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Merlin was tired. It had been a very long day of feast preparations and cleaning and decorating and waiting on guests and squeezing regular chores in between everything else, not to mention the ordeal of the actual feast itself. All in all, it seemed like he had been on his feet and moving since before dawn.
Unfortunately, his day wasn’t quite over yet. The festivities may have largely broken up, but there was still the matter of tending to his master. There were chambers to tidy and bedclothes to arrange and clothes to lay out for the morrow. He still needed to get Arthur out of his finery and ready for bed before he could retire himself.
It would be a shame to see Arthur undress. Not because seeing him unclothed was a hardship, but because he looked wonderful all dressed up. He was in a blue doublet of finely woven material, trousers blessedly fitted and jacket sparkling with perfectly polished gold buttons. He looked every bit the brilliant, shining prince he was.
He had been the star of the feast, the one every visiting knight wanted to talk to, the one every nobleman wanted to introduce his daughter to. No one had been able to take their eyes off of him, Merlin least of all. But that wasn’t new. Merlin found his eyes drawn to Arthur more often than not, whether he was dressed to the nines or sweaty and disheveled straight from the training grounds.
Tonight had been a special kind of difficult. While it had been nice to see Arthur having a good time, it had been not quite so nice to be stuck on the fringes with a pitcher in hand. To see Arthur passed around from noblewoman to blushing noblewoman, pulled out onto the dance floor to spin ‘round and ‘round with one woman after another. To see Arthur bestowing that particularly charming smile of his on what seemed like everyone but him.
It wasn’t that he was jealous, per se. He knew that Arthur had obligations, political relations to maintain, things that were expected of him by his father. He knew that what they had together couldn’t yet be taken outside of the small spaces they shared behind closed doors, that Arthur couldn’t have swept a servant out onto the dance floor before all and sundry. He knew that Arthur loved him and that all those dances with pretty ladies meant nothing.
But it still stung a bit that he’d barely been able to catch Arthur’s eye all night.
Arthur had had a great time though. It was a lovely night and Merlin certainly wasn’t going to be the one to ruin it with selfish complaints. He was just tired. He’d feel better in the morning.
So he puttered around the room, setting out Arthur’s armour for the next morning’s training session, making sure everything was in its rightful place while Arthur regaled him with the new bits of gossip he’d come into. Apparently Lord Yaxley had a wart in an unfortunate place. How Arthur had come to find that out, Merlin wasn’t keen to know.
Merlin only half listened. He didn’t much care for gossip under regular circumstances, and his weariness didn’t incline him toward it any more. He let himself appreciate the cadence of Arthur’s voice after so many hours deprived of it and took refuge in the familiar mindlessness of his regular duties.
He did notice when Arthur stopped talking. Or maybe he’d stopped a while ago, but there was definitely silence now.
Merlin looked up from the pauldron he’d been arranging to find Arthur watching him with a little frown.
“What?”
Arthur discarded the jacket he’d managed to worm his way out of without assistance for once without taking his eyes off Merlin.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You’re looking at me funny.”
“Maybe I just like looking at you,” he countered, eyebrows raised. “You’re rather nice to look at. That’s long been established.”
Merlin huffed a weak laugh and turned back to the pauldron. “If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
Arthur’s hand was on his wrist then, pulling him away from the table with all its armour. Merlin tried to protest—just a bit more to do and then he could finally call this long day finished—but Arthur shushed him. He found himself wrapped up in Arthur’s arms, tucked close against his chest. It wasn’t quite an embrace and Arthur didn’t move to kiss him or anything. He just held him there and began to sway.
“Arthur, what are you doing?”
With the close stance and the rocking back and forth, it was almost like dancing. Not so much the courtly dances from earlier in the evening, the ones with an arm’s length between and hands held high above, but the intimate kind more common in peasant celebrations.
Arthur took one of Merlin’s hands in his and relocated it to his own shoulder before taking hold of the other. He tightened his other arm’s hold on Merlin’s waist. “What does it seem like I’m doing?”
Merlin shook his head. This was silly and unnecessary and he didn’t need to be coddled or pandered to just because he’d managed to upset himself. “Arthur—”
“I danced with a lot of people tonight, Merlin,” Arthur said. “What’s the harm in getting one last dance in?”
His eyes were bright and clear and once they caught Merlin’s, he had trouble looking away. Sword-callused fingers were warm around Merlin’s and the swaying motion was strangely soothing. Being this close to Arthur was always a little intoxicating. But—
“There’s no music,” Merlin pointed out.
Arthur scoffed. “Who needs music?”
“Dancing usually requires accompaniment.”
Arthur just pulled him in even closer and pressed his lips against Merlin’s cheek. “Why would I need music,” he said, “when I have you?”
Merlin shuddered, eyes falling closed. Suddenly the aching in his feet wasn’t so bad and the weariness that had been weighing him down all day seemed lighter with Arthur there to hold him up. He sank helplessly into Arthur’s arms like he had so wanted to earlier and and let Arthur spin him slowly ‘round and ‘round.
Arthur kissed his cheek again, once, twice, three times. Slowly he made his way around to Merlin’s lips and kissed him there too, gentle and sweet.
“You’re all I need, Merlin,” he said into the quiet space between them. “No matter how many ladies get thrust upon me or how many feasts I attend. It’s just you and me.”
In these chambers, wrapped up together like this, it was always just them. And as Merlin buried his face in Arthur’s shoulder and swayed to music neither of them could hear, he promised himself he wouldn’t forget it again.