[fic] The Ivy Crown, 7b/9

[da_ya_ri]

Control, Merlin had learned the hard way since they'd entered the forest, was nothing more than a luxury.

It came and went in waves, as unpredictable as the shifting of the stars overhead, and it seemed like the harder Merlin tried to hold on to it, the more quickly it slipped out of his grasp. There wasn't anything he could do to keep himself from fraying at the edges, but what truly worried him was that he found it harder and harder to remember why he should even try.

Although he hated worrying the others, it helped to see them concerned for him. Sometimes, when he woke up and couldn't quite fathom why he shouldn't just roll over again and let himself fall back asleep to the gentle hum of the earth beneath him, a troubled, thoughtful glance from Lancelot was enough to rouse him after all. Putting on a brave front for them sapped his energy, but in a way, it also helped Merlin focus.

He'd lost his sense of time and space long ago, and if anyone had asked him how long they'd been in the forest, he wouldn't have been able to answer. It felt like forever, like a long string of days of trying and failing to steel himself and build up some sort of defense against the permeating allure of the crackling energy around him. By now, Merlin felt like he knew the forest's magic like the back of his hand, but its curious familiarity wasn't helping. It just made it even harder to resist.

The waterskins slapped against his thigh in time with his unsteady gait, the sound helping him focus on the fact that Leon had asked him to refill them at a nearby stream. What little light trickled down through the leaves was thin and weak, and heavy, rain-laden clouds chased each other towards the horizon, the sharp breeze whipping Merlin's hair around his head. He'd barely slept the night before, kept awake by faraway sounds of thunder, mingling with the low, incessant thrum of the forest's heart beneath his bedroll.

In a way, it reminded him of standing in a river, water patiently eroding away the sand beneath his feet—except this was a river he couldn't step out of. Quick, eager little currents carried away bits and pieces of his control, and he didn't want to think of what would happen when there was nothing left.

The sky rumbled above him just when Merlin reached the stream, the distant thunder mingling with the splash and gurgle of water. Gravel dug painfully through his trousers as he fell to his knees and leaned forward, breathing shallowly, trying not to draw the air's crackling tension too deeply into his lungs. The coldness of the stream enclosed his hand like a fist when he clumsily held the first waterskin down, feeling the leather slowly fill with the icy weight of water.

Merlin shuddered in time with the next roll of thunder, as though it had reverberated through his bones. The very air seemed poised and waiting, longing to be torn apart and blown about by the impending rainstorm, like the forest had gotten quite sick of the heat right along with its travelers. Briefly, Merlin hoped that Leon and Gwaine wouldn't get caught in the downpour, knowing that they had left their camp earlier to hunt—but then again, he knew that the forest wouldn't let any harm come to them.

It took all of his strength to heave the filled waterskin out of the stream again, and he barely managed to cap it before his trembling hands went slack and numb, like their sinews had been cut by an invisible force. His skin felt stiff and too tight over the tremble in his muscles, and a mindless, primal part of his mind wanted to scratch it off, longed for nothing more than to break free of his mortal body just like the Green Knight had done centuries ago, and become one with the storm, soar up into the flash of lightning that briefly lit the glade.

Only when the first drop of rain hit his forehead did Merlin realize that he'd lain down. He felt weak, last night's lack of sleep catching up with him, and he couldn't think of a good reason to get up again, and so he didn't. He curled up on his side and turned his face into the slow drizzle that quickly became a harsh downpour, the rain bathing his aching head in cool, refreshing water.

There was no telling how long he lay there, only blinking when the raindrops began to collect in the corners of his eyes, and breathed. His focus dimmed and narrowed until all that mattered, all that existed was the slosh and dribble of water all around him, the wet grass beneath his back and the occasional faraway crash of thunder. There was a reason why he shouldn't fall asleep like this, but Merlin didn't remember it, too caught up in the almighty din around him, the relieved creaks of ancient bark as the trees stretched up into the wind. He could feel the roots greedily sucking up the welcome downpour, an inexorable, strangely relaxing sensation, and he drowsed there for a long time, feeling not unlike he was being drunk down as well.

But some of the sounds didn't fit in with the dripping of water and the gurgling of the stream behind him, and gradually, Merlin managed to tilt his head, turning his face out of the rain that blurred his vision. Little currents of water ran down his jaw, quick and cool as though they were eager to drip down his cheeks and soak the grass under him. He thought he heard a voice from far away, trying to cut through the haze in his mind while it was drowned out by the rain, and finally, Merlin blinked and looked up.

Arthur was bent over him, his face just as wet with rain as Merlin's, blond hair slicked down and sticking up at ridiculous angles where he must have ran his fingers through it in agitation. He looked pale, the intense blue of his eyes standing out in sharp contrast against his white cheeks, and his lips were moving, although it took Merlin a moment to realize that they were forming his name. He was calling Merlin's name, over and over, the sound reaching Merlin as if through a long tunnel, and with a great effort, Merlin managed to meet his gaze.

There was a moment of strange, weightless quietude as their eyes met, and then Arthur sighed, long and low, like he'd been holding his breath ever since he'd found Merlin there. His hands were hovering strangely, and Merlin thought that he must have wanted to touch him, shake him out of his drowsy state, but didn't quite dare to, for fear of making things worse. He wondered what Arthur had thought when he'd found Merlin like that, lying in the wet grass with no care for the rain that ran through his hair and collected in his eyes like tears.

Merlin searched for annoyance in Arthur's features, because surely the prince had only come looking for him because he'd been gone for so long and everyone else was already back at camp, taking shelter from the rain. But he found none, just a strange, short-lived relief, and the same helplessness that he'd seen in Arthur's eyes when Arthur had dropped his daggers in Merlin's lap the day before.

He looked like he had no idea what he was even doing here, kneeling in the forest next to his manservant's prone form, but at the same time there didn't seem to be a place where Arthur would rather have been just then. His gaze flickered down Merlin's body as though searching for injuries, and he brought up an errant hand, perhaps to grip his shoulder. But then Arthur's thoughts seemed to catch up with him, and he hesitated, dropping his hand again when his fingers just barely brushed Merlin's arm.

Still, Merlin felt like a bell being struck, the jarring impact of Arthur's touch reverberating through his very bones. A shudder gripped him, and his body uncoiled on its own accord, fighting to prop him up into a sitting position to chase the warmth he'd barely felt through his sodden sleeve. His head spun with the motion, but he steadied himself on his elbows and pushed up ruthlessly, rivulets of water running down his tunic as he sat up.

Arthur looked surprised and a little concerned, but contrary to what Merlin had hoped, he didn't reach out to push him back down. Merlin drew in a slow breath through his nose, trying to regain his balance and his bearings all at once. He felt pathetic for begging for every touch like this, although he almost couldn't remember why it should ever be wrong to crave it, to look at the red-golden burn of Arthur's presence and want to bury himself there.

"This has to stop," Arthur said, his voice shaking ever-so-slightly. He raked a hand through his hair when Merlin looked at him, as if to keep himself from reaching out again, or maybe just to wipe his dripping hair out of his eyes. "Merlin, this has to stop. You won't be able to hold out for much longer."

Merlin gave him a crooked smile, trying his best to look reassuring although he was still dizzy. The water had been soothing before, but all of a sudden his skin felt chafed by it, his mind rubbed raw by the too-loud dripping noise all around them. "Yeah, well," he croaked, surprised when his voice came out rough, and cleared his throat with some difficulty. "Tell that to the forest, then."

Arthur shook his head, droplets of water flying from his hair. "Is it the Green Knight who's doing this to you after all?" he asked harshly, like he hadn't heard Merlin's words. The look on his face worried Merlin the tiniest bit, because he knew this steely, unbending expression—he usually saw it just before Arthur did something noble and stupid and dangerous. "I'll find him and make him stop, I don't care about the stupid shine you've taken to him—"

"Arthur," Merlin ventured, tentatively, but Arthur cut him off with a harsh gesture, his eyes wide and wild and helplessly bright. He'd been so uncharacteristically patient with Merlin, waiting and watching and doing his best to give him space and help at the same time, just like the knights had done, but now it seemed like he'd reached the end of his tether.

"No!" he shouted, voice echoing strangely under the trees, and suddenly his hands were on Merlin again, dragging him up with no noticeable effort, as if Arthur couldn't stand to see Merlin slumped on the ground anymore, weighed down by dizziness and barely able to sit.

Just when Merlin's legs started to give out under him, he felt rough, wet bark dig into his back, and then he was stuck between the tree and Arthur's hands and the harsh, helpless look in his eyes. Days of pent-up frustration finally ran their course, and Arthur shook him once, and Merlin's head swam with the feeling of Arthur's knuckles pressed to his collarbones. "He is driving you mad, Merlin, and I won't stand for it! I can't stand by and do nothing—"

"Arthur," Merlin repeated, a little louder this time, secretly proud of himself for being able to speak at all. Arthur stilled suddenly, as though he'd realized just now that he had basically slammed Merlin up against a tree, albeit gently. Merlin saw his throat work as he swallowed, and his own hands had shot up and gripped Arthur's wrists before he could let go of his shirt.

"There is nothing to do," he said urgently, tightening his hold. His touch must have felt cold and clammy, but Merlin couldn't even think of letting go, not when he needed the contact to focus, because he couldn't reassure Arthur while his thoughts were skittering all over the place with nothing to ground them. "And it's not the Green Knight who's doing this. The forest must have been magical long before he even died here—it's so old, it's like its very own chasm of time—and now it's all bound up in the Green Knight, and the Green Knight is bound by Morgana, and—"

"Is she doing this, then?" Arthur demanded feverishly, his mind visibly latching on to the mention of Morgana's name. He hadn't been listening, hadn't heard the urgency in Merlin's tone, and Merlin realized that Arthur was just looking for something to fight.

Merlin exhaled slowly, and somehow, he was not surprised at all. It was just the way Arthur's mind worked—Merlin knew how much he abhorred helplessness, how easy it was for him to transform the feeling into anger and search for someone he could hunt down and hurt and make them pay. Misguided as it was, Merlin couldn't help the small shiver that went through him at the thought, at the mere notion that he was the reason why Arthur's gaze was skittering across his face as though searching for something to hold on to.

It made his stomach flutter and his blood heat up, because he knew the feeling, had experienced it countless times with enemy sorcerers and their conjured beasts out for Arthur's life. There'd never been any doubt in Merlin's mind that he would raze all of Albion to the ground without second thought if it meant keeping Arthur safe, and it was humbling to see the same conviction reflected in Arthur's too-bright eyes.

"No," Merlin replied at last, trying to gentle the word with a whisper, and almost reached up to touch Arthur's cheek when his face fell. He smiled, helplessly, not quite knowing why the sight sent a surge of unbearable tenderness through him, but he was beyond caring either way. He could only let the feeling run its course, watching Arthur's throat work as he swallowed

"Sometimes these things just happen," he said, softly now. Rain was running down his cheeks, his soaked shirt already clinging to his torso, but Merlin couldn't feel the cold, not with Arthur's hands still curled against his chest. "Sometimes magic just spins out of control like this."

"And you're spinning out of control right along with it," Arthur finished when Merlin fell silent. He sounded like he was just starting to recover from a blow to the head, his voice numb and oddly subdued.

Merlin sighed, wishing he could say something to erase that look from Arthur's features, but he also knew lying was out of the question. "Well, yes," he replied, quietly, because just now, with Arthur's gaze fixed on him, it was easy to remember why he didn't want it to be true.

"No," Arthur said, with desperate conviction, and just like that, the spark was back in his eyes, his posture straightening. He shook Merlin once as though to get his point across; rough bark dug into Merlin's back, but it didn't hurt, his wet shirt slicking the friction. "I won't allow it. This cannot happen, Merlin, because I forbid it."

For a moment, Merlin was preoccupied with choking down the inappropriate, hysterical laugh that bubbled up in his throat like bile. "It won't be that bad," he said when he'd gulped in a big breath and felt a little steadier, "and it might not even happen, maybe we'll find the Green Knight before—"

"Not good enough," Arthur interrupted darkly, as if he was berating Merlin on some chore or other that he hadn't completed to the prince's satisfaction. He was disconcertingly pale, and he was glaring at Merlin like he wanted to force him to take back his words through sheer force of will.

"You'll be fine," Merlin insisted, desperate to reassure him, and clutched Arthur's wrists a little more tightly to quell the trembling of his fingers—or maybe Arthur's hands were shaking too. "I don't think the Green Knight is going to try anything. The forest will keep you away from the patrols, you'll—"

He trailed off when he felt the prince's hands loosen their grip on his shirt, but he didn't back off, as though he wanted to keep Merlin right in this moment with him, pressed against the tree and surprisingly lucid for once. In the dim light, Arthur looked stricken and sick, not seeming to notice the way his hair dripped into his eyes with the unceasing rainfall.

"You're just going to— you won't even fight back?" Arthur asked at last, but while he sounded incredulous, even angry, Merlin could tell that his heart wasn't in it. If they hadn't stood so close together, he knew Arthur would have been pacing on the springy grass by now, gesturing expansively. "What the hell do you think we're supposed to do when you're—"

"There is nothing to fight here," Merlin interrupted, with a stubbornness that he hadn't felt in a long time, although a distant part of his mind suddenly wondered how the conversation had even ended up here, "and you'll be okay, if you just stick together and find the others."

Arthur just stared at him, not moving, and for a moment Merlin wasn't sure if he was even breathing. His head hurt, a dull, lifeless throb in his temples that couldn't be soothed by the coolness of the rain—he knew that there was something he wasn't getting, an integral part of the puzzle that was missing, but he couldn't figure out what it was. With how disconnected he felt from himself, he didn't quite understand why Arthur kept looking at him like that, like Merlin was tearing his world to pieces with just a few careless words.

"I've told you everything I know about the forest, and the knights will protect you," Merlin said, frustrated that none of his efforts to reassure Arthur were working. Now it was Merlin who wanted to shake him, but he couldn't find the strength to do more than tighten his grip around Arthur's wrists.

Rain was dripping into his eyes, running down his neck in tiny rivulets that slipped beneath the collar of his shirt like small fingers. Merlin let out a shaky sigh, not liking the sinking, vaguely desperate feeling that was settling into his stomach. "Look, it doesn't matter if it's just me—"

That finally got through to Arthur, although not quite like Merlin had expected it would. He only caught a glimpse of a flash of cornered fury in his eyes, and then Arthur was crowding him against the tree, his body a long line of heat against his front. Merlin gasped, his hands automatically going from Arthur's wrists to his shoulders to steady himself, his vision spinning with the suddenness of the contact.

"God, Merlin, don't you understand?" Arthur shouted, his voice echoing in the rain-filled quietude of the glade, his eyes helpless and wild and determined. "It cannot be you! It can never be you—," and with that, his hands went from grabbing Merlin's shirt to cupping his face, and Arthur kissed him.

It was clumsy and desperate, Arthur's lips were chapped and wet with rain, and he wasn't so much as cradling Merlin's face as he was holding him still, but Merlin still let out a shocked, helpless noise at the shiver of absolute heat that went through him. It felt like being burned awake, roused from dreamless sleep to the glorious rough feeling of Arthur's teeth catching on his bottom lip before his tongue plunged into his mouth—

There wasn't anything to keep Merlin from groaning, a deep-seated, mindless hunger pulling at him like a puppeteer's string. He clutched at Arthur's shoulders, buried his fingers in his hair in a desperate attempt to get him even closer, grateful that the tree was holding him up because his knees seemed to have dissolved.

Arthur gasped when Merlin licked into his mouth, a throaty, involuntary sound that sent shivers down Merlin's spine. His heart was pounding in a rhythm he could feel all the way down to his toes, and his breath hitched when Arthur pressed impossibly closer, their bodies aligned from chest to knee. Blood was rushing in his ears, and he mindlessly rocked himself forward into the solid bulk of Arthur's body, into the hard thigh that slipped effortlessly between his knees.

Merlin's weight pitched forward on its own accord, his balance lost to the slick, searing heat of Arthur's mouth, and they had already sunk to the ground together when Arthur finally pulled his mouth free. He pressed his forehead to Merlin's, panting out quick breaths into the damp air between them, although Merlin made a quiet sound of protest and tried to pull him back in. Merlin's lips felt swollen, like ripe, bruised fruit, and he wasn't at all surprised by how good it felt to let his own weight grind his hips down into Arthur's lap, against the unmistakable hardness there that mirrored his own erection.

The world spun suddenly, tilting on its axis as Arthur flipped them over, his breath still hot on Merlin's face when he came to rest on top of him, straddling Merlin's hips. He looked like he was trying to regain some measure of control, to think through the fog that had engulfed his mind, and Merlin pawed at him desperately. He tried to grab Arthur's shoulders, but his hands shook too much, his fingers clumsy and white with cold against the red of Arthur's tunic, darkened by rain.

"Arthur, Arthur, please," he choked out, because he felt like he would split in two, like he would be ground to dust by the tension that wound through his belly if Arthur were to try to calm him. He struggled to rock his hips and get some friction on his cock, rub himself off against Arthur's weight, and somehow he didn't even care that Arthur was staring down at him with heavy-lidded eyes, pupils blown wide with arousal as he watched Merlin's weak squirming.

He nearly sobbed when it didn't work, when he realized he was too weak to get any leverage under the prince's weight, but then Arthur's hands were on him again, not trying to settle him, but grasping and cupping and pulling at the laces of his breeches. Even the uneven, fleeting brush of his knuckles through the sodden fabric of Merlin's trousers was too much, and Merlin moaned with the overwhelming, hot joy that skittered through him. If his eyes hadn't had shut, he knew they would have been gold.

The ground was humming underneath him, vibrating ever-so-slightly, but for once, the voices of the forest fell on deaf ears. Merlin couldn't hear anything but Arthur's erratic breathing and his own, mingling with the sound of rain and a bitten-off gasp when Arthur roughly pulled his breeches down.

The damp air was cold on his overheated skin, but even that felt good in a way, and Merlin only wrenched his eyes open when nothing else happened. Arthur had paused for a long moment, was just looking down at Merlin's lap with color high on his cheeks and his mouth half open, like he was silently wondering how the hell that had happened. He didn't even seem to notice at first when Merlin started to fumble with his breeches, tugging weakly on the barrier of fabric until he gave up and just pressed the heel of his hand to the hot bulge in Arthur's trousers.

Arthur sucked in a quick breath at the contact, staring at Merlin with wide, stunned eyes, a slow flush creeping up from the neckline of his shirt. The rain had drenched his hair to glinting dark gold, and his lips looked too red in the dim light that trickled into their glade, as though he'd been biting them. Merlin just couldn't help squirming again, not while he was being stared at like that, and he made a helpless noise when his cock was pushed up against Arthur's trousers with the movement, the fabric cold and too rough.

But it seemed to rouse Arthur again, because his hands were a hasty blur of movement over his lap, laces nearly tearing with how hard he pulled at them. Then he suddenly bent forward, his weight blanketing Merlin's body and pushing him deeper into the grass, and Merlin sighed his approval when Arthur's erection dragged against his own, silky and hot and damp. Arthur's breathing was loud and fast in his ear when he pressed his lips to a strained tendon at the side of Merlin's neck, like he'd seen a drop of water there and wanted to taste it before it slipped away into the damp fabric.

Merlin groaned when Arthur experimentally rocked his hips, and let out a sound that would have embarrassed him in any other situation when a hand was suddenly between them, worming its way into Merlin's breeches and wrapping snugly around his cock. He felt like a spark struck from flint, like Arthur had set him ablaze with the rough, slow drag of his fingers, and he keened when Arthur's fingers found the swirl of precome at the slit.

Dimly, Merlin was aware of how hard he was shaking, of the little gasping breaths that were wrung from his throat every time Arthur licked that spot behind his ear. Raw, reckless energy coursed through his veins, pooling at the wildfire in his gut and subsiding into a tingle in his fingertips, and it was so overwhelmingly good that he felt he could cry. It had been so long since his magic hadn't been forced up to the surface by the magnetic pull of the forest. But now it had come to him willingly, coaxed to life by Arthur's callused fingers and his damp breaths into Merlin's neck, and he couldn't do anything but let it flare and fan out beneath his skin, like waves reclaiming a well-known shore.

"Please, please," he nearly sobbed, trying to grab onto some part of Arthur to hold him there, his shoulders, his arms, the long, tense bow of his back, irrationally afraid that Arthur would get up and leave him there, helpless and disheveled on the ground with his cock sticking out of his unfastened breeches. "Please— Arthur—"

"Shh," Arthur whispered in his ear, more harshly than he'd intended, if the tender travel of his free hand across Merlin's cheek was anything to go by. He pulled back for a moment to look at him, though, and Merlin nearly panicked because his eyes were golden, he knew, but he couldn't choke the magic back down, didn't even really want to—except maybe, just maybe for Arthur, because it was for him, because everything was for him, and Merlin didn't know why this shouldn't be his as well.

Arthur's gaze searched his face, barely even stopping at Merlin's eyes, like he was trying to find some sort of permission in the agonized pleasure that Merlin couldn't have wiped from his features if he'd tried. He swallowed, hard, because Arthur looked— tortured, somehow, as though hearing Merlin beg for his touch hurt him. "Yes, Merlin," he said, his voice rough and gravely and, for some reason, close to breaking. "Yes."

There were still doubts in his eyes, beneath the glazed, heated look of overwhelmed longing, and Merlin found himself reaching for him again, mindlessly, because he wanted to wipe them away. He wanted to settle Arthur close to him and never let go, to pull him to this heavy, blissed-out place with him, until he couldn't doubt, couldn't worry, couldn't do anything but breathe with him.

The thought evaporated in a surge of heat when Arthur kissed him again, pulling a long, low groan from Merlin. His eyes squeezed shut as Arthur's hip set up a steady rhythm of grinding down against him, and he couldn't even tell if it was precome or the rain getting them wet but it felt so good, so gloriously, overwhelmingly good. Merlin couldn't stop the sound that clawed its way out of his throat when Arthur's hand wrapped around both of them, calluses catching perfectly on Merlin's cock.

Heat was burning a path down his spine, zapping through his muscles in quick little bursts that he knew meant he was close, and he started to squirm, struggling to match Arthur's movements. He wanted to throw himself into the feeling, fling his very consciousness into being possessed so thoroughly, pinned beneath Arthur's weight and pulled into the cradle of his hips. Dimly, Merlin noticed that his hands had fisted in the back of Arthur's shirt, mindlessly trying to pull him even closer, or simply to find an anchor in the taut arch of his body.

He could feel himself start to come apart at the seams, and squeezed his eyes shut against the burn of magic in them although Arthur wasn't even looking anymore. He'd long since given up on stopping the choked-off, desperate sounds he was making, only focused on the tight, glorious heat that was gathering at the base of his spine. His very nerves hurt with pleasure, set on fire by the slick friction of Arthur's erection against his own and the tight, clumsy grip of his hand. There was no turning back now, no time to spare so much as a thought to what the hell they were even doing. Merlin could only hold on, cling to Arthur's shoulders, and hope that his magic wouldn't set the forest on fire.

Arthur was gasping into his ear, unraveling above him; his wet hair tickled Merlin's cheek when he pushed his forehead to Merlin's collarbone and stilled, except for a few quick, sharp jerks of his hips. He groaned, hand stuttering and cock pulsing as sticky heat spilled between them, and it was enough to send Merlin over the edge as well.

Light burst behind his closed eyelids when he came, his spine a long arch off the ground, and the way his fingernails dug into Arthur's back must have long since become painful. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't even make a sound as a wave of agonized ecstasy tore through him and left his mind completely blank. Bright sparks of energy were zapping in his veins, mingling with the muted, eternal glimmer of the forest's presence and pushing it back to the very edge of his consciousness. Although he was still clutching Arthur close, the muscles in his arms cramping, Merlin couldn't think of quelling the hot, liquid surge of magic that spread in him, and he let it run its course, a gasp finally tearing free from his throat with the shiver that gripped him.

Then a glowing darkness spread through his vision, and Merlin let himself fall, secure under the protective curve of Arthur's spine above him and the warm, rain-wet hand that was still cradling his cheek.

He didn't quite lose consciousness, but he kept his eyes closed, floating in a diffuse, dimly lit sea of sensation. He felt liquid and pliant, the tension in him unwound at last, after so many days had weakened his defenses against the forest's patient, unceasing assault of magic. The air seemed like something alive, coursing in and out of his chest with each breath he took, weighed down with the rain that still poured from the sky. He couldn't recall the last time he'd welcomed it so much, and gratefully let himself revel in the little sparks of sensation that reached his mind with each raindrop that trickled into his hair and soaked his shirt.

Arthur shifted above him, and Merlin thought fuzzily that he was suddenly rather cold without Arthur's weight on top of him. The hand on his cheek tightened and turned his face further into the rain, and Arthur whispered his name, quietly at first and then with more insistence. Every touch felt like ripples in a pond, its surface calm and quiet for the first time in what felt like forever.

Still, Merlin finally cranked his eyes open when Arthur said his name again, this time with a distinctly anxious note. He probably thought Merlin had blacked out—and Merlin suspected that he'd never hear the end of that—and so he turned his head towards Arthur's voice with a great effort, slowly blinking the rain out of his eyes.

When his vision cleared, he thought that Arthur looked paler than usual, bent over Merlin's prone form with a troubled frown, not seeming to notice the way his wet fringe was flopping into his eyes. He jerked back slightly when their gazes met, but Merlin still saw the relief that flickered across his features; without thinking, Merlin brought up a hand to cover Arthur's fingers on his cheek, trying to trap the warmth there.

"I'm okay," he said, curiously unable to raise his voice above a raspy whisper. He attempted a reassuring smile, although he noticed dimly that his face was beginning to feel numb with the cool water that had been sliding down his cheeks. His body didn't feel cold, not just yet, but he thought it would in a minute when his senses had caught up to his mind in its half-conscious, floating place.

Arthur's gaze skittered down and away, and he cleared his throat; he looked thoroughly uncomfortable, like he would have shifted on his feet if he'd been standing. He took a deep breath, and Merlin waited expectantly until the prince apparently thought better of it and didn't speak after all. A blush crept up his neck, silent but telling, and Merlin felt a bit of the glowing feeling seep out of him, confused edginess creeping in through a back door of his mind.

Awareness was slow to trickle back in, spurred on by the way Arthur tried not to look him in the eye while giving him a once-over at the same time, as though to figure out whether Merlin was indeed going to faint anyway. Merlin swallowed hard, suddenly aware of what he must look like, with the rain washing away the sticky puddle of their mingled come on his stomach, his breeches unlaced around his spent cock. Blood rushed to his head, quickly enough to make him feel hot and uncomfortably dizzy.

Arthur watched in silence as Merlin struggled up into a sitting position, his hand twitching like he secretly wanted to reach out and steady him. This time, though, it was Merlin who couldn't quite meet his eyes, but at least Arthur seemed to notice his dazed embarrassment. His hand, which had felt tense and wooden against the side of Merlin's neck, slipped away at last, and Merlin bit down on the protesting sigh that wanted to escape him at the draining loss of Arthur's touch.

There was a tense, uncertain moment when Merlin bent forward to lace up his breeches, and then Arthur stood up and turned away, presumably to give him some privacy. The thought kind of made Merlin want to laugh, because with what they'd just done, any belated stirrings of modesty seemed fairly useless. But still, he appreciated the sentiment, and hurried to rearrange his clothes and shake himself out of the strange daze that his mind had floated off into.

Arthur shuffled around somewhere behind him for a while, and their waterskins were dangling from his shoulder when he edged back into Merlin's vision. With a small twinge of guilt, Merlin remembered that he'd been supposed to fill them, but it didn't matter now because he could see that Arthur had already taken care of that. Water sloshed around in the thick leather bags when Arthur shifted his weight and wiped uselessly at his wet face, looking around at the trees for a moment.

With a visible effort, he met Merlin's gaze, and Merlin probably would have looked away if it hadn't been for the spark of concern behind the guarded vigilance in Arthur's eyes. He stared up at the hand that the prince was holding out for him until Arthur heaved an impatient sigh, beckoning him.

"Merlin, get up," he said, his voice too quiet to sound truly irritable. "You'll catch your death."

For just a moment, Merlin was tempted to point out that Arthur was just as soaked as he was, but then he thought better of it. The prince had just witnessed his manservant going through a weird, post-orgasmic magical catharsis, after Merlin had practically thrown himself at him, and by now Arthur probably deserved a bit of a break.

Willing himself not to flush at the thought, Merlin let Arthur haul him up into a standing position; it could just have been wishful thinking, but for a moment he thought Arthur held on to his hand a little longer than necessary. Then he turned away, though he waited for Merlin to fall in step beside him before he started walking back the way they'd come.

Merlin kept his gaze on the dripping trees and wet bushes around them, resolutely pushing away the uneasiness that had taken root at the back of his mind. Arthur was doing the same next to him, eyes shrouded and jaw set, and Merlin sighed a little, his heart sinking. Although his thoughts were still sluggish, it wasn't like he didn't understand the prince's discomfort—but Merlin simply had no idea what to do to make it go away.

Still, Arthur was walking fairly close to Merlin's side, as though to catch him in case he ended up dizzy and disoriented again. Their shoulders bumped every few steps, each brush of warm skin under wet fabric sending a tingle through Merlin's arm—the first time it happened, Merlin held his breath, half expecting the prince to snap at him for walking too closely.

But although he never so much as looked at him, Arthur didn't pull away either, and Merlin allowed himself to relax a little, reassured in the knowledge that for now, this would have to be enough.






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