Archive of Our Own ^beta

They were seated around the fire.

The other knights were already asleep, but Arthur couldn't rest, and he wasn't surprised when he realised that Merlin would have stayed at his side.

Like he always did.

"All the things I faced," Arthur suddenly said, keeping his gaze focused on the flakes,"I've never been worrying about dying." he confessed to his friend.

"Don't think you should now." Merlin answered him, making Arthur look away from the fire and focusing his gaze on the man at his side, something fragile in his light blue eyes.

Under the regent's gaze, Merlin lowered his own, making Arthur smile softly.

"Sometimes you do puzzle me, Merlin." Arthur told him, a half smile on his face, his mood lifting in a way he would never believe possible and only due to the fact that Merlin was at his side. 

"You never fathomed me out." Merlin answered, looking at Arthur as he said that.

Their gazes met.

"No." Arthur said, without any hesitation. 

Because it was the truth, Arthur never got Merlin.

He never understood what pushed the young and brave boy to stay at his services for that amount of time and to be that loyal to him.

Not all the servants would have gone that far. Many of them would have reported him for insubordination and they would have risked nothing for him, separating their job with their safety.

But not Merlin.

Merlin admired Arthur, he respected Arthur. He saw Arthur and not the Prince of Camelot.

And he liked Arthur.

He has always called him his King , even when his father was still in charge.

Merlin was absolutely loyal to him and Arthur wasn't able to understand him.

Merlin looked at him with a sad smile, and then muttered, looking again at the flames.

"Well, I think that if things would have been different, we would have been good friends."

Arthur smiled. They were already good friends. "Yeah."

But Arthur was a prince and he couldn't be involved in any day with a servant.

"If you weren't such an arrogant pompous dollophead."

Arthur snorted amused.

It was almost unfair, how Merlin managed to make him laugh.

Arthur didn't want to laugh. He just wanted to cry when he acknowledged the fact that his sister, Morgana's actions would have killed both him and their father. 

They both chuckled.

Arthur shook his head, hoping that Merlin would have never changed and being happy and reassured by this little truth.

His death would have changed him, Arthur wondered. Merlin cared enough to him to be affected by his loss?

It was wrong that Arthur hoped that the answer to that question was a firm yes?

"That's what you have to remember." Merlin told him, a serious and open voice, his eyes once again over Arthur. "Things never turn out how you expect."

Now, with the end of the eye, Arthur could see the way Merlin was looking at him.

"You'll see." Merlin said, promised .

His gaze focused, however, was diverted as soon as Arthur brought his own over Merlin.

The silence fell.

Arthur couldn't find the strength, the focusing, to not look at his servant.

The loyalty, the certainty with which Merlin talked about Arthur was always incredible and it curled itself around Arthur in a warm hug. 

Merlin believed in Arthur, believed in them.

And his following words did nothing else than confirm that feeling.

"We'll defeat the Dorochas," Merlin said, with a confident voice, as if every other result wouldn't be acceptable. "We will. Together."

And Arthur couldn't do anything else than just admiring the edition that Merlin felt towards Arthur. His devotion.

"I appreciate that." Arthur answered, completely aware of the fact that he rarely praised Merlin and how much Merlin deserved that praise.

He looked again at Merlin, drinking every detail about him, as the thought of not being able to see him ever again crossed his mind and destroyed him.

Merlin would have stayed alone, after his death? Arthur already talked with Geoffrey about his plan, but he would have preferred using another way to confess Merlin.

He opened his bag, taking a sigil from it.

He let his finger go through the emblem of his mother's sigil. A bird. How it was right.

"This belonged to my mother. Bears her sigil."

Arthur looked at the sigil a little more, before offering it to Merlin.

"Here."

Arthur knew to have choose the right person as future king of Camelot when he observed the kind and devote way with what Merlin was touching and respecting his mother's sigil.

"Arthur, I can't…" Merlin tried to refuse the previous gift.

But Arthur already made his head.

"Just… take it."

And he looked with a smile how Merlin kept touching his mother's sigil.

Maybe, if things would have gone in the right way, he could have even confessed to Merlin what he felt for him.