The wonderful pleasure of sleeping

aeris444

“What do you think they’re doing?” Gwen asked as she walked around the living room, holding a crying baby in her arms.

“They’re probably having a romantic evening and then they’ll shag all night.” Lancelot answered, following his wife with a half-empty feeding bottle in hand. “After all, that’s why we offered to take Alba for the night.”

“Yes, they deserved some quality time together!” Gwen said as she kept rocking the baby. “Oh… She stopped crying.” She noticed, lowering her voice as Alba seemed to finally fall asleep.

“Victory!” Lancelot said with a little too much enthusiasm, prompting Alba to start crying again.

“Lance… I hate you.”

***

Merlin yawned for the second time in just a few minutes. Arthur yawned, too.

Merlin looked at the table full of chinese take-away boxes, at the television where they had put “Princess DIaries” in lack of enough energy to watch anything else and at both of them, in their pyjamas, lying against each other in the couch.

He was pretty sure it wasn’t what Gwen and Lancelot had imagined when they had offered to babysit Alba for a night to allow them some time alone.

Merlin yawned again. He couldn’t even concentrate on the film.

“Stop yawning… It’s communicative.”

“Sorry.” Merlin mumbled just before yawning again.

“Sleepy?”

Merlin nodded.

Without a word, Arthur took the remote and switched the television off.

“Let’s go to sleep, then.”

“Are you sure?”

“Merlin… Whatever Gwen and Lance may have hoped for us, we’re clearly too tired to do anything remotely sexual. And I must admit I’ll be very happy to just sleep a full night holding you in my arms.”

Arthur was right. They were too tired to even consider more than a cuddle. And to be really honest, Merlin wasn’t missing sex that much. Since Alba’s birth, Arthur and him had found a new balance in their life. Of course, the baby had taken much of their time and attention though, they weren’t ignoring each other, they were finding intimacy in other things than sex. They kissed more, nearly each time they were seeing each other. They touched a lot, too. Small, gentle touches, just to reassure the other that they were here for him. They took turn waking up during the night to take care of Alba. They shared all the chores and responsibilities. It was their way of showing how much they loved each other at the moment. It will probably change when Arthur would go back to work in a few weeks but for now, they were alright.

“Let’s go.”

Just a few minutes later, they were soundly asleep, cuddled together.