Set after season one, Merlin/Arthur & Merlin/Nimueh.

Disclaimer: I don't own "Merlin", I just write this for fun and make no profit with it.

Skin Deep

He thinks of kissing Nimueh.

It's completely inappropriate, considering Arthur has just pushed him against a tree, grinding his back against the rough surface of the trunk because he's inconsiderate like that and impatient, and started to kiss him, first contact of lips against lips clumsy in their eagerness; his head rocks against the wood behind him and his lower lip, caught between both their lower teeth hurts, and he doesn't care because he's wanted this for God knows how long.

It's a pleasantly warm autumn day, golden sunlight is filtered through the leaves and plays on Arthur's hair, and the hunting dogs' furious barking is far away; for now, they're pleasantly, securely alone. Arthur moves very close, holds him in place with his whole body, and against all logic it feels like he's draped all around him, and kisses him again, really this time, his mouth wide open and hot on his, and still he's thinking of Nimueh, which, aside from inappropriate is macabre, really, because he killed Nimueh.

But he can't help it: the memory stands out in his mind, as if impregnated there by his magic.

It happened not long after her attack on him with the poisoned chalice; he must have felt her presence, she must have wanted him to, because something had roused him, in the middle of the night, and prompted him to quietly glide past Gaius and into the streets. There was rain in the air, and everything was still. He found her only a few streets farther, standing, alone, under an archway, and draped in a long cloak, head hidden under a dark hood. She smiled at him as soon as she saw him.

"You," Merlin hissed when he saw her, and mentally prepared a spell.

She didn't stop smiling, and made a step forward, or maybe it had been several steps, because suddenly she was very close.

"Merlin," she said.

There was a sudden breeze, a magical one, Merlin knew at once and braced himself, but it only drew her coat open, just a little, revealing the long, elegant dress she was wearing beneath it, dark red and low-cut. In a quick gesture, she drew her hood back as well, and he couldn't help staring at her: if he'd found her pretty in her servant's garbs, now she was stunning: a powerful enchantress, agelessly beautiful, radiating power. He had been timid yet willing to flirt when he thought her a servant girl, but now – but now, he was no longer just Arthur's servant either, he was a powerful, unique warlock, and she knew this and recognised him as such, and it –

And it was he who made the last step and kissed her; he would have accused her of bewitching him, but he knew that if she had used magic he would have felt it, and there had been nothing since the rush of wind.

She responded, soft lips with a peculiar taste to them, yet he barely registered the contact; something else opened deep within him: he could feel his magic roar inside him, come awake and reach out for the contact of another, kindred being, and he could feel her, a touch of mind against mind, overwhelming and wonderful, and he would never have guessed such a thing could be possible. He could feel her soar through him and him through her, total, sweet communion of their magic and through that their beings, and they were in the earth beneath their feet and in the surrounding air and in every small raindrop, united and spread out through the world. He stared, eyes wide open, at her equally fix eyes, dark and deep.

Then she broke the kiss and stepped back and murmured "Merlin" and a strange voice, and smiled that peculiar smile of hers; and it was like a punch, being thrown back to his own, personal physical perceptions and being suddenly so dreadfully lonely; and he thought that he would never be able to survive cut off from other magic users, without ever knowing this again. It would be like being stuck blind or deaf or paralysed.

And at times he'd thought, at times he'd secretly hoped that kissing Arthur could be like that: that they shared a connection that went deeper than everything else, and a destiny. But the dragon is a traitor and he's in love, simple as that, and there is no supernatural bound, nothing predestined, only the two of them, and Arthur devoid of magic.

And it's nothing alike Nimueh, whom he can't help thinking off, and he knows at once that he has lost this forever, because Nimueh is dead and he doesn't regret it, and there will be no other magic users, because there will be no-one else.

The humid trunk behind him is chafing his back through the thin material of his clothes, and Arthur's lips on his, very warm and wet and hungry, and his tongue pushing and demanding, and his hands tangled in his hair and cupping his chin: it's all strikingly imperfect and mundane and here, pleasant and real, and just what he needs, he realises, to keep him grounded in reality.

"Merlin," Arthur growls indistinctly against his lips, before leaning his head back; Merlin can't help thinking that he looks amazing like this, chin raised, lips very pink, clothes a little ruffled, hair sticking to his forehead, sweaty from the hunt or maybe from the kissing; and the fact he still has one hand tangled in his hair and the other caressing his face with his thumb right beneath his lips, and a leg pushed between his helps with the attractiveness as well.

It's only when Arthur adds: "You with me?", and looks a little worried beneath the irritation that Merlin realises that maybe he's been drifting off, distracted and unresponsive, and that might have given Arthur the wrong idea.

"I –" I just was comparing you to that sorceress who tried to kill you. And you're not really better, but it's alright. It was only that she was a powerful sorceress, and I'm a powerful warlock. "I love you."

It is better than the alternatives, but he hadn't meant to say that. He wouldn't have if he'd stopped to think. But Arthur's eyes go comically wide, and Merlin has to fight down a sudden urge to laugh out loud; Arthur probably wouldn't take it too well.

As it is, the prince stares at him; his fingers clench where they are, against his cheek and in his hair, and then he drags his head to the side by his hair just a little and kisses him again, and it's less good somehow, light contact of lips against lips, careful and eager at the same time; Merlin sneaks his own hands behind Arthur's head and carefully shifts down a little, spreads his legs wider, so Arthur is taller than him and he can drag his head down, and deepens the kiss. And he's not sure what he's supposed to make of that response to his declaration, and yet he's beginning to think that for all the lack of universal communion, he could get used to this and be quite content.

"You," Arthur mutters, when Merlin breaks the kiss to shift his back a little, just to make sure they won't both slide past the tree and to the ground, and Arthur could have chosen the tree better, actually, "are such a girl." He leans to the side to nibble at his earlobe.

"You're an ass," Merlin says in response, and: "stop that!", so Arthur starts licking instead.

Comments are always greatly appreciated. ;)