In Which Arthur Is Unobservant (Merlin)
First Merlin fic, which is a bit nerve-wracking. I was supposed to be working on The Monster, but this kind of took over my brain. It did make my five hour train journey home pass much quicker, though!

Title: In Which Arthur Is Dim Unobservant
Author: julesoh
Rating: Probably PG-13 - no actual naughty stuff.
Fandom: Merlin
Word Count: 2043
Summary: See title. Also, Merlin realises that his boyfriend is an idiot.
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur (Established Relationship)
Notes: Inspired by thisissirius's question at Expo this weekend about Arthur finding out about Merlin's powers. Unbeta-ed and cobbled together from stealth writings on the train and vague, rambly text fics on my phone.



“Arthur!” Merlin gasped as the future king traced a path from Merlin’s collarbone to his ear with his tongue. “Arthur, I need to talk to you.”

“Well, go for it while your lips aren’t busy,” Arthur mumbled helpfully.

“No, I mean I want to talk to you properly,” Merlin insisted, sliding his hands between their bare chests and forcing himself to push Arthur back. “Face to face.”

Arthur growled and nipped at Merlin’s earlobe before pulling back with a put-upon, frustrated sigh. “Fine! There’s something I need to talk to you about, too. Although I was hoping we could wait until, you know, after.” He rolled his hips against Merlin’s pointedly.

“This is important,” Merlin stressed quietly, letting his hands fall from Arthur’s shoulder blades to rest on his lower back. “It might affect, you know, this.” He shrugged self-consciously, chewing his lip and gesturing jerkily to where their bodies were pressed together.

Arthur, whose hands had already been low and firm on Merlin’s hips, grinned and slipped his fingers between the skin of Merlin’s waist and the drawstring of his trousers. “Everything looks fine to me,” he said lasciviously, and Merlin’s grunt of frustration turned into an involuntary moan of pleasure as Arthur dipped his head to nibble gently at his neck, and then moved down to play with his nipple.

“Arthur, no,” Merlin attempted, even as his hands automatically moved up to twist and stroke through Arthur’s hair, already darkening with sweat. Arthur ignored him, continuing to tease his nipple to hardness with a few expert swirls of his tongue. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Arthur!” Merlin sputtered eventually, “Listen to me! I’m trying to tell you that I’m magic!”

Merlin froze in terrified anticipation as Arthur blinked up at him with wide eyes, his lips red, swollen, and parted.

“Well, you’re a pretty good shag, Merlin, but aren’t I supposed to be the arrogant one?” he asked, then flashed a smile before returning to his ministrations, dropping to one knee carefully and moving lower.

Merlin stared at the top of his lover’s head incredulously. “Are you serious?” he asked, receiving only a distracted grunt in response. “Arthur!”

He pushed Arthur a little harder this time, knocking him off-balance and stepping back. He paused briefly to adjust his trousers before ploughing determinedly on.

“I’m a sorcerer, Arthur. I cast spells. With magic. Illegally.”

Arthur stilled where he had braced himself on the flagstones, and he remained immobile for an alarmingly long time before rising slowly, looking at Merlin with an unreadable expression. He brought his knuckles up to his mouth in that gesture he always adopted when faced with something overwhelming or disappointing, and Merlin tried to regulate his shaky breathing, wrapping his arms around his body.

“But - how long - what - there were no clues!” Arthur stammered eventually, his eyes wary and confused.

Merlin squinted at him. “No clues? You are joking, aren’t you?”

Arthur’s blank expression was answer enough to that.

“Okay … firstly, I’ve always been magic. I was born with it - I couldn’t help it even if I wanted to. I’ve only ever used my magic for good, and to try and protect you – and I’ve been trying to tell you for about three weeks now. Just after we started, you know.” He waved a hand vaguely at their similar states of undress. “I didn’t think it was really fair to lie anymore, once we were … involved. I haven’t been hiding my magic from you anymore – I thought you’d have noticed. Especially in that incident with that giant moth hawk – I figured the game might have been up, what with the exploding purple fireball I conjured up right in front of you.”

“That was you?” Arthur asked.

“What did you think it was?”

“I don’t know … I’d lost a lot of blood …”

“Not that much,” Merlin said. “What about the fact that I was speaking in a different language? Didn’t you find that strange?”

Arthur shrugged hopelessly. “I find quite a lot of what you say very strange.”

Merlin scowled, but chose to ignore that comment given that Arthur’s eyebrows were raised so high by now that they were in danger of meeting his hairline. “Fine. What about this week, on Thursday, right after the tournament, when you passed me your broken sword? You asked me to fix it and I did, right in front of you, using magic! Ring any bells?”

“Did you? Oh … I wasn’t really looking at your hands or your mouth then. Those new trousers of yours are very … form fitting. It’s distracting,” Arthur said defensively.

“What about the fact that I manage to complete all of the tasks you set me in minutes, despite the fact that they would take any other servant hours, if not the whole day?” Merlin asked in exasperation. “Didn’t you think there was anything unusual about me, at all?”

Arthur lowered his eyelashes. “I had no reason to think you were hiding something from me. I trusted you.”

Merlin shifted his feet guiltily, and squirmed his way through an awkward silence before asking quietly, “And now?”

Arthur flicked his eyes up to Merlin’s, then away again, brutally fast. “I don’t know.”

Merlin swallowed heavily. “Well, magic is forbidden in Camelot. Punishment by death if you tell your father.”

This time when Arthur raised his eyes to meet Merlin’s, they were wide and more shocked than they had been at Merlin’s original confession. “I’m not going to tell my father! He’d have you killed – of course I’m not going to report you!”

“Why not?” Merlin demanded, allowing his desperation to fill his voice. “Because I’m a good shag?”

“No!” Arthur cried in outrage, and then he lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. “Because I – I love you, you complete moron.”

Merlin gaped as Arthur’s cheeks turned a flaming scarlet and he glared ferociously at Merlin.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Arthur explained.

“Um,” Merlin said. “Really?”

“Yes,” Arthur snarled at him. “I mean, it’s not the only reason I wouldn’t tell. In case you didn’t notice, my father is the king, not me, and the laws of Camelot are his, not mine. I don’t have to agree with them. You’ve never disapproved of me defying him before.”

“I don’t now,” Merlin said quickly. “I just – you love me? Since when? You spend all of your time insulting me, even when we’re together. Intimately.”

“That’s not true,” Arthur denied indignantly. “For the past couple of weeks I’ve gone out of my way to be nice to you.”

Merlin frowned, racking his brains. “Sorry, my memory seems to be a little faulty on that front,” he said after a moment, earning himself another vicious stare.

“On Monday,” Arthur said. “On Monday, I apologised for insulting you the previous day by calling you the most useless person to walk the earth.”

“Apologise?” Merlin yelped. “You gave me an apple you’d already bitten into, punched me on the arm, and told me I might not be the most useless person ever, but I was definitely in the top ten!”

Arthur grimaced. “The punch was supposed to be friendly. But on Wednesday, when you spilled all those drinks over my father, I made excuses for you so he wouldn’t punish you-”

“You told him I was an alcoholic with mental problems! For the third time this month!”

“-And then, later on, out hunting, I thanked you for not telling Gaius where I got that cut on my leg last week.”

“Oh, you mean when you-”

“Shut up,” Arthur cut him off.

“You were very gracious,” Merlin allowed, “But why did you then throw me in the lake right after?”

Arthur’s flush deepened. “I’m not really sure why I did that.”

“I’m sure it’s the same manly reason that you lower your voice to a ridiculous hiss whenever you actually have to say sorry, or thank you, or I love you. It’s because you’re a prat.”

“And you’re an idiot!” Arthur retorted. “You’ve been just as oblivious as me.”

“With more reason! You failed to notice me killing a huge, evil moth hawk with a ball of purple flame. I failed to see the signs of love in your slightly-less-barbed-than-usual insults and punches to the arm! How is that telling me that you love me?”

“Fine, then take my gracious decision not to turn you in as an evil sorcerer as a sign of my undying affection,” Arthur barked.

“I’m not evil,” Merlin snapped back. “I’ve only ever used my magic to protect, or heal. And sometimes to repair and clean your armour. And if you’re not going to turn me in, I’d quite like to remain as your servant.”

“You’re more than just my servant,” Arthur said, a questioning note to his voice.

Merlin looked at Arthur, noting how open his blue eyes were despite the wary frown. “I was told once it was my duty to try and protect you. I resisted at first, but over time the notion became … more appealing. I don’t want to leave. I don’t think it’s our destiny.”

“Well, thank you for saving me. I think we’d better go over how many times you’ve protected me from death sometime later. And I’d rather you didn’t leave either,” Arthur said softly after a moment, and then he quirked the corners of his mouth upwards. “I’ve only just got used to you, after all. And you are a pretty good shag.”

He sniffed and flexed his shoulders, the picture of nonchalance, and Merlin grinned slowly in a mixture of relief and gradual understanding, then landed a punch to Arthur’s upper arm. “In your language, that means I love you, right?” he asked.

The tips of Arthur’s ears turned red, which made Merlin grin even wider. “Right. And insults are affectionate. Most of the time.”

“And you forgive me for keeping my magic secret?”

“You haven’t been trying very hard to do that recently,” Arthur pointed out, and Merlin laughed.

“You still haven’t been noticing, though, dimwit!”

“I’m not dim!” Arthur protested. “Maybe just a little … unobservant.”

“Maybe just observing the wrong thing?” Merlin suggested, stepping closer to Arthur with a sway of his hips and taking his hands, placing them firmly on his buttocks.

Arthur grinned. “I wouldn’t call this wrong.” He squeezed, pulling Merlin even closer so that their bodies were pressed tightly together.

“So, just to make sure I really do understand you,” Merlin said, linking his arms behind Arthur’s neck, “You follow any compliments up with an insult, because you are a bit of a prat, but despite that, you do love me.”

Arthur nodded, if a little sheepishly.

“Now, you’ve told me you love me in this conversation, and you’ve also thanked me for saving your life about a million times, but you haven’t yet punched me and I don’t see a lake anywhere near for you to throw me in. How are you going to prove to yourself that you aren’t just a big sap?” Merlin asked with a smile, moving close and pressing a kiss to Arthur’s jaw. “Are you going to spank me? Tie me up?” He let his lips dance over the corner of Arthur’s mouth, and then whispered, “Have your wicked way with me?”

He felt Arthur grin against his mouth, and saw his eyes flash, and then within the next three seconds he found himself picked up and thrown onto the bed, Arthur landing gracefully on top of him, one knee either side of Merlin as he leant down and kissed him, closing the gap between them completely.

Merlin had been kissed by Arthur many times before, but this time it seemed different, both harder and softer at the same time, Arthur’s tongue gently but insistently pushing through his still-grinning teeth while his hands burned everywhere they touched.

By the time Arthur pulled back, Merlin was a boneless, breathless heap, looking up at his lover with glazed, hooded eyes.

“You asked for it,” Arthur panted, gratifyingly sounding as hot and bothered as Merlin felt. He grinned, pushing his hair off his face. “Idiot.”

“Yeah, yeah. I love you too.”

End.