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And of course Arthur isn't always around. He is loud as a person, he paces when he thinks and talks with his hands and so when he's gone, the absence is noticeable. To those who know him, to those who don't know him but take his orders, to those who don't take his orders but sort of should. He is off, somewhere, living up to his title with either sword or presence or the edged tongue of politics. And while Merlin doesn't really mind it, doesn't notice it that much, he finds that in casting his mind back to the days he spends in the bored relief of freedom the memories are not quite as sharp, not quite as quick to resurface.
But this means little to him, and he sees no reason in trying to explain it. The thought itself is so small, in fact, he barely notices it in the traffic of chores, secrets, and the always-present prickle of need that comes with the age.
It takes an unremarkable and quiet afternoon one mid-summer for the message to drive home.
Arthur's chambers feel awkward when he's not there, but it's the kind of awkward Merlin feels at home in. It's a hot day and the higher rooms of the castle are cooler than the lower levels, farther from the heated ground—more prone to catching rare changes in air with all the windows open. He's on the floor next to the bed, sprawled out on the chilled tiles and trying very hard not to move. There's a corner of a pillow peeking over the edge of the mattress, just above his head, and he stares as it while thinking of nothing in particular. Earlier that day Gwen'd been humming a tune that'd played at a previous feast, and now that's stuck in his head, on a loop. He starts humming it too, on a nearly silent breath, and lifts his hand to pull at the pillow's cloth—randomly. It falls off the bed and lands high on his chest, under his chin, and the fabric is cool enough for him to leave it there for a few seconds.
But the pillow is thick and heats up quickly, so he nudges it off with an easy shift of his body, and then it's on the floor next to him—close to his head. He recognises its smell without realising or caring, instinctively turning his face into the pillow for more of it. And then it's there, the flash of a memory—armful of armour pieces while walking away from the training field, Arthur shedding his hauberk and gloves and everything as he goes, angry at the heat of the season and something that happened during practice and Merlin picking it all up as he hurries after, down-wind, unable to sidestep the strong smell of sweat and iron wavering in his direction.
Merlin frowns into the pillow, a little grimace of embarrassment on realising he's taken in a lungful of Arthur. But the pressure if soft against his cheek after a long hour of just floor, so he turns the pillow around for the cooler side and tucks it under his head. A moment later his mind is blank again save for that tune, and he's humming again. He keeps on for three verses, eyes happily closed, before falling into a comfortable sleep. The pillow stays cool under his damp neck for a long while, and when he wakes up—with a startled breath at the sudden evening—the smell of Arthur isn't quite there anymore.
~
Arthur brings with him bits of the places he's been. Dirt in the seams of his gloves from palming the dry earth on the northern border where the crops won't grow, little stones in his boots from walking down the narrow paths with his horse at hand, black specks of unidentified things that cling to his skin when he bathes in still waters. After being on the road for five days not much of himself reminds him of home anymore, because the tear in his shirt was from catching a branch earlier that day and the throb in his thumb is from a distracted attempt at getting a fire going.
So when he gets back, exhausted and tired of moving in this heat, Arthur falls onto the bed with the exact amount of dramatics he feels it deserves. He spreads himself across his bed as widely as he can, like a starfish, and grumbles out a long-suffering laugh.
"Uuuugh," he croaks, gathering the pillows around his head. "Bed."
Merlin, hovering somewhere about the room in search of Arthur's discarded clothes, replies with a small, "Well done, sire. A bed."
Arthur, blissful and not that conscious, gives a single chuckle at this. "Fuck off," he mumbles, burying his face in everything soft he can find. "No energy. Sleep. G'way."
Merlin says something in reply to this, but it's lost on Arthur. He's sighing, sinking into a deep and relieved sleep, the ease of closing your eyes somewhere where there is no thought of danger easing the tightness out of his muscles. His bed smells like home, like laundry and his room and also something else that's familiar, making him smile at knowing how close he is to where he's been wanting to be.
~
On the week that Arthur is gone west to visit a certain nobility, Merlin wakes up one night covered in tiny—barely even noticeable, really—bites. In a frenzy of itch he strips off his sheets, and then the fabric of the mattress, and manages an impressive collective of profanities at the sight of a small colony of black and white spots hidden in the hay and wool.
It's funny for about five minutes, Gaius getting to say things like, Now what was it I said about the bedbugs and the biting? And Merlin replying with a wry, I always knew nursery rhymes were some sort of evil. But then they realise they've got bedbugs, and that for all the jokes you can make about it it's still prettybad and if they're in Merlin's bed then soon they'll be in the couches and under the floor and it's true that people have gone mad, have moved entire villages because of this. So before even the sun comes up Merlin and Gaius are dragging the heavy mattress along the grassy decline behind the castle, toward the lower wall outlining the King's home. Merlin sets it on fire as Gaius is already walking back, out of breath and tired.
Merlin watches it burn, head cocked thoughtfully, mulling over the fact that tonight he'll be sleeping on something that will probably be a floor. He goes through all the options in his head, and figures the work-bench can't possibly be as hard as the ground. Eventually, he takes all of the sheets and clothes and cloths he can find and spreads them out over the empty bed frame. It makes for a good elevation in theory, but when he lies down the slats dig into his back and parts of him keep slipping down the open spaces between. He can't sleep for it, or for the smell of smoke on his hands that he uses as pillows under his cheek.
The following evening Gaius mumbles something about purchasing a new mattress, and Merlin is painfully aware of how his mother only used to have one because of how they cost a year's wages for her. Gaius isn't as bad off, Merlin knows this, but he feels the uncomfortable nudge of being a burden in the back of his head. So before anything else is said he hurries with a,
"Uh—yeah, no, actually, I talked about it to one of the castle's . . . uh, the money people. And they said they'd order one. For me. Because I'm, you know." He shrugs. "His highness' manservant. And all."
Gaius gives him a curious look. "The money people?" he repeats.
Merlin nods, covering up a lie with a frown. "It should take a while, they said. But I'm fine in the meanwhile, really. I mean, at home . . . in Ealdor, I . . ." He doesn't finish for some reason, not really wanting to say anything more on the matter. Gaius is quiet for a little while, looking down at his dinner, and then the subject is closed with a simple,
"Very well, then."
That night Merlin sits back against his headboard for a long while, arms crossed, nodding off in waiting for Gaius to fall asleep. And when it's late enough and there's no way anyone's awake anymore, Merlin pushes himself to his feet and lazily saunters his way through the castle's corridors. Even the night is thick with this temperature, heavy of his mind, and all memory of the steps he took toward Arthur's chambers evaporate the moment he crawls under the thin sheets of the prince's unoccupied bed.
~
Arthur wakes up in a cocoon of his own body heat, and decides he would very much like to never leave his bed again. The morning is still pale and quiet outside, the density of summer afternoons not yet at its full capacity, and his room is some sort of brilliant with the way the light floods in at odd angles. He stretches, and moves, and delights in the feel of the shifting sheets along his back and arms. Between two toes he catches some of the blankets at the end of the bed, wraps them around his ankle a bit and pushes a hand under his pillow. He smiles, and there is something good about this day, something bright and pleasant that can't go wrong and so to make it even better he lets his other hand travel downward—over the jutting bone of his hip and further, between his legs, easily palming a mildly interested morning erection.
He rubs himself with a flat palm a few times before fisting the length, purposefully. He breathes out a shudder, a slow smile creeping up his features as he sets in a slow pace—a smile that falters with every particularly clever flick of a wrist and dips into a frown of concentration. The hand stuffed under his pillow twitches into a tight fist, involuntarily dragging the pillow closer and burying his face in it—smothering his silent grunts that are more puffs of low-toned air that anything.
The strong smell of linen and home clears his mind as he dips his hand farther down, sweeping over places he knows will set him off and he arches his neck, running his nose along the cloth so close by for a need to have something move along his skin. His bottom lip drags on the dryness of the pillowcase and there is something new, then, a different smell that is faint and musky like man but not like Arthur and he's coming—jaw slack, not breathing at all—knuckles white as he clings on to the pillow, keeping it close.
A still moment passes and then Arthur exhales, languidly, the smile slowly returning to his face. He sucks in a dry lip under his teeth and melts into the shape of his bed, happy in the simple-minded way that is not exclusive to the prince, but belongs to all youths in the summer—or just any time, any one with least a hand to put to their bodies.
He hums, satisfied, and gathers lumps of sheets and pillows to his chest. That is how he falls asleep and how he wakes up a couple of hours later, when a heartless Merlin clangs a fire poker against a bedpost and yells things of rising and shining.
~
It's not good when the season swells to its peak and not even the prince, not even the king, not even the neighbouring villages in need of royal advise can find a page willing to brave the open countryside to bring across the message of,
Heatwave stop cannot think stop let's put off the whole war thing we were discussing until this passes stop all right? Fullstop.
It's not good in ways beyond the obvious. Arthur is in Camelot for days on end, getting dressed in his room and eating in his room and walking around the castle and most importantly--most importantly--sleeping in his bed. And Merlin still doesn't have a mattress.
He takes uneasy naps while Arthur is practicing with his knights, the sounds of swords clashing in a far distance keeping him half awake in the bed that's now as familiar to him as his old one used to be. He gets caught once or twice by a chambermaid, and tries to explain himself in hurriedly blurted declarations of bedbugs and splintering slats. But the maids have seen worse than a rebellious servant in this household and just pretend they don't hear him, shaking their heads as they walk away.
The day that a couple of girls take on singing a giggling harmony in the courtyard is the day that Merlin, while Arthur is having a serious lunch with his father, falls into a deep sleep in the middle of changing the sheets. He startles awake only when the door opens, and the adrenaline is so immediate he is on his feet in a confused flash of a second—picking up a pillow, putting it down, breathing through his nose and blinking rapidly for a lack of something coherent to do. Arthur merely saunters into the room and doesn't seem to notice or care the flushed state of Merlin fumbling at the bedside.
He takes a quick look at the ruffled sheets while taking off his belt, and gives Merlin a quirked brow of an expression.
"Whatever you're getting for this job," he says, nodding at the bed, "you're being grossly overpaid."
Merlin snorts, partly ironic, partly relieved, and continues to make the bed as if it's a reasonable job for the early evening.
That night he decides that enough is definitely enough, and sneaks a spare mattress from one of the vacant servant quarters down the corridors to his own chambers. Or, well, for as far as one can sneak anything that is big and square and far too heavy for just some hay and wool.
But no none of the guards question him on his way, and when he dumps the lump onto his bed frame—sweaty and annoyed—he firmly decides that that is that, that this is the end of this pointless complication, and that no one should lose this much sleep over a mattress. Ever.
He doesn't feel the slats in his back now, no. He is also fairly sure this stolen mattress is better than his previous one and that all in all it's worked out for the best. He knows this, and sees the logic in it but can't ignore how he also knows that Arthur's bed is not wool and hay but layers on layers of feathers wrapped in velvets, in brocades, in silks.
His own doesn't feel like his yet, and he can't help but stare at the ceiling, contemplating intricate plans to get Arthur to lock himself out of his room for the duration of a night.
~
They're getting him ready for a semi-formal dinner, an event devised to get the castle's mind off the heat. Together they dress him, unbothered in the familiarity of it: Arthur pulling on his jacket as Merlin adjusts his belt, pulling at the hem of his shirt.
Arthur quietly lets Merlin lean closer as he fixes the collar, and the lingering closeness reminds him of something. So he asks, unthinkingly, close to Merlin's neck,
"What are you—" He stops short, frowning at Merlin as he pulls back. "Have you bathed in laundry soap?"
Merlin looks at him, and keeps on looking, expression mellow and long-suffering. "Why," he says. "Why would I do that."
Arthur lifts his hands with a small shrug as if to say, Don't ask me to reason the crazy things you do. Merlin's eyes widen in a visible attempt not to roll them and he pouts a little, snatching the crown from the table. But when he reaches up to place it on Arthur's head, turning it so that it fits, Arthur blinks at the flashing, whitewashed memory of twisted sheets and warm beds—lungfuls of a certain scent and a low, coiling burn at the pit of his stomach.
He flushes lightly and raises his eyebrows as he looks away, vaguely amused at his own embarrassment.
"It's your clothes," he concludes for Merlin. "I just didn't assume you ever washed them."
Merlin gives a short, hallow laugh. "As if I could, what with you around. Do you have any idea how much tomatoes stain?" He lifts an arm, showing a dark smudge on his blue sleeve. "That's been there, yeah, since the first week I came here. I've washed it a million times. It's not coming out. Not ever."
"Dear God, not your shirt!" Arthur strikes an o-mouthed shocked face that quickly disappears into a wry smile. "Could you possibly be any more of a nag? I mean, seriously. I'm honestly curious here."
"Oh, I so hope you don't choke on a chicken bone tonight, sire," Merlin says, voice perfectly flat. "I so hope you don't."
Arthur puffs a sound of amusement, cuffing Merlin's head with a rough hand as he walks past. Merlin tries to duck, fussing over his hair with a frown and a smile. And by the time Arthur is sitting at the table, happy with the flush of wine and easy jokes told by quick-witted court members, he has already forgotten the entire conversation.
At some insistence on the ladies' part, the dinner is followed by a few dances. Arthur lingers back to watch, laughing a deep, rumbling laugh as one of the knights grabs a brother by the hand and mimics the girls' graceful movements with mocking crassness. Not taking his eyes off the show, Arthur lazily cocks his winecup to the side—expecting someone to notice and fill it. A servant girl, a squire, anyone with a wineskin and a keen eye. And yes, soon enough there's a light weight at his shoulder, a breath nearby, a hand refilling his drink.
Woozily he notices a well-liked presence, a smell of sorts, and turns to face a long stretch of a neck. Instinctively he grabs the wrist pouring his wine, holding it in place. There's suggestion of early morning arousal, of bored, hot evenings and comfort, and he doesn't really know where it comes from but he also doesn't feel it's that important and so he runs his nose under the line of a jaw without so much as a hesitation. He breathes in, deeply, tilting his head to try and feel the skin with his lips.
But then Merlin pulls away. And Arthur knows it's Merlin, but he also sort of doesn't.
"Oh," Arthur says, stupidly grinning. "Hello."
"You're drunk," Merlin points out, his expression unreadable to the inebriated mind of Arthur.
"That, I am!" Arthur agrees, and downs some more of his wine. The rest of the night fades out into a blur of colours, noises, hands at his arms and then ends—at a very unspectacular moment—in his room, on his bed. He says something to someone who is taking off his boots, and then forgets everything altogether.
~
On the last day of August, Arthur decides he doesn't love home enough, doesn't hate the heat enough to not go anywhere for over a month, and so has Merlin pack his hunting gear. Merlin happily complies, perhaps a little too happy—perhaps it shows—because at some point Arthur notices and gives him a displeased scowl.
"You're coming with, you know," he says, rocking on the legs of his chair.
Merlin isn't quick enough to school his look of devastation into something more acceptable. He looks up, eyebrows knotted into apprehension as he asks a high-pitched,
"What?"
"Don't give me that look," Arthur tells him. "It's a privilege, you know. You should be bloody ecstatic."
Merlin blinks at him. "So no one else wanted to go with you."
Arthur makes a quick, sarcastically amused face—mimicking a frightening smile—and it's immediately followed by a mumbled, "Shut up."
Merlin clenches his jaw, and goes back to shoving Arthur's cloak into a bag with unnecessary force. He glances at the bed, quickly, and feels a stubborn frustration roil in the back of his chest. He misses deep sleeps, waking up because of the morning and not out of discomfort and the noises drifting in through the always open window of Arthur's chambers, the sounds of Camelot at any given hour of the day.
~
In his bedroll, on the pleasantly cool forest ground, Arthur stares at the back of Merlin's head. He's asleep, Arthur is pretty sure, and the fire nearby silhouettes the odd shape of his hair—his ears, the downslope of his neck, the sharp corner of a shoulder.
It's the end of summer in everything but atmospheres, and lying this close to the fire doesn't help at all. Arthur's hair clings to his face, his shirt to his chest, and his trousers are heavy on his skin. He itches to move, to wriggle out of all the fabric and just to hell with it all—sleep spread-eagled and naked on the ground.
But he doesn't. He stares at Merlin's head, is what he does, and tells himself that he's not imagining it—it's here, too, isn't it?—but no, there is reason to it because bedrolls have to be laundered at some point, too. A new soap, he thinks. Something woody. Something . . . it's . . .
He sighs and turns, shifting and rubbing his thighs together with frustration. But he won't do that, not here, not in company. He wriggles his arms out of the confines of the bedroll, curls them up under his head and burrows his face in the crook of his sleeve, breathing in.
~
Merlin switches his stolen servant's mattress with a fancier one from one of the unoccupied guestrooms. It's softer, less itchy, and does fuck all in helping him to sleep.
~
Arthur watches with mild disinterest as a tired looking maid folds his clothes for him, picking them one by one out of the laundry basket at her feet and placing them in his closet. When she's done, he grabs one of the freshly washed items from its place and holds a fistful of the fabric a small distance away from his face. He takes a tentative whiff, and then brings it closer—smelling at it again, frowning.
He tries it with three different shifts before realising what he's doing, scowls, and unceremoniously shoves the clothing back into the closet.
~
There's a small fire in a dry, bushy part of the gardens and by the time the smoke warns them a nearby gazebo has already caught the flames. The whole ordeal keeps a great part of the castle busy for a long afternoon of carrying buckets and stamping feet.
Merlin ignores it all with steadfast determination, burying his head under Arthur's pillow with a shallow sigh.
And if the fire wasn't entirely, one hundred-percent caused by the scorching weather, then—well, no one would ever really know, and Merlin will spend long years trying to forget how far he was prepared to go for a nap.
~
Awkwardly standing in the laundry rooms—surrounded by of a mess of uncapped bottles, concoctions of soaps and fats and herbs—Arthur thinks,
This is very strange.
~
When on an evening Merlin comes in with dinner and Arthur tells him that,
"You look like hell."
Merlin's reply is,
"Hypothetically, right. Hypothetically, how much would a royal mattress cost?" He looks up from setting the tray on the table, bloodshot eyes having a hard time to focus. "I mean, what would you charge for your mattress?"
Arthur looks at him for a long moment, then briefly glances sideways in thought. "How come you're so weird?" he asks. "Are you always like that? Or is it just something about me that sets you off?"
"Would you only take money?" Merlin keeps on, not listening. "I mean, if we're talking, like, sheep. How many sheep? Or what if someone could—I don't know. Magically buff you up. Would you like that? Would you trade a mattress for that?"
"What are you even—" Arthur stops, pulls back his head a little and frowns. "Why would I want to buff up? There's nothing wrong my—Why would I want to—"
"—Ugh," Merlin says and rubs at his eyes, heavily sinking into a chair. "I'm tired."
"Then go get some sleep," Arthur's reply comes in vaguely annoyed tones. "You're done for the day, anyway."
"I can't," Merlin says, exhausted into honesty.
"You can't."
"No," he says, dropping his hands from his face as he adds the easy lie of, "There's—bedbugs."
Arthur, picking at a piece of bread with peckish fingers, looks up. "Oh," he says. "So you want a new bed."
No, Merlin thinks. He does not want a new bed. Merlin wants some else's bed. But that's silly, and odd, and he tries not to think of it as he shrugs in reply. He manages to keep on not-thinking-of-it for about a few seconds and then Arthur does something with his face that makes him look concerned, and then Merlin remembers how his breath lingered on his neck that one stupid feast when he got all drunk and heavy on the way up the stairs and blurts,
"Can I sleep here for an hour or two?" He looks at the bed, and looks at the bed, and looks at the bed. "Please? I'm—I can't—" He shrugs again, at a loss. "I mean, it's a giant bed anyway. You won't even notice I'm there. Hell, you're still eating, I'll be gone before you even get tired."
Arthur stares. It's hard to tell what his reaction is exactly, the muscles in his jaw working quickly and his eyes settling into some kind of question, and he keeps this expression tight on his face for what seems forever before he tries to say something—but then changes his mind, catching himself mid-breath, and instead settles for a sharp,
"No one, can know about this." He looks away with a small shake of the head. "Don't want the entire bloody staff knocking on my door tomorrow, asking to have a go at an afternoon nap. So if you shut up about it, then fine. Whatever." And then, as an afterthought, "Bedbugs are a pest."
Merlin would've liked to have a proper reply to this. But he doesn't seem to be functioning quite normally, and his thoughts aren't as clear as usual and so he can only come up with, "Oh. Oh," before he's out of his chair and scrambling his way to the bed.
"Not with your boots on, idiot," Arthur tells him, and despite everything, it's a good piece of advice. Merlin was very close on just jumping in fully clothed, mud caking the hem of his trousers and sweat pungent through his shirt. So he toes off his boots starts shimmying out of his clothes.
"No—I didn't mean—" Arthur starts, but goes quiet. Merlin doesn't care what Arthur means or meant and pulls his shirt over his head, tossing it over the footboard. Clambering onto the bed and already pulling at the blankets he says,
"Thanks, Arth…"
and then last syllable is lost to sleep.
~
Arthur eats his dinner. He finishes, then stares out onto the courtyard for a while, then listens to the even breaths from the other side of the room and soon he doesn't know what else to do. So he walks up and down some corridors, takes a stroll with Morgana in the gardens, shares a late drink with some of the knights and when he's back in his chambers Merlin is still asleep.
All right, he thinks, and picks up the fire poker to slam against the bedpost.
And he almost does it, too. But Merlin is just asleep, really, and just a kid—he looks like such a child, with puffy eyes and his hair a mess, elbows hooked over the blankets—and Arthur doesn't feel like a particularly mean person today. With a small noise of disbelief, he puts down the poker, resting it against the wall, and sits himself on the edge of the bed.
And, okay, yes. It sort of is a giant bed. Merlin is curled into himself on the far end even when Arthur leans back on his elbows to properly kick off his boots he's not close to nearing the small pool of warmth starting at the dip of Merlin's side. He thinks it will have to be awkward, lying next to his servant on a bed like that—nothing like a forest floor or the dirty ground of his mother's home, where Merlin appeared to belong and Arthur could more or less fit in under the pretence of humility and whereas now it's just Merlin, sleeping out of place and casually ignoring the boundaries of his station—but then he shuffles under the sheets and it's all rather normal. It's just Merlin, not so far from him, and they might as well be sitting somewhere or standing relatively close and it would be the same.
Except for the part where Arthur quietly hopes Merlin will have half the mind to slink out before morning, before they'll have to watch each other get dressed.
He falls asleep quickly, his back to Merlin, sheets slung low over his chest to keep away the heat. When he wakes up an uncertain time later, he thinks it's because of an early morning bird—a confused warble, maybe, chirping broken tunes from the top of one of the turrets—and for a certain extent it probably is. The window is open, it always is with this weather, and there's nothing stopping the morning chorus from keeping him awake. But it's not morning yet, and the warble is not as loud as it'd seemed in his half-sleep, and Arthur takes a moment to realise it's the uncomfortable heat at his back that has him shifting uneasily.
Whether he moved back or Merlin did or maybe they both did, at the same time, he doesn't know. But now Merlin's back is pressed against his and it's already so warm and clammy, and sleep already brings on a sheen of sweat that is bad enough with only one set of skin. So Arthur grumbles, tries to nudge him away with a shoulder and a persistent leg, but Merlin just sinks back onto him—not seeming to notice at all.
With a low, frustrated sound Arthur turns, pushing at Merlin's bare shoulders with sleepy hands.
"Move," he mutters, digging a knee low into Merlin's back. "Mooooove, Merlin, come on."
But Merlin's sleep-addled brain doesn't process this message and instead he just turns to lie on his back, blearily squinting one eye open at Arthur—humming a low, 'hmm?' in question.
"You're all—" Arthur tries to explain, voice rough with sleep. "Just—move."
Merlin screws his one eye shut again, frowning before opening them both, mumbling a slurry 'mmmkay' and turning to his side again, shuffling from his spot but going in the wrong direction altogether—getting closer to Arthur, familiarly tucking his head under Arthur's chin, trying to fit their bodies together and—
"What the hell," Arthur grumbles, tiredly pushing him away. "Merlin, wrong way—other—move the other--"
"Mmmkay," is all he gets, and then as Merlin shifts to get back again—turning his head—Arthur also gets a faceful of hair, and then a nape of a neck, and a very familiar smell that he's been thinking of as woody but that now quite obviously is—
Arthur stills Merlin with a hand to his hip, and to make sure—to be absolutely sure this time—he dips down his head, pressing his face to the damp expanse of Merlin's neck, fitting a lip over a jut of the spine and inhales, and inhales, and exhales with a shaky,
"It's you."
Merlin, sounding that much more awake now, answers with an equally level, "Hmm?"
Instead of immediately replying Arthur tilts his face to fit in the curve of his shoulder, breathing in again, loud lungfuls as he clings onto Merlin—fingers digging into the dip of his hipbone. And that smell, that constantly lingering prickle that was so vague in his sleep and on passing afternoons is now so strong he can't help but revel in that he's found it, has not been imagining it, now taking in more of it—dragging his cheek over the plane of Merlin's shoulder blades and up, tucking his nose behind his ear and into his hair and all the while inhaling, pulling him closer in the slowly growing frenzy of the discovery.
Merlin is momentarily terrified, it seems. He's gone still and won't move, not for some while, not until Arthur—in thinking the scent isn’t quite enough anymore—opens his mouth over the rounding of his shoulder, tasting with a flat and unabashed tongue and the closing argument of grazing teeth before moving up, making a wet trail to the side of Merlin's neck and Merlin gets as far as,
"What're you—," and "Arthur—"
before Arthur bites down on the softer skin under his jaw, and that's when Merlin pushes back into the touch—a hand coming up to twist into Arthur's hair, to either hold on for the sake of it or keep him from stopping. And it's not so much that Arthur needs the encouragement but it works all the same, flaring up hotly and low along the line of his back before settling in the back of his head—a deep blush on his neck. With a strained, hoarse shadow of Merlin's name on his lips, Arthur's hand dips lower to Merlin's leg. As he mouths open, wet kisses on the sharp turn of his jaw he clings to the fabric of Merlin's breeches—as far as he can get along the seam of the inner thigh—and pulls a little, shifting a knee between his legs to fit closer behind him, headily rubbing his erection against Merlin's clad backside. Neither can stay quiet at the contact and Merlin arches into it with a breathy moan, and Arthur doesn't even know what sounds struggle their way out of his throat as his eyes roll back, hand suddenly shaky where it clings on. He doesn't have time to recover when Merlin rocks back, again, and Arthur meets it with a thrust of his own. His mouth is slack over Merlin's adam's apple when he tries to communicate a though of,
"You've been—" He pauses, needs a steadying moment before continuing, "—Been sleeping in my bed."
Merlin twists his head around, and his nose brushes Arthur's cheek as he does—and when the words come, Merlin's lips move against the side of his face, so close to his eye he can feel them on his lashes.
"I like your bed," is what Merlin says, lightly dragging the wet of his lip over Arthur's closed eyelid as if too lazy to make it into a kiss.
"You like my bed," Arthur repeats, croakily against Merlin's shoulder.
"I like your bed," he says again, quieter now, tilting his way down with small touches and trying to align their faces and Arthur complies, easily, lifting up a little to breathe against Merlin's mouth,
"You've—no idea—" A shy caress, almost a kiss— "Drove me—fucking—"
And for all his inarticulacy, the sentiment must've come across somehow, at some point, because when Merlin closes his mouth over Arthur's, it's frantic and hungry at once—the angle making it easy to forgo the chaste and then it's all tongues, all slick and slide and slackening jaws, making each other moan into the kiss by moving and rubbing and holding on wherever their hands can find purchase.
And when pushing up and pushing back isn't enough anymore, Arthur pulls away a little and Merlin settles under him as they try—together—to make remaining pieces of clothing not be so there anymore and all the while Merlin is arching up, earnest and perhaps a little angry in what he does. Arthur, hovering above him and coming down for brief, heated kisses, takes the moment to map out Merlin with all the senses he can think of. He breathes in the uncharted territory, the line down his chest and the paths of his ribs, down his side to the sharp play of bones and downward slopes that—no matter how they're followed—always lead to the same place. There it's the strongest, a shade different than it is in the nape of Merlin's neck or inside his elbow—or perhaps not different but more itself, more basic, and Arthur decides he will take it all, any shade of it, any form of it.
He tastes it as something dark along the length of Merlin's inner thigh and the small crevice where it meets his body, and bluntly in the slow licks up his cock, and then it’s soft again in Merlin's mouth—in the slow drags of tongue against tongue, matching the concentrated movement of their hips.
Merlin's arms are clenched tightly around his neck when he comes, breath catching and stuttering through the waves of it and hotly brushing the side of Arthur's neck. It doesn't take much after that, and when Merlin's hands drift down to the swell of his ass to pull him closer, Arthur buries his face in the line of Merlin's hair and grunts out his name as he climaxes. He continues to whisper it as they both ride it out and even after, running a hand through the dark hair and trying to give the word a new meaning so that it sounds, so that when he says,
"Merlin, Merlin, Merlin,"
Merlin would hear other things, things that Arthur can feel shaping in his mind but that are hard to convey in any way.
But Merlin holds on too, and seems to be listening and maybe even understanding too as he replies with equally timed,
"Yeah," and, "Yes," and, "Yes."
~
October calls Arthur to Mercia, and the evening before the royal party leaves Merlin walks into his room to find Arthur rummaging through his closet.
"What're you doing?" he asks, stilling at the doorway.
Arthur briefly glances up, disinterested. "Nothing," he says, a blue kerchief fisted in one hand.
"Oh," Merlin says, eyeing the cloth with an almost-smile at his lips.
Arthur just quirks a brow, passivity personified, and Merlin's grin widens. Arthur scowls, then, a barely visible tightening around the mouth. Lightly, he brushes past Merlin—leaning in for a threatening moment to hiss a comically pitched, "Shut uuuuup," through clenched teeth.
It's easy and funny somehow and now Merlin just can't wipe the smile from his face as Arthur gently headbutts the side of his face before heading down the stairs—kerchief peeking out of his coat pocket.
~
Arthur's chambers are empty when he returns, midway through the night when morning is closer than anything else. So he takes off his cloak and puts aside his sword and leaves them there, closes the door behind him.
He finds Merlin in his own bed, sheets kicked into a mess in his sleep, drowning in the folds of one of Arthur's old shifts.
Arthur crawls into his bed silently and curls around him. Merlin stirs, momentary surprise quickly easing into content and he turns around in Arthur's arms, mumbling a scratchy-voiced 'hello' into his collarbone.
"Hello," Arthur replies with a slight smile to the line of Merlin's hair, and rests his hands securely in the pocket of warmth of the man's lower back.
~
The season has one day to go, one day of no-jackets and swimming in ponds, and then it'll be something new for everyone. They're not in a hurry to make use of this last vestige of heat and instead settle for a grass field and the avoiding of royal duties.
"So hypothetically, right," Arthur's voice rumbles in his chest, low and reverberating under Merlin's ear. "Hypothetically, if I move rooms now, and someone else gets my bed . . ."
Merlin gives him a sideway glance but sees only the line of his jaw. "Well," he says, "I don't know. How pretty is this hypothetical personage we're talking ab—"
Arthur flicks his head with a quick finger and Merlin protests indignantly, rubbing at the spot until Arthur swats his hand away—exasperated—and takes over the rubbing for him, stroking long fingers through his hair.
"You're so silly," Merlin says after a while. He squints up at the brightness of the sky and then closes his eyes. Arthur's hand skims lower, over the dip of his cheekbone, and Merlin turns into the touch.
"I am not silly," Arthur says, a bit belatedly and there's not much seriousness to his tone at all. But his words sound low and comforting where Merlin rests his head, and Merlin thinks it's odd, how all it takes is some kind of touch and a quiet presence to make even a patch of grass with a burn mark feel like home.