He felt a blush form in his already anger-flushed face: as the cat hadn't been wearing clothes, neither was Merlin.
"You! The cat! You were the cat!! you were...you're there! Arthur splutter frantically pointintg between the cat still sprawled on the bed, and Merlin, very naked, sprawled across a chair, one eyebrow raised and smirk spread across his face. Arthur choked a scream of frustration.
"Will you take this seriously! I am mad at you. You didn't trust me! you don't get out of this by being....being...handsome and...naked!" he spluttered, resvolve not cracking.
"It's not you I don't trust it's Rachel and her dad! They poisoned Gwaine because they thought he was you!"
"No, that can't be true" Arthur shook his head "King Alfred would neverdo that...this is too important and....and....will you put some clothes on!" Arthur snapped and Merlin stood angrily and yanked his trousers on over his slim legs.
"I did what I had to to protect you and to look after you! Do you WANT Rachel to be your soulmate?!" He yellded glaring at the blonde man.
"No! of course not! How you could you say that?!" Arthur screamed back, gesticulating.
"How could I!! How could you?! 'Ooh Rachel look at this plant, ooh Rachel pay attention to me!'"
"I was just trying to be nice!" shouted Arthur, with his voice, cracking through the air like a whip.
"You were flirting!!" acused Merlin, mouth and eyes matched in distaste and hurt.
"I-" They were interrupted by a soft knoct at the chamber door. Merlin went to answer it, and on the other side stood Rachel, dressed in a long lilac gown. He scowled.
"Oh Arthur!! Your SOULMATE is here!!" He yelled and walked off leaving the door open. Rachel stepped intot he room gently.
"I hope I'm not disturbing..." she said and trailed off looking nervouse and blushing at Merlin's bare chet. Arthur rolled his eyes at Merlin who was slumped ina chair scowly rudely at the floor.
"Of course not. Whats up my lady?" Arthur asked with a stiff smile.
"I...came to say sorry" Rache looked down and rubbed at her arm nervously. Merlin was intrigued, and Arthur frowned gently.
"For what?" he asked. Rachel pulled up her sleave and turned her arm so he could hee where her soulmark was. But there was nothing there.
"For lying..." She said quitely. Arthur was shocked.
"I knew it!" Merlin yelleed standing up.
"How could you?!" Arthur asked
"M-my dad made me, I d-don't have a soulmate so he thought it it would be you then we'd get m-married and he could rulle Camlot...but he didn't know you were already b-bonded!" Rachel stammered, her cheeks were bright red.
"Why are oyu telling us? Don't you want the los prince to be your soulmate?" Merlin said sacrastically, rolling his eyes.
"No! It's not right and I didn't wantt o lie anymore" She insisted snivlling, tear welling in her eyes as she looked at Merlin willing him to understand - she had no chouce.
"Now what? Your dad will never let us use his armies now!" Arthur sighed and rubbed hi had, ruffling his hair. Rachel looked t him helplessly, while Merlin watched with a scowl on his faace.
"I heard him talking he's going to try and give you a love potion agin" Rachel announced nervously.
"I knew it!" Merlin threw his hands up and turned away. He slumped in hi chair again.
"I'm sorry!" Rachel shouted, tears overflowing from her eyes down her face.
"Rachel, you should go. Thanks for telling us." Arthur said gently and guided her out.
"O-ok...I'm sorry" With the final apology she left Merlin and Arthur's bedroom with tears down her face.
The silence reigned with an iron fist between the soulmates. Merlin looked at Arthur, his blue eyes like pools of sadness you could drown in.
"I told you so." He said eventually.
"Yes. You did." Arthur responded. He sounded miserable and repenantice. "I should have listened to you" he stepped forward and held onto Merlin's hand tightly, pulling him in and speaking in a soft voice. "I don't know what I'm doing, Mlerin-" he started.
"All the more reason to listen to me!" Merlin intertupted with a blaize of irritation.
"I know....I know." Said Arthur in a plaquating voice, his hands both up in calmly surrender. "I....-" he started and then trailed off before starting again while staring deeply and earnestly into Merlin's cerulean spheres.
"I need these people to support me. I am an unknown prince trying to overthrow an entire kingdom Merlin. I need allies. I can't just go around and accuse them of....of....ear poisoning me! It's just not the done thing!" he said.
"But I am wiser than I look!" Merlin said, vexedly. Arthur cocked an eyebrow. "....And act." Merlin finished, put off a little, smiling despite himself. The smile meant Athur knew his mate would forgive him. Eventually. He smiled a bit too.
"I knoe, and I'm sorry. I'll remember that in the future. We're a team; you and I. Against the world" he linked their hands together and brought Merlins hand to his lips, kissing it gentle and reverendly.
"I love you, you know." He said, callucously.
Merlin smiled, a ray of sunshine through rainclouds.
"I love you too." Merlin said.
"And I'm sorry." Arthur finished.
Merlin sighed as deeply as the cavernous ocean seas, blue like his twinkling eyes.
"It's okay I forgive you" he said, staring at his delicates hands fidgetting in his lap, as pale as the porcelain of dolls, and Arthur looke at him with hopeful eyes.
"You do?" He catechized and Merlin looked up, catching his eyes, and Arthur was struck by the deep an serious look in the brunttes eyes.
"Of course. I feel like it's my destiny to...protect you. I have to keep you safe." Merlin expanded, looking at Arthur.
"Merlin..." arthur said softly with the rush of effection that he felt hearing his soulmate speak like that. It took the air from his sails and made his chest ache with something wondeful.
"Whatever happens, it's our destiny to be together" Arthur answered, standing up and winding his tanned fingers around the bones that jutted out of Merlin's hips.
Suddenly Merlin let out a huge yawn.
"Boring you am I?" joked Arhtur's sarcastic eyebrow.
"Being a cat really takes it out of you!" protisted Merlin. "Look at him" he continued, gesturing at the cat that was still curled and slumbering on the pair's bed.
"It's nothing to do with being a cat. It's because you're using your magic when you know it's been destabled." Griped Arthur. Merlin looked contright.
"I'm sorry, but, please, baby, let's not fight anymoer... I love you, you love me, we both protect each other like idiots, let's go to bed." Merlin answered. Arthur grinned saliciously.
"Not like that! To sleep!" Merlin protested with a smile, detangling himself from the prince and walking to the bed to sleep. At the movement the cat stretched spitefully from his curl until he was sprawled across the sheets. Merlin raised an eyebrow.
"You might need to cuddle close," he said: innocently. Arthur rolled his eyes and smiled as he approached.
"I think I can live with that." He muttered as he too climbed into the bed and then they both went to sleep.
----
As Arthur slumbered beside him, Merlin sat up in bed, alive to eery creak of wood, every scuff of stone, defensive and protective over Arthur like a guardian angel, enfurling him in sheilding golden wings. Nothing would reach him tonight; suspecting King Alfred was one thing, but to know his betrayal made him too nervous to relax into sleep.
in the dark surrounding them like a velveteen cloak it was eas to look on Arthur's face, lined in moonlight; gilded with silver, and feel deep in his bones the truth of their bond, th e connection that tethered them together through life and deathan dbeyond, to almost ee the ties that bind them shimmering in the dark, coiled around Arthur's salient form. Merlin sighed, softly, and gently brushed the tips of his fingers along the other man's cheekbones and felt the warmth of him; almost sun-warmt, radiating from him like the glowing light of his soul.
In the half-shadowed darkness Arthur's eyes flickered open, eyelashes softly brushing his cheekbone as his eyes met Merlin's, clear blue shards of crystals shining in the dark.
"I didn't meant ow ake you" Merlin whispered quitely.
"You didn't" Arthur replied in his sleep-hewn voice. A smell crinkle appear between his brows "have you slept?" Merlin smiled slightly and shook his head.
"No. It's okay, I'm not tired. You go back to sleep" Merlin went to move his hand away from Arthur's face but the movement was arrested as Arthur's hand came up to grasp his, twinging their fingers together. Arthur gazed at him, his eyes so intense and searching it made a blush rise in his face but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the irises like the night sky outside, navy blue and glittering with stars.
"I love you" Arthur murmered, the honesty in his face almost painful to look upon, Merlin almost felt like his heart was breaking with love. He breathed in a shuddering breath so struck by feeling.
"And I you. No matter what" Arthur looked away then his eyes cast down and long shadows covering his eyes in the dark. Merlin squeezed his hand.
"I mean it Arthur." he said earnestly, trying to embue in his voice all the passion he felt, all the love, the feeling ove never being close enough, that contact was never enough.
"What if I'm not enough" His voice cracked, a quiet break in the darkness, a sound like shattered glass being stepped on or the first sound of a tree about to collapse. The weight of the world weighed hevily on him, in a day he had transformed from being a simple blacksmith, working with his hands in fire and flame and earning his place, to people a lost son; his fathers misery haunting him and hurting people he loved, threatening his love and it was his responsibililty, his duty to fix this and prevent the end of the magical wordl. Merlin reched up and craddled Arthur jaw in his hand, brushing his cheek with his thumb and angling his face.
"Arthur look at me. Blacksmith or prince or even king, it means aught to me. You're mine, my one. The end of my earth and the beggining of my life. You are Arthur." Arthur said nothing, but Merlin could read cleary, in his shining eyes, the reassurance he took from Merlin's love. Here, in the dark, it was easy to drop the protective sheild's they both wore like cloaks, genuflecting the the shadows hiding them from having to see their vunrabilities.
"Go to sleep. I love you." Merlin brushed his lover's hair with his hand, and stroked his head under he heard his brething level off in soft slumber. When the dawn broke, then Merlin would sleep. Untill then...he had a prince to defend.