Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, obviously. I wish I was that brilliant and had personal access to such hot actors, but I don't quite yet. Hopefully some day, though...

Title:
Just For Tonight

Chapter One:
A One-Night Thing

Fic:

"Merlin, what do you think you're doing?" Arthur demanded, standing with his arms crossed at the side of his bed as he stared down at his manservant's pathetic form spread out on it.

He had walked in after a last patrol around the halls and had been expecting Merlin to be standing at his door or near his table—or even sitting down at it if he were particularly tired—to help ready Arthur for bed. But, when he didn't see the boy at any of his usual spots, he had wandered around the room in annoyance, getting himself ready for sleep before approaching his bed and being met with the sight of Merlin lying face down on it, obviously either napping or just about to drift off to sleep. He had the sheets he must have taken off the bed crumpled under one of his hands, and Arthur noticed the new sheets were barely secured under the mattress.

What. The. Hell.

Arthur didn't know whether to laugh or yell at the boy to get up and out.

"I'm just... so tired, Sire." Merlin mumbled after a moment, his voice thick and husky with an exhaustion that made Arthur swallow nervously. At least he wasn't asleep, Arthur thought as a distraction—not yet, anyway.

"And you have a room and a bed of your own with Gaius." Arthur rolled his eyes, uncrossing his arms and rolling Merlin over onto his side so his weary face was facing Arthur. His eyes were closed, and his mouth hanging open ever-so-slightly, slightly frustrated yet evidently just as tired as he claimed to be.

He tucked one of his arms under his head before replying, his voice heavy with the fatigue Arthur could read on his face and his heavy looking limbs. "My bed is hard as a rock and there's a draft. But your bed, sire, is like... Ooh, it's like… Mmm, a cloud." He groaned, a teasing sort of pleasurable sound that barely let a shaky retort roll off the Prince's tongue.

"Fit for a prince, you could say?" Arthur asked, an eyebrow quirked with a sense of amusement Merlin could not see.

"Exactly." Merlin slurred back, shifting slightly as he sank into Arthur's bed. The Prince didn't usually sleep on that side of the bed, so, Arthur was aware, Merlin was leaving his own imprint, the bed was contorting to his shape, the sheets soaking up his scent and sweat, the pillows cushioning his head in a way they would never have Arthur's.

With an exasperated sigh, Arthur sank down onto his bed and slipped his dark red shirt off before giving Merlin his attention once again.

"And what, exactly, has you so tired that you've decided to take over my bed?" he asked, sure that nothing Merlin had to do was anywhere near as exhausting as protecting a kingdom was.

"I haven't taken it over," he smiled slightly, and it was all Arthur could do to not blow out his candle and crawl into bed with him, allowing him the luxury of a soft bed at least once in his lifetime. He just looked so happy and content where he was... "I'm more than willing to share, if you'd like," he finished, still smiling.

Arthur smiled back, glad that Merlin's eyes were glued shut with sleep; if he saw the look on Arthur's face, it would all be over for him.

"Are you going to answer my question?" Arthur asked after a beat, clipping his words with a yawn. He should have been tucked into his bed by now, should have been sleeping, resting his muscles, regaining the energy it took to protect a kingdom and train his knights day-in and day-out, not discussing the affairs of his bed and what made his manservant fall asleep in it.

"Well, I fed you three times, dressed you, polished your armor and boots, sharpened your swords, mucked out the horses, cleaned your room, cleaned Gaius' home, picked fresh herbs for him, went to the market for him, learned how to make some important potion that I can't quite recall the name of right now.

"I went to the library twice to fetch books for Gaius, delivered all the potions he didn't need to see to personally, I helped Gwen with a problem in Morgana's chambers, I was Morgana's whipping boy for a little while, I attended your father's councils with you.

"I rode out with you when you decided the knights needed to train in the forest, watched all the horses, cleaned up the field of arrows and swords when you were done, had to walk back to the castle when one of the horses ran off when I was cleaning out the field and your knight needed a horse to ride back on, I was the moving target when you needed some personal target practice, and I think I may have eaten at some point, but I can't be too sure." Merlin listed off, his eyes still closed even as the annoyance and exhaustion became clear in his voice.

Arthur pursed his lips for a moment, running over the list of duties and chores Merlin claimed to have done that day. He knew, of course, that Merlin had a lot of duties to attend to—as all the servants did—but he hadn't been completely aware of the fact that when he wasn't with Arthur himself, he was still working, still doing everything for everyone else.

And he did it every day.

There were no days off, no negating the things he didn't want to do to someone else.

No wonder he was so tired.

"Tell you what, Merlin," Arthur sighed at last. "Go home; go to bed, and tomorrow you can have the day off. I will personally make sure no one bothers you and that all your duties are taken care of, all right?" he offered. He was half hoping that he would turn the offer down, but he knew that Merlin, in all fairness, had earned it by now. And he would not work him to death just because he needed him around a lot more than he would like to admit.

"That's nice, sire," Merlin mumbled appreciatively. "But if I get up and try to walk to my own room, I'll probably wind up falling down the stairs. Can't polish your armor if I'm dead, now can I?" he smiled again, his voice too thick with sleep to hold much humor.

"What, you just plan on spending the entire night in my bed?" Arthur asked, almost chuckling with nervousness. He had thought of having Merlin in his bed many times before, but he had always pictured it happening at his request, not Merlin's. He had never considered Merlin asking something like that. Or how he might react to it.

"If you don't mind, sire," he replied. "I promise I'll stay on my half. You won't even know that I'm here." he promised with half a shake of his head.

Arthur ran a hand through his hair, several quips just on the tip of his tongue—though he stopped himself from saying any of them. It was late and they were both tired. He should just let him have this. Just a night in a nice bed that let him relax and give his tired, achy muscles a break. He should just pretend that this wasn't something he had wanted for a long time and that it was an annoyance to him that he would permit because he wasn't always the dollop-head Merlin thought him to be.

It would be easier for him in the long-haul, he was sure.

"All right, you can stay," he said softly at last, reaching for the blanket in a basket on the bedside table that Merlin had neglected to spread over the bed. He threw it over Merlin and crawled under it himself. He reached blindly towards Merlin and grabbed the old sheets from under him, then deposited them on the floor next to the bed.

"At least take off your boots," Arthur grumbled, settling in with his back to Merlin. He felt the covers shift, and then heard a couple of soft thuds on the floor before they shifted again as Merlin settled back in.

The room was silent for a while then, just their steady breathing there to fill the air. Arthur was still wide-awake, of course, Merlin's mere presence in his bed enough to keep him up for a while.

"Arthur?" Merlin asked, interrupting the thoughts Arthur was forcing through his head to distract from the wilder ones that the manservant himself was known to cause the prince.

"Hmm?"

"Are you going to blow out the candle?"

Arthur snorted at the request—that was supposed to be Merlin's job, after all—but propped himself up on his elbow and blew out the candle next to his bed anyway. Merlin mumbled a thank you as Arthur turned over to lay on his back, one arm tucked behind his head as he looked down at Merlin and thought over the situation and how it might look if someone happened upon them come morning. And if his father caught wind of this...

"Merlin..." Arthur said after a moment of these thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"If you breathe a word of this to my father—"

"Oh yeah, it'll be the first thing I do in the morning." He snorted, smiling wryly. "'Excuse me, sire, I just thought you should know that your son had me in his bed last night. We spooned and it was magical.'"

"We are not spooning!"

"No, but we will be when I tell the story."

"Don't you dare—"

"Then let me sleep!" Merlin pled, exasperation in his voice. Arthur rolled his eyes and then rolled his body onto its side, facing Merlin now.

"Goodnight, Merlin," he sighed in a whispered.

"Goodnight, Arthur." Merlin whispered back.

And Arthur let him have his sleep then, watching him for just a moment as his breathing steadied out before his own eyes slipped shut.

They wouldn't talk much about that first night for a while.

They wouldn't talk about how each of them woken up several times through-out the night and watched the other for a few minutes before drifting back off.

They wouldn't talk about how happy and comfortable they were when they woke up.

They wouldn't even talk about how it had been the best night's sleep either of them had had in a while.

And they certainly wouldn't talk about how, come morning, Arthur's arms were found to be wrapped around Merlin, his face pressed to his neck and their feet tangled up.

They would talk about nothing except how it was a one-night thing, how it wasn't to be made a habit.

Of course—the one thing they would talk about would be the one lie there was to be told about the situation...

Originally, I was going to leave this as a one-shot and move on to some other Merlin ideas that have pestering me lately, but the more I think about it and read over it, the more I'm tempted to expand upon it with a few more chapters. Because Merthur is just... God, I love it.

Always,
Hisa-Ai.