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"What's wrong with death?" Arthur complained, pulling the put-upon face he wore to meet any challenge less than mortal peril. "It's always been death before. Sorcerers like that kind of thing."
Merlin looked at the goblet and not at Arthur.
"At least no-one has to die this time."
He could feel his grin wavering at the edges. Arthur was right. Death had an appealing sort of simplicity next to this. Arthur was pacing about, glaring at the table and the silver goblet that stood upon it.
"Death – death is an honourable threat. It's not as if we haven't faced it a hundred times before. But this, Merlin. This? "
He gestured violently in the general direction of the goblet.
"I suppose you want me to drink it then."
"Shut up." Arthur turned his back. "Shut up and let me think."
Merlin was not quite sure what he meant by think. What Arthur did was return to the door they'd come in through – the one that had sealed itself as soon as they had passed and which contained no handle, only a single keyhole – and throw his full body weight against it several times. Afterwards, he cradled his arm against his chest and pretended it hadn't hurt. The door remained exactly where it had been, and for an unadorned slab of wood, did a pretty good impression of smirking.
From the other side of it came the muffled clatter of the knights shouting to each other on the lower floors of the tower. Whatever was happening out there didn't sound good.
Arthur wheeled back around to glare at the table. "How do you know it's a love potion?"
"It smells like one," Merlin shrugged, keen not to mention the surreptitious spellwork he'd managed when Arthur had been distracted by his first attempt at breaking his shoulder on the door. "And the decoration is a bit of a hint – though I'm not sure that love is the right word for it."
Arthur came back to study the entwined figures embossed on the outer surface of the chalice, turned it around a few times to make sure, then swiftly put it down again.
"That," he said viciously, "is getting thrown down the first well we pass once we get out of here."
Merlin had a twinge of regret. The artist had clearly had a fine appreciation for the male form, and a rather adventurous idea of physiognomy. If he could have been sure of getting the enchantment off it, he might have kept it for storing small things, like the broken links that came off Arthur's chain mail with each one of his narrow escapes.
The goblet was unnaturally heavy with magic as Merlin picked it up. He tipped it just in case the enchantment might have weakened, but even upside-down the liquid wouldn't drip over the rim of its wide bowl. It had to be drunk; the key that lay at the bottom could not be got any other way. Every time they tried to reach for it, it darted as slippery as a fish between their fingers.
Downstairs, the shouting intensified and there was a crash producing vibrations right up through the floor.
"What sort of sorcerer are we dealing with here?" Arthur was pacing again, reacting as badly as he always did to any problem that couldn't be solved at the point of his sword. "Revenge is what they're usually after, and revenge means someone has to die. What sort of wizard forces love potions down people's throats?"
Merlin rubbed guiltily at the back of his neck. "Maybe one who'd been rejected. Some people take that pretty badly. Especially if – you know, sorcerers are probably used to getting what they want. At least, some of them are."
"Merlin, you really are an idiot. A jilted sorcerer builds a tower, puts a love potion in a trap on the top floor, and casts a spell to sound like a lady in distress, so that the first knight who passes – whoever that might be – falls under a love spell. And this is all because some inconsequential woman-"
"- or man," Merlin suggested, really, really regretting that trip he'd made to beg some foxglove from the Druids when Gaius's store had run dry out of season, and especially regretting the showing off he'd done at the end of the feast they'd made him stay for, and especially in particular regretting how after the third or fourth drink he'd started conjuring stars down out of the sky (well, little bubbles of starlight anyway) and pinning them in the women's hair.
"All because one inconsequential person won't ... be seduced."
"Yes. Something like that."
"This is all a bit too much." In any other circumstance, Merlin would have found it hilarious to listen to Arthur styling himself as an authority on romance – Arthur, who yawned through all the minstrels' love ballads except the ones that featured rivals fighting to the death. "Why doesn't the sorcerer just use some sort of spell to get the woman-"
"Or man."
"-to ... lie with him?"
"Or her. Well there could be lots of reasons. It could be the object of – well, I mean, it could be the other party is a wizard as well. For instance. Or is kind of sweet on someone else. Or both."
Arthur looked at him as if he had confused his wardrobe with the pantry and come out wearing bread loaves instead of shoes.
"You should drink it," Arthur said helpfully. "If you go mad with unrequited love, even you won't notice the difference. I certainly won't."
Merlin had barely reached for the goblet when Arthur seized his wrist. "What do you think you're doing?"
Merlin had already abandoned his first plan, which had been to give the honour of making the sacrifice to Arthur this time, in the knowledge that if the potion was strong enough to plunge him into a unassuageable fever of desire, then Merlin was ready and willing to offer his body as a cure, whereas he very much doubted he'd get any help at all from Arthur if he drank it himself. Now he revised that plan. It wouldn't be fair to let Arthur drink it. Even if it would be good for him to learn what it was like to want something with a fervour that made your mouth dry and your blood always hot.
"My mistake, sire. I misheard you. I thought you said I should drink it."
"Yes that is your mistake, Merlin. I would have thought by now you'd have learned the difference between an order and an opinion."
"Yes I have, sire." Merlin produced his extra special insolent grin. "An order is when you say something that isn’t self-sacrificing and pig-headed and guaranteed to put your life in danger. All the other stuff I presume is just an opinion."
"I should hold you down and pour it down your throat. I really should, and shove the cup in afterwards."
"No need. I'll drink it. After all, you have to think of the succession. You can't smile the wrong way at a girl without her parents plotting for a betrothal. What's going to happen if you start pinching them through their skirts? Me on the other hand – no-one's going to notice if a manservant disgraces himself with one of the stable boys."
Arthur looked horrified. "I'll notice. The court gossips will notice. I won't be shamed by your-" He gestured helplessly at the illustrations on the goblet. "-cavorting, Merlin."
"Oh, I don't think those pictures are meant to be literal," Merlin told him. "It's probably just a general ..."
As he looked at the pictures again, the reassurance died on his lips. He understood why he couldn't drink the potion and would have to let Arthur do it. The shame didn't even register as a counter-argument. No. What horrified him was the thought of what he could do, if he let his self-control be weakened by the love potion. And who he was most likely to do it to. And whether they'd even get out the door before he had the Crown Prince pinned to the floor with his thighs around Merlin's waist and all those helpless, desperately unlikely dreams that woke him up starving in the dead of night, all of them coming true before his eyes. He didn't know much about mind-control magic, but if he wanted it badly enough, he could probably even make Arthur like it.
He slid off his belt and his neck-cloth.
"Right. Here's what we do. I'd hate to shame you, Arthur, so you'll have to tie my hands as soon as I've drunk it. It will take a few moments to act, so you'll have to work fast. Then you gag me with this. Immediately. Do you understand?"
"Merlin." Arthur's eyes were laughing at him. "There are five trained knights downstairs, and I'm fairly certain I could keep you under control with just one of my fingers. But I suppose you'll be less of an embarrassment tied to the saddle like a petty thief. And don't worry. I won't go easy on you. The knots will be the best I can do."
His smirk said he would make a point of enjoying it.
As he lifted the goblet, Merlin pressed down the enthusiastic tremble that all this talk of knot-work and the prospect of Arthur's highly competent hands tying them was stirring up. He had to focus. He had a matter of moments to work out what the potion contained, think of a spell to counter it, and cast it while Arthur was busy with the knots. Otherwise he was just going to have to hope that Arthur's binding was good enough to hold him, magic and helpless craving and all.
The potion was deep red and clear, with the transparency of watered wine. It smelled of rose petals and sun-warmed summer strawberries, and the scent alone gave him an instant sense of longing. He thought of buttercup strewn meadows and strong arms pressing him down into the grass.
"Oh for mercy's sake." Arthur snatched the goblet from his hand. "Forget it. I'd rather endure it myself than watch you making those lovesick eyes all the way home."
"Give it back."
They grappled for it, Merlin's hand over the bowl of the goblet, Arthur's fingers unyielding on the stem.
"A game of chance," Merlin said eventually. "It's the only fair way."
"If it makes you happy," Arthur agreed, and that should have made him suspicious.
Placing the goblet on the table, Arthur searched out a coin from the pouch attached to his belt.
"Heads you drink," he said, and tossed the silver piece in the air.
He caught the spinning coin and slapped it onto his free hand.
"Tails," Arthur said with a gloating undertone as if the sweetness of victory had made him forget what they were competing for. "Too bad."
"What? Let me see that."
"Are you calling me a liar, Merlin? Are you calling the Crown Prince of Camelot a liar?"
Merlin was, because his spell had come off pretty well and he knew for a fact that the coin had been transformed to show heads on both sides, but instead he said, "You might have made a mistake."
Arthur laughed at him outright. "You mean I might have confused my own father's face with a dragon? All right. Have it your way. You do it this time."
He flicked the coin up into the air, over Merlin's head so that Merlin had to turn around and grab for it. He used all his concentration because if he missed it, Arthur would only use the opportunity to be all smug about his own easy athleticism as contrasted with Merlin's inability to hold onto anything more demanding than his own hands without dropping it.
When he turned back, Arthur had almost finished gulping down the potion.
Merlin averted his gaze from the thin red trickle that ran from the corner of Arthur's mouth, down over his neck and into the opening of his shift, and consoled himself with the thought that it was almost certainly for the best that he hadn't drunk it himself.
When it was drunk to the bottom, all in one go like a foul tasting medicine, Arthur let out a long breath. He looked a bit flushed about the cheeks but nothing more. The cup dangled loosely from his fingers.
"Well?" said Merlin, hopefully not too hopefully. "Do I need to defend my virtue?"
Arthur's mouth made a dismissive shape. "I've drunk worse. Perhaps it only works on men with a weak disposition. Some knights have got no self control to begin with."
Apart from the fact that his lips were glistening and stained from the potion, he did not look like a man beset by unbearable desire. He looked, as always, like he'd appreciate being given a life-and-death battle to take in his stride. Reaching into the cup to retrieve the now cooperative key, Merlin did think it was all a bit unfair.
"No more effect than a mouthful of ale," Arthur went on. "I guess our sorcerer had no idea what it takes to undermine the discipline of military training. More fool him."
Utterly pleased with himself, he was looking slightly off to the side of Merlin's face. Perhaps the potion affected the eyes' focus.
"There's some very fine workmanship on this." Arthur examined the goblet's embossed relief anew as he ran his fingers over the silver figures. "Probably for the best to hold onto it. Let's not risk some young innocent stumbling across it."
The key's squat, round barrel fitted neatly into the door. Merlin turned it gingerly. The lock opened without a sound, as if newly oiled.
"Merlin-" said Arthur behind him, very low, somewhere between queasy and starving.
Then he swung Merlin around by his shoulders and slammed him against the closed door, shut his eyes and kissed him.
Merlin did nothing to resist. There was solid wood at his back and Arthur all along his front, Arthur everywhere, Arthur's tongue tasting of strawberries and roses in his mouth, Arthur's hands fisted in the front of his tunic, Arthur's nose squashed into his cheek, Arthur's scabbard knocking against his knee, Arthur's breath drawn down deep into his lungs.
With a frustrated sound, Arthur shoved harder against him, and Merlin understood that it was only thanks to constant self-restraint on Arthur's part that Camelot wasn't littered with royal bastards, because he did not have it in him to refuse anything Arthur might ask of him just now. No amount of sermonising on virtue could have stopped him pressing out from the door like a harlot and closing his hands around Arthur's waist, as if the solid vitality of him was something that could be possessed.
"Sire?"
The thump on the door behind him made him jump. One of the knights knocked again.
"Sire? Everything is under control out here. Do you need any help?"
Merlin finally – reluctantly – prised his mouth free.
"Yes," said Arthur with his eyes closed. "No. Stay where you are. Go away. Wait for me outside."
After a puzzled pause, footsteps descended.
Arthur was staring very hard at Merlin's mouth, as if only by unwavering concentration could he could keep it at bay, and he had not let go of Merlin's clothes.
"Sire?" Merlin prompted. "Arthur?"
"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur murmured, slurring like a drunk, as his eyes drifted closed and he leant in for another taste of Merlin's mouth. Gentler this time, tamer, he kissed his way along Merlin's jaw, up to a place just under his earlobe that made Merlin shudder at the unexpected intimacy.
"Do you think maybe the potion's affecting you? Just a little?"
Arthur slid his hands up to Merlin's jaw and cupped it and kissed him again.
"Yes," he said between deep, slow kisses. "I do ... think so. But I ... don't ... know what ... to do about ... oh Merlin ... about it."
Merlin summoned up every scrap of moral fibre in his being, and turned away from Arthur's mouth.
"There," he said, and one by one he unhooked Arthur's fingers from his tunic, until he could slip away. One hand leaning against the door, Arthur pulled himself together, reclaiming the rigid bearing he'd inherited from his father. The lover disappeared into the shadow of the prince. The yearning look vanished from his eyes, subsumed in the name of duty, as everything always was with Arthur.
"Not a word of this, Merlin," he said, and then with the tremor in his voice finally conquered, added, "Do you hear me? It as good as never happened."
Merlin said "Yes, sire," and went downstairs to get the horses ready.
**
All the way back, Arthur rode in the lead, kicking his stallion to his fastest gallop down hazardous slopes, through the overgrown patches on the paths, stringing the party out, with Merlin inevitably in the rear.
When they stopped to let their horses drink, Arthur drew away from the rest, upriver, and did not dismount to stretch his legs.
Merlin came up behind him on foot, and managed to take Arthur's superb battle senses by surprise.
"Has it worn off yet?"
Arthur shuddered as though touched with a brand and Merlin understood that it had not.
From this close, Arthur looked feverish, his cheek and neck flushed and his gloved hand clamped around the reins as if he'd never sat in the saddle before and was afraid of falling.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"Stay out of my way," Arthur said through clenched teeth.
In his furious glance, Merlin had caught the glint of spellwork showing through his irises. But behind him, the knights' talk fell silent, catching the note of threat in their master's voice. The last thing he wanted do was draw attention to Arthur's affliction in front of his men. Arthur would never forgive him.
Merlin backed away from him, and kept his distance.
**
If Uther noticed that his son was unusually vague as he made his report, he didn't say anything.
Merlin understood why Arthur left the goblet out of the story entirely. Arthur was not very good at being wrong even at the best of times, and the last thing he would want to hear right now, as he fidgeted uncharacteristically with the neck of his chain mail as if all his clothes were itching against his skin, was Uther's quite justifiable outrage over his son's refusal to let a servant drink the potion in his place.
As soon as it was done, Arthur swept past without looking at Merlin and went out into the courtyard, where he stayed for the rest of the afternoon, in the midst of the crowds, interrupting the soldiers to interrogate them about their patrols, inspecting their weapons and sending them off with instructions for repairs and improvements, harassing the vendors with odd questions and scarcely listening to the answers. All afternoon, he stayed on his feet, never allowing himself the distraction of stillness. When the dinner table was being laid, he called for his horse and rode off into the fading light.
By the last bells, there was no sign of him. Watching from the window for his return, Merlin had the dreadful thought that if anyone could die from a simple love potion, it would be Arthur, who had never let himself learn how to surrender.
**
Much later, when the gates finally opened for his return, Merlin ran Arthur to ground in his room.
"You look better," he observed.
Arthur gave him a tired, fleeting scowl. "Of course I look better. I'd be a pretty poor soldier if I didn't, now that I've had time to get used to it. Did you think I'd let people see me dragging my tongue on the floor like a – like a love-struck simpleton?"
He was sitting on a chair by the empty fireplace, with his hands in his lap, motionless. He gave the impression of maintaining a delicate balance, as if the slightest movement could topple him, and Merlin saw that his initial impression could not have been more wrong.
"What does Gaius say?" When the irritation left his voice, Arthur just sounded drained. "How long will it last?"
Gaius had not said anything, because Merlin had not wanted to tell him, but one of his books had answered the question quite emphatically.
"Time won't cure it. I'm sorry. Is there someone I can send for?" There really was no delicate way to put this, so he plunged on. "One or two of the chambermaids are openly sweet on you. Probably more than two. Probably all of them. And there's a girl in the kitchens, anyway, who'll go with anyone. You could probably have your pick of the servants, and half the court as well."
Eyes closed, Arthur leaned back against the wall.
"They won't do," he said, sounding exhausted. "They wouldn't – it would be like eating salt beef to get rid of a thirst. Apparently there's only one person it can be."
The book had not mentioned anything about exclusivity. Merlin steeled himself to hear the name of the person he was going to hate until the end of time. "I'll fetch her then. Who?"
Arthur grimaced. "You."
The long-suffering tone made Merlin defensive. "How unfortunate, sire."
"For heaven's sake, Merlin. You're entirely unsuitable even for a tumble in the woods. Look at you," he said, although he barely opened his eyes to do it. "If you were a knight, a guard at least. You're not even a very good manservant. You've got the grooming of a peasant. You're impossible to insult, no pride to speak of, you've never once had the sense to take advantage of your position in my household. In fact, you idiot, you're forever putting it in danger with all your stupid, idiotic impulses for saving people – people, might I add, that you don't even know. You constantly talk out of turn, even in front of the King. You don't notice when people flirt with you. You're absent-minded with the razor and barely competent with a comb, and your hands shake – do you know your hands still shake when you're fastening my gorget. You, Merlin, make no mistake, are the last person in the whole kingdom I should want to-"
His voice had got hoarse and then cut out entirely. He was still holding himself as if the slightest movement might be the end of him. Merlin stood in front of him, hopelessly smitten.
"I'm here if you want me."
Arthur opened his eyes enough to reveal how dazed he looked – the same expression it usually took a massive loss of blood to produce.
"Go," he said, fingers digging into his thighs, pinning Merlin with his gaze. "Go to your quarters and lock your door, you unspeakable fool. I won't do that to you. Get out. For god's sake, Merlin, I'm in no condition to argue with you so for once in your sorry life do what I tell you."
Merlin shook his head slowly.
"Arthur. When have I ever let you force me to do something when I really didn't want to do it?"
The lamplight caught the constriction of Arthur's throat as he swallowed.
"Don't be stupid, Merlin. Not like this. I'll fight it. I'll get it out of my system. And then--"
There was a plea in Arthur's eyes that he was completely unused to seeing. Merlin was no longer sure how much of what he was doing was for Arthur and how much for himself.
"There's no need to fight it."
He sank down to his knees, on the floor between Arthur's feet. "If you're worried I won't be any good at it," he said, trying to sound casual over the acceleration of his heart. "Well you might be surprised. Some things are a lot simpler than buckling armour on a prince who thinks that standing still is the worst sort of torture."
The silence went on so long that Merlin felt himself start to fidget with the cuff of one sleeve. Arthur's gaze snapped to the movement. He watched with a particular sort of scrutiny Merlin knew pretty well, from times when he'd fastened Arthur's armour with his mind elsewhere and his fingers moving with lazy familiarity over the straps. He'd always taken that look for impatience. Until now.
"The thing about you, Merlin," said Arthur absently, still watching his fingers as they came to rest. "Is that it doesn't seem to matter whether you're any good at it."
When Merlin laid his hand on Arthur's thigh, the tension vibrated off him like a struck shield.
"Look at me." Slowly, Arthur did. It was shame that made him evasive, and there was nothing it hurt Merlin more to see on him. "Do I seem to you like someone who's about to sacrifice himself to a fate worse than death?"
He got a snort of a laugh for an answer. "You seem like an incurable idiot with a long history of doing exactly that."
Merlin leaned up and kissed him.
It was nothing much in the world of kisses. Arthur froze at the touch, and then there was just the swell of their lips aligning, sliding until they fitted together, the flesh yielding softly to Merlin's pressure until he could feel the first hint of damp warmth. It was a bit foolish and anything but sophisticated, but it was Arthur. At last, it was Arthur, and Merlin had done it.
A rough grip on his shoulder pushed him away.
Arthur said in a croaky voice, "If you think this is going to get you out of stable duty, you're in for the biggest disappointment of your disappointing life."
And then he was dragging Merlin up by the front of his tunic – the whole thing as effortless as slinging a pack over the back of his saddle; and if Merlin had thought Arthur's strength was unfairly arousing from a distance, then having it turned on him up close was about a hundred times worse – and walking him backwards towards the bed.
"This is your last chance," he said through his teeth, very close to Merlin's ear, and he was trembling: with his hands or Arthur's shoulders Merlin could feel how he seemed to simmer like a cauldron a few moments off the boil.
Nothing could have been more absurd than the thought of refusing. Merlin whispered, "Go on," and since it was a little more articulate than the groan he wanted to give, he said it a few more times, with a treacherous rise in pitch in the moment that Arthur, one-handed, unplucked the knots of Merlin's neck-cloth and threw it onto the floor.
Arthur had been raised to fight. He fought with a maniacal focus, and sought victory at all costs, and Merlin could see all of a sudden how that was going to be a complete disaster in the bedroom, and also how it wasn't.
Merlin let himself be manhandled onto the bed, and slid back to so that Arthur could loom over him. The potion showed in his wide eyes, silvery around the circumference of his irises. But the rest of it, the heat in his cheeks and throat, the jerk of his gaze tracking over Merlin's face, the way the weight of him felt so natural settling over Merlin's hips – it was all too easy to believe that much was real.
Since Arthur's condition was getting more obvious by the moment, Merlin shoved his hand down between them and unfastened the tie of Arthur's trousers to get his hand full of bare flesh.
Arthur's eyes drifted closed.
"Merlin, your hands-"
Everyone joked that Geoffrey, bound to the labour of neither servant nor soldier, had the softest hands in the castle, but as Merlin relied more and more on lazy magic to dispose of his chores, he was providing some competition. He wielded the pads of his fingers in gentle cruelty until Arthur was shoving urgently into his grip.
Arthur was a knotted arch of muscle, tensed over him, too wound up to move. He breathed in desperate little hitches, when he remembered to draw breath at all, and that disarmed Merlin with tenderness: it was another one of Arthur's infuriating contradictions that he could be helpless under all his discipline.
Merlin shoved up his own tunic, so he could feel the sticky heat of Arthur against his belly, skin on skin, and closed his fingers tightly. Arthur made a noise Merlin had only heard him make in his sleep before, a needy sort of murmur, and then he shuddered into completion, breath stopping completely as it possessed him and emptied him out.
As he lowered himself, spent and heavy, onto the bed at Merlin's side, Merlin's head cleared enough to think of consequences beyond the euphoria of having Arthur under his hands. He was uncomfortable, all his clothes itchy and too tight on him, and yet his own arousal was more likely to be mocked than satisfied. He listened to the soft sputter of the fire and willed his body to let go of its hopes and be content with what he had got. As the moments slipped away and his pulse dropped back to lassitude, he cursed himself over and over for never having bothered to research spells for stopping time.
Arthur sat up.
Merlin swallowed. "Is it- The potion. How do you feel?"
"Gone," he said brightly, and that should have made Merlin pleased."If you hadn't taken so long to work out the cure, I could have got rid of it much earlier and saved myself-"
He shot Merlin a superior glance. As he did so, he caught sight of the state Merlin was in, looked from his rucked up clothes to the slick clinging to his belly, and turned away again very quickly.
"Oh."
That one queasy, hopeful syllable said it was not so simple. Arthur swept his hair back from his face as if he were about to go and pace the battlements all night if that was what it took to get himself under control. Merlin could not bear to let him. He had done enough good deeds for one day.
He sat up alongside him. "What's wrong?"
Arthur glanced at Merlin's dishevelled state again, just the way he looked at a boar that was about to get run through with his spear, but he kept his hands maddeningly to himself and the shame was coming back into his face with every breath. Behind him as good as stood his father, casting the joyless shadow of two long decades of bereavement.
Maybe this had after all been a convoluted plan to kill Merlin with longing.
Merlin said, "You'd better make sure it's all worked out of your system." He kept it vague so they could both pretend he was still talking about the potion, even though Arthur's eyes had returned to their natural shade, and the trembling force of the magic had worn off. "You owe it to the kingdom to keep your head clear."
Before Arthur could object, he raised his sticky hand to his mouth and sucked his fingers clean, one by one. "Take those off."
Arthur hesitated, then reached for his belt, eyes clinging to where Merlin was licking the webbing between his first two fingers. He said, "I hold you responsible. I might have known you'd be shameless as well as-"
Merlin didn't hear the rest of the charges levelled against him, because Arthur had just pulled off his tunic and shift, baring himself for Merlin's personal appreciation. He wondered what it must be like to undress when you were Arthur Pendragon, glorious from every angle, mouth-wateringly close to perfection. Then he glanced down to where the ties of Arthur's trousers still gaped unfastened, eagerness starting to fill out behind them, and his mind had no more room for such trivialities as wondering.
"Go on." He nodded towards the centre of the bed, where Arthur laid himself out, thighs going tense as Merlin slid his trousers off. He remembered how Arthur had been appalled by the illustrations on the goblet, before the potion had clouded his judgment, and made himself go slowly. He kissed the hollow of Arthur's throat while his hand slid over the beautiful contours of Arthur's chest, lingering, descending. His fingertips traced the insides of Arthur's thighs, letting him anticipate what came next, and on the heated length of his arousal Merlin went slowest of all.
Even in this, Arthur held onto his princely detachment. As Merlin touched him, he lay perfectly indolent, as though Merlin were dressing a wound for him, or setting his chain mail straight. To be fair, he did clench his hips up in time with every one of Merlin's strokes, and his hands were restless in the blankets beside him.
Merlin let go his grip and pushed himself up on his elbow. "You can touch me too, you know."
Arthur's eyes snapped open and skated from Merlin's neck to his hips, just as they did in the instant of confronting a new monster that wholly outmatched him, screwing down his courage, banishing his human fear and forcing some last-ditch strategy to take shape in his mind.
Merlin kissed his throat again because that had seemed to calm him before, and with the way Arthur arched back to encourage him, it was a good while before he could free up his mouth to go on. "There's nothing you can do that won't be good."
He should never have said that.
If he'd had any inkling of how the sight of Arthur's maddeningly competent hands stripping off his clothes would wipe from his vocabulary every word except yes, how the sureness of Arthur's grip would make every other hand that had ever touched him wither into insignificance; if he'd known how Arthur's touch had more magic than Merlin had felt in his life; if he'd known what a helpless harlot he had in him, a swooning supplicant who wanted nothing more than to throw his legs wide open and let Arthur have him, and have him, and keep having him until he broke forever and was no good for anybody else- If he'd known these things he might have put up a bit more of a fight before he surrendered.
Arthur never did anything by halves. Now that he had crossed the border into vice, he cast propriety completely aside. His fingers roamed, possessive and shameless, clutching and stroking until Merlin's thighs did open for him, until Merlin was mouthing his name, face pressed into his hair, undone.
"Merlin, Merlin," he murmured. "What would you have been like if I'd let you drink it?"
And the thought of that – the thought of how he could have had Arthur on the floor of the tower with the potion still sweet between their mouths and Arthur the one with his legs splayed open – that tore away the last of his self-control.
"Arthur-" His throat felt cracked and broken around the words. "Oh-"
It took a few shaky breaths, a few uncompromising strokes, before he was writhing, helplessly, crushed between the bed beneath him and Arthur's chest pinning him down, spilling himself until he was nothing more than a wrung out knot of pleasure at the end of Arthur's hand.
He heard in Arthur's sigh how much he had liked that, and imagined how for weeks they were going to have trouble meeting each other's eyes in public without thinking about it. And he hoped that, when their eyes met in the corridor or in the courtyard and they were both thinking about it, Arthur would suddenly remember some extremely urgent chore in his room that needed both of their attention straight away.
When he ran his hand up Arthur's breastbone, the skin was slippery, the hair clung damply to Merlin's fingers, and he remembered happily that they were not finished yet.
He rolled Arthur onto his back where he could wield his physical advantage to least effect – although the way the muscles across his abdomen flexed in sharp definition as Merlin's mouth skimmed over them was a striking lesson in the difference between incapacity and self-restraint. There were about a dozen things he wanted to do to Arthur, most of which he wasn't sure were anatomically possible, so that there would be something Merlin could do for him that no-one else ever had or would. He settled for what he wanted most, and used his mouth.
Not a sound came from Arthur while Merlin worked on him, taking him deeply and gently. Merlin thought of how he had felt with Arthur's hands all over him, torn between needing it to end and wanting every sensation to last forever. He kissed the smooth, heated skin, soft little kisses all the way down, his lungs full up with the smell of Arthur, and then he swallowed him down again and sucked until Arthur came apart for him.
Arthur lived close to the surface of himself, unhidden. For a man who spent his working day in armour, he put up few defences of the emotional kind. It was what made people love him like they did. It was what made him so easy to hurt. When he came, Merlin felt every shudder of it: the surrender, the fear of surrender, the blinding, white-hot pleasure, and also the trust it took to let himself go. And Merlin understood that loving Arthur was not something he'd be able to stop doing, ever, because the things that Merlin loved were far too deep in him for age to change.
He rested his head on Arthur's thigh and closed his eyes. The last thing that he wanted to do in Arthur's bed, with Arthur's heart still beating fast beside him and the smell of exertion and sex all through the room, was sleep. But between one moment and the next, it stole up and captured him.
*
When he woke up, disorientated with his cold feet against the headboard, Arthur was dressed and standing at the window, hands behind his back just like he clasped them when he was instilling discipline in the guards and expecting resistance.
Merlin struggled off the bed, picked up the first piece of clothing he saw, and finding it was Arthur's tunic, started to fold it.
"Leave that," Arthur said.
The dread only rose in Merlin's heart. "It will only take-"
"I can manage, Merlin. Why don't you take the day off from duties? Do whatever it is you like to do."
Merlin could only think how that involved this bed, and this prince, and as much of what they'd done last night as the human body could stand. But judging from the way Arthur didn't even want to look at him, he was never going to have that again.
"Wouldn't want to neglect my duties, sire."
"There's no need to be like that. Take tomorrow off as well. You could do with the rest."
Merlin rapidly readjusted his scale of suffering. Not touching Arthur was one thing. Coming back after two days to find someone else going gently with his razor or turning his gloves inside-out to air, all those little things that had belonged to Merlin alone, that was a whole new level of anguish.
"I don't want a holiday. I'm fine."
"Three days then. I'm sure I can see to my own needs."
"Arthur-"
"What do you want from me? Was it so disgusting to you that you want money as well? All right. How much?" Tearing open the cupboard by the bed, he snatched out a coin purse and started to count them out. "Give me a price then. How much do you want to let me buy back my self respect?"
He took the purse from Arthur's clenched fingers and put it back. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to throttle Arthur just a bit, too, which meant that things were getting back to normal.
"Arthur, are you- You never apologise for insulting me. Or taking me for granted, or refusing to listen to me when I'm right. Or letting me take the fall for you, again and again. Are you saying that the one thing you feel guilty about is the single most brilliant night of my life?"
Arthur looked away, as if he'd only just noticed that Merlin was standing naked in front of him, and Merlin remembered what a big deal this was, for someone who lived every moment of his life under scrutiny from his father, his people, and his enemies.
"Well," Merlin amended. "Of my life at Camelot at least."
That put a fiery expression on Arthur's face.
"And that's assuming you don't count the stable boys. Or the time Gaius spilled those mushrooms into his ale and ended up licking the furniture."
"Merlin."
His heart skipped a beat. That tone that had used to threaten imminent displeasure now threatened something else entirely.
"Sire? It really was a brilliant night. I thought he might demolish the work bench with his tongue."
"Merlin."
This time his hand had come to rest over Merlin's mouth. How did he do that? It was just his hand, but Merlin felt ravished by it, and not nearly ravished enough.
"Have your day off. Get some rest." He sounded like himself again: blithely, insufferably bossy, but under it all, fond. "Then tonight we'll see if we can't set some higher standards of entertainment for you."
He buckled on his own sword while Merlin watched, settling the belt exactly as he liked it.
"And take that with you." He nodded at the cloth-wrapped goblet which had held the potion. "You could do with the inspiration."
With a cocky smile, he was gone, back to the guards' reports, back to the official audiences, back to the daily business of being a prince.
Merlin ran his fingers over the silver carvings on the goblet. Some of them made his mouth water. All of them made him think of Arthur. He'd been told he could have the day to do whatever he liked, and what he liked was the thought of not leaving this bed.
He breathed on the goblet and buffed a gleaming buttock with his thumb.
**