Work Text:
"You're the best friend I've ever had," Gwaine gasps out, swaying as he is helped up the stone steps from Gaius' shop into Merlin's tiny bedroom.
"You seem to have quite a few," Merlin laughs with a grunt of effort as he helps Gwaine into bed, the heaviness of his body as he drops into the blankets nearly causing Merlin to overbalance and tumble on top of him.
Gwaine laughs too, his entire face crinkling, skin flushed with drink as he thumps his head back onto Merlin's pillow. "Yeah, now I do. 'S different from...," he mumbles the last. "Not sure why they're after m' friendship unless for -"
"Drunken shenanigans?" Merlin teases, cocking his head. Gwaine blows out air with pursed lips, making a dramatic huff as if affronted, but still laughing.
"Fair enough, Merl," he slurs, and Merlin softens, settling to a seat on the bed beside Gwaine, pulling the blankets out from underneath his friend and tugging off Gwaine's boots.
"If I'm your best friend, get these off my blankets and settle down." He speaks in a commanding tone, unconsciously, until Gwaine comments upon it.
"Oof, are you this bossy with your princess?" Gwaine asks, but he catches his tongue between his teeth with an open-mouthed grin, leveling a wink at Merlin that causes the thin young man to duck his head, feeling warm despite his own lack of alcohol imbibing, which Gwaine notices. "Merlin, y' should've -" he starts.
"- You really don't like Arthur, do you?" Merlin's eyes flicker up to focus again on Gwaine's dark ones as he cuts his friend's words off, automatically apologetic. "I'm sorry, but. Right. What's with you and nobles, anyway?"
Shaking his long hair across his face before pushing it back, Gwaine's gaze darkens, even as he seems to be about to negate Merlin's words before deciding differently. Merlin notices a change in his face. "Nothing but he's a royal, and they expect too much without giving in return." The tone of Gwaine's voice is lower and angrier than Merlin has ever heard it before.
"You really don't think well of...any of them?" Inquires Merlin.
"I dunno," Gwaine's smile is no longer mirthful, but hard. Bitter. Merlin wants to change that, to return Gwaine's look to one of real mirth. On impulse, he takes hold of the other man's hand and holds on, rubbing his thumb across Gwaine's callous-roughened skin. He's pulled Gwaine upright a trifle with the touch, and Gwaine softens as they lean slightly into one another. "I've not told ya," Gwaine's voice is rough. "But my father was a knight. In Carleon's army. He... he did whatever he could for his king." Gwaine presses his lips together and pushes back his hair. "Even laid down his life in battle."
"Oh, Gwaine," Merlin's eyes prickle and fill. Gwaine shakes his head a little, smiling with his mouth closed and eyes sorrowful.
Gwaine waves his free hand expansively, body swaying as he does so. Merlin automatically steadies him. The larger fellow sniffs. "Well. My mother had my sister and me to think of, she was alone after my father died. Asked the king for help, but he would not give it. Refused to even see her. He deserted the family of a loyal man, and that's why I haven't any time for royals. No use in dying for 'em." He lets out a bark of laughter and slaps Merlin's shoulder.
Merlin's eyes flash with understanding and pain as he asks "You never knew your father?"
"No. Just have stories I've been told."
With a nod "I know what that's like," Merlin returns. Pauses. "I met my father, just briefly, before he died." Merlin doesn't think he has said enough, not near enough. And he wants Gwaine to know. Wants to tell someone. He presses his full lips together, eyes flickering downward again as he looks at Gwaine's hand still wrapped around his own. Even wavering as he is, Gwaine tightens his grip and sits upright, shuffling closer to comfort and soothe. Always to do such things for Merlin, dear Gwaine. Such a good friend. "He, erm-- he lived in Camelot and was forced to leave, by Uther. He was banished."
"Why, what had he done?" Gwaine leans in as he speaks in a gentle growl.
"He... Nothing. He did nothing." Nothing but have magic and be a dragonlord, he adds inwardly. The wish to speak aloud his secret, his family's, his father's has never been so strong as it is at present. And if he were to tell Gwaine of his magic, surely he would be silent? He might not even remember it on the morrow; Merlin thinks thus with exasperation and fondness intermixed as he watches his friend waver backwards again before Gwaine responds.
"Yet the king betrayed him." Gwaine's eyes, even reddened from drink or emotion, perhaps both, Merlin cannot rightly tell; their warm brown depths remain focused on his face as Gwaine reaches out and clasps Merlin's slim shoulder in his hand, providing a link in sorrow, a balm to the pain.
"... Arthur's not like that," Merlin's voice is barely a whisper, a breath as he speaks quickly, trying to convince Gwaine. Yet his voice breaks even in his attempt at certainty. Gwaine softens again, lifting his hand as if unconsciously to cup Merlin's face, stroke his thumb across one sharp cheek and down to touch Merlin's plump lips.
With a tap of the pad of his thumb and face tipping close to Merlin's, "Maybe there's one worth dying for then," in so rough a voice Gwaine speaks before Merlin catches sight of the sheen of moisture in his eyes. Gwaine then guffaws and falls back flat, thumb caressing Merlin's lower lip and eliciting a soft sound before patting his face smartly. Merlin expects it's a joke, that sentiment, and sighs with a grumble as he makes to stand up and officially tuck his friend into bed after a seemingly endless span of moments.
***
"Right," he rises, but Gwaine shifts his grasp to hold Merlin by the wrist and pull those thin fingers to graze his shoulder. "What is it, what're you doing, Gwaine?"
Shifting his hips and stretching fingers, Gwaine reaches up to touch Merlin's side. "Stay," he swallows, curling his fingers to rest at the small of Merlin's back, feeling smooth cool skin and gently caressing it as he dips his fingers just beneath the hem of his shirt. "I mean, if you want, this is your bed."
"There's not really room for me, Gwaine," Merlin smiles, but he isn't moving. His eyes travel up and down as if he is checking the bed size. Or Gwaine's. A flush spreads across those sharp high cheeks as he adds "No, decidedly not enough room."
"You can lie down on me, we c'n snuggle," Gwaine offers this idea as if it is the most natural suggestion, though Merlin feels his face and chest get decidedly warm at the way Gwaine studies him. He knows this is more than likely all of the alcohol that Gwaine imbibed talking, and he'll certainly forget or... something. Merlin cannot imagine Gwaine acting like nothing occurred between them. What IS occuring between them, other than drunken assertions of friendship and confessions about one's father being a knight? Merlin wishes he had said what his father was as well, at this rate. He doubts Gwaine would care.
First things first, though - "Alright. I'll stay," Merlin shrugs off his coat and unties his kerchief, slipping off boots and asking if Gwaine wants a nightshirt, he's going to get into one.
"Nah, I seem to remember not wearing a shirt at all last time I woke up in your bed," a wink accompanies the teasing.
"I also brought you breakfast," Merlin utters, swiftly pulling his shirt over his head and switching it for a slightly soft larger one, unable to respond with why he'd taken off Gwaine's shirt for him on that previous occasion. To make him comfortable, of course, but why Merlin had even thought such action would make Gwaine comfortable, moreover what caused him to linger over the sight of Gwaine's skin, feel an impulse to run his hands over him, following that path with his lips...
"Ooh, yes. Can I expect such treatment again?" Gwaine asks, mercifully cutting into Merlin's thoughts before groaning as his stomach starts to gurgle. "...on second thought, let's not talk 'bout breakfast."
"You definitely won't get that treatment if you puke in my bed, here." Merlin knows his hair is everywhere and his face could very well be flushing, but he goes out in socks to grab a pail and some mint leaves as well. "Chew these, they should help with the nausea. Otherwise," he plunks the bucket beside his bed. "Use this." Blowing out his candle and going back to the door, Merlin carefully pushes it closed and shuffles back over. "Here I come, then. What?" Gwaine has glanced up at him, chewing the mint slowly, his now-bare chest agleam in the moonlight from Merlin's window. Noticeable now the candle has gone out. "What is it, you all right?"
"Yes," Gwaine blinks. "Just admiring how stunning you are, Merlin."
"Oh stop," Merlin definitively flushes this time, he knows. "You're drunk, and I'm letting you stay the night, that's all. I'm nothing special." Not in that way, even though I am, I'm a sorcerer, I have magic... he drops to sit on the bed by Gwaine's side just above his hip, and closes his eyes, trying desperately to control himself. He cannot blurt any of that out; cannot afford it. For Gwaine's sake as well as his own.
But he underestimates Gwaine. Who rises and swallows the mint leaves down, leaning against Merlin's back and wrapping both arms around him to hold on. "You are," warm breath over the back of Merlin's neck makes his muscles twitch and relax involuntarily. "You are to me, and to anyone who sees the things you do without looking to be praised or wanting a reward -" taking Merlin's face against his fingers, Gwaine gently turns his head so as to look in his eyes. "Merlin, you are absolutely extraordinary."
Merlin's heart feels like it's in his throat from how lovely were those words, and the way Gwaine looks when saying them. "Gwaine -" he doesn't register moving, but his lips are on Gwaine's and his palms are brushing stubble as his fingertips grab hanks of hair and Gwaine is making a sound deep in his throat as he kisses back too quickly for Merlin to withdraw in worry over the possibility of overstepping, or anything. Clearly he has no need to worry as Gwaine's arms are wrapping around him and tugging Merlin's body down across his own. Chest to chest, legs draped over each other; Gwaine rubs himself on Merlin's knee and a molten shock goes through Merlin's lower body. He moves into Gwaine and gasps too, feeling the other man's lips and then the press of his teeth into his full lower lip before feeling the glory of their mouths and bodies moving at the same time, giving and taking.
But Gwaine is still very much inebriated, and Merlin does his best to think about that, about anything other than the press of his body to Merlin's own - oh, gods give him strength "... Gwaine," Merlin gasps out, pulling back to speak, the other man instantly following his movement. "Gwaine, you're drunk."
"Not 'n alcohol any more, mate," Gwaine mumbles, pressing kisses to Merlin's jaw and chin and throat.
"No, that's - that isn't what I meant. Gwaine," trying to catch hold of him, Merlin almost loses his train of thought as he feels a nip of teeth at his skin. "Ah, you, hang on I think we ought to do this when you're sober. I don't - I don't want to take advantage." He also, stunned by the thought, wants Gwaine to remember this if he likes it. He doesn't want Gwaine to not like him like this sober. Maybe Gwaine is just going with it because it's like his flirting, meaning something in this moment it won't on the morrow, and Merlin really does not want this to end up as one of the evenings it is better to forget upon the morrow.
But at the look upon Gwaine's face right now, confusion and concern causing his eyes to crinkle and seem to get larger at the same time, Merlin knows he obviously needs to clarify. "I don't want this to end up being just some drunken... thing," Merlin admits, and instantly wants to throw himself off the bed and crawl underneath it.
What is wrong with him?
***
"Merlin…," Gwaine looks up at him, at the way he shrinks away, seeming so small and worried that damn the buzzing from ale, he still wants Merlin here. "Alright," he gets out. "We c'n wait, I - I just want you to stay with me." He strokes Merlin's hair and the shell of one ear, fingertips trailing down to the tender places where he had kissed that pale perfect skin. His words are stumbling and slurring over themselves, but his movements are not, and he hopes that surety goes to show Merlin the way that he feels. "And I want a promise that I c'n make sure you feel won'erful, right?"
He is losing diction in earnest now, slumping farther in the bed, but he's hanging onto Merlin as best he can as his eyes are closing. And Merlin holds Gwaine's hand, his own palm on top as he slides himself to rest against Gwaine. "Right," Merlin speaks softly, a lump filling his throat so that he has to swallow several times before he can barely whisper "... thank you, Gwaine."
His friend's breaths come deep and even, skin of his pectoral muscles and abdomen rising and falling in an almost rolling motion that Merlin suddenly aches to touch, to caress with his fingers or even his lips. He stops himself from doing so by lying down instead and pulling the slightly scratchy woollen blanket over both of them.
But as he burrows into Gwaine's side, unable to stop himself from nuzzling for the briefest instant into Gwaine's neck, nose and lips brushing the underside of his chin where the soft bristles of his beard provide delightful friction, Gwaine murmurs something hardly audible, turning into him with his face pressed to Merlin's forehead, one arm flung round his slim side, fingers curling to hold close.
Merlin does his absolute best to shut off the whirlwind of his mind and settle into sleep with Gwaine, whose hand remains still flexed to clutch Merlin around his ribs.
Gwaine wants him here, wants to be here, and that should be enough. It is enough.
For now, right now as Merlin rests his head upon Gwaine's chest and feels the rise and fall of his breath, the steady beats of his heart, he is content. He feels secure.
They have this at least until the morning.