Time To Rest
Arthur lies awake in his cold, empty bed and dreams of Merlin.
They're not important dreams, he knows, because they're vague and ambiguous and full of blurred figures. The only reason that he recognises Merlin is because one of the figures is literally glowing gold, tendrils of light reaching out around him. There are more like him, but different colours – purple, and blue, and green and red. And there's white, too, a blinding white that shoots up from underneath him, and he looks down, and opens his eyes.
The air in the room is thick and heavy in the midsummer night, and he's stripped down to nothing underneath his sheets in an attempt to cool down. He scowls at nothing, or maybe himself, and turns over onto his front. Then his ears prick up.
Arthur hears a door opening, a barely audible noise in the still air, and then soft footsteps on the cold floor. Footsteps that he knows inside out and back to front because he's heard them so many times before, particularly after they've had a minor disagreement and Merlin returns after storming off and then regretting it and coming back to bed five minutes later, to smooth over Arthur's chest and their problems. The Prince knows what is coming next.
There's a lithe body sliding under his sheets, warm skin against cool linen and Merlin settles on the other side of the bed. He seems unsure as to whether or not he should be touching Arthur, which means that the next move belongs to Merlin so the Prince can't touch him, even if he wanted to. Which he does, so much that it hurts.
"I know you're awake," he murmurs, edging just that little bit closer, and Arthur winces. "I could hear you dreaming. Thinking."
Arthur decides then that there's little point in pretending, and he rolls onto his side and props himself up on one elbow so that he can see his advisor.
"I thought you didn't want to do this?" he asks, a little sceptically, and Merlin might be blushing.
"I've missed you," he offers, by way of an explanation, and shift across the bed to splays his fingers over Arthur's side. The Prince pulls away and onto his back, and after watching him for a moment, Merlin copies him.
"I'm willing to try and make this work if you are," he says, a little shortly, and this time his fingers brush against Arthur's hip. He twitches, but doesn't move.
"So this is where I try again then, is it?" Arthur asks, a little bitterly, and Merlin shrugs beside him.
"If you want."
"Well I'm sorry, Merlin. For everything," he says, and hopes that his advisor can hear the sincerity in his voice, but the other man just sighs heavily instead and presses his forehead to Arthur's shoulder. The Prince refuses to touch him.
"You're always sorry, Arthur. But sometimes, it's just not enough."
"Well what am I supposed to do?" he asks wretchedly, fighting the urge to reach out and brush his hand over Merlin's arm, and the warlock shrugs as he stares up at the ceiling.
"Not say sorry. I just want you to believe in me, and know that I would never hurt you."
"I already do."
"Didn't seem that way tonight."
"I was enchanted."
"Spells like that don't work if there's nothing to anchor them too."
"OK fine!" Arthur shouts, pulling away from Merlin's hesitant touch and rolling over so that his back is to the warlock. "You have more power in your little finger than most of the sorcerers in this country combined. You could wipe out my family and I without blinking, and yet you don't. Instead, you deign to act as my advisor and do menial tasks around the castle, and I can't help but ask why sometimes," he growls, and Merlin hesitates just for a second. Arthur can hear him shifting closer behind him.
"I do these things because you're destined to be a great king one day, but you need me by your side. I do these things because destiny dictates that you're going to be the famous one, I'm just going to help you get there," Merlin rattles off in a rush, laying his hand on Arthur's arm so lightly that it might not be there. "But mostly, I do it because I love you. I would do anything to keep you safe and I want to spend my life with you. Why is that such a problem?"
"Because it makes no sense," Arthur grinds out, still stoically resisting the warlock, and wonders how the tables have turned so quickly. "Why would you pick me out of all the Princes in the land? Why me, when I have such weak powers compared to you, when you're already ten times the man that I could ever hope to be? How can I prove my worth? What have I done to deserve you?"
He chokes on the last word as his throat tightens, when he realises the weight of what he's saying. And he can't even pretend that these are new thoughts, because he knows that they're not. For the first time in his life, he feels inferior and unworthy, and it scares him.
At first, he thinks that Merlin's going to get up and leave – the warlock doesn't move at all, doesn't say anything, doesn't snap back with a cheeky comment. And it seems like an age, but eventually he feels his advisor's hand on his arm again, strong now and confident, and then the shift of his weight over the bed to press against the Prince.
Merlin presses small, light kisses to the back of Arthur's neck, and the Prince barely reacts – he doesn't lean into the touch, but equally he doesn't pull away, because he's still not sure where he stands.
"You have nothing to prove," the warlock whispers against his skin, and with an insistent push on his shoulder, rolls Arthur onto his back and leans down to capture his mouth in a kiss, slow and deep and gentle. And now, because Merlin has made the first move, Arthur is allowed to touch him.
One hand comes up to wrap around his neck, the other splaying out over the warlock's shoulder as he surges upward, and he's missed this so much. Not just kissing Merlin, though, because it means so much more to him than just that.
He holds Merlin's bottom lip between his own for a lingering moment as they part, and presses their foreheads together, breathing deeply, and runs his hand down from his advisor's shoulder to his wrist – and stops as his fingers run over the cut that he himself caused. He takes Merlin's arm gently and turns it, inspecting the wound. It's been healed slightly, but there's a smudge of dried blood over his ribs where it bled anyway.
"Agíemaþ," he murmurs, passing a hand over the cut, and it glows red before sewing itself back together. Arthur feels Merlin relax above him, and turns to him with a frown. "Why didn't you heal yourself?" he asks, and the warlock shrugs, looking down at him with a lop-sided smile.
"I tried. Couldn't get my magic to work properly – it's directly linked to my emotions. No sorcerer is at his true potential with a broken heart."
Arthur stares up at him, trying to find the hidden meaning in that sentence as he searches the bright gold eyes, the familiar face covered in scars like fine powder. He realises that there is no other meaning.
He pushes himself upward and Merlin over and down in one movement, but he's not rough. Merlin hasn't come here for a fight, so Arthur's not going to give him one. Instead he's careful with his hands where he knows he might normally leave bruises, gentle with his kisses where he might normally draw blood. He knows that Merlin knows that he's not intentionally aggressive – it's just his body, and he's not used to holding fragile things in his hands. He's had to learn fast.
His large hands maps over Merlin's chest, re-learning the grooves and dips and scars and not-quite-curves that he's missed but could never forget. Merlin is complacent and smiling beneath him, one hand running through the Prince's fine blond hair, and Arthur eases in between his legs as the warlock uses his grip in his hair to pull him in for another kiss.
Then there's a glow that suddenly flares between them, golden red and warm, and Arthur grunts in surprise as Merlin opens up beneath him in a flash of magic, ready and waiting and willing. He gathers his wits before going for it and pushing forward – not to prepare Merlin, because there's no need for that, but to take a second to just look at his warlock.
Because this is his Merlin, open and vulnerable beneath him. His body, pale and long and all hard flat planes. His eyes, burning with the same passion that they share still. His face says I want this and I trust you and I love you, and that's all that Arthur's ever wanted from him. He knows that now.
He swoops down for another kiss as he surges up and in and forward, and Merlin grips his upper arms and moans into Arthur's mouth even though he was prepared and expecting it, and even though his eyes are closed as Arthur buries himself inside him, it's not from pain. Merlin is everywhere, hot and perfect and limbs wrapped around his body, face pressed into his neck and lips mouthing nonsense against his skin.
Arthur feels as though he's come home.
When he finally begins to move, it's so very slow and gentle. This isn't like those times when Arthur would come back from training, adrenaline thundering through his veins, and they would be all hands and not even make it to the bed before one was arching up beneath the other. The Prince wants to prolong this for as long as he can, because he wants to imprint this feeling onto his brain forever.
Merlin's pressing light kisses to his neck, moving languidly down to his shoulder and leaving a tingling trail in his wake, and Arthur would shiver at the touch but he's too busy pressing his cheek the warlock's hair, one hand holding his shoulder and the other his hips in loose grips as they move together.
And for all that Arthur wants this to last forever, he knows that it can't, and his movements become jerky and erratic and Merlin wraps one arm around the Prince, pulling their chests flush together until there's no space at all. And then there's sparks between them, and if Arthur could see he might be surprised to see that they're red, but he's busy concentrating on just Merlin.
The warlock is patient and doesn't loosen his grip, and Arthur can feel him tensing as the magic glowing between them pulls him toward the edge and over – and with a flash of gold light, the warlock shudders his release and relaxes, and Arthur follows him right into oblivion.
When he regains control of his muscles, he realises that he's collapses on top of the warlock and Merlin makes a noise, and it's probably meant to mean something, but Arthur's not concentrating.
He rolls out and off Merlin and then just lays there, eyes half-closed and one hand twined in Merlin's, and he has no doubt that he has a ridiculous expression on his face. But it doesn't matter, because Merlin's pulling him into his chest, warm and solid and real. Arthur presses his cheek into Merlin's shoulder as the warlock tightens an arm over his back, and he twists his neck up to look at his warlock.
"I love you so much," he murmurs, and he can feel Merlin's heartbeat slowing down the same as his, perfectly in time. And his advisor smiles, a proper smile, for the first time in several days.
"I'm yours, forever."
Arthur closes his eyes and thinks that yes, they can make this work.
Took a while to see all the love that's around me
Through the highs and lows there's a truth that I've known
And it's you
