for the DVD commentary thing:
“Did you ever?” Arthur asked.
Merlin lifted his gaze to the top of the canopy. Right, he thought. He’d promised he wouldn’t lie anymore. Why in the hell had he done that? Oh, that’s right, because he was the world’s biggest idiot.
“In Camelot?” Merlin asked. “No.”
Arthur made a brief humming noise that sounded to Merlin like approval, which was both worrying and confusing, because he’d not shown any sign of disapproval about Gwaine and Percival. So why should he be different?
“Me neither,” Arthur said.
Merlin felt his eyebrows raise. He couldn’t remember the last time Arthur had volunteered anything of such a personal nature. He’d always had to drag such things out of him.
“Crown Prince… then King…” Arthur shrugged his shoulders.
Crown Prince and then King what, Merlin wondered. But Arthur didn’t elaborate.
“What about not?” Arthur asked.
“What about not in Camelot?”
The crisp ‘t’ sounds on his words made Merlin wonder how drunk and how sleep-muddled Arthur really was.
“Not in Camelot,” Merlin repeated.
“I… That’s… personal,” Merlin said, feeling more like a coward than he had in centuries.
Merlin closed his eyes and tried not to hyperventilate. “Yes.”
Hearing that name after so long was so startling that Merlin’s gaze snapped to Arthur. Arthur’s brows were pulled together over his closed eyes, his lips pressed thinner than they should be if he were relaxed.
“We were. Yes. But not… not like that.”
He watched Arthur’s features relax. Saw his small nod against his pillow. And that same small humming sound of approval.
“After Camelot, then,” Arthur said. As if that was fine. But the idea of Will was not.
“Yes,” Merlin said, without really thinking, because he was too busy being perplexed by Arthur’s reactions. “You know he wasn’t a sorcerer, right? That was me? What happened in Ealdor?”
“Yes,” Arthur said. “I know.”
“Right,” Merlin said. So that wasn’t it, then. Arthur’s problem with Will. It wasn’t about magic. And why would it be? He’d seen how Arthur reacted to his own magic.
“So those companions of yours then. After Camelot. Them.”
Merlin frowned up at the canopy, unable to begin to imagine why Arthur was asking all of this. “Not- I mean- Some of them were… men. Yes. But not all of them. I just… after living so long, I guess, I’m just… open minded.”
“Like Heath,” Arthur said.
Merlin lifted himself up onto his elbows, frowning down at Arthur now. “Why are you asking me this?” he asked, because he couldn’t help himself.
“Seemed relevant,” Arthur said.
For context, here’s the definition of “DVD commentary” from the original prompt and reblog: “what i was thinking when i wrote it, why i wrote it, what’s going on in the characters’ heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.”
Oooooo this is a good choice. Thank you for submitting this one. I wrote so many words in We Begin Again but I definitely remember being very, very intentional about this scene.
This scene could be entitled “The One In Which They Finally Talk About Their Sexuality — Sort of. Except not really. LOL.”
In my head, I always imagined that Arthur had known about same-sex activities. He knew the knights had sex with each other on battle campaigns to work out their nerves or ease sexual frustration. Even the Romans did that, under certain circumstances, depending upon social rank and age. Arthur would have heard about that too.
Arthur though, could never engage in those activities himself. Could never even let himself entertain those thoughts if he had them. That path was always closed to him. That’s what his comment of “Crown prince… then king…” means. First as Crown Prince, he had to maintain a pristine reputation as an eligible bachelor, and then as King, he was already in love with Gwen, and his focus was on her, and the kingdom, so there was no opportunity.
(Oh, and by the way, Arthur is totally not as drunk as he’s acting. That’s why the “t” is landing so hard when he speaks. He’s a bit tipsy, yes, but he’s dramatizing it a bit to get a pass for his line of questioning.)
Merlin in this scene is terrified of Arthur rejecting him once he finally tells the truth about his own sexuality. Not only that he’ll be kicked out of the sleeping-together-but-not-sleeping-together, but that it will damage their friendship. It’s a big deal for him to tell the truth here, so of course I made it as painful as possible for him to do it. He doesn’t understand why Arthur is focused on Camelot — but Arthur is actually only curious if Merlin acted on his same-sex attractions during the time they’d known each other, because that would be one more thing Merlin had to lie about.
(Plus, okay, Arthur is a teensy weensy bit jealous, imagining Merlin with anyone he’d known.)
Mostly, though, Arthur is honestly trying to understand his own sexuality, and the various types out there, through the lens of people he knows. He hasn’t yet become Master of the Internet, or looked up the words that help us all define who we are at a particular phase of our lives. So he’s holding up examples in his head, and thinking “Am I like Heath? Am I like Danyl? And what is Merlin, exactly, after all these years?”
I thought a long time about how Merlin would answer that question. Arthur wants to know. And Merlin wants to tell him. But Merlin is not a “labels” guy, and he’s lived so long, as a man and a woman, being with all sorts of people, that “Open Minded” was where I landed. Arthur would understand that, especially not yet having been on the internet.
“Why are you asking me this?” Merlin asks, and he’s panicked here, and ready to be kicked out of bed.
“Seemed relevant,” Arthur says, meaning himself, and his own feelings, and the people he’s seen around him.
Merlin of course immediately freaks out right afterward, thinking that Arthur means “seems relevant to my letting you sleep in my bed”.
But Arthur of course comforts him, saying that there are no labels for them both, except the ones they make. And Merlin goes to sleep dazed but in his king’s arms. You know. As best friends do.
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