Author's Note: I imagine this fic to take place sometime after the first season, but not necessarily assuming that the second season happened, or will happen (I live in Canada and as such haven't had a chance to see the second season.)

Clueless

"It's alright Arthur, you don't have to hide your feelings from me. I won't tell."

"My feelings?"

"For a certain manservant..." Morgana let her voice trail away suggestively. Arthur remained clueless.

"Which manservant?"

"Merlin."

"What feelings for Merlin? What are you talking about?"

"Your love for him, of course."

"My love?" Arthur sqawked.

"No need to be embarrassed."

"Merlin's my servant! At the most he's possibly my friend!"

"Of course he is," said Morgana, and rolled her eyes.

*** *** ***

"Has Morgana spoken to you lately, Merlin?"

"Not that I can remember, Arthur, why?"

"Oh nothing," Arthur pretended nonchalance. "She just seemed... off, more so than usual anyway, last time I talked with her."

Merlin frowned. "I could ask Gwen if she's ill."

"No!" Arthur jumped up in alarm, realized how odd it looked, and sat back down. "No Merlin," he continued, resuming his faked nonchalance "that won't be necessary."

"Alright..." Merlin said. "I'll just be going about my job, then..."

*** *** ***

Gwen accosted Merlin the next day.

"So how's Arthur?" she asked.

"Um... fine, far as I know. Why?"

"Oh I just thought you might want to talk about him, that's all."

"Why? What's he done now?"

"Well I was sort of asking you that..." Gwen giggled.

Merlin cast his eyes from side to side. "Um... he asked after Morgana yesterday... that's odd."

Gwen frowned. "I meant, do you want to talk about you and Arthur."

Merlin started shifting from foot to foot. "Why would I want to talk about me and Arthur? He's been fairly pleasant to me today."

"I thought you'd talk to me about your feelings. Obviously I thought wrong.
Gwen sniffed disparagingly.

Realizing he had somehow managed to insult her Merlin hastened to say "I mean, I always talk to you about my feelings toward Arthur."

"I meant your feelings, feelings Merlin." Gwen said despairingly.

"I don't know quite what you're getting at, Gwen."

"Your love for Arthur, of course!" said Gwen, sounding very much like she'd like to add "you twit" to the end of her sentence.

"My, my –what? My love? Don't be ridiculous Gwen! I don't love Arthur! I can't love Arthur!"

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Morgana said Arthur reacted this way. Honestly, why can't you boys just admit to it? We're not going to judge you."

Merlin leaned in close. "I don't love Arthur, Gwen."

Gwen's face clearly showed her skepticism. "Morgana and I can tell, Merlin. There's no use denying it. You two bicker like and old married couple. You're both willing to die for each other. And Morgana says it's all in the eyes." Gwen blushed. "She says you two have amazing eye sex."

Still blushing profusely, Gwen left to go about her day, leaving a very confused and embarrassed Merlin behind.

*** *** ***

Merlin placed the platter of food in front of Arthur, watching as the Prince began to eat.

"That'll be all for now, Merlin. You may leave." Arthur waved a hand in the general direction of the door.

Merlin stuttered, coughed, and began to speak again. "I um... talked with Gwen today."

Arthur looked up at his food, raised one eyebrow, and drawled. "Really? How fascinating."

Merlin ignored the sarcasm. "We talked..."

"I would assume so, Merlin! That is what people tend to do in polite society, after all."

"She mentioned that unh... you and Morgana had a similar conversation to ours."

The Prince went still. "Oh."

Merlin blushed and looked down. "Yeah. Quite ridiculous, of course. They must be absolutely barmy. I mean, us, as a couple! Completely ludicrous!" Merlin threw in a couple fake laughs for good measure.

"Quite right, Merlin. That's exactly what I thought."

Merlin wondered why his stomach seemed to sink with Arthur's pronouncement.

"Gwen thinks we bicker like an old married couple!"

"Here I thought we bickered because you're an idiot." Arthur filled his voice with forced amusement.

"And you're a prat," Merlin reminded.

"Am not!"

"Yes you are," Merlin sing-songed.

"Not as much as you're an idiot."

"Keep telling yourself that, sire. Someday it may come true."

"It already has. And look! This argument just proves them wrong. If we were an old married couple, we'd be a dead old married couple, because we would have killed each other!"

"Quite right!" agreed Merlin. "And Gwen said Morgana said we had 'amazing eye sex' or something like that... as if we... um..." Merlin gulped. Arthur had met his eyes and neither of them was in a hurry to look away. "As if we... were unh... attracted to each other... or... um... something." Merlin's voice had become high-pitched toward the end, but he didn't notice because for the first time he truly understood what eye sex was. And it amazing.

"Ridiculous," said Arthur as he stood and began to move around the table without removing his gaze from Merlin's.

"Absolutely." Merlin cleared his throat.

"Completely preposterous." Arthur's voice sounded rather strangled.

Merlin felt like his legs had turned to mush and had to lean against the table for support. "Absolutely," he said again, still in a higher register than he was used to.

Arthur was so close that Merlin could feel the words against his lips when Arthur spoke next.

"Bugger that," Arthur said, and reached out to roughly pull Merlin in for a kiss.

*** *** ***

"Gwen?"

"Yes Merlin?"

"Do you have a moment?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I just... you know, wanted to talk to you about my feelings for Arthur."

The End

So, reviews... please? It's my first Merlin fanfic. Actually it's my first non-HP fic, period. Please tell me how I did.