Archive of Our Own

One day, Arthur decided, he would ask Merlin how he came to have such an extensive knowledge of love potions and their properties. It was impressive, really, how his Court Sorcerer had detected the elixir that had been slipped into his drink by the flavour of the dregs at the bottom of the cup. It was only a shame that Merlin hadn't noticed the odd taste until the last sip of his wine, rather than when it first passed his lips.

Still, he had to admit, there was no sign of the usual twitterpation that tended to occur. He had no memory of it, personally, but his so-called friends – particularly Gwaine – always took great delight in reminding him that he had behaved like a fool when he was the victim of someone's efforts to make him fall in love with them. Merlin, however, seemed the same as always, perched on the bench in Gaius' healing room and answering questions in a patient, clear-headed way.

'Who would want to give you a love potion?' Arthur asked, not bothering to keep the disdain out his voice. Enchanting a prince made sense, and a king even more so. He had only been on the throne a year, but he knew well-enough that he was the most eligible match in the five kingdoms and beyond. It made sense that someone might try to ensnare his heart, but why would they bother with Merlin?

Not that he couldn't see reason enough, on an aesthetic level. The gleaming blue eyes, the cheekbones, that full mouth... Merlin had always had a sort of appeal about him, one that had intensified as he grew into himself. The coltish gangliness, which Arthur had spent several years trying not to find endearing, had honed itself. Now, his shoulders filled out his new tunic nicely, and his breeches hugged long, strong legs. He also cultivated some stubble, more through laziness than design, and that coupled with the hair that curled around his ears could, in the right light, be considered moderately attractive.

There was also the general air of confidence: one that suggested he was completely in control of any given situation. That was, Arthur supposed, a stirring quality, if one liked that sort of thing.

(Which he did, but he kept that to himself.)

'Maybe they took one look at the alternative, by which I mean you, and decided to spare themselves, Sire,' Merlin replied, pulling a face when Arthur folded his arms and huffed. 'I am Court Sorcerer; I'm known to have your ear. I've got power, both literally and metaphorically, in Camelot's court.' He shrugged. 'Maybe they hoped to use me to influence you. Or turn me against you.'

Arthur dropped his hands back to his sides, a cold sweat breaking out across the back of his neck. He hadn't thought of that. He'd written off this whole incident as the ill-advised actions of some love-struck girl, but he had not considered the political implications. So much of what he had been trying to build since his father's death relied on Merlin, not just his magic but his very presence. Arthur was under no illusion that he was the reason the druids had returned to Camelot, cautiously at first, and then with growing cheer. If anyone ever wanted to knock down Camelot's rising star, then turning Merlin against Arthur would do the trick.

'But it didn't work?' He turned to Gaius for confirmation, who gave Merlin a thoughtful, considering look.

'It would appear not, Your Majesty.'

'Because he's a sorcerer?' It made sense that perhaps Merlin's magic would counteract whatever paltry little spell had tried to ensnare him in its grasp. Arthur may still be learning about sorcery, but he knew – because every druid he had ever met felt it necessary to tell him – that Merlin was incredibly powerful. He hadn't believed it the first several times he'd been informed. It hadn't been until Merlin himself, flushed and stammering, had admitted the truth that he'd given the druids' words the credence they deserved.

Even if it boggled his mind to do so.

Merlin was just... Merlin. Foolish and funny and occasionally, blindingly wise. He was subtle comfort and laughter by the fire. Marrying all that with the god-like vision the druids had of him was a challenge, even now.

'The potion in question was, as far as I can tell, of suitable strength to do its job. Merlin's power would have offered him no defence. There is, of course, one universal antidote against any magics that meddle in matters of the heart...'

'Gaius –' A trace of desperate warning curled beneath Merlin's words, and Arthur cocked his head, his curiosity piqued.

'Which is?' he demanded, raising his eyebrows.

Gaius sighed, casting a tired, apologetic look in Merlin's direction. 'If the target of a love spell is already truly, deeply devoted to someone – if they love another without question or pause – then no spell can take hold.' He raised one eyebrow, and there was a wealth of meaning in that expression that Arthur couldn't grasp, no matter how hard he tried. Whatever it was, it banished the happy colour from Merlin's face, leaving him looking shaken in a way that made Arthur's heart lurch beneath his ribs.

'You're saying that it didn't work because Merlin already loves someone?' The words felt thin between his lips, straining to get past the sudden, leaden feeling in his chest. It felt like someone had plunged their hand inside him and caught his heart in the cage of their fist, and Arthur was left breathless as he tried to speak around the awful sensation.

He had always suspected the day might come when Merlin found someone to love him as he deserved. He'd wondered, sometimes, if he would leave, walking off into his own golden future: one with someone who adored him. Would Arthur become nothing but a fond memory to him, a friend left behind along with his youth? Yet he'd always imagined that was a problem for the future. He had never envisioned that he might look up and find that day had found them.

He knew Merlin better than anyone, or so he had thought. Though he could acknowledge it wasn't the first time he had been deceived. Once, he'd thought he knew all of Merlin's secrets. Then he had revealed his magic, and it turned out Arthur didn't know him half as well as he thought. Yet in the time since, they had only grown closer. Arthur had shared things with Merlin he didn't offer up to anyone: his dreams and fears, and he'd thought Merlin had done the same.

Now it turned out there was someone out there that he loved – not a passing infatuation, either, if Gaius was to be believed. His heart's devotion, and Arthur had no idea.

'I believe so, Sire,' Gaius answered as Merlin made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. 'I cannot think of why else he might be so unaffected. Still, it is a blessing. Unravelling the effects of enchantments of the heart is an arduous task, and if Merlin were not available to help me, such a thing may have been impossible.'

Arthur blinked, snatching in a thin sip of air as he ruthlessly shoved his fears aside. Gaius was right. It did not matter how Merlin had avoided the effects of the love potion. What mattered was there was someone in the court who had sought to usurp his will. Someone had tried to violate his best friend for their own ends, and they could not be allowed to get away with it.

It did not take them long to find the culprit. The ingredients for the potion were simple to acquire, but the herbs had to be crushed and left a stain on the skin. The perpetrator was caught red-handed before the day was out, and the young woman in question was escorted from the court and the city with tears in her eyes. He should have felt triumphant, but Arthur was left to retire to his rooms that evening, hollow and dreading.

Perhaps there had been no sinister plot: nothing more alarming than the infatuation of a lady acting impetuously in the hope of catching Merlin's eye, but that did very little to put his mind at ease. He kept turning Gaius' quiet statement over in his mind, examining it from every angle to find where it stung him the most. He ate his evening meal in a daze and went through his drills on the training ground by rote. If Leon noticed his distraction, he mercifully did not mention it, and Arthur was left to return to the castle, his sword swinging at his side as his thoughts tumbled over one another.

Merlin loved someone. He had given away his heart, and Arthur had remained blissfully unaware. Merlin had never mentioned anyone. No soft smile curved his lips as he spoke of them, fond and sweet. It was not like the love Guinevere and Lancelot shared, a cornerstone of Camelot: something everyone knew and accepted. Why had Merlin kept it a secret? Why hadn't he said anything?

Who the hell was it, Arthur wondered, fierce and furious. Who dared to try and take Merlin away from him?

He paused, reaching out a hand to brace himself against the wall as his body swayed, overwhelmed. His heart hurt as if every beat were bashing on a bruise, and his breath wobbled in his throat, rasping and harsh. That, he knew, was the real issue at hand. Not that Merlin had fallen in love with someone, but that the someone in question wasn't Arthur.

And what did he expect, when he'd said nothing of his own, quiet desire? When he had hidden every desperate, frantic surge of affection behind playful shoves and teasing jibes? It had taken him years to even acknowledge the friendship they shared. To speak of more?

And now it was too late. Someone else had laid claim to Merlin's heart, and Arthur was left reminding himself of all his own, hollow excuses.

At first, his father had still lived, and Merlin's sorcery was a dangerous secret, breathlessly shared. It had given Arthur power over him, more so than a master over his servant. He had always wondered then, if he confessed, whether Merlin would answer not out of true feeling, but from a sense of obligation. It did not matter that Arthur was not the kind of man who would ever stoop to orders or threats to get someone into his bed, the possibility had lingered, and he could not ignore it.

Then, when his father had met his end, the true weight of Arthur's duty had almost drowned him. The expectations of Uther's old council and the hopes of his people... It had threatened to overwhelm him. He had retreated behind the strict constraints of his role, distancing himself. He had recalled, time and again, that his kingdom expected a queen and an heir of his blood. It had taken months to set aside the fear that he was failing them. He'd had to look deep within himself to reclaim his confidence, not just as a king, but as a man in his own right: one who would damn convention and marry for love, regardless of what others thought.

And now, with that resolution still fresh and raw within him, he found out the truth. Merlin loved another, and he was left breathless and grieved, bloody in the knowledge that he had no one to blame but himself. Maybe if he had said something sooner – perhaps if he had found the strength to speak of how he felt – things would have been different. Instead, he was too late. Merlin was not the kind of man to be easily swayed, and Gaius' words had made it clear that whatever he felt was no passing folly.

It would not be turned aside for the likes of Arthur.

He shifted his weight where he stood, torn between returning to his chambers and racing to the south tower: the rooms he had gifted Merlin on his elevation to the court. The former would be the wiser choice. He could lick his wounds in peace and bury the fragments of himself, out of sight and out of mind. He could shore up his defences and pin a smile on his lips, happy in the knowledge of his friend's joy.

Except that the look on his face when Gaius had spoken had been more stricken than delighted, and Arthur swore quietly to himself. There was something going on here, something he could not yet see, and he refused to stand idly by. He was Merlin's best friend, and if nothing else, he owed Arthur the truth, just as Arthur owed it to Merlin to be there for him through his troubles.

Torches that never burned out chased back the shadows on the stairs to the south tower. Arthur took them two at a time, his sword still swinging from his right hand as he barged his way into the room without knocking. Not that he should have to: every chamber in the castle was his after all, and it was about time that Merlin got a taste of his own medicine.

It occurred to him only after he'd swept through the threshold that perhaps the mystery lover visited Merlin while the rest of the castle prepared for bed. The pain in his chest flared higher at the thought of catching him cinched in an embrace, and he almost turned around and fled. Panic fluttered like moth's wings across his vision, only to disperse when he realised Merlin was mercifully alone, sitting in one of the chairs by the fire and reading a book. Or, at least, he had been reading. Now he looked at Arthur, one eyebrow raised and his body stiff, like a deer preparing to flee the hunter's sights.

'Are you all right?' he asked, as if all of Arthur's certainties didn't lie in a heap at his own feet. 'Is there trouble?'

'No,' Arthur snapped, throwing his sword down on the workbench with a clatter and scrabbling free of his gauntlets before pitching them down on top of his blade. 'Yes. Who is it?'

'What?'

'The – the person. The one to whom your "heart is devoted".' His fingers curled around the words, and maybe the sneer was beneath him, but he felt like a wounded animal, rattled down to his very bones. This had come at him out of nowhere, shaking the foundations of everything he'd held certain, and now he felt as if he were standing in the rubble of ruination, struggling to see how he could ever rebuild.

Merlin sighed. 'Gaius doesn't know what he's talking about.'

'You're lying!' Arthur cried, waving a hand at him. 'You're scratching your ear, the same as you do when you cheat at dice!'

'I do not cheat!' He dropped his hand back to the book, as if he could pretend he hadn't just been trying to deceive Arthur right to his face.

'You always cheat,' Arthur said darkly, folding his arms across his chest and hunching his shoulders, trying not to feel as if he was shielding himself from a mortal blow. 'I just – I don't understand. Why have you never said a word about them? Why aren't you with them?' He gestured around the empty room, noting with absent relief that there was not a trace of another person's occupancy. It remained, resolutely, Merlin's: the chamber in the castle where Arthur felt most at ease. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

Merlin flipped the pages of the book, glancing towards the fire as if he could not quite bring himself to meet his gaze. 'It doesn't matter.' He got to his feet, setting the book aside with the care the precious volume deserved before he paced over towards the workbench, busying himself with some herbs. That was another of Merlin's little quirks that Arthur had learned over the years. When distressed, he had a tendency to keep his hands busy. Once, it had been folding Arthur's laundry or polishing his sword. These days it was the more esoteric tools of magic that occupied his anxious fingertips.

Arthur clenched his jaw, shaking his head before he began to scrabble at his armour, its weight abruptly suffocating. It was also a silent, successful bid to make Merlin turn towards him once more, reaching out to assist him as he shed the chainmail and gambeson he'd worn for his drills. He didn't want, in this moment, to be a king or a knight. He wanted to be the man Merlin confided in. His ignorance was like a wound within him, something rotten that needed to be lanced and drained. It felt as if he only knew who it was– if only he could be sure they were worthy – he might be able to live with the love that churned in him, hurting and hollow at the thought of Merlin with another.

He might be able to survive his own heartbreak the day Merlin walked away.

'But you love them.' He raised his eyebrows as Merlin's mouth did something strange, twisting in a tight, miserable line. To him, it looked more like grief than adoration, and something dark yawned in the pit of Arthur's belly. Either whoever had caught Merlin’s eye was unsuitable or unavailable; those were the only two options. The former, he couldn't see Merlin caring about too much: he'd never put much stock in what others thought of him. He would love who he loved without apology, but the latter?

Could whoever Merlin cared for be devoted to another? If so, then they were clearly of inferior taste and intelligence and not worth Merlin's time. Could they already be married, perhaps unhappily, bound to another until death? Could they be gone from this world, far beyond the reach of even Merlin's power?

'I had no idea you were such a romantic,' Merlin rasped, pinning an unconvincing smile on his face as Arthur recoiled from that grossly inaccurate accusation. 'You say it like love is the only thing that matters. It's more complicated than that.'

Arthur ran his tongue over his teeth, tilting his head a fraction to the right as he tried to hear everything Merlin wasn't saying. If there was one thing he had learned over the course of his life, it was that love could be a powerful force. He had seen what the loss of it did to his father. What that, in turn, did to the kingdom. He thought now of Merlin, with all that power on his shoulders, and how much easier it might be for him if he had someone to help him share the load: a warm body to curl up with and a loving heart to share in his triumphs.

In the secretive shadows of the night – in his wildest dreams of late – Arthur had placed himself, breathless, in that role. Just as he had thought that, maybe, Merlin would happily share the weight of Arthur's rule. It was nothing but a fantasy built on the foundation of his own fragile hopes. He knew that now, and he was left witnessing Merlin's quiet, subtle sorrow and hating the very sight of it.

He loathed this person, whoever they were and whatever their circumstances, because they had made Merlin look like that: so hopeless and resigned – as if this was just another of his many sacrifices.

'Complicated how? If you really care for them so much...'

Merlin was already turning away and shaking his head, his words drifting back over his shoulder. 'I'm fine as I am. Nothing needs to change. I'm the same as I've always been, aren't I?' When Arthur didn't reply straight away, he glanced back at him, one eyebrow raised as he repeated the question, apparently deaf to the doubt that had entered his own voice. 'Aren't I?'

Arthur thought of how Merlin had been, all those years ago when he first came to Camelot: bright and irreverent and so very quick to smile. Some of that had been the naivety of youth, but he could not deny that Merlin was quieter and more serious these days. Not withdrawn, perhaps, but shielded, as if protecting something inside himself. It felt, to Arthur, as if there were something between them now, when they teased and jibed and bantered: a subtle distance he'd been doing his best to ignore.

'I want you to be happy.' His voice sounded strained over those words, as if each syllable was stretched over a rack. 'And if I can help...' He trailed off, shaking his head, not understanding why Merlin's body gave a little heave when he spoke, as if he were trying to chase off tears. It was desperately tempting to retreat to the arena of their usual teasing: to call Merlin a girl and extricate himself from this whole mess, but Arthur couldn't bring himself to do it.

'You can't.' The hoarse answer was enough to make him flinch where he stood. 'Just forget about it. Please?' Merlin turned to face him but did not meet his eye. He leant back against the work-bench, his fingers curled around its edge and his head bowed.

For one, brief moment he considered doing as Merlin asked. It would be the kindest course of action, to allow him his secrecy, but Arthur feared what that might do to them. Maybe it was too late; maybe Merlin was already lost to him, but Arthur would not be himself if he did not at least try.

'No.' He said it with quiet finality, dropping his hands to his sides and stepping forward, each pace bringing him closer to Merlin until he stood before him. His palms settled over the hub of those shoulders, feeling the softness of his tunic: a fine, thick weave in dark blue, almost black, with subtle silver stitching at the collar. 'No, I will not. Not now I know what you've been hiding from me. Your pain, if nothing else.'

Merlin let out a shuddering breath. 'This would be much easier if you were being a prat about it,' he muttered. 'Why do you care?'

The truth, the precise breadth and depth of it, was unspeakable. Arthur was a brave man, but he had not the strength to reveal the freshness of his heartbreak. 'Because it's you,' he managed at last. 'Because you do everything for me and my kingdom, and nothing for yourself. Because time and again I watch you put others first, and I –' He swallowed, his throat clicking. 'I cannot bear to see you so pained. I don't even know who to blame, Merlin, you've kept this secret so close to your chest.' He dropped his voice to little more than a whisper: a subtle confession. 'And I thought we were past keeping things from one another.'

It was a low blow. After all, Arthur had been hiding his feelings for Merlin rather than bringing them out into the light. Still, there was a sense of desperation in the air, as if they had reached some kind of turning point. It felt like, if they didn't speak of this, then it would be the beginning of the end for what they shared.

Merlin's lashes fluttered shut as he bowed his head, his lips wrenched in a painful twist. Arthur could hear how each breath wobbled, stuttering on aborted words. It was enough to draw him closer, as if he could distil those unspoken secrets from the air with his proximity. He dropped his hands to Merlin's hips, their feet sharing space as he searched that face, looking at the faint freckles that dusted Merlin's nose and the stark frontier of his stubble, pale skin and dark hair, neatly groomed.

'Please?' Arthur rasped, his heart tripping in its beat as Merlin looked at him again, his eyes striking blue and heavy with grief, their familiar sparkle drowned out by heavy clouds of pain and regret. There was, perhaps, a hand's span of space between them, and Arthur wondered how long Merlin had been hiding this from him. How long had he been wilfully blind to it, clueless to his pain? 'Who is it?'

The tip of Merlin's tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip, a quick, nervous gesture. One long-fingered hand released its death-grip on the edge of the workbench, his hand fluttering from Arthur's hip to his shoulder. At last, two fingertips rested, oh-so-lightly, against the line of his jaw.

'I'm sorry.'

It was a whisper, nothing more. Yet before Arthur could ask him what for, that full mouth brushed against his own, soft and tempting, bittersweet, as if this was the end of something, rather than the start of it.

Or perhaps that was simply what Merlin feared.

Arthur's fingers tightened on Merlin's hips as he swayed forward, ignoring the clamouring questions in his head in favour of the plush warmth of Merlin's mouth against his own: chaste and sweet and intoxicating. It was everything. Arthur had dreamed of this and so much more, and yet he could not ignore the faint flavour of sadness to Merlin's kiss: the hint of salt from tears not yet spilled, as if Merlin's heart were breaking while Arthur's raced in triumph.

His own, quiet moan was what drove Merlin into retreat. He broke back with a wet little gasp that went straight to Arthur's cock, but the misery on Merlin's face was enough to bank any spark of desire. He looked devastated, his eyes suspiciously bright even as he looked away, his hands falling back to his side as he shook his head.

'It's you, Arthur. It's always been you. I'm sorry.'

'Why?' Arthur did not know he could sound like that, his voice cracking apart, fretful and desperate. It felt like Merlin had given him everything he ever wanted, only to take it away again. He lifted his hands, cupping that scratchy face between his palms, glad that Merlin was backed against the table, because he looked very much like a man intending to flee. 'I don't understand.'

Unavailable or unsuitable. Did Merlin think he was the former, or the latter?

'You're the king.' The small, whispered reminder drove into him like a splinter. 'There are expectations. You will have to take a queen and I couldn't – I –' His voice deserted him, his dark lashes fluttering in three quick blinks. He looked up at the ceiling as if he couldn't bring himself to meet Arthur's eyes. 'I would have to stand aside.'

Right there, Arthur could hear the wound that Merlin had been trying to shield. He could bear his love with equanimity; he had taught himself to carry it with him, but he had hoped to protect himself for what he saw as the inevitable. He thought he knew where the path would end, and so he had not set out on the journey.

And Arthur had never realised what he was missing.

The person who he had been loathing all day – the recipient of Merlin's deep devotion and unfaltering love – was none other than himself. Merlin had hidden it away because he would rather leave it unspoken than have Arthur as his, only to lose him again.

'No.' He crowded him back against the workbench, his expression set in mulish lines as he pressed his brow against Merlin's and left it there. They stood nose-to-nose once more, and he had no intention of surrendering even an inch of ground. Not until Merlin heard what he had to say.

He didn't know quite what he felt, the brimming, growing elation tempered by sparks of anger, because while Merlin had made his choice, he'd kept it from Arthur. He'd put himself last, just as he had been doing for years, sacrificing himself again and again for king and kingdom.

That had to stop. He hated that Merlin considered himself so unimportant, while in Arthur's heart, he was everything: the best and brightest of them all. He deserved the world laid at his feet, and if Arthur had his way, he would be doing just that for all the rest of his days and beyond.

'Merlin, there will be no queen. Not now, and not ever. I will marry for love and nothing less.'

'Maybe you'll find someone –'

'I already have.' The words lurched out of him, breaking free of the constraints of his upbringing. There was a time for prevarication, and this was not one of them. 'He's an idiot, unfortunately, who decided to be noble and stoic rather than tell me how he felt, but he's also surprisingly wise, sometimes, and rather good at magic.' He nuzzled forward, rubbing the tip of his nose down the bridge of Merlin's and trying to hide the tremulous, shivering feeling that filled his chest. 'Which is just as well, considering he's my Court Sorcerer.'

'What?' Merlin's voice sounded thin and strained, as if he'd thought this was going in a certain direction and now found himself surprised at the destination. 'Arthur, you don't have to – because you feel sorry for me, or something.'

'By the gods, you – you clotpole!' Arthur blew out a breath, wondering if he should be concerned that perhaps Merlin had taken a blow to the head. 'I love you. I have done so for far longer than I would care to admit.'

'You never said anything!' It was a small cry of outrage, yet there was a curl of a smile at the edge of Merlin's words, something soft and tremulous that Arthur wanted to fold away next to his heart. One hand had lifted to Arthur's collar, not to push him away but to clutch him close. He no longer stood there like a victim of circumstance, hunched and miserable. That dazzling gaze met Arthur's, bold and unrepentant, and Arthur knew he saw everything: his hope and desperation, the last fading edges of his irrelevant heartbreak and the softness of his affection.

'Neither did you,' Arthur pointed out, slipping one hand around the back of Merlin's waist and easing him closer, eradicating the last bit of distance between them. They were pressed together in a delectable seam from heart to hip, and he tried not to think about how well they slotted together, as if the shape of Merlin's body had been made just for him.

And as he shifted, just a fraction, to claim another kiss, he let a simple entreaty slip out of him, one he hoped that Merlin would take to heart.

'No more secrets?'

Merlin smiled as he kissed him, slow and deep as if he were uttering a vow. His tongue skimmed Arthur's bottom lip, tasting him, and Arthur's toes curled within his boots as he lost himself to this. He should have known that Merlin would love like he did everything else: utterly unapologetic. It was as if he had been given permission, and now he intended to make sure Arthur never regretted it.

And when he broke away, flushed and panting, their cocks hard and their bodies aching, his smile could have lit up the sky, and Arthur knew without a doubt that his heart was utterly lost.

'No more secrets. I promise.'

(One More Secret)

A month after their first kiss, Arthur hid a small box in the drawer of his desk. Safe within its confines, gleaming like starlight, was a betrothal ring sized for Merlin's finger. He would not ask, not yet, not until he had courted him properly. Not until all Camelot came to understand that it would never have a queen, but two kings who would rule it fair and true.

Yet if Arthur had his way, it would soon gleam sure and bright on Merlin's hand: a symbol of the love they shared, and the future that awaited them.