Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Notes: Just a little something I wrote while in class. :)
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Merlin is a gardener gifted with a green thumb, maybe even green hands, because flowers and plants grow for him like Arthur's never seen before. Arthur, twenty-three, has come back to live at home after university before he starts off on the path set for him even before his birth. His businessman father talks about him proudly to his businessman friends, My son is going to follow in my footsteps, make me proud. Sometimes Arthur wishes there wasn't quite so much business in his life.
His sister Morgana, sharp-tongue and shrewd as she is, seems to have an especial fondness for Merlin. This is enough to make Arthur take a second look at the gardener with the bright eyes and the wide, seemingly innocent smile. He digs in the dirt with calloused hands and caresses bright blooms; Arthur watches him quite obviously, but beyond smiling at him Merlin says nothing.
It's rather infuriating; Arthur is used to having people's attention, and to have the same smile directed at him that is aimed at flowers makes him want to do ridiculous things: he wants Merlin's attention, specifically. Wants those blue eyes trained on him, those clever hands clasped around his neck. That full-lipped, pink mouth on his own.
He doesn't know when this happened, when he started wanting a gardener ("If you say the word 'gardener' like that, it's no wonder Merlin ignores you," Morgana tells him acidly), but he's never been one for self-delusion, and so he knows that he does want him, and only partly because he can't seem to get his notice. It's also because Merlin is genuinely good-hearted, stopping to be nice to people when others might not; because he sings off-key lullabies to his plants when he sets them in the ground, as tender as if they were children he is putting to bed; because he always scratches his nose when Arthur stares at him for too long, leaving a smudge of dirt there, so that Arthur wants to take his face in his hands and brush it off, gently.
Sometimes Arthur does something kind, something that seems to come from the man he can sometimes be—that man is buried a little deep under insecurity and his father's expectations, but he raises his head more and more these days; at those times, Merlin smiles at him a special smile, one no plant or flower has ever seen. His eyes, warm and approving, crinkle at the corners as his lips curve up, and something soft takes unshakable hold of Arthur.
And then one day, when Morgana is at a friend's place and his father is on a business trip, Arthur comes down for breakfast and stops in his tracks. Lying neatly on the table is a rose, red as any Arthur has ever seen, beautiful in its bloom. He picks it up gently, mindful of its thorns, and traces a finger over its velvet-soft petals. He turns at a noise from behind him; Merlin is standing there, looking a little nervous, but smiling that smile that makes Arthur want to act like he's fourteen again, giddy with something very like love.
"It's for you," Merlin says unnecessarily, and shifts a bit. Arthur looks back at the rose, and then notes, "You left the thorns on." Merlin brings roses into the house whenever they are in bloom, thorns stripped so they won't pierce a careless thumb.
"I think you prefer things to be as they actually are," Merlin says softly, something strange in his voice, and Arthur has to just—he steps forward, and Merlin meets him somewhere in the middle, shy smile tugging at his lips.
Arthur leans in, curls a hand into his shirt. Merlin tucks a hand around his neck, dropping dirt down the neck of his shirt, but Arthur doesn't care—Merlin's attention is only on him at this moment, heavy and warming like a blanket, and Arthur intends to keep it that way forever.
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