#Hahaha... first-person POV? It's more likely than you think 😎

[thefollow-spot]

"Untitled" (Keeping)

Lancelot/Merlin ● General Audiences ● WC: 200 ● No Warnings // Written for @merlinmicrofic 2024, for the prompt 'Enough'.

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You’ve taken an arrow for our prince. Home, we’re alone in your room. Your blood is stopped, but needs redressing. Pale, you’ve always been too fair. Your smiling eyes crinkle, hiding anything that hurts.

“Least Arthur’s safe,” you mutter. “Didn’t even have to use magic.”

Always for Arthur: wounds, scars, soul. Never will you put this down. Couldn’t I be enough for you? I know the answer. Cupping your face; kissing your lips. Take my swordsman’s hands, put them to work. Cleaning jagged skin; replacing the bandage, rotting red. I can’t fault you: I know what loving in service is.

◦◦◦

When you touch me this way, you’ve got a sculptor’s hands: strong, reverent. I wasn’t made for this—you know that, don’t you? I’m only half of a set (so the Dragon says). Properly, I can’t belong to you, even if I wished I could.

Shuddering, you breathe against my neck: “You’re too reckless, my lord.”

Later, my head in your lap, we steal time by your chamber hearth. I rest my wounded leg; you hum songs from your boyhood. Could you love me anyway, and make this be enough? Please believe me when I say I can’t be more.