Hi Zal! I hope you’re having a good day. I just wanted to ask what scene you think Merlin and Arthur would’ve had their first kiss and first I love you and first time if the show had explicitly written them as a love story?
Hi! Hope you're having a good day too! I've been thinking about this because a lot of it depends on the tone, right, so for first kiss, I think there a few possibilities:
Oh wait, OK I've changed my mind, it's not an either/or situation. 1x11 is their first kiss and obviously the scene would have to be a re-jigged a bit where at first Merlin tries to do some rescue breathing and when Arthur awakes from the sleeping draught, Merlin is like this
and Arthur lifts his head and they have a gentle peck and they live in that moment for, like, a second/half a second and then they're like
and they brush it off as a state of panic, as him solely trying to do mouth to mouth, it was not intentional, it was not romantic and then throughout the rest of season 1 and all of season 2 there's the romantic and sexual tension and then in 2x13 the sexual tension
comes to a head and then when Merlin is going to go with Arthur into battle
and this is actually an overt confession
so then Arthur decides to kiss him
The first I love you, I want it to be kind of casual, like in 3x02 during this scene
Merlin will just blurt out, Lucky for you that I'm in love with you because NO ONE ELSE WOULD PUT UP WITH YOU! and neither of them realize exactly what was said until they're separated and they both act like it wasn't said because, you know, a bunch of stuff is going on but then here
he would add, and that's one of the reasons why I'm in love with you.
And then first time having sex... I would say 4x02
from another post of mine:
"oh-my-god-you're-alive-you're-not-dead-I-need-to-be-with-you-right-now" reunion sex