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Some time ago, Merlin had mused on the list of best ways to wake up. There was an extraordinarily long list of the worst ways to wake up. That list more or less followed a pattern of people dumping cold water on his head (Prince Arthur, in most cases), awaking to find the castle in disarray as a magical army moved in (and then it was of course Merlin’s problem to put a stop to it when he’d rather just curl back onto his cot and take a nap), or the dragon sending a message through his mind with like ringing the bell on the watchtower.
Thankfully it was not one of those mornings. Instead, Merlin awoke surrounded by warmth and pressed up against the bare skin of Lancelot’s chest. Lancelot’s face was slack with sleep and he whistled slightly on his exhale.
Merlin shifted and leaned his weight off Lancelot. Lancelot’s brow wrinkled and his arm sleepily made to grab at Merlin, and he settled back in after a moment.
One of the highlights of those mornings, especially the ones where Merlin woke up first, was he was allowed to admire Lancelot sleeping. When Lancelot did the same, Merlin would tickle and prod him and call it ‘creepy’ and ignored Lancelot’s cries regarding hypocrisy. He looked across Lancelot and into the ray of sunlight beaming directly into their room. He didn’t need words or incantations for such simple magic; he stared at the curtains above the window with intent and they moved on his command.
By the time his magic had settled back in, Lancelot’s eyes were open and watching him with rapture. Merlin quirked his eyebrow.
“Has something caught your eye, sir?” Merlin teased.
Lancelot rose slowly and tugged Merlin up with him. Merlin’s brow raised further. “You are beautiful,” Lancelot told him softly, pulling him in for a sweet kiss.
Merlin grinned against his lips. He took Lancelot by the shoulders and pushed him back onto the bed. “I do believe you need a mirror, Sir Lancelot. There is none so lovely and beautiful as the man before me.”
Lancelot pushed himself back up on his elbows. “Can we not both be beautiful?”
“Seems a bit egotistical. Aren’t knights supposed to be humble and all that rot?”
“Chivalrous,” Lancelot corrected.
“And virginal,” Merlin shot back, just to watch Lancelot’s eyes pop out of his head.
Lancelot started to say, “Well,” but Merlin smothered him with a wet kiss on his nose. He missed his mouth, so he took that as a sign to press kisses along Lancelot’s cheeks and brow as well.
“Believe me when I say you will not be able to convince me that any of the knights follow any of those stuffy rules. Especially Gwaine.”
“I’ve never technically seen Gwaine bed a woman,” Lancelot told him. “And unless there’s something you aren’t sharing, I don’t think you have either.”
“If a tree falls in the forest, sir knight, does it still make a sound if there be not anyone to hear it for miles?”
Lancelot chuckled but conceded defeat. Merlin pushed all his weight back into Lancelot and whined as Lancelot attempted to clamber out of their bed and dress. “We have time,” Merlin protested. “Have a lie in, for once.”
He received a nonplussed reaction at that. “Please,” Merlin added.
Lancelot made a considering noise and relaxed back into the mattress. “I suppose we should, if you insist.” Merlin kissed him again; it was always important to provide positive reinforcement. Lancelot kissed back lazily, their breaths sour with sleep — Merlin wrinkled his nose — but before he could suggest getting out of bed just to clean up, Lancelot’s mouth went slack against his own. He was asleep again within moments.
Merlin amused himself with tracing random swirls across Lancelot’s chest as it moved with each breath. If he skimmed his nails too low across Lancelot’s ribs he was treated with a quiver and a grunt. If he dared to go another hand's length lower, Lancelot’s abdomen flexed and he leaned away from Merlin’s light fingers. Merlin grinned and poked the side of his stomach. Lancelot bit down on his shoulder.
“…Ow?” Merlin said, more out of surprise than a reaction to any actual pain. Lancelot’s eyes popped open again.
“No tickling,” Lancelot muttered sleepily.
Merlin blew out the wisps of hair that had fallen in front of his face. “Alright, alright. No tickling.”
It was difficult to maneuver around with a dozing knight wrapped around all around him, and now that he was awake, Merlin’s stomach growled. He glanced at the bowl of fresh fruit sitting on the long table across the room.
With some careful (and deliberately gentle) shoving and shifting, Merlin managed to seat himself upright again. Lancelot immediately curled around him like the bow of an arrow, shoving his head into Merlin’s lap and emitting a happy, lazy sigh. Then he looked back at the fruit and focused on the apple.
It rose from the bowl and bobbed gently in the air, hovering several feet off the floor, until it landed in Merlin’s waiting palm. He rolled it over in his hands and looked down at the knight commandeering his lap as a pillow. His hips were already aching from the angle, and the stiff cold wall he had backed himself up against wasn’t doing his spine any favors either. Lancelot looked perfectly comfortable where he was though.
“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Merlin teased him. Lancelot grunted something unintelligible in reply. Merlin mindlessly stroked his free hair and tucked it back behind his hair. His stomach forgot physical hunger for a moment and Merlin was swept aside by the sudden burn of affection that wrapped around his middle. Lancelot murmured something into his thigh as Merlin tenderly stroked his finger across his cheek.
Merlin’s past romances had all eventually ended in tears and death. There were some mornings Merlin awoke with Lancelot’s arm around his waist and thought: maybe this would be the last day. That he would return to their bed in Lancelot’s chambers the next evening and Lancelot would be gone.
Other times Merlin’s lungs felt too full, like they were filled with water and all the countless strange and unnameable things he kept there. Lancelot eased that. But then other times Merlin’s throat closed in on itself, wordlessly stricken at the thought of that reality where Lancelot wasn’t a daily part of his life. So many people died in Camelot. There were scheming nobles and wayward magic users seeking revenge on the Pendragon house. It was entirely too easy for someone else to get caught in the crossfire. Merlin knew that lesson better than anyone. He had nearly lost Lancelot on several occasions, stepping in front of Merlin or Arthur or Gwen or the knights, and Merlin was almost too slow to save him.
There were people in his life that had left such deep imprints, he knew their deaths would do something immeasurably wicked to his soul. He feared what he would become without Lancelot’s easy acceptance and optimism.
In all their time together, Merlin had never found the words to explain any of this to him. He could never find the right ones. Abruptly he realized he would regret it if he never did. That thought promptly took hold of him, squeezing out that dry grieving air caught in his lungs, and he could have staggered from the force of it were he not already sitting.
Those dark futures where Lancelot was gone from him were always around the corner. He had to say something. “Lancelot,” Merlin started, a bit strangled. Gods help him, though, he was going to try.
His sleeping companion roused quickly at the tone of his voice. He mumbled Merlin’s name sleepily and yawned, pushing himself out of Merlin’s lap and forcing himself to sit upright beside him.
“Lancelot,” Merlin repeated. “Lancelot…”
He had no desire to explain his feelings through poetry or tired metaphors. He had no need for vows, especially after Lancelot had already made the strongest oath between the two of them. What would he say? What should he say?
“I,” Merlin began.
Lancelot took an enormous bite out of the apple he had stolen during Merlin’s woolgathering and sprayed both of them in the face with its juice. Merlin froze. Lancelot also froze. They both shared a look, Merlin’s confused, and Lancelot’s was biting back a smile.
“Apple?” Lancelot offered him the side of the fruit without his teeth imprints. He grinned at the mix of disgust and exasperation Merlin imagined shown through his face. “…I was hungry. You can have a bite. I don’t mind sharing.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Merlin managed, laughing. Lancelot was smiling against his mouth as he kissed the laughter and sweet juice away.
Lancelot wasn’t a man who leered. But the expression on his face as he leaned back was one Merlin could only ascribe as a leer. “Ridiculous men don’t often get beautiful people in their bed, though.”
Merlin grabbed him by the jaw and pushed him away as Lancelot attempted to sweep in for another kiss. “You are ridiculous! And stop that. You sound like Gwaine.”
Lancelot straightened, his eyes alight with mischief. He teased, “If you’re going to insult me, I’ll just leave —”
Merlin plucked the apple out of his hand and put it on the table beside their bed. Then he tackled Lancelot onto his back and kissed him until they were both breathless and very late for their respective duties. “I fear you may have been a bad influence on me,” Lancelot told him mock-seriously as he shoved his boots on. After a moment he realized he hadn’t put on his trousers, looked up at the ceiling, and tore them off in a fit of pique while Merlin cackled.
“And who encourages me to do magic out in public, in plain sight?” Merlin retorted as he yanked his trousers up over his own thighs.
Lancelot was fighting with the buckles in his armor, but he found an extra breath to reply: “I don’t tell you to do that. You make perfectly bad decisions on your own.”
“…Gaius would agree with you.”
“At least,” Lancelot said seriously as he patted down Merlin’s arms and straightened his jacket, “Arthur hasn’t been rubbing off on you, with all the time you spend living out of his pocket. Could you imagine what you would be like with an even smaller sense of self-preservation?”
“I’d be dead six times over,” Merlin said solemnly, but he couldn’t keep his expression straight. “Could you imagine, though? I’d be running around with an axe through my neck and yelling at people to clean up the blood and mess all behind me.”
“Hmm,” Lancelot considered. “Maybe I was wrong. You can be a bit of an entitled prat sometimes.”
“Oi!” Merlin reached over and mussed his hair. Lancelot was a beat too slow to catch him. He raised his brow and patiently smoothed it back into place.
“Did I say prat?” Lancelot raised his hand to Merlin’s neck and pushed aside his neckerchief, his hand lingering on the bruise hidden just under his collar. “I think I meant brat.”
“The only brat I see is you.” He and Lancelot met eyes again and burst out laughing.
When Lancelot and Merlin finally arrived at the council meeting, at least a half candle-mark past the start of the meeting, Gwen offered each of them a fondly exasperated look as they wandered in and giggling like children. Arthur shot them a quelling glare. Lancelot bowed his head and took his seat. Merlin swaggered over to the corner with his pitcher, his shoulders still shaking with suppressed laughter.
By then, Lancelot had mostly regained control of himself and forced his features back into the pleasant, solemn face of a knight. Merlin raised his pitcher as Lancelot’s gaze eventually drifted back to him and winked. Lancelot’s cheek twitched, fighting back a smile. Merlin grinned down at the pitcher and let the voices of the council wordlessly wash over him, a dull drone in the background, ignoring the fluttering in his stomach.