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"M," Merlin mutters, tracing his fingers over Arthur's skin, eyes burning pale morning-yellow. The pad of his finger makes a loop. Arthur sighs.
"...l, i, n."
"What are you doing?" Arthur lifts his head a little, roused just enough to object since Merlin has taken his hand away.
"Wrote my name," Merlin says, sounding childishly satisfied — apparently with reason, as Arthur sits up enough to see Merlin's name scrawled in faintly glowing light across his lower ribs, lambent in the dim below the bed's canopy. "See, you're mine."
"How did you do that?" Arthur murmurs, fascinated in spite of himself. The sorcery isn't new anymore, but it still seems a kind of unknowable. Birds fly, and Merlin does magic — is magic — and Arthur's not likely ever to know how either one feels.
"Er, sorry." Merlin's eyes go wider, more awake, and he spreads a hand over his signature as if ready to sweep it away. "It's not permanent, I can take it off."
"No," Arthur commands quickly. "leave it. It's fine." Embarrassment creeps up, and the impression that he's said too much, so he adds, "For now."
Merlin smiles brilliantly, hearing past it, like he always does. "As you wish." He drops a kiss on the soft place just below the end of Arthur's breastbone, drawing a spiral with one finger as Arthur settles back again, closing his eyes, to let him do what he will.