#dancing together

“You’ve been pulling all nighters all week. Enough. Bedtime.”

You grumbled but very quickly found an answer to the question that had been plaguing your three am thoughts. 

Could he lift me?

Apparently the muscles Jake Seresin had weren’t just for display. 

Lifting you from the chair, he tossed you over his shoulders and carried you away from your poorly lit desk. No wonder your eyesight was bad. 

“Jake, for the love of god-”

“Pray to someone else tonight,” he told you. “God is on my side. You need sleep before you greet him yourself.”

“Technically,” you started, “The human body can go without sleep for eleven days.”

“That’s not scientifically proven, and you know it,” he countered as he climbed the stairs with you. 

“Well,” you didn’t exactly have a foot to stand on. “It’s a world record.”

“From the sixties. They didn’t exactly have the same medical advancements as modern day.”

“No, but-”

“You’re going to bed.” Jake ordered. “Argue all you want. And, technically, I don’t see you putting up much of a fight.”

You were glad he couldn’t see your face. The heat that was spreading across it would be very clear. 

Did you have a crush on Jake? Maybe. But he was your roommate (reluctantly) and your friend (also, maybe, reluctantly). So, despite the feelings you had over gaining the information to your question, you could absolutely never, ever cross that line. 

“Because I know it’ll annoy you more when I finally run back to my desk.” You countered, quickly. “Come on, just let me work. Please.”

With a huff, he turned the corner at the top of the landing and walked into your bedroom. 

“Even though you asked nicely,” he said, before throwing you on top of your bed. “And I do like manners,” he leaned down and over you, his fists softly landing on either side of your head. “You’re going to sleep.”

“Is that so?”

Jake nodded. “Yes. Even if I have to lock you in here.”

“There’s a window.”

“Then I’ll stay here with you.” He said it as if it was a threat. 

If he only knew the truth… 

“Why do you want me to sleep?”

Jake tilted his head a little as he looked at you. “Why do you want to keep working?”

“Because it needs to be done.”

“It can wait til the morning,” he told you. “Anyone else would leave it until next week.”

“Clearly I’m not everyone else.”

“Clearly.”

For a split second, your gaze scanned his face and clocked an expression you weren’t exactly familiar with, coming from Jake anyway. Curiosity, maybe? Endearment?

Heat?

Soft heat? 

“You know, I can’t sleep with you on top of me like this,” you told Jake, breaking the moment. 

Even in darkness, you could see small red splotches covering his cheeks. Then he moved. “Right. Sorry. Get some sleep.”

By the door, he stopped. 

“I mean it, Y/n. Before you burn yourself out.”

Brushing over the sudden serenity of his tone, you gave him a small salute. “Ay, ay, Captain.”

You watched as he rolled his eyes, but broke out in a tired smile anyway. “Goodnight, Y/n.”

“Night, Jake.” 

With the soft click of your door, you heard Jake head back down stairs. No doubt, to turn out the lights and make sure the place was locked up again. Barely four minutes later, you heard him come back. 

And, for a moment, he paused. 

Then he continued towards his room where you heard the soft click of his own bedroom door. 

The next morning Jake passed your bedroom to find your door still shut. He smiled for a moment, thankful you were finally getting some sleep. Especially for a weekend. 

Only, turning at the bottom of the stairs, he found you at your desk again. 

He watched you for a moment, scribbling and typing. Then he forced a cough. 

Never had he seen you turn around so fast. 

“Okay, this isn’t as bad as it looks,” you started. “I’ve only been here for like twenty minutes. And yes, I did sleep.”

Walking closer, he stopped just a few feet short of your chair. “You need to take a break.”

You nodded. “I know. And I will. It’s just the last of the County Reports and-”

“We’re going out.”

“What?”

“I’m gonna make some coffee,” he told you slowly. “And then you’re gonna get dressed and so will I. So, when we leave this house within the next hour, we look like functional human beings.”

“Jake-”

“You need to get out. Get some sun. Fresh air, preferably.” You went to interrupt, but he stopped you. “That is not within three miles of this house. So, go. Get dressed.”

“But-”

“Y/n.”

Feeling a little like a scolded child, you turned back to your desk and whimpered a little. Work was fun to do. It was a good and working distraction from letting your eyes wander over to Jake like he was your True North. 

But, deep down, you knew he was right. 

You needed some sun. And some fresh air. And the ability to wear glasses and not your contacts. 

Within the next fifty minutes, you’d gotten ready for the day and were sipping on the coffee Jake had prepared for you. All the while, being sat in the passenger seat of his car after he’d wrangled you away from yours. 

You figured, besides the fact his folks had raised him to be a gentleman, it was so you couldn’t make a quick escape back home to continue working. 

Little did either of you know, over the next twelve hours, everything would change between you. 

It started with a second coffee, sitting outside The Hard Deck, looking over the morning sun and its greeting with the sea. Somewhere between the catch up conversations and more miniature arguments over how much work you do when you’re not in work, you both moved on to driving up and down the town before Jake got an idea and simply told you, “It’s a surprise,” when you asked. 

It was something he rarely did. It was one of the first things you noticed about him, long before you moved in with him. 

You’d caught a flight into San Diageo to visit Natasha and Bradley. Bradley, who you’d met in college, had quickly introduced you to Natasha and the pair of them became your closest friends. 

Practically family. 

So, when they finally got a few days off, you decided to go down and visit. And, when they asked you what was happening back home, you’d told them your situation. Work was transferring you and you were looking for a new place to call home, 

That was the moment Ruben chose to tell you about an open room a couple of blocks from him. Offering to take you to the open interview, you agreed. Though, you did find it odd the landlord was ‘interviewing’. 

“He’ll love you,” Ruben had told you before you walked up the porch steps. “Trust me.”

Knocking on the screen door, the air was pulled from your lungs when you realised who the landlord was. 

Turns out, Jake – Hangman as he was known to the team – was looking for a roommate. There was some conversation over Jake not enjoying living completely alone that played in the back of your mind, but it quickly drifted away with all the other noise when he said your name. 

It took, seemingly, a lot of convincing to get Jake to choose you as his roommate. Though he was never a complete asshole to you, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out Jake wasn’t exactly amused by you. 

Maybe you talked too much, or not enough. Maybe to him, you didn’t fit in with the group. Maybe he was irritated by your presence, but somehow found a tiny piece of comfort in knowing you weren’t a total stranger. 

After all, Natasha and Bradley had known you for years. 

Finally, with the assurance of different work schedules, your ability to avoid people like the plague, minimal friends who he didn’t already know and the promise to always wear headphones, you were signing the contract and moving in three days later. 

And, for a while, life remained as close to your promises as you could keep it. 

You wore headphones when listening to music, or watching something on your laptop. The only time you didn’t was when he was home – even if he wasn’t even in the room. When you cooked, you cleaned up after yourself. 

The place looked like nobody had even touched it save for the extra groceries in the fridge. 

Whenever you made a big meal, you stocked into tubs and left some for Jake if he wanted any. 

Mostly, the only time you crossed paths was when he came home from work and you were an hour away from heading to bed. 

At least, until you were given a different work time-table. 

Then the time you spent with Jake seemed to multiply. For the first week, you were waiting for him to kick you out. But then something changed. 

It started out small. 

A Post-It on the coffee pot. 

Then you found a to-go breakfast with your name on it in the fridge, the morning after you’d missed your alarm and had skipped “The most important meal of the day,” according to Jake. 

Slowly but surely, Jake seemed to warm to you. In his own way. 

The moment you realised he might actually be your friend, and not see you as a complete nuance, was when it came to your birthday. You hated surprises and Jake had seen your reaction all day to gifts and cards that you hadn’t been expecting. 

You looked like you were trying to diffuse a bomb. Or escape an inescapable escape room. 

“I’ve got you something, too.” Jake had told you when you flopped down onto the other end of the sofa. 

“What is it?”

“A surprise.”

“I hate surprises,” you told him. 

Then you heard him chuckle before he reached for something at his feet. A small cardboard bag. 

“I know,” he told you. “You’ve looked like you’ve been in hell all day. It’s a book.”

For a moment, you looked at him. Both pleased and thankful that he’d noticed. “You got me a book?”

He shrugged. “I noticed you’d finished your other. Figured I’d save you a trip to the store.”

Pulling it out of the bag, you were greeted with the fourth book of your current read. You could have cried. 

“Thank you.”

He nodded, “You’re welcome.”

From then on, anything that to a normal person should be “a surprise” was something told to your face. And you couldn’t have been more thankful. 

The rarity of Jake’s ‘surprises’ tended to come in the form of something he was building. A shelf, new cabinets, a book case for your room. Smaller projects that weren’t completely finished so still had a chance to turn into something else. 

Which, maybe, was why you didn’t hate Jake not telling you where he was going. 

And, for the first time, upon arrival, you were thankful you weren’t told where you were going. 

It was a roadhouse. Old and shabby, but definitely filled with memories. 

Getting out of the car, Jake had taken your hand in his and led you inside. Through the crowd of regulars, he kept you close to him as he ordered two drinks and you both scurried off to a back corner booth. 

“How did you find this place?” You asked him. 

“Late night drive one night,” he told you as the drinks were finally brought over. “People kept turning down this little road and I wanted to know why. They had a rodeo night to draw in the crowds.”

“You must sniff them out like a bloodhound,” you remarked. “Country music and cowboys.”

Jake chuckled. “I am Texan.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, guess that might help.”

With a laugh, Jake took a long drag of his drink. For a while, you talked some more. Jake told you more about his hometown and his family. He told you about the last shitty date he went on and how he’d drowned his ‘Single Sorrows’ in the very same bar. 

Then, watching the dancing crowd, Jake placed down his beer bottle and reached for your hand. 

“Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Dancing. You know what that is, right?”

You followed him towards the dance floor. “I am aware I don’t leave the house all that much, but yes, Jake. I know what dancing is.”

Turning to face you, he pulled you in closer to him. “Is this alright?”

Controlling your breathing, you looked down at where his hand met your waist and his other hand held yours. “Yep.”

“Good.”

Somehow, he pulled you a little closer and you didn’t fail to notice the slight smirk that took over his face before you let him take the lead. 

“Why do you work so much?” He asked you when another slow song finally hit. “You’ve pulled all nighters, all week. And it’s nothing new, either.”

You shrugged. “Gives me something to do.”

“So does reading.”

“Not in the mood to read,” you told him, simply. 

Jake gasped a little. “You’re not?”

“Ha, ha. Very funny, Seresin.”

“No, no. Colour me shocked. You’re working because you’re not in the mood to read. Who are you and what have you done to my friend?”

You smiled a little. “Oh, so we’re friends now?”

“When were we not?”

You furrowed your brows for a short moment. “I figured I was being a nuisance. An annoying one, at that.”

“You thought that?”

You nodded, oddly proud. “I live with myself 24/7, Jake. I know I’m annoying to be around.”

He shook his head. “You’re not annoying to be around.”

“Even when I don’t go to bed?”

Jake chuckled. “Okay, maybe a little annoying. But…I am your friend. We’re friends. At least, I like to think we are. What made you think we weren’t friends?”

A scoff covered laugh left you. “How about when we first met? You kept your distance. Or when I interviewed to move in. It took a hell of a lot of convincing on your end to let me stay.”

“That room was yours the minute you opened the screen door.”

“Or the– what?”

Jake smiled. “I have to be honest, it did shock me to find out it was you who Ruben told me about. But…you fit, Y/n. You were the only one to walk inside who looked around and saw it as a home. And, I was distant when we first met because I was trying to figure you out. You work hard, but you work even harder for your friends. I don’t know how or why but I know, for a fact, you know exactly when your friends need you to talk. Backing them up, filling in the uncomfortable silence. You know people so well…”

“Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?”

Jake chuckled a little, “See.” before he continued. “But…I think you don’t let them see you. You know when to hide. When to shrink yourself and make it seem as if you don’t exist. But you do. I want you to exist. You deserve to exist.”

Unsure what to say to his sudden burst of therapeutic truth, you just smiled and laid your cheek against his shoulder. 

“Please don’t burn yourself out,” he whispered. “And please, don’t hide yourself in your work.”

After a few moments, you leaned up and looked at him fully. “If I promise you – right here and now – that I will take a break. That I won’t hide. That I’ll make sure all work work is done at a reasonable hour. Will you stop worrying?”

Jake nodded. “Yes.”

For a moment, you glared at him gently. “I’ll give you a week.”

“What?” He chuckled. 

“Before you’re sick of me and begging me to put my headphones back on.”

Jake chuckled. “Your music taste isn’t too bad, actually.”

“And the podcasts?”

“Are creepy as hell,” he told you honestly. “But they’re cool. Even if they do keep me awake at night.”

“When have you listened to the same podcasts as me?” You asked, a little shocked. 

Jake shrugged a little. “I saw it highlighted on your phone when you were cooking. I wanted to see what it was about.”

“You coulda just asked.”

Jake nodded. “I know. But you seemed to be in the zone. I didn’t want to disturb you and maybe end up with a fork in my hand.”

A small part of you chuckled. “Maybe that was a good call.”

As the sun slowly started to set, you and Jake finished up at the Roadhouse before hitting the road again. 

It was dark by the time Jake was locking the front door behind you as you headed towards your desk. However, within twenty seconds, you felt him scoop you up. 

“Nope. Not tonight.”

“I wasn’t gonna work! I swear!”

Jake glared a little as he carried you towards the stairs. “I know you too well. You’ve probably got some loophole in that promise you made me. I’m not taking any chances.”

“Jake-”

“No, not listening.”

“I can get up the stairs myself.”

Jake simply shrugged. “Now you don’t have to. Consider it part of your day off.”

You rolled your eyes, but tightened the grip of your arms around his neck as he climbed the stairs and carried you into your bedroom. “You’re an idiot.”

“I think you’ll find,” he threw you onto your bed, if in a somewhat gentle manner. “I’m a genius.”

“Oh really?” 

Jake nodded as he leaned down, bracing his hands on either side of you. “Yep.”

“Do tell.”

“Well, for one, you’ve taken a full day off. And you’re currently in your bedroom.”

“Wow,” you mocked. “You should have been a detective. A real sleuth.”

He cocked his head. “I did read a lot of Sherlock Holmes in college.”

“Really?”

He nodded. 

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a mystery guy.”

“Mystery guy, or mysterious guy?”

You rolled your eyes once more. “Now you really are an idiot. There is nothing mysterious about you, Hangman.”

“Oh really?”

You nodded. 

“Do tell.”

“You’re sure of yourself. You know exactly what you want and you go for it, no matter the consequences. You say Mav needs an ego check, but I’d wager so do you. Preferably not a self-check. You can be an asshole, but we all know you’ve got the biggest heart going-”

“Not the only big thing about me.”

You rolled your eyes once more and chuckled with cringe. “Urgh, and you’ve got the dirty jokes of a high schooler.”

Jake chuckled. “I meant my brain. I am a genius, afterall. You really need to get your head outta the gutter once in a while, Sweetheart.”

“Sweetheart,” you repeated. “Wow. So original.”

You watched as he shrugged. “It suits you.”

With a breathy chuckle leaving you, a silence managed to settle over the two of you. Still unmoving, Jake’s hands remained braced on either side of you. 

And somewhere in the silence and the heavy eye-contact, you both did something that neither of you could figure out why or who had started it. 

You kissed. 

Your hands gripping his collar, one of his own coming to swipe down your hair until he could get his fingers in it from underneath. Jake leaned down into you just before you hooked a leg around his thigh. 

Nothing really slowed down from there. 

Surrounded by tangled sheets and brand new headboard scuffs, from where Jake had slid his face away from under and  in between your thighs to position himself behind you, and rocked himself into you enough times to pull the next orgasm from you. You and Jake tried to catch your breaths. 

“Sweetheart?”

For a moment, you didn’t move. 

“Sweetheart, let me see you.”

Relaxing your body, you leaned back until you were flushed against his chest. 

“There you are,” he breathed out as he smiled. For a quiet moment, he peppered small kisses across your cheek before he finally lowered his lips across your jaw and down your neck. 

“Why haven’t we done that before?”

Jake chuckled before pulling out of you and turning you back over to face him. “I don’t know. But I’m glad we’re doing it now.”

“Will it happen again?”

Jake nodded. “So long as you want it to.”

You could barely do anything more than nod before Jake’s lips were on yours once again, his hands cradling your face. 

“Stay here,” he told you as he kissed you. “I’m gonna get a couple things to clean us up.”

“Okay.”

Twenty minutes, a bathroom break and a set of fresh sheets later, Jake was pulling you into bed beside him. 

“Just so we’re clear,” Jake told you. “You’re gonna be taking a break again tomorrow. And this is definitely happening again.”

You smiled, leaning closer. “Good. I could get used to taking breaks like this. With you.”

It was meant to be simple: attend, observe, smile when required, ensure no political insult went unnoticed, and leave before anything tedious could escalate into something worse.

Instead, Arthur found himself watching Merlin far more than he watched anything else.

At first, it was almost amusing.

Without the usual dirt-smudged servant’s tunic or the constant suggestion of incompetence that Arthur had, over the years, grown used to challenging and relying upon in equal measure, Merlin blended into the crowd, his mask plain enough not to draw attention yet elegant enough that it did not repel it either, and Arthur noticed that people noticed him.

A noblewoman in silver lace laughed at something Merlin said near the refreshments table.

A young lord leaned in too close when Merlin replied, as though drawn by something Arthur could not immediately identify.

And then, as though the evening itself had decided to test Arthur’s patience for reasons it did not care to explain, a third figure arrived—masked in deep violet, posture loose with confidence, voice smooth in the way only someone used to being listened to could manage—and turned his full attention to Merlin.

Arthur told himself, at first, that it was nothing.

After all, Merlin, for all his irritating habit of existing in Arthur’s immediate orbit, was not without his own… peculiar charm, when one was foolish enough to look past the sarcasm and the endless complaints.

But then the stranger asked Merlin to dance.

And Merlin, after only a brief, almost conspiratorial glance at Arthur, accepted.

Arthur did not move at first.

He simply watched.

Which, he told himself firmly, was because it was useful to observe social dynamics in foreign courts, because understanding alliances and attention patterns could prove valuable, because—

Because Merlin was dancing.

With someone else.

The stranger’s hand rested far too comfortably at Merlin’s waist for Arthur’s liking, and Merlin was moving with a surprising ease that Arthur had not known he possessed, laughing at something the masked noble said, tilting his head in a way that suggested interest, or at least tolerance, or—

Arthur stepped forward before he had decided to do so.

“Interesting technique,” he said mildly, appearing at Merlin’s shoulder as though he had simply drifted there by coincidence rather than crossed half the ballroom with increasingly sharp steps, “I was not aware courtly dancing in this kingdom involved quite so much… leaning.”

Merlin did not look surprised.

Of course he didn’t.

Instead, he glanced at Arthur with eyes that glittered faintly with something dangerously close to amusement, even behind the mask. “My lord,” Merlin said smoothly, “I didn’t realize you were studying dance now. Should I curtsy first before you critique my footwork, or is that optional depending on how threatened you feel?”

The stranger laughed politely, though his attention flickered to Arthur with renewed curiosity, as though only now noticing that Merlin was not, in fact, a man of equal standing to the masked noble he stood beside.

Arthur felt something unpleasant tighten in his chest.

“I am merely ensuring,” Arthur said, carefully, because the alternative was to say something far less composed, “that my attendant is not being led astray by unfamiliar customs.”

“Attendant,” Merlin echoed, far too lightly, “how reassuringly romantic.”

Arthur ignored him.

Which was, in hindsight, an increasingly difficult habit to maintain.

The stranger, however, seemed unbothered by Arthur’s presence and instead inclined his head. “If I’ve overstepped,” he said, voice smooth, “I assure you it was not my intention. I simply found your companion… intriguing.”

“I’m sure you did,” Arthur said, though it came out sharper than intended, and he felt Merlin’s gaze slide toward him like a blade being turned idly in candlelight.

“Well,” Merlin said after a moment, still dancing, still entirely too comfortable, “since you’ve interrupted my very promising social development, I suppose I’ll have to resume my duties as your conveniently available servant instead.”

“That is not what I—”

“Come on then,” Merlin cut in, already stepping back from the stranger with a practiced ease that made Arthur’s irritation spike for reasons he could not quite name, “my lord seems to require my undivided attention.”

The stranger looked mildly disappointed but did not argue as Merlin disengaged, offering a small, polite bow before slipping away with Arthur in tow, though Arthur was entirely certain he had not physically taken hold of Merlin’s arm at any point and yet somehow found himself walking beside him anyway.

Only when they were out of immediate earshot did Arthur speak again.

“You were enjoying that,” he said flatly.

Merlin hummed. “Enjoying what, exactly? Being lightly interrogated by a masked noble who thinks I was born yesterday? Or being rescued by you, my ever-vigilant prince, from the terrifying danger of someone asking me to dance?”

Arthur glared at him, though it was somewhat wasted on a man wearing a mask.

“You are impossible.”

“And yet,” Merlin replied lightly, “you keep me around.”

Arthur opened his mouth, found no immediate counterargument that did not sound uncomfortably like something he did not want to examine too closely, and instead turned away.

The rest of the evening did not improve.

If anything, it worsened in ways Arthur would later pretend he had not noticed.

Merlin was approached again.

And again.

And again.

Each time Arthur found himself intervening with increasingly flimsy excuses: a need for diplomatic clarification, a sudden question about court protocol, a reminder that Merlin was required elsewhere, though precisely where elsewhere might be changed depending on Arthur’s rapidly diminishing patience.

Merlin, infuriatingly, seemed to find the entire situation amusing.

“You’re hovering,” he murmured at one point, when Arthur had inserted himself between him and yet another overly familiar noble.

“I am not hovering. I am ensuring you are not taken advantage of.”

Merlin’s eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “By people asking me to dance?”

Arthur hesitated, just for a moment too long.

“Yes,” he said.

Eventually, the music softened, the crowd thinning as even the most dedicated revelers succumbed to exhaustion or political obligation, and Arthur found himself, without consciously deciding to, following Merlin out onto one of the quieter balconies overlooking the palace gardens.

The air outside was cooler, carrying the faint scent of night-blooming flowers and damp stone, and for a moment Arthur allowed himself to breathe without the press of bodies and expectation around him.

Merlin leaned against the railing, looking out.

“You know,” Merlin said after a while, voice quieter now, “he wasn’t that bad.”

Arthur frowned. “Who?”

“The masked noble,” Merlin replied, as though it should have been obvious, “he was polite. Attentive. Slightly desperate, but in a charming way.”

Arthur felt something unpleasant stir again in his chest.

“He was insufferable.”

Merlin snorted. “Of course he was, in your expert opinion on insufferable people.”

Arthur hesitated.

Then, without fully understanding why he said it, he added, “He was interested in you.”

Merlin tilted his head slightly.

Arthur continued before he could stop himself, words coming out more bluntly than intended, as though something inside him had finally given up on restraint.

“It is a shame he is a man,” Arthur said, almost absently.

Merlin did not respond immediately.

When he did, his voice was quieter than Arthur was used to hearing from him.

“If I were interested in anyone,” Merlin said slowly, carefully, as though each word had to be selected from somewhere deep and private, “it would be a man.”

The words did not immediately settle into meaning.

Then they did.

“Oh,” Arthur said.

It was not particularly eloquent.

Merlin watched him now, entirely still, as though bracing for something—laughter, disgust, confusion, perhaps even anger—and Arthur became suddenly, sharply aware of how much trust that quiet waiting contained.

Arthur shifted his weight.

“I see,” he said, after a moment that felt longer than it was.

“You don’t have to—” Merlin began.

“I’m not…” Arthur paused, searching for something that sounded like himself and not like a courtly performance, “concerned by it.”

Merlin exhaled slowly.

Arthur, unexpectedly, found that he meant it.

Then, because silence had never been something Arthur handled well when it contained too much unspoken meaning, he added, “He is still wrong for you.”

Merlin raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Arthur gestured vaguely toward the ballroom. “He is too… smooth. Too practiced. He would not understand you.”

“That’s very generous of you, given you’ve spent years claiming I am entirely incomprehensible.”

Arthur ignored that. “You deserve someone better.”

Merlin watched him carefully now.

Arthur continued, momentum building in a way he did not fully recognize as revealing.

“Someone who is not trying to impress you with performance,” Arthur said, “someone who actually listens when you speak instead of simply waiting for their turn, someone who does not assume they know you after one conversation—”

He stopped.

Frowned.

Then added, more quietly, “Someone who would notice things properly.”

Merlin’s expression shifted slightly.

Arthur, slowly, began to realize that most of what he was describing sounded, inconveniently, like standards Arthur himself had not always met, or perhaps had been trying to meet without knowing why he cared.

He swallowed.

Then, with growing unease that had nothing to do with politics or kingdoms or diplomacy, Arthur realized something else.

The thought of Merlin with someone else—anyone else—was not simply irritating.

It was… wrong.

Not in a moral sense.

In a visceral one.

As though something familiar had been displaced and he had not been informed where it had gone.

Merlin spoke again, softly.

“You’re thinking very hard,” he said.

Arthur huffed. “Someone has to.”

Merlin smiled faintly.

And Arthur, standing there under the cold night sky, with music still faintly echoing through the open doors behind them, found himself thinking—entirely unhelpfully and without permission—that Merlin’s mouth looked absurdly expressive when he smiled like that, and that it would be profoundly inconvenient if someone else ever had the right to make him do it so easily.

Merlin shifted then—just slightly, just enough for the candlelight spilling through the balcony doors to catch on the edges of him, and Merlin said, “You’re staring again.”

Arthur blinked once, and replied, perhaps a little too quickly, “I am not staring.”

Merlin hummed in that maddening way of his, the sound half amusement and half disbelief, and pushed off from the balcony railing, turning to face him properly, and Arthur became uncomfortably aware of the fact that Merlin’s hair, slightly loosened from the constraints of the evening, carried the faint scent of warm air and crushed herbs and Arthur’s attention, traitorous thing that it was, registered it with far too much clarity.

“You are,” Merlin said simply, as though this were an undeniable fact of nature, like gravity or the rising of the sun, “and you look like you’re thinking again, which is rarely a good sign for anyone involved.”

Arthur exhaled through his nose, and he replied, “If I am thinking, it is because someone is standing there looking unbearably pleased with himself.”

Merlin’s mouth twitched.

“Unbearably pleased,” he repeated, savoring it. “That’s new. I’ll add it to the list of things you’ve called me this week. I think I’m up to ‘insufferable,’ ‘idiotic,’ ‘distracting,’ and now apparently ‘unbearably pleased.’ I’m building quite the reputation.”

Arthur should have stepped away.

Instead, he found himself saying, almost without intention, “You were enjoying it.”

“The dancing?” Merlin asked.

“Yes,” he said, though it came out quieter than he meant it to.

Merlin shrugged, the movement loose and unbothered, but his eyes did not leave Arthur’s face. “It was fine,” he said. “Nothing spectacular. He was polite. Not terrible at leading. Smelled a bit like expensive cologne and poor decision-making, but I suppose that’s half the nobility in there.”

Arthur huffed despite himself.

“And yet,” Arthur said, more carefully now, “you accepted immediately.”

“I was asked to dance,” Merlin replied simply. “It would have been rude to refuse.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened.

“You are not a courtier,” he said.

“No,” Merlin agreed, far too easily.

“You are my servant,” Arthur continued, and immediately regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

Merlin did not flinch.

He only looked at Arthur for a long moment, long enough that Arthur became acutely aware of the way the night air had cooled the stone beneath his hands, of the distant music still drifting faintly from the hall behind them, of the stars above them scattered like quiet witnesses who had no interest in intervening.

Then Merlin said, very softly, “Yes.”

And somehow that single word carried more weight than anything else in the conversation so far.

Arthur looked away.

Out over the balcony.

At the gardens below, dark and silvered under moonlight, where the hedges curved like sleeping shapes and the fountains caught starlight in broken pieces.

And then, almost without meaning to, he said, “I do not like it.”

There was a pause, and then Merlin said, “What don’t you like?”

Arthur hesitated.

“When you are looked at like that.”

Then Merlin, carefully, “Like what?”

Arthur’s fingers tightened slightly on the stone railing.

“As though,” Arthur said slowly, “you are something to be… acquired.”

Merlin did not respond immediately.

When he did, his voice was softer still.

“And what do you think I am?” he asked.

Arthur turned back then.

And the moment he did, something in his chest shifted, because Merlin was looking at him with an expression that was far less amused now, far less guarded, and far more open than Arthur was used to being on the receiving end of, and Arthur became abruptly aware of how close they were standing, of how the night seemed to have narrowed everything down to just this space, just this breath between them.

Arthur’s answer, when it came, surprised even him.

“Someone who should not be acquired,” he said.

Merlin blinked once.

Then, after a beat that felt like it stretched the world slightly off balance, Merlin said, almost under his breath, “That’s very noble of you.”

Arthur frowned.

“I am always noble.”

“That,” Merlin said, a faint smile returning now but not fully replacing the softness in his eyes, “is debatable.”

And then, as if something had finally given way in the quiet tension between them, Merlin stepped back half a pace and tilted his head toward the open balcony space.

“There’s still music,” he said.

Arthur frowned. “So?”

Merlin’s gaze flicked toward the hall behind them, where the faint rhythm of a slower, gentler piece was beginning to emerge, something meant for fewer bodies, for closer steps, for people who were not trying to be seen by anyone but each other.

“So,” Merlin said, with deliberate lightness returning to his voice like a carefully rebuilt wall, “you look like you’ve been holding court in your own head for the last hour and I am, unfortunately, the only available audience, so I’m going to solve this problem before it becomes unbearable.”

Arthur stared at him.

“You are not making sense.”

“I rarely do,” Merlin replied.

Then he extended a hand.

Not like the noble had done earlier.

Not like a courtly invitation polished by etiquette and expectation.

“Dance with me,” Merlin said.

Arthur froze.

Arthur looked at the hand.

Then at Merlin.

Then, quietly, “That is not necessary.”

Merlin raised an eyebrow. “It’s not an attack, Arthur.”

Arthur’s mouth twitched slightly at the echo of earlier words.

“I am aware.”

“Good,” Merlin said. “Then stop looking like I’ve just suggested we go duel in the gardens and just take my hand.”

Arthur hesitated.

Then, with the same careful control he used when stepping into situations he did not fully understand but could not afford to refuse, he reached out and took it.

Merlin’s fingers were warmer than expected.

And when Merlin stepped closer, guiding him gently into the open space of the balcony where moonlight pooled across the stone like spilled silver, Arthur found that the world narrowed again, not into tension this time, but into something quieter, something that felt dangerously like stillness.

“I don’t know how to dance,” Arthur muttered.

Merlin snorted softly. “You know how to dances. You just pretend you don’t when it suits you.”

“That is not—”

“It absolutely is,” Merlin said, and then, without further ceremony, placed his other hand lightly at Arthur’s side.

Arthur’s breath caught.

And as they began to move—slowly, carefully, not quite in time at first but finding it together anyway—Arthur became aware of everything at once: the brush of Merlin’s hand, the faint scent of him carried on the night air, the way the stars above them seemed suddenly closer, as though leaning in to watch something they had already decided was important.

When he does want sex though? He tries to make you happy too it isn't all about him. He cares about you and will do what you want, well other then get fucked himself, "men don't do that." Does take a long time to convince him otherwise if you try to.

He gets loud only when he cums, his head tilts back if he can't get to your neck or shoulder fast enough, and his hips stutter along yours slowly as he groans out.

If you are to get him to agree to letting you fuck him, he is loud and holds onto things too tightly as well as he says not to tell anyone else as a joke.