If you're anything like I am, you hate the fact that Merlin and Arthur only hugged once in the entirety of Merlin. I felt that something needed to be done about this. Thus, this story was born!

Disclaimer: ... SHE DID IT! Wait, it's not that kind of disclaimer? Oops. I don't own Merlin.

I'm sorry, I get bored with disclaimers...

IMPORTANT! This is slightly AU where Will survived, and Merlin and Arthur return to Ealdor years later to say hello again. Arthur, of course, came with his manservant. Yeah...

Arthur wore a contemplative expression as he looked out the window of Hunith's humble home, watching his manservant interact with his best friend. Arthur swore that if Merlin would smile any longer, or any wider, he would break his face. Subconsciously, he had been tallying the amount of times Merlin embraced Will. The number was getting surprisingly high. He had never thought it would be possible for one person to hug someone so often, especially when that person was Merlin.

In the years Arthur had known Merlin, it was rare, if not nonexistent, for Merlin to initiate any sort of physical contact with him, or even for Arthur to see Merlin touch anyone else. Arthur would often reach out to touch Merlin's arm or shoulder, and Merlin would never recoil, but for Merlin himself to start the contact... That really had never happened. And to stand here now, watching Merlin giving away so many touches to the people in his village, even after the time for reuniting embraces had passed, it sort of... kind of... hurt him.

Arthur knew that he was a complete girl for having those thoughts, but at the same time, he could not deny that they were there. He had to wonder what he had done to make Merlin never reach out to him like that. Was it his status above him? Arthur soon cancelled that out as an explanation; Merlin had never let the concept of statuses get in the way of anything else in their lives. Knowing this, however, only left one option available: somehow, Arthur was the one at fault.

Arthur felt a presence join him by his side. Using his peripherals (he couldn't bring himself to look away as Merlin tugged Will into another hold by his shoulders), he noted that it was Hunith, a basket balanced on her hip.

"He's quite the hugger, isn't he?" Merlin's mother said fondly, at ease in the prince's presence. She laughed a little to herself, a soft sound that reminded Arthur of the sound of a drop of water breaking the surface of a lake. "He lives off of touch. It's like it's as vital as breathing to him. From the way I know Merlin adores you, I bet you can't keep him from clinging on you," she said with a sigh, a tinge of what Arthur could only recognize as envy in her voice; envy for the embraces she had missed out on while Merlin was away, living out his destiny. "Oh, he would probably kill me for saying that," she murmured affectionately, seeming to not be bothered by what she had just revealed to Arthur.

Arthur's eyes finally broke from their gaze through the window as Merlin released Will, jabbering happily about something Arthur couldn't hear. Hunith was smiling out at her boy, but with Arthur's silence she looked over to him, and her expression faded away as she saw the look on Arthur's face. Her weight shifted, a thin line appearing between her brows.

"Does he hug you?" she said quietly after a moment, as if she were asking a five year old Arthur if he was okay after scraping his knees. There was such an aura of a mother around her that Arthur couldn't help but feel a stab of his own envy cut through his ribcage. He longed to have had a childhood with a woman such as her mentoring him. Merlin was lucky.

The silence answered Hunith's question. Arthur felt like he was under Gaius's inspection, Arthur about to ask what was wrong with him, and what the cure was.

Hunith seemed to catch herself, looking down at her basket. "I am sorry for assuming, Arthur. I should have known, a prince such as yourself couldn't show such affections towards your servant." At the mention of her son she looked out to him, and Arthur couldn't bring himself to follow her gaze. "I just thought... The way he talks about you in his letters, looks at you, I thought that you would have already suffocated from him."

Arthur shook his head slightly, still looking down. His blond brows pulled lower over his eyes, and his leg bounced slightly as his shoulder leaned against the wall.

"I don't know what I did to..." was all he was able to vocalize, but from the tone in his voice, Hunith understood what he would have finished with had he been able to.

She thought in silence for a moment, enough time for Arthur's eyes to drift back upwards. Merlin was knelt on the ground, Will's hand resting on his shoulder as he stood behind him, a little brown-haired girl standing before him. Merlin was grinning widely, speaking quickly, reaching out and holding her shoulders, his eyes wandering over her form. Through the window, Arthur was able to catch muffled "Look at you!"s and "You've gotten so big!"s as more children skipped forwards, pulling at him from all directions. They all seemed to love him, to have missed him. Arthur felt a little guilty and selfish for keeping Merlin away from them, all to himself... And for never fully appreciating that fact.

"Have you done anything to make him think it isn't okay to touch you?" Hunith asked, making Arthur surface back to his conversation with her.

Arthur began to shake his head, then stopped mid-movement. "I don't... think so, I mean, I don't think I have."

"Arthur, have you ever—" she swallowed, as if it pained her, and also made her fearful, to ask, "—hit him?"

Arthur thought of all the times he had. But those were... Friendly slaps, horseplay. Nothing serious, right?

"No," he decided. "Nothing more than, just, horseplay."

Hunith seemed to actually sigh with relief, which just made Arthur's wound tear a bit more. Did he really seem like the kind of boy who would hit his servant? Hit Merlin?

"I am sorry, I just wanted to check..."

"Hunith," Arthur said with a gravely voice, standing straight and putting a hand on her shoulder, looking her in the eye. "I promise you, I would never do anything to hurt Merlin."

Hunith seemed to have already moved on, so easy to trust. "Is that how you touch him?"

Arthur was momentarily lost. "Hm?"

Hunith inclined her head at Arthur's hand on her shoulder. "That. Is that how you touch my boy?"

Arthur lifted his hand, bringing it back to himself, looking at it. "I guess?"

"With more affection, I'm assuming," she thought aloud. "Because you're closer, more trusting, to him than me." Hunith nodded, a ghost of a smile lighting her lips as she seemed to think of something else, but her expression resumed its seriousness as her hand pressed to her lips in concentrated thought. "Then I can't think of why..."

The door to her home opened, Merlin's laugh filling the small space. Arthur looked over Hunith's shoulder to his servant, who was grinning over his own shoulder back at Will, who followed close behind. Arthur could feel his cheeks heating a bit—both out of embarrassment as his girlish talk with Merlin's mother, and anger at himself for even being insecure about such a thing to begin with—and he took a step away from Hunith. Hunith gave him a nod of farewell, taking herself and her basket outside, but not before Merlin touched her forearm lightly to stall her for a moment, pressing his lips to her temple before letting her go, continuing to walk with Will on his tail. The movement seemed as fluid and easy as walking to Merlin. Arthur was a little awestruck at Merlin's sudden show of grace, the way he knew how to move around people. The moment was cut off by Merlin knocking his shoulder into a wall, however, which Merlin and Will just laughed off, their arms simultaneously going up and about each other's shoulders, as if Merlin running into things was a signal for that.

And Arthur stood alone, completely unnoticed.

Arthur turned sharply away from the scene as Merlin and Will went into the next room, his arms crossed, trying to figure out what in the world was wrong with him. After he was done with his heavy breathing and mentally scream-scolding himself, and he was finally able to think rationally, it still took him a minute or two to realize what it was, exactly. He had only let the thought form in concept, pushing it away before he could think of it in words, because as soon as he would do that, that would mean that he had admitted the embarrassing truth to himself.

As an only child—and a royal only child, at that—Arthur had never been very apt at sharing things. Despite the fact he was able to be selfless in times of need: taking care of his people, directing his knights, giving himself up in mind, body, and soul to his battles and duties, at Arthur's core, when it came to things that didn't fall under the category of things expected of him as the prince of Camelot, he was selfish. It wasn't something to be proud of, not by a long shot, but yet it was true. And he realized, as soon as he had had something... Well, as precious as Merlin, he selfishly wanted to keep him all to himself. Or, at least, he had though he had 'had' Merlin. But now, seeing Merlin in his home town, with the people he actually loved, how he was in constant physical contact with one person or the other, Arthur realized that not only was Merlin not his and his alone, not only did Merlin give his love to so many people, not only did Merlin show his affections so much more freely to other people, but Merlin might not have even been Arthur's in the slightest in the first place. Knowing that Merlin very well might have been just another servant, another servant who was, well, a servant and a servant alone... That made Arthur feel so foolish to think that he had ever held any place in Merlin's heart. Arthur hated feeling foolish, to the point of a burning beginning in his chest. It was one of his many faults.

But he would never admit any of this to anyone, let alone himself.

To be continued.