"Why do you always kiss me like that?"
"Like what?" Merlin drew his lips away from Arthur's brow, grinning as he lowered them to press them against Arthur's own chastely in repetition. "Like this?"
"No, no," Arthur laughed, reaching a hand up to card lightly through Merlin's messy hair. He leaned back into the couch cushions, pulling Merlin on top of his chest, which his lover pawed at lightly as he began to delve into a deeper kiss, a much less breathable one.
"Like this?" He asked as he came up for air, and Arthur nearly forgot his train of thought.
"On my forehead," he confirmed as he regained normal thought patterns. Merlin frowned carefully down at him before sitting up fully, prying himself out of Arthur's grasp.
"Hey, I didn't say stop!" Arthur followed Merlin upward, swinging his legs onto the ground as he regarded his boyfriend's troubled expression with curiosity. "What is it?"
"It's – well, it's kind of…strange," Merlin hesitated before speaking, his own forehead scrunched together in thought. "You'll probably make fun of me."
"Why would I do that?" Arthur asked immediately, and then after considering the question for half a second, corrected himself. "Alright, I promise that this time, I will refrain from sarcastic commentary. It will be very difficult, I assure you. Wait – It's not a fetish of yours, is it?"
"No," Merlin hid a laugh with his hand and his glance went sideways, their eyes resting carefully on one another, and they shared a breath before Merlin began to speak. "There's a myth, see. About how people's foreheads are a center of mystical divergence; the very core of what makes them up. According to the myths, there's a floating star above every person's forehead that represents their soul."
A smile had appeared on Arthur's face the moment Merlin said the 'myth.' This was just so inherently like him, taking odd facets of history and magic and interweaving them with his own life. He would have commented, but Merlin kept speaking.
"If I squint, I feel like I can almost see it," Merlin's hand tentatively slid from his own lap up to Arthur's face, and Arthur felt his skin turn to gooseflesh under Merlin's nimble fingers that traced untold stories across his skin. "It's glowing against you, but it's more than a part of you. It's all of you. I've never seen anyone else like I see you."
"You're saying that you can see my soul?" Arthur repeated slowly, quietly, nearly reverently as he leaned closer into Merlin's touch.
"Yes," Merlin breathed against him, one hand resting on his brow and the other cupping the back of his neck. "And it's beautiful. You have no idea."
"So you want to kiss my soul?" Arthur chuckled breathlessly into Merlin's shoulder. "I was right, this is a kinky thing."
"Thought you said you wouldn't make fun," Merlin's tone was half-joking, half-serious as his hand began to fall back to his side. Arthur quickly stopped the motion, dropping his own hand to pull Merlin's back up against him.
"Don't stop," Arthur whispered. "Not teasing, I swear. You're being sappy and sexy at the same time. Take pride in the accomplishment."
"Not until you stop using words with four syllables," Merlin said through a heavy tone and half-lidded eyes. The hand that had been on Arthur's neck was creeping down his back now, drawing the two of them even closer together, causing their bodies to align perfectly.
"Deal," Arthur curled his own arms around Merlin's waist, hooking them tightly so that Merlin couldn't move even if he wanted to.
"It's not just kissing your soul," Merlin continued, and when he let his hands fall this time, the light caresses of his fingers were immediately replaced with the gentlest of kisses, all across Arthur's forehead, from his hairline to just above his nose, pressing Arthur backwards and into the soft cushions of the couch with each one. Arthur relaxed further and further into each one until his skin was crawling with desire.
Merlin spoke between kisses. "It's kissing all of you, every inch of you. I can touch not just your body, but the things that lie underneath it. The important things, the things that matter. I can feel all of you, on every plane of existence. It's beyond physical, beyond emotional – It's like you surround me, encase me. There isn't a thing that I see, that I am, that isn't you."
"God, we should talk about your strange ideas more often," Arthur half whispered into the crook of Merlin's neck as he ran a hand up his back, fingers pulling at the curls around Merlin's ears. "Let's never stop talking about them, actually."
"Actually has four syllables." Arthur could feel Merlin's grin against his flesh, and he matched it with his own.
"Looks like you'll have to come up with more nice things to say about me."
"I look forward to it."
Arthur didn't even think in four-syllable words after that.