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Merlin can hear the sounds of stick snapping and fallen leaves being crunched underfoot by the approaching bandits when Arthur heaves a shaky sigh from beside him.
“What’s wrong?” Merlin whispers. They’re pressed up behind a small boulder, the only hiding spot available to them in the middle of a forest clearing. They had to quickly dive for cover as they spotted a small army bearing Cendrid’s kingdom’s colours moving towards their campsite at an alarming rate.
Arthur grips his sword tighter, either as a way to ready himself or out of nerves.
“Just that there are about fifty men coming for us and only one of us has a weapon. We’re probably about to die.” Arthur’s voice is tight with frustration and Merlin can tell that he’s doing everything in his power not to raise his voice and give away their location.
Merlin is quite taken aback by this statement. In his five years at Arthur’s side, not once has he heard the prince admit to being doomed even in the most dire circumstances. But there’s still a bit of hope left in Merlin, so he nudges Arthur lightly with his elbow.
“Come on, lighten up a bit. We’ve faced worse. How about Morgana’s army of soldiers that literally wouldn’t die. This is going to be a piece of cake.”
“I think you’d recall there being way more of us than just two. Either we run now but there’s every possibility they’re going to catch up to us and they kill us or we fight - sorry, I fight, considering I’m the only one with a sword, you get hit with a fatal blow because you’re unarmed, I try to save you, but there’s no use because I’ve also been hit with a fatal blow and they kill us.”
“Okay, so you like actually think we’re about to die? But that’s never happened before!”
“Oh my gods Merlin! Do you really want your last words to be something so dumb?! We don’t have time for this.” He pokes his head up quickly to see how close the bandits had come. “Okay, we’ve got thirty, forty-five seconds. Just try and stay out of the way, I’m going to do my best to get as many of them as I can. But, if I don’t see you on the other side…”
“For fuck’s sake. If we’re really about to die -”
Merlin grabs the front of Arthur’s tunic in a fist and pulls the prince towards him. He presses their lips together and uses his other hand to hold the side of Arthur’s face, breathing in a deep breath and savouring the faint smell of sweat and wax candles. Just as quickly as he pulls Arthur towards him, he pushes him away and while the prince is still in a state of shock, Merlin turns towards the bandits, holds out his arm and, with a quick whisper of a spell, they go flying back. A couple land against the thick trunks of the trees and slump to the forest floor.
No one seems to be putting up a fight so Merlin turns back to Arthur, who is standing with his sword limp in his hand, mouth agape and looking absolutely baffled.
“You know, I’ve just now realised that I didn’t need to kiss you,” Merlin says, breaking the silence. Arthur continues to stand there speechless.
“Well just that we didn’t die. Like - okay, so you were pretty certain we weren’t going to make it through that little scuffle, so I figured that I’d like to kiss you before I die, but then I realised we weren’t going to die, just because of the, you know, magic. So I suppose I didn’t need to do that now. Not that I didn’t enjoy it - wait, oh my god, I didn’t even I ask you. I just figured we’d be dead, or dying, this was before I realised I could just use magic. Gosh, I’m sorry, this was all really silly.”
“Merlin, hold on, this is so much to process.”
Arthur drops down onto a big rock and rests his head on his fist. He stares off into the distance as he begins to unpack the last minute.
“Okay, so first of all - and probably most importantly - you have magic?!”
“In my defence, one: I was born with it, two: we were ‘going to die’, three: it’s literally my job - as in, the universe assigned it to me - to protect you, and four: it’s very effective.”
“Yeah, right. That might have opened up for even more processing. I guess for another time?”
Merlin nods his head in agreement.
“Okay, next. You kissed me. To what extent did you ‘need to kiss me’?”
“To the extent that if we died and I didn’t, I think my ghost would haunt everyone in this woods, weeping, for hundreds of years. You’ve supplied very little on your opinion of both of these things. It’s not going to be the worst news I’ve ever heard, will it?”
“The magic thing is going to be a thing and a half. Like, it’s illegal. You know this. I’m literally the son of the man who made it illegal. I need to take this pretty serious. But you did just save me. Also, I didn’t mind you kissing me either, so that’s going to complicate things. How do you feel about getting out of these woods, away from these unconscious bandits and heading home? Maybe discuss the magic a bit more, maybe kiss a bit more, the world is our oyster.”
“Yeah, that sounds pretty sick to me. Shall we?” Merlin reaches down and offers his hand to Arthur, who takes it, dusts himself off and begins to walk in the direction of Camelot.