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“So,” Arthur begins, leaning back in his chair. He considers Merlin from across the desk, letting the word luxuriate on his tongue. Merlin—who considers himself both wiser and more patient by far than when he came to Camelot all those years ago—braces himself. Waits. The air is heavy with anticipation. “Is it my hair?”
“Ugh,” Merlin groans with great meaning, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. He focuses on the feeling of his chest expanding and tries to pray for patience. At this rate, that twitch at his temple will come back and Gaius will have questions.
“No, no,” Arthur teases, leaning forward fast enough that the front legs of his chair scrape against the stone, “you can tell me, truly. We have a new bond of trust, you and I. Forged in fire, and stronger than ever.”
“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it,” Merlin mutters, eyes still cinched firmly closed. If he can’t see it then it’s not happening.
“Well I would,” Arthur says, and Merlin can hear the smug smile in the shape of the words. “And I am?”
“The king,” Merlin admits, with no small reluctance, despite all the effort it was to get the prat there. “Shall we discuss the magic instead?” It’s sheer desperation that makes him offer, prying one eye open. Arthur is a blurry smear of peach and red, lit up gold through the setting sun through the stained glass. Horrible. Simply horrible.
“No, I think not,” Arthur dismisses. He crosses his arms, tapping a rhythm on his obnoxiously well-shaped bicep. “Lots of girls like my hair,” he says, squinting in faux-concentration.
“Not a girl,” Merlin corrects, letting his eyes slide past Arthur and all of his Arthurness and into some middle distance. Gods damn it all. He should have never left Ealdor. He could be a farmer, he’s sure. Or dead. Whichever.
“Well, no,” Arthur gripes, “but all the same. It’s been remarked upon, is all I mean. Somewhat golden, I suppose, for people who like that sort of thing. Shiny.” He waves a hand in Merlin’s eyeline, waiting for his attention once more before continuing. He grins, wide and open. It’s charming, to Merlin’s eternal dismay. Pinching at his cheeks and crinkling the barely there smile-lines at the corners of his blue, blue eyes. Perilously blue, Merlin has thought, more than once. One made of less stern stuff might drown in them. For how many nights had he feared he might never see this smile again? After everything—the fighting, the magic, the secrets. All of the secrets, big and, well, also big, apparently. “So?”
“So what?” Merlin sighs, unable to deny him.
“Sooo,” Arthur drawls, mischief dripping off every dragging moment of it, “do you like that sort of thing?”
Actually, Merlin reconsiders, he is able to deny him. A pail’s-worth of water spins to life above Arthur’s head at a thought, cold as mountain runoff. It would be so terribly easy.
“Now. Merlin,” Arthur cautions, letting his eyes flicker up just once. Wary. He slides backwards carefully. “I’m just asking questions. Perfectly innocent! After all, how often does a man learn–”
Merlin can feel the heat rush up through his cheeks, and before he can think better of it he drops the water with a splash. Arthur’s yelp is perhaps the most satisfying thing Merlin has heard in years, and he cannot stop the mad cackle that comes up out of him, no matter how manic it sounds.
“Merlin!” Arthur shrieks—but if he wants the guard’s attention he should shout something other than Merlin’s name. They’re all too used to it by now.
“Hm?” Merlin feigns deafness. “Wats’it?”
“Dry me off, you idiot!” Arthur plucks furiously at his wet tunic, and perhaps Merlin hadn’t truly thought this through after all. Little drops of clear water cling to rosy skin for dear life, much like Merlin tries to cling to his sanity. Which is to say, not very well. Arthur usually looks fair, is the thing, and it’s plain unjust that he should somehow look all the fairer after he’s been doused like a drunk who doesn’t know when to go home. His cheeks are as flushed as Merlin’s certainly are, and his wet tunic plasters to each and every hard-earned curve of muscle. “Right now!”
“Fine,” Merlin says blithely, relying on his years worth of experience of lying to carry him. It's a trial, but he's been through worse. A warm gust of wind does the work, with enough force behind it that Arthur sputters, hair floofing every which way. He looks more like a wayward dandelion than a king, Merlin thinks, clapping a hand over his own mouth. Whether he means to coo over Arthur or laugh at him is a mystery he is not ready to have solved.
“I’ll just… uhm, be going then,” he says, gesturing to the door. A mess lies between, the room nearly turned over. A mess for future-Merlin, though, not for this one.
“Don’t you dare,” Arthur fumes, dragging a hand through his hair.
It doesn’t help.
“Tomorrow, then,” Merlin shouts over him, leaping over the pillows that the wind has knocked off of the bed. He almost trips twice, but he’s through the door and sprinting down the hall before Arthur can catch him, which is really the best he can hope for at this point.
***
Merlin knows better than to think he’s safe. He’s not stupid.
All through the next morning, Arthur is mercifully calm. He breaks his fast, not even saying a word about the clear empty spot on his plate or the crumbs on Merlin's lips. He’s dressed without so much as a cutting word or a suspicious look, and Merlin spares a thought to be grateful that Arthur is not any different now that he knows the truth. Not many lords, Merlin thinks, would be.
In many ways, things are the same as ever.
It’s only… Well, back when Merlin still had things like secrets, or privacy, or self-respect, he would have thought that of the secrets, the magic would have been the one to truly catch Arthur’s interest. That is not to say it had not caught it at all. They’d certainly talked about it. Shouted about it. No few tears were shed, although neither of them is likely to go on admitting it any time soon.
But no. It’s the other secret that Arthur picks and plucks at. Twists about like a prize he is not ready to set down, fascinated by it. It’s been weeks now, and still he does not tire of his new game.
Merlin is glad for it, mostly. It means Arthur’s not afraid of him, or indeed feeling any other sort of emotions that Merlin is entirely unwilling to examine.
In principle, he's not the sort of person who thinks it should be a secret at all.
Love, that is.
And yet.
This morning, after Merlin’s as-of-yet unmentioned rebellious dampening of the royal personage, has Arthur’s nose in the air, an aura of put-upon dignity about him. They circle the training yard, which offers some level of protection from public humiliation, to Merlin’s mind. Even Arthur has his limits. Probably.
“I have decided to ignore your gross incompetence,” the king says, walking ahead. His hands are clasped behind his back, and it makes his shoulders look especially broad and well-formed. Merlin has begun to suspect Arthur knows it, and is doing it on purpose, although he has no proof other than Arthur’s general tendency to be a horse’s arse. Perhaps it’s hereditary.
“My lord is magnanimous.” Merlin rolls his eyes.
“If,” Arthur goes on as though Merlin has not spoken, “you tell me–”
“Oh,” Merlin interrupts, lying, “is that Leon?”
“No.” Arthur sieges on, not fooled for an instant. “Come on then, buck up. It’s not that hard of a question. Eyes? Is it my eyes? They are quite soulful, if I don’t say so myself. Sword arm?” He turns to look at Merlin properly and flexes—it takes every withering bit of Merlin’s feeble willpower not to look. Alright, he looks. Just a bit. Anyone would, he reckons. “No shame in it. It’s a good sword arm,” Arthur cajoles him.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” Merlin sniffs. “Maybe you should ask Percival?”
Arthur stops in his tracks, jaw dropping. “Excuse me?” he exclaims. “Percival? Percival?”
“What about him?” Merlin asks, busying himself with looking at the sky. He scratches the back of his head for good measure, and thinks about how nice it must be to be a bird, and thus able to fly away from this conversation.
“Nothing,” Arthur snorts. As sullen and bratty as a child—and Merlin should not find it endearing, not in the slightest. Yet here they are. Arthur can barely hold his tongue for a moment in the face of such outrage. “I mean,” he defends himself in a rush, “I’ve beaten him the past dozen times we’ve sparred, of course, but that’s hardly a reflection upon him.”
“It’s one on you, then, is it?” Merlin asks, fighting his smile down—unsuccessfully, as ever.
“Of course!” Arthur shoves him, gleeful as he darts away, an invitation written across his face. He jumps from foot to foot, goading Merlin forwards. “I’ll prove it!”
“Not on your life!” Merlin denies him, turning with a laugh.
“Afraid of losing?” Arthur taunts, darting a hand out, testing the waters.
Merlin leaps back with a yell, delighted in spite of all better sense. “Yes!” he admits without shame. It’s all for nought, anyway, for he only makes it two steps before Arthur catches him, his boots sliding out from underneath him on the dewy grass.
“Coward!” Arthur reels Merlin in by the collar and crows in victory as he does, pinning Merlin’s arms to his side and mussing his hair with enough force to rattle his teeth inside his head.
“Quit it!” he yowls, caught fast under the weight of Arthur’s arm. He twists, he elbows, he pinches; but he’s still only set free once Arthur has proved his point.
“Well?” Arthur asks after he’s set Merlin free, breathless. He’s beaming again, thrilled with himself as he always is.
“Well what?” Merlin pats down his hair, catching his breath. His chest hitches with muffled laughter, the sun bright in his eyes and warm on his skin. He can endure any amount of teasing, he thinks, on days like this.
“You know full well ‘what’,” Arthur claims. He flings an arm over Merlin’s shoulders, dragging him further along the well-trod path. In many things, Merlin struggles to deny Arthur—this conversation, however, is not one of them. He keeps his silence well, letting all of his king’s harping and prodding roll off of him like so much hot air.
Thankfully a king typically has duties other than tormenting his magical manservant. Well, thankfully for Merlin, at least. He makes his escape after barely any pestering, finding refuge at the back of the great hall as Arthur hears out all comers.
It’s almost worse than the wet tunic, honestly.
Arthur has grown. Far more impressive than the shape of his arms or the breadth of his shoulders is that he’s become a king without equal. A notion Merlin had not even believed was possible when he first came to Camelot. For a fair while after that, too, all things honest.
Kings were only to be endured, never loved.
The hall is filled with people, the voices of farmers mingling with those of lords in a pleasant, easy din. Banners from far and wide, swaths of red and gold on knights, noble of character before birth. Merlin is stunned senseless by it all, sometimes. That they had fumbled their way here at all.
Arthur, at last where he belongs. A king like no other.
Merlin lets himself lean back, finding a moment of quiet in the shadow of the throne. The wood smells of the varnish that George is forever haranguing the rest of the staff about. A sweetness sticking in the summer air. The edge of a hanging banner is beginning to fray, and Merlin idly rubs his thumb across it, mending it with a thought, letting the sound of Arthur’s voice roll over him all the while. A balm in the familiarity of it all.
A look is thrown over Arthur’s shoulder, seeking—and catching—Merlin’s eye. Out of sight, it seems, but not out of mind. He mirrors Arthur’s smile with one of his own, held captive more utterly than cold iron could ever aspire to do.
The court lasts the afternoon through, the light dimming and the room growing quieter. One of the younger serving boys goes round the hall in a lazy loop lighting the candles, and Merlin hides a yawn behind his hand.
“I’ll eat in my rooms,” Arthur says, after the last man has gone, footsteps still echoing off the walls. He stretches, rubbing the back of his neck, spent like he’s had a day of battle rather than one of court. “You too.”
“I’m not hungry,” Merlin tries, though his growling stomach gives him away. It’s hardly his fault—the king’s fare is better than anyone else's, and Merlin has grown spoiled over the years due to a mix of his own thieving and Arthur’s increasing willingness to turn a blind eye to it the older they get.
“Hah,” Arthur scoffs. “The day you aren’t–”
“I’m not that bad,” Merlin defends, nobly ignoring the disbelieving laugh it earns.
“You are.” Arthur wrinkles his nose as he eyes Merlin head to toe. “Somehow, beanpole. Hollow legs, that's the only explanation.”
“You’d know, I suppose, hollow-headed as you are,” he tuts, ducking under Arthur’s swatting hands before breaking away to the kitchens.
“I want that capon thing,” Arthur shouts after him. “That one from the thing with that fellow! You know the one!”
“No promises!” Merlin shouts back, knowing better than to make any bets on what the cook will have at this hour, especially if it’s Merlin doing the asking; regardless of who he is asking for.
“And then we can talk!” Arthur calls, far enough away that Merlin probably can’t get away with shouting back a second time, especially not loaded down with all of the various vulgarities he has learned from the knights over the years, which are manyfold and colourful.
“I hope you like going hungry,” Merlin promises under his breath, even if he’s the only one to hear it. He’s going to eat two dinners tonight, so help them both. Vengeance shall be his. It’s only fair, when Merlin’s suffering is so great. “I'll be eating your dinners for the rest of your life.”
Striding through the hallways, even by his lonesome, Merlin can admit that he sounds twice as fond as he does vengeful. He clears his throat, and hopes his flush calms down before Cook sees it.
***
“Is it my smile?” Arthur asks around a full mouth of food.
“It’s certainly not your manners,” Merlin informs him. They’re sat at Arthur’s table, half a kingdom’s worth of paperwork piled up to the side where it’s marginally safer than in either of their paths. Merlin has always heard that no one eats more than growing boys, but he supposes the people who say that have never met either of them.
“Because yours are so refined?” Arthur throws a carrot, and seeing as how he’s been training to kill since birth, it hits Merlin in the middle of the forehead. As fine a use of his talents as any, Merlin supposes.
He crosses his eyes to look, just to make Arthur laugh.
Once the bath has been filled—a far, far easier task with magic than with buckets—Arthur strips. Merlin has gotten good at this bit over the years, the turning and twisting just so, keeping his back to his king until the water has settled. Eyes lowered. Respectful-like.
“Is it my–”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Merlin cautions him before he can really get started, a warning in the words. “We’re not doing this.”
“What?” Arthur huffs, as if he doesn’t know.
“Not now, come on, have a little decency! It’s been weeks; when will you let it go? It can’t be the first time someone’s felt a-a–” Merlin cannot even finish the sentence. They both know, so why must he still be tormented? All of his earlier mercy dries up like Gaius’s herbs, curling in on itself and withering to dust.
“A?” Arthur asks, innocent as a newborn babe. “A what?”
“You know what!” Merlin lobs a balled-up tunic at Arthur’s fat head, for all the good it does. Just another thing to wash. “Why do you need to hear it so badly?!”
“It’s,” Arthur fumbles for an explanation, seeking and not finding. “Listen, it’s not a big deal. Lots of girls feel a–”
“Still not a girl!” Merlin shouts, deciding that if any situation warrants boot-throwing, this one does. If it helps him ignore the embarrassment curling up his spine and pounding in his skull, all the better. Hard for Merlin to be embarrassed when Arthur dies in his bathtub, which is clearly far more embarrassing—and only one will be recorded in the history books.
Perhaps Merlin will even learn to draw, so that there might be an illustration of it to go along.
“Hey!” Arthur ducks, the water in the bath sloshing over onto the stones. By the time he’s resurfaced Merlin is once more armed, the second and last boot raised and ready. “That’s enough!”
“Yes, so we agree.” Merlin hefts his ammunition, gauging the distance. He’s hardly as menacing of a throw as Arthur or the other knights are, of course, but it would be hard to miss from here. “That's enough.”
They sit there in the dangerous silence, Arthur watching warily over the rim of the tub, fingers curled over the edges. Merlin, weighing the satisfaction of throwing versus an afternoon in the stocks. It might be worth it.
“I do know you’re not a girl,” Arthur admits, a meagre sort of apology.
Merlin lowers the boot. It’ll have to do, for now. Whatever else Arthur had been intending to say is lost, though, as Merlin avails himself of a quick exit. Even Arthur isn’t shameless enough to chase him through the corridors with the royal bits dangling in the wind.
He can dry himself off this time, the absolute arse.
***
Merlin contemplates not retrieving Arthur’s breakfast the next morning. Contemplates it, and then commits to it.
Bollocks it. Today he shall do nothing. He shall wilt in bed, like the delicate flower he has become, and not think about anything, least of all Arthur, who is a shitheel of the highest order and undeserving of Merlin’s good nature.
It takes perhaps eleven heartbeats before Merlin decides this is a very boring way to live, and then decides instead to curse the whole of Camelot for making him this way. He is too used to juggling crises uncountable to even appreciate a proper lie-in, which is deeply unfair by anyone’s counting.
“Gaius,” he calls out, still laying flat upon his cot with his eyes clamped shut. “Do you have any books on curses?” He considers the question in the quiet that comes after, and thinks he is being unclear. “As in ‘how to cast’, not ‘how to break’?”
His door creaks, and then the floorboards creak after. “Why do you need to curse someone? Should I be concerned?” And because Merlin’s life is a disaster and a mess in all respects—mentally, morally, and also in woodworking—it’s Arthur. Of course it is, because he doesn’t have a lick of mercy or sense in his stupid, pea-sized brain. The edge of Merlin’s cot dips as he comes to sit, leaning on Merlin as though he is nothing more than a pillow there to prop him up. Toad.
“Oh, definitely,” Merlin wheezes, pulling the covers up and over his head. “Seeing as how you deserve a solid cursing more than anyone.”
“Woe be the foes of the mighty sorcerer Merlin,” Arthur says, although Merlin is getting the impression he doesn’t even really mean it. He doesn’t sound remotely terrified. “I don’t suppose I can beg a reprieve?”
“I don’t suppose you deserve one, do you?” Merlin fairly snarls, kicking out as he does; but all he manages is tangling his own legs in his thin sheet. Arthur leans even harder, pinning him in place.
“Sorry,” Arthur says. It would count for a lot more, Merlin thinks, if he didn’t sound so sullen about it.
He sighs, and regrets it, seeing as how he is so thoroughly pinned that it’s hard to get a fresh breath in to replace it. “What for?”
“Hm?” Arthur asks, barely paying attention. He rolls so he’s on Merlin's horrible little cot properly as well, side by side, although there isn’t really space for them both. Hell, there is barely space for Merlin.
“What are you sorry for?”
The sheet is finally tugged off of Merlin’s head, and Arthur does look sorry, is the thing. His eyes are red like he hasn’t slept, and his mouth is twisted down in an unhappy frown. Merlin blinks the sparkles of daylight out of his sleep-muzzy eyes.
“Dunno,” Arthur thinks aloud, which Merlin knows is a struggle for him.
“For teasing me?” he prompts, feeling generous.
“No,” Arthur says easily, and as spitting mad as he is, Merlin cannot help but laugh a little in reply. How very like him. “It’s your laugh.”
“You’re sorry for my laugh?” He jabs two fingers into Arthur’s ribs and twists. “What kind of pillock says something like that?” He twists again. “Clotpole!”
“Ouch!” Arthur yelps, and smacks the criminal hand away. He swallows, and turns his gaze up to the ceiling, a look hanging about his face like a stranger. It’s unnerving enough that Merlin waits, ire cooling as Arthur struggles to speak. “No, I mean. For me. It’s your laugh.”
Merlin is not usually slow, is the thing, no matter what anyone says.
“You’re the worst,” Arthur says, when Merlin doesn’t have a reply. “You know, whenever girls–”
“I’m not a girl!” Merlin flings himself out of the bed—or attempts to. He’s unsuccessful about it, reeled back in like a fish on a line, tangled up under the bedding, and the terrible, wonderful, warm weight of Arthur.
“I know you’re not a girl, damn it!” Arthur presses him down into the bed as if it were a wrestling move on the training yard, one arm across the delicate spread of Merlin’s collarbone and the other clasped over his mouth, so that he can do nothing but listen. “They’re just usually the ones who—whatever, it doesn’t matter! You want to know how I know? Because if you were a girl we’d already be married, and I wouldn’t be fending off old lords trying to foist their daughters off on me every day and dealing with a burgeoning succession crisis!”
It’s quiet, then.
Merlin finds himself grateful for the hand over his mouth, so he is not required to speak—for he has no words. His mind has frayed into little ends of thread, unravelling. Arthur ducks his head down, hiding in the crook of Merlin’s neck. They are close enough that he can feel Arthur’s rapid heartbeats. Feel the puffs of each of his breaths, coming quick one after the other.
It’s nice, for all that Merlin’s head is spinning. Arthur smells like Camelot. Sword oil and the herbs in his fancy king-in-his-castle soap that Merlin makes fun of but is jealous over.
He lets his hands come up. Gently. Softly. Barely resting on the planes of Arthur’s shoulder blades. Birds ready to take off at the slightest twitch. Arthur somehow pushes more weight down, exhaling harshly against Merlin’s jaw.
“I suppose,” Merlin says, voice scarcely more than a whisper against Arthur’s palm, “if I had to pick one thing–”
“Did I ever say you had to pick one thing?” Arthur asks, a lilt of humour in his voice side by side with the rasp of deeper emotion. He moves his hand from Merlin’s mouth, and rubs his thumb along Merlin’s neck with the other, dipping past the collar of his worn sleep-shirt. “You can have more than one thing you like about me.”
“Nah,” Merlin hums, though by now they both know he’s a liar of the highest order. He feels like he might vibrate out of his own skin. He swallows, feeling Arthur’s thumb press against the motion and seeing stars. His voice shakes when he speaks. “I had a hard enough time coming up with one as it is.”
“Well go on, then,” Arthur urges him. He raises his head enough to look Merlin in the eye. Still perilously blue. “Tell me.”
“Can’t. I’m shy,” Merlin says at last, and he’s saying it like it’s a joke, but it’s not. Not really. He can’t say it, not when Arthur is looking at him. With his face, and his hair, and his Arthurness and his everything. Merlin is surrounded, and defeated, and utterly owned.
“Psh,” Arthur denies easily, as if everyone were so brave as he.
A long moment drips past them.
“You’re brave,” Merlin admits, after Arthur has laid his head back down and gone upsettingly still. He feels like he’s letting go of something precious, somehow. Something fragile, and easily wounded. “Braver than me. Courage,” he remembers, feeling a smile creep over him.
“Oh, come on! Magic,” Arthur complains, his odd stillness leaving him upon realising what the bridge guardian had meant, far, far too late to be of any use. “I could have known ages ago! I’ll never live this down, will I? Does that mean Gwaine is Strength? Of all people? Gwaine? Gwaine?”
“It won’t become less true if you say it more.”
“Ugh, Gwaine.” Arthur huffs again, displeased.
“You want me to call for him? Right now? I’m sure he’d just love that–” A hand claps back over Merlin’s mouth before he can finish.
“I’m sure he would, yes,” Arthur agrees, snorting once in only half-feigned disgust.
It’s quiet again, for all that the hold over Merlin’s mouth is a loose one. He lets his own hands fall more heavily, cherishing the rise and fall of Arthur’s back, and, in a small, deviant part of his mind, noticing that it is exactly as broad as it looks.
If he were braver, maybe he’d say as much.
“Do you need a list?” Merlin asks. It would be a long list, as much as they jest. There is much of Arthur that is worthy to admire.
“Maybe.” A sigh comes with it, and Merlin wonders. Arthur always seems so sure. So steady. He wasn’t always, though—so often left in the wind by duty, needing to prove himself over and over again.
It’s warm, with summer dragging closer to her peak every day, and Arthur as the world’s heaviest blanket. Stifling, in truth, but Merlin cannot even begin to wish to move. The hair at Arthur’s temples, a burnished gold, is dark and damp with sweat, but he doesn’t move either.
Without quite meaning to, Merlin opens his mouth again. He tastes the skin of Arthur’s palm when he wets his lips, and feels his heart flip over inside his chest. “You have a nice back,” he says. Possessed, clearly. He just doesn’t want this to end. He walks his fingers down Arthur’s spine, mapping the shape. “Shoulders. All that swordwork has to be good for something.”
“Yeah?” Arthur asks, nosing against Merlin’s neck.
His breath hitches again, and he closes his eyes. The dawn has long passed now, and the risen sun dapples through his eyelids, red and gold. “Nice everything,” he caves, feeling entirely too pleased to hold it in any longer, not when it seems it might please Arthur, too. “Don’t get a big head about it, though.”
“Me?” Arthur says, dragging his leg over so it lays between Merlin’s. “I’d never. What else?”
“Demanding,” Merlin chides, swallowing harshly as Arthur presses them impossibly closer. “I, uh, can’t actually help you with that succession crisis,” he reminds Arthur. Just since it seems as though he may have forgotten for a moment.
“I’ll dig up a cousin or something,” Arthur says, shifting in a way that has Merlin's stomach swooping.
Not entirely out of desire, either. A little frisson of fear poisons the joy of it all. That Arthur might not mean this. Might have a different mind than Merlin's entirely, one with little thought given to tomorrow, and then the tomorrow after that.
It would kill him, Merlin knows. Where lightning and dragons and sorceresses have failed; Arthur holds him in his hands, and should he be discarded he will shatter.
His voice catches in his throat when he tries to speak, and he can only hold on all the harder. He lets his fingers tangle in the short hairs on the back of Arthur’s neck.
“Do you remember?” Arthur says, when Merlin cannot seem to move nor speak. Paralyzed with fear, or longing, or both. “Seems so long ago now. When I said I hadn't seen you smile for three days?”
Merlin remembers.
“I count the days,” Arthur promises. He raises his head, making Merlin look him in the eye. Merlin’s own eyes sting the longer he has to look, and his throat seizes up. He wishes it were night. Dark, and cool, to extinguish this fever, to not be seen. “I count them.”
“Yeah,” Merlin rasps, understanding rolling over him, through him. Saturating him until he’s over-full of it and dizzy. “Yeah, alright.” He presses a hand between them, over Arthur’s chest, where Camelot’s greatest treasure lies. “The best bit of you,” he promises, because he thinks Arthur needs to hear it.
“If that’s true,” Arthur says, a shine like stars across his blue, blue eyes, “it’s because of you.”
“It’s because of Camelot,” Merlin corrects, because maybe Arthur needs to hear that, too. A good king, and an even better man.
Arthur takes Merlin’s hand up, and kisses his palm, right in the centre, then his wrist, on the blue vein that trails to his heart. Merlin maneuvers it so that he comes to cradle Arthur’s face, letting his fingers trail over the soft stubble that has come in over the night. He closes his eyes, the fan of his eyelashes damp where they lay on his cheek.
“Same thing,” Arthur swears. And though his voice is barely more than a breath, in this, he is confident as a king once more. Unwavering in conviction. “Same thing.”