#betaed

Slothful eyes amble open as Arthur stirs, his blond hair a perspired mess on his forehead. His eyes are greeted by warmth in the late sun, and he recalls where he is as he comes to: in the forest, afront a brook. He lies on a picnic blanket with Merlin whom he can tell still sleeps beside him by the steady breaths that sound.

The cloth beneath him itches at his skin, but he can’t find a reason to care as his gaze meanders over the tree limbs and their accompanying leaves that branch over his head, cast in warm light from the evening sun. Merlin has always loved mornings when the birds rise and the world sings in the light of a new day. But Arthur has always favored this time of day, when the sun is alluring with gold and everything in its light appears rich with heat.

Blossoming vines hang from the trees above the pair, flowering in reds, oranges, yellows, and pinks. Blooms of similar hues dot the grass, sprouting only around where Merlin and Arthur lay. The birds above sang an encore of their morning chorus, and Arthur almost wishes Merlin was awake to hear it.

Almost, because he looks to Merlin – who is the reason the forest flourishes in the pair’s presence – and sees how lulled by sleep the sorcerer is, a euphoric calm so rare Arthur wouldn’t dare interrupt it.

He smiles as he thinks of how Merlin has grown to be so gently held by slumber; earlier in the evening, Arthur had surprised Merlin with a picnic – though it was quite obvious Merlin was far from surprised.

“How did you know?” Arthur had asked with an unbelieving smile.

Merlin had shaken his head, a twin smile on his lips, though his was accompanied by a blush. “I don’t know how, honest!” he had said, laughing out his words. “You’re just easy to read, I s’pose.”

Arthur had remarked that Merlin was a clotpole, then.

Later, before they had even finished their meal, Merlin had leaned into Arthur. One thing led to another, and after spilling the strawberries in the grass in their fervor – much to Arthur’s jesting dismay – they’d had one another, just there on the blanket beside the creek.

Now, here they lay, Merlin asleep, curled up on his side an arm’s reach from Arthur, and the latter finds himself waking to a forest in a better state than it had been before he slept. It’s no new occurrence, the two of them having lain together and woken to a sight like this before, but the bliss Arthur feels after being with the sorcerer is no lesser than that he’d felt the first time.

Merlin, still asleep, lays with something blanketing him – Arthur’s overcoat, the blond notes in the back of his mind – and is clothed in nothing more than the sun’s warmth. The coat rests just below his bare shoulders and carries down to his thighs, the only barrier between his body and the evening breeze. As the man across from him shivers in the hush of the wind, Arthur reaches over and pulls the makeshift blanket up past Merlin’s shoulders.

While Merlin is keen to avoid the earth’s breaths, Arthur welcomes them; the humidity is like syrup on his skin, as is what Merlin left him with after having been contented.

The king looks to his servant; he dislikes those titles’ uses between them, but Merlin takes everlasting pride in them. He worries they belittle the latter; granted, he has done plenty of that himself during the years he and Merlin have spent beside one another, but those were only jests – ones Merlin reciprocated, at that. When it counts, Arthur doesn’t quite know how to give to the sorcerer all that he is owed, for all that he has done, not only for Arthur but the whole of Albion.

Merlin, being the literal embodiment of magic on this earth, power and nature and beauty, prompts Arthur to wonder how all of that can fit into his best friend, his companion, his lover, his— well, he couldn’t come up with a name for who they were to one another any better than he could place the feeling within him.

His gaze strays from the brunet beside him for not a moment, and he wonders idly if that feeling – the one he couldn’t quite name, as neither love nor any of its kin was ever quite strong enough – will consume him. He realizes, while his eyes lull back into a comfortable close, that he would not mind much if it had.

/|\

❄️ 📖 🔥

You poke and prod at your partners, shove at their shoulders, and rip off the blankets—anything to get their butts into gear!

Finally, you hear a gravely grumble, “Your partner’s awake...”

“Yours before sunrise,” Len palms for the sorely-missed blanket. No! You’re going to wake them up if it’s the last thing you do!

Hey!

Mick rolls you under his squishy bulk. You squirm beneath him until his and Len’s eyes crack open at last. Mick’s breath beats steadily upon you while Len glares you into submission, “I planned for us to wake up in one hour, seventeen minutes from now. You don’t need to sleep; you just need to let us sleep.”

“...Fine,” you huff your surrender.

Mick rolls off you once they recover the covers. Actually, this is really warm...

Zzz...

❄️ 📖

"...Cold."

“That’s my name; don’t wear it out,” an asshole smirks before frowning on sight of you shivering in an alleyway.  He wraps his fluffy coat around you and offers to escort you to a shelter.  It won’t last long before someone discovers why you haven’t felt warm since the goddamn particle accelerator exploded, but you’ll stay until life dumps more misfortune upon you.

❄️ 📖

You sense a presence staring you down, so you prepare to fight for your half a cheeseburger until your gaze lands on that asshole from last time.  His once pristine parka is caked in grime along with the rest of your clothes and any free square inch of skin.

He hums sternly, “I would’ve brought you somewhere else if you’d told me you were a meta.”

You’re not much of a meta right now when all you can do is summon a snowflake.  You punch him in the face when he calls you cute.  Hunger has slowed you down, but this smug jerk doesn’t even have the decency to act surprised after catching your fist.

He uncoils your fist, transferring his grip into one that can help you out of the dumpster.  He hands you a helmet and a pair of goggles when you reach his motorcycle.  The hood of his parka flaps behind you as you shiver even harder.  Onlookers might think you're hugging your boyfriend during a joyride.

He brings you to a bungalow in a neighborhood where the houses give each other a wide berth.  He hands you a set of keys, yet you lockpick the door instead.  It takes your shaky hands more tries than it should, but it clicks at last.  You stare at him.  You want him to know exactly what kind of cutie he’s bringing home.

...Does anything faze this asshole???  Offering shelter to a metahuman thief isn't normal!

He shows you where you can wash and dry your clothes after giving you a set of pajamas and a pair of socks to change into.  You take a shower while you wait, the moment between nakedness and stepping in under the water a lifetime in the arctic.  His shampoo, body wash, and shaving cream are all alpine-scented.  You dry yourself off as fast as possible and rush into these fuzzy clothes.  They’re loose on your starving frame, but that only bothers you because your shoulder freezes when your t-shirt becomes lopsided.

He’s fixing two mugs of hot chocolate while home style scents charge into your nostrils: some sort of chowder concoction with chicken and herbs that reminds you what warmth feels like after all this time frostbitten by your own body.  This warmth lingers inside you instead of vanishing within seconds.

“Marshmallows or no marshmallows?”

You squint at him.  Do you deplete his marshmallow stockpile or not?  You’re already in his house, wearing his clothes, and about to eat his food.  Is a couple itty bitty marshmallows gonna break his bank?

He pours them in before you belatedly add, “Please.”

He grabs the remote.  A hockey game flickers on.  The timer ticking down entertains you more than the players: a flurry of seconds melting the minutes to the next period.

“Not a fan?” he asks good-naturedly.  He already knows the answer.  He’s not the only person who can be an asshole.

“I love all forms of sportsball; look at all dem points.” You pause to let him chuckle. “Do they use a sportsball in hockey or this just an excuse to murder people with deformed canoe paddles?” Your comic genius has him swooning. “Thank you. I’ll be here until you kick me out.”

“I guess you’ll be here forever then.  I never kick out cute, comedic thieves.”

“I’m not cute!”

“Did you just hiss?” he chuckles. “Like a kitten???”

“No! That was obviously a cockroach hiss.”

“Cockroaches don’t hiss.”

“Yes, they do,” You nod with wide eyes.  It’s probably melted by now, but once upon a time, you left a glacier of those things behind as you dashed out of that warehouse fast enough to give Flash a run for his money.  Speaking of the Scarlet Speedster... “You stole money from a bank?  While it was still in the bank??  Why didn’t you just take it from the truck like a normal person???”

“Highways are dangerous battlefields.”

“Why do you want to battle him at all?  Selling candy stolen from babies is a more efficient way to earn money.”

“I don’t do it for the money.”

“Obviously not, Captain Caught.”

“I got out in time to rescue you from street food,” he smirks.

One of these barbs’ll chip the ice! “I’d be in an out before Flash even knew there was a crime.”

“Efficiency’s not the name of the game, Snowflake,” he refills your bowl and exchanges your mug for a bottle of water, “a game you’re more than welcome to play once you feel warm for longer than half an hour at a time.” He sets your clothes and the parka beside you before giving you the remote. “You should take some notes.  I’m heading in early tonight.  Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

He’s halfway down the hall when you chuck a snowball at him, “Cockroaches are insects, asshole!”

“Never mind, you need to work on your aim,” he says when your projectile crashes into his bookcase instead of his face.  You shoot for his smirk yet hit his fridge. “I didn’t even have to flinch from that.” You glare at him in your fluffy parka. “You pout cute, too.”

Oh for fucking get it!

Your attempt to tackle him ends with you trapped between him and the wall.  He’s yawning while leaning against you so casually, yet you exhaust yourself struggling in seconds.

“You’re fiery for a cryo meta.” Something makes his smile fond instead of patronizing... like he sees you as a person instead of a raging blizzard.  You want to stay mad at him because you didn’t at the everything you should’ve stayed mad at, yet you defrost instead because his warmth is sticking around, too.

You stand there like an idiot before switching the TV off.  There’s his room and the guest room: your room until he finally learns you’re more trouble than your worth.  The doors to both are wide open.  He’s reading on the side of his king-sized bed.  The pillows and blankets look hastily repositioned—as if they’d been centered until recently.

He smiles when you cross the great divide and settle next to him.  He hasn’t kicked you out of his bedroom, he’s not gonna require permission to enter his bed.  Your parka and the blankets muffle most of the shivering.  Him spooning you curbs the rest.

Your neck’s on fire where he pecks it, “Good night, Snowflake.”

❄️ 📖

Hale doesn’t really get it,

“So when someone transitions from female to male, do they stop having periods? Why aren’t all women transgender?? Who willingly bleeds to death every month if they never want children???”

but by god, does he try!

You’re drowning your depression with the foulest ale in a dive bar when Hale taps your shoulder, “That dude’s checking you ou~out♬”

You know which dude he’s talking about: the one with cunning, slate eyes and shorn, peppery hair... You down another gulp before leering at your well-meaning, easily excitable roommate.

“When you want water, you want either hot water for coffee or cold water for iced tea. Nobody wants lukewarm water.”

“But lukewarm water’s fine for baking!”

“That’s not the point!” you set your glass down on the counter with a clunk. “This kinda stuff may not matter to you, but Parka Michael Scofield wants coffee or iced tea, not... an ingredient!”

He hangs his head dejectedly. Somebody needs to set him straight; otherwise, someone a lot less merciful than you will break his heart.

Yet instead of learning anything, he stands on the counter and shouts, “PARKA MICHAEL SCOFIELD! MY FRIEND THINKS YOU’RE HOT, AND YOU THINK MY FRIEND’S HOT!! IF YOU STOP THINKING MY FRIEND’S HOT CUZ YOU’RE TRANSPHOBIC, I’LL KILL YOU!!!”

You’re too mature to bang your head against the counter, yet you mutter please let me have hallucinated that with your head in your hands. You speak up when the bartender brings you another drink, “I didn’t—”

“It’s on the house, babe,” she says longsufferingly. “The only person in Central who has crazier friends than you is Parka Michael Scofield—who’s pan, by the way—so if he’s anything less than a gentleman with you, I’ll help your friend get away with murder. And if anybody bothers you in my bar, I’ll kill them myself.”

You’re too stunned to thank her, shaking out of your daze only when Michael—Len, he introduces himself with a kind charisma—strides up to your side to ask, “Would you like to take this somewhere quieter, doll?”

You have your answer when the bartender yells, “Get off my counter!!!”