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The morning light is soft: it plays warm and dawn-like through the cracks in Lancelot’s curtains. And Merlin is still here, in bed next to him, when Lancelot wakes. Lancelot believes himself to be the luckiest man in the world.
He presses a kiss to Merlin’s sleeping forehead, disturbing some mess of hair flopped over his eyes. Merlin stirs, but does not wake.
Oh, Lancelot thinks, he’s so beautiful.
He watches Merlin asleep, indulgently—long gazes, letting his eyes drink in Merlin’s features: the curve of his nose, the way the light paints different colours on each strand of his hair, his dark eyelashes and pronounced cheekbones.
This moment is still, is precious. Then, Merlin wakes.
He makes a soft noise, just a murmur. It betrays nothing of the power he sometimes wields, when spells well up in his throat like the rush of spring rapids. Merlin’s eyes can be brilliant gold-fire, but Lancelot adores them blue. The most powerful man in the world, perhaps, but here in Lancelot’s circle of arms he fits like every edge of his body was made to nestle into a curve of Lancelot’s.
Merlin’s eyes open, untroubled and relaxed.
“Good morning,” Lancelot says.
Merlin is still half-asleep.
“‘Morning,” he says. His voice: a hum, rough.
Lancelot leans over and kisses his jaw, watching Merlin’s lips form a loose smile as he does.
“Mm, I like waking up like this.”
“As do I.” More than words he does.
For some small moments they say nothing else. Adjusting, Lancelot finds Merlin’s hand curled into his side, under the coverlet. He takes it and fits his fingers between Merlin’s. Merlin’s hands: wiry, deft. They fit into Lancelot’s calloused, sword-marked ones.
Finally, Merlin mumbles into the quiet:
“How long’ve you been awake?”
“Not long,” Lancelot says. “Moments.”
Merlin makes a noise of acknowledgement. He breathes. They do so together, in rhythm, on accident.
“I sleep better in your bed,” Merlin muses.
“Do you?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Well, it’s bigger than yours.”
“Fair point.” He has dimples only sometimes revealed.
Merlin shifts as he draws in a breath. He sighs, and Lancelot’s whole world moves with him.
They’re tangled now: Lancelot holding him, Merlin’s head tucked into Lancelot’s chest. And they stay like that, for a long moment, warm.
“I wish I could marry you, my love,” Lancelot says. Merlin pulls back some to look at him. Their faces are close together, close enough to see the fine cracks in Merlin’s lips, and the shade of slight blush high on his cheeks.
Merlin looks like he isn’t sure whether he should he should be laughing or not.
“Why?” Merlin snorts, with a smirk that lights up his eyes. Lancelot adores how he smiles. “Do you wish you could make me an honest man?”
“Perhaps,” Lancelot says. He watches Merlin’s face change as Lancelot doesn’t quite return his quip as banter.
“You’re not serious.”
“I am,” Lancelot says. “I wish I could. I love you, Merlin.”
“And I, you,” Merlin replies, immediately. But he’s still waiting for the joke to make sense. Lancelot watches him realize, and then, “Oh, god… you’re really serious.”
Lancelot laughs. He can’t help it. His hand soothes over Merlin’s forehead—skimming his hair.
“You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Lancelot said. “By far.”
Merlin seems not to know what to say, so he nestles back into the warm space on Lancelot’s chest, settling.
“You wish you could marry me,” he repeats, in awe.
Merlin has seen all manner of impossible things, but from his tone, he lends the same wonderment, apparently, to Lancelot wishing he could marry him.
“I do,” Lancelot says. “Would you?”
Merlin thinks for a moment—just one—and says, soft,
“I would. I would marry you, Lancelot. If you asked me. If we could.”
But they can’t—not in front of people. Not even their friends know about them. Lancelot plays with Merlin’s hair, carding through it, fingertips over Merlin’s scalp.
“My lord,” he says, so reverent.
Merlin chuckles, Lancelot feels it on his chest.
“You’re so good to me,” Merlin says. Seeming a genuine question, “What have I done to deserve this?”
“I wonder the same, every morning that I wake and you’re here,” Lancelot said.
Merlin pulls back to look at him, as if to read for mocking. Of course he finds none.
“You’re too much,” Merlin says, settling again. He doesn’t mind, though. Lancelot knows.
“I read too much love poetry—I’ve got to do something with all the words I consume.”
Merlin laughs again. Lancelot adores making him laugh.
“So you give them to me?”
“Precisely.”
The slight exhale he feels against his skin is Merlin’s lips curving into a smile. Lancelot can’t see, but he knows. He knows so much about Merlin that no one does, from big secrets to fine details.
Outside, he hears the main gate creaking, and hooves on flagstone: the first cart of fresh produce for the kitchens, likely. The castle is waking up—their stolen early hours are coming to an end. Merlin is thinking the same thing, it seems, because he groans.
“I don’t want to leave here,” Merlin says. “I wish we could just stay here and let the day pass.”
“Me, too, love,” Lancelot says. But unfortunately he has training, and Merlin has work. Their embrace must end, eventually. “But we have moments yet.”
“Not enough,” Merlin complains. He sits up anyway, to prepare to get out of bed. Lancelot catches his hand, and circles Merlin’s palm with the flat of his thumb. He brings Merlin’s knuckles to his lips, kissing them. Merlin, for all the times Lancelot has done this, still looks surprised when he does it. Wide-eyed. Lancelot thinks he’s never been loved quite like this.
“What if we told them?” Lancelot says, not sure where the thought comes from.
Merlin furrows his brow.
“Told who?”
“The others. Our friends. What if we told them about us?”
Merlin blinks at him.
“Would you want to?” he says. “Really?”
“I said I wanted to marry you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but—that’s different. That can’t actually happen…”
“It was just a thought,” Lancelot says, with a shrug. He wouldn’t want to do anything to embarrass Merlin, make him uncomfortable.
Merlin seems to drop the subject, looking away, out the window in suspended, placid thought. That’s alright, Lancelot didn’t think he would—
“Perhaps,” Merlin says. Lancelot looks at him, curious. “Perhaps we tell them.”
He sounds unsure, but not afraid, not the way he sounds when they sometimes speak about his magic. Perhaps I’ll tell him, he says, with tension, about Arthur and sorcery. This perhaps is only contemplative, smooth.
“We can think about it,” Lancelot says.
“Yes,” Merlin agrees, after a moment. “Let’s think about it.”
He fixes Lancelot with a look of such adoration. Good lord, how did they get so lucky? Then he leans in, and they kiss. Merlin’s lips are warm, and give against Lancelot’s own. Every kiss with Merlin feels just a little bit stolen, a little bit perfect. They linger there, stealing each other. Finally they part.
“I should get up,” Merlin says, against Lancelot’s lips. He pulls away. “Arthur will have me in the stocks if I’m late again.”
Lancelot snorts. Arthur wouldn’t really—he and Merlin are past that—but he plays along anyway and says,
“Well, I don’t want that. Best get dressed, love.”
Lancelot wishes their time stood still, wishes when he woke, and took Merlin into his arms, he could spend hours innumerable pressing his lips to Merlin’s forehead, to his jaw, to the tender skin of his neck. The best place he knows is where their fingers fit together, twined.
Merlin leans in, for another quick kiss, and—reluctant to part—he slips out of Lancelot’s bed.
All this will have to hold for another long day. Their kisses will go back to secreted artefacts in empty stairways, until the evening when Merlin can return here and they’ll have this again.
Lancelot will wait.