Work Text:
Merlin won’t let himself sleep.
He could sleep, so very easily. Merlin feels better than he has in months, loose and relaxed and warm. Arthur’s chest is downy and pleasant to touch, and Merlin could spend forever like this, his head pillowed on Arthur’s shoulder, plying his fingers across Arthur’s bare skin.
They don’t have forever.
(Arthur doesn’t have forever. The thought is never far from Merlin’s mind.)
But for now he’s safe. For now Arthur is cradling Merlin in his arms, pressing soft kisses into Merlin’s hair. He’s holding Merlin just a bit too tight for a man on the verge of sleep and sometimes his thumb moves, stroking the curve of Merlin’s shoulder.
For now, Arthur is naked and strong and beautifully alive.
Merlin knows more about Arthur now than he did before. That’s not something he would have thought was possible. But now he knows how Arthur looks hard, glistening and rosy, and the fact that he plants sloppy kisses along Merlin’s collarbone when he’s just come, and that if Merlin grabs his hair in his fist Arthur will whimper and the sound will be sweet as honey.
Merlin turns his head slightly, nuzzling into Arthur’s chest, and Arthur places another feather-light kiss on the top of Merlin’s head.
In the morning, Merlin knows, Arthur will don his crown again. But for now their world is only Arthur’s drowsy kisses, and Merlin tracing circles on Arthur’s bare chest, and the night outside is deep and dark and still. There are no conspiracies, no dragons, no prophecies relentlessly unraveling.
Merlin wishes, selfishly, that dawn might never come.
(And the dawn obeys.)
--
There’s another princess visiting Camelot. There’s always another princess visiting Camelot these days, Merlin has noticed. This particular princess is a lovely young woman named Lyonesse, who has scarlet hair and hails from Brittany, and whose father, Felec, is interested in establishing a trade route across the channel.
And yet they’re leaving in the morning, and Arthur is here in his chambers alone, reading through the latest missive from Annis and sipping a goblet of wine while Merlin sweeps. It’s quiet, only the intermittent crackle of the hearth-fire and the rustle of papers. Very occasionally, the scrape of Arthur’s quill on parchment.
“She seemed nice,” Merlin offers, breaking the silence. Arthur doesn’t look up from his paperwork. “Lyonesse. You know, I’ve never been across the sea. I’ve actually never even gone on a real ship.”
What a strange world they live in, where Merlin has ridden dragons but never set foot on a ship.
“What is your point, Merlin,” Arthur says. He takes a sip of his wine. It’s not the wine that King Felec brought, which was the color of ripe blackberries and so strong that even Percival had to be carried to bed after the feast. It’s Arthur’s favorite, a light and oaky vintage from Nemeth that he almost always cuts with water.
"Why do I need a point?" Merlin asks. Arthur rolls his eyes. “She was nice, that’s all I’m saying.”
“I always assume you have no point,” Arthur says. “It’s very comforting to hear you admit it.”
“I’m just saying, she liked you,” Merlin replies. Arthur sighs. “You two seemed to get on.”
“She’s a princess Merlin, it’s her job to get along with people. Just like my job is to not insult the daughter of a potentially important ally.” Arthur finally looks over at him. He’s just fiddling with his quill, not bothering to really write anything down. “I’m surprised that you approve of her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re a romantic, Merlin.” Arthur is clearly teasing him now, an amused look at his face that softens the mockery. “You’re always saying that people should fall in love before they get married, and follow their hearts off of cliffs, and the like. I didn’t expect you’d try to barter me off to the first princess with a strategically significant navy.”
“I’m not bartering you off,” Merlin says nettled. Arthur looks down to hide a laugh. “And I didn’t say that you should marry her, either.”
“I’m hardly going to knight her and give her a seat at the round table,” Arthur says.
“That’s not what I meant!” Merlin glares at Arthur, who just smiles smugly. Arthur is an absolute prat when he thinks he’s right, which is most of the time. “I only meant…” Merlin hesitates, and Arthur’s face changes, a bit warier now. “I know you’ve been lonely.”
Maybe Merlin shouldn’t say it, but it’s true. With Gwen returned to Camelot but not returned to Arthur, and Princess Mithian visiting only rarely, and most of the women of the court either already wedded or clearly aware that Arthur, as the king, is by necessity a model of royal decorum…it’s been awhile, since Arthur showed any interest in courting.
“Do you now.” Arthur’s tone is a warning, which Merlin chooses to ignore.
“Yeah I do, actually,” Merlin says. Arthur scoffs. “When was the last time you had anyone in your life?” Merlin happens to know, actually. No one, since Mithian – and really, no one since Gwen.
“So you do want to barter me off,” Arthur says dryly. “And you expect that a foreign princess plucked at random from the garden of my allies will fill this supposed hole in my life?”
“I didn’t say you had to get married,” Merlin grumbles. Arthur stares at him, still as a statue. “I only meant that you could stand to have some companionship, that’s all.”
There’s a moment of silence, as Arthur continues to stare at him, clearly digesting what Merlin just said. Sometimes, Merlin thinks, Arthur is far more of a romantic than he is. For all that Merlin firmly believes that the noble practice of marrying a perfect stranger is mental, it’s almost madder to think that marriage is the only way.
Perhaps it’s because Merlin is a peasant. Or because he likes men just as much as women. Or because he knows he’ll never be able to wed, not when he spends most of every day trying to hold Arthur’s destiny together with two hands.
“Are you suggesting that I simply ruin some poor woman’s honor?” Arthur asks, exquisitely precise. That’s always a bad sign with Arthur.
Merlin decides to push anyway.
“No, I’m just saying, it is possible to just—” Merlin lets the broom drop and gestures vaguely with both hands. Arthur keeps staring at him. “To just have a bit of fun, you know? People can like each other without settling down forever.”
“Have a bit of fun,” Arthur repeats.
“Just – court someone!” Merlin cannot believe Arthur is being this dense about something dozens of people in the lower town accomplish every day. “You know, have a dance, share a drink. It doesn’t have to be some princess where just holding her hand means you’ve signed a treaty, there’s plenty of women right here in Camelot.”
“Right here in Camelot,” Arthur repeats. He takes a deep draught of wine. “And where would I find all of these women?”
“You know,” Merlin says lamely. “Around.”
“Around.” Arthur snorts. “You really are an absolute bastion of wisdom tonight, Merlin, thank you.”
“Excuse me for trying to help,” Merlin mutters.
“Suppose there was someone I wanted,” Arthur says. Merlin waits, expecting Arthur to attach some other word – someone he wanted to court, or to know better or to invite on a picnic.
He doesn’t.
Merlin worries suddenly that he’s overstepped a rather more significant boundary than he intended.
“How would I even go about such a task?” Arthur inquires. He glances around his chambers. “I’m not just any man, Merlin. As much as I want to be a friend to every one of my people, it’s hardly as though I’m able to just stroll about the lower town. And besides, I would never want to risk…” Arthur grimaces. “It’s not exactly easy to say no when it’s your king asking.”
“You’re a lot less intimidating than you think you are,” Merlin says, and Arthur smiles slightly. “And anyway, the right woman wouldn’t care.”
“I appreciate your confidence in the ability of my people to ruthlessly refuse me,” Arthur says. Merlin laughs. Arthur’s responding smiling is oddly tentative. “And if they do shoot me down, and I end up with my heart broken again?”
“Don’t be stupid, who wouldn’t want you?” Merlin replies, with a roll of his eyes.
The second the words leave his lips, Merlin wants to pull them back.
Arthur gazes at him, toying with the stem of his goblet, and Merlin wishes he could reverse time. Of course anyone with eyes, or a brain, or a soul, would want Arthur. Gods know Merlin has wanted him for years.
Normally, however, Merlin refrains from saying so out loud.
Arthur’s eyes are trained on Merlin’s face like he’s trying to gage something. Perhaps he’s trying to decide whether or not he should fire Merlin now, or after Merlin has finished polishing the silver.
“You never cease to surprise me, Merlin,” Arthur says softly.
“I mean…” Merlin stammers. But there’s no real way to walk back an admission like that. There’s no way to play off that fact that Merlin can’t even picture what it would be like, to not want Arthur. At this point in his life, all that Merlin wants is Arthur, safe, protected, happy – and if wanting him too, the man, not just the destiny, is part of that, well, Merlin has been able to lock that away inside of him for this long, hasn’t he? It’s like his magic, as essential to his being as the blood in his veins but secret, existing nowhere but his most private heart.
Arthur, very deliberately, puts down his goblet and folds his correspondence shut. Merlin wants to close his eyes, but since he might never get the chance again, he makes himself drink in the sight of Arthur coming towards him– the flax of his hair, the tiny scars above his knuckles, the strong muscles in his arms, the ring on his right hand.
Arthur raises that hand, and slowly, hesitantly, cups Merlin’s cheek.
Oh, Merlin thinks.
Arthur’s lips taste like his wine, mellow and sweet.
It’s Merlin’s destiny, to want Arthur. He didn’t think that being wanted back was an option.
“Perhaps I ought to listen to you for once,” Arthur murmurs. His eyes are shut, his forehead pressed against Merlin’s. Merlin can count his eyelashes. He’s done so before, absently, while he laces up Arthur’s tunic in the mornings.
Perhaps Arthur should listen to Merlin about a great many things.
(He will not. If Merlin knows anything, it’s that Arthur is stubborn, and set in his ways, and doomed to damn himself through his own good heart, and Merlin wouldn’t have him as anything but exactly what he is.)
Merlin leans forward anyway, pressing a tentative return kiss to Arthur’s lips, and Arthur’s mouth opens under his, soft and obliging.
(So what. So what if this can’t possibly last. For now, Merlin will take whatever Arthur offers.)
Merlin has never really let himself wonder what Arthur would actually be like in bed.
He’s had dreams, obviously, and Arthur certainly features in Merlin’s fantasies. But that Arthur isn’t Arthur. Whenever Merlin wraps his hand around himself in bed, it’s not the real Arthur he imagines between his legs, because Arthur, the real person, doesn’t do that sort of thing. As far as Merlin knows, and he would know, Arthur has never taken a lover while in Camelot.
Arthur is sweet, it turns out.
His kisses are careful, slow, charting Merlin’s mouth. He keeps his hand cupped around Merlin’s jaw, the other arm wrapped around his waist, anchoring them together. When their noses bump, Merlin can feel Arthur smile against his lips.
It’s Merlin who slides his fingers under Arthur’s tunic until he finds the clean line of Arthur’s hips and digs his fingers into the soft, supple, skin there, dragging their groins together. And Merlin who finally snaps and pushes Arthur backwards onto the bed, so hard that he bounces on the coverlet.
Arthur laughs, breathless and delighted, and Merlin would give his body and soul to hear Arthur laugh so freely every day.
Instead, he clambers into Arthur’s lap. Arthur holds him steady while Merlin tries to figure out where to put his knees, making an eager noise in the back of his throat each time Merlin shifts his weight.
Arthur is devastatingly handsome this close, his skin gold and dewy, his pupils blown out and so dark Merlin can see the candlelight reflected in them. His hands shake when he cradles Arthur’s face, and Arthur tips his head down to press a kiss into Merlin’s palm.
Merlin has held the power of life and death in his two hands, captured lightning in his palms and dragon’s fire between his fingers, and none of them ever felt so precious to hold as Arthur.
“Shh,” Arthur murmurs, and Merlin presses his face into Arthur’s neck. Arthur strokes his back, holding Merlin like he’s some delicate thing that could easily break apart, and Merlin loves him so much he feels nearly sick with it. “Shh, Merlin.”
Arthur kisses his ear, absurdly sweet again, and Merlin shudders.
“Sorry,” Merlin says raggedly, and Arthur gets his arms around Merlin and rolls them, so he’s above Merlin, peppering kisses over his neck and face, each one a burning spark. Arthur fumbles around Merlin’s shoulders as he kisses him, trying to get his hands under Merlin’s shirt, and if Merlin didn’t know personally that Arthur has never had to dress himself a day in his life, this would certainly be proof.
“Stupid jacket,” Arthur mumbles to himself, and Merlin lets out a slightly wet laugh. Arthur’s ears turn pink, and Merlin wiggles out of the jacket himself, along with his shirt and neckerchief, and gets Arthur to raise his arms over his head so that Merlin can pull off his tunic.
Arthur looks like everything Merlin has ever wanted, all broad shoulders and flushed chest, and a beatific smile on his lips as he goes back to laying kisses along Merlin’s chest.
“One day, you will have to explain this to me,” Arthur murmurs, one of his strong swordsman’s hands splayed over the old, dull, burn scar that splashes across the very center of Merlin’s ribcage. Merlin tells most of his lovers it came from boiling water, an accident in childhood. But he can’t bring himself to lie to Arthur tonight, so Merlin captures him in a kiss instead. It’s as good as the truth.
Arthur gasps, helpless and gorgeous, when Merlin gets a hand under his breeches to stroke him. His hand fits around Arthur like he was built to hold him. Arthur is already terrifically hard, slick and leaking into his palm, so Merlin jacks him slowly, teasingly, enjoying Arthur’s stuttering breaths as he twitches under Merlin’s fingers.
It takes a second, but suddenly, unexpectedly, Arthur is fumbling at Merlin’s pants too, and touching him. You don’t have to, Merlin wants to say, but when opens his mouth all that comes out is a whimper, as Arthur swipes his thumb over Merlin and Merlin’s body tightens with pleasure.
Merlin pushes Arthur off, both hands flat on his chest. Arthur falls away, brow wrinkled quizzically. “What – is something wrong?”
For once, nothing is wrong. Not with Arthur holding him, not with the two of them alone together like this, ensconced in Arthur’s bed. There’s no telling if they’ll do this again. Perhaps Arthur will wake tomorrow emboldened to pursue whatever new lady catches his eye, leaving Merlin to watch from the edge of the field, like he always does. Perhaps Arthur won’t have the time. Tonight, though, Merlin can give him everything he has. Like he always does.
Merlin knows where everything is in Arthur’s chambers, so he knows that there’s a bottle of ointment in the cabinet beside Arthur’s bed that he uses for everything from oiling Arthur’s leathers to scenting his bathwater.
Arthur’s eyes are wide as Merlin slicks up his hand, and Merlin realizes that no man has ever done this for Arthur.
Good, Merlin thinks possessively.
Arthur watches, lips parted hungrily, as Merlin slides a hand between his thighs and hitches up his hips, making himself ready. Merlin spreads his legs wider, panting with pleasure as he works himself open, and Arthur makes an inarticulate noise in the back of his throat.
“Can I—” Arthur manages, and Merlin thinks for a second that Arthur means he wants to be inside him now, and nods, even though he’s not ready, really, not by a long shot.
Arthur slides his own fingers into his mouth, instead, then slides them out, wet and glistening with saliva, and Merlin’s entire brain whites out as Arthur’s fingers join his, probing between Merlin’s cheeks.
“Oh, gods,” Merlin moans, as he lets his own fingers slip out, replaced by Arthur’s strong, blunt, hands, massaging slowly up and inside of him. Merlin clenches down on Arthur, involuntarily, and Arthur makes a guttural noise that sends a wave of heat straight to Merlin’s groin. “Please, Arthur, right there—”
Arthur, obliging for once in his life, brushes the pads of his fingers against Merlin’s inner wall again, and Merlin’s back arches like he’s been struck by lightning. Arthur makes a delighted noise, and Merlin swears at him, and Arthur laughs and does it again, deeper this time, and Merlin bucks, ready to come apart just from Arthur’s hand.
“Wait,” Merlin says, panting, and Arthur raises his eyebrows at him. “If you want—” Merlin tugs himself up on the bed, off of Arthur’s fingers, and cants his hips up. “You can get inside me, not just your hands, everything—”
“If I want,” Arthur says disbelievingly. Merlin laughs, breathlessly, and Arthur melts before his eyes, face dissolving into a smile soft as sunlight. Merlin wants to kiss the crinkles around his eyes. He wants to watch as those crinkles turn into crow’s feet and see the golden halo dipping between his legs right now turn slowly grey. He wants Arthur to always be as alive as he is in this moment, nuzzling into the dark curls around Merlin’s crotch while he slicks himself up with one hand.
Merlin can’t have what he wants. It makes him ache inside, raw and empty and desperate.
Arthur presses a gentle kiss on the inside of Merlin’s knee when he lifts Merlin’s leg over his shoulders. Merlin flings an arm over his face, and whimpers like a dying animal as Arthur presses into him, torturously slow.
“Look at me?” Arthur says roughly, and Merlin, who has never been able to deny Arthur anything, drags his arm off his face and meets Arthur’s eyes.
Arthur gazes down at him, soft and achingly tender, and Merlin reaches up, traces his thumb over Arthur’s swollen pink lip. If Arthur doesn’t go deeper, Merlin thinks he might die. If Arthur killed him right now, Merlin could die happy.
Whatever he sees in Merlin’s face emboldens Arthur to move, at last, and he presses further inside him, until Merlin is practically bent in half and Arthur is as close to him as a person can be. Arthur lets out a short, stuttering, breath, as Merlin rolls his hips, flexing along Arthur’s cock, feeling the new intimacy between them.
“Please,” Merlin breathes, again, because Arthur feels better than anyone ever has. Arthur slowly pulls out, then drives back in again, and Merlin throws his head back with a gasp at the sweetness of it.
It’s good. It’s so good that it drives everything out of Merlin’s head except Arthur’s body, Arthur’s grunts as he drives into Merlin, and the slick noise of his balls against Merlin’s ass, and the creak of the bed, and there’s something in the room that keeps crying out after every thrust, and Merlin doesn’t realize it’s him until he puts a hand in his own mouth, biting down on his knuckles.
Arthur must have done this before with a woman, at least, because he’s good at it, hips snapping forward at a pace that’s fast enough to bring Merlin almost to the edge before slowing again, the drag of Arthur inside of him deliciously drawn-out, making him jerk his hips and bear down, chasing the sensation, only for Arthur to thrust into him again, so hard that the pleasure of it wracks Merlin’s entire body, drowning out everything else.
Absolute bastard, Merlin thinks, as Arthur slows down again, and then Arthur grins and Merlin realizes he must have said it out loud. Merlin should be careful about that, probably. Arthur kisses his knee again.
There’s no staying mad at Arthur. So Merlin rocks his hips up to meet him and lets the sound of Arthur’s deep chest groans wash over him, working himself with his hand as Arthur goes faster and faster, until he’s gasping and spasming, his whole body shaking as he comes apart. Merlin follows him an instant later, the feeling of Arthur pulsing inside of him pushing him into a golden oblivion.
Arthur crumples onto his chest, kissing him sloppily, murmuring indecipherable endearments into Merlin’s bare skin, and Merlin wraps his arms around his back and pulls him close, sated, sleepy, feeling just on the edge of rapture.
As Arthur breathes against him, shaky and beautiful, Merlin shuts his eyes. And thinks that he could stay like this, hazy and blissful, forever.
--
Something is scratching at the side of Merlin’s mind. A tiny, mousy, thought, a feeling like a beetle trying to bore into the trunk of an oak tree. Merlin burrows into the warmth of Arthur’s chest and builds a wall with his mind, as high and tall as the walls of Camelot herself.
Arthur, dozing, lets out a happy sigh, and Merlin lets himself smile.
Time stretches out around the two of them, the stars hanging still in the sky, the night perfectly and delicately balanced. They still have time. Everything else can wait.
--
Muffled voices, outside of Arthur’s chamber door. Arthur makes a noise in his throat and presses his nose into Merlin’s hair. The hearth fire has died, Merlin realizes groggily. Arthur’s chambers are meshed in almost total darkness. The furniture is transformed into indistinct beasts, creatures illuminated by only the faintest outline of moonlight. The air is cold on Merlin’s skin, anywhere that he isn’t touching Arthur.
“We have to wake him up!” Leon’s voice, distant.
“What d’you think he’s going to do, command the sun to turn up?” Gwaine, tone biting. Other voices, merging together into a cacophony that can’t possibly be Merlin’s problem right now.
The doors burst open, and with them the blinding blaze of torches.
Arthur rears upright, an arm flung over his eyes and the other groping for his sword. Merlin scrambles backwards, hopelessly tangled in the blankets.
“Your highness!” Leon cries, and then stops dead in his tracks. “I—Merlin?”
Merlin blinks at him owlishly. Other knights spill in behind him, an ocean of sparkling silver chainmail. For some reason, they’re all holding torches.
“What is the meaning of this?” Arthur demands. He blinks furiously at the brilliant lights in front of them.
“I, ah, sire…” Leon trips over his words, his eyes going from Arthur to Merlin. Merlin resists the urge to gather up the blankets around his bare chest.
All of the knights are there, except for Mordred. Percival is beet red and staring at the ceiling, while Elyan scrupulously watches Arthur and Arthur alone. Gwaine, ever unflappable, raises one eyebrow at Merlin. Merlin could kill him.
“The sun hasn’t risen,” Elyan says, rescuing Leon.
“Yes, I had noticed that it was the middle of the night,” Arthur says acidly. “What are you doing here?”
“No, your highness,” Leon says painfully. “It is not. It is nearly midday.”
Arthur’s brow furrows. Merlin’s heart sinks like a stone.
“What do you mean, it’s midday?” Arthur moves like he’s going to get up, remembers he’s naked, and settles back down in bed. “You – all of you, wait outside while I – we – get dressed.” Arthur pushes a hand through his hair, which is already messy for painfully obvious reasons. The red torches bob as knights bow.
Merlin slips out of bed first. There’s an awful, tight, feeling in his chest. The whole world around him is too quiet, a silence that makes his ears ache. His magic is taunt inside of him, and his stomach roils.
When Arthur pulls him close, Merlin realizes that he’s shaking.
“It’ll be okay,” Arthur murmurs, and presses a kiss to his shoulder blade. Merlin, who knows better, slips out of Arthur’s grip and goes to fetch his armor.
--
It isn’t clear who first realized, but everyone in Camelot knows that the sun didn’t rise.
The castle bakers, the earliest risers in Camelot, report that they put their loaves in the oven in darkness, as they always do, and burned them waiting for dawn’s first light. Camelot’s bellringer has been sitting in silence for hours, baffled by the still moon. The castle steward brings his candle-clock, burned down nearly to the noon mark. Audrey, the cook, has a dozen hourglasses, each one of which has been upended and spent. Everyone in the castle who has reason to measure time reports the same.
The dawn, for unknown reasons, has been held hostage.
“It must be magic,” Arthur says. His tone is sour. Magic, again.
“I can think of no natural explanation,” Gaius agrees grimly. All of his scientific instruments are laid out on the round table, silver and brass glittering in the candlelight. It seems as though every candle in Camelot has been lit tonight. Today.
“Morgana?”
“I could not say.” Gaius looks broodingly at his clepsydra, where a slow stream of water drips inexorably into a silver bowl, the metal scored along the sides by measuring lines and astrological symbols. “If she is involved, it cannot be her alone. This is a working of terrible power, your highness.”
Gaius barely glances at Merlin. Why should he? Merlin often returns to his room late and leaves early, while Gaius still sleeps. There’s no reason that last night should have been anything unusual.
“Where’s Mordred?” Arthur asks suddenly.
The knights glance at one another awkwardly. Arthur eyes them, sharp as a hawk. Merlin supposes that Mordred’s absence is conspicuous, with all of Arthur’s other advisors gathered around him like a pack of hounds.
“He went to pray, your highness,” Leon says hesitantly.
To pray as a druid, Merlin gathers. Awareness flickers across Arthur’s eyes, and he nods once, without comment. “Send someone to fetch him,” Arthur commands. He turns back to Gaius.
Of course, Mordred would go to pray. The druids are more sensitive to the movement of the stars than any other people in Albion. No doubt Mordred felt it, when the sun went still. Merlin squeezes his eyes shut. The wall he built in his head has begun to ache.
Merlin lets the stone dissolve into sand.
Emrys, Emrys, Emrys, Emrys, whisper a dozen voices. A chorus of murmurs, echoing around his skull, most of them from very far away, so far away that they sound like nothing more than the wind in the trees. Except for one, which is so close and strong that it scrapes against the inside of his skull like an axe against bone.
Emrys, Mordred prays. Emrys, please.
Someone is coming to fetch you to council, Merlin thinks, and Mordred pulls up short. Merlin can see him in his mind’s eye, unarmored, kneeling in his simple tunic at a very small shrine in the back of his chambers. The shrine is nothing more than an acorn and a chalice and a scattering of dried flowers, and the sprig of mistletoe that hangs by Mordred’s bed. It’s all that Mordred has of his people while he lives in Camelot.
Merlin turns his mind away. The distant chants of the druids are nothing more than a rustle of a bird’s wings, without Mordred’s voice among them.
“Our first duty is to ensure the safety of the people,” Arthur is saying. “Leon, double the patrols of the lower town – if there is general panic, we need men on hand to deal with it. Percival, Gwaine, lead the first two and report back to me on the mood in the lower town. Gwen, I need an assembly of all the chandlers in Camelot, I don’t want the castle running out of candles.”
Arthur shines in times like this. Camelot’s burning, beating heart, keeping everyone around him in motion. It’s impossible to fear the night in Arthur’s presence, under the brilliant white star of Arthur’s rule.
The doors to the hall creak open, and Mordred slips in like a shadow.
He looks exhausted, nearly as strung out as Merlin. Mordred is probably the only other person here in Camelot who feels this wrongness as profoundly as Merlin does, the cycle of the world grinding painfully in place. And Mordred, unlike Merlin, is innocent in the world’s pain.
Mordred meets Merlin’s eyes for an instant, then Arthur beckons to him. “Mordred, come here – I want you to assist Leon coordinating the new patrol schedule.”
It’s an ugly relief when Mordred turns away.
--
There is nothing in any of Gaius’s books about how to free the sun. Merlin has read about the music of the heavens and the mathematics of the planets, and that time is an ever-turning wheel, and that scrying into the future is like trying to look down an ever-changing river, and gained mostly a terrific headache.
Nothing in any of these writings even considers the possibility that the heavens might stop. There’s nothing about damming this great river, or what could happen if someone violently, unintentionally, jammed a stake through time’s spokes. There’s nothing about what to do if the music of the universe goes silent.
Merlin can feel it, deep in his chest. There’s a terrible tension, like he’s holding his breath even while his chest rises and falls. Deep within him, power churns. A wish whipped into a cyclone, that began in Arthur’s bed and spread all the way to the horizon. Inescapable, unstoppable.
His magic is clenched like a fist around the sun, and for the life of him he cannot loosen his grip. Merlin shuts his eyes and lets his head fall into his hand.
It is his fault, all his fault.
“Merlin?” Gwen’s voice at the door is soft. Everyone around the castle has begun to speak in whispers. Merlin quickly shuts the book, and Gwen sits lightly beside him. “I came to check on you.”
It’s far gentler than Merlin deserves.
“I’m fine,” Merlin mumbles. Gwen lays a hand on his arm. “I am, really.”
“Of course you are,” Gwen replies. She rubs her thumb along Merlin’s wrist. “I spoke to Gwaine, earlier.”
Merlin is going to murder Gwaine with his bare hands.
“He thought that I should want to know, from a friend, that the knights found themselves in a rather awkward situation earlier,” Gwen continues, her kindness like a twisting knife. “He knew that it would surely come to me through hearsay eventually, and wished to spare me that.”
Merlin knows that Gwen does not want Arthur, not after all the pain between the two of them. What Gwen wants is her home in Camelot, and her voice in court as a trusted counselor, and the safety of a kingdom she too has helped to build.
Still. She did have him first.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin says raggedly. “I should have told you myself, I didn’t think—”
“The disappearance of the sun has been somewhat distracting.” It’s so like Gwen, to believe the best of him, and the best of Arthur. “I’m sure Gwaine is the only person in Camelot right now still trying to gossip.”
“It wasn’t planned,” Merlin says, pathetically.
“Merlin,” Gwen says, ever so gently, and she squeezes his arm. “I didn’t come looking for an apology. I came here to ask if you were okay.”
For one insane moment, Merlin thinks she means physically.
“I know that a relationship with Arthur can be intense,” Gwen adds, while Merlin’s entire life passes before his eyes. Oh. Gwen isn’t asking if he’s feeling sore, thank the gods. “Arthur can be intense.”
“We aren’t in a relationship.” Which isn’t true, strictly speaking. Their destinies are intertwined, not that Arthur knows that, and Merlin is more than just his servant – he’s Arthur’s protector, his confidante, very nearly his friend. But they’re not together.
“Ah,” Gwen says. Merlin hunches in on himself, feeling even more pathetic than he did before. “Oh, Merlin.”
“I’m fine,” Merlin mumbles. Gwen, who knows him well enough to know better, rests her head on his shoulder, and is kind enough to let him lie to her.
--
In the kennels, all of the bitches – even the ones who weren’t gravid – give birth. All of the pups are born with cauls. The houndmaster’s assistant, a boy of barely ten, has brought one to show Arthur. He lays the pup, a brown bundle as hairless as a grub and so small that Merlin could hold in one hand, at the foot of the throne as proof.
“Well, it looks healthy,” Arthur says calmly, as the tiny creature squeals at his feet. “And rather young to be separated from the mother. Have you named it?”
“No, your highness,” the kennel boy says, as he gazes up at Arthur in awe.
“Then naming this litter will be your responsibility. Report to me when you have made your decision,” Arthur tells him. “Now take the pup back to the kennels, it must be cold.” The boy gathers up the puppy and flees back to the kennels, with the houndmaster trailing behind looking irate.
In Uther’s time, Merlin thinks, they probably would have drowned the entire litter rather than risk being accused of witchcraft. His heart contracts.
The entire court has similar reports. The chickens have ceased laying eggs, and are hissing at one another like cats. One of the court ladies looked into her mirror and saw her own skeleton gazing back, the bones white and smooth as pearls. All of the apples have turned black, and their flesh tastes like moist clay.
Arthur listens to all of them. He nods when appropriate, his gaze level, patient, reassuring. Occasionally, when someone is so distraught they cannot speak, he rises from the throne and consoles them. He lays his hands on them like a saint then hands them off to whichever knight is closest – Percival or Elyan, usually, who usher them away with soft voices and light smiles.
He’s every inch the king that Merlin spent so long trying to build, and somehow the sight only makes Merlin sad.
At last, the river of supplicants diminishes to a trickle. Then only a few counselors who need soothing, then the knights reporting their findings, and then the doors swing shut, and the two of them are alone.
With no one watching, exhaustion creeps over Arthur, until the gold has drained from his face and left nothing but tired eyes and worry lines. He slumps back on the throne, limp as a puppet with the strings cut, and tips his head back, letting out a very long sigh.
When he extends a hand to Merlin, palm open, what is Merlin meant to do but kneel beside the throne and take it?
“Gods,” Arthur mumbles, as he twines their fingers together. “I thought that would never end.”
“They’re afraid,” Merlin says simply. Everyone in Camelot is afraid – Merlin is no exception – and all of them look to one man to save them. Merlin presses a kiss against Arthur’s knuckles, and Arthur strokes his finger over Merlin’s cheek. The brush of his signet ring is like a chill breeze on Merlin’s skin. “So are you.”
“Hardly,” Arthur says with a scoff. His grip on Merlin’s hand tightens.
Arthur has no idea how afraid he should be, really.
“Let me attend you,” Merlin says softly. Arthur’s lips part in surprise, and Merlin slips between his legs.
There’s so little that Merlin can do. But he can offer Arthur this – a relief, a release, a single instance where the person kneeling before him is offering, not taking. He can unbuckle Arthur’s pants and slide them down his thighs, and press kisses against Arthur’s length while Arthur twitches beneath him. He can put his lips around Arthur and take him all the way into his throat, until his nose is buried in the honey-blonde hair around Arthur’s groin.
Arthur’s responses are quiet, all quick breaths in and stifled grunts. The firelight sends long, crisscross shadows over the great hall, a spiderweb that quivers each time the torches flicker. Merlin notes every time Arthur’s hands clench on his hair, every time he runs his fingernails over Merlin’s scalp.
Merlin’s magic may be suppressing the stars themselves, but Arthur’s body in his mouth is bright and responsive, and the sound of Arthur softly keening is like music.
Arthur comes with a stuttering breath, the muscles in his thighs clenching under Merlin’s hands as he lifts his hips to meet Merlin’s lips. Merlin swallows, of course.
He cards his hands languidly through Merlin’s hair as Merlin slowly draws off of him, unwilling to let Arthur go even as he softens inside Merlin’s mouth. Arthur feels too tender to let go, spent and salty and delicate as a rose petal under Merlin’s tongue.
When Merlin finally, reluctantly, buttons Arthur up and settles back on his heels, Arthur is looking down at him with an indecipherable expression, eyes hooded and dark in the shadow of the crown.
“Come here,” Arthur says. It is nothing less than his king’s command.
So Merlin obeys. He crawls into Arthur’s lap, lets Arthur wrap his arms tight around his chest. Merlin leans back against him, feels Arthur’s hot breath on his neck.
From here Merlin can see the doors of the great hall, shut tight (and, gods willing, locked). From here, he can see piles of ash drifting against the walls like snowfall. The white stone is turning grey, darkened by soot of so many constantly burning fires.
Merlin is already primed to come undone. Arthur seems to know, and his hands start off light, a grip that’s almost teasing, slow strokes that center Merlin on Arthur’s lap, until desire is a steady simmer in his stomach and his eyes have slid shut, his body tethered to the world through Arthur’s touch.
Before long, he’s squirming in Arthur’s lap, panting and gasping as Arthur drags him into an orgasm. Merlin is still twisting his hips and looking for friction when he spurts over Arthur’s hands, the release sharp and sudden as an arrow.
If he wasn’t locked in the cage of Arthur’s arms, Merlin thinks he might fall off his lap. He feels liquid, boneless, ready to spill at Arthur’s feet like a puddle of wine.
“Come to my chambers tonight,” Arthur murmurs in his ear.
“It’s already tonight,” Merlin tells him, and Arthur laughs against his neck.
--
Merlin takes Arthur to bed that night. He spreads him on the sheets and works out the knots in Arthur’s neck that come from Camelot’s heavy gold crown, then starts to kiss the corded muscles in his shoulders. He makes his way down Arthur’s back, brushing his lips over every one of Arthur’s scars – the dozens of tiny of scrapes, the ancient grey lines from before Merlin ever knew him, the white starbust of an arrow Arthur never should have survived – until he reaches the satiny sweetness of Arthur’s inner thighs.
He puts his mouth on Arthur’s thighs, then his buttocks, which are round as apples and flushed pink and gold in the candlelight, and so delicious to put his mouth on that he can’t help but bite and be rewarded by Arthur’s gasp, pleasure and pain mingled, and then licks his way inside of Arthur, until the king is writhing on the bedsheets, hips frantically grinding down, hands fisted in his blankets.
Then he fucks Arthur until neither of them can see straight, until sweat is shimmering on Arthur’s back as he bucks his hips up to meet Merlin’s thrusts, until all Merlin can say is Arthur, Arthur, Arthur again and again, his hair hanging in his eyes, his arms starting to cramp from holding himself up, Arthur below him rutting, clenching down on Merlin,
When Merlin comes with a cry, Arthur’s eyes are screwed shut, his mouth open and wet and pink, gasping. It’s a good thing, because every candle in the room, even the ones which weren’t lit, flares. Even the banked hearth sends a column of flame up the chimney before dying in an instant, leaving nothing but the smell of smoke and sex as Merlin slides out of Arthur.
By the time that Arthur is gathering Merlin up into his arms, murmuring something unintelligible into the nape of Merlin’s neck as he cradles him, it’s as if there was never any magic at all.
--
Arthur may be oblivious, but not everyone is as heedless to the presence of magic.
“I heard you last night,” Mordred says.
Merlin’s keeps his face impassive, his eyes blank on the opposite wall. Deeper in the hall, the knights and Arthur are grouped around the table, consulting yellowed maps which detail the known magical enclaves scattered throughout Albion. Merlin is haunting the shadows, ready with a jug of water to refill their cups.
Some of the maps are flecked with burgundy stains. Others are charred at the corners, as if by some dying warlock’s last-ditch attempt to keep their people hidden. On one, a dried maroon fingerprint sits directly atop the Isle of the Blessed.
Merlin doesn’t want to be anywhere near those maps. He’s not surprised that Mordred has retreated as well.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Merlin replies. Mordred scoffs, quietly. Merlin’s grip on the jug handle tightens, and he has to force himself to relax his hands before someone looks over and notices.
“I heard you, here,” Mordred says, and raises a finger to the inky curls at his temple. “I was falling asleep, and then all of the candles in my room flared.” Mordred pauses. “And I felt my power inside me, burning.”
Merlin says nothing. He stares back of Gwaine’s head, as the knight bends over a map of the Valley of the Fallen Kings. He’s thinking of absolutely nothing, no feelings or images or flares that he might accidentally drop into Mordred’s head through the damned magical telepathy that links him and every druid he’s ever met.
“I think everyone did,” Mordred finishes. He hesitates, awkward. “Sorry. I thought you would um, want to know.”
Great, Merlin thinks. Fantastic. Bad enough that the knights suddenly know all about his sex life, apparently everyone in the magical world gets to know about it too. Gods, he hopes that doesn’t include the fucking dragon.
“What are you two muttering about over there?” Arthur calls. Despite his words, Arthur looks pleased to see them talking. Arthur likes it when his people get along, Merlin knows. It’s one of those little things that makes him so abjectly unlike Uther, so much so that Merlin’s heart aches.
“I was asking if Merlin could fetch us some refreshments,” Mordred lies. He’s as smooth a liar as Merlin is, these days.
“Excellent idea,” Arthur says. He squints at Merlin. “Get yourself some water too Merlin, you look a bit flushed. Mordred, come look at this – have you ever heard of a place called the Pool of Nemhain?”
Mordred approaches, looking down at a spot on the map that’s marked by the blood of their long-dead kin. Merlin leaves to fetch the knights something to eat. Before he goes to the kitchen he stands in the corridor outside for a very long time, holding his eyes tightly closed and struggling to breathe.
--
Camelot grows colder by the hour, it seems. A latticework of frost creeps up the walls, and the air holds a dull chill that sits heavy in Merlin’s lungs. Trees have begun to drop leaves, and the grass is brown and sickly.
Even in the great hall, with a candle-clock burning at the center of the round table and fire at every wall, the knights shiver in their scarlet capes. Merlin has one of Arthur’s cloaks around his shoulders, pressed on him as they left Arthur’s chambers after a few hours of uneasy sleep. Merlin huddles into the thick fur ruff and doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes.
It’s just a cloak.
“Refugees are pouring into Camelot,” Leon reports. Merlin knows. He watched them from the battlements, shoulders hunched under the weight of the frozen sky. The stars have begun to look skewed to him. “They say that the crops are dying.”
“How many people can we feed?” Arthur asks. He looks weary. Arthur is permitted to look weary, when the only ones present are the knights.
“Perhaps another thousand,” Leon says grimly. “Double that if we begin siege rations.”
“Surely there is no need to take such measures,” Arthur protests.
Merlin has heard much of this already. So has Arthur.
“Flooding at the coast is forcing people inland,” Percival reports. He has a shaggy bearskin around his shoulders, and his shadow against the wall is a monstrous thing. “They speak of unnatural tides.”
Tides follow the moon, Merlin thinks. No wonder they’ve been flung from their normal cycles.
“What news from our allies?” Arthur asks. “Does anyone suspect who may have caused this?”
Arthur would rather be fighting, Merlin knows. Arthur wants troops to rally, a castle to take, someone he can raise a sword against. Arthur would rather risk his own life in battle than sit idle like this, listening to reports.
“Nothing,” Leon says. Arthur’s hands clench once, then relax through what must be conscious effort.
“Then we should begin harvesting what we have. Better to take the crops green than not at all,” Arthur leans forward. “Let us begin with barley.”
It’s only a matter of time before Arthur finds someone to attack for this. He will be patient, and careful, and provide for the people first, but Merlin knows there are other wielders of magic in Albion who will suffer for this spell, as they always do for Merlin’s mistakes. Merlin must find a way to fix this. He must.
--
In the vaults, where the ancient artifacts sit quiet in their cages, there are no answers.
The Crystal of Neahtid is cracked, the vivid depths turned murky and pale as spoiled milk. When Merlin raises it before him, the cold crystal feels like a dead animal. Merlin fears for the cave itself, and for Taliesin.
It’s the hair on the back of his neck prickling, not the crystal, that lets Merlin know he isn’t alone. There’s someone behind him, pale as a ghost, and illuminated not by fire but by a shimmering blue light he holds in one bare hand.
“I came here as well,” Mordred says softly. Merlin carefully puts the crystal back. It has not escaped his memory that Mordred attempted to steal it once. “When I realized that the world was wrong.”
“Did you discover anything?” Merlin asks.
“No,” Mordred says simply. “Nothing I didn’t already know.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the council meeting?” Merlin asks coldly. Down here, without torches, his breath fogs in the air like a dragon.
“They’ve ended it already,” Mordred says. “I came to tell you that the king was looking for you.” He glances around. “I thought you might not wish to be caught here.”
“I don’t need you to teach me how to sneak around the castle.”
“I know that.” Mordred shifts his weight from foot to foot. Then, in a rush— “Are you okay?”
There are times, sometimes – when Mordred looks at him as he is now, with his guileless eyes and smooth face, that Merlin wishes he knew nothing of prophecy. He wishes that he could take the understanding, the faith, that Mordred professes, and just trust him, the way that Arthur does.
But he cannot, and the knowledge is bitter in his heart.
“I know this is you,” Mordred pleads, ploughing forward in the face of Merlin’s silence. “I don’t know why or how, but I can sense it—"
Not everyone can sense such things. Merlin knows, because Gaius has not accused him, has accepted Merlin’s whispered admission that he does not know how to fix this, has only gripped his shoulder and told him to take care, that they will figure this out together. He raised an eyebrow the last time Merlin hurried through in the morning to snatch a clean shirt on his way to fetch Arthur’s breakfast, but commented no further on that, either.
But Mordred is an exceptionally strong warlock. He can wield magic and a sword both, and Merlin would consider him a marvel if he were not so utterly terrifying.
“—and if I can help you somehow, please, I wish to.” Mordred’s arms are spread, his palms held open before him, loose-limbed and innocent and wild as a fawn. He is so young.
What does Mordred know about curses? What does Mordred know about becoming unmade?
“It is none of your concern,” Merlin says brusquely.
“But it is my concern!” Mordred’s voice echoes, and Merlin makes a single motion with his hand – be quiet – and Mordred complies immediately, subsiding to a whisper. “Camelot’s safety is my concern as a knight, and you are my concern as—”
“As a what?” Merlin challenges. A fellow sorcerer? As the king’s new catamite?
Mordred hesitates before answering, and it gives Merlin the time to shoulder his way past and stride away. For all that Mordred is the one left alone in the dark, Merlin knows it’s a coward’s retreat.
--
It’s tempting to use magic to heat Arthur’s sheets. Merlin does it for Gaius, without telling him, a simple spell whispered over the bed while his back was turned. Gaius is an old man, and this is the kind of night that saps the strength from old men’s bones.
He could surely get away with it. Arthur is disturbed in his before-bed ablutions by Elyan, reporting some disturbance in the lower town that requires royal attention. Elyan politely pretends not to notice when, as Merlin kneels before him to relace his boots, Arthur touches his shoulder and murmurs “Wait for me?” He just nods to Merlin as he escorts Arthur out, business as usual.
Merlin has more than enough time to cast the spell. Instead, he steals one of Arthur’s nightshirts and curls up in the royal four-poster himself, huddled beneath layers of quilts and embroidered fabric.
He doesn’t even want sex, not when he’s this tired. Not when he feels as if he’s been split down the center like a lightning-struck tree, the flesh inside of him long since burned away. Merlin feels as hollow as a suit of armor, left empty with nothing to protect.
Merlin wonders if this is how Morgana felt, when her magic powered Morgause’s spell against Camelot. If she could feel the magic within her spreading like a fungus below Camelot, a canker burrowing through the firmament of the universe. He wonders if she felt a hole opening up inside herself, her magic endlessly bleeding into the chasm.
So far as Merlin can tell, there is no limit to how long he can sustain this enchantment.
The door creaks open, and Merlin recognizes Arthur’s step, the noise of him shucking his boots and tunic.
“What was it?” Merlin asks quietly.
“A fire,” Arthur responds, just as hushed. He slides into bed behind Merlin then curls up around him, coaxing Merlin into his arms like a skittish cat. Merlin feels something in his spine unclench as Arthur relaxes against his back, pressing his nose into the nape of Merlin’s neck. “There will be more, I’m sure. I’ve had the patrols start filling barrels with well-water, in preparation." Arthur’s freezing cold fingers wrap around Merlin’s sides, and Merlin yelps. Arthur snickers into his back.
“Prat,” Merlin mutters over his shoulder.
“Serves you right, that’s my shirt,” Arthur replies. Merlin scoffs. Still, he puts his hands on top of Arthur’s, massaging warmth into his fingers. Arthur sighs, gentle and content, and hooks one leg over Merlin’s, tangling the two of them together.
Merlin remembers what he had to do, when Morgana could not, or would not, stop the spell herself.
--
There is one last person to ask for counsel.
“You smell like Pendragon,” Kilgharrah says, as soon as he lands. He shakes a fine coating of ice off of his wings and the shards sparkle in the dead grass.
“How do you even know what Arthur smells like?” Merlin demands. “You’ve been near him once, maybe, and that was years ago—” The dragon just smirks, and Merlin grits his teeth. “Anyway.”
“I presume that it somehow relates to the damage you have wrought.” Kilgharrah’s tone is arch. “As even you, Emrys, would not relegate the world to darkness on a simple whim.”
Merlin wonders if dragons fall in love. Probably not.
“Do you know how to undo it?” Merlin asks desperately. If there is one being that has greater knowledge than Camelot’s libraries, and Gaius’s scientific arts, and Merlin’s natural gifts, it must surely be the dragon.
“I do not know you did it in the first place,” Kilgharrah says bluntly.
Well, that makes two of them.
“I didn’t mean to,” Merlin says. Kilgharrah raises his scaly brows, not unlike Gaius. “I only – I wanted the sun not to rise, and it didn’t.”
“And why did you invoke such a preposterous desire?” Kilgharrah inquires. Merlin grimaces. Kilgharrah makes a noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a chuckle and a hiss. “Ah. Foolish young men are the same everywhere.”
Merlin doesn’t feel young. He can remember how young he used to feel whenever he spoke to the ancient dragon, but these days he feels just as ragged and cynical as Kilgharrah, and as monstrous.
“Please. I don’t know what to do,” Merlin says softly.
Kilgharrah sighs. The warmth of his breath makes Merlin lift his head, instinctually seeking the fire that lives deep in Kilgharrah’s belly. It sweeps over the grass, making the dead blades rustle uneasily. “This cannot go on forever, young warlock.”
“I know that!” Merlin could weep, with how deeply he knows that.
“Perhaps you could consult with King Arthur,” Kilgharrah says. Merlin shuts his eyes. Kilgharrah’s tone is not cruel. If anything, the dragon sounds as though he is trying to be gentle, in his raspy, lizard-like, way. “These circumstances may call for…unprecedented honesty.”
It’s been so many years since Merlin even entertained the thought of confessing his magic to Arthur. He knows that such a move would force Arthur’s hand, which has been relatively merciful to Merlin's people. And he has never been able to bring himself to add another betrayal to the long list of burdens that Arthur must bear.
“I understand,” Merlin says. He wishes he did not. He wishes that there was another way. Merlin is always wishing for another way, and like so many other things he wants – another night with Arthur, peace for the kingdom, the time to say goodbye to his mother – he cannot have it. He can stop the sun in its tracks, and yet. The unfairness of it would move him to fury if he weren’t so exhausted.
For a moment, Merlin wishes that Lancelot were still alive, the wish so painful that he can barely breathe. Lancelot would not be able to save him, but he would tell Merlin that he was brave, and he would understand.
Another pointless wish. Merlin bids Kilgharrah farewell, and lets the rush of cold air as the dragon flies away blow away his memories.
--
The path back to the castle is a long, lonely, trudge.
--
The council meeting has only just ended when Merlin arrives. Arthur is seated, crowned, enthroned, and Merlin pauses at the threshold to gaze at him. The king that Merlin swore he would create, so many years ago. And he is everything that Merlin could have wished for, everything that Merlin loved.
It was worth it all, Merlin thinks, with something that could be love or despair.
The knights have lingered. Leon waves a greeting to him and frowns when Merlin does not return it. Mordred gazes at him, brows furrowed, then starts rapidly towards him. He is not nearly quick enough.
“What are you doing?” Arthur asks as Merlin sinks to his knees before the throne.
It’s right, that the knights should be here for this. Arthur isn’t the only one who has had to suffer Merlin’s lies.
“I am the sorcerer,” Merlin says. His voice, raw, rings against the walls.
“What on earth are you talking about?” Arthur says, baffled. He stares down at Merlin, plainly bewildered. “Merlin, get up, and stop this—”
“I am the one who laid down this curse,” Merlin continues. He hears murmuring around him, thinks he sees Gwaine start forward and Percival grab his arm, holding him back.
“Merlin, don’t be ridiculous.” Arthur says belligerently. “You are not a sorcerer, now get up and tell me what you mean.”
Merlin raises his head to meet Arthur’s eyes. Arthur looks rather like he thinks that Merlin has gone mad. Merlin swallows, thinks, I’m sorry.
He inhales, and every object in the great hall that isn’t nailed down rises two feet in the air. The knights let out surprised squawks as chairs and maps float up around them. Only Arthur’s throne stays rooted.
On the exhale, it all comes clattering down.
“You—” Arthur’s throat works, staring down at Merlin, his face drained of all color. “But—” Then, in a strangled voice, “Why?”
“It was an accident,” Merlin’s voice breaks at the last, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Better to not look, than to see Arthur’s face look like that. His eyes burn against his lids.
“Get out,” Arthur says above him. “All of you—out.” When Merlin starts to stumble from his knees, Arthur snaps “Not you. Everyone else, leave us.”
Merlin can’t bring himself to open his eyes. He stays quiet, listening to Arthur’s footsteps echo as he rises from the throne to stand over Merlin. Arthur’s cloak shuffles, and there’s a clink of metal on stone.
“So, tell me Merlin,” Arthur says wryly. He sounds almost amused. “How did you manage to accidentally doom my kingdom?”
When Merlin opens his eyes, Arthur is sitting on the edge of the dais, his crown on the floor beside him, his arms slung over his knees. He looks at Merlin and it’s like he’s looking at a stranger, the expression so foreign on Arthur’s face that Merlin’s eyes burn again, and he can feel that he’s begun to truly weep.
“I don’t know,” Merlin says, again. Arthur shakes his head in disbelief. “I just—I—”
“Speak up, Merlin,” Arthur barks. Merlin flinches, and Arthur runs a hand through his hair. “I…” He turns his face away from Merlin. “Get off your knees.”
Merlin shuffles to his feet, then to the dais to sit beside Arthur. As he has always done. They might be on the castle steps instead, or the battlements, if it were not for the smoke in the air and the gulf between them.
“Are you working with someone?” Arthur asks. His eyes are trained on the opposite side of the hall. “Morgana?”
“No,” Merlin rasps.
“Then how did you do this?” Arthur’s tone is measured, flat. He could have his sword drawn in an instant to cut Merlin down.
“I just…” Merlin wipes his sleeve furiously across his face. “I didn’t want the night to end. That was all. I just thought that I wanted to stay like this, that I didn’t want the sun to ever rise, and it – it didn’t.”
“You thought, and the sun just—obeyed?” Arthur asks incredulously. Merlin nods miserably. Arthur lets out a shaky breath. He runs a hand through his hair, again.
“I’ve always had magic,” Merlin says. He wraps his arms around himself. His chest feels like a husk. “I use it for you, to protect you. I use it only for you.”
“Did you know I was thinking the same?” Arthur says abruptly. He stares at the doors with even more intensity. “That night?”
“No,” Merlin whispers.
“I was.” Arthur clenches his hands together. “I thought such wishes were beyond even a king’s power. Although apparently not beyond yours."
“I’m sorry.” Merlin swallows. Arthur doesn’t say anything. “I think – I’ve seen spells like this before. Well, not really but – sort of like this. But I think that if you execute me, it’ll end it.”
“What?”
Arthur’s voice is so loud that it echoes around the entire hall. Merlin flinches again, as Arthur wrenches his gaze off the door and onto Merlin. Color is rapidly returning to his face.
“If I what?” Arthur repeats.
“I think my death would end the enchantment,” Merlin repeats, and his voice only shakes a little bit.
“Are you mad?” Arthur demands.
“It’s all I’ve been able to come up with,” Merlin forces himself doggedly onwards. In some ways, this is the easier part of what he came here to say. “If my magic is powering the spell, then if I die…”
“You want me to execute you on a theory?” Arthur sputters. He’s staring at Merlin, mouth slightly open, a furious, disbelieving, expression on his face.
“You’re going to chop my head off anyway,” Merlin says quietly.
“I am not!” Arthur half-shouts. He takes a deep breath, then repeats himself, quieter. As if he has come to a decision, without even realizing it. “Merlin. Of course I’m not going to execute you.”
If Arthur sends him into exile, Merlin will just do it himself. Perhaps killing him was too unfair of a burden to place on Arthur’s shoulders. Perhaps Merlin was selfish for wanting the last thing he saw to be Arthur’s face.
“You will stay here, in Camelot, at my side,” Arthur continues, aggressively. “Alive. Do you understand?”
“Why?” Merlin says blankly. Arthur stares at him. Merlin’s stomach curdles. “Arthur, the enchantment…”
“I don’t care,” Arthur says savagely.
“Magic is outlawed,” Merlin’s voice is wretched. “And I lied to you.”
“I am aware.” Arthur’s eyes turn to the high windows, on the black night that reigns outside their walls. “Were you afraid? Was that why you never told me?”
“I didn’t want to…I didn’t want to put you in a position where you had to make a decision like this.” Merlin sneaks a look at Arthur, at his tight jaw and his white fingers. “I wanted to protect you.” From everything.
“Idiot,” Arthur says under his breath.
“You have no idea,” Merlin whispers. His fingers curl into his arms, gripping his flesh so tight it becomes painful. “Arthur, you have no idea, there are dangers in the world that you know nothing about, creatures of magic, poisons, curses, and there are the darkest of prophecies which hang over Camelot, there are horrors—”
“And you thought what, that you would just…” Arthur’s shoulders sag. “Shield me, forever?”
“It’s my duty,” Merlin says.
“And you thought I would execute you,” Arthur mutters. “Idiot.”
“You don’t have to be kind to me,” Merlin says. The wind outside whistles through the upper windows, and the torches sputter. “I don’t expect it.”
“Merlin,” Arthur says, like he’s being absurd.
“It’s okay,” Merlin tells him, and he thinks he might be starting to cry, again. “Really, it is.”
“Merlin, putting aside the years of devoted service—”
“Don’t say that, I’m a terrible manservant,” Merlin mumbles.
“—do you honestly think, even now, I could ever bear to harm you?” Arthur finishes. He raises one hand and Merlin tenses. Arthur swipes his thumb over a tear track on Merlin’s cheek. “You truly believe that?”
“I’m not…” Merlin sucks in a quick breath. He has to squeeze his eyes shut, trying not to cry harder. “I know I’m only a servant.”
“Only a servant?” Arthur’s hand seizes on Merlin’s jaw, turning his face towards Arthur’s. “Is that what you think?”
“I’m happy to be your servant,” Merlin says quietly. “Until the day I die.”
“Stop it!” Arthur says angrily. “No one is dying today, Merlin!”
One day, though. One day Arthur will die, whether that’s under a bloody sun or a starless sky, and there is nothing that Merlin can do, there is only destiny like a rope, a hangman’s noose that closes ever closer around him—
“Merlin,” Arthur says, and he’s gripping him harder, nearly shaking him. “What are you so afraid of?”
“Destiny,” Merlin says, and saying the word aloud feels like coughing up blood.
“What can destiny mean to a man who can stop the sun in its tracks?” Arthur demands.
“But I can’t bring it back.” Merlin lets out a horrible little hiccup. “I don’t know how.”
“If the sun is gone to us, so be it,” Arthur says it like an oath. “Camelot is strong, we will survive, and whatever destiny you fear, we will face it, together, and there is nothing under any sun or stars that can compel me to hurt you! Do you hear me? I don’t care!”
There is something breaking apart inside of Merlin that he cannot identify. A castle, or a crypt, or a cave, cracking into so much crumbled stone.
“You think you know everything? It was not destiny that made me love you, that was my own choice, and no stars, or prophecies, or other magic—” Arthur breaks off with a curse. “As if the sun would make any difference.”
“That made you what?” Merlin whispers.
“What?” Arthur says.
“It wasn’t destiny that made you…” Merlin’s throat closes around the words.
“Merlin…” Arthur struggles for a moment, hands twisting together. “Did you think that I had just taken you into my bed on a whim?”
Merlin’s heart pounds, so hard that the cage of his ribs ought to splinter.
“I’m sorry. I assumed that you felt the same – I should have asked.” Arthur clenches his jaw. “I thought that I knew you that well, but clearly…” Arthur makes a little choked off noise, like an animal caught in a trap. “Clearly I do not.”
“But I do,” Merlin says bemusedly. “Of course I do.”
“What?” Arthur says, again.
“I love you,” Merlin says, and the confession falls from him so easily, like sand spilling through an hourglass. Merlin blinks rapidly, tears collecting at the corners of his eyes again. “I’ve always loved you.”
“Oh,” Arthur says. He looks faintly stunned.
“I didn’t think you…” Merlin swallows.
“Don’t be stupid,” Arthur says, fairly hypocritically, and swipes his wrist over his eyes. “I love you too. Obviously.”
“Arthur…” Merlin begins, but his words dissolve as Arthur grabs his hand, tangling their fingers together.
“Whatever you fear, you do not have to bear it alone,” Arthur says. He pulls Merlin’s hands close to him, so close that Merlin can feel Arthur’s heartbeat, then raises Merlin’s fingers to his lips, and kisses his bare knuckles like a man swearing fealty. “Merlin, please. I am with you. Let me be with you.”
Merlin’s magic is melting in his veins, like ice in the spring thaw. It is such a strange feeling, not being afraid.
It is such a strange feeling, having nothing to hide.
“Yes,” Merlin says, the word like a dam breaking. Arthur surges forward and hauls him close, practically into his lap, and as Merlin melts into Arthur’s embrace it is so much easier to breathe than it has been in days, in years perhaps. “Could you please, just—” It feels so foolish to ask. But Arthur is so ready to give, and so Merlin lets the feeling go. “Hold me?”
Arthur tightens his arms around Merlin, ensconcing him in all the weight of Arthur’s chainmail and scarlet cape and living body, and nuzzles his face into Merlin’s neck, slightly sweaty and breathing too hard, and it is easy to sling his arms around Arthur’s shoulders. Arthur has him, and will not let him go.
When Arthur draws him into a kiss, it’s as soft and warm as sunlight.
Gold pools on the stones around them, as light shines down through the high windows. Even though the thick walls, there are whoops and cries coming from Camelot, jubilation in the air. Far away, so far that Merlin would not be able to hear them at all if they were not so joyous, the druids are singing. Mordred's voice is among them, as bright and clear as a lark, and somehow the noise does not spark the same dread. Arthur presses his forehead to Merlin, eyes shut, his palm warm on Merlin’s cheek.
“That’s better,” Arthur says softly. His smile is like the dawn.
They have so many dawns yet to come.