Hiding

Chapter 7

Merlin was brought back to consciousness by the sharp heat of the cuffs on his wrists and pressure on his lips. Someone else's lips, he recognized groggily.

"Mmmph" Merlin groaned, trying weakly to push whoever if was off of him.

It seemed to work—they immediately sprung off of him with a happy cry of, "Merlin!"

Arthur's voice rang through his pounding head. Oh shit. Arthur had been kissing him, and Merlin had pushed him off and Arthur had been kissing him and why had Arthur been kissing him? He took a moment to orient himself before he started freaking out about it. He wasn't in the cell anymore, that was obvious. Gaius's chambers. A cot. Arthur, but no Gaius.

"Gaius?" Merlin mumbled, still very weak and suddenly very aware of the increasingly hot metal on his wrists. "Gaius?" He asked again, a little more panicked.

"Shh, Merlin, calm down, I'll get Gaius." Arthur's soothing voice washed over him as he heard Arthur move to the door and mumble something to the physician, who must have been standing on the other side of the door the whole time—the whole time Arthur had been kissing him, Merlin acknowledged somewhere in the back of his mind.

"Merlin, my boy! How do you feel?" Gaius moved to his bedside, checking various vital signs.

"Hot" was all Merlin could get out before the heat of the shackles became much worse and spread through his body, and he started screaming and writhing in pain.

"Arthur! Hold him down!" Merlin heard Gaius yell distantly.

"Merlin! Merlin, calm down, we need you to calm down! Calm down for me, yeah?" Arthur's attempts to calm him were whispered in his ear as Arthur had one arm over his torso and the other across his shoulders.

"Arthur—" Merlin's voice cracked with just the one word whispered amongst the screams, tears streaming down his face.

"Gaius! What do we do?" Arthur's voice was panicked and desperate as he continued to hold Merlin's writhing figure on the cot.

"I don't know, I've never dealt with these handcuffs before!" Gaius was furiously flipping pages in a fruitless attempt to find something helpful.

Arthur decided that there really wasn't a worse way things could go, and true love's kiss seemed like the cure of the day, so he readjusted his grip on Merlin, laying practically on top of him, touching his hands to the burning hot manacles, and, in a split-second decision, crushed his lips to Merlin's for the second time in a matter of minutes.

Immediately, Merlin stopped moving and the manacles cooled under his fingertips. He was afraid to move in case the pain came back, but Merlin was conscious while Arthur was kissing him this time, and Arthur wasn't entirely sure how he would take to his prince and master basically laying on top of him and kissing him. By the lack of movement underneath him, he guessed Merlin wasn't taking it all that well.

Merlin felt foreign magic flood through his body. It wasn't malicious like Kethra's magic had been. This magic was... nice, friendly. It felt like home, in a way. But Arthur was kissing him again, and Merlin still had no idea why. He was afraid to move, to kiss back like he so wanted to, because he truly had no idea why Arthur was laying on top of him and kissing him and why it had made all the pain go away. He didn't push Arthur away, though, because he didn't want to feel like he was burning from the inside out again.

Arthur looked into Merlin's eyes and gasped into the kiss. They were completely filled with a swirling gold color. Even the whites and pupils were filled with the shimmering color. It would have taken his breath away, except kissing Merlin had already done that. He felt how strong the magic in Merlin and surrounding the two of them was. He barely needed to reach out before he found Merlin's magic, warm and inviting and completely and utterly Merlin.