This barely has anything to do with the BBCs characters of Merlin and Arthur but to cover my butt… I DON'T OWN THEM. JUST THIS AWESOME STORY.

Please, Please, Please for the love of Arthur READ AND REVIEW!

The Shield and the Sword

CHAPTER 2

Merlin ate his breakfast slowly keeping his coffee cup drained and the waitress busy refilling his water glass as he spent over an hour reading the most recent updates to the fanfiction stories that he had been following. They were mostly on the relationship between Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson from the TV show Glee. He just loved how romantic and passionate the Blaine character always was. That was Merlin's dream man, someone who took great pleasure in just doing whatever he could to make his lover feel special and, well, …loved. What an amazing man—Blaine. Merlin wondered if Arthur would let Merlin be that way with him? Probably not. Since Arthur was still in the closet and not interested in changing that anytime soon Merlin would probably be denied that opportunity to just pour himself out onto Arthur.

Merlin was saddened by that thought. How could Merlin meet someone that literally turns him into an idiot at the sheer thought of Arthur and then discover that he could never be free to truly love him—to be himself in front of Arthur. Merlin decided that this was not something to keep thinking on, he still didn't know for certain that this, this… whatever it is—relationship would become if anything at all. The one thing Merlin did not want to do was to ruin it and let it simply become a thing about sex. Merlin discovered that he felt strongly invested in Arthur. He had learned so much about Arthur during their little game of twenty questions. Arthur had turned the cam over to Arthur's bed to show Merlin his beautiful husky who was sleeping and dream running for much of the time that they talked—Arthur often turning his head to look over at his beloved dog. Arthur was striving to become a professional long board skater and hope to one day be sponsored by the shop that he worked for. He loved his job and Merlin could tell. Arthur also had long hair that came below his ears… Merlin didn't normally like that look but when he saw it on Arthur he was converted. Merlin dreamed of holding Arthur close to him and burying his face into those wonderful locks of hair and breathing deep Arthur's smell…

'Okay, I'm officially a creep.' Merlin thought. 'I barely know the man and I am already obsessing about him. I need to give him his space I can't crowd him. I don't want to startle him away and I don't want him to feel like I am taking from him what he may not want to give me. Don't be too pushy Merlin, calm down and try and take this one step at a time.'

Merlin paid his bill and tipped the waitress turning his iphone on to The All American Reject's I Wanna (…I wanna, I wanna, I wanna touch you, you wanna touch me too…) Merlin got into his Explorer and made his trip back to the apartment to get his much needed sleep—singing that song the whole way back.

Merlin had it bad.

Within about three minutes of hitting his head to the pillow Merlin was out. Dead to the world. He slept for about six hours before getting up again feeling very much rested even though he slept for about three hours less then he normally did. He looked over at the clock next to his bed and saw that it was only 3.30PM. He hated how far that was from 1AM when he got to see Arthur again. Ten hours! Almost ten hours… Merlin wasn't sure what he could do for that much time to distract him from missing Arthur. 'Oh, God. I am missing him!' Merlin felt pathetic again. How could he have allowed his life to be changed so much by one man in such a short time? This doesn't seem healthy at all. 'Merlin you are obsessing. Your life was not in a very happy place before you met Arthur and he seemed like the greatest thing and, well you jumped in with both feet like a fool. You need to snap out of this! And do it FAST!' Merlin knew all this, but somehow that memory of the haunting smile of Arthur's was more than his will power could dominate. Merlin was gone.

He busied himself with LONG movies until finally it was 9.00PM. Merlin felt tired again and thought that he might need more sleep so he laid down and was out in moments. At 12.30AM the alarm in his iphone went off waking him. He looked at the display and the memo said "Arthur". Merlin smiled. Yet at the same time he thought this is obsessive. 'You are setting alarms to wake you up in the middle of the night for what is almost a complete stranger. What the hell is wrong with you Merlin?'

Merlin got up and washed his face and sat himself in front of his MacBook and open Skype so that he would know the moment Arthur came on again. 'I think I should leave Skype open all the time. I wouldn't want to miss the chance to talk to him any other time.' That voice echoed in his head, 'creep. You are a stalker waiting to happen.'

Merlin sat browsing Facebook and Twitter and then Google News waiting for Arthur to come online. 1AM came finally! Merlin tried his best to not get too overly excited. 'No need to frighten Arthur off.' Merlin looked at the Skype window. Arthur hadn't come back on yet. 'Patience, Merlin, patience.'

1.30AM 'Shit! Did I screw up? Was I supposed to meet him at 11PM my time and not his?' Merlin's heart sank. Feeling the tension to not creep out and go full on stalker on Arthur, Merlin thought 'the best I can do now is to send him a quick message in the chat window for him to read whenever he comes back online again.' [Did I mess up? I think I missed our date time of 11PM. Get back to me so we can reconnect!] Merlin clicked the "send" button and felt disillusioned.

'Okay Merlin if you weren't sure before you should know now, you are a messed up creep.' He thought. Merlin sighed and went to sleep again.

PLEASE REVIEW!

IT DOESN'T TAKE LONG!