Arthur and the Pornbats 2/? - Chapter Two: The Ride Home, Day One
Title, Summary, Disclaimer and Rating, and other info can be found in Chapter One
This chapter is rated T for general descriptions and a few 'bad' words.
A/N: I hope this chapter is as good as the last one...I have an idea where I'm going with this (I think)...hopefully it'll be good. Enjoy!
When Arthur awoke at dawn the next day, he noticed three things:
A) Merlin had fallen asleep on watch, the lazy git.
B) Merlin, seeking out the largest source of heat, had crawled into Arthur’s blankets without noticing - or caring about - the fact that,
C) Arthur himself was still in them.
“Merlin!”
“...” Merlin said, and snuggled up closer. Arthur smacked him on the shoulder. It was about all he could manage. At some point, Merlin had completely tangled himself around Arthur's body, and was holding on for dear life.
“Merlin!”
“…What?”
“You’re in my bed.”
“Mmmm…do I get to stay?”
“What?”
Merlin’s eyes opened. He stared at Arthur for a full five seconds, and then recognition and awareness arrived with brute force. “It was a dream!” He announced loudly, as through to a room full of people and not to just one apparently annoyed prince. “A very…vivid…” he trailed off. Damnit.
Arthur was staring at him with an indescribable look on his face. Merlin found himself watching the way Arthur’s lips got all pouty with grogginess and mild annoyance, and then went bright red. He rocketed upwards, taking over half of the blankets with him.
“I'll just get breakfast, ready,” Merlin babbled, tripping over his own legs. “Long ride ahead of us. Got to set out soon. Need our strength, and all that.”
Arthur watched him go, and tried to tell himself that it was only because Merlin put off so much heat, and the air was cold, that he missed his servant's contact.
Apart from the fact that Merlin had crawled into Arthur's bed last night - a fact he blamed on the dizziness and sickness from the drugs they'd clearly been slipped while in the Caves of Yargh - Merlin felt fine. In fact, he felt better than fine, and Arthur too seemed to share the invigoration. All traces of their mysterious illness from the night before was gone; even the bites on their wrists had faded to the look of old scars.
After breakfast, Arthur saddled up the horses while Merlin made sure everything was packed up, and they set off on the five-day ride north northwest back to Camelot at a brisk trot, very carefully saying nothing about how they’d woken up..
As the sun rose, the day grew finer and finer. The sky was a brilliant blue, with big fluffy white clouds that drifted across it like a fleet of ships...although, Merlin noted to himself, that particular cloud looked amazingly like a...silo. With two barns at the bottom. Grain silo. With barns.
Absolutely nothing phallic about that particular cloud at all.
Arthur caught him staring at it, and looked up.
“Interesting,” he said, and glanced slyly at Merlin.
“Rather looks like a dragon,” Merlin managed. “If you turn your head right...”
“Riiiight.”
“It does,” Merlin insisted.
“Merlin, you’re lying. Do you know how I know?”
Merlin shook his head. He wished Arthur would stop smiling at him like that. He could see it out of the corner of his eye, practically hear it in Arthur’s voice.
“Your ears have gone pink. I can always tell when you’re embarrassed because those ears big of yours turn pink. Such a lovely shade, too. It suits you.”
Merlin went even redder, and then looked over at Arthur.
Arthur managed to hold his gaze for a few second, and then had to look away, clearing his throat.
They rode on.
After a brief stop for food and to give the horses (and their back sides) a rest, they continued on, alternating between trotting and walking the horses to save their strength.
It was during one of those times that they were walking the horses that Arthur took a deep breath, sighed, and let his head roll back.
Merlin looked over. Merlin then looked away quite rapidly, because Merlin had found himself tracing the line of Arthur's jaw with his eyes and wishing he could do the same with his tongue, and now he could feel his ears getting red again, and Arthur was going to look up at any second and see that his ears had gone red and then wonder why.
“It is a very fine day,” Arthur said, his eyes closed, and completely oblivious to Merlin's current crisis. He was basking in the warm sunlight, reveling in the cool breeze that caressed his skin. There was absolutely no worry in his stance, despite the apparent life-and-death nature of their errand.
They had the moss. They were on their way home. The price they had to pay didn’t seem to be too horrible. Life was good, and Arthur rarely got to be so unguarded (both literally and figuratively) anymore.
The bite on his wrist itched, and he scratched at it absently.
...do not look at him do not look at him do not look at his neck or where his jaw meets his ears or how his lips look in that smile or his legs...his long legs in those leather boots and those damnably tight pants... I mean it, Merlin, do not look...it wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t just want to rip his shirt off…
Arthur bolted upright.
“Did you say something?”
Merlin looked over at him, ears flaming red, and a look of wide-eyed, panicked innocence on his face so strong that guilt was also plainly visible. “No,” he squeaked, and then went back to staring directly ahead.
...damnit damnit damnit damnit damnit damnit damnit...
Arthur shook his head. There must still be side effects from being drugged, he decided. One of them was clearly auditory hallucinations. Because however bad a liar Merlin was, he clearly was telling the truth. He hadn't said anything. The words had arrived in Arthur's head without going through the ears, which meant that Arthur himself must have been thinking them.
In Merlin's voice.
Odd.
Near dusk, they stopped at a likely looking campsite and set up their bed rolls. Arthur buggered off into the woods in search of proper food (neither of them could stand the idea of rehydrated beef strips and stale buns), and Merlin saw to the horses, feeding them and brushing them down and cleaning the stones out of their hooves.
The bite on his wrist itched a little. He scratched at it while tossing a couple more chunks of dead tree branch on the fire, and then sat down on a piece of tree trunk that Arthur had dragged into the campsite for them.
He stared at the campfire for sometime, until - very quietly - he could hear someone singing. There was no discernible key, no real attempt at a tune or rhythm, but whoever it was was singing with a great deal of enthusiasm. Just very quietly.
...I'm the greatest hunter in the world,
Look at me, I bagged a doe
Going to feed that git of a servant
I've got waiting for me at home...
Merlin peered around, trying to find the source of the voice. It sounded like Arthur, but Merlin had never heard Arthur sing before, either aloud or in his head…and then something occurred to Merlin, a memory of the druid boy that they had smuggled out of Camelot, of how they'd spoken...
Arthur... he tried softly, not wanting it to work.
The singing stopped, mid verse.
A moment or two later, Arthur returned, a dead doe slung across his shoulders. He looked slightly shaken, but otherwise as confident as usual.
“This should keep us fed for a day or two,” the prince said, proudly plunking the dead deer down in front of Merlin. “Dress that, would you?”
Merlin looked up at Arthur, and smiled. “Certainly, sire.” He reached down and picked up the skinning knife from the pack at his side.
...I wonder if he knows how his eyes look by firelight... Merlin heard in his mind.
Merlin dropped the skinning knife.
That night, there were dreams. Both the prince and his servant tossed in their sleep - this time in separate beds.
...he trailed the end of the feather down Merlin's chest, grinning as his servant writhed and squealed and pulled at the ropes that fastened his hands to the remarkably useful wooden posts of his bed.
“Arthur, don't,” Merlin whined, pleaded. “That tickles!”
Arthur gave in, and replaced the feather with his mouth, teasing those same sensitive areas with his tongue. Merlin started pulling at the ropes again, but for a different reason.
“Arthur...that...keep doing that...”
The dream faded, but it was very quickly replaced with another.
...They met in the woods, beyond the fires. They fell together as soon as they dared, tearing and pulling at their clothes, burning with the need for skin-to-skin contact, with desire for one another. The air was cool against their heated skin as they freed themselves from the daily trappings of their stations, became one under a moon that did not care for status or duty...
Until a bat screeched in the night, and they looked up from each other to see the clearing ringed with bats, bats that were also women in long velvet dresses, with luminous eyes and melodic voices...women who were cheering them on...
They woke up. The fire had died down slightly, but that didn't stop them from looking at one another across it, sharing an expression that was equal parts embarrassment and arousal, with a healthy case of the wiggins thrown in for good measure.
“What,” Arthur asked carefully, “was that?”
“I expect,” Merlin replied in the same careful tone, “that that was something to do with that price you promised we'd pay.”
Arthur scratched at his wrist and squirmed uncomfortably under his blankets. He stopped, suddenly, and tossed Merlin a Look.
You can hear me, can't you? Arthur asked without actually using his voice.
Yes, Merlin said by way of reply.
“Godsdamnit,” Arthur said aloud. “This is not good.”
“No, it isn't,” Merlin said neutrally. They were both skirting the issue of the dreams, and they both knew it. Neither of them wanted to admit to being the one from whom the dreams had originated, and neither wanted to accuse the other of being that same thing.
“So we have to...?” Arthur let the sentence trail off.
“No!” Merlin said, half sitting up. “No, no...I mean...not if you don't...I mean...” he trailed off himself. Arthur was staring at him. Correction; Arthur was staring at his chest, where his shirt's laces had fallen open. “We should get back to Gaius,” Merlin tried again. “He'll know what we have to do.”
“Yes, Gaius,” Arthur said uncomfortably, lying back down. He sat up again suddenly, pointing a stern finger at Merlin. “My father is to know nothing about this. Neither is Gwen. Or Morgana. Or so help me, I’ll -”
“Stocks. Yeah. Got it,” Merlin said, trying to control the sudden onset of images of him restrained in the stocks with Arthur very close by. Too late he remembered that their special telepathic link seemed to include the ability to send images from one mind to another - how else would they have shared dreams?
Arthur’s eyes got very wide. Merlin retreated under his blanket and tried to keep that image out of his head too.
The next four days were going to be very long indeed.
A/N: Still good? Or have I gone too far off the beaten track?