Challenge #2: Results!
This is several hours late, OOER. I got rather distracted by my housemates. Anyway, I bring you the results of Challenge #2 at last!
Please note: I have not de-anoned the entries that haven't placed first, so feel free to do de-anon yourselves if you so wish. Also, the author of Entry C, I have unscreened a comment left for your fic in the voting post.
BEST ART
The winner is... scatter_muse with Entry B!
Title: Kidnapped! (Age of Sail AU)
Rating: G
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Morgana, Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, Uther, Kilgharrah (although you can't really see him)
Warnings/Spoilers: None... unless Arthur being tied up counts as bondage
Disclaimer: The characters of Merlin do not belong to me. The dragon harness idea came from Temeraire.
BEST FIC
The winner is... kuilu9 with Entry C!
Title: And Then There Were Two
Partner: vicky_v
Art: link
Word Count: 2,268
Rating: T
Genre(s): Other
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Arthur/Merlin
Warnings/Spoilers: N/A
Disclaimer: These versions of Merlin Emrys and Arthur Pendragon are intellectual property of the BBC.
They wake up next to each other.
"The hell is this?" Says Arthur, "Why are you in my bed?"
The way he says 'you,' he could've been talking to something small and useless, like a rat or a spot of mold on the sheets. Instead, he's talking to Merlin.
"This is my apartment." Merlin grunts, rolling away from him. Arthur, however, doesn't care about something so trivial. All he wants is for Merlin to leave, and he's just about to say so until the obvious occurs to him.
Arthur gets up too quickly, stumbling a bit and pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. The pain shocks him, but he's not surprised that it's there. He'd been drinking rather heavily last night, which also explains why he had ended up sleeping with Merlin, even after he had found out that -
Merlin sits up, painlessly, in the bed. Had this been any other time, he would have been halfway to the bathroom to fetch Arthur Aspirin and water, and Arthur would have been extremely grateful. However, had this been any other time, Arthur would not have been aware of the reason why Merlin, with no precautions whatsoever, consistently remains hangover free. He wouldn't have given him the icy glare that freezes him in his tracks.
When Arthur leaves the room, Merlin lays back down, trying and failing to go back to sleep. He hears Arthur moving around his apartment, using the washroom, shifting things. The noise keeps him awake, and the off-balance feel he's gotten from Arthur's look doesn't help much, either. Merlin hears the microwave running, and he curses and pulls a pillow over his head. No matter what, he decides, he's not getting out of bed. He isn't up for another fight with some prat just because he hasn't got the decency to ask before eating someone's food.
The front door slams and the apartment is quiet again. Merlin slides from his bed and goes to the kitchen, ignoring the empty instant breakfast carton littering his counter. He toasts a couple of slices of a whole-grain loaf while he retrieves his mobile phone from the bedside table. It's a Saturday, and it would be a better idea to visit Gwen or Lance or something instead of hanging around his place feeling off-balance and a little dirty.
Merlin's been waiting at the bus stop for twenty minutes when he realizes; He's surprised that he hadn't noticed sooner - there hadn't been enough cars for him to cross at the light. There hadn't been any cars at all - not any moving cars, at least. They're parked up and down the street, but not a single one is being driven.
He stands up from the bus stop, feeling very off-balance and not dirty at all. He finds himself looking both ways before crossing the street and running into his apartment building.
Arthur is there, sitting outside of Merlin's flat with his head on his knees. He hears Merlin coming and stands quickly, brushing dust from his jeans.
"I didn't come to apologize," he starts, "I just -"
"There's no one out there."
Merlin is blunt and Arthur relaxes a bit, his tone almost civil.
"No shit," He says. "I can't even call a cab."
§
So they hadn't been officially together, not really, but with the amount of time they spent at clubs and in Merlin's bed and at coffee shops during the mornings after, they might as well have been. And though they weren't actually dating and neither of them had said anything to suggest that they were, Merlin had decided that, yeah, this thing they had going might be worth something, and if he wanted something deeper with Arthur, it was only fair that he knew Merlin was… well, magic.
He had been prepared for anger, prepared for the shocked hurt look that came with Arthur's sting of betrayal. But he couldn't even begin to imagine the hatred.
Arthur didn’t even need to say anything - he just looked at him and left, and Merlin knew they were over. He saw him a few nights later and approached him, opening with the classic line:
"We really need to talk."
"What's there to talk about?"
Arthur had cooled down by now, collected himself. But his answer had been the same:
"I wouldn't get back with you if you were the last man on the planet."
§
The power goes out fast. It takes three days, maybe. Probably less. The water, fortunately, lasts a bit longer. It's nearly a week until the shower sputters to a stop, leaving Merlin with a head full of shampoo. He figures that there will be more water - in other houses, stored in the tanks - but only until the rust from the condensation leaks into it, or it goes stagnant from disuse.
"We need to leave here," Merlin says to Arthur, the first words either of them have spoken in a while.
They make plans when they can, and when they manage to stop fighting for a few hours or when Merlin doesn't catch the dirty looks or the scalding, muttered comments that Arthur sometimes feels obligated to send his way, they draft lists of supplies and visit convenience stores to stock up on food. Merlin leaves enough cash to pay for the things they take - he insists it's stealing, otherwise - and when he runs out of money, Arthur's secretly glad that he's been forced from his moral high ground.
The grocery stores, of course, are where the best things are, but neither of them can stand the smell of rotting produce and spoiled meat enough to even open the doors. Instead, much to Merlin's chagrin, they lower their standards a bit more and start breaking into homes. As long as they don't open trash cans or unwashed dishwashers, they'll be alright.
On a day when Arthur forgets that Merlin's supposed to be evil, Merlin reigns in his magic and together they force open the automatic doors of an ASDA. There are flashlights and batteries near the front, and candy and toys, and clothing and skateboards and bicycles and nearly everything that they haven't had time to think about, not when they were too busy trying to live.
That evening, they bike figure-eights through the empty streets, all the way to Arthur's for matches and imported brandy: Cabriere Fine de Jourdan. They camp out in back, eating stolen chocolate bars and passing the Cabriere back and forth in the light of citronella candles. They start to talk about their families, saying deep, painful things: they both hate their fathers and love their mothers (or at least their respective ideas of them), and they both wonder if their parents' lives would have been much different if they were never born. Then Merlin says something silly, Arthur's retort is too strong, and the brief scuffle that ensues escalates into something composed of prying hands and hungry mouths, flushed skin and unquenchable heat.
The morning after, they wake with Arthur drooling on Merlin's bare chest, Arthur groggy and achy. This puts a three-day hold on their plans: they spend time in different parts of the city until Merlin can stop imagining Arthur naked and Arthur can stop imagining that he has something in common with a warlock.
When the sun is high on the fourth day, Merlin decides to go to Ealdor. Arthur refuses, of course, informing Merlin of Ealdor's status as a deadbeat little hick town with no promise. I know, Merlin says. But he's gone and 'borrowed' a van from one of the people living in his apartment building and filled it with supplies; his foot is on the pedal before A climbs into the front passenger seat and slides his knapsack behind him without a word.
Ealdor's even more desolate than Arthur imagines. Still, he gets out of the van and follows Merlin into the houses when they stop, trailing behind him as he calls names that Arthur's never heard before, and that he'll never remember.
"Will!" he calls at one house, many times, pleading.
They reach a small house near the middle of town. There are pictures on the wall of a happy dark-haired boy, and a woman with the kindest eyes that Arthur has ever seen.
"Mum!" Arthur hears Merlin cry, and he's annoyed: Too many houses.
"Mum!"
Too many lost.
Merlin comes out of one of the bedrooms, closing the door behind him.
"…They're all gone."
"Yes, well. That's what it means when we say 'everyone's disappeared.'"
Merlin's clutching something small and brown. It's a child's toy, a teddy bear? It's partially deflated, half of the stuffing gone through a hole in its side. It's missing an eye.
"Here," says Arthur, reaching for the bear and placing a hand on Merlin's back. He feels him stiffen, grip the bear tighter.
"They're all gone. And I'm stuck here… with you! And you don't even like me anymore. And we've had so much sex, and - and you don't even like me!"
Arthur doesn't know what to do, now that Merlin's pushing him away.
§
Will had met Arthur once, and for maybe twenty minutes.
"I don't like him," he had said to Merlin shortly after, "He looks like a prat."
"How does someone look like a prat?" Merlin scoffed, grinning. "Just give him a chance, Will."
"I'm your best mate. 'Give prat a chance' is not in my job description."
Will became very solemn, then, watching Merlin intently until his smile turned brittle.
"He'll break your heart, Merlin. I know it."
§
It's difficult to get Merlin to leave Ealdor.
He's curled up on his sofa, wringing the neck of the unfortunate looking bear. The silence is unnerving, especially inside the house. Arthur had never realized how much he would miss the ticking of a clock, or the low buzz of electricity.
"We can't stay here," Arthur says after a while. His words are swallowed up by the silence, and once the echo's disappeared, he wonders if he's said anything at all.
"Merlin -"
"It could've been anyone," Merlin sounds like he wishes it had been. Anyone else, anyone but Arthur.
"It had to be us, didn't it…" He continues, wiping his eyes. "You and me."
Arthur resists a snarky quip about destiny and waits for Merlin to stand.
Arthur doesn't let him drive back, not all the way from Ealdor, and especially not like this. It's a good thing, too - not half an hour after Arthur starts driving, Merlin's asleep in the passenger seat, head against the window.
It's nice, watching Merlin sleep. Not that he'd ever say it out loud. It's just that Arthur hadn't seen him - hadn't been able to see him - like this. Tranquil. Not for a long time, if ever. He definitely wouldn't have been able to wear such a gentle expression with Arthur nearby. Not since they broke up - or rather, not since Arthur broke up with him.
Arthur reaches over, tracing the line of Merlin's lips with his thumb until his shifts in his sleep.
Merlin had had a point - It could've been anyone.
Arthur pulls away quickly, as if burned.
It should've been anyone.
§
He can remember his father's words like they had been said to him just moments ago:
"Magic users have no free will. They are slaves to their powers, and their thirst for more power is the only thing that compels them. The magic user who says he feels anything for anyone lies. Cast him from your presence."
As each day passes, he remembers Uther's face less and less.
§
Merlin wakes up and Arthur's studying him, pensive and cautious.
They're close enough to kiss, but Arthur settles for stroking Merlin's cheek and a whispered "I'm sorry."
And he is. He really is.
§
When they get to Morgana's, the apartment is a complete mess.
Pantry doors are hanging open, all of them empty. Bed sheets are gone, stripped from the mattress and taken from the linen cupboard.
"Look at that," Arthur says, and Merlin can hear the hollowness behind his wry tone.
"They made off with everything, right before the whole world disappeared."
"What are you talking about?"
"Burglars?"
Merlin laughs.
"What kind of burglar steals…" his gesture takes in the entire apartment. "Food. Who steals food?"
"We've been stealing food."
"Yeah, but we need it. And besides, nothing's even broken. Not the doors, not the windows… no one's broken in."
"Maybe she forgot to lock up?"
"Does Morgana seem like the kind of person to forget to lock her doors?"
Of course not.
§
So, they decide to look for Morgana.
Don't get your hopes up, Arthur keeps saying. We might be reading too deeply into it.
They search Morgana's favorite hangouts, and places where she was obligated to go: The club where she had celebrated her twenty-first birthday, and where she had first met Leon. Where they had buried Ygraine, and her own parents.
Arthur twirls a baseball bat as they walk, scanning store windows. They've gone deep into the heart of the city, and unlike residential areas, it's not quite as easy to find a place to sleep.
"And even if she is alive," Arthur says, twirling. "We might never find her. What then?
"We live." Merlin shrugs. "I dunno. We'll be okay, I think."
Arthur raises an eyebrow. "You think?" He stops in front of a BHS. They have beds, he thinks, don't they?
Merlin grins. "Yeah, we'll be okay."
If Arthur hears Merlin mutter an enchantment as he swings the bat towards the glass, he doesn't say a word.
BEST FUSION
The winners are... gnimaerd and vicky_v with Entry D!
ART
Name: vicky_v
Title: Still A Game
Rating: PG
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Merlin, Morgana
Warnings/Spoilers: -
Disclaimer: I own nothing in connection with BBC's Merlin and make no money through this fanwork.
FIC
Name: gnimaerd
Title: Slytherins Can't Like Hufflepuffs and Other Myths
Word Count: 2495
Rating: PG-13
Genre(s): humour, romance
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Arthur/Gwen, Merlin/Morgana
Warnings/Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: neither the characters nor the harry potter universe are mine.
If asked, most parties involved would agree that it began from their very first quidditch match against one another. Slytherin and Gryffindor’s teams were hardly predisposed to get on well to begin with but by the end of that first match it was apparent that their respective second year seekers were going to have quite the lasting rivalry.
Merlin Emrys - clumsy as a pup on the ground and yet somehow a gifted broom rider, was an exciting new talent for Gryffindor, having already helped his team beat Ravenclaw in their first match of the season. Emrys was keen to prove that his first win had not been a fluke, as some of the more unkind of his team mates had been muttering.
Morgana Fay, on the other hand, was Slytherin’s latest, untested addition to their Quidditch team. An odd little thing who baffled many of her house-mates, if her presence did not outright enrage a few. Morgana was one of the first witches not of pureblood to be admitted to Slytherin house in several generations, if there had been any before her at all. Her father had been a death eater who had betrayed you-know-who after falling in love with a muggle woman, and siring a child with her. Her parents had both been executed by Voldemort’s forces not long after her birth, Morgana snatched out of danger by an older half-sister at the last minute, and raised by her in a safehouse in Ireland.
Naturally, Morgana’s fellow Slytherin’s were not best pleased by her presence within their ranks, and she had not made life any easier for herself by becoming close to a Hufflepuff girl - Guinevere - and regularly eating lunch with her and Arthur Pendragon and Merlin Emrys, two Gryffindors.
Not that Merlin or Arthur would admit to being friends with a Slytherin, of course - not exactly. Just that they both liked Gwen well enough and Gwen had potions with Morgana and had felt awful for her when none of the Slytherins had wanted to be her partner. So now Gwen had made a bit of a project out of being nice to Morgana and bringing her along to things, like lunch with Merlin and Arthur.
Despite very determinedly not-being-friends with her, however, there was no doubt in Merlin’s mind that Morgana’s fellow Slytherins had made the her first year exceptionally unpleasant. It was unsurprising that she now felt that she had something to prove.
Having stomped onto the pitch during team-tryouts this year and apparently performed a series of stunts so mind-blowing that the entire school were still talking about it several days later, she had been made Slytherin’s new seeker.
Anyway, the incident that truly sparked what was to become something of a legendary rivalry between the pair, happened as follows: an hour or so into the match, Morgana and Merlin were both after the snitch and Morgana had taken a bludger to the ribs. The force of the blow threw her from her broom still several hundred feet in the air and Merlin realised almost immediately that she was not going to survive such a fall - snitch forgotten (for he was a moral sort of chap, house rivalry aside) he launched himself after her.
As it happened, the act of falling was actually causing Morgana to catch up with the snitch even quicker than she would have done had she been on her broomstick. Even as the crowd roared with fright at the spectacle, most were at least partially aware that one of the seekers, if they didn’t end up dead, might well still catch the thing. And as Merlin drove his broom to a speed that made him feel that his heart might actually be trying to exit his body via the back of his throat, he caught up with Morgana at almost exactly the same moment as she caught up with the snitch.
The force of their bodies colliding brought Merlin off his own broom and the pair of them dropped through the final two metres to the ground, the timely intervention of Merlin’s broom having broken their fall enough to prevent serious injury to either of them.
There was a pause in which every individual within the quidditch stadium inhaled a single, sharp breath of anticipation, and then Morgana, who had somehow landed on top of Merlin, disentangled one arm enough to show the gleaming snitch to the crowd.
Many Gryffindors liked to claim, for years afterwards, that, given that Morgana might well have caught the snitch either way but would definitely have ended up dead without Merlin’s intervention, the game ought to have been awarded to Gryffindor on principle. And Merlin did then earn a hundred points for his house for saving the life of a fellow pupil. But Slytherin took the game, Morgana went on to help her house win every other one of its quidditch matches for the rest of the season and promptly earned, if not the admiration, then the begrudging respect, of the rest of her fellow Slytherins.
There began, after that, to be a steady trickle of Slytherins willing to be Morgana’s partner in classes, and she was not left on her own at the very end of Slytherin’s table during meals anymore. Then, in third year, she abruptly became rather beautiful (for Morgana was one of those rare few whom puberty treated kindly) and that, combined with her indisputable ability as a seeker, seemed to cause a certain amount of amnesia about her muggle mother amongst the rest of her house.
It became apparent that she had cemented her place amongst her house-mates when a forth year Slytherin, Alvarr, popularly considered to be one of the best looking boys of his year, asked her to the Yule ball (for a tri-wizard tournament was in the offing).
Third years were only permitted to attend if asked by an older student so of course, Morgana’s position earned her the immediate envy of most of the rest of her year - only one other third year, Gwen, who had been asked by Lancelot, Hogwart’s representative at the tournament, was attending.
Merlin (who had not been entirely unaware of Morgana’s sudden beauty) had felt an odd swoop of jealousy when he’d heard about Alvarr asking her, but couldn’t put a reason as to why.
It wasn’t as if they really knew each other, or anything. Just that she was still friends with Gwen and Gwen always ate lunch with them and more often than not Morgana came too. Sometimes she could be funny and smart and - kinder than you’d expect a Slytherin to be.
Sometimes he suspected that his inability to catch the snitch in Gryffindor’s games against Slytherin had less to do with her superior skill than they did the fact that he got these embarrassingly distracting hiccups when he spent too long thinking about her.
He hadn’t even wanted to go to the Yule ball, for goodness sake! Even if third years had been allowed to attend - Merlin knew for a fact that he’d be rubbish at dancing. He spent far too much time tripping over his own feet as it was.
He and Arthur snuck out of the Gryffindor common room that night anyway and went and sat outside the library, playing chess and waiting for Gwen, as she’d made them promise to do, so that she could tell them all about what it was like.
She came fluttering back at about one in the morning looking giddy and really very, very pretty (soft, yellow gown, hair in thick ringlets full of glittering butterfly clips - Arthur’s eyes had grown wide in his head and Merlin had felt a little smug on Gwen’s behalf).
“Oh it was so glamorous,” she’d informed them, practically bouncing with glee.
“Lancelot nice to you, then?” Arthur had asked, a little too casually.
“He was lovely,” Gwen sighed, getting a look in her eyes that made Arthur look rather displeased. “We danced and we danced and my feet didn’t even hurt and all these older girls said how nice I looked and helped me with my hair when the clips came loose and these other boys asked me to dance as well and Lancelot didn’t mind but he didn’t dance with anyone but me and - ”
“Yes well I’m sure it was great,” Arthur cut her off, abruptly, and Gwen immediately deflated and Merlin wanted to smack his friend upside the head for being such a jealous idiot.
“How was - Morgana?” He asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Oh she looked lovely too!” Gwen enthused, “you should have seen her dress! I saw Alvarr and her snogging on one of the balconies - ”
“Did you and Lancelot - you know - ” Arthur scrunched up his face a little distastefully.
Gwen was promptly stuttering, embarrassed. “I’m not telling you that!”
“That means you did! You did snog him!”
“It’s none of your business, Arthur!”
“If you didn’t snog him you would say - ”
“Oh shut up, Arthur,” Merlin snapped, because Gwen was looking upset again, “tell us more about the dancing, Gwen.”
“Alright,” Gwen sat down next to him and began to describe the opening waltz, and Merlin tried to keep the image of Alvarr and Morgana out of his head.
The next quidditch match he missed the snitch by eight inches because he got distracted by Morgana’s hair, which was coming loose into these dainty little curls around her ears. As if to drive home the point she whirled her broom in mid air and smacked the back of his - so that it could almost have been an accident - sending him into a dizzying tail-spin and flashing him a mischievous grin as she darted past.
It became a bit of a running joke for the rest of the school. Emrys could beat any seeker to the snitch except Le Fay. By forth year it was growing ridiculous. Gryffindor was guaranteed to lose any game against Slytherin and Gryffindor’s captain was threatening to replace Merlin as seeker if he couldn’t get his act together for those matches.
It was a Ravenclaw girl - Freya - who offered him a tiny vile of Felix Felicis Elixir with a small, mysterious smile.
“For your next game,” she’d whispered, “I thought maybe - not that you need it but - against Slytherin, perhaps…”
“Where did you even get this?” Merlin was staring at the vile, wide-eyed.
“I made it.”
“You - can do that?”
“I’m a Ravenclaw,” she’d given him a gentle nudge and another shy smile, “we can do anything.”
“Why are you… helping me?”
She’d promptly gone scarlet and said nothing else.
Merlin had decided that, if he didn’t quite understand women all the time, they could certainly be very wonderful people.
He caught the snitch the next game against Slytherin, of course. Chiefly because Morgana took a bludger to the side at a very inopportune moment - several weeks later people were still talking about how that bludger seemed to have just come out of nowhere.
Merlin was almost too busy being carried off the pitch by his team mates to feel guilty.
Lingering behind everyone else, he’d trailed out finally but found himself drifting in the general direction of Slytherin’s changing rooms instead of back towards the school - and maybe it was still the Felix Felicis in his blood, or maybe it was just some oddly wonderful coincidence, but of course Morgana was still there, showering.
She’d left the door ajar, and was standing with her back to him half shrouded in steam - with a huge black bruise already blooming near the base of her ribs. Her careful fingers moved fronds of thick, dark hair back from her face, over her pale shoulders.
Merlin swallowed.
And then she swung round, and gave him the most poisonous look he’d ever had directed at him in his life. “Merlin!”
“Sorry!” Merlin hastily covered his eyes, “I didn’t - I mean - I wanted to - just - see if you were alright - what with the - ”
“Get out!”
“Yes, yes - going - sorry - with the bludger and - ”
He waited for her outside the changing rooms, when she emerged perhaps fifteen minutes later, hair still dribbling moisture onto her clothes.
“Are you actually here to apologise for winning the game?” She demanded, eyebrows delicately arched. “Because that’s just pathetic, Merlin, even for a Gryffindor.”
“No - just…”
“What then?” She rolled her eyes, beginning to walk. Merlin scrambled to keep up with her.
“Look - are you alright?” He asked, a little peeved by her impatience, “you took that bludger pretty hard - I thought you might be about to come off your broom again - ”
“Oh I’m sure you would have rescued me had I done so.”
“Morgana - ”
“I’m fine, Merlin,” she tossed her head, dismissively, “I’m a big girl. You got lucky this time, that’s all.”
Merlin couldn’t exactly disagree with that, so said nothing.
“How’s Arthur these days?” She asked, abruptly changing the subject, “he’s ignoring Gwen, still. She says he isn’t talking to her.”
“He’s…” Merlin grimaced, “he talks to her…”
“He’s just being an ass about her going out with Lancelot,” Morgana made a face, “it’s upsetting her, Merlin. You need to talk to him about it.”
“Why is it my job to tell him when he’s being an idiot?”
“Because he might actually listen to you,” Morgana gave him a nudge, “if he fancied her he should have asked her out last year, shouldn’t he? But he didn’t want her then - back when she was still sort of chubby and followed him around like a puppy. Now she’s slim and gone and got herself a nice boyfriend and lost interest in Arthur suddenly he wants her. Typical.”
“I’ll… try to talk to him,” Merlin sighed, “no guarantees he’ll listen to me, though.”
“Well - thanks,” she ran a hand through her hair.
“You’ve got to be the only Slytherin in the school who cares about the feelings of a Hufflepuff that much.”
“I didn’t need to do anything to prove my worth to Gwen,” Morgana folded her arms, “she liked me from the off. She was my friend before anyone else in this school ever gave me the time of day. I’m not going to forget that. And she’s too sweet to disserve Arthur’s shit. We might know that it’s only because he’s a bit in love with her and has all the ability to express himself of an emotionally stunted pine cone but she just thinks she’s done something wrong - I mean, she thinks she ought to be apologising to him for something, you know? It’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“So you’ll talk to him?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Good.” She glanced back at him for a moment, suddenly impish, “and don’t think I wont thrash you at our next match, Emrys. I’ve got to repair my reputation now - you know that means you’re going down.”
Merlin held up his arms, grinning emphatically, “bring it on, Le Fay.
Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you again for your participation!
Challenge #3 will be announced shortly today, and we'll be using a different format this time. Hope to see you there!
Please note: I have not de-anoned the entries that haven't placed first, so feel free to do de-anon yourselves if you so wish. Also, the author of Entry C, I have unscreened a comment left for your fic in the voting post.
BEST ART
The winner is... scatter_muse with Entry B!
Title: Kidnapped! (Age of Sail AU)
Rating: G
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Morgana, Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, Uther, Kilgharrah (although you can't really see him)
Warnings/Spoilers: None... unless Arthur being tied up counts as bondage
Disclaimer: The characters of Merlin do not belong to me. The dragon harness idea came from Temeraire.
BEST FIC
The winner is... kuilu9 with Entry C!
Title: And Then There Were Two
Partner: vicky_v
Art: link
Word Count: 2,268
Rating: T
Genre(s): Other
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Arthur/Merlin
Warnings/Spoilers: N/A
Disclaimer: These versions of Merlin Emrys and Arthur Pendragon are intellectual property of the BBC.
They wake up next to each other.
"The hell is this?" Says Arthur, "Why are you in my bed?"
The way he says 'you,' he could've been talking to something small and useless, like a rat or a spot of mold on the sheets. Instead, he's talking to Merlin.
"This is my apartment." Merlin grunts, rolling away from him. Arthur, however, doesn't care about something so trivial. All he wants is for Merlin to leave, and he's just about to say so until the obvious occurs to him.
Arthur gets up too quickly, stumbling a bit and pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. The pain shocks him, but he's not surprised that it's there. He'd been drinking rather heavily last night, which also explains why he had ended up sleeping with Merlin, even after he had found out that -
Merlin sits up, painlessly, in the bed. Had this been any other time, he would have been halfway to the bathroom to fetch Arthur Aspirin and water, and Arthur would have been extremely grateful. However, had this been any other time, Arthur would not have been aware of the reason why Merlin, with no precautions whatsoever, consistently remains hangover free. He wouldn't have given him the icy glare that freezes him in his tracks.
When Arthur leaves the room, Merlin lays back down, trying and failing to go back to sleep. He hears Arthur moving around his apartment, using the washroom, shifting things. The noise keeps him awake, and the off-balance feel he's gotten from Arthur's look doesn't help much, either. Merlin hears the microwave running, and he curses and pulls a pillow over his head. No matter what, he decides, he's not getting out of bed. He isn't up for another fight with some prat just because he hasn't got the decency to ask before eating someone's food.
The front door slams and the apartment is quiet again. Merlin slides from his bed and goes to the kitchen, ignoring the empty instant breakfast carton littering his counter. He toasts a couple of slices of a whole-grain loaf while he retrieves his mobile phone from the bedside table. It's a Saturday, and it would be a better idea to visit Gwen or Lance or something instead of hanging around his place feeling off-balance and a little dirty.
Merlin's been waiting at the bus stop for twenty minutes when he realizes; He's surprised that he hadn't noticed sooner - there hadn't been enough cars for him to cross at the light. There hadn't been any cars at all - not any moving cars, at least. They're parked up and down the street, but not a single one is being driven.
He stands up from the bus stop, feeling very off-balance and not dirty at all. He finds himself looking both ways before crossing the street and running into his apartment building.
Arthur is there, sitting outside of Merlin's flat with his head on his knees. He hears Merlin coming and stands quickly, brushing dust from his jeans.
"I didn't come to apologize," he starts, "I just -"
"There's no one out there."
Merlin is blunt and Arthur relaxes a bit, his tone almost civil.
"No shit," He says. "I can't even call a cab."
§
So they hadn't been officially together, not really, but with the amount of time they spent at clubs and in Merlin's bed and at coffee shops during the mornings after, they might as well have been. And though they weren't actually dating and neither of them had said anything to suggest that they were, Merlin had decided that, yeah, this thing they had going might be worth something, and if he wanted something deeper with Arthur, it was only fair that he knew Merlin was… well, magic.
He had been prepared for anger, prepared for the shocked hurt look that came with Arthur's sting of betrayal. But he couldn't even begin to imagine the hatred.
Arthur didn’t even need to say anything - he just looked at him and left, and Merlin knew they were over. He saw him a few nights later and approached him, opening with the classic line:
"We really need to talk."
"What's there to talk about?"
Arthur had cooled down by now, collected himself. But his answer had been the same:
"I wouldn't get back with you if you were the last man on the planet."
§
The power goes out fast. It takes three days, maybe. Probably less. The water, fortunately, lasts a bit longer. It's nearly a week until the shower sputters to a stop, leaving Merlin with a head full of shampoo. He figures that there will be more water - in other houses, stored in the tanks - but only until the rust from the condensation leaks into it, or it goes stagnant from disuse.
"We need to leave here," Merlin says to Arthur, the first words either of them have spoken in a while.
They make plans when they can, and when they manage to stop fighting for a few hours or when Merlin doesn't catch the dirty looks or the scalding, muttered comments that Arthur sometimes feels obligated to send his way, they draft lists of supplies and visit convenience stores to stock up on food. Merlin leaves enough cash to pay for the things they take - he insists it's stealing, otherwise - and when he runs out of money, Arthur's secretly glad that he's been forced from his moral high ground.
The grocery stores, of course, are where the best things are, but neither of them can stand the smell of rotting produce and spoiled meat enough to even open the doors. Instead, much to Merlin's chagrin, they lower their standards a bit more and start breaking into homes. As long as they don't open trash cans or unwashed dishwashers, they'll be alright.
On a day when Arthur forgets that Merlin's supposed to be evil, Merlin reigns in his magic and together they force open the automatic doors of an ASDA. There are flashlights and batteries near the front, and candy and toys, and clothing and skateboards and bicycles and nearly everything that they haven't had time to think about, not when they were too busy trying to live.
That evening, they bike figure-eights through the empty streets, all the way to Arthur's for matches and imported brandy: Cabriere Fine de Jourdan. They camp out in back, eating stolen chocolate bars and passing the Cabriere back and forth in the light of citronella candles. They start to talk about their families, saying deep, painful things: they both hate their fathers and love their mothers (or at least their respective ideas of them), and they both wonder if their parents' lives would have been much different if they were never born. Then Merlin says something silly, Arthur's retort is too strong, and the brief scuffle that ensues escalates into something composed of prying hands and hungry mouths, flushed skin and unquenchable heat.
The morning after, they wake with Arthur drooling on Merlin's bare chest, Arthur groggy and achy. This puts a three-day hold on their plans: they spend time in different parts of the city until Merlin can stop imagining Arthur naked and Arthur can stop imagining that he has something in common with a warlock.
When the sun is high on the fourth day, Merlin decides to go to Ealdor. Arthur refuses, of course, informing Merlin of Ealdor's status as a deadbeat little hick town with no promise. I know, Merlin says. But he's gone and 'borrowed' a van from one of the people living in his apartment building and filled it with supplies; his foot is on the pedal before A climbs into the front passenger seat and slides his knapsack behind him without a word.
Ealdor's even more desolate than Arthur imagines. Still, he gets out of the van and follows Merlin into the houses when they stop, trailing behind him as he calls names that Arthur's never heard before, and that he'll never remember.
"Will!" he calls at one house, many times, pleading.
They reach a small house near the middle of town. There are pictures on the wall of a happy dark-haired boy, and a woman with the kindest eyes that Arthur has ever seen.
"Mum!" Arthur hears Merlin cry, and he's annoyed: Too many houses.
"Mum!"
Too many lost.
Merlin comes out of one of the bedrooms, closing the door behind him.
"…They're all gone."
"Yes, well. That's what it means when we say 'everyone's disappeared.'"
Merlin's clutching something small and brown. It's a child's toy, a teddy bear? It's partially deflated, half of the stuffing gone through a hole in its side. It's missing an eye.
"Here," says Arthur, reaching for the bear and placing a hand on Merlin's back. He feels him stiffen, grip the bear tighter.
"They're all gone. And I'm stuck here… with you! And you don't even like me anymore. And we've had so much sex, and - and you don't even like me!"
Arthur doesn't know what to do, now that Merlin's pushing him away.
§
Will had met Arthur once, and for maybe twenty minutes.
"I don't like him," he had said to Merlin shortly after, "He looks like a prat."
"How does someone look like a prat?" Merlin scoffed, grinning. "Just give him a chance, Will."
"I'm your best mate. 'Give prat a chance' is not in my job description."
Will became very solemn, then, watching Merlin intently until his smile turned brittle.
"He'll break your heart, Merlin. I know it."
§
It's difficult to get Merlin to leave Ealdor.
He's curled up on his sofa, wringing the neck of the unfortunate looking bear. The silence is unnerving, especially inside the house. Arthur had never realized how much he would miss the ticking of a clock, or the low buzz of electricity.
"We can't stay here," Arthur says after a while. His words are swallowed up by the silence, and once the echo's disappeared, he wonders if he's said anything at all.
"Merlin -"
"It could've been anyone," Merlin sounds like he wishes it had been. Anyone else, anyone but Arthur.
"It had to be us, didn't it…" He continues, wiping his eyes. "You and me."
Arthur resists a snarky quip about destiny and waits for Merlin to stand.
Arthur doesn't let him drive back, not all the way from Ealdor, and especially not like this. It's a good thing, too - not half an hour after Arthur starts driving, Merlin's asleep in the passenger seat, head against the window.
It's nice, watching Merlin sleep. Not that he'd ever say it out loud. It's just that Arthur hadn't seen him - hadn't been able to see him - like this. Tranquil. Not for a long time, if ever. He definitely wouldn't have been able to wear such a gentle expression with Arthur nearby. Not since they broke up - or rather, not since Arthur broke up with him.
Arthur reaches over, tracing the line of Merlin's lips with his thumb until his shifts in his sleep.
Merlin had had a point - It could've been anyone.
Arthur pulls away quickly, as if burned.
It should've been anyone.
§
He can remember his father's words like they had been said to him just moments ago:
"Magic users have no free will. They are slaves to their powers, and their thirst for more power is the only thing that compels them. The magic user who says he feels anything for anyone lies. Cast him from your presence."
As each day passes, he remembers Uther's face less and less.
§
Merlin wakes up and Arthur's studying him, pensive and cautious.
They're close enough to kiss, but Arthur settles for stroking Merlin's cheek and a whispered "I'm sorry."
And he is. He really is.
§
When they get to Morgana's, the apartment is a complete mess.
Pantry doors are hanging open, all of them empty. Bed sheets are gone, stripped from the mattress and taken from the linen cupboard.
"Look at that," Arthur says, and Merlin can hear the hollowness behind his wry tone.
"They made off with everything, right before the whole world disappeared."
"What are you talking about?"
"Burglars?"
Merlin laughs.
"What kind of burglar steals…" his gesture takes in the entire apartment. "Food. Who steals food?"
"We've been stealing food."
"Yeah, but we need it. And besides, nothing's even broken. Not the doors, not the windows… no one's broken in."
"Maybe she forgot to lock up?"
"Does Morgana seem like the kind of person to forget to lock her doors?"
Of course not.
§
So, they decide to look for Morgana.
Don't get your hopes up, Arthur keeps saying. We might be reading too deeply into it.
They search Morgana's favorite hangouts, and places where she was obligated to go: The club where she had celebrated her twenty-first birthday, and where she had first met Leon. Where they had buried Ygraine, and her own parents.
Arthur twirls a baseball bat as they walk, scanning store windows. They've gone deep into the heart of the city, and unlike residential areas, it's not quite as easy to find a place to sleep.
"And even if she is alive," Arthur says, twirling. "We might never find her. What then?
"We live." Merlin shrugs. "I dunno. We'll be okay, I think."
Arthur raises an eyebrow. "You think?" He stops in front of a BHS. They have beds, he thinks, don't they?
Merlin grins. "Yeah, we'll be okay."
If Arthur hears Merlin mutter an enchantment as he swings the bat towards the glass, he doesn't say a word.
BEST FUSION
The winners are... gnimaerd and vicky_v with Entry D!
ART
Name: vicky_v
Title: Still A Game
Rating: PG
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Merlin, Morgana
Warnings/Spoilers: -
Disclaimer: I own nothing in connection with BBC's Merlin and make no money through this fanwork.
FIC
Name: gnimaerd
Title: Slytherins Can't Like Hufflepuffs and Other Myths
Word Count: 2495
Rating: PG-13
Genre(s): humour, romance
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Arthur/Gwen, Merlin/Morgana
Warnings/Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: neither the characters nor the harry potter universe are mine.
If asked, most parties involved would agree that it began from their very first quidditch match against one another. Slytherin and Gryffindor’s teams were hardly predisposed to get on well to begin with but by the end of that first match it was apparent that their respective second year seekers were going to have quite the lasting rivalry.
Merlin Emrys - clumsy as a pup on the ground and yet somehow a gifted broom rider, was an exciting new talent for Gryffindor, having already helped his team beat Ravenclaw in their first match of the season. Emrys was keen to prove that his first win had not been a fluke, as some of the more unkind of his team mates had been muttering.
Morgana Fay, on the other hand, was Slytherin’s latest, untested addition to their Quidditch team. An odd little thing who baffled many of her house-mates, if her presence did not outright enrage a few. Morgana was one of the first witches not of pureblood to be admitted to Slytherin house in several generations, if there had been any before her at all. Her father had been a death eater who had betrayed you-know-who after falling in love with a muggle woman, and siring a child with her. Her parents had both been executed by Voldemort’s forces not long after her birth, Morgana snatched out of danger by an older half-sister at the last minute, and raised by her in a safehouse in Ireland.
Naturally, Morgana’s fellow Slytherin’s were not best pleased by her presence within their ranks, and she had not made life any easier for herself by becoming close to a Hufflepuff girl - Guinevere - and regularly eating lunch with her and Arthur Pendragon and Merlin Emrys, two Gryffindors.
Not that Merlin or Arthur would admit to being friends with a Slytherin, of course - not exactly. Just that they both liked Gwen well enough and Gwen had potions with Morgana and had felt awful for her when none of the Slytherins had wanted to be her partner. So now Gwen had made a bit of a project out of being nice to Morgana and bringing her along to things, like lunch with Merlin and Arthur.
Despite very determinedly not-being-friends with her, however, there was no doubt in Merlin’s mind that Morgana’s fellow Slytherins had made the her first year exceptionally unpleasant. It was unsurprising that she now felt that she had something to prove.
Having stomped onto the pitch during team-tryouts this year and apparently performed a series of stunts so mind-blowing that the entire school were still talking about it several days later, she had been made Slytherin’s new seeker.
Anyway, the incident that truly sparked what was to become something of a legendary rivalry between the pair, happened as follows: an hour or so into the match, Morgana and Merlin were both after the snitch and Morgana had taken a bludger to the ribs. The force of the blow threw her from her broom still several hundred feet in the air and Merlin realised almost immediately that she was not going to survive such a fall - snitch forgotten (for he was a moral sort of chap, house rivalry aside) he launched himself after her.
As it happened, the act of falling was actually causing Morgana to catch up with the snitch even quicker than she would have done had she been on her broomstick. Even as the crowd roared with fright at the spectacle, most were at least partially aware that one of the seekers, if they didn’t end up dead, might well still catch the thing. And as Merlin drove his broom to a speed that made him feel that his heart might actually be trying to exit his body via the back of his throat, he caught up with Morgana at almost exactly the same moment as she caught up with the snitch.
The force of their bodies colliding brought Merlin off his own broom and the pair of them dropped through the final two metres to the ground, the timely intervention of Merlin’s broom having broken their fall enough to prevent serious injury to either of them.
There was a pause in which every individual within the quidditch stadium inhaled a single, sharp breath of anticipation, and then Morgana, who had somehow landed on top of Merlin, disentangled one arm enough to show the gleaming snitch to the crowd.
Many Gryffindors liked to claim, for years afterwards, that, given that Morgana might well have caught the snitch either way but would definitely have ended up dead without Merlin’s intervention, the game ought to have been awarded to Gryffindor on principle. And Merlin did then earn a hundred points for his house for saving the life of a fellow pupil. But Slytherin took the game, Morgana went on to help her house win every other one of its quidditch matches for the rest of the season and promptly earned, if not the admiration, then the begrudging respect, of the rest of her fellow Slytherins.
There began, after that, to be a steady trickle of Slytherins willing to be Morgana’s partner in classes, and she was not left on her own at the very end of Slytherin’s table during meals anymore. Then, in third year, she abruptly became rather beautiful (for Morgana was one of those rare few whom puberty treated kindly) and that, combined with her indisputable ability as a seeker, seemed to cause a certain amount of amnesia about her muggle mother amongst the rest of her house.
It became apparent that she had cemented her place amongst her house-mates when a forth year Slytherin, Alvarr, popularly considered to be one of the best looking boys of his year, asked her to the Yule ball (for a tri-wizard tournament was in the offing).
Third years were only permitted to attend if asked by an older student so of course, Morgana’s position earned her the immediate envy of most of the rest of her year - only one other third year, Gwen, who had been asked by Lancelot, Hogwart’s representative at the tournament, was attending.
Merlin (who had not been entirely unaware of Morgana’s sudden beauty) had felt an odd swoop of jealousy when he’d heard about Alvarr asking her, but couldn’t put a reason as to why.
It wasn’t as if they really knew each other, or anything. Just that she was still friends with Gwen and Gwen always ate lunch with them and more often than not Morgana came too. Sometimes she could be funny and smart and - kinder than you’d expect a Slytherin to be.
Sometimes he suspected that his inability to catch the snitch in Gryffindor’s games against Slytherin had less to do with her superior skill than they did the fact that he got these embarrassingly distracting hiccups when he spent too long thinking about her.
He hadn’t even wanted to go to the Yule ball, for goodness sake! Even if third years had been allowed to attend - Merlin knew for a fact that he’d be rubbish at dancing. He spent far too much time tripping over his own feet as it was.
He and Arthur snuck out of the Gryffindor common room that night anyway and went and sat outside the library, playing chess and waiting for Gwen, as she’d made them promise to do, so that she could tell them all about what it was like.
She came fluttering back at about one in the morning looking giddy and really very, very pretty (soft, yellow gown, hair in thick ringlets full of glittering butterfly clips - Arthur’s eyes had grown wide in his head and Merlin had felt a little smug on Gwen’s behalf).
“Oh it was so glamorous,” she’d informed them, practically bouncing with glee.
“Lancelot nice to you, then?” Arthur had asked, a little too casually.
“He was lovely,” Gwen sighed, getting a look in her eyes that made Arthur look rather displeased. “We danced and we danced and my feet didn’t even hurt and all these older girls said how nice I looked and helped me with my hair when the clips came loose and these other boys asked me to dance as well and Lancelot didn’t mind but he didn’t dance with anyone but me and - ”
“Yes well I’m sure it was great,” Arthur cut her off, abruptly, and Gwen immediately deflated and Merlin wanted to smack his friend upside the head for being such a jealous idiot.
“How was - Morgana?” He asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Oh she looked lovely too!” Gwen enthused, “you should have seen her dress! I saw Alvarr and her snogging on one of the balconies - ”
“Did you and Lancelot - you know - ” Arthur scrunched up his face a little distastefully.
Gwen was promptly stuttering, embarrassed. “I’m not telling you that!”
“That means you did! You did snog him!”
“It’s none of your business, Arthur!”
“If you didn’t snog him you would say - ”
“Oh shut up, Arthur,” Merlin snapped, because Gwen was looking upset again, “tell us more about the dancing, Gwen.”
“Alright,” Gwen sat down next to him and began to describe the opening waltz, and Merlin tried to keep the image of Alvarr and Morgana out of his head.
The next quidditch match he missed the snitch by eight inches because he got distracted by Morgana’s hair, which was coming loose into these dainty little curls around her ears. As if to drive home the point she whirled her broom in mid air and smacked the back of his - so that it could almost have been an accident - sending him into a dizzying tail-spin and flashing him a mischievous grin as she darted past.
It became a bit of a running joke for the rest of the school. Emrys could beat any seeker to the snitch except Le Fay. By forth year it was growing ridiculous. Gryffindor was guaranteed to lose any game against Slytherin and Gryffindor’s captain was threatening to replace Merlin as seeker if he couldn’t get his act together for those matches.
It was a Ravenclaw girl - Freya - who offered him a tiny vile of Felix Felicis Elixir with a small, mysterious smile.
“For your next game,” she’d whispered, “I thought maybe - not that you need it but - against Slytherin, perhaps…”
“Where did you even get this?” Merlin was staring at the vile, wide-eyed.
“I made it.”
“You - can do that?”
“I’m a Ravenclaw,” she’d given him a gentle nudge and another shy smile, “we can do anything.”
“Why are you… helping me?”
She’d promptly gone scarlet and said nothing else.
Merlin had decided that, if he didn’t quite understand women all the time, they could certainly be very wonderful people.
He caught the snitch the next game against Slytherin, of course. Chiefly because Morgana took a bludger to the side at a very inopportune moment - several weeks later people were still talking about how that bludger seemed to have just come out of nowhere.
Merlin was almost too busy being carried off the pitch by his team mates to feel guilty.
Lingering behind everyone else, he’d trailed out finally but found himself drifting in the general direction of Slytherin’s changing rooms instead of back towards the school - and maybe it was still the Felix Felicis in his blood, or maybe it was just some oddly wonderful coincidence, but of course Morgana was still there, showering.
She’d left the door ajar, and was standing with her back to him half shrouded in steam - with a huge black bruise already blooming near the base of her ribs. Her careful fingers moved fronds of thick, dark hair back from her face, over her pale shoulders.
Merlin swallowed.
And then she swung round, and gave him the most poisonous look he’d ever had directed at him in his life. “Merlin!”
“Sorry!” Merlin hastily covered his eyes, “I didn’t - I mean - I wanted to - just - see if you were alright - what with the - ”
“Get out!”
“Yes, yes - going - sorry - with the bludger and - ”
He waited for her outside the changing rooms, when she emerged perhaps fifteen minutes later, hair still dribbling moisture onto her clothes.
“Are you actually here to apologise for winning the game?” She demanded, eyebrows delicately arched. “Because that’s just pathetic, Merlin, even for a Gryffindor.”
“No - just…”
“What then?” She rolled her eyes, beginning to walk. Merlin scrambled to keep up with her.
“Look - are you alright?” He asked, a little peeved by her impatience, “you took that bludger pretty hard - I thought you might be about to come off your broom again - ”
“Oh I’m sure you would have rescued me had I done so.”
“Morgana - ”
“I’m fine, Merlin,” she tossed her head, dismissively, “I’m a big girl. You got lucky this time, that’s all.”
Merlin couldn’t exactly disagree with that, so said nothing.
“How’s Arthur these days?” She asked, abruptly changing the subject, “he’s ignoring Gwen, still. She says he isn’t talking to her.”
“He’s…” Merlin grimaced, “he talks to her…”
“He’s just being an ass about her going out with Lancelot,” Morgana made a face, “it’s upsetting her, Merlin. You need to talk to him about it.”
“Why is it my job to tell him when he’s being an idiot?”
“Because he might actually listen to you,” Morgana gave him a nudge, “if he fancied her he should have asked her out last year, shouldn’t he? But he didn’t want her then - back when she was still sort of chubby and followed him around like a puppy. Now she’s slim and gone and got herself a nice boyfriend and lost interest in Arthur suddenly he wants her. Typical.”
“I’ll… try to talk to him,” Merlin sighed, “no guarantees he’ll listen to me, though.”
“Well - thanks,” she ran a hand through her hair.
“You’ve got to be the only Slytherin in the school who cares about the feelings of a Hufflepuff that much.”
“I didn’t need to do anything to prove my worth to Gwen,” Morgana folded her arms, “she liked me from the off. She was my friend before anyone else in this school ever gave me the time of day. I’m not going to forget that. And she’s too sweet to disserve Arthur’s shit. We might know that it’s only because he’s a bit in love with her and has all the ability to express himself of an emotionally stunted pine cone but she just thinks she’s done something wrong - I mean, she thinks she ought to be apologising to him for something, you know? It’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“So you’ll talk to him?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Good.” She glanced back at him for a moment, suddenly impish, “and don’t think I wont thrash you at our next match, Emrys. I’ve got to repair my reputation now - you know that means you’re going down.”
Merlin held up his arms, grinning emphatically, “bring it on, Le Fay.
Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you again for your participation!
Challenge #3 will be announced shortly today, and we'll be using a different format this time. Hope to see you there!