A thousand and one thanks for Kwizzic, our beta, who was incredibly thorough and patient. Especially since we suddenly dropped 40000 words on her without warning. She deserves ice cream.
All the ice cream.
ooo
The soft clatter of silverware woke Arthur on an early spring morning, startling him out of his half-asleep daze.
His manservant went about his morning routine, humming softly, oblivious to Arthur's attention. He worked more quietly than usual to allow him an extra few minutes of sleep, although given the cacophony of sound that generally followed in Merlin's wake, it lacked significant improvement.
When Merlin threw open the curtains with a cheery "rise and shine!" Arthur blinked groggily, a sudden thought fleeting across his foggy, half-asleep mind.
Fully awake he would have deemed the notion too outlandish to consider, and asleep he would have dismissed it as dreaming folly, but in his pleasant in-between state he had the coherency to speak his mind but not the self-discipline to restrain it.
"You're in love with me," Arthur announced, drowsy but certain.
Merlin immediately tripped, losing his grip on the water pitcher he'd brought with breakfast. He managed to clumsily catch it again, but not before its contents splashed onto the floor and his clothes. Steadying himself, his irreverent grin vanished, and he shot Arthur an incredulous look, shock quickly transforming into wary suspicion.
"You're still dreaming, Sire," he said, on edge. "I'm Merlin. Gwen doesn't wake you in the mornings, as much as you might wish otherwise."
Arthur watched with a furrowed brow.
"Don't be ridiculous, Merlin, of course it's you," he uttered, rolling his eyes. No one else would dare wake him up in such an unnecessarily perky manner, and late, no less. "Why would I be expecting Guinevere?"
Silence reigned, long enough for Arthur to wonder if Merlin hadn't heard him—perhaps he'd been distracted by the food, the idiot—but then his servant answered slowly, as though speaking to someone particularly dimwitted.
"Because you're in love with her?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Arthur demanded. Merlin hesitated, but the prince carried on, paying him no heed. "We're talking about you."
"Me?" Merlin repeated blankly.
Arthur let out an exasperated breath. This shouldn't be such a difficult concept to grasp.
"You're in love with me," he enunciated, slowly and clearly, so that even an idiot couldn't mistake the words.
The water pitcher, never set down after its initial tumble, trembled as Merlin's fingers clenched tightly around its handle. A long, heavy pause lingered before his grip finally loosened, and a strange mask settled over his features. Only an irritable twitch of a finger gave away his nerves.
"Well, you've caught me," he said, an indefinable twang in his voice, when he finally spoke up once more. His shoulders tensed until he visibly forced the muscles to relax. "Of course I am. There really is no fooling you, is there, Sire?"
Merlin turned on his heel in dismissal, dropping the pitcher onto the table with a clatter and briskly wandering over to the wardrobe. He yanked it open with rather more force than necessary.
Arthur blinked away the last lingering haze of sleep from his eyes, awaiting the inevitable rant. A slighted Merlin was a snarky Merlin, after all.
When none came, he raised an eyebrow. Merlin had shut up unusually quickly. Normally he never missed an opportunity to ridicule his prince or prolong the bantering. Unless, of course, Merlin was too busy hiding his feelings to conjure up any semblance of wit.
Arthur smirked. If he hadn't been confident before, he certainly was now.
"You do," Arthur crowed.
Merlin only pressed his lips into a tight line, knuckles whitening as he held out the prince's coat. Unusually interested in choosing his attire for the day, Merlin avoided his eyes.
"Arthur, I know this might be hard for someone of your intellect to understand," said Merlin, voice strained. "But I was joking."
Arthur paid him no heed. Whatever Merlin was babbling about, it almost certainly translated to some variation of I-fancy-the-prince (but-I'm-too-embarrassed-to-admit-it), and so idea solidified to fact in Arthur's mind.
Merlin let out an exasperated huff, evidently reading the thoughts off the prince's face.
"Do you honestly think I'd be enough of an idiot to fall in love with a prat like you?" he griped, tossing Arthur's coat onto the bed with a peevish frown.
Arthur's lips stretched into a triumphant smirk.
"You aren't denying it," he declared, and Merlin threw up his hands with an aggrieved groan.
"I have better things to do than to indulge your insecurities," he complained. "Now wake up, you have a full schedule ahead of you. Unsuspecting knights to batter, your father's councilors to trample... if they don't bore you to death first."
He reached over and viciously yanking the covers off his master. When Arthur's skin broke out in goose bumps from the chill, he lunged to pull them back.
"Now I know why you always insist on waking me like this," the prince said with a leer, fingers scrabbling to gain purchase on the linen. "So forward, Merlin. Are you so eager to bare my skin?"
"Only because you fall back asleep otherwise," Merlin retorted. Whatever nervousness that had taken ahold of him earlier was thoroughly replaced by ire at this point. "Lazy arse. Get up."
Arthur pointedly yawned.
Merlin glared.
"You shouldn't lie to your prince, Merlin," Arthur said, letting his voice drop into a smug, faux-sympathetic whisper. "I know how you feel."
"I definitely feel something," Merlin muttered under his breath, finally dropping Arthur onto the floor in an undignified heap, blankets and all. "Although you shouldn't want to kill your prince, either."
Arthur ignored him, undaunted by his treasonous words.
Watching Merlin's pale skin flush red from his cheeks to his abnormally large ears, he couldn't help but feel pleased with himself. Arthur idly wondered to what degree anger caused the blush, and what could be credited to Merlin's embarrassment at having his secret exposed.
The thought fascinated him.
"If that's all, Sire?" his servant asked waspishly.
Except, Merlin looked more than ready to storm off at this point in time, already halfway to the door, and Arthur couldn't have that.
"A year as my manservant, and you're still incapable of doing your duties properly, Merlin?" Arthur retorted, holding out his arms. "Do I look dressed to you?"
Sullenly, Merlin trudged back.
Merlin could scowl at him all day, but Arthur wasn't about to let him run off before he got what he wanted. Not when Arthur was so close to extracting the truth - Merlin couldn't lie to save his life, after all.
Arthur had ample opportunity to extract a confession, and he felt a sudden, inexplicable giddiness wash over him at the anticipation of it. Merlin had no chance of avoiding him, and couldn't ignore him when called. Judging from the sour look on Merlin's face, he knew it too.
Arthur felt certain it wouldn't take long.
Reviews are always appreciated, especially in an old fandom like Merlin. Thanks for reading! :P
