A Usual Proposal

*.*.*.*.*

Arthur had known for quite a while now that he wanted to marry Merlin, had known for almost as long as they'd been dating that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with him. He'd known for so long that, really, it wasn't even a question of wanting to, wasn't a question of if it would happen, moreso a question of when. Because from the things Merlin said, the way he acted, looked at Arthur, talked to him, kissed him, laid next to him in bed… well, Arthur was pretty damn sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Arthur as well.

It was just a matter of one asking the other for their hand, just a matter of talking about it all, deciding in so many words that they wanted to get married, verbally confirming that they wanted to spend their lives together.

And, really, Arthur didn't know how to bring up the subject. Didn't know how to say, "I want to marry you" without making a proper proposal of the whole affair. So the plan to bend down on one knee was slowly forming itself in his head before he was even sure of anything. It was all a muddled sort of thing, a mess of tangled tropes he'd seen in movies and television shows his entire life, plans he thought about stealing and adapting, making them his own, bending them just for himself and Merlin. It was hard to pick them apart, hard to separate the good from the bad from the idiotic from the genuinely romantic. Truly, the only constant in the mess that became of his thoughts when he considered the subject was the air of happiness, of being at ease, of something finally being right for him, that seemed to settle over him with it all. It made his heart race in his chest, made his palms sweaty, left him tongue-tied even thinking about it, but…

In the best sort of way.

*.*.*.*.*

He was going to ask Merlin to marry him, he'd already decided on that, already had a plan, the ring—everything.

Well, everything but the words. The way he would actually ask.

"Will you do me the honor of making me the happiest man in the world?" sounded stupidly cliché and Arthur would be damned if he ever found himself uttering such a phrase.

"Will you marry me?" was the standard, of course, but, it was far too… plain for what he wanted to ask, for how he felt about Merlin, for what the question and Merlin's answer would mean to him.

"I love you more than anything else in the world, and it would mean more to me than you will ever know to spend the rest of my life waking up next to you every day, and knowing that we're going to be together for as long as the stardust we will become upon our departure from this world as living beings will exist in the universe, makes my soul itself warm with the idea of some small part of me spending eternity with some small part of you." Was, well, a bit of a mouthful; though, Arthur would admit, it would get the job done in a rambling sort of pinch.

And yet... that just wasn't what he was going for.

*.*.*.*.*

The rest of the plan didn't actually matter if he couldn't figure out the damned words, of course. It didn't matter what sort of flowers he bought or the restaurant he made a reservation at or where he took Merlin or what they did, who they were surrounded by or how expensive the ring was or how he kissed him or even what Merlin's answer might be. Because if Arthur couldn't find the words...

And God, wasn't it just so god damn ridiculous that four little words were escaping him? Or, well, a more elaborate version of four little words, at any rate. He wanted it to be a grand affair, damnit, wanted a speech and champagne and candles and a romantic setting and to really blow Merlin away with what he had to say—because Merlin deserved it, deserved to know how much Arthur loved him; it wasn't the sort of thing the blond was known to put into so many words on a daily basis, after all. Sure, he said "I love you" often enough, but, well, he worried sometimes that Merlin perhaps didn't know the depths to which he meant such words, and that killed Arthur, truly, because Merlin... Merlin deserved to know just how much Arthur loved him. Deserved it more than anyone else the blond knew.

So the fact that he'd yet to find the right words meant the ring would just have to sit, wait tucked away in the back of a drawer for the right words to find him.

And Arthur hated waiting—especially hated waiting when it came to something like this, but it was an important enough thing to wait on, he decided, so he didn't really see how he had much of a choice in the matter.

*.*.*.*.*

"Arthur, love? Get the butter and syrup out, would you?" Merlin said, not bothering to throw a look over his shoulder to look at the blond in question as he entered the kitchen.

Arthur yawned in response, it was far too early for him to argue or wonder at just why Merlin was cooking on a Wednesday morning; usually, that sort of thing was reserved for weekends, and on the weekdays before work and errands and whatever else needed to be done, they did with cereal and muffins to go with their tea and coffee.

Working on auto-pilot, he did as Merlin asked, pulling the butter and maple syrup out of the refrigerator and setting it on the table, taking a seat facing Merlin, wondering then, as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, if he'd slept through the rest of the week and it was Saturday now. But no, he decided, Merlin wasn't so kind as to allow him to sleep for days on end.

"Why are you cooking?" Arthur asked then, raising an eyebrow as he allowed the smell of bacon and pancakes to fully register now, making his stomach grumble in anticipation.

"Because," Merlin began in reply, moving around and doing something that Arthur couldn't quite see before he turned off the stove, turned around to face Arthur and moved to set a platter loaded with pancakes and bacon in the center of the table, turning to grab a couple of plates and silverware before coming back to the table to sit across from Arthur. "This morning, you were mumbling in your sleep about bacon, so I figured," he shrugged, gestured at the food before them before moving to fix himself a quick plate of food, because it was still a weekday, after all, and they still had work and errands to run, but just the fact that he had done such at all...

Arthur swallowed, looking from the food to Merlin's face as he took a bite of bacon, looking back at Arthur curiously and nodding to the food, urging him to hurry up and eat already.

A suddenly completely awake Arthur, however, couldn't focus on the food itself, could only focus on the gesture, mouth dry as he shook his head a little, small smile on his face as he reached forward to picked up a piece of bacon, took a bite out of it, chewed it thoughtfully before swallowing, locking eyes with Merlin across the table.

"Thank you, this is... this is good." He said, leaning forward, head pounding in his chest suddenly, the next sentence falling out of his mouth before he could give it any thought. "You know what else would be good? If you would marry me."

Stopping mid-chew, Merlin stared at Arthur, eyes wide, unblinking before he said, around a mouthful of food, "What?"

"Marry me." Arthur repeated. "I know this isn't," he added quickly. "This isn't exactly how I wanted to—I wanted—roses and—and a fancy restaurant and god, I have the ring in a drawer in our room, but I couldn't find the words before to tell you how much you mean to me, but god, you made bacon and..." Arthur shook his head, cut his own ramblings off at the half-smile that had found its way onto Merlin's face. "What I'm trying to say is—"

"I know what you're trying to say," Merlin interrupted gently. "And... Yes. God, yes. Of course I'll marry you. God, Arthur, you don't need roses and some fancy restaurant just to ask me to marry you, you idiot. This—it's..." he shook his head, smile still on his face as he assured him, "This is all just as good as any of that."

Arthur nodded, relief in the smile that he flashed Merlin before he took another bite of the strip of bacon he was still holding between his fingers before he let out a breath and leaned across the table to steal a quick kiss from Merlin, thinking that this was all so much easier than he'd been making it out to be this whole time.

*.*.*.*.*