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While sexual intimacy was always welcome, Arthur had a very slight preference for the soft kind- not that he would ever admit it out loud. He loved the act of hugging or being hugged from behind and the flutter in the pit of his stomach when eye contact was held for a second longer than necessary and the gentle, reassuring squeezes or touch's he'd grown accustomed to in his relationship (even before it turned romantic) with Merlin. He loved searching the bed for Merlin's hand and upon finding it, intertwining their fingers and resting his head in the crook of Merlin's neck (perhaps being ever so slightly shorter did have its advantages) and massaging one and another when the other had had a stressful day. And he adored watching Merlin bustle around their room, mixing his potions and remedies while he sat and watched him. There was a certain feeling about it that Arthur couldn't name; all he knew was that he felt safe in those moments, in Merlin's presence.
Merlin, of course, had caught on to this (and, privately, he'd thought that it was adorable and that if he hadn't already been completely enamoured by Arthur, this would've made him fall in love with him) and made an effort to incorporate even more of these simple acts of intimacy into their day to day life.
However, it was a challenge to do so when they were out on a quest with other knights who weren't all too open-minded about the magic Merlin possessed, let alone two men courting. So Arthur had decided that he didn't particularly want to risk their odd relationship being common knowledge- there were rumours but as long as they weren't confirmed they had no real power.
Still, they did miss the simple acts of intimacy- a luxury they couldn't really afford and missed dreadfully. Luckily for the two of them, the saying 'where there's a will, there's a way' had been dancing around in Merlin's mind for the past few days. And a way he did find.
Merlin announced himself with a cheery 'hello' as he waltzed into Arthur's tent. Arthur had rolled his eyes at this and had acknowledged him with a grunt. Arthur hadn't been too talkative for the past few days. If Merlin had to guess, he'd say it was because they'd both grown used to casual touches and having each other to help keep warm at night and now that they couldn't do that so freely Arthur had decided to be in a mood about it. And Merlin felt the safe exact way. The last three days had been nothing short of torture- with Arthur being so close, an arms-length away at most times, but he was unable to embrace him.
Until now.
"What're you doing?" Merlin asked against the skin of Arthur's neck. He pressed himself against Arthur's back and wrapped his arms around his waist. Finally, Merlin thought as his nostrils were overpowered by the smell of Arthur. He felt better than he had in a while. Merlin had chosen a moment in which he was sure they'd have the smallest chance of being disrupted. And that moment was after a short fight.
Instantly, Arthur had leaned backwards into the embrace. "What does it look like I'm doing? Gardening? Perhaps I'm doing a spot of sparring." It had been spoken in a soft sort of way with barely any detectable annoyance in his tone.
"Sorry for asking," Merlin said, his lips twitching upwards in amusement. He rested his chin comfortable on Arthur's broad shoulder to watch him clean the blood off his sword; just moments earlier, their camp had been ambushed by a band of bandits but the knights and Merlin had managed to fight them off with ease, suffering only one wound between the fifteen or so men there. Admittedly, Merlin had taken on and triumphed over eleven of the ambushers at once and in doing that had done about half the work single-handedly since twenty-five had emerged to attack.
"You're forgiven." And with that, they settled into a comfortable silence within Arthur's tent, catching up on the casual touch they'd been forced to miss out on in the past three days.
"I've missed this," Merlin confessed, breaking the silence once the sword was clean and set down on the table, allowing Arthur to lean back into his lover's arms properly.
"Don't get all soft on me, Merlin." His words were immediately overturned by the hesitant kiss he'd tilted his head back to press into Merlin's cheek. Merlin beamed in response and released a content hum. Arthur blushed furiously at this and closed his eyes as if he were a child who thought that you could win a game of hide and seek by covering your eyes since if you couldn't see the seeker, the seeker couldn't see you. Only in this instance, the seeker was his feelings and he wasn't hiding from them as much as he was embarrassed by them- embarrassed that one person could have such a drastic impact on his mood, which was rapidly improving the longer he stood there with Merlin.
Unfortunately for them, the universe had a way of ruining every time they got to have a moment of peace all to themselves. The universe, this time, came in the form of a young knight asking permission to enter Arthur's tent. Reluctantly, and sighing dramatically to show just how displeased he was with this, Merlin peeled himself off Arthur and went to sit on Arthur's bed.
Arthur rolled his eyes at Merlin's reaction (though he was also feeling rather disappointed) and told the lad to enter.
"Um- I just thought that I should let you know, sire, that Merlin's medical -or rather magical- abilities are required with Sir Quinn. The wound is rather deep and Merlin just kind of left before he was done and it's still bleeding..." The young knight stopped speaking and trailed away into silence in favour of observing the unimpressed look the King was giving the Court Sorcerer.
"Whoops? I guess I forgot?" Merlin offered, a cheeky smile plastered on his face shamelessly.
"Just go, Merlin. Thank you for informing me, Sir Damien," Arthur said, turning away from Merlin and instead to where the knight stood, shifting from foot to foot at the entrance of his tent. "I'll ensure that Merlin, here, is suitably punished for his poor work ethic- which is of course nothing new." At this, Arthur shot Merlin a pointed look. Merlin huffed but got up to leave the tent but not before whispering something in the King's ear that made him turn a bright red and turn rapidly on his heels to be facing away from the two of them.
Merlin exited that tent with a great smile on his face and an air of accomplishment. Sir Damien was truly curious as to what the sorcerer had whispered to the King but he didn't want to ask and risk prying. He found both men rather intimidating- which was natural considering that either could kill him at any moment and face minimal consequences.
Meanwhile, Arthur was left wondering how he'd allowed himself to fall for such a dimwit- though, of course, the term was used with a great amount of love and endearment.