fic: this does not deserve a title // murtagh/boy!arya
murtagh/boy!arya. crack.
summary: "this is really perverse, you know," arya says. his hands are long and his fingers have callouses at the tips.
disclaimer: cp's!
--
this is how it starts:
wow, pretty girl, murtagh mutters wryly, into eragon's ear; eragon flushes.
his name is arya, he says, over the elf in question's body, in his arms, look, he's heavy, help?
wow, murtagh says, looking again, critical-eyed, through the bruising and the blood. overall the features look feminine, yeah, but if you look close enough you can see that individually they're masculine. or androgynous, which is close enough, when you consider elves.
the elf's body is wiry and muscled, under murtagh's hands. he holds the legs and reminds himself that it would be really, really, creepy to touch his ass. he feels kind of skeevy.
don't even think about it, says a voice in his head, and that is how murtagh meets arya.
--
when they bring the elf to the camp, brom is poking at the fire. he raises an eyebrow. "i thought you said there was a princess talking to you in your dreams," he says.
eragon goes completely red, even to the tips of his ears. he looks at his feet and mutters, "yeah, well, elven clothes are misleading."
murtagh says, "not to be awkward or anything, but he's really heavy and i don't think dropping him would be the best thing for his bone structure."
shut up, the elf says, in his head, it's because you're a human and you're weak.
"if you say so," murtagh says, and eragon and brom look at him strangely. "i mean the clothes-thing!"
"all right," eragon says, and lowers arya head-first to the ground.
oh, this is very graceful, arya says, in murtagh's head, it's like i'm on a cloud, or something.
"are you always like this?" murtagh asks, exasperated. he's tempted to drop the feet, but he has self-control and he puts them down carefully.
eragon blinks. "um?"
yes, arya says. now if you will excuse me, i need to die of poisoning.
murtagh says, "is he poisoned?"
eragon scratches his head. "oh, right," he says, inspiration dawning in his eyes, "yeah! we need to get him to the varden."
murtagh strongly resists the urge to hit eragon over the head, last dragon rider or no. the only thing that stops him is the expression on brom's face, which tells murtagh that if he hits eragon, brom will too, and then alagaesia will be fucked.
"i'm not going to the varden," murtagh says, hopes it does not sound as feeble as he thinks it does.
oh, yes, you are, arya says, what, you think i'm trusting my life to this moron?
--
nasuada, princess of the varden, has a crush a mile wide on the elf, who turns out to be prince arya, son of queen islanzadi (and currently not speaking to her). this is awkward, because murtagh thinks both of them are really really hot and that at least one of them should be sleeping with him sometime soon. it's made more awkward by the fact that he's in jail, and interesting, because eragon has a thing for nasuada, and doesn't know he has a thing for arya. also, he probably has a thing for murtagh, but that's kind of gross so murtagh doesn't think about it.
nasuada's father thinks murtagh is an idiot, because he won't let the twins (and those are possibly the creepiest magicians murtagh has seen in his entire life, and he is from galbatorix's court) into his head. well, nasuada's father has no hair. and is old. and his daughter is really, really hot.
also, murtagh's father was kind of a huge bastard and he understands where ajihad is coming from. and his jail cell is really nice. so there's that.
eragon comes by, asks him if he needs anything. he asks to see arya, isn't quite sure why, but he feels like he should talk to the man he gave up his freedom for. he isn't sure what he'll say.
in the end, he doesn't have to say anything.
arya walks in through the door, nods to the guard like he expects perfect obedience, like he's god or something, and the guard backs off. the door shuts behind him; it sounds a lot less like prison than it used to.
"hey," murtagh says, sitting cross-legged on his bed, and he raises a hand in laconic greeting.
arya's eyes are green fire, and his shirt is white-gold silk. "shut up," he says, crossing the floor in two neat, even strides, crushing his mouth against murtagh's in a bruising, brutal kiss.
murtagh's hand drops to his side; he kisses back, matching arya's intensity. they break for air, panting; murtagh raises a finger to his lips. "wow," he says, "not that i'm complaining, but what brought that on?"
arya makes a face (murtagh didn't even know elves made faces, he'd been brought up to think of them as marble) and sits down next to him, all effortless elven grace. "i haven't stopped thinking of you since you found me."
"that was mostly eragon," murtagh is compelled to say, because it's the truth. "i was just, you know, the person who stopped him eating the shiny rocks on the ground."
arya raises an eyebrow. "so," he says, "we could talk, or..." he trails off, eyes bright.
murtagh knows that's his cue; he leans in, kisses arya, softly, almost sweetly, and lets arya bring the intensity.
--
they're curled into each other in murtagh's tiny bed; thankfully they're both reasonably slender, or they'd have to be on the floor, with their clothes. (this is something that has always gotten murtagh into trouble after one-night-stands; he loves cuddling, can't be alone in the aftermath of sex.)
"this is really perverse, you know," arya says. his hands are long and his fingers have callouses at the tips.
murtagh traces a finger along arya's bare shoulder; his skin is very pale, not even the slightest hint of a freckle. "what makes you say that?" he asks, idly.
"you're a human," arya says, sounding distressed, "and i'm, you know, emphatically not."
"if it helps, both my parents were incredibly powerful magic-users?" murtagh knows it doesn't help; he's read a lot of elf-lore, and it's all pretty stunningly racist stuff.
"a little," arya says, making a face. his hair is like silk; murtagh has the urge to card his hands through it, to tangle it through his fingers. "but you know, your father was also evil, so there's that."
"yeah," murtagh says, sighing. "so was my mother, i think. well, i mean, she loved me. but anyone else was fair game. she tried to avoid coming home with blood on her shirt, but once or twice--"
"ouch," arya says.
the air is stagnant, quiet and still. "yeah," murtagh says. "i'm sorry about, you know-- your party."
arya's hands are white, like ivory. "i can't believe eragon is the rider," he says, "that-- child, of all people--"
"he'll be all right," murtagh says, feeling an unreasonable urge to protect the kid, "he's just, you know, young. give him a little time, he'll straighten out." eragon's had the youth none of them ever had time for, not murtagh or nasuada or even arya, bitter as he is; murtagh doesn't have the heart to begrudge eragon that, of all things.
"we don't have that kind of time," arya says, mouth twisting. "not enough time for him to learn magic that should be instinct; brom did his best, but--"
murtagh doesn't know what makes him say it. "you know i can pick up his slack."
arya nods, but looks pained. "you won't let anyone into your head."
murtagh shrugs, props himself up on one shoulder. "will you swear never to tell anyone of what you see?"
arya's eyes widen, but he won't turn down the offer; can't afford to, not with the war going the way it is. "i will."
"you'd better do it now, then," murtagh says, "before i lose my nerve."
arya's fingers are cool, on his temples. it hurts less than he thought it would. (but not much less.)
--
murtagh's never been so good with a sword as he is, now, with arya at his back. he's never felt the magic spark so true, inside him, before. they hack their way through men and urgals alike, some kind of symmetry running true within them.
blackness parts the crowd and durza smiles, hair like blood, eyes like shadows.
i thought i killed him, murtagh thinks, and arya's tension runs through him like they're extensions of each other.
you have to get them in the heart, arya tells him, voice in his head, brittle. otherwise it doesn't stick.
well, murtagh thinks, fuck.
then eragon is challenging the shade, all bravado and blue dragon, and murtagh's throwing all his magic into some crazy scheme of arya's that somehow works.
--
when it's all over, eragon has a scar and arya and murtagh have fucked seven times, running on the post-battle-we-survived high. the dwarves no longer have a giant ugly rock hanging from their ceiling (apparently they're upset about this; murtagh's not getting into it), and nasuada is still really, really hot.
murtagh mutters, "this day really couldn't get any better," and arya smiles at him, and suddenly it is.