Chapter Text
When Gwen imagined death, she imagined a setting sun, bleeding out onto a desert. When she’d told Arthur, he’d laughed and said,
“Guinevere that’s too pretty for death–I’d know, I’ve done it.”
To that, Merlin had replied, “I’ve saved you over and over, clotpole. I’d know better–it’s nothing.”
They’d been out in the field the whole afternoon, and of course, Arthur had brought Merlin. He’d told her to ‘Ignore him’ and ‘Merlin doesn’t count’ and ‘just pretend he isn’t there’. Gwen herself, unwillingly, had been doing just that for the past 3 hours, but Arthur seemed to be having a more difficult time.
Or rather, he wasn’t.
Arthur was arguing with Merlin for the umpteenth time, and Gwen found herself observing them. She’d tried not to, but old habits die hard, and as an ex-servant, she couldn’t kill this past trait, no matter how many pretty dresses she tried to shove on top of it.
Today, Arthur was telling Merlin about how he was ‘a useless toad’ and Merlin replied that Arthur was an ‘offensively grotesque dollophead’ to which Arthur grabbed Merlin’s right shoulder and threw himself on top of him in what Arthur thought was a playful fighting way. Gwen thought differently, watching how at ease both looked, how Arthur was clearly fighting a laughing fit, grinning like a child. How Merlin, sprawled on the ground, right hand clutching Arthur’s back over his shoulder, left hand pressed into the ground above his head by Arthur’s hand, legs tangling with Arthur’s, looked perfectly comfortable.
Gwen felt obsolete, which, granted, was a feeling Gwen had always battled with, servant or queen. But Arthur, her husband, her supposed true love, was the last person she wanted to make her feel this way.
Stop throwing yourself a pity party, she’d thought angrily. With that, Gwen arose, and had to speak before they noticed she’d even existed.
“I’m going to collect some firewood.”
Arthur tossed her a confused glance, letting go of Merlin’s hands and propping himself on his elbows (which somehow looked more intimate than whatever they had been doing before) and asked, “It’s not yet dark?”
Gwen reasoned, “Well yes, but it seems that we’ll be here for longer, so I’ll go and collect some anyway.”
Arthur: “If that’s so, let me send Merlin.” Here, Arthur looked back down at Merlin and grinned cheekily. “He won’t mind.”
Gwen found herself angry before she could stop it. “ I mind. Let me get the firewood.”
Gwen left before he could respond, and tracked off into the wood next to the grassy area they had been resting in. She walked through some mossed trees, before she found herself in an odd clearing. It was too scorched, too flat.
Too present, she thought, before she felt hands at her shoulders that were whispering something quickly and magical.
Then black…
She’d only remembered the part about the sunset and the desert because she was thinking that she was dying now. Everything around her was black and metal and smelled rank, and she was distinctly aware of every sound, every ghostly breath, every faint brush of the air around her.
Am I a ghost? She thought before she could stop it, but then laughed faintly at herself for thinking such preposterous thoughts. As she laughed, the chains around her wrists and ankles shook against the metal plate she was strapped to, her legs propped up and spread in a heinous way.
Gwen bit her lip and began to cry.
Back at the picnic site.
ARTHUR POV
After Gwen had left, Arthur had busied himself with recapturing Merlin’s arms above his head, both this time. He felt heady with the amount of power he had over Merlin in this position, because his title as King seemed to do nothing but make Merlin laugh. This, however, shut him up rather fast.
Arthur liked that too much.
Merlin breathed out, Arthur breathed in, and they both felt caught in the act of something, though they weren’t sure what. Arthur was the first to break the silence.
“See,” he said, breath coming a bit hotter and faster on Merlin’s face, eyes, nose, lips. “You’ve gone and scared Gwen off, you bumbling fool.”
At this, Merlin bristled and deftly sat up, throwing Arthur onto his back, and said hotly, “You started it!”
Then they proceeded to bicker (and, which they would never mention aloud, giggle) until it had become 20 minutes past. Merlin was sprawled out on his back, hands behind his head, Arthur mirroring him to his left. Arthur dared to look over, only to find Merlin with his eyes closed and eyelashes fanned over his cheeks. It was in quiet moments like these that Arthur felt a carnal urge to grab at Merlin and make him—make him—
Oh, bugger, make him feel me in his mouth like I feel him in my heart.
But, Arthur couldn’t do that to Gwen, to himself, to Merlin. If there were a way to have this moment again and again, Merlin quiet and heavenly next to him, grass blades whispering in his ears, fingers so dangerously close to the air between them, he’d have it. But, there wasn’t, and he had to make that clear to himself.
“Merlin, what’re you doing lazing about—go help Guinevere with the firewood.”
MERLIN POV
Of course the bastard had to go and ruin Merlin’s rest. In truth, he’d barely rested at all, too focused on the way Arthur was breathing, his eyes trained on Merlin’s face in a way that made Merlin feel giddy and dangerous and overcareful. When Arthur had spoken, he’d almost turned around and smacked him, and instead opted for muttering everything from bottom-feeding trout-head, to classics (ex. Dollophead).
He made to get up and go help Gwen with the firewood, when he heard—no, sensed—the magic. Without thinking he got up and said, “I’m going to see what that was.”
“What was what?” Arthur asked, getting up to stand closer to Merlin.
Merlin cursed himself for his loose tongue, and lied deftly. “You didn’t hear it over the loud static noise in your brain, I assume, but I thought I heard a twig.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “You’re hearing things, Merlin, that’s for sure.” But even as he spoke, Arthur was picking up his sword and trekking into the wood, following the path Gwen had taken, still visible as footprints in muddy grass. Merlin trailed behind, watching for anything suspicious or magical or destiny-wrecking or all of the above. (It really was getting a bit old, this whole ‘two sides of the same coin’ thing, especially when one side was working much harder than the other.)
Merlin knew why Arthur had been so quick to check the matter, Arthur knew why, the whole of Camelot knew why: Gwen.
If she was concerned, Arthur was concerned (understatement). It made sense, of course, the love story that is. The source of Arthur’s concern. They were “true loves” and nothing was meant to be in the way. But sometimes, when Merlin saw Arthur as he saw him at the picnic, he longed to just push his fingers into Arthur’s hair and leave them there, to be able to. To stroke his back, play with his fingers, trace the line of his nose. But, with Merlin’s luck, Arthur was one of those pretty things that you could look at, but dare not touch. It made the whole loving-him-while-also-being-horny-for-him thing difficult, but Merlin liked to think that he made it work.
When they were just reaching a clearing, Merlin saw Arthur tense a moment and steeled himself for whatever horror the gods had prepared for him. It was an even more cruel punishment when Arthur spun around and tackled Merlin into the ground, proceeding to mistakenly rub his dick against Arthur’s. Merlin’s face went hot, but was grateful that Arthur hadn’t noticed, too preoccupied by something on Merlin’s neck. He wanted to ask what it was, what was keeping his attention so, when Arthur lifted a delicate finger and lightly traced his collar bone, almost absent-mindedly. Merlin flushed all over again.
Merlin attempted to break the tension. “Tactile today aren’t we Ar—”Arthur muffled him with a gloved hand, and Merlin would have argued, had Arthur not looked so tense. Merlin became aware now of his surroundings. From the angle Arthur had pushed them, Merlin could now see what magic he had been sensing—druids. Three of them, in light blue cloaks and ringlets on their heads, two men and one woman.
“Amara, this is why we don’t just pop up when we sense a user,” said the taller (and if Merlin was daring enough, more handsome) man, who was crossing his arms and looking around for something.
“She was here, I know it.” This was the woman now, fair and the most pointedly not of earth being he had ever seen with her ghostly pale skin and utterly devastating green eyes.
“Look around, where is the great Morgana?” The shorter man had over-spoken, however, as the mere mention of Morgana had the bounds on Merlin’s magic gnawing to react. And of course, with Merlin’s luck, the druids sensed the change.
“That—that just now. You felt that, did you not?” Amara asked as she began walking a bit too correctly in direction for Merlin’s tastes.
The two men actually seemed slightly tense now, looking around in their vicinity much more. The taller one began lurking too close in their direction, while the shorter one trekked off into the opposite side of the clearing. The taller one spoke first. “That felt different, though. More—powerful. Raw.”
All the while, Merlin had been as stiff as his current hard-on (he had to make the joke, and felt only slightly sorry) as Arthur had been a comfortable weight atop his body. He didn’t think that Arthur was too affected, the only sign of discomfort being Arthur’s rapid pulse at his neck and chest and pelvis and—
Make it stop.
Merlin took a breath, saw and felt Arthur do the same, and became ready to get up and lie or fight his way out (whichever came first), but the three druids had other plans.
Because the exact moment Arthur was clobbered round the head by the taller Druid, Merlin was being hoisted up by the woman.
She hissed into his ear as the shorter man began dragging an unconscious Arthur away (to Merlin’s boiling discomfort), “Is this where you’ve been hiding, Emrys?”
There was a sharp pain at his back, and he blacked out.