je suis loser.
Title: Let the Enemy Guns
Fandom: Merlin (this is getting silly now)
Summary: Contains assorted scenes, banter, introspection and epiphanies.
Begins in 1.10, then moves on into the realms of "I am making this up" - spoilers for 1.09 and up.
A/N: I owe strangeumbrella a lot of love, a lot of time and possibly my first-born child.
"You know, your father all but left you to me," says Merlin, with a smile that Arthur can hear and not see. It’s so dark and so silent that it must be the middle of the night, which makes it seem more prudent to grumble, "How did you know I was awake?" than actually process any of the words.
"You snore," says Merlin.
Arthur ignores this; whether because of his incredible diplomacy, or simply because enough time has gone by for Merlin’s first sentence to sink in, it’s difficult to say. "What do you mean my father 'left me to you'?"
There’s a rustling noise which Arthur assumes is Merlin rolling over, and this seems to make sense, because when he speaks again his voice is slightly quieter (if no less amused). "When he was going off to fight - the black knight, I mean. The King went on and on about what a great servant I am, how lucky you are--"
"The man thought he was about to die," Arthur interrupts, throwing an arm over his face in a put-upon sort of way, "He probably said all sorts of insane things."
Merlin’s laughter is hushed and familiar in the dark; Arthur bites his lip, exhales and puts conscious effort into not asking Merlin exactly why he decided that now was the ideal time to bring this up. It will pretty much certainly be a conversation that Arthur does not want to have.
"Go to sleep, Merlin," he adds. "You know as well as I do that the odds are already against us tomorrow."
For a while, nobody speaks. Arthur begins to drift in that place between being asleep and being awake, thinking fondly of nice, hot Camelot food, and definitely not at all about Kanen, or the man he picked at random who was sent back with an arrow buried in his skin, or the faceless peasants from the tiny village that Merlin used to call home. He doesn’t think about these things at all. He doesn’t think about saddling his horse in the middle of the night to join a fight that was none of his business, really, and he definitely doesn’t think about holding a sword to Merlin’s throat and saying, I’m trying to warn you, Merlin.
He would never have dreamed of doing it, of course, but that wasn’t the point; the expression on Merlin’s face hadn’t been fear, it had been hurt. It had meant, please. You’re facing your almost certain death. Why are you so intent on facing it alone?
Arthur’s fingers twitch, recalling that horrible, painful moment of realisation: the moment in which Arthur had realised he was afraid not that he would die, but that he would do or say something rash, something desperate in the face of death, and live.
+
Sometimes, Merlin thinks that there are worse people he could be stuck to for all of time; he usually concludes this thought process by deciding he’s actually pretty glad that dragons don’t have eyebrows they can raise ominously in his general direction. All the eyebrow-raising he’s had from his mother, his best childhood friend, Arthur’s father, Arthur’s adopted sister and Arthur’s adopted sister’s servant seems really quite enough to be going on with, thank you.
+
Arthur rarely goes looking for Merlin - usually preferring to take a more passive role in the servant-master relationship, and wait for Merlin to come to him - and, on the rare occasion that he does, it is really only under the guise of needing something cleaning; this afternoon, the leather of his best saddle needs some care and attention, and also he is bored. He finds Merlin perching, cross-legged and distracted-looking, on a bench which overlooks a courtyard towards the southern wall of the court. Merlin is perhaps five paces away, or the distance of one good shout in Arthur’s best Booming Voice, or possibly the length of a well-aimed piece of screwed up parchment - and yet Arthur finds himself not moving, and not talking, and with nothing in his hand to throw.
It appears that Merlin is doing nothing except sitting very still, hands frozen in movement, gripping the shirt he’d been darning a little too tightly. Two young boys are playing in the courtyard and Merlin’s eyes are fixed unwaveringly upon them, an unreadable expression on his face.
Arthur wants, more than anything, to just turn on his heel and walk away, and not talk about it now, and not bring it up later, and pretend that he saw nothing. Unfortunately, he has a hideous feeling in his stomach that it’s all already gone a bit too far for that, so he counts the steps that take him over to the bench and takes a seat.
They say nothing.
What Arthur wants to say, in his heart of hearts, is: do not feel that you cannot mourn for your friend, just because he was a sorcerer. He wants to tell Merlin about the first knight who died under his jurisdiction and under his protection - he wants to tell Merlin about the terror in the young man’s eyes, the way he had insisted on saying, in spite of Arthur’s desperate instructions to not talk, please, it’s harder if you talk, what an honour it had been to fight beside a Prince. How it hadn’t even been a proper fight, not really, and Arthur, just fifteen, ashen underneath his armour, and shaking.
What Arthur says is, "I was looking for you."
Merlin turns his head a fraction of an inch; Arthur can feel that intent gaze settling on the side of his face, but he himself is watching the boys' game, now. Merlin’s voice is quiet, full of measured nonchalance when he says, "You found me."
And Arthur nods, and turns his head to meet Merlin’s eyes. And neither of them are looking at the children anymore.
+
Sometimes, Merlin wonders exactly what sort of a King Arthur will become - aside from just a great one, which he knows already to be true. He pictures in his mind’s eye an older, wiser Arthur, his father’s crown balanced atop his head, banishing injustice from the land with one wide and encompassing sweep of his kingly arm. Bam! And I ask you, Camelot: how can magic be innately evil when I have seen it used so often for good?
Merlin imagines all this, just ever so occasionally. And then he feels very silly indeed.
+
"Sire, you’re bleeding."
The battle had been hard-won, but they had won it all the same: the reign of Uther falls within a time of much unrest, where power is gained and lost and clung onto bitterly only by the sword. The kings of his age are warrior kings; they could never, really, have been anything else. Arthur stands before his men upon the battlefield, noting the absent faces, the expressions of the wounded, and he speaks to them. He can think of no way to promise them a future that is better than this which will not sound like an insult to his father, and he means none, so he merely motivates them, cajoles them, tries to repair their spirits for the long march home. Some of them are even beginning to smile again - and then it all goes to hell.
"Sire," says a flushed and round-faced knight, eyes wide, "You’re bleeding."
Prince Arthur’s eyes follow the point of the young man’s finger to the truly impressive wound on his side, and he touches it with a gloved fingers. Distantly, Arthur watches, as if in a dream, his own hand travel from his side, past the horrified expressions of his men, to rest a few inches from his eyes. Already, it is stained with blood.
Yes, now that he thinks about it: yes, that actually hurts quite a lot.
"Um," says Arthur. Then his legs give out.
+
Sometimes, there is nothing Merlin wants more in the world than to tell Arthur everything; other times, there is nothing in the world he is more frightened of than Arthur finding out. The oddest thing of all, though, is that he is beginning to think that the thought process underlying both states of mind may be identical.
He wants to tell Arthur everything, and be known. He wants to tell Arthur nothing, and not be forced to leave.
Funny.
+
Merlin’s expression, when it swims into view, is so serious and furrowed and visibly concerned that it would be faintly comical, if Arthur had any idea at all what on earth was going on.
"Where am I?" he croaks.
Like spilled wine, swept from a tabletop in one swift movement, Merlin’s face changes instantly to one of elaborate disinterest. No, not even disinterest, just - less interest. "At home," he says, "in bed. You almost got yourself killed a couple of days ago, which was quite exciting, but then you just slept for ages, which was...less so. How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Oh, like you can count. Talk about the blind leading the blind."
Merlin ducks his head to laugh, but when he raises it again the serious expression is making such attempts to resurface that Arthur’s heart sinks, for reasons he cannot accurately describe. Arguably, it is because he hates this sort of gooey sickbed scene, although secretly he finds them rather dramatic and not a little fun, so it probably isn’t that. He supposes he should be annoyed that the only person beside him when he awoke was his manservant; oddly, he can’t find it in him to mind especially much.
"I should have been there," Merlin says, abruptly.
Arthur shuffles uncomfortably in his bedclothes, narrowly resisting the urge to wince when his elbow comes into contact with his wound, and replies, "You had duties here in Camelot, Merlin. Besides, I don’t see what difference it would have made; no offence, but you’re hardly a born swordfighter."
Eyes focused on the far window, Merlin’s shoulders rise and fall in an evasive way, as if physically dismissing Arthur’s forgiveness. Arthur is on the point of arguing, of saying something slightly more insulting (the first one having apparently not done the trick), when suddenly he sees how it must have been - the whispers round the court, the rumours; stretcher-bearers bringing Arthur back in front of a watchful crowd, and Merlin, not royal enough to be allowed to be particularly concerned, nor ordinary enough to blend in with the other curious faces. It is undeniable: if their positions had been reversed, he, too, would have felt in some way responsible. And should he have? Should Merlin, now? Since when, exactly, did they become each other’s responsibilities?
"Well," says Arthur, "Anyway, you’re here now. If you could just give me a hand getting up--"
Merlin stands up and walks over to the jug of water on Arthur’s occasional table, saying, "Oh no, no. Sorry, but: Gaius’ orders. He’s already warned me about how quickly you get bored."
With a sigh containing all the sheer, resigned disgust of someone who is still mentally about ten, Arthur closes his eyes.
+
Sometimes, Merlin is forced to admit it to himself, in some deeply concealed part of his brain - he has to admit that it is so much easier to say, 'I have to care,' than it is to say, 'I care.'
+
"If you keep wriggling, I’m going to drop you; don’t think I won’t do it just because you’re the Crown Prince."
"Ow, ow, ow."
Arthur’s excitement about being allowed to get out of bed had been actually quite disturbing - there got to be something of a cooped-up spaniel in his demeanour as the days passed - but, even having persuaded both Merlin and Gaius of the health benefits fresh air could bring, the problem of the stairs remained. Camelot, it emerged, has a lot of stairs.
"Whose bright idea was this?" Arthur says eventually, while they are resting. Merlin has propped him up against the curving wall like a breathless and very grumpy-looking portrait, himself sinking down to perch awkwardly on one of the too-narrow steps, head lowered.
"Yours, if I recall correctly," he replies.
Arthur tuts. "I mean the architecture."
For whatever reason, this makes Merlin laugh, perhaps a little hysterically, and the echoing sound of his laughter makes Arthur start too - but that hurts, so Merlin ends up having to get back up again and awkwardly shuffle Arthur into a seating position. Arthur grips one of Merlin’s forearms and bunches his other hand in the material of Merlin’s shirt, hissing breath out through his teeth as he is lowered backwards.
"How did they even get me up here," Arthur spits, rhetorically.
"Ah, well you’re a lot less trouble when you’re unconscious," Merlin says, although unfortunately he times it poorly, so that Arthur is too busy making a strangled, wounded-animal sort of noise to hear him. Even being as careful as they were, it was bound to hurt; when his head stops spinning, Arthur realises that he is pressing his forehead into Merlin’s neck, fairly hard, and breathing raggedly against his collarbone. Merlin’s fingers are digging into the skin above his ribcage.
"Sorry," Arthur mumbles, and abruptly relinquishes his grip.
Once they’re on horizontal ground again, everything gets much easier, and it doesn’t take an awfully long time to reach the lake (which appears, by some silent consensus, to be the place they are heading for). Merlin takes half of Arthur’s weight most of the way there and has the good grace to say nothing about it, for which Arthur is very grateful.
"I bet you’re glad to be back on your feet," Merlin says cheerfully, easing Arthur down onto a fallen tree-trunk which overlooks the water. "Everything’ll be just like normal, soon. You can tell me I’m an idiot every five minutes and beat the stuffing out of all your would-be knights and, you know..."
Arthur doesn’t reply. Merlin sits down next to him, and the two of them rest like that for a while, in companionable silence, getting their breath back. Then, Arthur says, "You know, I can’t explain it, but - it’s been almost nice, this past week, not to be expected to, to do anything. To talk to anyone. Except you, I suppose."
"Mm. Like a holiday."
"Yes."
Arthur holds a hand out in front of him, so that half of it is in shade, with the rest of him, and half of it is in light. Knuckles, fingers, fingertips. He spent a truly ridiculous amount of his childhood outside, playing or training or what you will, and misses sunlight, when he’s kept out of it, like a parched man misses water.
"But you are looking forward to attending court again?" Merlin asks, as if he can’t imagine how Arthur might enjoy being out of it.
"In a way," says Arthur, vaguely; he thinks of expectant faces and unwritten rules and codes of behaviour.
Merlin puts a hand on his shoulder in a slightly awkward conciliatory gesture, more typical of Arthur than of him, and when Arthur turns to frown at him he just says, "It must be difficult."
That’s all he says. Four words.
And perhaps it’s because Arthur’s bored, or tired, or frustrated; perhaps it’s because he’s been trained to kill since birth, and he’s spent too much time learning how to fight and not enough time learning words. But, for whatever reason, he leans forward just ever-so-slightly, edging his face towards Merlin’s like edging a hand forwards to catch the sun, and there’s a moment where they stay like that: their mouths are centimetres apart, breathing shallow, looking at each other. Merlin’s eyes are wide with surprise, although he hasn’t moved backwards, and then they just - flicker shut. And it’s like a signal, like a starter’s call to begin; they both move forwards enough to close the gap, and they are kissing.
When they break apart, Arthur has one hand on the back of Merlin’s neck and the other resting across his heart for balance. "I’m not sure I entirely meant to do that," he says.
"Oh," says Merlin. Then, "Are you sure?" And Arthur, with his head lowered and his eyes squeezed shut (as if all the social embarrassment will become a problem only once he consents to opening them), can hear but not see the smile in his voice. "It seems to me," Merlin continues, tripping over his words slightly, "That that wasn’t, you know. It wasn’t a very long time to, to - to work it out either way."
Slowly, by way of an answer, Arthur’s smile spreads across his face.
.
Fandom: Merlin (this is getting silly now)
Summary: Contains assorted scenes, banter, introspection and epiphanies.
Begins in 1.10, then moves on into the realms of "I am making this up" - spoilers for 1.09 and up.
A/N: I owe strangeumbrella a lot of love, a lot of time and possibly my first-born child.
"You know, your father all but left you to me," says Merlin, with a smile that Arthur can hear and not see. It’s so dark and so silent that it must be the middle of the night, which makes it seem more prudent to grumble, "How did you know I was awake?" than actually process any of the words.
"You snore," says Merlin.
Arthur ignores this; whether because of his incredible diplomacy, or simply because enough time has gone by for Merlin’s first sentence to sink in, it’s difficult to say. "What do you mean my father 'left me to you'?"
There’s a rustling noise which Arthur assumes is Merlin rolling over, and this seems to make sense, because when he speaks again his voice is slightly quieter (if no less amused). "When he was going off to fight - the black knight, I mean. The King went on and on about what a great servant I am, how lucky you are--"
"The man thought he was about to die," Arthur interrupts, throwing an arm over his face in a put-upon sort of way, "He probably said all sorts of insane things."
Merlin’s laughter is hushed and familiar in the dark; Arthur bites his lip, exhales and puts conscious effort into not asking Merlin exactly why he decided that now was the ideal time to bring this up. It will pretty much certainly be a conversation that Arthur does not want to have.
"Go to sleep, Merlin," he adds. "You know as well as I do that the odds are already against us tomorrow."
For a while, nobody speaks. Arthur begins to drift in that place between being asleep and being awake, thinking fondly of nice, hot Camelot food, and definitely not at all about Kanen, or the man he picked at random who was sent back with an arrow buried in his skin, or the faceless peasants from the tiny village that Merlin used to call home. He doesn’t think about these things at all. He doesn’t think about saddling his horse in the middle of the night to join a fight that was none of his business, really, and he definitely doesn’t think about holding a sword to Merlin’s throat and saying, I’m trying to warn you, Merlin.
He would never have dreamed of doing it, of course, but that wasn’t the point; the expression on Merlin’s face hadn’t been fear, it had been hurt. It had meant, please. You’re facing your almost certain death. Why are you so intent on facing it alone?
Arthur’s fingers twitch, recalling that horrible, painful moment of realisation: the moment in which Arthur had realised he was afraid not that he would die, but that he would do or say something rash, something desperate in the face of death, and live.
+
Sometimes, Merlin thinks that there are worse people he could be stuck to for all of time; he usually concludes this thought process by deciding he’s actually pretty glad that dragons don’t have eyebrows they can raise ominously in his general direction. All the eyebrow-raising he’s had from his mother, his best childhood friend, Arthur’s father, Arthur’s adopted sister and Arthur’s adopted sister’s servant seems really quite enough to be going on with, thank you.
+
Arthur rarely goes looking for Merlin - usually preferring to take a more passive role in the servant-master relationship, and wait for Merlin to come to him - and, on the rare occasion that he does, it is really only under the guise of needing something cleaning; this afternoon, the leather of his best saddle needs some care and attention, and also he is bored. He finds Merlin perching, cross-legged and distracted-looking, on a bench which overlooks a courtyard towards the southern wall of the court. Merlin is perhaps five paces away, or the distance of one good shout in Arthur’s best Booming Voice, or possibly the length of a well-aimed piece of screwed up parchment - and yet Arthur finds himself not moving, and not talking, and with nothing in his hand to throw.
It appears that Merlin is doing nothing except sitting very still, hands frozen in movement, gripping the shirt he’d been darning a little too tightly. Two young boys are playing in the courtyard and Merlin’s eyes are fixed unwaveringly upon them, an unreadable expression on his face.
Arthur wants, more than anything, to just turn on his heel and walk away, and not talk about it now, and not bring it up later, and pretend that he saw nothing. Unfortunately, he has a hideous feeling in his stomach that it’s all already gone a bit too far for that, so he counts the steps that take him over to the bench and takes a seat.
They say nothing.
What Arthur wants to say, in his heart of hearts, is: do not feel that you cannot mourn for your friend, just because he was a sorcerer. He wants to tell Merlin about the first knight who died under his jurisdiction and under his protection - he wants to tell Merlin about the terror in the young man’s eyes, the way he had insisted on saying, in spite of Arthur’s desperate instructions to not talk, please, it’s harder if you talk, what an honour it had been to fight beside a Prince. How it hadn’t even been a proper fight, not really, and Arthur, just fifteen, ashen underneath his armour, and shaking.
What Arthur says is, "I was looking for you."
Merlin turns his head a fraction of an inch; Arthur can feel that intent gaze settling on the side of his face, but he himself is watching the boys' game, now. Merlin’s voice is quiet, full of measured nonchalance when he says, "You found me."
And Arthur nods, and turns his head to meet Merlin’s eyes. And neither of them are looking at the children anymore.
+
Sometimes, Merlin wonders exactly what sort of a King Arthur will become - aside from just a great one, which he knows already to be true. He pictures in his mind’s eye an older, wiser Arthur, his father’s crown balanced atop his head, banishing injustice from the land with one wide and encompassing sweep of his kingly arm. Bam! And I ask you, Camelot: how can magic be innately evil when I have seen it used so often for good?
Merlin imagines all this, just ever so occasionally. And then he feels very silly indeed.
+
"Sire, you’re bleeding."
The battle had been hard-won, but they had won it all the same: the reign of Uther falls within a time of much unrest, where power is gained and lost and clung onto bitterly only by the sword. The kings of his age are warrior kings; they could never, really, have been anything else. Arthur stands before his men upon the battlefield, noting the absent faces, the expressions of the wounded, and he speaks to them. He can think of no way to promise them a future that is better than this which will not sound like an insult to his father, and he means none, so he merely motivates them, cajoles them, tries to repair their spirits for the long march home. Some of them are even beginning to smile again - and then it all goes to hell.
"Sire," says a flushed and round-faced knight, eyes wide, "You’re bleeding."
Prince Arthur’s eyes follow the point of the young man’s finger to the truly impressive wound on his side, and he touches it with a gloved fingers. Distantly, Arthur watches, as if in a dream, his own hand travel from his side, past the horrified expressions of his men, to rest a few inches from his eyes. Already, it is stained with blood.
Yes, now that he thinks about it: yes, that actually hurts quite a lot.
"Um," says Arthur. Then his legs give out.
+
Sometimes, there is nothing Merlin wants more in the world than to tell Arthur everything; other times, there is nothing in the world he is more frightened of than Arthur finding out. The oddest thing of all, though, is that he is beginning to think that the thought process underlying both states of mind may be identical.
He wants to tell Arthur everything, and be known. He wants to tell Arthur nothing, and not be forced to leave.
Funny.
+
Merlin’s expression, when it swims into view, is so serious and furrowed and visibly concerned that it would be faintly comical, if Arthur had any idea at all what on earth was going on.
"Where am I?" he croaks.
Like spilled wine, swept from a tabletop in one swift movement, Merlin’s face changes instantly to one of elaborate disinterest. No, not even disinterest, just - less interest. "At home," he says, "in bed. You almost got yourself killed a couple of days ago, which was quite exciting, but then you just slept for ages, which was...less so. How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Oh, like you can count. Talk about the blind leading the blind."
Merlin ducks his head to laugh, but when he raises it again the serious expression is making such attempts to resurface that Arthur’s heart sinks, for reasons he cannot accurately describe. Arguably, it is because he hates this sort of gooey sickbed scene, although secretly he finds them rather dramatic and not a little fun, so it probably isn’t that. He supposes he should be annoyed that the only person beside him when he awoke was his manservant; oddly, he can’t find it in him to mind especially much.
"I should have been there," Merlin says, abruptly.
Arthur shuffles uncomfortably in his bedclothes, narrowly resisting the urge to wince when his elbow comes into contact with his wound, and replies, "You had duties here in Camelot, Merlin. Besides, I don’t see what difference it would have made; no offence, but you’re hardly a born swordfighter."
Eyes focused on the far window, Merlin’s shoulders rise and fall in an evasive way, as if physically dismissing Arthur’s forgiveness. Arthur is on the point of arguing, of saying something slightly more insulting (the first one having apparently not done the trick), when suddenly he sees how it must have been - the whispers round the court, the rumours; stretcher-bearers bringing Arthur back in front of a watchful crowd, and Merlin, not royal enough to be allowed to be particularly concerned, nor ordinary enough to blend in with the other curious faces. It is undeniable: if their positions had been reversed, he, too, would have felt in some way responsible. And should he have? Should Merlin, now? Since when, exactly, did they become each other’s responsibilities?
"Well," says Arthur, "Anyway, you’re here now. If you could just give me a hand getting up--"
Merlin stands up and walks over to the jug of water on Arthur’s occasional table, saying, "Oh no, no. Sorry, but: Gaius’ orders. He’s already warned me about how quickly you get bored."
With a sigh containing all the sheer, resigned disgust of someone who is still mentally about ten, Arthur closes his eyes.
+
Sometimes, Merlin is forced to admit it to himself, in some deeply concealed part of his brain - he has to admit that it is so much easier to say, 'I have to care,' than it is to say, 'I care.'
+
"If you keep wriggling, I’m going to drop you; don’t think I won’t do it just because you’re the Crown Prince."
"Ow, ow, ow."
Arthur’s excitement about being allowed to get out of bed had been actually quite disturbing - there got to be something of a cooped-up spaniel in his demeanour as the days passed - but, even having persuaded both Merlin and Gaius of the health benefits fresh air could bring, the problem of the stairs remained. Camelot, it emerged, has a lot of stairs.
"Whose bright idea was this?" Arthur says eventually, while they are resting. Merlin has propped him up against the curving wall like a breathless and very grumpy-looking portrait, himself sinking down to perch awkwardly on one of the too-narrow steps, head lowered.
"Yours, if I recall correctly," he replies.
Arthur tuts. "I mean the architecture."
For whatever reason, this makes Merlin laugh, perhaps a little hysterically, and the echoing sound of his laughter makes Arthur start too - but that hurts, so Merlin ends up having to get back up again and awkwardly shuffle Arthur into a seating position. Arthur grips one of Merlin’s forearms and bunches his other hand in the material of Merlin’s shirt, hissing breath out through his teeth as he is lowered backwards.
"How did they even get me up here," Arthur spits, rhetorically.
"Ah, well you’re a lot less trouble when you’re unconscious," Merlin says, although unfortunately he times it poorly, so that Arthur is too busy making a strangled, wounded-animal sort of noise to hear him. Even being as careful as they were, it was bound to hurt; when his head stops spinning, Arthur realises that he is pressing his forehead into Merlin’s neck, fairly hard, and breathing raggedly against his collarbone. Merlin’s fingers are digging into the skin above his ribcage.
"Sorry," Arthur mumbles, and abruptly relinquishes his grip.
Once they’re on horizontal ground again, everything gets much easier, and it doesn’t take an awfully long time to reach the lake (which appears, by some silent consensus, to be the place they are heading for). Merlin takes half of Arthur’s weight most of the way there and has the good grace to say nothing about it, for which Arthur is very grateful.
"I bet you’re glad to be back on your feet," Merlin says cheerfully, easing Arthur down onto a fallen tree-trunk which overlooks the water. "Everything’ll be just like normal, soon. You can tell me I’m an idiot every five minutes and beat the stuffing out of all your would-be knights and, you know..."
Arthur doesn’t reply. Merlin sits down next to him, and the two of them rest like that for a while, in companionable silence, getting their breath back. Then, Arthur says, "You know, I can’t explain it, but - it’s been almost nice, this past week, not to be expected to, to do anything. To talk to anyone. Except you, I suppose."
"Mm. Like a holiday."
"Yes."
Arthur holds a hand out in front of him, so that half of it is in shade, with the rest of him, and half of it is in light. Knuckles, fingers, fingertips. He spent a truly ridiculous amount of his childhood outside, playing or training or what you will, and misses sunlight, when he’s kept out of it, like a parched man misses water.
"But you are looking forward to attending court again?" Merlin asks, as if he can’t imagine how Arthur might enjoy being out of it.
"In a way," says Arthur, vaguely; he thinks of expectant faces and unwritten rules and codes of behaviour.
Merlin puts a hand on his shoulder in a slightly awkward conciliatory gesture, more typical of Arthur than of him, and when Arthur turns to frown at him he just says, "It must be difficult."
That’s all he says. Four words.
And perhaps it’s because Arthur’s bored, or tired, or frustrated; perhaps it’s because he’s been trained to kill since birth, and he’s spent too much time learning how to fight and not enough time learning words. But, for whatever reason, he leans forward just ever-so-slightly, edging his face towards Merlin’s like edging a hand forwards to catch the sun, and there’s a moment where they stay like that: their mouths are centimetres apart, breathing shallow, looking at each other. Merlin’s eyes are wide with surprise, although he hasn’t moved backwards, and then they just - flicker shut. And it’s like a signal, like a starter’s call to begin; they both move forwards enough to close the gap, and they are kissing.
When they break apart, Arthur has one hand on the back of Merlin’s neck and the other resting across his heart for balance. "I’m not sure I entirely meant to do that," he says.
"Oh," says Merlin. Then, "Are you sure?" And Arthur, with his head lowered and his eyes squeezed shut (as if all the social embarrassment will become a problem only once he consents to opening them), can hear but not see the smile in his voice. "It seems to me," Merlin continues, tripping over his words slightly, "That that wasn’t, you know. It wasn’t a very long time to, to - to work it out either way."
Slowly, by way of an answer, Arthur’s smile spreads across his face.
.