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Arthur wasn't used to speaking to people he didn't already know.
It'd been ingrained in him since birth. He was only allowed to speak with those his father considered worthy.
He agreed with the precedence set by his father, if for different reasons. He couldn't risk being soulmates with some commoner, couldn't risk being paired with someone he could never love. His father's view on it was more classist; Arthur simply abhorred the idea of breaking his soulmate's heart.
It was better that they never knew him, better that they never knew who he was destined to be for them.
Either way, it simmered down to this: if his soulmate wasn't royal, or at least of high-ranking nobility, they could never be his and he could never be theirs.
And so he could only speak with those of a certain social standing, though his father had forbidden him from speaking with his ward for an undisclosed reason. That hadn't stopped Arthur, a young boy curious about the limitations he had to follow, nor Morgana, a lonely girl drowning in grief.
They only spoke with one another when they were alone—truly alone, although that had changed of late. Morgana had grown up with the same rules as Arthur, but she had recently begun holding hushed conversations with her maidservant, Guinevere. Morgana convinced him to speak with her as well, saying that she knew for a fact that Arthur didn't deserve a soulmate as wonderful as her.
He'd scowled, but introduced himself, clumsy in figuring out what he was supposed to say when he wasn't stuck in the politics of court.
Gwen was the only servant he would speak with, though. He didn't even speak with the man who might as well be his manservant. He didn't even know his name.
He spoke with Gaius, but he was the only other non-noble Arthur had held conversation with. A horrifically small list: Gwen and Gaius. Not even the stablehands, the guards, the chefs.
He was no fool; he knew what his people thought of their cold-hearted prince. It was better this way, though. This way, he wasn't hurting anyone. It was the best he could do with the hand he'd been dealt.
He never spoke first, never initiated a discussion.
He mastered the art of speaking at people, of exchanging words with people who weren't the target of his communication.
Still, he hated it—making demands of them as if they were inanimate objects or a dog told to heel, speaking to another as if the person was incapable of speaking for themself or holding opinions.
So when he heard somebody—who was decidedly not a royal lady—say the words engraved in his hip like a brand, he was startled to find himself almost responding to them. Instead, he turned to Leon, and asked, “Who is this?” only to be met with a shrug.
“What, are you too important to ask me yourself?”
“I don’t often speak to people below my rank,” Arthur said—only half a lie, considering he spoke to his father or neighboring royalty more than any other. It was a generalized statement, an utterance directed nowhere and at nobody.
“Yeah? And who are you, the king?”
“I’m his son,” Arthur said, throwing a knife at the target to punctuate his statement. In his fugue, he hit the outer edge of the target. He only realized when he went to pick up the daggers and found them all lodged in the largest white ring.
Still, Arthur had thought that would be the end of it—he’d never ran into his soulmate before, why would he again? Surely it had just been a chance run-in, which, in another life, would lead somewhere, but there was no reason for his soulmate to stay—he’d probably come to the market, and would leave later that day.
He had no such luck. Not only was his soulmate staying in Camelot, but he—Merlin, Arthur came to learn—was staying as Gaius’ apprentice. It was less than a week later that Merlin had tackled Arthur, knocking him out of the path of a dagger that was aimed at his heart, and Arthur began to wonder if he truly couldn’t fight fate.
It was just his luck that Merlin was not just a decent human being, but a good one. Not only that, but he was funny, too. Once he’d become Arthur’s manservant—after much protest on both of their parts—it was nigh impossible for Arthur to refrain from speaking to him. The worst part about it? Merlin noticed that Arthur was going out of his way to avoid talking to him—sure, he didn’t realize that his “generalized statements” were what they were, but it would be difficult to not notice how long it took Arthur to reply, or that he didn’t half the time.
“You could at least pretend that you have a half-decent reason to avoid talking to me.” Merlin said one day, after Arthur had been on the wrong side of a fight. “Don’t act like it’s rank, like you told me when we met—I’ve seen you hold conversations with Gwen all the time.”
Arthur didn’t say anything in response—couldn’t say anything in response. This was much more personal than anything else Merlin had said to him, much more personal than anything Arthur could just say into the air and pretend wasn’t directed at Merlin. He couldn’t say anything short of the truth, but the words were caught in his throat.
He turned to try to look at Merlin, try to convey how he felt, somehow, without exposing himself too deeply, but the room was empty. It felt like Merlin took a piece of Arthur’s soul with him when he left.
Things went back to normal—if anything could be considered normal when Arthur ignored the way that his heart pulled him over to Merlin whenever he was away, and ignored him when he was there—after about a week of Merlin only addressing Arthur by his title, barely saying anything other than “Is there anything I can do, sire?”
It was killing him.
He couldn’t say anything, though—couldn’t bear to see Merlin’s face when he realized that Arthur was his soulmate, that his soulmate had known him for ages and never once properly spoken to him, couldn’t bear to see Merlin’s face when Arthur inevitably broke his heart into pieces and left him for the dogs.
“Well, Princess, I didn’t realize you hated Merlin so much.” Gwaine said one time, after Merlin had stormed off, silent and showing no signs of returning any time soon.
“Is that what you think?” Arthur asked, shoving his sword into the dirt at his feet and meeting Gwaine’s gaze. “Is that what you really think?”
He didn’t even give Gwaine a chance to answer before he was gone, too, sick of training, sick of not being able to just speak, not being able to let Merlin know that he was valued more than any other human being that Arthur knew.
It was only a matter of time before the gears clicked in Gwaine’s head—he wasn’t as thick-skulled as he led everyone to believe. Arthur honestly wasn’t sure if that was better or worse, but what was done was done.
Gwaine argued with him less, but glared at him more, almost daring him to hurt Merlin. Arthur was pretty sure that he’d been hurting Merlin ever since they’d met, but kept swearing to himself that it was better than the alternative, better than letting Merlin know, and never being able to do anything about it.
If Arthur was being honest, he wasn’t sure how the other knights—especially Lancelot—hadn’t figured it out yet. He wasn’t sure how Merlin hadn’t, when he was so clever with everything else. He’d predicted that Lancelot and Gwen were soulmates before they’d even met, from a combination of the phrasing on Lancelot’s wrist and their personalities.
Eventually, Arthur began to wonder if Merlin did know, and that’s why he always seemed upset at Arthur’s refusal to speak to him—but surely Merlin would say something? He’d never hesitated from speaking out of turn before, so why would he now?
Eventually, something had to give. Merlin was injured—a deep slash across his upper leg that Arthur swore showed bone.
While tying ripped apart strips of his shirt around Merlin's wound and applying pressure, Arthur babbled—he wasn't even sure what he was saying, really; he was just trying to keep Merlin awake.
"It's okay, Arthur," Merlin swore, barely getting the words out before his breaths got too shallow to allow speech.
"No, it isn't," Arthur said. "You'll be alright. The others can't be far, and they'll find us, and then we'll get you back to Gaius."
The words felt like bile on his tongue. He'd seen people get stabbed there before—it was the third quickest way to bleed out, beaten only by the heart and the jugular. He knew as well as Merlin did that he wasn't getting out of this alive.
Merlin eventually grew cold, and Arthur couldn't help but let out wracking sobs. Eventually, hypoxia set in as he failed to get his breathing under control. It was something he'd accidentally taught himself when young. When he was panicking, he held his breath—the first time he'd truly panicked, he'd nearly drowned, and taking in lungfuls of water felt like a thousand shards of glass down his esophagus.
Arthur laid down next to Merlin, pulled him close, and let his eyes shut.
He woke the next morning to the sun glaring down at him, leaving his skin tight and burnt.
The first thing he noticed was that he wasn't holding Merlin anymore. The realization was like having a bucketful of water dumped over his head, and he sat up so quickly the world went black for a second.
"You're up!" Merlin said, grinning up at him from the fire he'd built, as if he hadn't died last night. As if his chest hadn't stopped moving, as if his pulse didn't fade away, as if his body didn't turn as cold as the earth below them.
Arthur stared at him blankly long enough that Merlin got concerned and came over, checking Arthur's temperature with the back of his hand.
"Are you okay?" Merlin asked, and it was so, so soft. "Did you hit your head in the fight yesterday? I can't remember it very well."
"Merlin," Arthur said, but it tore out of his throat like a sob. He pulled himself to his knees then threw himself at his idiot manservant, who had nearly died for him too many times. "You're alive."
"Why wouldn't I be?" Merlin asked quietly. "I was more worried about you."
"I'm not the one who went and died yesterday," Arthur snapped, blindly fumbling for all of Merlin's pulse points to prove that he was there and he was alive.
"...I didn't die?" Merlin said, but it came out as a question. "I'm not even injured."
"Then what's all this blood?" Arthur asked, gesturing sharply at Merlin's trousers which were soaked so darkly they looked black.
Merlin blinked and looked down at himself. "It must be someone else's," he said, but he sounded doubtful.
Arthur would have agreed with him if not for the tear in the fabric where Merlin had been cut.
Merlin almost died—perhaps had—and Arthur hadn't even realized that he loved him.
He loved Merlin.
"Merlin," Arthur said, voice steady despite his frantically beating heart. "Never, and I repeat: never do that again. I thought I lost you."
Merlin made a strangled noise, and then—"Arthur, that isn't funny."
Arthur jerked his head up to meet Merlin's eyes, and all he found there was hurt. "What on earth are you talking about?"
Merlin frowned before moving his trousers out of the way to show the words inscribed on his upper thigh.
Arthur let his thumb brush over them, mouthing them to himself as if their echo wasn't still stuck on his tongue.
Then reality hit him—"I didn't see that," Arthur admitted quietly, "but—it can't be a coincidence, can it? Even though I've spoken to you before?"
"You turniphead," Merlin sighed fondly. "It's you. It's always been you."
"I don't understand," Arthur said. "Why are these the first words that showed up on you?"
A sad smile was Merlin's response, followed by a soft "I love you, too."
Arthur felt his cheeks turn redder than the sun had already left them, trying to find words and floundering.
Then, something hit him—"Merlin," Arthur said, voice small enough to make him feel like he was four again, getting scolded for talking to his governess' daughter. "I didn't—I didn't say I did."
There was only one way that Merlin's words had only just been said. A way that meant Merlin wasn't safe, and probably never would be.
Arthur wanted to protect him. He wanted to make sure his smile never faded, so he quickly added, "I do, I swear, but… I didn't say it."
Even so, Merlin's smile melted away. "Right," he said. "Arthur, I—"
Arthur wrapped him up in his arms as he broke into sobs, laying a gentle kiss to the top of his head. "It's okay, Merlin, I've got you."
They stayed like that for a while before Merlin asked, "You've known for a while, right?"
"That we're soulmates? Yeah," Arthur said. "But we can't—I can't—"
Merlin pulled back just far enough that he could cup Arthur's cheeks in his palms, letting their foreheads rest against one another. "You didn't know you loved me yet, though," Merlin said.
Arthur shook his head, incapable of finding the words to explain.
"I… I only just realized. But Merlin—"
Merlin placed a finger on Arthur's lips, silencing him.
"Believe me, I know." Merlin said softly.
"You're not safe," Arthur managed. "You can't—you can't come back with me. My father will—he'll kill you, Merlin."
"He hasn't yet," Merlin answered. "And there's nothing he can do to take me away from you."