doubt||merthur

chapter 8

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The darkest hour of the darkest night comes right before the dawn

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The blizzard obscures the sky, the tops of the trees barely peeking out. Arthur stares at it, and Merlin wonders what’s whirling through his head. He could be plotting new ways to sneak into the neighbouring kingdoms to scout for news, or thinking tangled thoughts about his father, or maybe it’s the nights they’ve shared, falling through his thoughts. Merlin thinks of little else, these days, but the desperate press of Arthur’s body into his, and clawing cold-reddened fingers through his hair. With anyone else he’d be embarrassed about his own neediness, but it’s always reflected in Arthur’s eyes. Arthur doesn’t know the source of his guilt and his sorrow – maybe thinks it’s some echo of his own – but he doesn’t need to know where it comes from to want to squash it anyway he can. Merlin edges closer, heat seeping into his fingers. Arthur glances at him before his gaze goes back to the snow.

‘How can something so hectic be so quiet?’ he says.

‘Dunno. Here.’ Merlin hands Arthur one of the tankards. He lied to the kitchen maids – the prince requested some mulled wine – no, I’ll take it, you’ve enough to do – and Arthur looks down at the bob of the spices in liquid red. ‘It’ll stave off the cold a bit.’

Arthur lifts his tankard, and raises it at the fir trees just poking through in the distance.

‘What are you – ’

‘Being seasonal. Didn’t you say something about a bonfire and toasting the trees?’

‘You do that with cider, not wine. Otherwise it’s just silly.’

Arthur smiles, sips his drink. He coughs as he swallows, his eyes widening in surprise.

‘Watch out for the brandy,’ Merlin says, and sips his own. Arthur meets his eye, briefly exactly who he used to be before Morgana disappeared, wry and amused. Merlin smiles at him, the soft scent of stewed spices tickling at his nostrils. Camelot is still fractured and far too quiet, but he thinks they’ve closed the cracks in each other, just a little.

‘Will you stay?’ Arthur says. Merlin nods, unsure why Arthur keeps asking when yes is written over every inch of him. ‘You do know, don’t you, Merlin, that this – ’ Arthur hesitates, his fingers closing around the fat, curved belly of his tankard. ‘It can never be more than what it already is.’

‘Contrary to the way it appears sometimes, I’m not an idiot, and I haven’t forgotten who you are.’

Arthur smiles, and Merlin fancies he sees sadness in it. Another of those moments where they look exactly the same, perhaps. Duty and destiny pay scant regard to feelings, and they both know it. Merlin leans his shoulder against Arthur’s. He watches a clump of snow fall from the top of the window and race to its death on the ledge.

‘You know what I love about snow?’ Merlin says, and feels rather than sees Arthur shake his head. ‘It melts. It blows in – changes the world until you can’t remember what things looked like without it – and then it’s gone again, like it was never there. Maybe that’s why you can’t hear it. It’s practising, like even when it’s falling, it knows it won’t exist for very long.’

‘That’s either very reassuring, or desperately bleak.’

‘S’both. Truth always is, isn’t it?’

‘So now you’re a philosopher and a poet as well as a hapless servant?’

‘Well,’ Merlin says, ‘looking after you was never going to occupy all of my time.’

Arthur sighs, meets his eye askance. Merlin laughs ripples into his mulled wine, until Arthur kisses him. He tastes deep and sweet and spiced, and his fingers are warm under Merlin’s clothes.

Merlin closes his eyes and savours it. When they melt like snow, this will always have existed, and in its wake they’ll be exactly what they always were: more than and less than friends at the same time. At once it’s reassuring and desperately bleak. That’s how he knows it’s the truth.