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It all started because Merlin overslept. He overslept because he stayed up late reading his book of magic and using said magic to fix Arthur’s tunics which sprouted holes and tears with such frequency that Merlin began to think that Arthur went out of his way to destroy his clothes just to torture Merlin. He wouldn’t put it past the great prat to take a dagger to his clothes just to make more work for Merlin.
So when Merlin awoke to the sun higher in the sky than when he normally dragged the sleeping King from his bed, he cursed and grabbed the first tunic he put his hands on. He slipped it over his head, changed his breeches, secured it all with his belt and took off running out of his room with a basket of mended clothes beneath his arm.
If anyone saw him bewitch Arthur’s breakfast tray to balance perfectly atop the basket, they said nothing. Possibly because they were all busy whispering behind Merlin’s back and giving each other pointed looks. Merlin was in too much of a rush to notice any of the other servants acting odd.
“Let’s have you lazy daisy!” Merlin crowed, pulling the curtains open to let the light shine on Arthur’s sleeping face.
Merlin would never admit that waking the King was his favorite part of the day. Arthur looked carefree and almost sweet in his sleep. He reminded Merlin of the young Prince he had met years ago before their lives had gotten even more complicated.
His sleep rumpled hair shone in the early morning light and he made a groaning noise that Merlin couldn’t help but find adorable. Never mind the way that he petulantly buried himself further into the pillows and blankets giving Merlin a reason to manhandle him out of bed. Arthur’s skin always felt warm, or perhaps Merlin was just always cold. After being cocooned in fine blankets all night Arthur felt warmer than a summer sun and Merlin’s perpetually cold hands made him squirm.
“You’re cold,” Arthur mumbled grumpily, pulling further away from Merlin and his icicle fingers.
“Well if you’d get out of bed like an adult.”
Arthur grumbled more and like the overgrown toddler that he was, dramatically flung himself across the bed to get away from Merlin.
“Oh come on. You’re already running late.”
That got an eye open. Squinting at the sudden brightness it took Arthur a minute to figure out what about Merlin looked different.
One of Arthur’s red tunics, his favorite in fact, hung a couple of sizes too big off Merlin’s narrow frame. Arthur swallowed, hard, his mouth suddenly dry. Something stirred low in his belly making his brain short circuit.
“The silent treatment?” Merlin bemoaned. “How very mature of you.”
“Whatever Merlin.”
Arthur internally cursed the sudden hoarseness of his voice. His brain continued to betray him, forcing him to endure scenario after scenario as to how Merlin could end up in his clothes. Most involved sleepless nights and Merlin’s bare legs peeking out from under Arthur’s tunic.
Arthur got out of bed that morning for one reason: to keep Merlin from pawing at him anymore. His traitorous brain didn’t need any encouragement.
♦️
Arthur didn’t point out to Merlin that he had stolen his favorite tunic. If it had come up at all, he would have feigned ignorance. It’s not like he paid attention to servant’s clothing anyway. Except Merlin, he paid attention to everything Merlin did, but he wouldn’t admit to that either.
No one else pointed out the mixup either. People noticed. Leon raised an eyebrow and then glared harshly at all of the knights to keep their tongues in check. Lancelot of course took the entire thing in stride and made neither a face or remark. Percival had to pay Gwaine two silver coins, and Gwaine took an elbow to the stomach from Elyan when he opened his big mouth to congratulate the two on whatever middle of the night fun they’d had that led to Merlin not wearing his own clothes.
Not until Merlin sat down for dinner with Gaius did anyone mention his strange attire.
Gaius cocked an eyebrow and asked the obvious, “Is that the King’s tunic?”
Merlin looked down. He gripped the neckline of the tunic between two fingers and then blushed furiously. He dropped his head to the table and groaned.
“He’s going to kill me.”
“Didn’t he mention it?”
Merlin shook his head.
“Probably waiting for the precise moment to punish me. He probably spent all day hoping I’d stain it or rip it somehow so he could send me to the stocks.”
Merlin changed and if Arthur was disappointed that Merlin delivered his dinner tray while wearing his own better fitting but threadbare tunic, he knew better than to let it show.
♦️
“Give me that,” Arthur demanded, wrestling Merlin’s neckerchief from around his neck.
“Oi! Hold on!”
Arthur turned Merlin in a circle, unwinding the scarf as he went. His eyes ran over every inch of Merlin, assessing for injuries. When he found no blossoming blood stains, his heart began to beat again. The traitorous thing was becoming Arthur’s daily annoyance. It skipped beats around Merlin or thudded uncomfortably in his throat whenever Merlin gave him that wide cocky grin that made his whole face light up.
“You’d let your King bleed to death?”
Arthur had a deep scratch on his forearm. The bleeding could have been staunched with a few moments of pressure but Merlin indulged him. He took his neckerchief from Arthur’s hand and tied it firmly around the King’s mortal wound.
Merlin never gets his neckerchief back. He found it a few weeks after the incident tucked into one of Arthur’s desk drawers. Since he’s snooping for some sort of magical poultice that would explain why Arthur had started being pleasant—he shared his food with Merlin—Merlin says nothing.
♦️
Winter came early that year. An unseasonably cold day didn’t stop Arthur from forcing Merlin out of the castle to go hunting. Arthur didn’t pack a crossbow so Merlin wasn’t exactly sure he intended to hunt but since the woodland creatures of Camelot would be safer in the crossbow’s absence and Merlin wasn’t blamed for the oversight, he doesn’t mention it.
The snow started to fall about midday. The beauty of it mesmerized them until Merlin shivered in his saddle. If they had been hunting, all of the game would've run from the sound of Merlin’s teeth chattering.
“Can you stop that?” Arthur snapped.
“I’m frozen,” Merlin complained. “It’s snowing if you hadn’t noticed.”
“My eyes do work, Merlin. But thank you for pointing out the obvious.
They’re at least another couple of miles from Camelot and Merlin’s chattering teeth set Arthur’s nerves on edge. Finally he just snapped.
“Here!”
Arthur thrusted his cloak at Merlin. Merlin looked between Arthur and the cloak trying to figure out if Arthur had gone insane, was playing a cruel prank or hypothermia had already started to set in.
“Good lord, Merlin. Put on the damn cloak.”
Merlin took it and draped it over his shoulders. It still held Arthur’s warmth and smell. Merlin’s grateful but being warm doesn’t stop the cold worry that unfurled in his chest as he watched over Arthur. The first shiver and Merlin unclasped the red cloak.
“Here.” Merlin held the cloak out toward Arthur.
“I’m fine, Merlin.”
But Merlin could hear the King’s jaw quivering as he tried to stop his teeth from chattering. Merlin pulled hard on the reins of his horse, pulling her to a complete stop.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re cold and I won’t ride a foot farther until you take back your cloak.”
Arthur glared. He straightened his back and used his most regal and commanding of faces, but Merlin merely raised an eyebrow, unwilling to cede.
“Fine!” Arthur snatched the cloak back. “But the moment you start chattering your teeth again you’re taking it back.”
They rode back to Camelot trading the cloak between them.
♦️
Arthur wasn’t sure what's going on but something was. On Monday, Gwaine was ill, which he didn’t consider unusual because Gwaine’s hangovers were legendary. The oddity was Gwaine being neither in his room nor the tavern nursing his hangover.
On Tuesday, Leon couldn’t train due to a sprained ankle. He returned to training the next day. The next day, Elyan was sidelined by stomach trouble. Thursday Percival turned up absent. Friday Lancelot.
Arthur snuck away from practice on Friday to figure out why. The sound of voices pulled him toward the armory.
"Widen your legs," Lancelot instructed.
"I am," Merlin whined.
"It's about balance."
"This is torture. Just get it over with."
There were grunts and pained sounds. Arthur couldn’t be sure what was happening but he didn’t like it. He shoved the armory door open.
Merlin, dressed in armor that Arthur'd outgrow, sparred with Lancelot. They both held maces though Merlin's hung limply at his side while he rubbed a sore spot on his shoulder where Lancelot’d just hit him. Both men turned quickly when Arthur entered.
"What are you two doing?"
"Sparring,” Merlin answered as though it were the the most obvious thing in the world.
Which when looking at the scene, it was.
"Why?“
Merlin huffed. "It was meant to be a surprise."
And three weeks later when Merlin managed to disarm a bandit and wield his sword, Arthur was quite surprised.
♦️
Merlin often refused to listen to reason or logic. When it came to Arthur he acted, often rashly, and Arthur found it to be his duty to act as the voice of reason.
He tried insulting Merlin and ordering him to cooperate, but more often than not, Arthur gave in. Which was why Merlin had become accustomed to getting his way.
“No.” Arthur told him one morning as spring melted away the winter’s snow.
Merlin tightened the strap on Arthur’s breastplate tighter than absolutely necessary. “Yes.”
“No, Merlin. I’m serious.”
“As am I.”
The two glared at one another. It wouldn’t have been as big of a deal, if they hadn’t been arguing in the armory surrounded by most of the knights. Or if a bewitched flock of flying beasts hadn’t started to attack the outlying villages.
“You aren’t a knight, Merlin,” Arthur hissed.
Merlin yanked Arthur’s gauntlet up his arm. He gave a look, a very distinctive look, reminding the King that he hadn’t forgotten that he wasn’t a Knight, nor did it matter, ever and oh by the way, you, your majesty are a giant clotpole whose opinion means less than a toad. Arthur got the message as clearly as if Merlin had spoken the words aloud.
The King threw his head back and groaned in defeat.
“Fine, Merlin, if you’re so keen to die then by all means come along.”
Merlin smiled triumphantly.
“But-“ Arthur began in his cruelest tone, “if you’re coming, then you are wearing armor.”
“I don’t have armor.”
Arthur walked over to where the bundle of his old armor had been stacked. It would have been left to rust except the squires are ordered to polish it whenever they start to act up. No one, but Merlin had worn it since Arthur had outgrown it. He could remember every dent and ding that he’d ever gotten in that armor and it had served him well.
Thankfully, Merlin had retained the lithe limber frame of an untrained knight well into his adulthood. Merlin shifted his weight awkwardly while Arthur reversed their roles and put him in it.
♦️
Armor protected a body from a great many things but falling from the clutches of an enormous bird as the beast itself weakened from its wounds was not one of them. Arthur cursed and without thought took off to where Merlin’s body had landed.
His screams pierced the ears of every man except himself. The knights closed ranks, dispatching the last of the winged beasts before they could cause any more harm.
Merlin laid limp upon the ground. Arthur yanked the helmet from his head, all the while muttering—praying—that Merlin hadn’t died. He slapped him gently.
“Wake up. For fucks sake, Merlin, wake up.”
He was breathing. Arthur had to remind himself of that numerous times because otherwise—he couldn’t think of the alternative, because it made his heart stop and pulled all the breath from his lungs.
“You cannot die,” Arthur whispered. “I forbid it, not that you care at all about things I order you to do, but you cannot die, Merlin.”
Blue eyes fluttered open and met blue. Arthur sagged in relief. Merlin tried to push himself into a sitting position. Before he could, Arthur had him in his arms.
“Ow.”
Arthur crushed him against his chest. He buried his face in the crook of Merlin’s neck and for a moment just breathed because for some reason it felt like no matter how many breaths he took he couldn’t get enough air.
“I’m alright,” Merlin mumbled, still trying to catch his own breath after getting it knocked out of him.
But the words had no effect. Arthur merely clutched at Merlin tighter. His breaths came rapid and shallow.
“Arthur, I’m alright.”
Merlin tried to pull away but Arthur held on tighter. His breaths came ragged and quick. The first sob was muffled by Merlin’s body.
“I don’t care if you can wield a sword or have magic, Merlin, you aren’t a knight because I can’t handle it,” Arthur admitted between labored breaths.
“Alright,” Merlin whispered, shifting beneath Arthur so he could sit up to run a hand through Arthur’s hair.
Merlin never gave back the armor. He wore it from time to time when Arthur became unbearably cocky or dangerously flippant with his own life. One night he even wore it to a ball and when men and women alike flirted and danced with him he awoke the next morning as Arthur’s consort and Camelot’s court sorcerer.
♦️
