ll never get used to it; Arthur’s focus is a dizzying thing to be under, and that’s not even counting when Merlin is under him, hands and hips and mouth all involved.

“Fine,” Arthur murmurs against him. “I’ll bring you to the train.”

Merlin smiles faintly, and doesn’t want to think about the next day. “I’ll read the Italian Aeneid,” he says, “and practise the language.”

“Good, because you sound horrid,” Arthur tells him. “For someone who studies classical languages, one would think you’d have more appreciation for a language descended from them and not butcher it so badly.”

“Italian isn’t derived from Classical Latin,” Merlin says, and presses his eyes closed, settling deeper into Arthur’s embrace as if it’ll allow him to stay there forever. “Mi mancherai.”

Arthur swallows; Merlin can feel the movement of his Adam’s apple, and keeps his eyes pressed closed, focusing on the warmth of Arthur under his hands. He has no idea what Arthur will be to him in England, or if things will be the same when they don’t have an orange orchard to laze around in.

It’s a little terrifying, but at least Merlin thinks he’d like to face it head-on.

“I’ll miss you too, Merlin,” Arthur murmurs, kissing him so intently that Merlin’s toes curl, and he lets himself fall into Arthur’s arms.

~*~

Merlin has spent most of his mornings in Arthur’s bed, perfectly content to wake up before him and stare at his crooked nose, the tiny freckles dotting Arthur’s cheeks, the gentle arch of his eyebrows. Merlin has never been an artist, but he's committed Arthur to memory. He clings to each moment Arthur's lips are pressed against his own, every brush of Arthur's fingers against Merlin's thighs, unwilling to forget any of it. Merlin can't allow himself to dream of any future yet, still getting used to the sensation of having something to dream of, but he has this. If nothing else, he will always have this Arthur, murmuring in his sleep in fractions of Italian or English, the words pressed to Merlin's skin.

He had halfway expected it to be that way for their final morning. Then again, he’d spent most of the night with Arthur, neither of them willing to end their final day, and Merlin’s heart aches sweetly at the thought of Arthur’s intent adoration. They had spent half their night talking, and the other half unable to find words at all—instead, they’d been nearly frantic with the need to touch and feel and be as close to each other as they could possibly be. Merlin has bruises in the shape of Arthur’s fingers on his hips, and it is the best possible souvenir he could be taking back to England.

So he wakes up late with Arthur’s arms curled around him; and with a sudden shock, as Ygraine knocks on the door, gentler but somehow more jarring than any alarm clock. “Merlin!” she calls through the door, muted but concerned. “Your train is leaving in an hour. Are you awake?”

“Oh, shit,” Merlin curses, and Arthur startles awake, looking more disoriented than anything.

“What?”

“I need to go,” Merlin says, and hoists himself out of Arthur’s bed. The room is a bit of a mess still, mostly because every time Merlin tried to pack, Arthur had insisted on dragging him back into bed. Fortunately he doesn’t have that much, and Arthur doesn’t stop him this time when Merlin near-throws his clothes in the suitcase he’s brought.

“Go and eat,” Arthur says, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll pack your things for you—no, don’t protest, you moron, I can have breakfast when I come back.” Without you, he means, and neither of them say it. 

“I need—” Merlin says, and fumbles around for his clothes on the floor. His shirt is grass-stained from Annis’ orchard, and he frowns at it before he haphazardly throws it towards his suitcase. “I need something to wear—”

“Here, take mine.” Arthur has slung his legs out of the bed and takes his white button-up, throwing it at Merlin. “I’ll come back for it eventually.”

It smells like Arthur when Merlin wrestles it over his head, and he can’t even protest. It’s far too big on him, and he peers uncertainly at Arthur for a second. “Are you sure—I can—”

“Merlin, hurry,” Arthur reminds him, and pushes at Merlin’s shoulders. “Put on some pants and I’ll get your things.”

“The Aeneid in my backpack,” Merlin tells him, and Arthur just says, “Yes, yes, I’m very aware, Merlin, now go eat before you’re subjected to plane food,” and Merlin flies down the stairs, all while attempting to tame his hair into something more manageable. Ygraine has already set a plate for him, and Uther raises a single eyebrow as Merlin scarfs down the freshly-baked bread without the appreciation it deserves.

Then he’s up the stairs again, and Arthur wordlessly hands him his backpack while he carries Merlin’s suitcase with one hand, because Merlin’s belongings are few and none of them heavy to carry. Arthur just smiles wryly at him when he sets it down by the door.

Merlin swallows heavily. It’s time to leave Motta Visconti, and he’s not sure he’s ready to turn the present into the past quite yet.

“Oh, Merlin,” Ygraine says, and hugs him like his own mother does. “You were a joy to have in our house. Let us know when you land in England, won’t you? And I’ll see you back in London when term starts.”

“Thank you for having me,” he says through the lump in his throat, and hugs her back fiercely. She pats his back kindly, and Merlin exhales.

“Yes, well,” Uther says, and just nods at him. “Have a safe trip, Wyllt.”

“I will,” he murmurs.

“We’ve got to go,” Arthur says, scowling down at his watch. He grabs Merlin’s shoulder and drags him out the door, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back!” Merlin waves vaguely at Ygraine before she disappears from view, and then it’s just the morning sun and Arthur both bearing down on him.

“You’ve got the car keys?” Merlin asks. Arthur wordlessly hands them over. They’ve already thought about how to do this—Merlin will drive them there, and Arthur has some friends in town that can drive him back, or else he’ll spend the morning there and wait for his mother to meet him there on her bike and swap vehicles. There really is no way that Arthur would have agreed to anyone else dropping Merlin off.

They’re quiet, and only the engine and the grinding sound of gravel under the car’s wheels fill the fifteen-minute drive to the train station. Merlin wants to find the right words to say every few seconds, and chokes on them even as he tries. July has become early August, and Merlin rolls down the window to feel the breeze as they fly past Motta Visconti.

Arthur’s hand slides warm onto Merlin’s knee, and stays there for the entire drive. That is, right until, four minutes away from the station, the car stalls and sputters off.

“What is it?” Arthur asks, frowning at the wheel. “Are you out of petrol?”

“No,” Merlin protests, and checks all the lights before he throws up his hands in frustration. “It’s still half-full. None of the warnings are blinking, either!”

“Hang on, we’ll need to call a mechanic,” Arthur says sensibly.

Merlin leans his head back. “We don’t have time for one,” he says. “I’ll miss my train if we wait for them—shit, it’s leaving in fifteen minutes—”

“We’ll have to run,” Arthur tells him, and without hesitation, steps out of the car to grab Merlin’s suitcase. Merlin stares at him, incredulously, until Arthur says, “What other way do you propose where we’ll get there in time? Get off your lazy bum, Merlin, let’s run—”

Merlin runs a hand over his face. If he thought he was already sweaty and dehydrated, he’s surely in for a fun trip now—and there goes the romantic farewell, the final kiss Merlin had been hoping to steal. Not that it matters.

Arthur jogs in front of him, carrying the suitcase, while Merlin struggles with the backpack. The train is already standing ready at the platform when they finally get there; Merlin is panting heavily, and his shirt sticks to his back where the backpack sits. 

“Go, go,” Arthur says urgently, and rolls Merlin’s suitcase onto the train. Everyone is already seated, and one of the train conductors is eyeing them with annoyance plain in his expression. Merlin turns back to Arthur, and yanks at his collar to kiss him.

“Arthur,” he says, and can’t help but feel a little desperate. “I just—I don’t want to—”

“I know,” Arthur murmurs, looking harried. “Oh. The car keys. Merlin—”

“Stiamo partendo,” the conductor informs him coolly, and Merlin quickly grabs Ygraine’s car keys from his pocket to hand them to Arthur. He steps into the train, and a wave of cold from the air-conditioned car hits him; unwanted, unlike the way that the air should feel in Motta Visconti.

“Shit,” Merlin says, suddenly remembering one last detail they hadn’t discussed, only because neither of them had liked to linger on the thought of Merlin leaving. “I’ll—you can ask Morgana for my phone number, she should have it, or at least she has Gwen’s and Gwen has mine—”

“Merlin, it’ll be fine,” Arthur says in exasperation, and tips forward to kiss him—and then the doors start to beep to warn that they’re closing. Arthur gently pushes him back, and Merlin stares helplessly at that stupid, familiar face when the doors slam shut right in front of him.

The train starts moving before Merlin has come to grips with it, and he has to lean on the wall to avoid being toppled over by the uneven, sudden shift in weight as the train jerks into motion. He can only see Arthur’s lone figure at the station for a couple of seconds before the distance becomes too great, the shape of him getting smaller and smaller, and then the train curves away.

“Si sieda, per favore,” another member of staff says kindly, and Merlin shakes himself out of his stupor to grab his suitcase and find an empty seat. Most of the train is full, and he sits down next to a kindly-looking Italian man in a pinstriped suit. Merlin still smells of sweat, and it sticks to him, along with the sour taste of his farewell.

But the train moves on, and Merlin watches as they abandon Motta Visconti and make their way towards Milan, the quaint little homes and lush greenery giving way to grey, metal buildings as they approach the city. Merlin presses his eyes closed, and feels oddly foolish for missing him so soon, Arthur and his oranges and his cocky grin and his lilting pronunciation.

It’ll be fine, is what Arthur had said, but Merlin has no way to reach him now, and it doesn’t feel fine, it feels lonely.

He grabs his book instead, because at least he can keep that promise. The yellowed pages are comfortable under his fingers, rough and familiar, and so is the story, even if the language isn’t. 

Subito per la piccola città corre la voce, he reads, che i cavalieri partono in fretta per le mura del re tirreno—a sticky note slips from between the pages, and Merlin blinks as it lands on his leg. He doesn’t understand it, because that certainly doesn’t look anything like his bookmark, and the sun flashes over the bright paper as they race past the trees, making it hard to focus.

Call me, Merlin, it says in Arthur’s flowing handwriting, with his number written boldly and underlined. He stares at it hard and long, because of course Arthur would—Arthur, who’s always thinking about what the future will bring, and who would never leave these things to chance the way that Merlin has. Lovely, practical Arthur.

“Better not lose that, I think,” the man next to him says, and winks knowingly at him. “Important, no?”

“I won’t lose it,” Merlin says, and can’t help but smile as he tucks it back into the Aeneid; Arthur must have known Merlin would pick up his book within five minutes of sitting down.

Nothing of this summer will be lost, if Merlin has any say in it.