A/N: So I'm in the process of re-watching Merlin and letting Merlin and Lancelot were making my shipper heart break into thousands and thousands of pieces. Then I got to the Darkest Hour and this popped into my head. This may be the start of a series of ficlets in a !verse, but I haven't decided yet. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

He wakes to see his cloak, which had previously been wrapped around a certain warlock, laying out on the ground, noticeably lacking said warlock, and his heart drops into his stomach. Within a half second, he's sitting up.

"Merlin?" He asks, before a second later, louder, "Merlin!?"

"Shh!" A very familiar voice behind him scolds. He whirls to face the source, only to see none other than Merlin poised over the creek, spear in hand. He strikes at a fish, missing, and Lancelot's getting to his feet as he starts toward him, holding up a string of fish.

"Breakfast?" He offers, as if this were everyday routine. For a moment, all the knight can do is stare before he finally finds his voice.

"Merlin, wha-?" He starts, before he breaks into a grin because Merlin seems perfectly fine, as if he hadn't been on the brink just hours before. "What are you-?" He tries again, but this time he's cut off.

"What?" Merlin asks, so innocently it seems he almost really doesn't understand Lancelot's confusion.

"You're meant to be..." He begins, but it's harder than he expected to bite out the word. "...dying."

"Sorry." He replies so quickly it nearly seems genuine, before he cracks a smile. "Here." He says, offering Lancelot the spear he'd been using as a staff.

"What's this for?" He looks between the staff and the warlock, whose grin just widens mischievously.

"You look like you're about to fall over."

The tease has Lancelot's eyebrow arching, and he takes a swing with the staff, aiming for the head, though he comes nowhere close to meeting his mark.

"Yeah, not as fast as Arthur." Merlin taunts with a smirk, drawing a strange look across the knight's face.

"Oh yeah?" he asks, stepping forward. The staff falls from his hand as he crashes his lips against Merlin's, firm and strong and almost desperate. The younger man responds enthusiastically, even as Lancelot's hands find his hips and pulls him flush against his body.

The warlock's heat soaks through the knight's mail, which only makes him tighten his grip because it's affirmation that Merlin is here, warm and alive in his arms.

When their lips finally part, he turns his attention to his lover's throat, pressing a lingering kiss where he can feel the steady rhythm of Merlin's heartbeat just beneath the skin.

Despite the fervor with which Merlin kisses him when he tugs his knight's mouth back to his, Lancelot feels the tension in his smaller body. He's ready to run, to rush into the fray and save Arthur (again) because that's just what he does.

Lancelot doesn't begrudge him that, he's known from the very beginning what loving Merlin entails. He knows how linked his warlock is to his King, knows that their destiny must come before Merlin's love for him, for the good of all. He's made his peace with that, because as inseparable as Arthur's and Merlin's fates are, his own and Merlin's are in their own way inextricable.

As if knowing his train of thought, Merlin pulls away slightly and whispers.

"Arthur can't finish this without us."

"I know," He replies gently, "I know."

And so they set out, abandoning the fish on the creek's edge, running into the heart of a storm they aren't even fully aware of, in the roles fate has set out for them.

Both of them entirely willing to give all for the Once and Future King, without even the consideration that perhaps their destines were more complicated than they'd ever considered.

That perhaps the fates were just cruel.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to favorite, follow, whatever, and reviews are like crack.

~TheFallenArchangel