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The Camelot courtyard was cold this late at night. Merlin didn't get to see it this quiet very often, and on a nicer night he might have taken his time, strolling around the empty marketplace, listening to the insects sing.
But this wasn't a nicer night. It was, in fact, the least nice night he'd had in awhile.
The memories of Arthur's touch came unbidden. He walked faster, but couldn't escape them. Arthur's hand on his thigh. The stupid grin Arthur got when Merlin kissed him unexpectedly. That first time Arthur had allowed himself to hold Merlin and be held, his stiff arms relaxing. It was too much to bear, and getting some air wasn't helping. He needed to go home.
He felt he'd just been home.
He flung open the door to Gaius' rooms, trying to think about nothing but flinging himself onto his bed.
"You're home late." Gaius looked up from the potions he was tinkering with, raising an eyebrow. "Or early, I suppose, depending on how one looks at it."
"Had a project in the Citadel." Merlin didn't look at Gaius, brushing past him on his way to his room.
"Merlin."
Merlin stopped.
"Your nightly wanderings have not escaped my knowledge." Gaius' voice was kind. "It's a girl, isn't it?"
Merlin wanted to tell him everything. Wanted to break down and tell him how Arthur had become more than just a master and a friend, how what had started out physical hadn't remained that way, the weight of Arthur's princely responsibilities leaving him terrified to love and even cruel to Merlin.
He wanted someone to know.
But that would be unthinkable to do to Arthur. He nodded, trying to keep his voice calm. "Yes. Well. Not anymore."
"Ah, I see." Gaius set down the vial he'd been holding and put an arm around Merlin. "Did she know about your...situation?"
Merlin nodded, trying to keep the hurt off his face. Gaius clucked his teeth and squeezed Merlin’s shoulder.
“It’ll be alright,” he promised. “You’ll find someone else you can trust like that. It might take some time–”
“I don’t want to trust someone else,” Merlin burst out. “I want her.”
Gaius wrapped Merlin in a hug. Merlin twisted out of it; he couldn’t do this right now, not while all he could think about was Arthur in his room by himself.
“Maybe you should talk to Arthur about it,” Gaius suggested. “He at least acts as if he knows about girls.” He saw Merlin’s grimace. “What?”
“Nothing. Good idea, Gaius,” Merlin said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to bed.”
He closed the door to his room before Gaius could interrogate him further. With an incantation he undid the bindings from his chest, and he collapsed onto his bed, finally allowing himself to cry.
He thought about what Gaius had said. Arthur only knew about his “situation,” his body and past, because Arthur knew him better than anyone else. There was only one secret between them, and that one Merlin could live with. But the prospect of a long and lonely life, where he took no more lovers for fear that they told someone, stretched slowly ahead of him.
And it was true what he’d told Gaius. He didn’t want more lovers. He wanted Arthur.
Arthur didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep with his back against the door until it was shoved open, pushing him forward across the wood floor. He scrambled to get up, and found himself facing a wide-eyed Merlin.
“Oh, Arthur,” he said softly, and Arthur wanted to fall to pieces.
But he didn’t. “Merlin, have you ever heard of knocking?”
He expected Merlin to have some clever retort, but instead his manservant just looked away. “My apologies, sire.”
Arthur didn’t like picking on a Merlin who didn’t dish out as much as he took; it was no fun. But he didn’t know what else to say to him. So he let his manservant dress him in silence. Merlin was a lot more efficient than usual, not allowing himself any lingering glances or accidental brushes of Arthur's skin as he did up his tunic.
"To your liking, sire?"
Arthur nodded. "Thanks, Merlin. Bring me some breakfast, will you?"
"Yes, sire." Merlin bowed and headed off to the kitchens. When the door was closed, Arthur buried his head in his hands, and kept them there until the door opened again.
Merlin watched him eat, saying nothing. Arthur slammed the half-eaten bread down on his plate. "Well, don't just sit there in silence," he complained.
"I apologize, my lord. What would you have me say?" Merlin asked coolly.
That was somehow worse. Arthur didn't want to order Merlin to speak. He just wanted it to happen the way it always had. “Nothing, forget it.”
The rest of the day was much the same. The rest of the month was little better. Merlin was slightly more talkative in public, responding to Arthur’s insults with his usual banter, so that no one would suspect anything had happened. But in private, Merlin was quiet, subdued, only talking to Arthur if there was something so important that he was forced to swallow his pain and his pride. He'd make polite conversation if Arthur led, sure, but it was like he'd forgotten how to get under Arthur's skin.
Or more likely, like he didn't want to anymore.
Cedric came, and finally Arthur had someone to talk to again; and Cedric went, and for a moment it seemed like things would get back to normal. But even after he’d given Merlin his job back, playfully tossed the rag at him and let it land on his face, even after that blissful moment of them really talking like the friends they were again, things hadn’t been quite the same. Merlin was a little more talkative and a little more himself, sure, but his eyes didn’t sparkle the same way they used to when he was about to say something particularly rude to Arthur, his smile didn’t light up in quite the same way.
And, of course, they hardly touched. Arthur hadn’t realized how much he needed touch, preferably Merlin’s, until it was taken from him. Another winter had come since that first night Merlin had warmed his bed, and nights were so much colder now without him. Merlin was right; it was the winter, so it wasn’t unusual to have a manservant share one’s bed, and Arthur missed the simple comfort of a warm body to hold at night. But he couldn’t possibly ask that of Merlin now.
Well, he could. He was the prince, after all.
It felt wrong, but it shouldn’t, he reasoned. The wrong-feeling of it was the problem. He should just lord it over Merlin like he was supposed to. That wouldn’t make things normal with them again, but it would make Merlin realize he was normal.
“Merlin, get over here,” he said after Merlin closed the curtains in his room.
Merlin stood by the side of the bed. “Yes, sire?”
“It’s cold. Stay here tonight.”
Merlin just stood there, staring at him. Arthur’s cheeks burned hot. “I didn’t mean–I wasn’t–”
“I know you meant nothing untoward, sire.” Merlin’s voice was cool. “Just a moment.”
Arthur listened to Merlin undress and unwrap his chest, trying to pretend everything was normal. That Merlin was really his manservant and nothing more. He heard Merlin slide his tunic over his head again, once he’d unbound himself.
But Merlin sleeps with his shirt off, he remembered, and he tried not to think of Merlin’s soft, small chest, and the light curve of his stomach.
The second Merlin climbed into bed, his body inches from Arthur’s, Arthur knew the whole thing was useless. His body wanted to roll over and touch Merlin, hold Merlin, do anything to Merlin, and his brain was screaming what in the name of every god in Camelot are you doing?!
“Merlin,” he said.
Rustling sheets–the sound of Merlin rolling over. Arthur, curled facing away from him, couldn’t see. “Mmm?”
“I shouldn’t have asked this of you. You can go home.”
“Is that an order?”
Arthur was silent.
Merlin sighed. “It just seems silly for you to be cold.” He clapped a hand on Arthur’s bare shoulder. “I want you to get a good night’s sleep for the hunt tomorrow.”
It felt like Arthur had been struck by lightning. Merlin’s touch. After months of being deprived of it, Merlin was touching his bare shoulder. Someone was touching his bare shoulder. He hadn’t had the heart to bring anyone else into his bed, though Cedric had tried his damnedest, and this feeling of prolonged touch made Arthur’s gut clench. When Merlin let his hand slide off Arthur’s shoulder, Arthur wanted to cry.
“You get some sleep, too, Merlin,” he said. “No Cedric around this time.”
Merlin laughed. “Was that really the last time we went boar hunting? It feels like an eternity has passed.”
“I said get some sleep.” Arthur hoped Merlin could hear the smile on his face.
Despite being more well-rested than usual, the boar hunt did not go in Arthur’s favor.
The image of the tusk ripping into Arthur’s leather armor, the horrible jet of red and the whump of Arthur hitting the tree, would be seared into Merlin’s mind for a long time. He incanted as he threw his spear, half-certain everyone would be so focused on saving the prince that they wouldn’t notice him, half not caring. The boar turned and charged at Merlin, thank the gods, not making it to him before collapsing from the spear wound.
It was a huge boar, making horrible noises until someone shoved a second spear into it to put it out of its misery, and would make for a feast that would feed the whole castle. But nobody cared about that right now.
“Arthur?”
“Arthur, are you alright?”
“Prince Arthur!”
The cacophony of voices was overwhelming, as was the pain when Arthur pulled his hand away from his side to check how bad the bleeding was. Bad. It felt like a flesh wound, the boar having missed the important bits and just taken a nasty gash out of the muscle on his side, but with the speed at which blood was pouring out of him he wasn’t sure he’d make it out of this alive.
He became conscious of Merlin at his side, Merlin’s rough, warm hands covering his own, and suddenly realized he didn’t want to die with things in this state between them. He didn’t want to live with things in this state between them.
He squeezed Merlin’s hand and batted at a knight who was offering him water. “Leave me alone!” he snapped before regaining his cool. “I’m badly wounded and I have confidential information crucial to the survival of our kingdom, ” he said. “For my manservant’s ears only, so please…give us some space. That’s an order.”
The clearing emptied in moments, the men retreating into the woods. Merlin knelt, took Arthur’s hand and squeezed it. “Whatever it is can wait,” he said, “because you’re going to be–”
Arthur pulled Merlin’s face to his. It only took Merlin a moment to start kissing back, and only another moment for him to pull away again, staring wide-eyed down at Arthur.
“I love you,” said Arthur. “I love you. I’m sorry.” He squeezed Merlin’s hand as tightly as he could. “Gods, I’m sorry. I couldn’t die without telling you.”
“Stop.” Merlin kissed him again, a desperation in it. Whether all was forgiven or not, Arthur couldn’t say. In the back of his mind he knew this shouldn’t have been the most important thing to him right now, but should and shouldn’t had lost their meaning ages ago.
“You’re going to be okay,” Merlin continued plaintively, taking his shirt off.
“What are you–”
“Bandages,” Merlin explained with a grimace.
“You can’t.” Had Merlin lost his mind? “Someone will see you.”
Merlin laughed. “You’re worried about me right now?”
“I’ll worry abut you as long as you act like an idiot.”
Merlin unwrapped the bindings from his chest and wrapped them tightly around Arthur’s. “There,” he said, quickly pulling his tunic back on. It billowed out so as to at least slightly hide his chest. “If Gaius taught me right, that should stop the bleeding. Can you ride?”
Arthur groaned. “Might be better off throwing me over the side of a horse and giving it a smack.”
“I’d try to find something for the pain, but I’m a rubbish healer, Arthur.” Merlin’s face twisted up in worry. “We need to get you back to Gaius.”
“I don’t want to go back to Gaius.” It was starting to feel like Arthur only had a few more seconds of consciousness left. “I want to be here with you.”
“Stop talking like that. You’re going to be fine.”
The break in Merlin’s voice was enough to nearly kill Arthur, so he didn’t protest. “Yeah,” he said, as everything in the clearing grew brighter, “I’m gonna be fine.”
The next thing he knew he was lying flat on his back, opening his eyes to see Gaius peering at him.
“He’s stirring,” he called.
Arthur wondered who he was talking to before he felt a hand squeezing his. A rough, slender hand that he’d recognize anywhere.
“Told you you’d be fine, didn’t I?”
Arthur tried to sit up, and winced. “I don’t know about fine .” He settled back down onto the hard wooden table.
“Merlin, shoo,” said Gaius. “I need to take his vitals.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Merlin couldn’t hide his grin. “I was just glad to see he’s okay.”
Gaius smiled. “You always are." He looked down at Arthur. "You were out a long time, you know. He sat up an entire night and a day for you. Changed your bandages while you were out."
Arthur's cheeks felt hot. "Merlin, you didn't need to do that."
Merlin shrugged. "Yeah, well, job security is an important thing.”
“I said shoo,” scolded Gaius, and Merlin left the healer to his work.
Arthur didn't see how sleeping on a wood slab overnight was going to help anything, but when Gaius insisted that he needed to be kept for observation, he was too tired to put up much of a fuss. Gaius probably had a point, anyway. Arthur's side hurt whenever he inhaled too sharply, so he had to take small, delicate breaths, and he still couldn't sit up without wincing, so Gaius had Merlin spoon-feed him, a task Merlin seemed to relish a little too much.
"Open up," he said, making a quiet roaring noise. "Here comes the dragon."
Arthur had half a mind to tweak Merlin's nose. He opened his mouth to say Merlin, knock it off, but Merlin shoved the spoonful of stew in before he could. Arthur glared up at his manservant, who smiled down at him, innocent as a lamb.
Gaius stood. "Now that we've got you stable and awake, I'm retiring for the night. Merlin, finish feeding Arthur and see to it that he gets some rest. He'll need it."
"I will." Merlin shoved another spoonful of stew into Arthur's mouth.
The door to Gaius' chamber closed with a thud. Arthur looked at Merlin. Merlin set the spoon in the bowl and sat forward in his chair.
"I've worked with Gaius long enough to know that people say all kinds of things when they think they're dying," he said, meeting Arthur's eyes.
Arthur laughed. "Merlin." He reached for his manservant's hand, and Merlin let him take it. "I meant what I said," he continued. With a glance at the closed door, he added in a low voice, "I love you. I'm sorry I've been such a…" He fumbled for words.
"Inconsiderate prat?" Merlin helpfully supplied.
"Yeah." Arthur nodded.
"Tactless ninny?" A grin was spreading across Merlin's face.
"I don't know that I'd--"
"Clotpole?"
"All right, Merlin."
Merlin laughed. "I forgive you," he said. "I know it was hard for you, too."
"I won't leave you again." Arthur squeezed Merlin's hand. "Nothing could make me. Nothing."
For a moment Merlin looked as if he wanted to say something. Instead, he bent down and pressed his lips to Arthur's.
Arthur never wanted to pull away.