PART THREE - ALMOST ETERNITY
And you yourself, what do you know? You called forth
past ages in your lover. What feelings stormed up
from bygone beings!
...
you touch each other
so blissfully because the caress holds back,
because the place you tender ones cover does not disappear,
because you feel pure permanence underneath.
So you promise yourself almost eternity
from the embrace.
"Merlin!" Arthur bangs his fist on Merlin's door, grinning with anticipation. "Lancelot had a crate of wine for Christmas. Merlin, are you in there?"
A series of small, shuffling noises on the other side of the door tells him that Merlin is indeed there. When it opens Arthur takes a step back, opening his mouth to speak but not getting a sound across his lips. Merlin's face is like a shock, like he's forgotten what Merlin looks like over the past three weeks – the thick dark hair and sharp cheekbones, the electric blue eyes that seem to see everything, relentlessly probing beneath the surface. The fact that Merlin is here, real and close, makes Arthur feel lightheaded. For a moment they just look at one another, and a then a smile turns up the corners of Merlin's pretty mouth.
With an effort Arthur shakes himself. "Come on!" He points up the stairs. "Let's get drunk!"
Merlin laughs at that, and the sparkle in his eyes ignites something in Arthur, making his palms damp and his knees weak. He leans his shoulder against the door frame and tries to look casual and not at all overwhelmed.
"I can't just barge in uninvited and drink DuLac's wine...?" Merlin says, and there's a question mark at the end like he only wants to be persuaded.
"I'm inviting you now," says Arthur impatiently, letting go of the door frame. "You don't want to miss this. Lancelot's family are winemakers in Burgundy, didn't you know?"
Merlin shakes his head.
"You can be sure he got the best vintage. Come on, Merlin, you can't pass this up!"
"Arthur!" Lancelot calls from upstairs. "Stop dawdling! Emrys, you too!"
Merlin comes away like someone shoved him in the back, following Arthur up the stairs. Lancelot waves them inside and pushes glasses into their hands. He and Leon seem to be halfway through a bottle already. Leon throws his arm around Merlin's shoulders, leaning on him until Merlin's knees buckle and he looks half embarrassed and half amused. Arthur watches as he drinks deeply from his glass, thinking this is going to be a great evening.
xxx
Merlin has always liked DuLac - Lancelot, he must remember to call him that - from the little he knows of him, from chats after translation class and random meetings on the stairs to the occasional coffee in Lancelot's rooms. He's never seen Lancelot be anything but nice to anyone, and he can feel the kindness and honesty deep down through the layers of his personality, down to the core. He likes Leon de Boron as well, he decides; likes the way Leon meets people's eyes and really sees them when he does, and the smile that makes his face all sunny. Arthur surrounds himself with good people, Merlin thinks, which does say something about Arthur, too.
Tonight they're all making an effort to include Merlin in anything they talk about, despite the fact that they've clearly known each other for most of their lives and have a long shared history. They make a point of making him feel part of the group.
Merlin has always been careful with alcohol, afraid he'll lose control of his magic if he drinks too much. He's been drunk on beer with Will, because Will's known about the magic since they were small boys and in any case he's oblivious to odd things happening unless they're huge enough to blow the roof off the house.
Merlin doesn't like wine all that much, or thought he didn't, but this wine at least is good, it's really good. It doesn't have that inky thickness that he dislikes; there's a hint of sweetness that takes the edge off and caresses Merlin's tongue. It's the oak, Lancelot says, and Leon and Arthur make fun of him; it's the oak, Merlin, they say; make sure you can taste the oak.
The word reminds Merlin of Arthur asking him to change the seasons, of the little oak twig he brought back into college to make its buds open like a small, secret triumph in the secure space of his rooms; a "yes, Arthur, I can change the seasons".
His magic is moving inside him now, rolling in slow waves like a quiescent sea, and suddenly he realises how much better he knows his magic now, after months of guidance from Professor Gaius. He knows it's not going to pose a problem, knows he'll be able to control it. The knowledge is simply there, quiet and sure. So Merlin allows himself to get drunk for once, lets the room go fuzzy and blurred around him, lets himself relax into the warmth of wine and friendship.
When they start singing Leon declares Merlin's voice to be the best of them all, "lyrical" he calls it. Arthur looks at Leon and then at Merlin, his mouth stretching into a slow, lopsided smile that is gently mocking and something else that isn't mocking at all but dark and heated, making Merlin's stomach lurch and his heart trip a little in his chest.
His magic still behaves strangely whenever Arthur is around, warm and pliable like an affectionate cat. It twirls and turns, rolls and threads its golden tendrils through his veins. But it's not threatening to escape. It's strong and agile and enjoying itself, purring inside him, and it will stay there, powerful, secret, and not betray him. The magic is his ally, not an enemy that he needs to fight.
When they get hungry Lancelot produces bread and weird French cheeses that smell oddly intimate of sour milk. There's a white cheese with a creamy centre that Merlin thinks smells like semen, and then blushes at the mere word inside his head when he glances at Arthur. God, Arthur. If I could only... if you would only... They eat the bread with lovely runny dark-gold honey that has a slightly bitter aftertaste of thyme. It's a bit like Merlin's magic, he thinks and giggles around his bite of bread as the honey spreads its thick sweetness over his tongue; it's warm and rich and golden with an edge to it.
"Have some water," Leon advises when Merlin gets up to go and have a piss and staggers into a chair that scrapes over the floor until it's caught on the edge of a rug. "Will help you not get drunk so quickly, and you'll be grateful tomorrow."
They've caught on to the fact that he doesn't have much experience with alcohol but they don't tease him too much; they seem rather to enjoy giving him fatherly advice. This particular piece of advice seems sound enough.
Merlin sways as he relieves himself, and when he returns to Lancelot's rooms he stops inside the door and leans against it, taking in the scene before him. The three of them are draped loose-limbed over furniture, the smoke from their cigarettes curling towards the ceiling. He looks at their laughing faces, happy to be part of this, happy to belong here with good people.
His glass has been refilled in his absence and there's a glass of water next to it that he gulps down; Leon thumps him on the shoulder and tells him that that's right, that's it, and they all laugh.
He's never been this drunk before. The room is spinning around him in a slightly alarming fashion, and once or twice he has to bite his tongue to stop himself saying stupid things like telling Arthur how handsome he looks, but he loves it, he loves it all.
His tongue feels too big for his mouth and sort of loose, like a lump of jelly in his mouth; he drinks more water and sprawls in his chair and lets himself be lulled by the dark murmur of voices around him, not really listening to their words but smiling with their laughter. The way people behave when they're drunk says a lot about them, Merlin thinks fuzzily and not for the first time in his life. Alcohol doesn't make Arthur and his friends mean or aggressive.
Leon and Lancelot are relaxed and boneless and silly, Leon giggles and Lancelot's elbow slips off the table, and Arthur... Arthur.
He is radiant, surrounded by the flames that Merlin saw around him from the very first, his blond hair shining and his eyes a little glassy but still laughing blue, and he is so breathtaking that Merlin gulps.
No, he is not afraid that his magic will slip away from him; there is a much greater risk that his love for Arthur will shine through.
The alcohol breaks down watertight compartments in Merlin's mind, and for the first time he is forced to admit to himself in so many words how wildly, insanely in love with Arthur he is. It's madness, he knows; it's like a suicide wish to let himself fall in love with Uther Pendragon's son. But like Arthur had said that day on the frosty hillside, he is not his father, and Merlin loves him so much his body is both heavy and light with it, so much he feels his heartbeat could make the earth quake, that the strength of his emotion could truly make the seasons change and the world tilt on its axis. And then he laughs a little at himself and his delusions of grandeur, and Leon looks at him and turns to Arthur, grinning: "Look at the little one, Arthur. He's sitting there blushing to himself."
"Merlin," Arthur says, admonishing and a little pompous, and at that moment he actually does look like his father. Merlin bites the insides of his cheeks at the image of what Arthur could be, what he most likely will be, with all of Uther Pendragon's power but with a very different prime mover. "Merlin! What on earth are you thinking about, blushing like that? You have to tell us now."
Merlin's blush deepens and he adamantly refuses to tell, even when he is attacked by Arthur and Leon and tickled into a heap on the floor, laughing hysterically and gasping "no, no, please, no". Lancelot only smiles, half asleep.
But when Merlin has recovered and Arthur and Leon have forgotten what the tickle attack was all about, Merlin looks at Arthur. And looks. If he tries to be objective (and his inner voice turns very sarcastic at that), he can see that there are indeed men with strictly more classical looks than Arthur Pendragon, perhaps more traditionally perfect with almond-shaped eyes, straight nose and straight teeth. But something about Arthur sparks Merlin's senses, something about him touches Merlin and tugs at him in a new and irresistible way. Arthur's blue eyes, his aquiline nose and broad, open smile, the way his entire face can light up - it all stirs something so deep inside Merlin that he is almost afraid to touch it, to acknowledge it. Like it's too enormous for him to bear.
xxx
"Ishouldgo," Merlin slurs and rises unsteadily from the chair. By the door he trips over something, not quite falling but going down on one knee, his fingertips touching the floor.
When Arthur laughs at him the entire rooms spins, and he jumps at the chance. "You'll need someone to escort you down the stairs!" he says too loudly, getting up off Lancelot's sofa. He turns and sways as he announces to the others: "I'm taking the little one back to his rooms. Someone needs to make sure he doesn't break his neck on the stairs."
It sounds good in his head, anyway.
No one takes any notice of him. Lancelot has fallen asleep in his chair with his mouth half-open; Leon is on his back on the floor explaining something to the ceiling. As Merlin scrambles back onto his feet Arthur crashes into him and nearly makes him fall over again. He throws an arm around Merlin's shoulders as they fumble the door open and stagger out, laughing, to negotiate the stairs.
Their faces are close, and twice Arthur's forehead comes to rest briefly on Merlin's temple. While one of Merlin's hands slides down the the handrail, the other sneaks around Arthur's waist and clutches at his clothes. Arthur is grinning like a lunatic, unable to stop himself, heady and bold with warmth and closeness. The wine sings in his head and thuds in his ears, putting pressure behind his eyes.
It's a small miracle that they reach the foot of the stairs without falling. When Merlin fishes his keys out of his pocket they slip from his hand, and they both drop to their knees on the floor, giggling, to pick them up. Their hands meet over the bunch of keys.
"Jus'like the first time," Merlin slurs. "Jus'like when we met."
Arthur giggles, then stills, trying to focus on Merlin's face. It swims under the light and looks eerily otherworldly.
"Le Morte d'Arthur," he blurts out, simply because it pops up in his alcohol-soaked brain and most of his filters are shot to hell.
Merlin smiles at him, a very drunken and soft smile that takes Arthur's breath away. "No, not yet," he says quietly. "Not in a looong time yet."
And then they somehow get back on their feet and Merlin unlocks the door. Arthur holds it open for Merlin to step inside, and pulls it almost shut behind them. He is about to say something when Merlin turns abruptly, and they're so close that Arthur draws a breath. His vision is floating, filled with white skin, dark hair, dark eyelashes. The back of Merlin's hand touches Arthur's.
"I – " Arthur begins shakily, but Merlin leans forward, intentionally or just because he's swaying, until his breath is on Arthur's lips and his mouth brushes against Arthur's in a kind of light, gentle slide.
It happens so quickly that it barely registers in Arthur's blurry brain until it's over, and even as he makes a startled sound he isn't sure that Merlin actually meant to do what he did.
But then there's Merlin's reaction. He steps back, away from Arthur, and they stare at one another wide-eyed and confused. The room is silent and something crosses Merlin's face like a shadow. His jaw tenses as he reaches past Arthur in a quick, surprisingly sober move to push the door open. Then his hands are on Arthur, his palms against Arthur's chest, as he gives him a hard shove out the doorway. Arthur takes a few flailing steps backwards and lands sprawling on his arse on the flagstones, blinking in astonishment and pain while the court reverberates with the sound of Merlin's door slammed shut and the bolt shot home.
Arthur remains on the cold paving for a minute, trying to understand what happened. He shakes his head to make the fog clear but only makes himself dizzy. Merlin's door is heavy and silent, closed, so closed, and Arthur can't stand it. He gets back on his feet and starts to pound on the door with his fists, willing it to yield, to open so he can take Merlin by the collar and walk him back into the room. It hurts; he must have scraped his palms when he fell. He wipes them on his trousers and bangs on the door again.
"Merlin, what the hell...?" he yells. "Open the door! Merlin!"
A couple of undergrads at the other end of the colonnade stop to point and look at him, laughing, but Arthur ignores them. There's not a sound from Merlin. The silence is as heavy and dead as before, and after a few more minutes Arthur admits defeat and pulls himself away from the door. Swaying and muttering, he wanders back to his own rooms, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. His palms still sting, but the sting of having been shut out is worse.
He tumbles into bed, head spinning, falling asleep in a whirl of Merlin, his eyes, his mouth... his hands shoving Arthur out the door.
xxx
Arthur spends next day in bed with a headache and the curtains drawn, dozing, sleeping, waking to drink water. Merlin weaves in and out of his dreams. Sometimes Merlin is towering over him, powerful and menacing, with his eyes glowing and unintelligible words spilling over his lips. He is cloaked in darkness, his force is frightening, hidden but undeniable. At other times there are glimpses of a Merlin who is achingly happy, laughing up at Arthur with his eyes sparkling blue in the sun.
Arthur jerks awake just as he leans down, slowly and full of intention, to kiss Merlin's smiling mouth.
xxx
Groaning, Merlin fights his way out of sleep into the room and immediately wishes he hadn't. His head aches, his mouth is like parchment and the contrast between last night's euphoria and this makes him want to sob. He wants it back, how everything was pleasantly blurred around the edges, the soft, dark rumble of voices - and Arthur, radiantly laughing.
Arthur's been in a league all his own ever since Merlin first set eyes on him. It's as though he can feel Arthur, not just in his presence but even when Arthur isn't physically there - it's like a glow, a luminous haze at the edge of his mind. Like he can feel Arthur's very existence. And when Arthur is present, the sensation is sometimes overwhelming and makes Merlin do stupid things.
Like last night.
He groans with headache and the deeper ache of shame as he squeezes his eyes shut against what little light there is, clenching his fists. However drunk he was last night, he remembers everything clearly, remembers that heart-stopping moment inside the door when they were so close and Merlin couldn't stop his mouth from brushing against Arthur's - and then shoved him out in a panic, making the whole thing infinitely worse.
Because Merlin isn't sure whether Arthur, even drunker than Merlin, had even noticed the near-kiss, and now Merlin will have to explain himself.
He groans again and rolls over to bury his face in the pillow, keening with embarrassment, shame stinging his eyes. What in hell can he tell Arthur?
xxx
When Arthur finally gets up and makes coffee it's half past five and already dark. He washes and dresses and decides he'll feel much better with a proper meal inside him, something greasy and filling.
But first he must talk to Merlin, talk to him and find out – how, he has no idea – whether Merlin intended for that strange, breathy almost-kiss last night to happen.
He takes a deep breath in front of the mirror and meets his own eyes in it, dark blue and purposeful – very like his father's, he notices with a frown. He squares his shoulders and adjusts his tie, making a decision. I'll go over and knock on Merlin's door and make sure he damn well opens this time. And then I'll take it from there.
There is a fine drizzle in the air when he crosses the court, cold and somehow wetter than proper rain, making the paving slippery under his feet. Merlin's door looks ominous, grim and silent, and Arthur's hand is shaking a little with nerves or residual hangover when he raises it to knock. It takes a while for Merlin to open, but he does open, looking a bit worse for wear – bad enough that Arthur wonders if he has slept at all. He is even paler than usual with dark circles under his eyes and the hollows beneath his cheekbones more pronounced. His gaze grazes Arthur's and drops to the floor.
"Can I come in?" Arthur asks quietly, leaning forward to catch Merlin's eyes.
Merlin shrugs and steps aside, half turned away. He is in shirtsleeves and waistcoat and the room is dark and stuffy, the air filled with the sickly and sharp, slightly acetonic smell of hangover.
"Are you all right?" Arthur isn't going to let him get away with silence.
Merlin shrugs again.
"Nauseous this morning, little one?" A bit of teasing is good.
"A bit. Not any more." His voice is low and rough, sending a shiver down Arthur's spine. "I only got up an hour ago."
"You look like you need a square meal," Arthur says. "God knows I do."
When Merlin shrugs for the third time, Arthur wants to shake him.
"Come on, Merlin," he coaxes. "Let's get out of here, get dinner somewhere. I'm buying."
"I can't let you do that," Merlin murmurs, his eyes still downcast and his fingers picking restlessly at the hem of his waistcoat.
"Don't be ridiculous. Get your jacket." Arthur uses his sharp, no-nonsense voice this time, and hears himself sounding just like his father. He swallows and lets it go – for now. (He needs to do something about this, before he becomes his father. He never wants to become his father.)
Merlin is very quiet until they are seated at a white-linen table and Arthur asks if he wants a beer. Then he laughs, and Arthur feels like the whole room just brightened.
"If you'd asked me that a few hours ago I'd have said I'd never drink again in my life. But yeah, I'd actually like a beer."
Conversation flows a little easier after that, as if the beer was the drop of oil needed in their machinery. Aviation metaphor, Arthur thinks and grins.
"I'll walk you to your rooms," he says to Merlin when they pass through the gates into college.
"You don't have to do that." Merlin looks equally annoyed and amused. "I'm not a... a damsel."
Arthur snorts. "Aren't you, Merlin? You're quite sure?"
Teasing Merlin is wonderful; it's instant gratification. It takes so little to make him blush, either with embarrassment or annoyance. This time it's the latter, but as Merlin is clearly repressing a grin it can't be too bad.
"Shut up, Arthur. You're not the knight in shining armour that you think you are."
Arthur takes a step back, presses a hand to his heart and makes a sad, put-upon face with his bottom lip protruding. "Aren't I? And here I thought... What is the matter with young people these days? Here I am on my gallant steed, galloping to the damsel's aid when she's hung over, taking her out to dinner to put some colour in her cheeks, and... She ought to adore me. Why doesn't she adore me?"
To his astonishment, that comment truly does put colour in Merlin's cheeks, deeper than before. He bows his head to hide it, but before Arthur can begin to tease in earnest they've reached Merlin's door, and Arthur can't have it slammed in his face again. He must talk to Merlin about that kiss-or-not-kiss last night or it will become a spectre, it will grow enormous and block the view. So when Merlin unlocks the door Arthur pushes it open and steps in before Merlin, shuts it firmly behind them and leans on it, both for support and to cut off Merlin's path of retreat.
Merlin sees it in his face, he can tell, that Arthur won't let him get away with it. He makes himself taller, consciously or not, to face the challenge straight on. Arthur wants to smile in appreciation of Merlin's bravery but he is too nervous.
"About last night," he begins, but Merlin holds up a hand with the palm out.
"I know," he says. "I know what you're going to say. I've been meaning to apologise all evening. Look, I was very, very drunk, and I'm not used to it. I didn't really know what.. what I was doing." He takes a deep breath and makes a comical, self-deprecating face. "Thank you for not making a big thing out of it," he adds.
It sounds rehearsed, like he's been thinking all day about what to say and now it comes spilling out. Arthur is aware of staring at Merlin's mouth but can't tear his gaze away.
Merlin is standing a good distance away, creating a safety zone between them, but who is he protecting, Arthur or himself? Arthur's heart is hammering, slamming the blood through his veins; sweat is breaking out along his hairline and down his back.
"But it is a big thing," he hears himself say miles away. "Merlin..." No, he sounds pleading; he doesn't want to plead so he starts again: "I have to get this straight or it'll do my head in. I'm sorry for being blunt, but... was I imagining things, or did you almost kiss me? I mean," he adds when Merlin visibly blanches, "you could've, I don't know, tripped." He laughs, wondering if Merlin thinks Arthur is trying to hand him an excuse, offering him a way out. "We were very drunk, I know, but from your very carefully rehearsed apology just now, I gather that you didn't trip or slip or anything of the kind. It was intentional, wasn't it?"
If Merlin went white before, he's back to crimson now, mortified. But Arthur can no longer imagine a state, or a world, or a plane of existence, where Merlin isn't beautiful in whatever he does, in every single moment.
I'm lost, he thinks and wants to laugh – or cry, perhaps, from nerves and insecurity, but it doesn't matter that he's lost. For one moment, it doesn't matter at all. It's like free-falling. He just jumped off a cliff and now he's flying and doesn't care if the rocks are jagged where he lands.
"I thought about it all day," he says, too intense but no longer caring about propriety, "about you, about you doing that, and I... I wanted to... I hoped it was intentional."
The silence that follows is so heavy it puts pressure on his eardrums. His heart is wild in his chest. He can't look at Merlin's face so he looks at his neck instead, at the movement of his Adam's apple above the collar when he swallows with a faint click. And then Merlin takes a step forward.
Arthur stands there paralysed, staring at Merlin's neck and thinking three things at once: that it's the first time he has so much as hinted of his perversion to anyone. That at this moment it doesn't feel like a perversion at all. That Merlin is very, very close.
He lifts his eyes and watches the lamp outline Merlin's hair with gold.
"Well," Merlin says and his voice is only just above a whisper, "if that's the case... if you hoped it was a kiss... then I'm going to do it again."
Almost before the words are out, before Arthur has even taken a breath, he feels Merlin's hands on his face. Arthur's pulse pounds in his temples, in his fingertips, between his legs; he is half turned on and half frightened, but Merlin's mouth meets his with gentleness. His own hands don't know what to do with themselves and he flattens them against the door, helplessly. But when Merlin's tongue teases his lips apart and slips into his mouth, his hands scrabble over Merlin's waist to clutch at his shirt underneath the jacket and pull him closer, closer. Arthur hears himself make a small noise that is nearly a moan, undignified, unstoppable.
Merlin is pressed against him chest to knee, warm and wiry and overwhelming, and when Arthur's hips push forward of their own accord there's a hungry, startled sound from the back of Merlin's throat.
"Arthur," Merlin breathes, "Arthur."
He leans his forehead against Arthur's and Arthur trembles at the heat of Merlin's body, dizzy with danger and possibility.
He needs to see Merlin's face and switches them around so it's Merlin with his back against the door. Merlin's eyes are wide and dark, the Byzantine saint, but no, this is no saint, and Arthur is glad of that. He smiles and presses his lips to Merlin's jawbone, slides his mouth down Merlin's neck to the edge of the collar and up to his earlobe that he touches with his tongue. There is the strangled noise again and Arthur realises Merlin is shaking. In a kind of vertigo he begins to kiss Merlin everywhere he can find bare skin – nose, eyelids, cheekbones, chin, mouth, neck – and Merlin is gasping and laughing, threading his fingers into Arthur's hair.
Arthur's head is swimming with the knowledge that Merlin welcomes this, wants Arthur's hands on his body and their mouths pressed together.
"God, Merlin," he breathes, pushing Merlin's hair out of his eyes. "I've wanted to... you have no idea..."
Merlin's eyes are huge. "Remember when I dropped all the books?" he says in a half-whisper. "I've wanted to do this - " he leans forward and licks at Arthur's neck, and Arthur's body responds with a shock of pleasure, "I've wanted to do this ever since. No, before that. Since the first time I saw you."
"Oh god," Arthur says shakily, pulling him back in, "me too. Your mouth, Merlin. I need your mouth."
Merlin moans at that and they're kissing again, a different kiss that settles something between them, or just in Arthur's head.
"Stay with me tonight," Merlin says against the corner of Arthur's mouth while his fingers are counting Arthur's ribs through the shirt, "stay with me."
Nothing could have made Arthur leave Merlin's rooms that night. He will remember it always, what Merlin's skin looked like in the light from the fire, what Merlin's hands and mouth did to him and what Merlin allowed him to do in turn, what it was like to be home and happy, weak and delirious with love.
xxx
Merlin's rooms will never feel the same again, he thinks. They have changed like he has changed, they are warm like he is warm, they have been through an initiation rite like he has. His magic is alive in him, pulsing, glowing, and he remembers Professor Gaius' words about a deeper reason for his being here.
He turns his head and looks at Arthur's sleeping face that he can only just make out in the grey light of dawn. He has no idea where this will take them, but right this moment it doesn't matter, because they are here and this is where it begins.
xxx
Dear god, I'm truly obsessed, Arthur thinks. He is watching Merlin read, take notes and push his fingers through his hair until he resembles a preoccupied hedgehog, thinking it's the most endearing thing he's ever seen.
Arthur's world these days is made up of Merlin, every minute saturated with him. He dreams of Merlin, thinks of him, knocks on his door at all hours of the day and spends an inordinate amount of time with his mouth against Merlin's skin, against Merlin's mouth. In a very short time they have reached a level of intimacy Arthur has only touched on in his most secret dreams. Nothing needs to be hidden in shame.
Only this morning he watched Merlin's face under him, open-mouthed and slack with pleasure as Arthur slowly entered his body. Arthur had been shaking with it, with lust and greed and withheld emotion, until Merlin had told him to fucking move and he had, hard, until they had both been muffling their cries in the other's neck and shoulder.
Merlin looks up from his book and smiles, and everything else melts away from Arthur's field of vision.
xxx
Merlin loves watching Arthur shave.
He watches from across the room now, watches Arthur by the washstand, naked to the waist with the lower half of his face eerily white with lather. There is too much distance between them; he needs to touch.
He crosses the room and puts his hands on Arthur's shoulders; his mouth meets the back of Arthur's neck and the tip of his tongue traces the hairline. Arthur lets out a gasp.
"Christ, Merlin! Are you trying to make me cut my throat?"
Merlin gives a startled shudder and meets Arthur's eyes in the mirror. "Don't even joke about things like that," he says.
"Then don't do things like that - not when I have a razor in my hand. Oh, no, don't stop... god, your mouth... a man could cut his throat for less."
"Shh," Merlin hushes, chuckling, sliding his fingers over Arthur's chest and down his arms. "You're talking too much. And contradicting yourself."
Arthur looks odd in the mirror; his smile is a little lopsided and one eye a fraction smaller than the other, differently shaped. Merlin never notices that when they look at each other face to face.
Arthur stands with the razor poised, still locking eyes with Merlin as he twists his mouth to the side to stretch the skin taut. The blade makes an elegant swipe through the lather on Arthur's cheek, leaving a swathe of pink behind, and Merlin feels the movement of muscle under his fingers.
The moment of vertigo is sudden and so intense that his heart nearly stops. There's something about the razor, about the glint of metal against Arthur's skin that reminds Merlin of something he can't grasp, a flash of memory and recognition like a bright stab through his mind. The crash of metal, Merlin's fingers tightening buckles and straps on Arthur's forearms and shoulders... and then it's gone.
Arthur's hand with the razor is frozen in mid-air and his eyes are worried and very blue. "What is it? Are you all right?"
"I... I don't know." Merlin swallows, watching his hands on Arthur's shoulders as if they don't belong to him. They're trembling. He lets them fall.
He is still dizzy as he crosses the floor to sink into one of the armchairs by the fire. Those fragmented images, he thinks; they were just like the ones he sees in his dreams, only this time he was awake and they were more like... memories. But it can't be. He is imagining things. Arthur plops down beside him, still naked to the waist with his braces in loops down his thighs, drying his face on a linen towel.
"Are you all right?" he asks again, wiping some stray lather from his earlobe.
Merlin takes a deep breath and nods, even manages a smile. But the dizziness doesn't leave.
xxx
Arthur loves making Merlin laugh. Most of the time there is something so guarded about Merlin, even in bed, in a situation where he should truly give himself up, that Arthur loves it when Merlin forgets himself and just laughs. His eyes disappear in crinkles and his pretty teeth show, and Arthur could do and say any number of exceedingly silly things just to see that, just to hear the sound.
The feeling that Merlin is holding something back grows stronger. For one thing, he never wants to talk about his paintings, evading the subject if Arthur brings it up. Some mornings he has paint-stained fingers and looks like death, replying curtly to Arthur's questions: "I didn't sleep well." And Arthur doesn't even know if he paints when he can't sleep or if painting gets in the way of sleep.
Arthur remembers this as one of the first things he noticed about Merlin: that his eyes were holding a secret. The observation is still valid. The secret has not been shared. Back then, Arthur had thought Merlin wanted to share, couldn't wait to. Now, he wonders what it would take for that to happen.
"Do you hide things from me, Merlin?" he asks.
He hopes the urgency of the question doesn't come across; obscures it by kissing his way slowly down Merlin's spine, counting vertebrae, his fingertips raising goosebumps over Merlin's ticklish ribs. He loves Merlin's skin. If he could lie here touching it with mouth and fingers forever, he'd be happy. He is happy.
"Everyone has secrets," Merlin replies softly, turning around in Arthur's arms to comb his fingers through Arthur's hair from the crown to the nape and then back up, stroking him backwards.
It's not the answer Arthur wants. He tries to catch the look in Merlin's eyes but the long eyelashes are dark crescents smudged over Merlin's cheeks as he traces the outline of Arthur's jaw with a finger, down the neck and along the collarbone to the point of the shoulder.
"I want to hear yours," Arthur says, and there's something dangerously hot and tight in his chest. "All of them. Are you scared to tell me?" A pause. "Embarrassed to?"
Merlin meets his eyes then.
"You're Arthur Pendragon," he says, and the corner of his mouth lifts in half a smile.
As if that is an explanation, as if that is an answer. Anger flares up.
"Thank you for that clarification," Arthur says hotly, his voice clamped tight around the hurt. "And you're Merlin Emrys, and most of the time I don't know who the fuck he is."
Merlin winces and blinks before his eyelashes come sweeping down again as he draws a slow line down Arthur's sternum with a fingertip.
"Do you have secrets from me, Arthur Pendragon?" he asks.
For a mad second, Arthur thinks he can see Merlin's voice like a thread of gold in the dusk of the room. He shakes his head, both to clear it and to deny any secrets.
"The only thing," he says a little unsteadily, "the only thing I hide from you... sometimes..."
He swallows and Merlin looks up at him.
"Yes?" he urges gently when Arthur hesitates.
"Sometimes I want to tell you that I love you," Arthur murmurs, "sometimes I want to tell you just how much. But I'm scared you'll be scared. That you'll run away if I do."
Silence falls heavy, charged with emotion and unsaid things, until Merlin leans in to kiss Arthur's mouth, his breath touching Arthur before his lips do. It's the softest kiss Arthur has ever received.
For a moment he dreads Merlin's verbal response, afraid he'll be handed an automatic phrase, that Merlin will give him a cliché because it's expected – I'd never run from you, Arthur, or even I love you too. But Merlin doesn't say anything. Instead he kisses his reply into Arthur's mouth, his temple, his neck, and later fucks it into Arthur's body until Arthur knows he can't doubt Merlin's willingness, can't doubt Merlin's love.
xxx
Sex is not so different from magic, Merlin thinks sleepily with his head cushioned on Arthur's arm. It's natural and simple, intuitive and infinitely complex.
When he reaches up to kiss Arthur's temple, Arthur smiles in his sleep.
xxx
The Dragonfly vibrates and roars, responding to Arthur's slightest move and spitting oil all over his face. He is laughing to himself, whooping and shouting wordlessly into the wind, licking oil from his lips. Below him the countryside is spread out like a brown and green quilt, threaded with silver and blue, dotted with red. The sky is a vault of glass.
He turns and watches the world tilt under him. This is fathomable, measurable, calculable. Merlin is none of that and Arthur needs to clear his head, to let the cold air wash every thought and emotion away so he can appreciate them all the more when they return.
The landing is less than elegant but Arthur doesn't care. He leaves the Dragonfly in Jack's competent hands and begs a lift back to Cambridge, where his world is once again inundated with Merlin, all lush mouth and hot eyes.
xxx
"We have to be careful, Merlin," Arthur says as he puts on his tie and Merlin straightens it for him, kissing the tip of his chin when he is done. "We spend so much time together – we can't let people guess. It's dangerous. Think of Oscar Wilde. Never quite himself again after Reading, was he?"
"No," Merlin agrees quietly, letting his fingertips slide down the tie before he looks up.
Arthur sighs and pulls Merlin close; Merlin settles against his chest. "I hate having to hide," he says.
"So do I," Merlin murmurs with feeling. "So do I, Arthur. You have no idea."
"I love you." Arthur kisses Merlin's hair. "I'd like to shout it from the rooftops, you know that, but... I can't. We can't."
"I know."
"It would ruin us."
"I know."
Merlin's breath is warm against Arthur's neck and it's enough because it has to be. There's nothing more to say.
xxx
They're spilled all over Arthur's bed, sprawling under and over and across each other in a tangle of limbs and slickness. Merlin raises himself on an elbow and touches Arthur's face, fingertips smoothing the damp hair from Arthur's forehead and tracing the arcs of Arthur's eyebrows like he's drawing them. He'll never get used to this, he thinks; to being allowed to see Arthur like this. He doesn't want to get used to it.
Arthur lifts his head from the pillow and kisses the only part of Merlin his mouth can reach; the inside of his wrist.
"Merlin," he says, his head falling back on the pillow.
Outside the dusk is fragile and blue. The window is ajar and they can hear the rain as it begins to fall.
"Mm?"
"I'd like you to come with me when I go home for Easter."
Merlin stills. Arthur is looking up at him, but it seems to take an effort to hold his gaze steady. After a heartbeat he pulls Merlin's head down to him and kisses his mouth.
"Don't worry," he murmurs, "it will only be us. Father will be in London and Morgana is visiting a friend. Just you and me and the servants."
"The servants", Merlin huffs against Arthur's cheekbone, but there's no antagonism in his voice.
"We can stay in bed all day, like this. God, Merlin," and Arthur's hand slides down to rest on the curve of Merlin's arse, "I want to hear you make noise; I want you to come so hard you scream. I'm tired of always having to hide ourselves, muffling ourselves in pillows."
Merlin drags his mouth down Arthur's cheek and jaw to his neck, parting his lips to suck at the skin until Arthur moans. "I'm tired of it, too," he says.
The vision of the two of them fucking each other's brains out in whatever obscenely large bed Arthur has in his room at home – a four-poster, probably – makes his cock stir despite the quite spectacular orgasm Arthur gave him five minutes ago. For a moment he allows himself to indulge in the fantasy. But if they go to Arthur's home, if they do do all of those things and Merlin lets himself go completely, he won't be able to keep his magic in check – and to let his magic loose in Uther Pendragon's house would be more than stupid. It would be disastrous.
"Merlin?" Arthur is pushing at him to lift his head.
"Arthur, I – "
Arthur is looking at him and it takes all his willpower not to look away first.
"You don't want to," Arthur says. It's a statement, dry and flat, but Merlin senses the disappointment and hurt behind it.
"No," he protests, "I do. I do want to. It's just..."
There's nothing he can say that will not sound like a lie – like the lie it is, and has to be.
"It's just that I'm me and my father is Uther Pendragon." Another statement, and it pains Merlin to see Arthur's eyes this dark.
"Yes," he concedes, and even if it's only half a truth, there's at least some truth in it.
"Or...?" Arthur's eyes are still searching his. "Is there... Merlin, is there someone...? Someone you want to go home to over the break?"
The tension in his voice is testimony of what it costs him to say it, and the realisation that Arthur doubts him, that he isn't sure of Merlin's feelings for him, pierces Merlin like the lance he dreamed of last night.
"No," he says, struggling out of Arthur's arms to sit up. "No! How can you even... there isn't anyone else, Arthur! Don't ever think there is." Freya's face surfaces in his mind for a fraction of a second, accusing and hurt, and then sinks back into the dark.
Arthur has closed his eyes.
"No," says Merlin again, softly this time, and leans down to kiss Arthur's eyelids. "I just... I just can't. Not yet. One day," and he cups his hand around Arthur's jaw and kisses his mouth, "one day I'll tell you why."
Arthur opens his eyes. "One day you'll tell me everything," he says.