Work Text:
"You're sure?" Merlin gripped the edge of the worktable. "An assassination plot?"
Gaius nodded. He looked grim. "The man who was caught said there are others coming to Camelot with the same aim."
"To kill Arthur."
"Yes. But the man doesn't know how or when, exactly. He was but the first. The others were to receive their orders later, based upon how his attempt went."
"Of course." Merlin sighed and let go of the table. "So someone's trying to kill Arthur. Must be Tuesday."
"Just because you've saved him every time so far doesn't mean you should joke about it."
"Right, sorry." Merlin took to pacing, his eyes traveling over the bookshelves in Gaius' rooms. "So they're to receive orders? Written orders?"
"Yes, brought by messenger, or smuggled in with someone. Possibly even by carrier pigeon."
"Searching every person or bird that enters Camelot for the next few days wouldn't be convenient. There must be a spell…"
"Careful, Merlin." Gaius sounded reproachful already.
"I haven't done anything stupid yet." Merlin paused by the bookshelves, folded his arms, and tapped his lip, thinking. "All right, how about this? A spell to help us find only things written about Arthur."
"And make such letters fly through the air toward you? That might draw a bit too much attention, don't you think?"
"Or…" Merlin waved his forefinger in the air and pointed it at Gaius. "We simply make a copy appear for us." He spread his arms, pleased with himself. "Right here! Anything written about Arthur, a copy of it'll show up here. I remember seeing a spell like that--where was it--" He jogged across to his room and dug out the spellbooks from under his bed.
"Merlin," Gaius called. "What if they don't use his name? What if it merely says 'the king,' or some code name?"
Merlin paged through spells. "Doesn't matter. I think I could make it about intention. Anything someone wrote while meaning it to be about Arthur. Intention counts for a lot, you know." He found the spell, and stabbed his finger at it. "There." He jumped up and carried the book out to Gaius.
Gaius still looked skeptical. "But really, anything written about Arthur, anywhere? We might get hundreds of documents materializing. He's the king. People write of him all the time."
"Oh, not that much. Most people can't read and write, you know. And they haven't begun writing about the clotpole so much yet, though certain dragons tell me they will eventually."
He smiled as he reviewed the spell, tenderness sprouting in his heart the way it always did when he thought of the great future in store for his friend. And of the way Merlin was destined to be intertwined with Arthur, if said dragons were to be believed. Merlin used words like "clotpole" to hide just exactly how tender those thoughts made him, honestly.
After all, Arthur was married. Oh, sure, basically a marriage of convenience, to give the kingdom a queen they loved, while everyone at court knew she and Lancelot were at it hot and heavy. Even Arthur knew; really by now Arthur and Gwen were just friends, and if he was close to anyone it was Merlin. Though not close like that, unfortunately…
But. Right. Assassination plot to deal with.
Merlin brushed his fingertips against the words of the spell. "I'll try this. If it works and we get a pile of letters, we'll see if they're any use. If not, I'll think of something else."
* * *
A few minutes later, Merlin had climbed onto a windowsill and Gaius was halfway up the bookshelf ladder, both of them trying to get out of the sea of books and leaflets and scrolls ruthlessly popping into existence.
"Stop them!" Gaius shouted over the busy rustle of paper.
"I--I don't know how! I didn't think I'd need to!"
"Well, where's the spellbook?"
"It's under there somewhere!" Merlin gestured to the floor, which was now completely hidden by books three feet deep.
"Can't you get rid of them?"
"Um…I could set them on fire? But no, that's...that's a bad idea."
"I should say so."
They sat on their perches, watching the paper multiply. "I think it's slowing down?" Merlin said hopefully.
"Hm," Gaius said in doubt.
The books came in all sizes, from little flutters of leaflets to ones thick enough to break your foot if you dropped them on it. Their bindings were a random assortment of colors and quality, plain paper to rich leather. The scrolls were tied with ribbons in all hues and materials too. The collection at least made for a pretty display, except that it was completely filling the room and might soon make it difficult for them ever to leave without shoveling a path.
"Who's writing so much about the idiot?" Merlin grabbed a slender book with a green paper cover.
Gaius plucked out another, bound in purple. "I think you'd best find another spell to help us identify the ones that will actually be useful."
"Yeah. We can't possibly look through all this." Merlin ruffled the pages of the green book, which bore generic scribe handwriting throughout, without any illustrations. He glanced again at the sea of paper. "There, I think it is stopping, really."
The rustling sound had died down, and new books didn't seem to be popping into existence anymore.
Gaius didn't answer. He was reading the book he had picked up, with his mouth hanging open and a look of horror in his eyes.
"Gaius?" Merlin said. "What did you find?"
"Er. Nothing. Nothing to be concerned about. That is, not our assassination plot, certainly. It appears to be…just a story." He finally tore his gaze away from the book and gave Merlin a calm smile that looked quite forced. "A silly story. The kind of thing a troubadour might make up."
"Oh, troubadours, right. Forgot about them." Merlin grinned. "If it's inappropriate, Gaius, you do realize I'm an adult. I can handle off-color songs. I even know a few, including some about Arthur."
"Well, it isn't that exactly. You know, never mind." Gaius shut the book and grabbed a different one. "See about finding the pages we're actually after, wouldn't you?"
"Then I'll have to dig back down there to find the right spell. Is this one a silly story too?" Merlin finally looked again at the book he'd picked up. He read a few paragraphs. "Hm, yeah. Someone's written a romance about the git. Arthur's pining for…" He turned the page, read more, and felt his ears go hot. "Me."
Over on the ladder in the now-silent room, Gaius coughed discreetly. "That's odd. Yes. That was what my story was about too."
Merlin looked at Gaius. His heart was beating a little too fast. "It was? Arthur and me?
"Er, yes." Gaius avoided eye contact, selecting a scroll from the heap. "Rather, shall we say, explicitly."
Flustered, Merlin paged ahead in his book, and got hit with a double eyeful of blush-inducing words: moaned, lips, fondled, trousers, sucked…and worse. "Oh, my God," he mumbled. How did they know I've thought about doing that?, he wondered, both horrified and mesmerized.
"That's not the worst of it, Merlin."
Merlin looked up, feeling like his face might actually set the pages on fire at this point. "It isn't?!"
"No. In both the stories I've looked at so far, it says plain as day that you're a sorcerer."
His fingers felt numb with panic. He paged back through the story he held. And yes. There it was, on one page, then another: him, performing magic. Exactly as if the unknown writer knew him inside and out.
"This…this isn't real," he tried. "This is…the spell going all wrong. Creating nonsense."
"Some of it's rather nicely-written nonsense." Gaius was tilting a page toward the window's light, reading.
"Gaius! I've got to get rid of all this."
"Well, yes. Yes, of course you must." But he was still reading.
And Merlin had to admit he was too curious not to read just a few more. He fished out some at random. All stories, all by people he'd never heard of with bizarre names, all involving his magic and the lives of many denizens of Camelot, but mainly focusing on varying degrees of romantic or flat-out erotic contact between himself and Arthur. No pertinent assassination instructions as of yet. But still, rather fascinating…
Someone knocked, then opened the door--or tried, since it only got a few inches inward before the piles of books stopped it.
Merlin flung away the volumes he held and jumped down onto the books, which slid under him and left him sprawling on his belly atop the heap. "Stop, wait!" he shouted. "We're--um--reshelving."
"Good Lord." Arthur shouldered the door open another few inches and stuck his head in. "Aren't you just. How in the world do you expect to find anything in here, Merlin?"
"Sire." Gaius was struggling down the ladder into the sea of paper, not making much headway. "We'll sort it out, we promise. What can we do for you?"
"I just came to fetch Merlin for a scouting mission, to look for the other assassins." Arthur was in chainmail and cloak already. He picked up a small book that had tumbled over his armor-topped boots. "Why in the world would you choose now to reorganize every bit of paper Camelot has ever owned?"
"Stop!" Merlin scrambled across the top of the mountain on hands and knees, sending books cascading every which way. "Don't open them. They're not--"
But Arthur had already opened the book and begun reading it, and his skeptical grimace slid into a wide-eyed expression of alarm. His gaze darted back and forth, eating up the lines on the page. Then his glance shot to Merlin. Then back to the page, where he continued reading.
Merlin's heart seized up. He slid down the slope of books, landed at Arthur's feet, and tried to grab the book. But Arthur swiveled away, keeping it out of Merlin's reach, still reading.
"Look," Merlin begged, "someone's--someone's played a trick on us. Um, sorcery, most likely. This is all nonsense. I don't know where it came from. So please just forget you ever--"
Arthur held up a palm in the official royal "shut up" gesture without taking his eyes from the story. After a moment he clapped the book shut, tossed it back onto the heap, took up another, and leafed through that one, page by page. Meanwhile Merlin stood watching, wretched, up to his armpits in incriminating stories.
Arthur caught the side of his lip between his teeth as he read. He looked like maybe, just perhaps, he was blushing. He cleared his throat, closed the book, and sent Merlin a cool gaze. "These came from where? Your shelves, you say?"
"No. Definitely not. They just…appeared. Like magic." Merlin didn't even bother trying to sound anything but miserable.
"Magic. Interesting." Arthur drummed the book against the door frame. His gaze roamed across the mass of documents filling the room. Then he gathered an armful of the books and scrolls within reach, probably at least twenty of them, and flipped his red cloak over his front to conceal them. "Here's what's going to happen. Gwaine and Percival will go out scouting without us. In the meantime, I'm going to take these to my room and study them. I might come back for more. Until then, no one else reads them, and you two do not leave. I'm sending Leon to guard you to make sure on both counts. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Sire," Gaius said, head bowed.
"Yeah," Merlin whispered.
Arthur gave a brisk nod, and strode out in a swirl of cape.
* * *
"Oh, Gaius." Merlin sat hunched on a cleared spot on the table, surrounded by heaps of salacious books, his head in his hands. "I'm dead. I'm just dead."
"Not yet, you aren't." Gaius was still sorting through the material, to judge from the rustling sounds across the room. "I say we stick to the story you gave him: that it's all a trick, played on us by someone else with magic. Such things have happened around here before, to be sure."
"But these are so specific. It's like they know us." Merlin lifted his head and peered across at Gaius. "Have I been that obvious?"
Gaius gave him a cautious glance. "About your magic, you mean?"
"Yeah, of course that. I didn't mean--well. The rest is…is just absurd. Troubadour stuff, like you said. Surely Arthur will see that." He was blushing again, but he didn't even care anymore. After all, his illustrious destiny now included an inevitable and deeply awkward conversation with his apparently-not-so-secret beloved, maybe even a death sentence from him. So what did a blush matter at this point?
"No, I don't think you've been too obvious," Gaius answered, "although this collection does make me wonder. There's not a single one yet who doesn't know you're a sorcerer."
Merlin grimaced and picked up another book. Might as well continue helping with the sorting, see if that assassination plot actually was under here somewhere. Do Arthur one last favor to show him he did care.
They hadn't found any such thing yet. It had been several hours since Arthur had left and Leon had taken up guard outside their door. So far Gaius and Merlin had found about twenty books that seemed respectable enough tales about Arthur and the knights--and, yes, Merlin the sorcerer, but not Merlin the amorous bedmate of the king, in these versions of events. They had stacked those books under the window.
They also unearthed several innocent-looking letters and pieces of legislation from here and there concerning Arthur. Those they collected beside the bookcase. But the largest collection by far, the most towering pile, was the "Arthur/Merlin seduction" section over on the east wall. Just about every book, leaflet, or scroll they had opened got tossed onto that one. It was getting demoralizing. Or maybe inspiring? Merlin was conflicted on that point.
They cleared enough space to unearth the morning's leftover bread, cheese, and fruit, dusted the paper fragments off it, and ate it for lunch.
Arthur showed up again after that. No cloak or chainmail this time; he was down to his red tunic and jacket, and his soft indoor boots and trousers, and his hair was disarrayed like he had been clenching his fingers in it. He swung an empty cloth bag by its drawstrings.
Merlin leaped off the table where he'd been sorting books. "Arthur. Listen. This is all nonsense, surely you see that. Just stories, just utter fancy--"
Arthur held up the palm again. "Shut up, Merlin." He strode to the gigantic Arthur/Merlin selection and started shoveling new books into his bag.
"Don't take those. Those are all the nonsense ones. Come on, take, um, these instead." Merlin snatched up as many of the innocent-legislation letters as he could hold, and thrust them out toward Arthur.
Arthur paused, swept a suspicious glance up and down Merlin, and took a few of the offered letters to add to the bag. Then he turned and kept taking more of the lurid stories until his bag was stuffed full.
"Sire, it's true," Gaius attempted. "I admit several of these seem very…authentic. But most are sheer invention, as I'm sure you've found. And largely harmless."
"I'll be the judge of that, thank you." Arthur strode back to the door.
"Arthur," Merlin said, "I'm begging you, stop reading them. Just…just let's burn them all." Though actually there were a few Merlin might spare from the fire and hide under his bed with the spellbooks, for a little steamy reading on those long winter nights. Assuming he was allowed to live, and all that.
Arthur paused on the threshold and squinted at Merlin. His lips tightened, then opened, and he seemed to be deliberating over a vast selection of choice words. Then he clicked his teeth shut, shook his head briefly, and left. The door slammed shut.
"I'm completely dead," Merlin told Gaius.
A little while later, someone tapped on the door. Merlin waded between paper heaps and opened it to find Gwen, lovely in a purple silk gown, and Lancelot beside her in his usual knightly armor. They greeted Merlin with sympathetic smiles. "Merlin," Gwen said. "Can I come in?"
Merlin glanced at Leon standing guard, who returned a slightly flustered glance, but didn't protest. He couldn't very well tell the queen to stay out. "Yeah, of course," Merlin said, and let them in.
When the door had shut, Gwen and Lancelot stared around with wide eyes, taking in the mountains of books. "Good gracious," she said. "He wasn't exaggerating."
"Magic indeed," Lancelot murmured.
"Arthur told you?" Merlin asked her.
"A little. He was sort of…rambling. Then being grumpy and silent. Then insisting he had to be alone to read some more." Her kind brown eyes returned to him. "He threw aside some of them after he'd read them, and I picked them up. We both read them." She glanced up at Lancelot, who met her gaze for a moment and then turned his handsome face downward as if his modesty couldn't bear what he had read.
Merlin groaned. "I think I can guess. Don't tell me the details."
"It wasn't just about you two," she hastened to add. "Er, you and Arthur, I mean." She winced. "We were in it too. Both of us."
"Oh. Yeah." Merlin gave her a weak smile. "Hate to tell you, I've even found the occasional mention of you and Morgana. Together in, well, much the same way."
"Morgana and me?" She scoffed. "That's ancient history. We were teenagers. These days--well, maybe I'd consider it if she weren't evil, but--"
Merlin felt his eyebrows climb his forehead. He shot a glance at Gaius, who was wisely staying quiet by the bookshelves and pretending to read a scroll. Then Merlin glanced at Lancelot, who still looked modest but not shocked, as if he already knew about such things. Which likely he did, of course.
"Merlin," Lancelot said in an undertone, "the love stories aren't even the dangerous part. They all tell of your magic with alarming accuracy."
"Lancelot!" Merlin yelped, and looked at Gwen.
She made that apologetic cringe-smile again. "He already told me long ago. Sorry."
"Forgive me," Lancelot added, still gazing solemnly at Merlin. "It just slipped out once, in a moment of weakness."
"Well--does--does Arthur already know too, then?"
"I don't think so," Gwen said. "This is going to be a bit of a shock to him, between that and--well, having his feelings for you splashed all over parchment."
"Hang on." Merlin pointed at her, rather ignoring that you shouldn't point at the queen like this. "His feelings for me?"
"Oh…" The syllable was the kind of thing you'd say to a cute child who needs comforting. She reached out and squeezed his upper arm. "Can't you two just work it out? It's agonizing watching you both dance round it like this." She let go to gesture to the towering hills of paper. "Everyone sees it, apparently."
"But I don't know where these came from! They might just be some kind of…weird magic…"
She turned her face aside, still watching him in suspicion. "Then it's not true? No such feelings in the slightest?"
His cheeks went hot. "I--I--"
She smiled. "There. That's what I thought. Then just be honest with him, Merlin. Don't you think it's time?"
Gwen and Lancelot browsed the books for a while and chose a few to take with them before they left. Arthur had technically said that wasn't allowed, but again, none of them were going to tell the queen she couldn't read what she liked.
After they left, Merlin exchanged a long look with Gaius. "Aren't you going to say anything?" Merlin finally challenged.
"About what?"
"Oh, you know. Feelings." Merlin almost sneered the word, and couldn't stop fidgeting.
Gaius' smile was gentle, maybe pitying. "Not when it's something I've been seeing for years already. I'd have spoken of it by now if I wished to. I suppose Gwen's right, though; at this point you might as well tell him. The issue has rather been forced."
Merlin stared after him with his mouth open as Gaius calmly turned and began stacking books again.
Leon sent for their dinner from the kitchen, so at least they weren't starving. He also told them, at nightfall, that Gwaine and Percival caught the other assassins in the forest, carrying their written orders and everything. Assassination threat eliminated, for now.
"Oh good," Merlin told Gaius after they shut the door. He flung a hand at the impossibly numerous books spilling all over their rooms. "So glad I went to the trouble."
Gaius had evidently run out of reassuring things to say. He laid a hand on Merlin's back, sighed, and waded off through the scrolls to find some candles for the evening.
Merlin had cleared a path to his room, lined with stacks of books that towered above his head--he threw some magic on them to keep them from falling over and crushing him or Gaius--and was considering giving up and going to bed when someone knocked.
It was Gwaine this time. He greeted Merlin with the same sort of sympathetic smile everyone had been giving Merlin all day. "Arthur's sent for Gaius," Gwaine said.
Merlin and Gaius looked at each other in dread, then Gaius nodded. "Don't worry, Merlin," he said, and went out with Gwaine to see the king.
Merlin couldn't go to bed now. He paced between aisles of books, in the candlelight. Finally, finally, someone knocked again, then opened the door without waiting for Merlin to do it.
Arthur entered alone, carrying the bag full of books over his shoulder. Near the door of his room, Merlin froze and watched the king approach.
Arthur looked a tad bleary-eyed and had a shadow of stubble around his mouth, the way he did at the end of a particularly long day. As he stopped in front of Merlin and swung the bag to the floor, Merlin caught the scent of wine drifting off him too. Merlin understood. Really, what else could you do but start drinking when you discover several thousand racy stories about yourself and your oh-by-the-way-he's-magical manservant?
Merlin tried the sympathetic smile everyone else had been giving him. He apparently wasn't doing it right. A glint of irritation entered Arthur's eyes, and he folded his arms. "All right, show me."
"Sh-show you what?" Might as well try the denial one last time.
"Magic, Merlin. Show me your magic."
Merlin fidgeted more spastically than ever. "Um…"
"Everyone knows you have it, apparently. Gwen. Gaius. Lancelot. All these lovely strangers." Arthur nodded to the walls of books. "And now that they lay it out in detail, it does seem rather obvious. Honestly, how else could we have survived some of the things we have? I admit I've wondered. So go on. Show me."
"Wait. Gwen and Gaius and Lancelot said I have magic?"
"Actually no. They sort of danced round that question and refused to answer it. They all said I should come talk to you. Which is interesting, isn't it. So." Arthur planted his feet wider. "Show me before I punch you, how about that."
Merlin let his shoulders droop. He took a stub of candle from his jacket pocket, held it up, and set it alight with a flicker of his fingertip. Arthur frowned at the flame, saying nothing. Merlin blew it out, then whispered a spell, which dragged the ribbon of smoke into the shapes of letters.
Arthur squinted at them as they disintegrated. "Did that say 'Arthur'?"
"Yeah."
"You're writing my name in the air in smoke? Well, if you'd drawn a heart round it, that would bring us nicely to the next question."
"All right, don't," Merlin broke out. "Yes, I'm a sorcerer, and yes, I love you. I'll leave Camelot, I'll even go willingly to the gallows if that's what you want, but would you just stop being rude about everything?"
Arthur lifted his eyebrows, as if impressed. "Sorry, was I rude?"
"No ruder than usual, which is to say, yeah, very."
Arthur lowered his chin, but kept his gaze on Merlin. Something like earnestness, or defiance perhaps, had entered his eyes. "And might I not have reason to be?" he said, almost softly. "People I care about haven't been telling me things I ought to know."
"Well. I just did tell you. So."
"So." Arthur nodded, his gaze drifting across the books again. "It's all true, then."
Merlin snorted. "Not all true."
Arthur roused his attention back to Merlin. "No, indeed. If I'd done some of those things, I'd certainly remember."
Merlin felt a smile tugging at his mouth, even in the middle of his emotional turmoil. "Right. I'd hope."
"And yet…you do love me, you say. So you want to do such things?"
"See, there's where you're being rude. Why should I answer that when you haven't even said if--"
"Oh." Arthur rolled his eyes. "Don't be stupid. Yes. I love you. But, I mean, some of this…" He nudged his foot against the bag of books, while Merlin's heart began lifting out of the dungeon and climbing toward the sky. Nonchalantly, Arthur went on, "I don't know how they knew, but I've actually thought about doing these things with you. Some of these things, at any rate. Rather a shock to see it written down."
Merlin was grinning now, beaming, feeling he might accidentally make magical indoor stars begin twinkling everywhere. "Yeah. I know. Same here."
"Whereas some of these other things--I've never even heard of doing things like this."
"But would you want to, now that you've heard of them?"
Merlin meant it as a joke. But when Arthur glanced up at him with a sudden dirty, delicious expression in his eyes, heat went flashing through Merlin's whole body.
"Some. Perhaps," the king said simply. He leaned his forearm on the book-wall, above his head, his body one long, elegant, lounging slant. Merlin could see blond chest hairs through the open lacings of his shirt, and felt all fluttery inside.
"People seem to think we should be together," Arthur said. "Quite a lot of people."
"You are the sort of king who likes to please his people," Merlin reasoned.
"They'd like you to be court sorcerer, as well. That seems to be the agreed-upon title."
"Well. You know, whatever you think."
"I like it. Yes."
"Really? You don't suppose that'd be too sudden a change in the way things have been done?"
"I'm the king. I can do what I want."
"Right."
"Then you're court sorcerer. Consider it done. Now." Arthur squinted at Merlin. "We've never kissed. The first kiss, to judge from all these, is dreadfully important. I haven't decided how to go about it. I mean--" He crouched, took out several of the books he'd brought, and stood again, sorting them from one hand to the other. "Do we do it like in this one? Or like in this one, which is a very different mood. Or then there's this one…"
Merlin opened his palms outward. A glowing ripple of magic grabbed the front of Arthur's shirt and yanked him forward. Arthur yelped in protest. Merlin caught him in both arms, stumbling back a few steps into his bedroom. Arthur's handfuls of books crashed onto their shoes.
"We'll do it like this," Merlin told him. And kissed Arthur.
"Your bed is ridiculously small," Arthur said a few minutes later, just after pinning Merlin down on top of it. They were still dressed, but Merlin had already got his fingers between those shirt laces and into those warm chest hairs.
"So I've noticed."
"Well, can't you fix it?"
"Oh. Sure, suppose so." Merlin focused his eyes on the mattress, pronounced a basic spell, and saw the world flash gold for a second. The bed stretched itself out, becoming twice as wide as before.
"Much better." Arthur eased his knees out to either side of Merlin's legs. "It's actually rather attractive when you do that."
"Is it?"
"Yeah. Gold and lit-up is a nice color for your eyes." He unraveled Merlin's neckerchief and tossed it to the floor, and began kissing his throat, down to the laces of his tunic.
Merlin groaned in bliss, snared a leg around Arthur, and repaid the favor by trying out nibbling Arthur's ear. It seemed to make Arthur breathe harder and press more firmly down on him.
"Hey, you do like that," Merlin commented after a bit. "That story was right."
"Hmm. Interesting." Arthur shoved up Merlin's tunic and pinched his nipple between finger and thumb, not too hard. "According to one I read, you were crazy for this."
Merlin noticed he was arching up toward Arthur, and tempered his enthusiasm a little. "Yeah, that's…that's not bad."
Arthur interrupted the rolling-around-together a few minutes later to lean down and fetch a book off the floor. "Here. Tell me what you think of this." He found the page he was after, and showed it to Merlin.
Merlin tilted it toward the candlelight. "Oh. Sure. I'd say that's only standard, right?"
"Okay. Good. We'll try that, then. Did--did you have any requests as well?"
Merlin smiled in affection at him. "Such a diplomatic king. Well…" He pulled some of the books out from under the bed. (He had already stashed a few favorites there for safe keeping.) He paged through to a scene that had burned itself into his mind and held it out to Arthur, heart pounding in excitement. "What about this?"
Arthur remained impassive, reading the whole scene patiently. Merlin nibbled his thumbnail, waiting. Then Arthur lifted his gaze, the naughty smile rekindling. "Of course. Let's."
"Mm. Okay then."
They regarded each other with friendly restraint for all of five seconds before dropping the books and flying together into a new tangle on the mattress.
Much later, warm and satisfied and naked with the blanket spread across them both, they went on reading. Arthur sat with his back against the wall, pillows behind him, and Merlin nestled against his shoulder. Books and leaflets and scrolls lay scattered on the mattress and floor all around.
"Some people also seem to think Gwaine and Percival should be together," Arthur remarked. "Do you think we should suggest it to them?"
"Oh yeah. Make it a royal decree."
They both broke into snickers. "Nah," Arthur said. "Think I'm going to leave that one alone for now."
"Some put me with Morgana," Merlin noted. "I just wanted to assure you I'm not likely to go that route."
"Good to know. Some also put you with Gwaine or Lancelot, however. Need I worry about that?"
"Eh." Merlin shrugged one shoulder. "Crossed my mind, but I didn't think they'd have me."
Arthur frowned at him. "Crossed your mind?"
"Well, they are quite pretty. You can't deny that. Oh, not as pretty as you, though! Not even close."
Arthur narrowed his eyes in playful warning at Merlin before returning his gaze to the book. "Going back to you and me. Um, some of these things…" He coughed cautiously. "I don't know. This, say. What do you think?" He turned the book toward Merlin.
Merlin read it, felt his brows rise again (along with other parts of him), and looked at Arthur. "Real-ly," he said, his voice pitched low and interested.
Arthur nodded, in a good show of nonchalance, betrayed by the crimson in his cheeks and lips. "I could do that. If you like."
Merlin shoved the book away and tackled him.
Much later still, when they could barely move from exhaustion and the candle had gone out, Merlin mumbled, "Should I make all the books disappear tomorrow?"
"No, you idiot," Arthur mumbled back. "You should create a new library for them."
"Do we have a room big enough?"
"It's a castle. We have lots." Arthur's arm drew him closer, curling around Merlin's lower back. "I expect we'll be borrowing material from it quite frequently."
"Very well, Sire."
"Very well, Court Sorcerer."