Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Is that a cow?" said Arthur.

Merlin, crouched gracelessly on the ground, slowly turned, eyebrow arched in place, then snapped his gaze back to the goat whose tits he'd been pulling. Arthur was stretching against the morning sun. Shirtless. His waistband dipping alarmingly as he attempted to fix a particularly nasty knot in his spine.

"This, Oh Distinguished One, is what they call a camel," Merlin provided, swallowing a lump in his throat.

It'd been approximately, just about, almost precisely, though not perfectly, as one must always leave room for human error, not that he cared enough to keep track, or purposely not to, oh for god's sake, he was just good at counting. Ahem, anyways, it'd been 3 days, 9 hours and 52 minutes since Merlin banished himself from Camelot in an extremely confusing and self contradictory fashion, and less than one since Arthur showed up at his doorstep in the dead of night.

Merlin, standing in the other side of the room, took one look at his friend, red-eyed and dejected, exclaimed a select few self-explanatory, well researched words, and rushed to comfort him. But Hunith had melted at the sight of all that snow and showed no hesitation in pulling the young King into a mother's embrace. They stood like that for a while, Arthur sobbing silently into her shoulder, and Hunith rubbing his back to warm him up, body and heart.

When the room had started loosing heat, Merlin broke up the embrace, shoved Arthur, not unkindly, into the rough direction of the hearth, and firmly latched the door shut.

"I'm sorry to inconvenience-" Arthur began then, not quite meeting Merlin's eyes but was promptly shut up by a glare from Hunith.

"You were right. Agravaine-" he tried again.

"Do you want me to say I told you so?" Merlin tilted his chin down, eyes incredulous. Arthur had gritted his teeth and said nothing more as Merlin pushed a chair under him and served him stew.

Later, when Hunith had retreated to her room after Arthur had insisted to take the floor, even shooting down Merlin's rare offer of his single cot, Merlin spread out next to Arthur, close enough to touch.

"Bedbugs," Merlin offered, shrugging comically.

Arthur had pretended to be interested in the roof for as long as he could stand, suppressing a smile all the while, and turned to Merlin with glassy eyes, only to find him already looking his way, all open and sincere in the moonlight.

Arthur pressed closer, if only for a moment, kissing the sweet dampness of his hair and pretending to be nonchalant about it, while passion threatened to knock his barriers down and place apologies in his mouth.

Merlin could tell by the set of his jaws.

"I threw him in the dungeons less than a hour after your departure. They found letters, love letters, in my uncle's quarters, addressed to my sister," he said.

"Do you know where she is?" Merlin asked, wondering why Arthur lay in his mother's house while Camelot burned.

"I don't think I have it in me to face her," he confessed.

"I don't think she has it in her to kill you." Merlin smiled. "Absolute girls, you Pendragons are."

"Says the barbaric ruffian." Arthur chuckled, his exhale fanning over Merlin's brow.

Merlin bit his lip. He had left Arthur in shock and tears. He'd been so impossibly crushed at Arthur speaking of his banishment so freely, that he'd removed himself willingly.

" 'm not angry," Arthur clarified, reading his mind.

Just hurt, his eyes said.

Just hurt, Merlin heard.

"I know what a camel looks like, Merlin." Arthur rolled his eyes.

"Do you now?" Merlin deadpanned.

"Yes, I've seen pictures." Arthur dismissed the topic, feeling embarrassed, pink dusting his cheeks.

"Arthur, why are you here?", Merlin set down the milk can and stooped to wash his hands.

Arthur froze, just for a moment, but Merlin caught the tension in his muscles from the corner of his eye.

"I.. vacation!" The man exclaimed, stretching his arms out on either side of him and grinning.

Merlin looked down at the chickens trying to eat Arthur's boots. Arthur tried to subtly kick them off.

"Vacation. In a cow-shed." Merlin clarified, very slowly.

"Aha! So it is a cow." Arthur pointed victoriously at the goat, who looked at Merlin and blinked, almost disbelievingly, as if to say, This is the guy you've been hammering on about for 2 days??

Merlin shrugged helplessly at it.

"Moo..." said the goat.

Contrary to popular opinion, Merlin is not entirely daft. He knew why Arthur was there. Because Arthur cannot sleep without Merlin at arm's length whenever they have to spend the night in the woods, and Arthur refuses to part with Merlin's blue coat, and Arthur always makes sure Ealdor never starved in winter- it's technically not even in his kingdom! Arthur was there because he was planning some sort of decade-long, grand and elaborate heist to steal Hunith's cow/goat.

On the evening of the second day Arthur requested a massage. Hunith was out visiting some neighbours so Arthur felt justified in strutting about the place bare-chested, again, but this time draping nothing but a towel, Merlin's towel, around his waist, loudly complaining about the muscle he'd pulled in his thigh when trying to catch a particularly unruly cock(the clucking kind). Before Merlin knew it, the door to his bedroom was thrown open and Arthur had all but thrown himself on the bed and demanded relief(the medical kind).

With hot, clammy hands Merlin pressed into the offending tissue, heated some oil over a candle and burned the heels of his palms into firm muscle. And to his horror and delight, Arthur responded, burying his nose further into a pillow that Merlin knew for a fact smelled like him, and biting down on it. Hard.

With all the finesse of a physician, Merlin continued kneading the sensitive skin, and when he found the pulled muscle and put such gentle yet precise pressure on it, well, let's just say now Merlin had a good idea of what Arthur sounded like in bed, and how he made those sounds.

Don't get him wrong, this wasn't Merlin's first rodeo with Arthur's body, wait that sounds wrong, or does it sound wrong because he desperately wishes it to? Merlin had spent hours massaging his friend's physique, Arthur would never trust another to come in such close contact with him in such compromising positions.

But now, kneeling between Arthur's spread knees, in the house Merlin grew up in, in the bed he'd learnt how to wank in for god's sake, all that oil glistening in the light of a dying sun- and Arthur wasn't helping- He never laid himself so ardently, never responded to his touch so readily, never arched his spine so indulgently, never whined so shamelessly, never let himself be man-handled so sinfully.

Like now, when Merlin decided he had had enough, and went to ease Arthur into lying on his back, if only to see his face. To both their surprise, Arthur grunted out a close mouthed moan at that. Merlin almost shivered, and Arthur's eyes fell on him, sleepy and dazed, half-lidded and breathless in their own right.

'Right,' said Merlin, trying not to choke on his own spit. Arthur grinned at him, lazy and in control. Merlin dug his fingers into Arthur's inner thigh, toying somewhere between love and abuse.

Arthur's grin faded quickly at that, and Merlin chuckled. Then he shifted to sit on top of Arthur, dangling his ass above Arthur Pendragon's raging hard on, grabbed both his wrists and leaned forward to pin them over his head.

He tilted his mouth closer to Arthur's ear, lips just touching the gooseflesh there, and fell in love with the way Arthur Pendragon shivered with his whole body.

"Arthur?" He whispered.

"Hmm?" Said the King.

"I know what you're trying to do." Every word felt like dangling his toes in shark infested waters.

"And that is??" Arthur smirked, but his eyes had gone wide, pupils dilated like the sky before a storm.

"You're trying to get me to come back with you. And as fuckable as you do look now, you're going to have to try harder." He smiled.

Arthur gasped, hips involuntarily jerking into sanctuary, and whimpering as his cock lapped at the heat of Merlin's sex, palpable even through the set of sturdy trousers he was wearing. Merlin ground his hips down despite his best efforts. Arthur smelled like oil and soap and the woods.

"Get. Out. Before I give in." Merlin stuttered into his ear, loosening his grip, lifting himself after a moment of hesitation.

But Arthur made no move to leave. He held Merlin's gaze as he moved his hand to his bulging cock, palming himself through the towel. Merlin's towel.

When Arthur dug his hand between the folds and took himself in hand and started whispering obscenities to himself, the muscles at the back of his hand moving in slow, teasing, rewarding strokes, Merlin lost it and ripped the towel off.

"Fuck", he cursed.

"Is that a promise?", smirked Arthur and Merlin glared at him.

Then he sucked Arthur Pendragon's jerking cock with his wet, hot mouth, and asked him if this was what heaven tasted like.

On the third dawn, Arthur managed to finally get his head out of his ass and stopped deflecting.

"I'm sorry. For making you feel like you didn't belong. Like you didn't matter to me. For doubting you and taking your counsel for granted," He breathed, brooding into the sunrise.

Merlin looked at the river before them, closed his eyes to listen to the strings of life thrumming around them, felt the threads of destiny blur into waves of eternity.

"And?", he nudged Arthur, who looked at him exasperatedly, as if asking him- Really, Merlin? You're going to make me say it?

"And I'm sorry for considering the marriage proposals Agravaine threw at me," Arthur sighed, smiling though he tried very hard not to.

"Good." Merlin deadpanned.

"So, will you come home?" asked Arthur, while fixing the fence, though nobody had asked it of him.

"Depends on how you'll react." Merlin sighed, looking the goat dead in the eyes.

"To what?" Arthur pressed, admiring his work and turning around to face Merlin.

"To this," said the goat, making Arthur jump, before promptly transforming itself into a very dishevelled and very hairy Gwaine.

Arthur looked at Gwaine and then at the patch of grass he'd been eating. Gwaine spit the grass out and stood up, very slowly.

"What is the meaning of this?" Arthur ground out.

"I couldn't let Merlin leave alone. I'm not heartless like you," accused Gwaine.

"Why a cow?! More conceringly, How a cow?!!" Arthur demanded, his voice rising a few octaves.

"Goat," Gwaine clarified. "Always wanted to be one."

Arthur looked to Merlin for help, a shred of sanity, anything, but the rascal only pointed at himself and said, earnestly, "Warlock."

Arthur stared at him for an excruciatingly long time. Gwaine bit back every urge to say something very stupid, like "baaaa".

"Are you any good?" Arthur finally asked.

"Extremely good," smirked Merlin.

"Good. Because when we get back home, I will personally make sure that you are given thrice the number of duties a normal servant would file abuse for," promised Arthur.

"There are better ways to abuse me," suggested a pale Merlin. Gwaine snorted. Arthur considered it. Then decided that yeah, that did sound infinitely better.

When his eyes met Merlin's again, he forgot his anger, and wondered if he had even been angry in the first place, because a concealed fear had vanished from Merlin's eyes much the same way.

The King couldn't help but smile and Merlin smiled back at him, and really that was all it took for Merlin to be pulled into a long, sweet kiss.

"Now that I know you're not mad.." Merlin whispered against him, when they'd finally broken apart.

"Yeah?" Asked Arthur, and regretted it immediately. And really, he should've see this coming, because where there had been mere chickens moments ago, stood the grand and august knights of Camelot.

"Sire," nodded Leon, then promptly jumped onto the fence and sat there, beet red.

By the time he had got down, the others were smart enough to make a run for it, but the entire ordeal was dizzyingly confounding, because they'd all found themselves running in circles around the yard.

"Good God." Arthur shuddered. What had become of his best knights?

He snapped his gaze to Merlin, who shrugged a very aggravating shrug. Then, fearing for his friend's safety, Gwaine picked him up and ran through the maze of confused knights, narrowly avoiding crashing into Percival, who was making very aggrieved noises.

"This is what you get for listening to Gwaine," Arthur informed him as he passed, then fastened his pace to catch up with Merlin and Gwaine.

"MERLINNN." The mountains echoed.