never say never....
right so there I was....drowing under all the work I have...and stressing...and not sleeping...and having constant headaches....and no life outside uni....and reading the occasional fic as break in the morn or at night....and I stambled onto the necking fest post on cherrybina 's journal cherrybina.livejournal.com/128166.html ...and I wrote another merlin m/a comment fic....this time UST and sad and wierd....and I actually left a mistake which I noticed after posting (arthur is apperently the prince of CAMEL! *WTF brain?!*) but here is the corrected version of the stupid thing....so yeah
The Hardest Task
Merlin
Merlin/Arthur
UST, neck obsession
Being Arthur’s manservant was a hard and cruel life. If Merlin complained it was only natural and quite justified. However, what he would never admit to another soul was what the hardest part in being said manservant was.
It wasn’t the chamber pots that needed cleaning, the royal stables that needed to be mucked out, the endless feasts (which always ended with his feet being sore), the god-awful hunting trips (with his knees and hands scraped raw due to all those stupid roots protruding out of the earth every few yards, yet cleverly hidden away under the undergrowth, waiting to wreck havoc and great bodily harm to all - or just him as it seemed to be the case), the useless ‘sparring’ sessions with Arthur (which left his body sore and aching for days and suffering from tinnitus for hours after each bloody encounter) or even the occasional (which was really being coming often and the norm) brush with death either by magical or plain normal means (bandits and the like) that seemed to target the Crown Prince of Camelot with an alarming persistence (cue in Merlin trying to save his royal pratness using magic that can lead to his head saying a permanent farewell to his body should someone even glimpse at him during the inopportune moment).
Merlin doesn’t even consider the lagging of buckets of water in order to prepare Arthur’s bath; or even all those stairs every day, up and down, while carrying: trays with plates (with food or dirty to be washed), clothes (dirty or just laundered and smelling of sunshine and grass), sword and armour, or even Arthur bloody Pendragon himself, who is five sheets to the wind and singing bawdy songs (off-key) while being unable to put one foot in front of the other because Arthur is a firm believer that royal blood means that alcohol turns to water in his body and thus he can drink more wine and mead than any other knight (‘yeah right Arthur, you wish!’).
No, the difficult parts were cleaning and tending Arthur’s wounded body (too many times and still each time is harder than the last); donning Arthur in his armour, piece by piece, and have to watch him train and fight with a sword in his hand and a deadly determination in his eyes that is unparalleled by any mortal man to grace this land; dressing Arthur’s body in silk and velvet finery and even worse still, undressing him at the end of the day and placing that shift over Arthur’s body (lucky, lucky shift) and having to say good night to him and leave him every night.
However, the worst was this: Arthur in his bath, head tilted back against the brim of the tub with arms stretched out along it, an ever-present smirk on his face and half-lidded eyes following Merlin’s every move as the demand to be shaved has just been issued forth. Arthur acts as if he is doing Merlin a bloody favour by allowing him to approach him with a razor and stand close to him while Arthur is naked and his throat (oh god that throat) is exposed in all his glory and left at his mercy.
The first time Merlin had to do this they had ended up in an argument so bad the castle guards that were passing outside the royal chambers had burst forth to save the Prince from his ‘would be assassin’ only to find said Prince flushed, naked and dripping all over the floor with Merlin glaring and yelling at him that if he was so ‘useless as to not be able to shave his own face and then how was he expected to rule a kingdom let alone wipe his own royal backside’. Needless to say that had ended with Arthur being equally horrified and angered beyond belief as: a) he was being yelled at by a manservant he didn’t even chose for himself, b) he was being questioned on whether he was a capable future ruler of his land (shore point there) by a mere peasant, and of course c) being naked and ogled by castle guards while a) and b) were taking place. The guards were dismissed quite promptly after being told to take his new manservant to the stocks for the rest of the day.
But now, here is Merlin two years into his manservant-to-the-Prince stint, and he takes this task as the ultimate challenge, as a true test of his character. He is being tested by fate in order to prove that his destiny as the great warlock that is to unite Albion under Arthur’s bidding is what he is truly meant to do. That he can withstand any force, and above all, stand strong against his greatest weakness. Merlin kneels behind the tub that contains Arthur’s reclining form. For a second his eyes flicker into the reflection visible on the polished steel mirror now held in Arthur’s right hand. He avoids the Prince’s gaze, takes a breath and he approaches his greatest temptation.
The column of Arthur’s neck, clean and strong, is right in front of him. Sinew covered by warm, golden skin, Arthur’s pulse beating visibly and steadily at its side. Covered by dark blonde bristle along the front, while the nape of his neck is framed from above by curling golden hair that is darker now that it’s wet than it usually is when dry and reflecting the sun like span gold. Above all else though, it’s the smell. For here, along his neck, as the skin turns rosy due to the hot water that Arthur used to scrub it clean, he can smell Arthur. Not the metal odour left over by the steel of his armour and the sweat that accompanies it and mixes with the smell of sweat-soaked fabric after training, or even the lavender scent that mingles on Arthur’s skin by the clothes that adorn his body, for the royal garments and bed clothes are always washed in lavender water. Here, now, he can only smell Arthur, strong and brilliant like sunshine and pure like forest air. Words are always inadequate to describe it. As Merlin closes his eyes and breathes deeply once more, his mind is left reeling with too many memories and unvoiced feelings where at the centre of it all it’s always Arthur.
Merlin wishes to mark that neck. Stake his claim on that column of unblemished flesh. He wants to leave kisses, gentle and reverent like the ones left by pilgrims on the feet of saints’ statues. He wants to lick with his wet, hot tongue every inch so that he leaves his own scent on Arthur’s skin. He wants to trace invisible words, like ‘mine’ and ‘forever’, using the pads of his calloused fingers along Arthur’s nape. He wants to feel the rasp of those dark blonde bristles along his own cheeks. He wants to trail open mouthed kisses along that flattering pulse point, feel with his reddened lips the beat of that heart and the fruitless movement of his Adam’s apple as Arthur tries to swallow back his moans. Map the borders of this perfection, nose along those clavicles and scrape his teeth along that strong jaw line. He wants to bite and suck, hard and relentlessly, every square inch of that neck from its base to its most sensitive places. Watch the marks, shaped like his teeth and his wanton mouth, bloom from dark pink to angry red like flowers in spring. There, stark marks of possession against the skin of the golden Prince for all to see. Irrefutable. To be able to show them that while Arthur has claim to all that Merlin is and ever will be, that Arthur is also his for as long as Merlin draws breath on this earth.
The moment passes a fraction of second longer than the last time. But it passes for it always must. Merlin opens his eyes to the reality that he faces, raises the straight blade with a sure hand, meets Arthur’s gaze in the mirror and sets on doing his master’s bidding. No more, no less.
The end