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Two men sit outside the castle doors, on the white stone stairs, the difference in their station that between the soil and the skies. One of them is dressed like a prince, with garb so fine it gives the impression of being stitched from rubies and gold. The other is clothed significantly plainer, so that he resembles a servant. He is also swaying from side to side and drunkenly giggling into the other man’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Merlin says, drunkenly indignant now, which is when Arthur realises that he said all that out loud.
“That too.”
Fuck.
“Such princely language.”
Perhaps he should just stop thinking altogether.
“That implies you ever started,” Merlin says fondly, sways a bit too much to the right, and grabs at Arthur’s arm when he overbalances. Arthur nearly topples over himself, and it’s only when they’ve both settled back down, Merlin’s hand curled around his elbow, that he remembers he was insulted.
“Very funny, Merlin,” says Arthur, sneering, petting the hand. Someone’s hand is around his elbow. What an odd word, elbow. He could prolly shoot arrows from it if he tried. “Sloe gin is certainly not a good look on you.”
Merlin hums and snuggles in closer. Arthur tilts his head so that it rests atop Merlin’s, and nuzzles him, lovingly, like a loving cat.
They’ve known each other a scant number of months, and the beginning of their journey together was certainly not a choice either of them made by choice… of their own vol—violation, but damn if this peasant boy from some nondescript collection of huts (villages would riot if compared to it) in someone else’s stupid kingdom isn’t one of the dearest things in Arthur’s possession now.
“Not a thing. Not your possession. Ealdor’s a village! Also, I didn’t know you loved me. You loooove me.”
“Nnnno,” Arthur says, waiting a full thirty seconds so Merlin won’t take him seriously.
“You’re lying.” Merlin looks up at him from the (surely it can’t be) comfort of Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur tries to look down at him, but then they’d start kissing because their lips would be touching if Arthur looked down, and Arthur doesn’t know if they’re quite there yet. He wants to be there already, very badly. This adorable little fairy cake smacking his lips whilst looking very lecherously at Arthur (Arthur can see things out of the corner of his eye) needs to be kissed until his mouth is all shiny and pink-red and kissable even though it’s just been kissed —
“I want to kiss you, too, peach galette,” Merlin drawls. “C’mere.”
Never drinking again. Especially the damn gin. Arthur shakes his head, manfully ignoring Merlin’s pout.
“I thought you loved me,” Merlin says, quiet and forlorn. Arthur checks his feet to see if a kicked puppy’s anywhere near them. There isn’t a single one. Thank the gods. Halt! — did he kick Merlin?
“I’ll have our first kiss sober, thanks,” he says, proud of himself for the restraint. He respects Merlin too much to entertain the possibility of either of them kecking during the kiss.
“Kissing you would be the perfect antidote to kecking,” Merlin says, just as quiet as before, and Arthur has really got to stop thinking, because somehow his brain can’t keep its mouth shut and so his mouth can’t keep its mouth shut.
“Why wasn’t I there when you began this whole thinking lark?” Merlin says, back to being fond, so Arthur’s back to wanting to kiss him. “It’s like I’m watching a clown drop all his balls — balls — without all the fun of seeing him juggle them first.”
“Sloe gin. Never again.”
“Can you juggle your balls, Arthur?”
But before Arthur can think out loud the answer to this question (and he totally had an answer) Merlin drops a kiss on his shoulder in the manner of a woodpecker with a bobbing head, so he has no choice but to melt because he loves his stupid silly servant so much.
“I love you, too,” Merlin whispers. “Stupid silly prat. Prince. Prat prince. Prat prince!”
There’s nothing wrong with having your first kiss rip-roaring drunk, is there? No, absolutely not. Arthur doesn’t know the bloke who was all about respect earlier. What a nutter.
“Three,” Merlin says. “Two.”
Arthur squares his shoulders — Merlin slips off and then there’s a bit of a scuffle because he overbalances again — and then Merlin’s just about to say one (please say one) when a voice he dreads says,
“There you are!”
It’s the main feature of his nightmares. The M woman.
“Arthur — the feast is long over. Uther’s been looking for you.”
As if he’s going to go stand in front of his father whilst off his tits on sloe gin.
“You’ve got magnificent tits,” Merlin slurs. After a second of outraged jealousy in which Arthur considers ripping his tunic off to show off his magnificent tits, he realises Merlin hasn’t noticed the harpy’s presence at all.
“Thank you,” he says, mollified. He doesn’t look up at the M woman until he’s got his arms securely wrapped around his fairy cake (slightly squashed now), at which point he does look up and stubbornly say, “Mine.”
Morgana rolls her eyes. “Why ever do I bother to be nice to you?”
“You think the world of me,” Arthur says, smirking.
“God help me, but I do,” she says, to which Merlin stirs awake, wraps his arms around Arthur, and stubbornly says,
“Mine.”
— to the stair beneath the one Morgana’s toes (in fancy slippers) are on.
“I hope you both have the worst hangovers tomorrow,” Morgana says, and she and her toes (in fancy slippers) turn around and ascend the stairs and vanish behind the doors. That’s magic. Sorcery. Someone tell Uther. Father!
“Would you?” Merlin asks, shivering all of a sudden, peering anxiously at Arthur. “Tell Uther Father if you knew someone had magic?”
“I will protect you always and forever,” Arthur declares, because he isn’t a fool. “Because I’m not a fool.”
Merlin’s eyes grow wide and they fill with tears and Arthur may just be a foolish fool after all.
“I’m going to happy-cry,” says Merlin in his own declaration, “right after I sick up in those bushes over there.”
Those bushes aren’t actually bushes, as Arthur finds out when he joins Merlin to sick up, but Arthur doubts either he or Merlin will be there the next morning when the stablehands come to pick up the haystacks. No harm done — to them, which is what matters.
“I will kiss you loads and loads tomorrow,” Merlin promises. “Without liquor imp peeing in me.”
“Loads and loads.” Impeding. So drunk.
Merlin nods solemnly, and then starts happy-crying as they both start stumbling their way back to Arthur’s rooms.
Arthur holds him to his promise the next day, and wonders what other wonders the sloe gin will bring him.