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His touch lingers.
It lingers and it burns.
It sears into his skin and leaves an aching in its wake. A longing. A craving. A need.
A desperation.
His touch lingers but never stays.
Arthur wanted it to stay.
He wanted to Merlin to hold him and never let him go. He needed Merlin to hold him. A moment, just a for a moment.
He wanted it so badly. Craved it so desperately. Sometimes it made him stupid.
But gods, he needed it.
Arthur ached for it. The fleeting brush of his fingers on Arthur’s skin as he was dressed and undressed for day and night was never enough. It lingered but never stayed. Why did it never stay?
Was Arthur selfish for wanting it to stay? Was he wrong for wanting to be held so tightly in the arms of his best friend? Was he wrong for wanting to be loved by the man he couldn’t find the courage to confess his own affections to?
Perhaps he was…
The longing lingered as Merlin’s touch did, though.
He just wanted to be held.
Why couldn’t he be held?
Of course, he knew why. He was a prince, and now he was a king. He wasn’t allowed to have such attachments. They caused nothing but trouble.
He was to find someone worthy of ruling at his side, preferably someone who provided a politically beneficial alliance, and marry them.
He didn’t like it—he hated it, despised it even—but that was how it must be. A king must make sacrifices, and for Arthur that meant giving up his wish to marry for love.
After all, he could never marry Merlin.
He wanted to, gods, Arthur wanted to. It just… couldn’t happen, though. Merlin would never agree, would never want the same.
“Arthur?” The king blinked a few times, the world coming back into focus around him as Merlin’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “Did you hear a word I just said?”
“No,” Arthur answered honestly, trying his best to keep a level voice.
Merlin narrowed his eyes at him across the fire that burned between them. The stars lit the sky above them, as clouds parted to display the heavens behind. Arthur sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“Are you going to tell me what you said or am I supposed to guess?”
Merlin hummed at his question, before a cheeky smile broke out on his face that made Arthur’s heart skip a beat. “I’m rather partial to hearing you guess.”
“Merlin, just tell me,” Arthur ordered. The irritation in his voice was very obviously fake at this point, but he was too tired to put in real effort to be annoyed.
Merlin tilted his head to the side. He crossed his arms over his chest, appearing thoughtful. Arthur had to remind himself to pay attention this time despite his travelling thoughts trying to lead him back down the road of fantasizing over his sorcerous servant.
Finally, he let out a sigh and dropped his arms to press his hands into the grass on either side of himself. “I was saying, we should rest. We have a long journey back to Camelot in the morning.”
Arthur hesitated a moment before nodding. He was right, after all. They needed rest.
“Set up our bedrolls, then.”
“Do your arms not work… Sire?”
The clearing they chose to stop for the evening at was silent aside from the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind. Arthur just stared at Merlin blankly for a couple seconds. The sorcerer was grinning, seemingly proud of himself. What for, Arthur was unsure.
All he knew was that he never wanted that smile to fade.
“Merlin.” He said instead of his thoughts, a warning tone to his voice.
“Yes, yes, no need to use that tone on me,” Merlin muttered as he pushed himself to his feet. “I’m a great servant—”
Arthur snorted slightly in amusement, and Merlin rolled his eyes. “Prat.”
“You’re not a…terrible servant,” he conceded after a moment of consideration. Merlin’s eyes widened a fraction, and Arthur couldn’t help but notice the minor surprise on his face. Quickly, he added, “don’t get a big head, Merlin—you’re still not great either.”
“We can’t all be George,” Merlin responded without a moment’s hesitation. Arthur wondered briefly how long he’d been waiting to use that one.
“Right,” Arthur sighed. “Well, bedrolls? Waiting.”
Merlin rolled his eyes and muttered something about a ‘lazy prick’ as he walked over to and began digging through their things. Arthur watched from where he sat. When he noticed Merlin was taking rather long, he began to wonder if he should help after all.
It was only then Merlin said something.
“Arthur,” he began hesitantly.
“Yes, Merlin?”
A moment passed with no answer. The silence of the forest surrounding them was almost too much to bear. Then, finally,
“I can’t find the other bedroll…” Arthur swore his heart stopped beating. “There—there is only one here.”
Fuck.
Arthur took a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm himself. “And?”
“And?” Merlin snorted incredulously, “I’m not sleeping on the bare ground, Arthur. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, cozy by the fire I built for you, but it’s cold and I’d rather not get ill.”
Which was exactly what Arthur feared. Oh, of course he’d say that. Of course, he would appeal to Arthur’s sense of sympathy, even if he thinks it’s nonexistent. Not to mention, he was right, Arthur hadn’t noticed.
He sat close to the fire, the heat warming him from bottom to top. His face was flushed red from heat. The cold was but a memory in the back of his mind.
“So, what do you propose we do, then?” Arthur sighed, staring at the dancing flames.
There was a brief pause, a hesitation, before Merlin responded. Arthur dragged his eyes away from the fire and to Merlin at the silence.
“I’m sleeping with you.”
Arthur choked on air.
“Your bedroll is big enough, it will fit me,” Merlin huffed, “you can deal with it for one night.”
“That’s not the—”
“Do you want me to freeze? No, thought not, it won’t kill you to sleep with me for one evening, Arthur,” Merlin continued, not letting Arthur get a word in. Arthur felt a panic raise internally.
So close to Merlin, gods, he’d be so close. It made his heart ache. He longed for Merlin to lie with him for more than this one evening—yearned for it. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Gods, he could hardly think it.
At Arthur’s lack of response, Merlin began setting up the single bedroll near the fire, but not too close—for safety. Arthur could only watch, his heart pounding in his chest. He could hear the blood rushing in his hears, and his heart racing in his chest from the thought of being pressed so closely to his servant, and he swore Merlin could hear it too.
Merlin worked much too fast, and distantly Arthur wondered if he was always this fast or if it was just his anxiety that made it seem so. Either way, it was too soon that Merlin stood from where he was fixing the bedroll and declared it ready.
“Now, you can either stay over there and pout, or you can come to bed, but either way, I’m getting some rest.” Arthur’s heart skipped a beat at the phrase come to bed, and he swallowed hard. “I already set up wards around camp so we don’t have to worry about watch—if anyone tries to get through my defenses, I’ll be immediately awoken.”
“Right…” Arthur breathed.
He silently swore, as his only defense was shot out of his hands.
He supposed he should be happy. After all, all he wanted was for that lingering touch—to be held by Merlin—but… It wasn’t the same.
It wasn’t the same, being forced to share a bedroll, as Merlin willingly holding him in an affectionate embrace, professing his love for the king and treating him so tenderly.
It wasn’t the same, and so it burned.
It burned like the flickering, hot flames of the campfire Arthur stared at as he debated sleeping on the hard, freezing ground.
“Arthur, come on, you need rest.” Merlin’s voice brought him out of his thoughts, surprisingly—almost unbearably—gentle. Arthur’s chest tightened slightly, wishing the softness came from a place of romantic love, rather than that friendship. “I promise, I’ll keep as much distance as I can.”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it?
He thought Arthur wanted distance, when he wanted nothing less than distance. All he wanted was to press himself close to Merlin and wrap his arms around him and never let him go—all he wanted was to be hugged and held and loved.
All he wanted was what he could never have.
So, despite wanting nothing more than for Merlin to do the opposite of keep his distance, he sighed, and nodded. “Fine.”
He watched as Merlin’s face lit up with a grin, before he got comfortable on his side of the bedroll. Arthur was nervous, there wasn’t much room left after Merlin got in, there would be surely only centimetres between them. He took a deep breath and got up, walking over to the bedroll.
Arthur got in slowly, perhaps too slowly if the strange look Merlin was giving him meant anything. He was being so careful, though, scared that if he touched Merlin, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Scared he would grab him and never let go. Scared his façade would break and Merlin would see how much he needed him. Wanted him. Loved him.
As he finally laid beside Merlin, very little space separating them as he expected, Arthur wondered if he would survive the night. Wondered if the heat spreading across his chest and through his body would melt him before sunrise.
He wondered if it would okay—to say the words constantly on the tip of his tongue. To ask the question begging for an answer. To say damn it all to his crushing fears of fucking it all up and just say it.
To just—not be a coward…
He was a knight of Camelot, the king even, braver than the mightiest in battle, and yet, when it came to affairs of the heart… His cowardice showed face.
And Merlin, Merlin was right there, close enough to touch, and Arthur… Arthur rolled over, facing away from his sorcerer, ignoring the growing pain in his chest.
He was a coward. A burning, yearning coward. And it was all he’d ever be.
Arthur gasped when he felt an arm suddenly slung over his side, and a body pressed against his back, hot breath teasing the back of his neck. Briefly, he wondered what happened to Merlin giving him space, but his brain was too close to short circuiting to wonder for long.
“Merlin?” He asked faintly, his voice coming out strained.
He was stiff as a board, frozen and scared to move an inch—scared Merlin would realize what he was doing and let go. When Merlin didn’t respond, aside from pressing himself closer to Arthur, Arthur let out a sigh and glanced back towards him.
“Just my luck,” Arthur muttered under his breath upon seeing Merlin’s eyes shut—assuming him fast asleep. He waited a moment, hesitating. Then, with a sigh he rolled over in Merlin’s hold to face him, putting their faces millimetres apart.
“Do you even know what you do to me?” He asked softly, a tender, fond tone to his voice he hadn’t even known he was capable of. Merlin’s eyebrows twitched, but—as expected—he didn’t reply.
Arthur worried his bottom lip between his teeth, before lifting a hand slowly and gently resting it on Merlin’s cheek. He exhaled as he caressed Merlin’s cheek, his throat dry and heart heavy with cowardice in knowing he only had the confidence to act in such a manner when Merlin was asleep.
“Of course, you don’t.” Arthur closed his eyes, letting his hand slip down from Merlin’s face to his hip, absently resting it there. “How could you? It’s not as though I’ve really shown you… All I do is pull your pigtails and…pine like some little girl with a crush.”
“But it’s not just a…crush,” he murmured, letting the words that begged to be spoken finally fall from his lips—comforted by the fact Merlin was sleeping and couldn’t hear him. “Gods, it’s… It’s so much more, and I don’t, know, how to even begin to tell you how I feel… Gods, Merlin, you make me so… Stupid. I’m so… So, in love with you, I don’t even know how to act, and I do stupid things and—and you can never know.”
The world fell silent as the words were spoken, Arthur’s voice dripping with such raw vulnerability. He took a deep, shaking breath.
“You can never know… I know you don’t feel the same,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “but that’s okay. I suppose that’s why I’m here, telling you while you sleep, because at least then I can give myself the illusion I’m not the coward I am. I am one, though, because I’m confessing my love for you while you sleep, too…scared…to ruin what we have now, because I selfishly want more.”
“I want more, too.”
Arthur froze, his eyes snapping open at the whispered words and his heart pounding in his chest. He felt like melting into the ground, ceasing to exist, when he saw Merlin staring back at him with wide eyes.
“I—Arthur, I want more, too.” Merlin said again, his voice stronger this time, less of a whisper now.
“I thought you were asleep,” Arthur responded, his voice strained, only a little panicked—not quite processing what Merlin was saying. Too focused on the mortification of confessing his heart’s desire to Merlin thinking he was asleep, only to find out he wasn’t. “I thought—"
“I was trying to sleep, but then you started talking and,” Merlin faltered, clearing his throat, “that’s not the point. Arthur, you love me?”
Arthur let out a strangled noise, looking away, trying to ignore the fact that Merlin’s arm was still draped over his waist. Trying to ignore the fact that his own hand was still resting on Merlin’s hip. Trying to ignore the fact that Merlin had just heard him pour his heart out.
A small gasp left his lips when a hand suddenly brushed a few strands of hair from his face, before resting against his cheek. “Arthur,” Merlin murmured, his voice so soft it hurt.
“Tell me you love me,” he pleaded.
And he did.
“I... I love you.” The words fell from Arthur’s lips before he could stop them, slipping off his tongue like morning dew off a sloping leaf. His heart raced in his chest, and his thoughts were a jumbled mess of incoherency, and when he saw a grin spread across Merlin’s face—he held his breath. Fearful if he exhaled, the moment would break, his breath a stone to a cracked window, and to move was to risk everything, so close to finally getting all he’s wanted… He was paralyzed.
Then, Merlin began to lean in and Arthur would swear he forgot his own name.
He paused, though—damn it all—he paused. Lips hardly a fraction away from Arthur’s own, he paused.
“I love you, too,” Merlin whispered, before finally, finally, pressing their lips together.
Arthur absolutely did not whimper when Merlin’s lips met his own, he would deny it until his dying day. As all first kisses, it was far from perfect.
They were laying down, which made the angle strange, and their noses kept lightly bumping. As Merlin’s lips moved against his, though, Arthur couldn’t imagine anything better. He hummed softly, pulling Merlin closer, smiling into the kiss.
“Oh,” Arthur breathed when they parted.
Merlin chuckled softly, pressing their foreheads together. “Yeah.”
For a moment, the world was still, and all felt… Right. As it was meant to be.
Perfect, even.
Arthur would take his final breath before he let anyone aside from Merlin hear it, but now that he held Merlin in his arms so closely, as he’d always wanted, the scorching burn of his touch fading to a sense of comfort and rightness…
Arthur finally felt at peace.