Cleverskysstuff

"Get the one with pine-apple," Arthur orders, looking over Merlin's shoulder at the pastry display. While Merlin's spell smoothed Arthur's Brittonic into modern english, words that didn't exist in his time sometimes came out a bit misshapen. "And three mack-a-rooms."

"Macaroons. And you didn't even eat the ones I bought last time."

"Those tasted odd. Like chewing on a sprig of wheat."

"I told you you wouldn't like pistachio. It's not my fault you couldn't resist the fact that they were bright green—"

Merlin had first managed to coax Arthur out of his house and into a public place with the promise of food finer than even the most extravagant feasts in Camelot. Ever since then, he hadn't had a single weekend without Arthur demanding some sort of confectionary. And while that certainly had its upsides (Arthur's delight at the taste of passion fruit and the sugary crumbs on his fingers when he insisted Merlin try a piece and the tranquil mornings as they sat the park and every so often Merlin would turn his head and Arthur would already be looking at him, and how long had he been—?), Merlin wasn't looking forward to seeing how Arthur would handle the dentist in the event of a cavity.

But he categorizes all of that as problems for Future Merlin, who's doing better than he has in quite some time, and right now Present Merlin is only concerned about enjoying his fruit tart. There's a peaceful silence as they leave the bakery, walking over to the park they often visit.

A pair of young men approach them, and Merlin barely notices before one steps in front of him, deliberately, and knocks his shoulder into Merlin's chest.

The tart splats against Merlin's favorite sweater, smearing custard and whipped cream.

"What the fu—" Merlin whirls, expecting to see a pair of sniggering teenage boys. But no, these are men in their mid-twenties, looking at Merlin not with juvenile amusement, but with disgust.

"It's no more of an embarrassment than you already were," one of them spits. "Either dress like a man, or take your freak ass home—"

He stops talking. Arthur's stepped forward, closer than most people are socially comfortable with. "What is the meaning of this?"

It's not a question. The other man is taller than Arthur, and clearly thinks that gives him an advantage. "What are you, his boyfriend? You into that, you sick fuck?"

Merlin's seen enough of Arthur's body language to know that he's about to throw a punch. He doesn't stop it.

Arthur hits hard, not just with his arm muscle, but with his body weight too, the way a boxer would. The man's head whips to the side, momentum nearly knocking him off his feet. Arthur aimed for the jaw, not the nose— which means the man instead goes down, out cold.

The other man for half a second looks stupid enough to charge at Arthur, but then his pants fall down around his ankles. He tries to take a step forward, and instantly falls down, not quite catching himself fast enough to avoid smacking his face against the cobblestone.

Arthur's got the look in his eye that indicates he'd like to deliver them to the police station himself, but people are already starting to give curious looks from a distance, and memory spells always leave Merlin with a migraine. "Come on," he hisses, grabbing Arthur's wrist and quickly dragging him away.

Arthur waits until they've ducked into a little grove at the park to gently pry his wrist free, although his face is all thunder. "They should be arrested. They assaulted you—"

"Technically, you're the one that assaulted them," Merlin points out. Arthur still didn't quite grasp that dueling wasn't an acceptable practice to resolve disputes. "It's not worth the trouble."

"They were worse than Saxons," Arthur retorts, aghast. "Utterly barbaric—" And then he quiets, jaw working in the way such that Merlin knows something more is coming, something uncomfortable. "I… I don't understand. What was it that made them target you?" Then, before Merlin can try to distract him from the crucial detail, "They said you didn't… dress like a man?"

Merlin goes to cross his arms over his chest, until he realizes his sweater is still covered in custard. "They're just knobheads. They…." Merlin chews his lip, catching the cool metal of his ring. Thinking about what words he can say that wouldn't reveal more than he was ready for. "They think of dresses and skirts as woman's clothes, and don't think men should wear them."

"I see."

Merlin can't read anything in Arthur's face, and it's making his pulse quicken. "Did you… did you not wonder, before now? About what, what I wear?"

"I've seen plenty a wizened elder in a tunic. At first I assumed you were merely dressing your age."

Merlin rolls his eyes, but his hands still uneasily fidget by his side. He knows Arthur's deflecting. "But then?"

"I assumed things were different now." Now it's Arthur's turn to avoid Merlin's eyes, putting his hands over his pockets and looking out over the park. With the soft breeze, the background shrieks of children laughing, the melody of quiet conversation, Merlin could almost close his eyes and imagine himself back home. Almost. "Many things are."

"Things are different," Merlin says. "Most people used to think like those two men. Now there are a lot fewer of them."

Arthur nods, still looking over the park. Merlin watches the clench in his jaw, and waits. "You… you never wore women's clothes in Camelot. Did you want to?"

"Never occurred to me. It didn't until—" He swallows down the word hundreds, doesn't want the reminder of how much time there is between himself and everyone he's ever loved. "—quite some time had passed. And then I started, and," he shrugs, aiming for casual, "'s comfortable."

"As in more convenient?"

1500 years, and Merlin's still never braced for when Arthur's gaze zeros in, all of the attention of a hunter finding the weak spot. Like he can see where the edges of Merlin's defenses don't quite line up. Merlin takes a deep breath. "I can change my body however I wish. I can be a man. I can be a woman. I can be a bird, a cat, a snake, I once spent two decades as an oak tree. Trying to make myself match those around me only made me more aware of how different I was. So eventually I just… did as I pleased."

He's watching Arthur so carefully, looking for a twitch, a frown, anything that indicates he's stumbled too far, where not even Arthur's innate compassion can understand him. He wouldn't be upset, as long as Arthur wasn't cruel about it. He's long since learned to take whatever scraps he can salvage.

But after a moment Arthur just nods, looking back at Merlin. "I'm sorry about your sweater." He takes a step to Merlin, gingerly grabbing the hem to inspect the fabric. "Do you think it can be cleaned?"

Merlin's gaze darts around to make sure no one's looking their way, and then his eyes flash gold as the stain on the sweater disappears. "Good as new."

"I used to wonder how you always got even the worst stains out of my clothes," Arthur grumbles. "Do you want to head home? We don't have to…."

Merlin rolls his eyes. "I may not be a man, but I'm not a damsel. I don't need coddling after losing my tart."

"Well," says Arthur. He lets go of the sweater, but he doesn't step back. His hand moves slowly, courageously, to Merlin's hand hanging by his side. Their knuckles brush. "If you ask nicely I might be persuaded to split my pastry with you."

Merlin slowly curls his hand around Arthur's own, and watches as Arthur's cheeks turn pink. His gaze doesn't stray from Merlin's however, and Merlin thinks he'll never meet a braver man. "Even the macaroons?"

The door slams open hard enough to rattle the walls.

Gwaine strides in like a storm given human form.

He still wears bloodstained armor. There is a cut across his cheekbone dried black with old blood, and his eyes are viciously awake despite the hour. Fury radiates off him so intensely the room itself seems smaller for it.

Arthur rises automatically. “Be qu—”

“Shut up, Arthur.”

The words crack through the room like a whip.

Arthur goes still.

Gwaine looks at Merlin only once.

And Arthur watches something unbearable flicker briefly across his face before rage swallows it whole. Fear. Grief. Terror.

Love.

“This,” Gwaine says quietly, “is your fault.”

Arthur has been blamed before. By enemies. By grieving families. By kings furious over war and death and politics. None of it has ever landed like this.

His jaw tightens. “He chose to step into that fight.”

“Yes,” Gwaine snaps immediately, “because he always chooses you.”

Silence crashes down.

Rain pounds harder against the windows now, rattling faintly against glass.

Arthur says carefully, dangerously, “Mind your tone.”

Gwaine laughs. It is an awful sound. Bitter enough to rot the air.

“Oh, there’s the prince,” he says. “I was wondering when he’d finally show up.”

Arthur feels anger stirring now—thin and exhausted and brittle from days without sleep. “You forget yourself.”

“No,” Gwaine says. “I think you do.”

Arthur stares at him.

Gwaine points toward the bed with visibly shaking hands.

“He follows you into every suicidal situation without hesitation. He throws himself between you and danger like his life means nothing because somewhere along the way you taught him it doesn’t.”

Arthur flinches before he can stop himself.

Gwaine sees it immediately.

“You know what the worst part is?” Gwaine asks, voice roughening. “He’d do it again.”

Arthur cannot breathe properly because yes.

Yes, Merlin would.

Without hesitation. Without pause. Without even thinking about himself first.

And suddenly memories hit Arthur all at once in brutal succession.

Merlin stepping between Arthur and armed men. Merlin taking blame for things that were never his fault. Merlin running toward danger every single time Arthur called his name. Merlin exhausted, bruised, frightened—and still following. Always following.

As though Arthur was something worth dying for.

Gwaine drags a hand violently over his face.

“He was terrified of battle,” he says suddenly.

Arthur blinks. “What?”

“The first time he rode with us.” Gwaine’s voice is quieter now, somehow worse for it. “He thought nobody noticed. Could barely hold a sword properly. Nearly got sick before the fighting even started.”

Arthur stares at Merlin’s motionless face.

That cannot be true.

Merlin complained constantly, yes, but Merlin followed. Every single time. Arthur had assumed—

No.

Arthur had never actually thought about it at all.

“He kept coming anyway,” Gwaine says softly. “For you.”

Something inside Arthur cracks open slowly and catastrophically.

Because he never asked.

Not once.

Never asked whether Merlin was afraid. Never asked whether he was tired. Never asked whether carrying Arthur’s burdens was crushing him piece by piece. Arthur had simply expected Merlin to be there.

Always.

Like breathing.

Like sunlight.

Like something inevitable.

Arthur sinks slowly back into the chair before his legs fully give out beneath him. Merlin does not stir.

Gwaine watches Arthur for a long, terrible moment.

“If he dies…”

Arthur shuts his eyes immediately.

No.

No.

“If he dies,” Gwaine repeats, voice splintering around the edges now, “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you.”

Arthur cannot answer.

Because the horrible thing—the thing poisoning him from the inside out—is that if Merlin dies, Arthur does not think he will survive it either.

Not truly.

The room falls silent except for rain and breathing.

Arthur looks down slowly at Merlin’s hand still trapped carefully between his own. There are calluses there Arthur has somehow never noticed before. Thin scars crossing his knuckles. Tiny healed burns along his fingers. Evidence of pain Arthur never bothered to look closely enough to see.

How many injuries had Merlin hidden?

How much suffering had Arthur laughed off?

Arthur remembers every careless dismissal now with sickening clarity. Every eye-roll. Every cruel joke. Every thoughtless order barked simply because Merlin would obey it.

And Merlin had stayed anyway.

Arthur bends forward abruptly, pressing Merlin’s cold hand hard against his forehead because suddenly the distance between them feels unbearable.

“I didn’t know,” he whispers.

The confession tears itself out of him raw and ragged.

“I didn’t know.”

His voice shakes violently.

Across the room, Gwaine looks away.

Arthur’s shoulders tremble once before he forces them still again through sheer effort.

The prince of Camelot does not fall apart.

But there is nobody here to witness it except a sleeping man and a furious knight, and Arthur feels dangerously close to shattering anyway.

Days pass strangely after that.

Time loses shape inside Gaius’s chambers. Morning and night blur together until Arthur only recognizes them by the changing light through the windows and the growing ache in his body from exhaustion.

People begin speaking softly around him.

As though grief itself has settled over the castle like fog.

Servants lower their voices when Arthur passes. Knights stop mid-conversation when he enters rooms. Even the court feels muted now, stripped of its usual life.

Gwen brings food sometimes. Warm bread. Soup. Tea gone cold before Arthur remembers to touch it. She sets the trays quietly beside him without asking questions anymore.

None of it gets eaten.

Gaius insists Arthur sleep at least once every several hours. Arthur ignores him so thoroughly that eventually the old physician simply sighs instead of arguing. Leon handles royal duties where he can. Documents pile untouched in Arthur’s chambers. Meetings are postponed.

Arthur barely notices any of it.

His entire world has narrowed down to one bed.

To Merlin’s breathing.

To every tiny movement that might mean waking.

Sometimes Arthur talks because the silence becomes unbearable otherwise.

At first it is practical things. Court affairs. Complaints about treaties. Updates on repairs being made to the western wall after the siege.

Anything to fill the room.

But eventually exhaustion strips away the careful distance Arthur normally keeps wrapped around himself like armor.

“You’ve caused me an unbelievable amount of paperwork,” he mutters one evening while rain rattles softly against the windows. “Leon says half the servants are terrified because apparently I’ve been glaring at everyone.”

Merlin does not move.

Arthur swallows around the tightness in his throat.

“This is all your fault.”

Nothing.

The words echo emptily against stone walls.

Arthur stares at him for a long moment afterward. Merlin looks almost translucent now in the candlelight. Too pale. Dark bruises still stain the skin beneath his eyes. His lips are cracked despite Gaius’s constant efforts to keep him hydrated.

Arthur hates seeing him like this.

Helpless. Fragile.

Human in a way Arthur has never allowed himself to fully understand before.

Late one night, long after even Gaius has fallen asleep at his desk nearby, Arthur finally speaks the thought that has been rotting inside him for days.

“I don’t know how to do this without you.”

The words leave him before he can stop them.

Arthur freezes instantly.

Horrified.

Because it is true.

Not just the practical things, though there are plenty of those. Arthur does not know where half his belongings are without Merlin. He cannot remember which meetings matter. His chambers feel wrong untouched by Merlin’s constant chaotic presence.

But it is worse than that.

Arthur does not know how to exist in a world where Merlin is absent from it.

The realization settles into his chest slowly, terribly.

Merlin has threaded himself so completely through Arthur’s life that pulling him away now feels like tearing stitches from skin.

Arthur stares at Merlin in the darkness, pulse hammering unevenly beneath his ribs.

But Merlin remains unconscious, and the confession hangs unanswered between them.

Arthur laughs once under his breath. A miserable sound.

“Good,” he mutters thickly. “You’d never let me live that down.”

Still nothing.

The worst moments are the hopeful ones.

A twitch of Merlin’s fingers.

A sharper inhale.

A faint crease appearing briefly between his brows.

Arthur lurches upright every single time, heart slamming painfully against his ribs hard enough to make him dizzy.

Every single time it means nothing.

Hope becomes exhausting.

And slowly the fear inside Arthur changes shape.

At first he feared Merlin dying.

Now he fears something crueler.

That Merlin is already gone in every way that matters, and Arthur is merely sitting vigil beside the shell left behind.

The thought makes him feel physically sick.

“No,” Arthur says aloud immediately, violently.

His grip tightens around Merlin’s hand.

“No. You do not get to leave me like this.”

His throat burns painfully.

“You cannot spend years barging into my chambers before sunrise, ruining every meal I’ve ever attempted to eat in peace, insulting me constantly—”

His voice fractures sharply.

“—and then disappear.”

The room blurs.

Arthur bows his head abruptly, shoulders trembling once beneath the weight of something he cannot hold back anymore.

Because suddenly he remembers everything.

Not battlefield memories. Not blood.

Smaller things. Worse things.

Merlin laughing breathlessly while trying to keep up beside Arthur on hunts. Merlin asleep at Arthur’s table after nights spent working too late. Merlin standing at Arthur’s shoulder during feasts looking unbearably bored. Merlin smiling—small and genuine and devastatingly rare whenever Arthur praised him accidentally.

Years of moments Arthur never realized he was collecting until now.

And the horrible truth beneath all of them:

Arthur has loved him for far longer than he understood.

The realization does not arrive gently.

It crashes through him. Sudden and absolute and undeniable.

Arthur loves Merlin.

Not in the abstract way kings love loyal servants. Not in the easy way soldiers love brothers-in-arms.

This is terrifying.

Because Arthur cannot imagine a future without him in it. Because Merlin’s pain feels carved directly into Arthur’s own ribs. Because Arthur would burn kingdoms to the ground before willingly losing him.

Arthur presses Merlin’s hand hard against his forehead like prayer.

“I need you,” he chokes out finally.

The admission strips him bare.

Painful as tearing armor from skin.

“I need you alive.”

For one horrible moment, nothing happens.

Then—

A twitch.

Tiny. Barely there.

Arthur freezes.

Merlin’s fingers curl weakly against his.

Arthur’s head snaps upward so quickly the chair nearly overturns behind him.

“Merlin?”

Merlin’s face tightens faintly, like someone struggling upward through deep water. His breathing catches unevenly.

Arthur is on his feet instantly so fast dizziness crashes through him.

“Gaius!” he shouts toward the other room, voice cracking violently with panic and hope. “GAIUS!”

The old physician startles awake with a curse, nearly knocking books from the table as he rushes over.

“What is it? What happened—”

“He moved,” Arthur says breathlessly. “His hand—Merlin, can you hear me?”

Merlin’s brow furrows weakly.

His lips part slightly.

For one terrible second no sound comes out at all, and Arthur feels fresh panic clawing up his throat—

Then Merlin whispers something too faint to hear.

Arthur bends down immediately, gripping the side of the bed hard enough to ache.

“What?”

Merlin’s eyelashes flutter weakly. His voice is barely breath. Broken and rough from disuse.

“…hungry.”

Arthur stares at him.

Then lets out one sharp, disbelieving laugh that sounds dangerously close to a sob.

Gaius makes a startled noise of relief somewhere behind him, but Arthur barely hears it.

Because Merlin’s eyes are opening.

Slowly. Painfully.

Blue and unfocused and alive.

Alive.

Arthur feels something inside him collapse all at once. Weeks of terror, exhaustion, grief, and desperate hope crashing through him so violently his knees nearly give out.

Merlin squints weakly at him for several long seconds.

“…you look awful,” he mumbles.

Arthur actually makes a strangled sound. Half laugh. Half shattered breath.

“You nearly died,” he says hoarsely. “And you’re insulting me.”

Merlin’s eyes drift closed again briefly, exhausted already. But his fingers remain curled weakly around Arthur’s hand.

“Priorities,” he whispers.

Arthur bows his head sharply before Merlin can see his expression fully break apart.

Because relief hurts.

It hurts almost as much as fear did.