Yes, My Lord

“Merlin?” he asked, taking a drink of water.

“Yes, Sire?” I answered, pouring him more.

“Have you polished my armor?” A bite of bread.

“Yes, Sire,” Standing back and watching him, arms crossed.

“Sharpened my sword?” A spoonful of stew.

“Yes, Sire,”

“Mucked my horses?” Another bite of stew.

“Yes, Sire,”

“Washed my clothes?” A bite of bread.

“Yes, Sire,”

“Well aren’t you just productive today?” A drink of water.

“I suppose so, Sire,”

“Stop saying that Merlin,” He turned to face me.

“Saying what, Sire,”

“That. Sire. Stopping calling me Sire,”

“Yes, My Lord. As you wish,”

“Don’t call me that either,”

“Then what shall I call you by?” I asked, raising my hands in question. At this point, I was just messing with his mind, and I had to try very hard so as to not smirk.

“Sometimes, Merlin, I swear. You come across a lot dimmer than you really are. Just call me by my name. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Well that’s a new one. Usually you’re making jokes about how stupid I am, not how smart I am,”

“Don’t go getting a big head on your shoulders. I never said you were smart; I simply said you act stupider than you are,”

“What’s the difference, Arthur?”

“Well, I suppose there isn’t much of one,”

“There you go,” I laughed, proving my point.

He set his spoon back down in the bowl and stood up, taking a drink of water as he did so. “Just leave that, Merlin. You can get it later.”

“Well what shall I be doing until later comes along, S-uh, Arthur? I assume you’re going to sleep now, yes?” That time was actually a slip up; force of habit, if you wish.

“Not exactly, no,”

“We’re not going on another night-time-defying-the-king’s-wishes adventures, are we?”

“No, not this time,” the prince laughed, sitting down on his bed to slide off his boots: something he usually has me do. “Do you remember the first day you came to Camelot?”

“Yes, I saw a man get executed for using magic and his mother threaten to kill you,”

“Alright then, the second day you were in Camelot,”

“Yea, you threw me in jail because you were being a prat,”

“Okay, we’re getting there,“ he laughed again, leaning back on his hands. “What about before you threw a punch at me?”

“I called you an ass,”

“Now you’re just trying to be clever,” he snorted. He was exactly right. “After that.”

“You asked me if I knew how to walk on my knees,” I answered, thinking back on that day at that moment and the confusion I felt towards his question.

“And you said no,” he added, smirking for reasons unbeknownst to me.

“So you asked me if I’d like you to help me,” I finished, trying to deduct exactly what he was trying to get to. Even now, as he brings it up again, I’m still baffled at why he wanted to know if I could walk on my knees, as well as why he’s asking me about it.

“Yes, well, that part doesn’t matter at the moment,”

“If I may…why are you asking about that, Arthur?”

“Have you ever learned to walk on your knees?”

“Given all the errands you and Gaius always put me on, no, I haven’t had time yet to master the art of knee-walking yet. Perhaps if you’d let me off some duties, I’d have time for that,”

“Ooh, sarcasm,”

“Oh, good, you know what sarcasm is,” I smiled, taking a tone with him that probably only I could get away with.

“You’re just in a cheeky mood tonight, aren’t you?”

“And aren’t you in the mood for rhetorical questions tonight? That’s the second one you’ve asked me,”

“I can ask you any type of question I want,” he scoffed, turning into a prat again.

“Yes, I’m aware of this. My Lord,” I said, just to annoy him.

“Come here, Merlin,” he said simply, picking up his hand and curling his finger back towards him a couple of times to accentuate his request.

“As you wish. Sire,” I walked to him so that I was right in front of him, looking down at him and hisbeautiful royal features. He sat up straight and put his hands on my shoulders.

“Now, Merlin, get on your knees,” he commanded, pushing me downwards. Even if I wanted to disobey him, there was no way I could physically do so because of his strength. “This is why I brought up the day we first met.”

“So you could force me onto my knees?”

“Well, partially,”

“What’s the other part?” I asked, now looking up at the prince I serve daily.

“Just because it’s a funny story,” he chuckled. “Especially when you got let out of jail and put in the stocks.”

“You know, sometimes I really second-guess myself about saving your life from that weird old woman’s knife. I think to myself, ’What if I never pulled him out of the way? Would my life be any less hell-ish?’ and then I have to remind myself about your horses, your armor, and all your pleasantly evil remarks and I know that I made the right decision that night,” I said, my voice dripping with more sarcasm. “Because what would my life be like without the mighty Prince Arthur? Well it would be just unimaginable. I don’t know what I would do all day if I wasn’t your humble man-servant.”

“Merlin, Merlin, Merlin…do you learn nothing?”

“And what exactly am I supposed to have learnt, Arthur?”

“That your life would truly be nothing without me,” His voice was low and hushed and his head was a lot closer to mine than it had ever been before. His hands were still on my shoulders, and I hadn’t realized it until his hands started inching farther up my collar bone, up my neck, up my face, when they stopped on my cheeks. “And I wouldn’t even be alive if you weren’t in my life.”

“I thought we had already established this,”

“What have we established?”

“That I regret saving your life that day,”

“I never said I was talking about that day, Merlin,”

“When else have I saved your life?” I asked, playing completely dumb as to what he was talking about, where I know for a fact that I’ve saved Arthur’s life on more occasions than I can count.

“Merlin, don’t lie to me any more than you have already. I know that you don’t take the credit for things you should. I know that you’ve saved my life over and over again but never get acknowledged for it. But what I don’t know is how you do it. Don’t tell me any more lies,”

“You want the truth?”

“That would be what ‘no more lies’ insinuates, yes,” His laugh was one of just breath, no sound, just air.

“I’m a warlock,”

“You are not a warlock, Merlin,”

“No, really, I am. I have been all my life. I’m not like others, though; I don’t choose to be one, I was born like this and however much I try, I can’t stop. Magic is a part of me; it’s like breathing. My mother sent me here because she knew Gaius would be able to help me with all of this, and help, he has. He knows so much and has taught me a lot of what I know. Do you remember Balinor, the dragon lord? He was my father, and when he died, I became the last dragon lord. See, it is passed on from father to son, but the son only gets it once the father is dead. You didn’t actually slay the Great Dragon; while you were passed out, I spoke to him and told him that if he ever terrorized Camelot again, I would kill him myself. Trust me, Arthur, as you’ve trusted me before, I am a magical being, but I do not wish to be; it is my destiny. It is also my destiny to make sure you stay alive, for once you become king, you shall be a great king and, apparently, we shall unite Albion. But you have to be alive to do all that, so that is where I come into play. I am to protect you and make sure you do not get killed. And that is hard work, let me tell you right now. Saving your sorry ass is a difficult job,”

“I’m going to ignore that at the moment, because…are you serious? You are a warlock?”

“Warlock, wizard, magic-man, whatever you wish to call it, yes. I am one,”

“And did you say dragon lord?” he squeaked, sitting back again, hands on my shoulders.

“I did say dragon lord,”

“Please, I beg of you, do not tell your father about this. You know what he will do to me, no matter what you or anybody else says. Please do not speak a word of what I’m telling you to him. I have to stay alive to keep you alive,” If I wasn’t already down on my hands and knees, I would have done just that and begged of him not to tell. I wouldn’t have told him if I could have gotten away with it, but he knows better than anyone when I’m lying and would have known right away.

“I, uh - your secret is safe with me. I know too about the trouble of hiding things from the ones I care about and although yours is a deadlier secret than mine, I wouldn’t want my father to know about it either. I plan on telling you soon enough of my secret, and that makes me glad you’ve told me this. I only wish you would have told me sooner of your gift. Can I…see you do something?”

I smirked at him and picked up my hand, pointing it at one of the white pillows at the head of the bed, whispering a little something and making it float away from the other pillows, around Arthur and I. “That’s only a fraction of what I can really do.”

“I’ve always wanted to see magic up close when it was not being used against me,” he mused.

“I highly doubt a pillow is going to kill you,” I laughed lightly.

“Exactly my point, Merlin. I’ve always wanted to see magic being used for good instead of the evil my father always makes it out to be,”

“Your father’s wrong, you know. Not all magic is bad. It’s not always used for evil,”

“I know, but I can’t very well tell him that, can I?”

“No, I suppose not. Now, um, you had a secret too?”

“Right, right,” he said, nodding his head and pursing his lips. “I’m actually going to show you instead of tell you.”

“As you wish, Arthur,”

His hands went back to my cheeks and he looked into my eyes as he’s never looked at me before. I have a feeling he was debating what to do in his head because he hesitated before doing anything else. His thumb stroked my cheek and I tried hard not to let any emotion show onto my face, when in reality, I was practically bursting with different feelings about it all. Before I knew it, his royal lips were on my plain lips, moving ever so slightly. I didn’t react at first, but soon, I found myself kissing my master, something I’ve fantasized about but never thought would happen.

He brought his hands from my face to my waist and gripped tightly, for he pulled me up off my knees and onto his bed with him. This is so wrong, what we were doing, so horribly wrong. But it felt so right. How could that be? We are both men and this shouldn’t be happening between us. He is crowned prince of Camelot and I’m just his man servant. His father would have my head if he knew what was going on between I and his son! That is why I pulled away slightly and turned to the doors to his room, holding my hand out and muttering the incantation that would lock the door from the inside and out.

Arthur laughed deeply before taking me by my waist again and laying me down so that my head laid neatly on the bed of pillows. He climbed on top of me and reached a hand to my neck, untying the blue fabric from around it, leaning down and kissing the newly exposed skin. “I’ve always liked when you wear these things,” he laughed, holding up the fabric. “It makes you, well, you. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“I wouldn’t have you any other way, either, Arthur,”

“So you are okay with this, right?”

“Yes, My Lord,” I smiled, making fun of him as earlier.

“No, not tonight,” he said, putting a finger to my lips. “Tonight I am just Arthur. Not Sire, not My Lord, not Prince. Only Arthur. Just as you are only Merlin. Not Wizard, not Dragon lord, not my servant. We are only us tonight, no titles of any kind.”

“Yes…Arthur,”