Author's Note: I actually started writing something similar to this for 'A Lion and a Unicorn' but it didn't fit so I ditched it. Inspired by brickroad16's most recent 'Embers' story, and a general feeling that we need more M/M, I decided to completely re-write it as a one-shot. I was also planning on doing a Part 2 from Merlin's perspective called the Problem with Morgana but with the way Season 2's going, the only problem with Morgana is that she's never there.
The problem with him was his eyes. As he passed through your vision during the day, barely noticeable, always busy, you could think he was just a servant. Roughly-dressed, simple, kind and friendly, he was like so many other peasants that darted temporarily through your vision as you concentrated on more important things; more important people. And then you saw his eyes.
They were light blue in sunlight, dark blue indoors, greyish-green with flecks of gold in the firelight and dark, almost black, in candelight. Other people's eyes saw her beauty, her status, her poise and her natural command. His eyes saw her. She passed him in the corridor and he stood off to the side and bowed his head slightly. His eyes looked up at her as he acknowledged her with a simple, "milady" and she looked into them and she drowned. Her pulse quickened and she thought, for one mad moment, of pushing him against the stone wall behind him; holding him there with her own weight. And then those eyes were gone and she was free.
The problem with him was his smile. When his face was composed, you could think he was ordinary; a farm boy with big ears. You could dismiss him as you wandered through a castle full of people who did not understand you, did not know that you had secrets; who would kill you if they knew what lay behind your practiced smile.
And then he would smile and his whole face would change, lighting up with an inner fire. He would smile at the cooks and the meals would be better, smile at the chambermaids and the rooms would be cleaner, smile at the guards and they would harass people less. He would smile at Arthur and Arthur would struggle desperately not to smile back. He smiled at her and her stomach would jump and flip, her heart missing beats for several seconds. For one small moment, she would feel the world was a better place. And then the smile was gone and she was alone again.
The problem with him was his hands. She would sit in a banquet or a feast, bored with small talk, stuck between Uther whom she feared and Arthur whom she barely noticed these days. She would be aware of the servants fluttering about her, refilling goblets and bringing courses, but only as a part of the normal buzz of the room. And then he would whisper in her ear to see if she wanted more wine and she would glance up, seeing his eyes and his smile and then look down at his long, thin fingers clutching the jug.
His hands were elegant and strong, their supple fingers wrapping around the end of whatever he was holding, the small calluses that came from hard work on the pad of each one. He kept his nails manicured and clean; so unusual for a man of his station. She would look around at the boorish Knights, eating their food with their rough hands; courting noble ladies gently while beating servants or yelling at staff. She imagined, for one mad moment, the feel of those small calluses on her skin as those gentle fingers removed her clothes. Imagined them entwining her hair as they lay outside on some summer's day, her head on his chest, his arms around her. And then he filled her glass and those hands were gone. She shifted on her chair, embarrassed and told herself she had been drinking too much wine.
The problem with him was his clumsiness. Other servants could go their entire lives without a single noble person noticing them as anything other than a convenience for them to command. They were supposed to be subservient, silent and unnoticeable.
Every time he tripped over or dropped something, all eyes veered his way. Sometimes he would cast his eyes down as he noticed their gaze but mostly he good-naturedly gathered up whatever it was he spilled all over the floor and went on his way with a pleasant smile. Once he made a joke to a visiting Lord and Lady about being Camelot's entertainment. The Lord had looked at him confused but the Lady had smiled and laughed. Her eyes had followed him as he walked away and she imagined sitting somewhere intimate with him later on, laughing about the noblewoman who had somehow been enamoured of his inability to stay on his feet. She imagined cornering him in an alcove somewhere, his hands gripping a tray with Arthur's breakfast, desperate not to spill it as she stole kisses. She imagined a world where his clumsiness belonged to her.
The problem with him was his passion. Servants tolerated what was wrong with the world; they couldn't change it and it made no sense to rail against it. Servants simply endured as all Camelot's peasants endured. With Uther they had been given the great gift of a hatred of sorcery; pouring their confusion and helplessness into accusations of witchcraft, into the cathartic joy of the execution. They had welcomed the Wtichfinder as an old friend, the great equaliser, their repressed aggression bursting free from their helplessness ready to tear down to prove they had some measure of control over their lives.
He would rail against the coming of the night; against the fear and ignorance; against the injustices of the world. He stood before Uther in the court; bold determination on his face. His teeth gritted with his passion and he declared the Witchfinder a fraud. He stood a mere servant in front of the two men who terrified her most and came out unscathed and vindicated. She imagined that passion cocooned around her and felt for a moment the protection of that great love.
The problem with him was his ears. At first they had seemed silly, so innocent, so Merlin. Later she had stopped noticing them, as though they simply didn't register with her anymore. Now she found herself thinking about what it would feel like to take a lobe between her teeth, to run her fingers down the fold of skin, to whisper desperate things in them while he lay above her.
The problem with him was that he was a servant. If she were a man or perhaps older - married, the heirs of her husband safely born - maybe it would be tolerated or ignored. Maybe she would even enjoy crass conversations with her friends about her conquest. But for now she knew the truth she sometimes whispered to herself in her quiet honest moments, when she thought of his eyes, his smile, his hands, his passion, his clumsiness and his ears.
The problem with Merlin was that he was Merlin. And there was simply nothing she could do about it.