“Did you light up… Leon’s hair? On… fire?”
Arthur stood, motionless, in the centre of the training field like the point which Merlin’s life circled around from day to day.
Gwaine threw a bucket of water on Leon’s head, gave a thumbs up to his king, and the deed was done.
“He hit you too hard on the shoulder that was just about to be done healing. I’m merely trying to lessen my workload as your personal physician, sire,” Merlin answered, walking away as Arthur watched him go.
Some place faraway, he heard Leon wishing a quick death upon himself.
It happened again.
“Merlin! Merlin! What on earth—“
“Did you call for me, sire?”
Merlin, pillar of innocence, stood at the door of the knight’s chambers, holding in his arms some inconspicuous cloths ready to be washed. His face was blank, on the verge of being too nonchalant for whatever was happening.
The knight outrageously ran around, the furniture in his rooms currently… on the ceiling.
Arthur quirked a brow at Merlin and pointed with fury at the upside down state of the chambers.
Merlin quirked an eyebrow back, unfazed by the menace he, without a doubt, had caused.
“I have nothing to do with it, sire,” Merlin stated, clearly being the one having everything to do with it, “but be sure to choose your knights properly. That one talked treason this afternoon.”
And whistling, Merlin went away through the corridor, catching up with his chores as Arthur was left wide eyed staring at the door, his hands on his hips, and a knight soon to be exiled screaming behind him.
Arthur really shouldn’t have been surprised the third time it happened.
Yet here he was, moving away with flapping hands the flying chickens from the table, out of breath, in chainmail, and trying to calm down the entire council.
“Merlin!” he bellowed, face red and neck on the verge of exploding, even if the reason as to why the council looked like a farm rather than a castle hall was standing at the corner of the room, completely unbothered and with his arms folded behind his back.
He hadn’t needed those to magic in the air some feral chickens a moment prior.
Now all he did was raise his chin up in a gesture of acknowledgment, the little shit.
“Would you like me to make them disappear, sire?”
“Yes!” Arthur screamed, turning this way and that, not believing chickens presided over the council. “Bloody hell!” Arthur shoved a chicken away from himself and from Bedivere’s head, which the animal thought was a good place for a new nest. Gwaine was currently patting one chicken on the back and feeding some seeds to it that Arthur had no idea where he’d got from, meanwhile Lancelot tried to reassure Gaius one of the chickens hadn’t shat on his robes.
Guinevere had slid down on the floor underneath the Round Table, probably trying to do the only sane thing and hide from the embarrassment.
That thought didn’t last when Arthur, from where he stood, heard her laughing out loud, Elyan trying to shut her up and royally failing in the task when he decided to join her.
“They shouldn’t have compared your kingdom to Uther’s, my lord,” Merlin merely shrugged and told him above the chaos, as if he was discussing the weather up north.
Arthur threw his hands and arms up in the air and gestured at nothing in particular, defeated even if he hadn’t know he was in a battle for Merlin’s approval, and despaired at his weird, absolutely unique and sometimes bothering care.
“Fine! All right! They shouldn’t have! Now get these bloody chickens away from here!”
Merlin did.
But later that night, whilst they lay on the bed with the low fire crumbling down in the hearth and their bodies intertwined, in the ember light in which their chambers had fallen prey to, Merlin took a feather out of Arthur’s hair, stared into his eyes, slowly grabbed his cheek in his palm and in a moment of normalcy, he murmured,
“I’d never let anything happen to you, Arthur.”
Arthur exhaled, and leaned into the touch.
He knew Merlin wouldn’t.
The closest thing Merlin had done to let something happen to Arthur was having chickens following him around all day in their vengeance, as Merlin had stated before, because someone had said they wanted them gone.
But, despite it all, the chickens were but a small price Arthur had to pay, if it meant he could have this: the warmth of Merlin’s body; his arm draped behind his back; their foreheads together in a gentle brush, like the tip of their noses.
Soft lips meeting in a soft kiss.
Merlin used the excuse of the feather to stifle his fingers through Arthur’s hair without accusations of sentimentality from his part.
Arthur sighed.
“I know you wouldn’t, Merlin,” he murmured back, melting under his touch and nestling closer, his face on Merlin’s neck, his nose under his jaw.
Merlin dropped a soft kiss on the top of Arthur’s head, breathed him in, and let him know he was there all night thanks to the touch of his calloused fingers all over his body.
And the day after, out on an hunt, sir Kay caught a deer before Arthur could, and Merlin, with an unbothered flick of his hand, threw Kay’s bow back and hit him square in the face with it.
Arthur’s scream of frustration awoke the woods.
“You know I hate hunting, sire,” Merlin said, the contingent of knights confused enough to keep silent, except for Gwaine, who was merrily eating an apple on his horse, loudly crunching it and watching the proceeding of the king trying not to kill his servant on sight.
But Arthur only grumbled, “Of course you do,” and dismounted, grabbed a cloth from his bag and walked to his knight, who screamed at everyone who was laughing that no, he was not about to cry.
So Arthur said, “Here,” crouched down next to Kay and held the cloth over his nose, the material quickly reddening.
Arthur rolled his eyes, too distracted by what he was doing to catch the fond smile happily plastering itself on Merlin’s lips.
So it seemed that his hate for hunting was as huge as his love for Arthur.
Merlin sat on the horse and made sure no one hurt his king, whilst Arthur wondered if it was better for everyone if Merlin took his devotion down a notch.
But when he turned from Kay’s cries a moment later, he saw Merlin pretending to bird watch between the gaps of the trees.
He sighed at his up-turned head and firm jaw, piercing blue eyes and glowing dark hair and said nothing.
There was no need.
The warmth of Merlin’s eyes on him during the ride back home was enough for Arthur to believe he could deal with whatever Merlin had up his sleeve next.
For the prompt, “Devotion”, 800 words, @merthurmicrofic
