Archive of Our Own ^beta

Winter came with more bark than bite to Camelot that year, which meant that though Gaius treated only an average number of colds and the ice did not damage the fields much at all, the court had long grown sick of the weather by the time the last snowfall arrived.

“How do we know it’s the last snowfall?” Merlin asked, who had taken to illegally heating up his socks with magic and looking shiftily away when Gaius began to make pointed comments about how interesting it was that Merlin’s chambers were so warm when it was flurrying outside.

He wrinkled his nose at the smell of copious amounts of anise and smoke and put another log of wood on the sputtering fire. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t also been illegally stoking the fire with magic, which benefitted them both.

“If it is not,” Gaius said, methodically marking in the inventory notebook that they still had three barrels of dried elderberries left before moving on to survey their stock of honey, “then we may have to worry about if someone has put Camelot under an eternal winter.”

Merlin shuddered. “I expect the last snowfall will be lovely,” he said hastily.

He could already picture the betrayed faces of the knights when Arthur declared that training would resume as usual because really, it was barely any snow at all, and anyway it was good to be prepared for all kinds of weather conditions.

Arthur himself bore winter with the gritted good-nature of a man who knew that he had a manservant to order around for things like firewood and hot baths, though all the self-discipline in the world couldn’t keep a person’s teeth from chattering when they’d been out in frigid chainmail for the better part of the day, and Merlin was sometimes a little vindictively pleased that Arthur was suffering as much as the rest of them.

--

When Arthur sent for Merlin that evening, the flurry had escalated itself into a vicious storm that Arthur had evidently seen fit to bring back into his chambers: there were icy boot prints leading to the hearth and a trail of armor that began with gauntlets and ended with pauldrons. He’d at least had the sense to put his sword on the table.

“Don’t know why you were so intent on me learning how to deal with your armor when you’re clearly capable of doing it on your own,” Merlin greeted, wavering between getting Arthur out of the remaining plates versus retrieving what Arthur had already discarded so it wouldn’t melt any more into the carpet.

Arthur would have denied that he shivered until the day he died, but Merlin did not miss the faint tremor down his shoulders as he turned away from the fire to roll his eyes at Merlin, which made Merlin’s choice for him. Arthur’s face was still flushed pink with cold as Merlin closed the distance between them to undo the laces and straps Arthur hadn’t gotten to, wiping the wet metal of Arthur’s armor down with cloth before he stripped Arthur of his mail.

Arthur’s linen undershirt had gotten wet at the edges, so that went too. “What did you do,” Merlin muttered, “lose a fight with a snowbank?”

His fingers had gone numb just from touching Arthur’s armor for so long. They pin-pricked now whenever he brushed Arthur’s skin by accident, in the places where he’d remained hot to the touch: the base of his throat, his unfortunately broad chest.

“I’ll send you into a snowbank,” Arthur mumbled nonsensically. His eyes shut as he soaked in the fire’s warmth, like an impossibly smug cat in the sun. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Merlin. Have a bath drawn, will you? And lay out my nice shirt, the one in blue.”

Merlin, who was in the midst of pulling out one of Arthur’s white sleep shirts for him to change into, frowned. There was a sense of foreboding creeping over him. “What for?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Arthur said, cracking a blue eye open at him. “Some visiting dignitaries from Northumbria just got in. There’s to be a feast tonight.”

Which was, in retrospect, the beginning of the end.

--

There was mead and there was ale and there was cider, naturally.

There was no princess at least — though the noblewomen clustered in the wings of the hall were making eyes at Arthur — but the representatives from Northumbria had seen fit to bring hearty quantities of wine mulled with cardamom and nutmeg as a gesture of goodwill, and very soon there was a court so relieved to have some entertainment that it was working its way into raucous drunkenness. Camelot did not do its feasts halfway.

“The Lady Morgana looks — merry,” Merlin said diplomatically, side-stepping a serving boy that probably shouldn’t have been serving anymore and having to raise his voice to be heard. He would have tried to steady the boy if he hadn’t already had several beverages sloshed onto him earlier, and if Arthur hadn’t slung a proprietorial arm around his shoulders.

Unfortunately for Morgana, Lord Eldred had sent three of his four sons along and they all looked to be besotted by her. Merlin had been hiding out with Gwen — they’d escaped serving duty! — before she’d left hastily to make sure Morgana’s smile didn’t get any more maniacal or stiff, and then Arthur had waved him over as soon as Merlin had caught his eyes.

“I’ll be shocked if a murder doesn’t occur tonight,” Arthur said, almost cheerfully, directly into Merlin’s ear. He jerked his chin at the middle son, who had not only sloshed his drink onto Merlin earlier but sneered at him whilst doing so; Merlin imagined that he could have caused any number of offenses to Arthur. “I hope it’s Prince Osric.”

“You’ll start a political incident like that,” Merlin said, as if he didn’t furtively agree.

Arthur smiled at him, all bite and teeth. Sometimes alcohol made his smiles go deceptively guileless, but tonight all it had done was cast a tell-tale flush high over his cheeks and made him more prone to patting Merlin on the shoulder than usual.

“All three of Lord Eldred’s sons will be invited to training tomorrow, of course. I’m sure they’ll get well-acquainted with Camelot’s finest,” he said, which was code for how it was all an excuse to beat them up in a diplomatic way.

Merlin himself was feeling pleasantly warm and wobbly and tipsy — it was winter, after all; what else was there to do? — and he could still taste honey on his tongue from the mulled wine when he said, “I’ll keep them in my prayers, sire,” mostly for the feel of Arthur’s laughter against his ribs.

“And there’ll be the tournament, of course,” Arthur added half-heartedly.

Merlin felt his nose wrinkle. “Right,” he said.

There had been some confusion when Uther had announced it at the beginning of the feast. No doubt they had all been recalling last year’s tourney, at Midwinter, which had comprised mostly of the crowd slowly congregating into one miserable lump of rapidly dispersing body heat, and one visiting knight’s reflexes going completely to shit in the cold. It was a testament to how bored the court was that public reaction had not been more negative at this year’s proclamation.

Arthur nodded to himself, like he could delude himself into supporting the idea if he jostled his brain out of place. “Right,” he repeated doubtfully, and then his eyebrows knit together thoughtfully, like he was trying to remember something. “I’ll need a favor.”

Merlin nearly dropped his goblet of wine. “Sorry?”

“For the tournament,” Arthur said, like he was concerned for Merlin’s comprehension, and as if the sky hadn’t just turned upside down.

It was a bit hard to string along any coherent thought at the idea of Arthur needing a favor from Merlin — Merlin’s brain had slammed to a halt somewhere between Arthur could be romantic and Arthur wanted to be romantic about Merlin?? — until he remembered the noblewomen mooning over Arthur.

Ah. Arthur was probably just hoping to avoid any awkward situations through appearing to be spoken for— as of late, he’d been completely uninterested in marriage, at least when not under any sorcerous influences. That made more sense.

Well, Merlin reasoned, reassured and also a little disappointed for reasons he wouldn’t be admitting to himself, Arthur had done stranger things before to ward off unwanted affections. This would be less excruciating than the time he’d had Merlin tail him for the entirety of a neighboring princess’s visit to avoid ever being alone with her, which had resulted in Merlin being put in the stocks after Uther had caught wind of it and in Arthur making a huge fuss when someone hit him with a tomato meant for Merlin. At least like this Merlin didn’t have to do anything but hum mysteriously when asked if Arthur was involved with anyone.

And anyway, it was very in character for Arthur to expect Merlin to just produce a token from somewhere at any given moment.

Merlin probably was not helping matters by proving him right. It was fine. It wasn’t like he didn’t have spares.

“Alright,” Merlin said, benevolently and without even rolling his eyes too obviously, “here you go.” He unknotted his neckerchief as Arthur continued, “I need a new set of vambraces commissioned.”

The last bit of Arthur’s sentence evaporated into the air. There was a pause.

Arthur blinked at the neckerchief Merlin was waving limply in his direction. “What?” he said, sounding strangled.

“You needed a favor,” Merlin said, feeling suddenly a great deal more sober. “For the tournament. Isn’t that what you said?”

Arthur stared at him and then at the red fabric, as if Merlin had offered him something that was on fire and also in danger of growing two heads. A horrible thought occurred to Merlin.

“Or,” he said slowly, “did you perhaps mean that you needed me to do you the favor of commissioning new vambraces?”

Another long, painful stretch of silence. Arthur’s everything had gone rosy: his red mouth was slack with shock and his flush had spread all the way down his neck.

Finally, he swallowed. “No,” Arthur lied, and snatched the thing out of Merlin’s hands before Merlin could attempt to suffocate himself with it.

--

The next morning Merlin shuffled miserably through the ice to the blacksmith and was disturbed to find that he knew Arthur’s forearm measurements by heart, and then he shuffled miserably to Arthur’s chambers so he could ply Arthur with hangover cure and breakfast.

Arthur, for his part, sequestered himself miserably under the blankets until Merlin threatened to throw the hangover cure out, and kept alternating between peering at Merlin with rounded eyes when he thought Merlin wasn’t paying attention and looking at Merlin’s new, blue replacement neckerchief as if it was hiding secrets. The behavior didn’t stop until Arthur went to training as promised and returned in the late afternoon, tired and cold and full of disparaging comments about how god-awful Prince Osric’s off-hand was, and was sensible once again.

Mostly, at least. Neither mentioned the favor, but it could not have been more obvious that they were both thinking about it than if Arthur had displayed the damn thing — and perhaps it was more telling that he hadn’t, that Merlin hadn’t seen it at all since he’d offered it.

Merlin had long ago made his peace with how Arthur after dark could be still and quiet and thoughtful. It was one thing for Merlin to steal the odd glance at Arthur at rest, to marvel at how he could see the type of king Arthur would be, to watch how night made his eyes dark and deep and softened his face. But it was another thing entirely, that night, for Arthur to look back.

The next morning after that marked the third day of consecutive snowfall, and the day after that marked the fourth. On the day of the tourney, Merlin checked with Gaius just in case to make sure that Camelot was not actually under some horrible wintery spell — “No, Merlin, this is simply a cold snap.” — and he arrived at the castle grounds to find Arthur waiting for him in one of the tents.

“Your father has gone mad,” Merlin said, breath coming out in puffed clouds. Even Uther had looked regretful, wrapped up in a thick winter clock in the stands, and beside him Morgana had looked murderous. “Did you know there are some places where the snow is a meter deep?”

“Treason, Merlin,” Arthur reminded him tiredly, looking like he sorely agreed. “Get me into my armor, will you?”

So Merlin got Arthur out of his layers and into his padded jacket, and on went the hauberk. A strange, unplaceable fleeting thing crossed Arthur’s face when he saw the vambraces, though he remained wordless as Merlin latched things into place.

Finally, Merlin handed Arthur his helmet. He drew away to peer through the tent flaps — which did an awful job at keeping the cold out — and saw that the tournament was going about as well as last year’s had been. Lord Eldred’s youngest was visibly shivering and his opponent couldn’t hold his sword still, maybe due to how his armor seemed to be icing over.

“You’re the third bout,” Merlin said, crooking his fingers subtly as he cast something that would keep the tent sealed a little better — he didn’t quite dare to try anything more direct to warm Arthur up — and he frowned. Neither knight had gotten any substantive blows in, or seemed to be willing to get close enough to the other to do anything of the sort. “I honestly can’t tell how soon that would be.”

Arthur cleared his throat from behind him, meaningfully, and his voice sounded a little stilted when he asked, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

When Merlin turned, in his hands was the neckerchief.

Arthur didn’t quite meet his gaze. He shifted uncomfortably, so minute Merlin had only noticed because he’d been looking for it, and for a moment Merlin was unable to move before the mild panic in Arthur’s face spurred him into motion.

He swallowed, reached for the neckerchief and marvelled at how very different it felt now that it had been in Arthur’s hands. “Thought you lost that in your rooms somewhere,” Merlin said.

“It would be rude to lose a favor,” Arthur said, affronted, throat working with difficulty.

“I suppose it would be,” Merlin agreed faintly, and willed his feet forward.

When he approached Arthur this time, it didn’t feel at all like dressing Arthur normally did. It felt like Merlin was crowding into his space, like Arthur was welcoming it, like there was a new layer of something significant and intimate being papered over them.

“You know,” Merlin said half-heartedly, hands ghosting over the icy links of Arthur’s hauberk, “I’m sure there are other ways to ward them off. The ladies from Northumbria haven’t even been bad, have they?”

Arthur went completely still, then shoved at him. Each word came out incredulous and slow. “Is that why you assumed I wanted a — favor of this nature? To ward them off?”

“I thought you said that you did want a favor of this nature,” Merlin pointed out, trying to ignore how stupid his logic sounded when Arthur said it like that.

“I did!” Arthur lied, flush hot on his cheeks.

“Then I don’t see what the problem is!” Merlin said, embarrassed because Arthur was so embarrassed, and now he was beginning to feel a little ridiculous with a scrap of fabric in his hands.

When Arthur spoke again, he sounded uncertain. “If that was the only reason you gave it to me,” he said, stilted in a different way now, “if it was because of your — addled reasoning, then you may as well take it back.”

Merlin reached for Arthur again, and Arthur’s face cleared a little even though he still looked furiously embarrassed, and he was unresisting as Merlin pulled him close and bent down so he could loop the fabric through Arthur’s belt.

Merlin glanced up to see the downward cast of Arthur’s eyelashes, how he was watching Merlin’s hands. “I gave it to you because you asked for a favor,” Merlin said honestly, knotting the neckerchief, and they both looked at it, Merlin’s red against the Camelot-red of Arthur’s surcoat.

Finally, Arthur swallowed. “Because I’m your prince? Because you’re my manservant?”

“Have I ever been a good manservant?” Merlin asked, because he couldn’t very well say ask me for something else and see what I wouldn’t give to you. It should have been more insulting that this of all things was what finally made Arthur relax.

“You’re right,” Arthur began, just in time for a page boy to poke his head into the tent.

“My lord,” he said, bowing politely, expression remarkably unperturbed as Arthur and Merlin sprung awkwardly apart, “the king has cancelled the rest of the matches.”

“What?” Arthur said. “He — we’re already all outside!”

“Due to inclement weather, my lord, and talk of mass frostbite. The king worries for the health of the court and its visitors,” the page said, to which Arthur said darkly, “Has the weather this whole time not been inclement?” and Merlin shouldered past both of them to look outside to see that it had perhaps gotten moreso.

There were no more knights on the field. It was bright, what with the sky being bleakly grey and the grounds still mostly blanketed in white, and it was a wonder that they hadn’t heard the rain before because now that Merlin could see it falling in sheets he could hear it as well, a low murmur overtop the canvas. It would likely ice, and maybe flood when it melted, but Merlin was suddenly sure that Gaius had been right about it being the last snowfall; that this rain was the last of the worst of winter.

“For the best, probably,” Merlin said, though he was a little peeved too, even if he was mostly just relieved that they could all go back inside.

The page bowed once more before leaving, presumably to inform the other tents, and then it was just Merlin and Arthur again, alone.

Arthur put his head into his hands and sighed. Merlin began the task of undoing all of his work.

“I can’t stand him,” Arthur said, into his palms, long-suffering and perhaps not entirely despondently. Merlin couldn’t imagine that Arthur had been looking forward to competing, for all that he went on about the importance of being prepared for any type of weather to his knights.

“Treason,” Merlin reminded him. “And anyway, this is better than you breaking your nose because you slipped on a piece of ice,” he said consolingly.

“Oh, shut up,” Arthur told him, looking marginally more cheerful already.

They said no more about the neckerchief, but Merlin hesitated to remove it from the belt, and Arthur did not tell him to. He untied it in the end and left it folded with the rest of Arthur’s things that night, on the table, and Arthur barely spared it a second glance when he ordered Merlin to ready him for bed.

But it was gone the next morning when Merlin came by with breakfast, rejoicing that there was no precipitation at all that day as Arthur shook the sleep from his eyes and complained about how loud Merlin was in the mornings, though the armor remained.

--

Lord Eldred’s sons left with the rest of the Northumbrian dignitaries when the snow had nearly all melted, and the days after their departure slipped back into that liminal haze that had characterized much of the Camelot winter.

Though it was true, Merlin allowed, that perhaps something in the air had shifted, even if he couldn’t quite tell what it was. It was probably Arthur, honestly, who had been seized by some kind of odd restlessness and seemed intent on making it Merlin’s problem.

He became suddenly preoccupied with Merlin’s outfitting, for one, citing that Merlin’s existing clothing didn’t befit a man of his station — never mind that Arthur frequently belittled Merlin for his station — and began slowly foisting off his own clothing onto Merlin.

“Purple suits you,” Arthur told him once, and though Merlin was fairly sure that at the time it had been mocking, Arthur had now spent the better part of an afternoon digging up an old tunic of his for Merlin to try, one that had been dyed a deep, mulberry color that edged more into purple than into red.

“It doesn’t look old,” Merlin said accusingly, because the way Arthur had phrased it the old part seemed like it had been a large factor in his decision making, and it looked like Arthur had worn it maybe one time in his life — the laces going up the front were unfrayed, and the stitching around the collar was still neat and orderly. “I’ve never seen you wear it before.”

He would have remembered; in fact, he was sure that he could not have forgotten Arthur in a thing like this. Though the shirt did smell like Arthur, Merlin had to unwillingly admit, and it was comfortably soft in the way that well-worn things were even if it didn’t look it, and he liked the color.

Arthur rolled his eyes at him, though he looked vaguely flustered by Merlin’s questioning. “There was a time in my life before you, Merlin,” he said dryly, shoving Merlin behind the privacy screen, “as hard as that may be to believe. Just go, will you?”

To spite him Merlin didn’t bother lacing anything up at all, though unfortunately the shirt was even more comfortable when Merlin was in it, and Arthur’s earthy scent proved both pervasive and unfairly good.

When he emerged from behind the screen, Merlin waited patiently for Arthur’s caustic feedback — Arthur was broader than Merlin and more muscular, and it was showing — but all Arthur did was fall uncharacteristically silent, blinking dumbly at Merlin and how the loose collar sat around his neck.

Finally Merlin cleared his throat and Arthur said lamely, without any heat, “You’ve gotten even scrawnier,” before wrangling Merlin in front of the mirror and doing horrible things like spanning Merlin’s waist with his warm hands, and talking about sending for the tailor to take in the fabric so it would fit better. For a moment Merlin thought Arthur might try to do up the laces for Merlin himself — he couldn’t decide if he was more relieved or disappointed that Arthur didn’t try.

There was a cloak, too, Camelot-red and fur-lined and beautifully warm, and about a dozen undershirts — and Arthur would have tried to get Merlin to try on half of his closet if Merlin hadn’t put his foot down — but it was the mulberry shirt that Merlin wore to the next feast, which was held with an excuse markedly more flimsy than the last.

“The people are in need of cheer,” Merlin had heard Uther say, which was rather remarkable from a man who seemed sometimes like it was his sole goal to snuff it out, though to be fair Merlin had overheard the knights grousing after Arthur forced them out into the cold once more and it was probably in their best interests to prevent mutiny.

It was Gwen who saw him first in the banquet hall, who exclaimed with her eyes crinkled up, “Merlin!” and was very complimentary about the whole thing, and Morgana who saw him next, who looked equally delighted even as a faint recognition sparkled behind her eyes.

“You look lovely,” Morgana said delightedly, flitting around him to inspect him as Gwen nodded eagerly. She held her drink frighteningly well — Morgana was rosy, but Merlin didn’t suspect for a second that she was as tipsy as she made herself out to be.

This was confirmed when she tugged at a sleeve and her expression grew considering, sharpening with a curiosity that did not bode well for him. “The color suits you, Merlin,” she said. “It looks familiar. Where did you get it?”

“Arthur,” Merlin admitted, feeling somehow both more and less self-conscious at once. “He was going on and on about how if I’m his manservant, I’m to look the part, so he gave me some of his older things to wear.”

He thanked the serving boy when he stopped by with a tray of goblets — he was going to get used to this treatment, at this rate, if he and Gwen kept getting excused from serving — and when he turned back Gwen’s eyebrows had risen slightly. Morgana looked — not surprised, but maybe a little smug, like something had been confirmed for her, and equally like she might start yelling at Arthur if given the chance, and the two exchanged a meaningful glance.

“That was shockingly kind of him,” was all Morgana said in the end though, and Gwen looked a bit now like she was trying to hide a smile, so Merlin fled before he could investigate the matter any more closely.

The cryptic statements and mysterious glances were all worth it, anyway, when Arthur caught sight of him and nearly fumbled his drink all over himself.

“Merlin,” Arthur said hoarsely, like every syllable was a huge effort, mouth fitting itself into a smile that was a little wild. He took a sip from his flagon and choked, and then flushed tremendously when Merlin clapped him on the back before Arthur recovered enough to bat his hands away, eyes flitting around a little helplessly. “You’ve changed your shirt. You look — nice.” He coughed. “I’m glad you’re finally taking my advice.”

Merlin was a little apprehensive about what his own mouth was doing — he had a feeling it might be hanging open. “You look nice as well, sire,” he managed.

He wanted to be smug about everything but was finding that a floundering Arthur was horribly endearing, and a little flustering on top of that. He’d known he was digging his own grave anyway this morning, when he’d dressed Arthur in something entirely unbefitting a knight — hooray for inclement weather and no drill! — and was now regretting that he could see very well how Arthur’s flush had evidently travelled down his chest.

They stared at one another for a few panicked seconds.

“Some wine?” Merlin offered blindly, holding his cup out.

“Sure,” Arthur said, looking grateful for the excuse to do anything else but what they were currently doing, and he took the goblet and downed half of it.

Distantly, as Merlin found himself beholding the elegant line of Arthur’s neck as he tipped his head back — and then being reluctantly charmed when some of his drink dripped shining paths down his chin instead of being irritated at Arthur for drinking so much of it — he swore he could hear Morgana giggling in the background. He was beginning to suspect that the shirt was not at all just a shirt.

And later, when Arthur seized the first opportunity for a hunting trip and Merlin wore his new cloak at Arthur’s insistence — “You’ll be even more useless than usual if you freeze to death, Merlin.” — the knights exchanged several pointed glances amongst themselves, and Merlin began to think that the cloak wasn’t just a cloak, either.

--

Arthur grew increasingly strange as the weeks continued.

He stopped the pretense of not noticing Merlin stealing from his breakfast and in fact even served Merlin his own plate once, which was bewildering enough in itself, but he also took up carving and spent several afternoons discarding various pieces of wood before he turned up a delicate miniature of Merlin’s home back in Ealdor. It was lovely and shockingly accurate, and Arthur slipped it into Merlin’s pocket when he wasn’t looking and refused to engage in further conversation about it.

There was a mysterious gift too, left in Merlin’s room, which Gaius told Merlin about with a carefully impassive look on his face. It was from Arthur, obviously, because it was wrapped in a fine, expensive cloth that Merlin could not imagine anyone but the royalty was affording, and when Merlin unwrapped it he discovered that Arthur couldn’t have made it more obvious than if he’d stamped his name on it — which he had, because the contents turned out to be a leather belt with ruby-eyed brass dragons for the fittings.

“You and Arthur are getting along well these days,” Gaius observed dryly, watching as Merlin contemplated throwing himself out of the castle to escape the conversation. “I have rarely known a master to be so kind to their servant.”

“Oh, you know Arthur,” Merlin said lamely, turning the belt over and over in his hands, feeling distantly that he must be dreaming. Or perhaps be possessing someone else’s body. “He’s quite — generous.”

“Hmm,” Gaius said, the silence very significant, though he was evidently feeling merciful because he left Merlin to suffer his unpleasantly flustered feelings alone.

Merlin, in the spirit of reciprocity, bribed the cooks for all of Arthur’s favorite things — he rationalized this to himself as something also for his own benefit, as he was now sharing Arthur’s meals — and used magic liberally to make sure that Arthur’s chambers were cozy and warm even when the temperatures started dipping again.

There wasn’t much else he could give back — the odd thing he found while foraging outside maybe, though being that it was winter there wasn’t much but the occasional flowering snowdrop — but Arthur seemed inordinately pleased at Merlin’s shoddy efforts, and Merlin in turn was inordinately pleased whenever Arthur was, and —

Well. They didn’t talk about any of it, obviously. But there were some nights, under the firelight in Arthur’s chambers, where Merlin could not have said what was going to happen next. Where they felt one step away from something completely new.

“I just don’t get it,” Merlin confided to Gwen, who seemed to look more knowing and more gleeful every day that Merlin reported to her about Arthur’s behavior. “It’s suspicious. I didn’t even know Arthur knew how to be this nice to people.”

Which was a lie. Arthur was plenty noble and righteous when it came to Camelot and her people, and all of the awful things that made Merlin certain he’d be a good king. But certainly he had never been so nice to Merlin before.

“People change,” Gwen said, patting him on the shoulder. “But — I don’t know — sometimes maybe it’s not a change so much as discovering something that’s already there.”

Merlin scoffed. “What, Arthur discovering that he’s not as much of a prat as he tries to be?”

“Something else,” Gwen frowned, tone chiding enough that Merlin felt a little guilty, and she shook her head at him. “You’ll see, Merlin, in time,” she said mysteriously, “what we see.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Morgana,” Merlin accused, but because he did feel bad, he offered to bring up the washing for her.

And perhaps it was him who should have been spending more time with Morgana, because when he went up to deliver the washing, her eyes went immediately to his shiny new belt.

“Merlin!” she greeted, excitedly. “So it’s official?”

“What?” Merlin said.

Morgana blinked at him, face darkening abruptly as she muttered something under her breath, and then she disappeared back into her chambers.

“Um,” Merlin said, as she emerged again.

“There’s no need to return this,” Morgana said magnanimously, taking the basket of clothes from him with a flourish and replacing it with a tome of a book. She looked remarkably sympathetic. “I’ve got others.”

“What?” Merlin said again, bewildered.

“Just read it,” Morgana said, patting Merlin on the cheek almost pityingly before she disappeared again and the door closed shut, and Merlin was left staring down at his new copy of The Art of Courting.

--

Merlin was able to look at Arthur relatively normally by the time Arthur was unable to bear being cooped up in the castle any longer and sent them on a hunting trip, which was to say that he only choked a little when Arthur said that there would be no need for the guard to accompany them, and was able to keep his darting glances to Arthur’s side profile to a minimum.

They were looking for wild boar — spring was coming but it was still more cold than anything, and they would look for deer when it was warmer — but Arthur was distracted and hardly blinked at the tracks they rode past, and Merlin was preoccupied himself with wondering what was on Arthur’s mind. There was even a rabbit, still shedding its winter coat and unafraid of the clatter of hooves, that Arthur didn’t even pretend to contemplate hunting.

“They’ll wonder why we haven’t brought back any game,” Merlin said, mostly to see what Arthur would say back, wrapping his cloak more securely around himself as a chill wind breezed past.

“We aren’t lacking for meat right now,” Arthur told him distractedly, looking back at Merlin with that same strange light half-suspended in his face that he’d had ever since he proposed the excursion, and then he turned back to the road and they continued on into the wood.

They set up camp when it was early dusk, in a clearing bracketed by trees that opened up in the south to distant glimpses of Camelot’s outer fields, and otherwise opened up comfortably to more trees and a winding path that led to Mercia. Merlin went for firewood and when he came back Arthur had set up the tent and the bedrolls and was tending to the horses, which he’d settled a short distance away.

“Get a fire going, would you?” Arthur said. “We can roast the meat.”

“There’s no meat,” Merlin said, confused, “unless you mean the dried ham I brought,” and Arthur’s smile went slanted, took on a shade of the smug boyishness that had driven Merlin crazy during their disastrous first meeting and now made something warm split in Merlin’s chest whenever it appeared.

“I didn’t let you do all the packing,” Arthur told him, jerking his chin at the bags, and Merlin opened Arthur’s pack to find bread and mutton wrapped in wax paper along with a jar of some sort of sauce, and even cheese and grapes. There was a bottle too; Merlin uncorked it and sniffed, and it took him a moment to place it as the remnants of the specialty Northumbrian wine.

It was finer fare by far than what they normally ate on these trips — Merlin uncovered plates and utensils, the kind that Uther was served with, and was stunned into silence. He imagined the awkward requests Arthur might have made to the kitchens; the wine in particular he wasn’t sure of how Arthur had acquired, what deal he might have cut. He tried to think back to when it might have first occurred to Arthur to try and save it, if Arthur had known then what he was saving it for.

Merlin stared at the bottle, and then stared at Arthur, and Arthur looked back at him, as soft as he’d ever been, even as something uncertain shadowed his mouth.

“It’s not exactly picnic weather,” Arthur said, producing a blanket, “but, you know.” Smile crooking sheepishly, he offered up a pair of goblets with the other hand.

Merlin thought of the poisoned chalice, and far later, of another pair of goblets and of Arthur drinking the wine, and he thought that even if their destinies had never been intertwined he probably always would have been ready to die for Arthur.

“This isn’t a hunting trip at all, is it,” Merlin said, a little choked, and Arthur replied quietly, “No, I don’t think so,” and Merlin thought of the revelation Morgana’s book had wrought and wondered if Arthur might kiss him.

“Good,” Merlin told him, watching Arthur’s smile ease as his shoulders untensed a little with relief, and he was suddenly, absurdly shy. The energy that hummed in between them was new and strange and delicate as Merlin started the fire and Arthur set up their dinner on the picnic blanket, but it was not unfamiliar, and it spanned over them like a redolent spring breeze.

--

Arthur didn’t kiss him that evening, as they sat around the fire and warmed themselves with the mulled wine, or when night set in, when Merlin insisted that there was no need for watches and privately set some magical wards — though Arthur was at least less contrary than usual, and was convinced to climb inside the tent and into the bedroll next to Merlin’s.

He didn’t kiss Merlin when he said goodnight either, body flush against Merlin’s and his eyes achingly blue and clear under the moonlight filtering through the tent opening, but he lingered a bit over Merlin when he leaned over to secure the tent flaps, and his gaze flickered to Merlin’s mouth before he laid back down and his breath began to even out.

And Merlin laid beside him and stared up into the dark, feeling like his heart was too big for his body and like there was something murmuring under his skin, and thought that maybe Arthur was waiting for him to do something.

He thought about slinging an arm around Arthur and feeling him warm and alive in his grasp, or maybe turning his head and pressing his cold nose into Arthur’s skin so he could feel Arthur shudder underneath him, and inevitably he thought about what he tried very hard not to think about most days: how Arthur’s breath hitched when he’d put his whole body into something; how pink his mouth was; how even before all of this had started, sometimes he’d looked at Merlin like he was just daring him to do something, like he could have done anything and Arthur would have met him halfway.

And then he remembered how certain Arthur had been when he’d denied that Merlin was a sorcerer, how adamant, and his hand stilled halfway over the covers where it had been trying to reach for Arthur’s.

There was some rustling as Arthur’s steady exhales came to a stop. “What is it, Merlin?” he said, sounding half-asleep.

“Nothing,” Merlin said, louder than he meant to be, and accidentally shifting some more in his guilt. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Arthur told him, peaceably enough that Merlin believed him, and Merlin was peripherally aware of him turning so he was facing Merlin’s direction now, though Merlin didn’t have it in himself to reciprocate. “And evidently, neither were you.”

They fell into a silence — Merlin’s breaths were too loud, went uneven, but Arthur’s breathing was a private, steady relief — and finally, Merlin swallowed and dared to roll over and choked out, “I have something to tell you.”

Arthur looked at him, the blurred edges of his face a blend of dark blue shadow and the vestiges of pale moonlight, and something indiscernible and gentle slipped into his voice when he prompted, “Go on, then, Merlin.”

And Merlin felt his eyes go golden, saw the faint glow they cast onto Arthur’s widened eyes, and even as the fear came there was a lightness in it, and he thought that something in his magic was singing, that it was delighted to finally be known, that Albion was rejoicing with it. The dragon sparked harmlessly as it crawled up Arthur’s chest, tiny limbs all false-fire and wondering, and Merlin was absurdly unsurprised that of course when he gave his magic free reign, all it wanted to do was to be closer to Arthur.

Silently, Arthur sat up slowly and didn’t reach for his sword, and he opened a hand palm-up. The dragon leapt and curled right up in the center of his hand and Arthur blinked at the swiftness of it but did not flinch, and the strange thing was in his voice again, thick and sprawling, when he said, “Did you really think I’d let you skimp off taking a watch if I didn’t think we’d be safe?”

Merlin was still light-headed with what had been rapidly receding terror and was now turning into rapidly increasing confusion, and he said before he’d thought it out, incriminatory, “You saw me cast the wards?”

“No, Merlin,” Arthur told him, his voice a low murmur, “I just know you,” and when he sighed it was fond, resigned, a little mournful. “You’re not very subtle, you know. And you’re an awful liar.”

“You knew?” Merlin said, not entirely sure of where his breath had gone. He stretched up to hold fast to Arthur’s hand — and what did it mean, that Arthur let him wordlessly, even now? — and he was choking on his words again. “This whole time, you’ve known?”

“There is such thing as too much coincidence, Merlin,” Arthur said, smiling wryly, and it was the hoarseness of his voice that gave him away more than anything, the tightness with which he was gripping Merlin back.

“It was all for you,” Merlin told him, because that was the most important part, the part that Arthur could not leave this tent without knowing, and he was suddenly afraid he might start crying. “I swear it, Arthur, I’m sorry. I never wanted to lie, never to you.”

Arthur was awash with the little dragon’s golden light when he looked back at him. “I know,” he said, face crumpling, “I know that now,” and he sounded so certain despite it all that Merlin was a little floored at what could only be forgiveness, and he was a little floored anyway, that it seemed Arthur really had known him all this time.

And Arthur still didn’t kiss him then, that night, when he pulled Merlin half into his bedroll so he could mumble furiously into Merlin’s hair that this didn’t mean he was to continue using magic so recklessly — because really Merlin, polishing boots was no excuse — but the next morning, after Merlin had woken up to scold Arthur for burning their breakfast and then summoned more bread to replace it, Arthur’s eyes went round and then half-lidded and dark at the display.

“You really can’t keep that up in the castle,” Arthur threatened half-heartedly, glancing helplessly between their newly full plates and the residual magic Merlin could still feel flecking in his eyes. “My father would have your head.”

“We aren’t in the castle,” Merlin pointed out, pressing closer to study, with fascinated interest, how big Arthur’s pupils had gotten as Arthur blinked at him a little wildly.

“No,” Arthur said, clearing his throat and sounding a little dazed as something changed in the air, “I suppose we aren’t.”

It was a good thing that neither of them were much for propriety, because while Morgana’s book had said helpfully that stolen kisses could be chaste and romantic in the midst of a courtship, the way Arthur kissed him was hot and sure and entirely untoward, and the grip Merlin had on the back of Arthur’s shirt was even less virtuous — dimly, Merlin noted, his entire body humming like a freshly-pressed bruise, he should probably put the fire out lest something catch in his distraction.

And obviously, he had to give back as good as he got.

“I think we might be late back to the castle,” Merlin said breathlessly, when his hands had taken leave of his senses and were toying at the laces of Arthur’s shirt — and obviously Arthur had taken leave of his senses, because he looked as if he didn’t mind at all — and Arthur said distractedly, his eyes like bottomless pools, “Yes, perhaps,” and Merlin said, “Your father won’t mind?”

Arthur said dryly, “I think he may mind more if we’re in the castle and he has the potential to walk in on us,” which Merlin had to acquiesce to the wisdom of, and then they set to making good and liberal use of the fact that the tent was still up.

Remarkably — due to much corralling on Merlin’s part and a lot of fussing on Arthur’s — they returned only an hour and a half later than planned, which Merlin would have been more smug about if Uther hadn’t drawn Arthur into the throne room for a report on the hunt and left Merlin to the mercy of Morgana’s shrewd gaze.

“You had a nice time, Merlin?” Morgana asked guilelessly.

“Erm, yes,” Merlin said, trying to smile naturally, “very productive,” just as Uther’s voice came thundering faintly into the hall, too incredulous to be truly angry, “You mean to tell me you didn’t catch anything? No game at all?”

Morgana let that ring and echo for a bit as Merlin fidgeted awkwardly and the guards pretended not to be eavesdropping on either conversation.

“Right,” she said, self-satisfied. “Well, I trust the book was helpful.”

And regrettably, thinking of Chapter Six: On Defining the Relationship — What Makes a Courtship a Courtship, Anyway?, Merlin had to admit that it had been.

--

Eventually, even that long winter came to an end.

Though Merlin had observed this mostly passively — he prepared less layers for Arthur to change into after a bath, picked a new rotation of herbs for Gaius, discovered that actually Arthur did just always insist on laying entirely on top of Merlin when it came time to sleep, regardless of how warm it was outside — he was forced to become a more active participant when Uther announced a tournament to ring in the new season.

Reflecting a little enviously on days where the weather had been so bad that even Arthur had not forced himself — or Merlin, by extension — into work, and later, evenings where Arthur had been amenable to lazing on the carpet and basking in front of the fire, Merlin concluded that the winter had not been all that bad as he slipped the hauberk over Arthur’s head.

“Just the mail?” Merlin asked, glancing at the discarded plates of armor and securing Arthur’s belt over the surcoat.

“Just the mail,” Arthur said, mouth softening out of its usual solemn pre-tourney state as he let Merlin close. “All the knights are armoring lightly today.”

“Huh,” Merlin said, peering out of the tent and into the field where Sir Wilkins was dutifully warming up, indeed also only in his hauberk. “So they are.”

He watched as Arthur picked up his sword and shield, eyed the tent opening, then put them back down again on the table.

“What?” Merlin said, only half-joking, “do you want a kiss for luck?”

Arthur didn’t snipe back as Merlin had expected, but his smile turned wry as he turned to Merlin, and he produced something he’d had tucked in his sleeve, secreted away. “Something else for luck, perhaps,” he said a little haltingly, and Merlin stared dumbly at the length of red fabric in Arthur’s palm.

“I never got to wear it before, you see,” Arthur said reasonably, a little pink.

“Right,” Merlin said, disbelief and affection making his smile wide and delighted, “of course,” and he had to turn his face to hide it as he knotted his old neckerchief onto Arthur’s belt.

Arthur straightened up, thumbed at the fabric. “I have something for you too,” he said, looking like he was trying very hard not to be flustered about the whole thing, and he pressed something that was round and coin-shaped, though bigger than any coin Merlin had seen, into Merlin’s palm.

Merlin looked down, uncomprehending. There was a cross and a bird in the circle of metal, though Merlin had seen no such sign in Camelot before, and he was trying to remember if Arthur had ever alluded to something like this being in his possession when Arthur said, almost gently, “My mother’s sigil.”

“What?” Merlin said, knee-jerk. “Oh, I can’t — Arthur, don’t be stupid.”

And Arthur, who had very little of his mother at all and never spoke of her, only looked at whatever was on Merlin’s face and nodded to himself with surety. “You can do what you like with it,” he said decisively, closing Merlin’s fingers around it, “but it’s yours now.”

Merlin felt it sit heavy in his hand, felt Arthur’s hand warm around his, and for a moment they were both quiet in the wake of the gravity of such a thing. Finally, with effort, Merlin said, “You know, Morgana gave me a book about courtship when you first started this whole business.”

“You started this, actually,” Arthur corrected, “with the whole favor thing,” and Merlin ignored him.

“It says,” Merlin said wonderingly, “that this, the sigil, is a proposal.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything Morgana tells you,” Arthur said, flushing furiously, which was how Merlin knew it was true, “and obviously my father would never allow such a thing, so it’s irrelevant.” A pause, and then he glanced at Merlin, sidelong, and said, “Although who knows what could happen, when I am king.”

Merlin’s entire heart was in his throat. “Who knows, indeed,” he said, feeling so horribly fond and happy it was fortunate his magic hadn’t seen fit to deck the whole tent in flowers, and he thought that maybe Arthur did deserve a kiss for luck after all.

Arthur’s mouth was warm and pliant and pleased, and probably would have remained on Merlin’s for longer if the noise outside didn’t rise into a roar, which meant the page boy would be in at any moment to summon Arthur for the matches. Merlin parted from Arthur reluctantly and hurried to retrieve the sword and the shield.

Arthur paused consideringly before he exited the tent, and for a moment Merlin thought he might be ducking back for another kiss before he tilted his head at the neckerchief around Merlin’s neck.

“Take that off, would you?” Arthur said.

“Why?” Merlin asked, mystified, though he obeyed. It was no longer winter, after all, and he’d been feeling a bit too warm anyway.

Arthur’s smile was like a blaze in the depth of winter, like a draught of cold water under the summer sun; young, sweet, as he tapped the neckerchief on his belt. “So they’ll know this one is yours,” he said, and took up his sword and shield.

Merlin followed him out and into the sun, and the people cheered for their prince as he came into view, his bearing every bit as regal as a king’s. The sky stretched up tall overhead, cloudless and blue and boundless, and beneath their feet the field had grown verdant and vernal; and Merlin looked at Arthur, felt a breeze over the back of his neck as he saw Arthur standing tall and proud in Camelot-red, and he knew that spring had come.