Fic: Merlin; Rebellion
Merlin fic again... what a surprise. Although, I waited until after midnight so I didn't post three on the same day. Is that weird? Probably.
Title: Rebellion
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Merlin/Arthur (duh)
Warnings: A little angsty...
Spoilers: 1x01
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I get no money. This is purely for entertainment purposes...
Author’s Note:Sort of Arthur-finds-out!fic, sort of first time!fic, weird combination of the two.
Many thanks go to wrennette for betaing again. I really should make a cybermedal or something.
Summary: The first time was never for the reasons Arthur told himself it was.
He’s lying when he tells himself he’s not sure why it happened.
Merlin had told him about his magic three days before, in a halting conversation with garbled half sentences about destiny and hope. He had avoided Arthur’s eyes and stared down at the floor, almost as though he was walking to the pyre already.
His own reaction had been a mixture of deep shock and lack of surprise. In the end the two extremes had balanced each other out and all he had done was nod. Arthur can’t remember what he said then: his brain too busy playing join-the-dots with a puzzle he really should have worked out months ago. He supposes that he must have said the right thing, though, because when Merlin looked up a second later he was smiling, almost shyly. It grew to a full blown grin when Arthur spoke again - to tell him that there was no way a little thing like being an all-powerful sorcerer was going to get him out of polishing his armour.
“Of course not,” Merlin had replied, waiting that one second too long before he remembered to add on “Sire.” Then everything had slid back into place and it had been like nothing had changed.
Except everything had. In some little place inside Arthur - his head or his heart, sometimes he was unsure how to separate the two - something had begun to build up, slowly trickling into him and rising every second.
Two days later he had escorted a man to his father’s dungeons to be imprisoned on the charge of sorcery and, as Merlin had softly pulled off the layers of royalty from him that evening, it had been his turn to stare at the floor.
The man had been beheaded the next day. The executioner had been sharpening his axe as Arthur had struggled to try and make the apology cross his lips, and Merlin had silently told him that it was unnecessary.
They had watched the execution together. Arthur was uncertain why Merlin had stood at his side watching the slaughter of his own kind - for trying to find a lost pig, for heaven’s sake - but aware why he himself watched.
Someone had to bear witness, to know them all: every face, every name. It needed to be remembered, because it should not be forgotten.
When they went back inside his chambers that night, he had grasped Merlin by the arm and pulled their bodies together as savagely as he could. He told himself that this was a promise: never again, sealed in their lips and their sweat. He told himself that it was for Merlin: to prove that he saw him as more than another face, another name on a long list of the dead. It was the only way he could think of to apologise. It was the only way he could think of to prove that they were both still alive, gloriously alive, in the midst of it all and in spite of everything.
He had been lying to himself.
It had been brutal. He had not forced Merlin, nor commanded him to do it, but it had been brutal. The other man had met him inch for inch, pushing and biting back - sealing the pact Arthur had wished they were making in blood as well as everything else. He had bruises on his hips from Merlin dragging him closer and jagged scratches down his back. It had been silent, though; neither of them had spoken. There had just been harsh breath against breath and strangled cries, cut off before they could become words.
That, he thinks now, had been for his father.
Arthur had never been rebellious. It was ordered out of him when he was young: strict lessons and strict punishments, constantly striving for approval. There had been lectures on what a Prince was, what a Prince should become. It was not for him, he was told - over and over - it was for Camelot.
But that moment, having just watched the executioner’s axe swing down under his father’s watchful and approving eye, he had needed to rebel somehow, some way.
As he had grabbed Merlin and crushed them together, underneath it all he had been thinking - and it shamed him to even consider it - that Merlin was a sorcerer, that he was touching and kissing and bedding a sorcerer. He imagined his father’s face if he had found that out: that Arthur had knowingly taken a sorcerer into his bed, knowingly submitted to him.
Merlin is wrapped around him now, muttering in his sleep, and Arthur extricates himself to leave the bed and stand by the window, looking out at all the world.
Of all the reasons - love, lust and companionship, drunken fumbling and desperate loneliness - of all the reasons, he doesn’t think that any is less worthy than just to spite someone who will never know, who must never know.
The room is cold - he had not allowed Merlin the time to stoke the fire, dragging him down onto the bed with him - and he shivers.
“Arthur?” Merlin says, waking up at the worst possible time, just as Arthur is sinking into himself in shame. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Go back to sleep,” the Prince orders, because there is no way he is replying truthfully to that question.
“Only if you do too…” Merlin says, and Arthur can hear the sheets slither over him as he stretches. He can picture it in his mind - just a brush of moonlight making Merlin silver as he unfolds his limbs. “You’ve got early patrol in the morning, and you’re always unmanageable if you haven’t got enough sleep.”
“You’re insolent,” Arthur points out.
“And you’re freezing…” Merlin bites back, and now he’s out of bed walking towards him. “Arthur… Are your teeth chattering?”
Arthur would tell him that Princes’ teeth don’t chatter, because Princes don’t feel the cold and only someone as uncouth and annoying as Merlin would have teeth that chattered. But then again his teeth are chattering and he is regretting the fact that he left Merlin and the bed, both of which were warm.
Merlin’s hand lands on his shoulder and Arthur turns, almost involuntarily, to see his manservant smiling uncertainly, almost as though he is expecting to be thrown out any second.
Arthur wants to apologise again, but he’s not sure how.
Merlin steps closer and loops one arm hesitantly over his shoulders, pulling him gently back towards the bed. Arthur sees the dried blood on the warlock’s lips for a moment before he leans across and presses their mouths together. It is not like the night before: not desperate and angry.
This is not for his father, he decides; this is not for anyone but them. It’s not for the man they saw murdered, it’s not for Camelot and it’s not for magic or destiny or any of the million things that it could, feasibly, be for. It’s just for him and Merlin.
He wants to say that but that isn’t the sort of thing they say. So, instead, he opens his mouth and begins as he means to go on.
“Of course I got out of bed, you idiot, your knees are unbelievably bony.”
“Well, not all of us get three course breakfasts, sire,” Merlin retorts as Arthur allows himself to be led back to the bed and gently pushed down into it.
“You hardly starve, Merlin,” he says as the other man folds himself in against Arthur’s side. The shivering calms as they lay there, warmth seeping back into Arthur’s body. “I’ve heard Gaius complaining that you eat enough to feed a small army.”
“Go to sleep,” Merlin mutters against his shoulder, clearly too tired to argue.
“I think I’m the one supposed to be giving the orders, Merlin,” he retorts.
“And what do you command?” Merlin asks, already half asleep.
“Go to sleep and stop keeping me awake…” Arthur says, stifling his own yawn. “Oh… and make sure to make your knees less bony,” he adds as an afterthought. He’s not sure what Merlin says in reply but it sounds affirmative, so he leaves it at that.
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Title: Rebellion
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Merlin/Arthur (duh)
Warnings: A little angsty...
Spoilers: 1x01
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I get no money. This is purely for entertainment purposes...
Author’s Note:Sort of Arthur-finds-out!fic, sort of first time!fic, weird combination of the two.
Many thanks go to wrennette for betaing again. I really should make a cybermedal or something.
Summary: The first time was never for the reasons Arthur told himself it was.
He’s lying when he tells himself he’s not sure why it happened.
Merlin had told him about his magic three days before, in a halting conversation with garbled half sentences about destiny and hope. He had avoided Arthur’s eyes and stared down at the floor, almost as though he was walking to the pyre already.
His own reaction had been a mixture of deep shock and lack of surprise. In the end the two extremes had balanced each other out and all he had done was nod. Arthur can’t remember what he said then: his brain too busy playing join-the-dots with a puzzle he really should have worked out months ago. He supposes that he must have said the right thing, though, because when Merlin looked up a second later he was smiling, almost shyly. It grew to a full blown grin when Arthur spoke again - to tell him that there was no way a little thing like being an all-powerful sorcerer was going to get him out of polishing his armour.
“Of course not,” Merlin had replied, waiting that one second too long before he remembered to add on “Sire.” Then everything had slid back into place and it had been like nothing had changed.
Except everything had. In some little place inside Arthur - his head or his heart, sometimes he was unsure how to separate the two - something had begun to build up, slowly trickling into him and rising every second.
Two days later he had escorted a man to his father’s dungeons to be imprisoned on the charge of sorcery and, as Merlin had softly pulled off the layers of royalty from him that evening, it had been his turn to stare at the floor.
The man had been beheaded the next day. The executioner had been sharpening his axe as Arthur had struggled to try and make the apology cross his lips, and Merlin had silently told him that it was unnecessary.
They had watched the execution together. Arthur was uncertain why Merlin had stood at his side watching the slaughter of his own kind - for trying to find a lost pig, for heaven’s sake - but aware why he himself watched.
Someone had to bear witness, to know them all: every face, every name. It needed to be remembered, because it should not be forgotten.
When they went back inside his chambers that night, he had grasped Merlin by the arm and pulled their bodies together as savagely as he could. He told himself that this was a promise: never again, sealed in their lips and their sweat. He told himself that it was for Merlin: to prove that he saw him as more than another face, another name on a long list of the dead. It was the only way he could think of to apologise. It was the only way he could think of to prove that they were both still alive, gloriously alive, in the midst of it all and in spite of everything.
He had been lying to himself.
It had been brutal. He had not forced Merlin, nor commanded him to do it, but it had been brutal. The other man had met him inch for inch, pushing and biting back - sealing the pact Arthur had wished they were making in blood as well as everything else. He had bruises on his hips from Merlin dragging him closer and jagged scratches down his back. It had been silent, though; neither of them had spoken. There had just been harsh breath against breath and strangled cries, cut off before they could become words.
That, he thinks now, had been for his father.
Arthur had never been rebellious. It was ordered out of him when he was young: strict lessons and strict punishments, constantly striving for approval. There had been lectures on what a Prince was, what a Prince should become. It was not for him, he was told - over and over - it was for Camelot.
But that moment, having just watched the executioner’s axe swing down under his father’s watchful and approving eye, he had needed to rebel somehow, some way.
As he had grabbed Merlin and crushed them together, underneath it all he had been thinking - and it shamed him to even consider it - that Merlin was a sorcerer, that he was touching and kissing and bedding a sorcerer. He imagined his father’s face if he had found that out: that Arthur had knowingly taken a sorcerer into his bed, knowingly submitted to him.
Merlin is wrapped around him now, muttering in his sleep, and Arthur extricates himself to leave the bed and stand by the window, looking out at all the world.
Of all the reasons - love, lust and companionship, drunken fumbling and desperate loneliness - of all the reasons, he doesn’t think that any is less worthy than just to spite someone who will never know, who must never know.
The room is cold - he had not allowed Merlin the time to stoke the fire, dragging him down onto the bed with him - and he shivers.
“Arthur?” Merlin says, waking up at the worst possible time, just as Arthur is sinking into himself in shame. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Go back to sleep,” the Prince orders, because there is no way he is replying truthfully to that question.
“Only if you do too…” Merlin says, and Arthur can hear the sheets slither over him as he stretches. He can picture it in his mind - just a brush of moonlight making Merlin silver as he unfolds his limbs. “You’ve got early patrol in the morning, and you’re always unmanageable if you haven’t got enough sleep.”
“You’re insolent,” Arthur points out.
“And you’re freezing…” Merlin bites back, and now he’s out of bed walking towards him. “Arthur… Are your teeth chattering?”
Arthur would tell him that Princes’ teeth don’t chatter, because Princes don’t feel the cold and only someone as uncouth and annoying as Merlin would have teeth that chattered. But then again his teeth are chattering and he is regretting the fact that he left Merlin and the bed, both of which were warm.
Merlin’s hand lands on his shoulder and Arthur turns, almost involuntarily, to see his manservant smiling uncertainly, almost as though he is expecting to be thrown out any second.
Arthur wants to apologise again, but he’s not sure how.
Merlin steps closer and loops one arm hesitantly over his shoulders, pulling him gently back towards the bed. Arthur sees the dried blood on the warlock’s lips for a moment before he leans across and presses their mouths together. It is not like the night before: not desperate and angry.
This is not for his father, he decides; this is not for anyone but them. It’s not for the man they saw murdered, it’s not for Camelot and it’s not for magic or destiny or any of the million things that it could, feasibly, be for. It’s just for him and Merlin.
He wants to say that but that isn’t the sort of thing they say. So, instead, he opens his mouth and begins as he means to go on.
“Of course I got out of bed, you idiot, your knees are unbelievably bony.”
“Well, not all of us get three course breakfasts, sire,” Merlin retorts as Arthur allows himself to be led back to the bed and gently pushed down into it.
“You hardly starve, Merlin,” he says as the other man folds himself in against Arthur’s side. The shivering calms as they lay there, warmth seeping back into Arthur’s body. “I’ve heard Gaius complaining that you eat enough to feed a small army.”
“Go to sleep,” Merlin mutters against his shoulder, clearly too tired to argue.
“I think I’m the one supposed to be giving the orders, Merlin,” he retorts.
“And what do you command?” Merlin asks, already half asleep.
“Go to sleep and stop keeping me awake…” Arthur says, stifling his own yawn. “Oh… and make sure to make your knees less bony,” he adds as an afterthought. He’s not sure what Merlin says in reply but it sounds affirmative, so he leaves it at that.
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