Promise.

'It's so wrong we're here on Christmas,' Gwaine complained from the chair he'd pulled up next to him. Arthur had entered all the relevant details into the HOLMES 2 system and had moved onto searching for any similar incidents. It was mostly to distract himself from the fact that Merlin hadn't called back yet. 'Are you listening, mate?'

'I completely agree,' he murmured when he found another connecting factor at the scene of another suspicious death. Ice. A 68 year old man had been found on a bench in Holland Park next to the Orangery on the 21st. Died of a heart attack, the result of hypothermia, only it had been a minimum low of 8 degrees Celsius, and he'd worn enough clothing. No witnesses.

'Merlin's calling,' Gwaine said and Arthur snapped his focus away from the screen.

'What?'

Gwaine smirked at him. 'Kidding.'

'Not funny,' Arthur growled and snatched his phone from the desk, the screen still dark. 'You know I'm worried.'

'So am I.'

'You're not acting like it.'

'Says the man reading about murder.'

'That's how I cope. Plus it's our job.'

'Merlin will call and we can figure out this Dorocha mess tomorrow. It's eight forty, Arthur. We've spent Christmas day hungover, in a car crash, attacked by the dead, and processing a murder,' Gwaine continued, as if he were putting forward a case in court. 'I'd like to get back to Leon's where there's a fridge full of beer waiting for us. Let's drink the night away with friends, yeah?'

Arthur logged out and turned the screen off before he called Merlin again.

'Mate, what are you even doing?'

He put the phone to his ear as it rang. 'Calling him.'

'I don't mean that. I mean the bigger picture. What are you doing with him?'

It rang out, he got the automated 'leave a voicemail' tone, and he ended the call.

Arthur pushed back in the chair. 'What do you think I'm doing?'

'Screwing with him,' Gwaine said lowly and he turned to face the Irishman properly. 'Even back in Camelot you were what he focused on daily. He told me himself enough times. His life back then was shared with you. Hell, his life practically was you and I don't mean that in a bad way. You're different people now, but in all the time I've known him I've never seen him love someone the way he loves you. If you could both stop screwing around you'd probably beat Gwen and Lance in a sickeningly-sweet-couple contest. He's died twice to save you in the last year. That's got be a record.'

'So you know. Merlin told you,' he said, excited by the revelation and depressed by the confirmation. He let the rest of what Gwaine said slip by on purpose. It made sense, and it made him feel like shit. Merlin had served him for years. He'd saved his life for years. Then Merlin shares everything with him and what did he do? He ended things.

Gwaine groaned. 'Not the point, Arthur, that's old news.'

He scoffed. 'Old news? Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that we've all lived before as kings and knights and manservants in a kingdom from legends, and that King Arthur guy was actually me, and Lance was actually Lancelot, I was married to Gwen then called Guinevere, and Merlin was a powerful sorcerer. How is that old news?'

'It doesn't change the current situation, mate,' Gwaine said, staring at him. 'That was then and this is now. Dating Mithian is a massively dickish move on your part, and if it keeps up you will lose him. You have to choose and do it now. You can't be in love with him and date other people. Especially when dead people are trying to kill us and magic is back with a twisted vengeance.'

'I know,' Arthur murmured and looked down at his phone. 'I just wish he'd answer his bloody phone. Why did he disappear like that? You never leave an active crime scene like that for starters, and you don't leave your partner—'

He trailed off. Partner. Since when had that word become so complicated? Arthur called him again, putting the phone to his ear, and ignoring Gwaine's disapproving stare at the conversation jump. It rang twice before it cut off and went straight to voicemail.

He pulled the phone back and ended the call. 'Strange.'

Gwaine sighed. 'No answer?'

'Voicemail. It barely rang. He must have rejected the call.'

'You might want to break up with your girlfriend before you try to sort things out with him.'

Arthur frowned when he realised. Not that he had to break up with her if he wanted to be with Merlin, but that he'd actually have to tell her. Now. 'It's Christmas.'

'If you want to wait to ask Merlin out, that's up to you, but the dead have risen, mate. End of the world is here.'

'That's a bit melodramatic.'

'Also happens to be true,' Gwaine said with an arched brow as he stood up and shrugged on his coat.

'Over the phone is a bit harsh.'

'Then wait—'

'Fine,' Arthur huffed. 'I'll do it. She's going to hate me.'

Gwaine grinned at him. 'I would.'

'I'll meet you downstairs?'

'I'll give Leon a ring and tell him we'll be over soon. I'm all tapped out for relationship advice so make your call, and let's behave like men about it after with looks of solidarity and leave it at that, alright?' Gwaine smiled and sauntered back to the lift. Arthur pulled up Mithian's number. His chest felt tight but he pressed the call button before he could chicken out.

'Arthur, hi,' Mithian said after the first ring. 'Happy Christmas. It's a total mess here. My little cousins are running everywhere. I wish they'd get sent to bed already.'

She laughed and Arthur cringed. 'Merry Christmas. It's good to hear you're enjoying yourself.'

'How about you?'

'It's not great. I actually want to talk to you,' he said. Rip off the bandage. Quick was kind. 'About us.'

'Us? What do you mean?'

It was bloody Christmas. He couldn't break up with her. 'I wanted to say that I think we're in a good place. That I was thinking about us and— Yeah. That's all. Nothing major.'

'Oh. I think we're in a good place, too,' she said then sighed. 'Grant just broke a wine glass. Sorry, I've got to help. Thanks for the call, Arthur, I think I actually missed the sound of your voice, as cheesy as that is.'

'It's cheesy but that's okay,' he said and forced a small laugh. 'See you when you get back.'

'The 28th, don't forget. I'll come by yours after I drop off my things?'

'Sounds like a plan,' he agreed, and swallowed thickly.

'See you.'

'Bye,' he breathed. The call finished and he pressed his lips together. He wasn't that arsehole who broke up with someone on Christmas. He also wasn't the arsehole who kept dating someone when they wanted to end things. He could explain things to Merlin and then end it when she got back, and they could move on. They could go on a proper first date, he could call Merlin his boyfriend, and they could deal with the dead and corrupt magic. Arthur pulled on his coat, scarf, put away his phone, and left with that reasoning keeping him from beating his own head against a wall.

.

.

.

Pieces cut through to him. Rain was first. Pain was second. Ringing was third. Sounds came through warped by the aching and distortion from his ears. Mangled as it all was he managed to open his eyes when someone said his name. His body felt utterly broken. He was too scared to try to move. A side-ways Alvarr was crouched next to him yelling at someone, at him, he couldn't tell. He twitched the fingers of his right hand. He saw them react accordingly, blurry and pale.

Merlin closed his eyes again. He'd never had a headache this bad before. Everything hurt. He could breathe. He tested it out, forced an inhalation which strained against his ribcage, let it go, then opened his eyes again. He was on his back. Nix was still crouched there talking to him. Cold rain ran into his exposed left ear, concrete hard against his head. Feeling it wiggle down into the warmth of his skull was uncomfortable.

It came back to him. He'd stepped off the balcony. The Cailleach had been there. She had insisted. She'd made him want to do it. Not good. His phone, it had started to ring during the fall. It was Christmas. He'd stepped off the balcony.

Merlin opened his eyes and tried moving again. This time with his left forearm and more effort. It obeyed and the ring on his index finger came into view. Nix moved forward as if to stop him, but the rain and his words couldn't penetrate the high-pitched ringing. Merlin pressed his palm flat against the cement by his right hand and used it as support as he pushed.

Keeping the cry contained in a clenched-teeth groan Merlin sat up. He felt the difference as he did. The bones, the burning, the way his vision blotched out in places, his head spun, and he came close to blacking out. The pavement had crumbled slightly around his body, caved in by a few centimetres with clumps of cement rolling beneath him as he moved. Heat poured down the right side of his face, down his neck, into his ear. He knew that sensation. Blood.

His legs weren't visibly broken, impossibly, but the right ankle ached. Something had snapped.

'Stay still,' Nix said, voice now clear beside the ringing. 'I'll call an ambulance.'

'No,' Merlin breathed. The moment he put any pressure on his right arm it screamed back at him. He winced, lifted it gently up, and kept it close to his torso. 'Help me up.'

'Merlin, what happened?'

Sunlight streaked across the rooftops and he took in the awning cover and the chairs and table tucked away to the side. He couldn't find his voice again. His heart pounded and the air felt different. They were on the balcony he'd fallen from.

'You're bleeding, Merlin. Where did you go?'

Tears were running out now, instinct from the unbelievable pain. God it hurt so much. He concentrated on breathing, on the gold ring around his finger.

'I jumped,' he breathed, frowning. 'After you left I—'

'On Christmas?'

'A few minutes ago. Seconds ago.'

'I last saw you three days ago, Merlin, on Christmas day. It's Thursday the 28th. When I came back you were gone. You just appeared here like this while I was having a smoke, I don't understand,' he explained with an unwavering stare of concern. 'Let me get you inside.'

Nix came in around his left side and helped him stand. The air outside was moist, with an overcast sky which pushed down on them, the snow gone. He helped him through the balcony doors into the warm flat.

'You have to go to a hospital, Merlin.'

'No,' he huffed and tried to stand properly. Once he was steady he mentally assessed everything that hurt and fought the urge to throw up. Head, shoulder, right arm, collar bone, rib-cage, right hip, right ankle. Those were major. The rest was secondary.

He wanted to sleep. Exhaustion made his chest ache and breaths weak, stretched thin.

She'd made him want to kill himself. He wanted to do it. He didn't want to but he did, he had that strange current run through him. Hot and cold, adrenaline and fear and thrill. It was fucked up. It had felt right even though it went against every instinct.

'Should I call the blonde?'

'No.'

'Merlin—'

'I said no.'

Nix watched him darkly. 'What happened?'

'I don't know.'

'If I'm putting the pieces together correctly, you tried to commit suicide on Christmas day and survived a six story drop. You then disappeared to show up three days later back on my balcony, which took the impact the pavement outside should have,' he said. 'That picture is very wrong, darling.'

Merlin felt his right pocket, of course his phone had been in the right pocket, and awkwardly tugged out the destroyed android. Second one of the year he'd killed. Maybe it was a sign. It was better to be cut off from them. From Arthur. No. That was stupid. Shit shit shit shit shit.

Merlin groaned loudly, at himself, at the pain, at the fact the Cailleach was definitely set on making him die to balance everything or whatever the fuck she thought she was doing. Ridiculous, insane, stupid, out-dated thinking. He wanted to punch her really hard in her pale dead face.

A shiver passed through him and he sniffed loudly. Merlin knew he looked gross, with red eyes, snotty and bloody nose, bloody head, rain soaked, bloody everything.

The impact was black and broken in his memory, but the fear just before stood out. The fear and the phone ringing and that familiar voice saying his name. It had been there in the Exchange Building when the glass caved in. He hadn't recognised it then, but he did now. It was his own. It had been his own voice saying Emrys, the voice that had failed to save him from the stab wound. Merlin swallowed thickly, bit his bottom lip against the pain, and cried.

It hadn't come to save him because he hadn't wanted to be saved. The Cailleach was right. God his head hurt a lot. He hoped he could heal everything properly. He had to. He couldn't go to another hospital, not if he wanted to keep it secret. They'd hate him if they found out. Arthur wouldn't speak to him ever again, but then Arthur would never speak to him again if he didn't tell him.

'Merlin?'

Nix was looking at him with a frown.

'I have to go,' he said, eyes shut for a moment with the sting from tears and the aching behind them.

'At least let me stop some of the more serious bleeding first if you refuse to get professional help,' he continued.

Merlin wiped half-heartedly at the wet mess over his face. 'No. I have to go.'

Nix put a hand around his upper arm, squeezing. It was warm and comforting. 'Merlin, I really think it would be better if you stayed.'

Merlin nodded. 'Maybe, but I still need to go.'

The hand squeezed harder and the smile on Nix's face faltered.

'Let go.'

Nix watched him for another tight second before he pulled his hand back and stepped away. Merlin opened the door and left. He let himself limp, let himself feel the exhaustion, the odd new feelings that coiled around his nerves. The impulse to hurt himself, to do worse than that, and the other which tried to block it, fought against it, saved him from it. Nothing made sense anymore.

He tugged on the residual strength and pushed it all into the image of Arthur's flat, the wooden door he'd felt so much history in, the place he'd made his home after the first Christmas working in Arthur's murder team.

When Merlin felt the lurch he opened his eyes to see the white stone and wrought iron railings of the building. Queasiness churned in his stomach, his throat tightened, and he swallowed thickly. The number 24 was painted in fine ink on the white columns on either side of the stone porch. It stared out at him as the wind rustled through the trees and bushes in the small green square behind him. Morning drizzle pattered grey pock marks over the row of house fronts.

Making sure to keep his steps as normal as possible, right ankle pulsing hotly, Merlin pulled himself up to the black door and rang Arthur's flat. A minute passed without response. He bit his bottom lip and swallowed back the tears from the pain which drummed through his body. It was Thursday morning. He'd lost three days. Why would Arthur be home? He'd be at work. He raked his fingers through his wet hair, flinched when they touched torn skin, and pulled back to see the red smeared across them.

'Fuck,' he breathed, and looked up and down the street for the black BMW before he realised. Dorocha had attacked. Obviously his car wouldn't be parked outside if he were there. It was destroyed. As he ran through his options, all of which involved the hope he had enough power left over to Vanish once more back to his own bedroom to wash off the blood, the door behind him clicked.

Hot adrenaline spiked through his chest and he turned back around.

Arthur stared at him with wide eyes.

'I'm sorry I left,' Merlin said, eyes wet and hot as everything he'd held back spilled over. 'I messed up. I did something bad— Really bad. It's my fault and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, I don't—'

A painful lump choked his words as it grew in his throat. Everything was hot and fuzzy.

Arthur stepped forward, arms reaching out. 'Merlin, what—'

'I wanted to help. I wanted to protect you but it—'

'We have to get you to A&E,' he said, hands on his arms, on his cheeks, back on his arms. The touches were warm, gentle, panicked. Merlin pressed his lips and shook his furiously which made it hurt tenfold and he swayed on his feet.

'Okay, okay, come with me,' he said and Merlin let Arthur lead him into the building to the stairs up to his flat. He watched him tensely, calmly, as they climbed slowly. 'Where did you go? I was freaking out, we all were.'

'My room, I— Then Nix showed up and he—'

'Nix?'

'He's the new leader of Old Religion. He took me to his flat and we talked, but then she came—'

Arthur's hand brushed across his when they reached his landing and he paused. 'Merlin, I— Mithian's here.'

The strange cold hum turned sharper under his skin and the pain in his ankle, head, arms, it didn't matter as much. He leaned back towards the staircase.

'I thought— I'm sorry. Stop, I'll go, I can leave,' he stammered out.

'No, no, like hell you will. She's only here because I was breaking up with her, then you rang the flat. Don't go anywhere, okay?'

Arthur gently guided him down the corridor and opened the door. Merlin face was wet with tears, blood, and even through the panic his stomach twisted and the humiliation, the anger, layered on top of everything else.

'Bad timing,' he murmured, blinking away the wetness.

'As if it matters. You can always come to me. In fact, you should always come to me when you want to, Merlin. I'd never send you away,' Arthur said and took him inside.

'Arthur?' a woman called from further inside the flat. The same voice that had answered Merlin's call from the hospital. The one which he'd tried to forget and leave behind in Camelot. Mithian walked out of the kitchen and stopped several feet from the doorway. Merlin looked at her as her mild expression grew shocked.

'Are you sure you're alright?' Arthur whispered to him, warm hand on the forearm of his unbroken arm. Merlin nodded. 'Do you want to clean up, then? I've got to— You know.'

'Yeah,' he mumbled. 'Yeah, I'll just—'

He stepped away to the side and left them in the living room. Behind him he heard Arthur close the front door and try to calm Mithian down.

'No, don't call an ambulance,' Arthur said.

'Are you mad? He's bleeding like he was hit by a speeding bus.'

'Mithian, we have to talk—'

Merlin locked himself in the bathroom. Their voices were muffled and he let the hot embarrassment roll through him until pain took over again. He turned on and adjusted the cold and hot taps, leaving odd red smears on the stainless steel, and the sound drowned out their conversation entirely.

He undressed carefully, blinked out anymore tears, and stepped into the shower's stream. He bit back another cry from the burn of water against his open wounds and frozen skin and concentrated on what he'd felt minutes before. It mattered.

That strength, that low voice, that current mattered. He slowly sewed the tears in his body as he recalled it. Carefully, to keep the sick feeling at bay, to make sure he stayed focused on the current moment, on the water, on the steam. On now. Internal, external, he watched bruises turn dark purple then blue then green, a strange yellow, until for some the trauma healed completely. The water ran red then pink and clear again as it flowed through his hair, off his arms, down his stomach, and around his legs.

After several minutes he only had a handful of darkened bruises left and his right ankle twinged. The bone had healed, but the power extended only so far, and it wouldn't wash away the damage completely. Merlin patted his skin dry with a fluffy white towel and lifted his clothes up grimly from their messy pile on the floor. He did what he could to clean them, waving his hand over the jumper, the t-shirt, the jeans. The heaviest bloodstains calmed down to a dark blush in the fabrics and rips stitched back together like his skin had.

There was a knock at the door and Arthur's voice sounded from the other side. 'Are you alright?'

'Yeah, I'll be out in a minute,' he said. The steam clogged up his head. Everything was bright with the the bathroom's light, warm, closed. He blinked slowly, breathed heavily, and noticed the razor on the edge of the kitchen basin.

'Do you want a change of clothes?'

'Yeah,' Merlin said. The air was thick with steam, mirror clouded up, but the blades in the razor caught the light. 'Thanks.'

'And tea?'

'Yeah.'

Fix what you broke.

Water trailed down his spine from his damp hair as he picked it up. He ran the tip of his finger along the thin blades. The sharp edges stuck a little against his skin. A small angle change and they would cut through. His chest tightened and he pressed his lips together, throat dry.

Merlin took in deep breath and dropped it. He bundled up the clothes, stuffed them into the bin next to the basin and slid the metal bolt on the door. He stepped out into the cooler, clear air, with the towel wrapped around his waist.

He heard movement in the bedroom across the hallway and walked over to see Arthur pull a grey jumper from its hanger. Merlin tapped his knuckles against the white wood and the blonde looked up.

While their eyes met at first Arthur's dropped down to his chest, his stomach, and Merlin resisted the urge to fold his arms. The scar wasn't going to disappear. It curved slightly, small at no more than two inches long, and sat as a pinkish reminder against his pale skin. Given a few more months and it would fade to a beige or a paler white colour.

'Are jogging trousers alright? Their waist is adjustable, so I thought—'

'They're great.'

'It almost looks like nothing happened to you. Are you feeling better?'

Merlin let out a long breath. 'I'm sorry.'

'You need to stop apologising, Merlin,' Arthur said and rested the jumper down next to the trousers and a plain blue t-shirt.

'I don't know what else to say.'

Arthur watched him with a soft expression. 'Neither do I.'

Merlin swallowed and tightened his grip on the towel secured just above his hips. He knew he was blushing from the heat that welled up under his cheeks, the flush that ran through his body. Fear, nerves, the way Arthur looked at him, into him.

'She won't stop them, won't close the tear, unless I die,' he said and waited for Arthur's reaction. They were two, maybe three, feet apart. His damp hair was dripping onto his shoulders. Water trickled down his neck, behind his ears, into the dips above his collar bones, down his spine, down his chest. 'She's making me want it.'

'Why doesn't she kill you herself, Merlin?' Arthur asked. 'Maybe she has to make you want it yourself because she can't do it. If you fight that feeling she can't do anything to hurt you. Maybe you can close the tear yourself.'

'No, you don't understand, it's not— Even if I did she won't stop. She'd just open it again. She has power, Arthur,' he stopped and frowned. The coldness in his hands, in his head, made it obvious. He couldn't close the tear, he had to die, was meant to. 'I killed Phoebe, and we lied about it our friends. I let Dorocha enter this world because I didn't want to die. More people are dying because I was selfish and didn't want to— I'm essentially killing people because I don't want to leave you. I don't want to die.'

His voice was louder now. Angry not sad. Like it had in the summer, the sadness gave him power. It made his thoughts clear even if they hurt. Merlin listened to Arthur's breath in the quiet room. He was just watching. Listening.

'You broke up with Mithian because I— We didn't work the first time round for a reason and still, still, I have to fuck it all up again,' he sucked in a sharp breath to shut himself up and felt his exposed skin start to cool as he adjusted to the room's temperature. 'How many times have I said I for fuck's sake.'

Arthur licked his lips and finally broke his eye contact, stare flitting down to the scar on Merlin's abdomen, then over his shoulder, then back to his face. His expression was calm, stoic, like it had been so many times before. This time was different somehow. Merlin could really see the king in it, the man who carried the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders.

'You deserve to be alive, Merlin. You deserve to be in love. You deserve to be happy,' Arthur said. 'I was the one who started to chase her down. I talked you into lying about it to the others. I refused to believe that my manservant had magic until the day I died in your arms. I also more recently repeatedly drank myself to the point of blacking out. I refuse to visit Morgana's grave. I haven't visited my father's for the last six months. I even pointed a loaded gun at my head two months ago.'

'Arthur,' Merlin started but the look wasn't gone and he let it go with another breath. He had a good inkling that Arthur was going through a lot, that he had been through a lot after the attack, but he didn't want to know it had been that bad.

'I'm not a king anymore, Merlin. I'm barely a detective,' he added and laughed. A strange smile filled up his face, drifting back and forth like a tide. 'All I know for certain is that we'll never be just happy, and we'll never suffer forever either. I know that I can't stop loving you, and the thing that made me a wreck the last few months was the thought of losing you. I don't want to live a life where I can't give you shit, where I can't call you over the smallest thing, where I might forget the way you make me feel when you kiss me.'

Merlin felt the heat again, his heartbeat thump slowly and with purpose.

'You're not proposing are you?' he joked, the smile he forced gone as soon as he'd conjured it up. 'The timing is a little off if—'

Arthur grinned at him. 'I'm saying that you need to get your shit together, Merlin.'

He nodded. 'Okay.'

'I'm saying that you will never be alone,' he added slowly and moved closer. Merlin let him put a warm hand on his neck, the other holding his wrist so that his thumb stroked the sensitive skin over the veins. 'You are everything you need to be and everything I could ever want in a partner. A best friend. A lover.'

'I hate that word,' he murmured, staring into Arthur's cheek, down to his chest, up to his mouth.

'Lover?' Arthur repeated. Merlin shivered and scrunched up his face. It didn't feel like it fit him, like it was right. It was something people spoke about in cheesy romance novels and that Shakespeare wrote about in his comedies and tragedies. It wasn't him.

'It makes me cringe.'

Arthur leaned in closer and Merlin closed his eyes. Arthur kissed his cheek, then moved his mouth to his ear where he said, 'It shouldn't.'

His skin had goosebumps all over now, and his heart wasn't stopping its steady rhythm. It was so loud as it beat in his chest he knew Arthur could hear it. He opened his eyes again in time to see Arthur press forward and kiss him, his hand moving down his chest to his hip. Merlin breathed in Arthur's next breath and opened his mouth to the soft heat and pushed back with his own tongue, lips, breath. His hands snatched at Arthur's t-shirt, found the skin underneath it, pressed his fingers into its warmth.

'Merlin,' Arthur mumbled against his mouth and pulled back. 'Hey—'

Merlin moved forward and kissed him again, eyes squeezed shut. This time Arthur moved a hand up to cover his mouth gently. He was grinning, pink lips shining. Merlin tried to disagree with stopping, but it came out a low grumble into Arthur's palm. He stuck his tongue against it until Arthur pulled it back with a surprised smile.

'Thanks for that,' he huffed. 'I just wanted to say—'

'Stop. This is something we need to work on,' Merlin breathed, fingers still splayed against Arthur's stomach where he dug in a little bit to see his face flush with more surprise. 'We talk too much, don't you think? We use deep conversation like a comfort blanket. We're connected, but safe in what we were and still are.'

Arthur huffed. 'I feel like I want to disagree.'

'You're allowed to,' Merlin smiled and kissed his neck. He nipped the skin with his teeth and breathed in the smell of his aftershave. When he pulled back Arthur's face was flushed again. 'But I think we should embrace danger a little more.'

'As long as you promise to stay with me. No running off without telling me after we, you know,' he said and cleared his throat.

'Deal,' Merlin said and kissed him again, tugged at his shirt until Arthur pulled it off. When Arthur angled him towards the bed and pushed him down towards it the towel finally came free and fell to the floor. Merlin's heart thumped again and the heat in his cheeks sprang up lower, hotter. The sensation of the duvet cover on his naked skin made his head fog up, twice fold with Arthur's lips and hands and breath running over his face, ear, and neck. When Arthur's trousers brushed against him he groaned.

'Oh my god,' he said. 'Please get your clothes off.'

He opened his eyes to see Arthur grinning above him as he lifted his hips to slip out the belt. The motion was smooth and the sound made his stomach twist up even more. Merlin embraced the embarrassment, the exposure, when Arthur looked down at him, one towel less and very turned on.

'That would make it too easy,' Arthur said and kissed his lips, collar bone, chest, every bruise he could find, another kiss above his belly button. Every kiss was soft and barely there.

'Arthur,' Merlin breathed, then he leaned down again and kissed the scar. All he saw was the top of Arthur's blonde head, his hand on his exposed hipbone. He felt the breath that ran over the healing skin.

When Arthur looked up the smile was gone and his blue eyes were nebulous. 'You want this?'

'Yeah,' Merlin said, the feeling of hot breath over his abdomen making his body flush with more heat. 'Yes.'

Arthur didn't look away as the hand on his hip bone moved lower, closer, fingers trailing along his skin. Merlin didn't know what to do other than grab fistfuls of the duvet cover and watch, bear with the tension, the heat, until Arthur looked away and moved lower. His other hand hooked itself under Merlin's knee and moved his right leg up to the side to expose him completely. He moved his kisses and hot breath closer, until he was there. Until Arthur's heat consumed his own. Merlin craned his head back into the bed and let it all go.

(Playlist for Promise:

This Christmas (Underneath the Christmas Tree) by Fascinations Grand Chorus

Circuit Breaker by Wildcat! Wildcat!

Run Me Out by Zola Jesus

To Finally Be Seen by Rhiannon Bannenberg

LIFE - PURITY RING REMIX by Health, Purity Ring

Toronto by Tusks

Yes (Love Theme from Lost River) by Chromatics

Yes (Symmetry Mix) by Chromatics)