PWP. Sex. Merlin/Arthur. Despite Nimueh's plans.
Morgana dreamed that Nimueh will entice Merlin. She will try to entice him away from Camelot, from his duty, from Arthur. Morgana didn't say how, but Gwen pointed out that Nimueh was very beautiful and powerful.
"So am I," Arthur replied, meaning the latter. But Gwen bit her lip, and Merlin frankly smirked, both of them mistaking his meaning. Still, it was unlike Merlin not to twit him, not to call him a pretty pretty princess at least once.
--
Merlin is lying on the floor of the cave. He collapsed with no warning during the hunting trip, and is caught in a sorcerous dream. Arthur knows it is sorcery, given that Merlin is beginning to glow, just faintly. He's a bit golden around the edges.
Merlin is flailing and muttering, and Arthur is pretty sure that there's some sort of magical enticing going on. He pauses, eyeing the bulge under Merlin's tunic. Between that and the way Merlin is groaning, the specific nature of the enticing seems pretty obvious as well.
If Nimueh thinks that's all she has to do to win Merlin, she'll learn differently soon enough. Arthur doesn't give up what is his. He doesn't give up, period. So he pulls Merlin half onto his lap, and slaps his face, lightly at first, then harder. "Merlin," he said, with all the command he can muster, "Merlin, wake up and look at me."
Merlin's pupils, when he opens his eyes, are huge. Arthur isn't used to thinking of Merlin as attractive (and if Merln were an ideal manservant, Arthur wouldn't think of him at all) but between his blown eyes and the flushed cheeks and his open mouth there's no doubt about it. Merlin is being magically seduced and he's beautiful like this, and it maddens Arthur that some raunchy old witch his father's age is trespassing on Arthur's manservant's body.
"Arthur!" Merlin groans, as though surprised to see him there. He raises a hand to grab Arthur's shoulder -- for support? In supplication?
Arthur doesn't know. He just commands, "stay here, stay with me" and then lowers his head to kiss Merlin's mouth, inhaling Merlin's gasp and using his considerable energy and what little art he has to try to keep Merlin's attention on him.
It works for one kiss, for three, but Merlin is shaking now and glowing even brighter, and his eyes are closing again. His grasp begins to slide from Arthur's shoulder.
"No," Arthur commands, breaking away to glare at Merlin. "Stay with me," he says and pulls Merlin's hand under the neck of his tunic, under his shift, until Merlin's hand is resting, palm open, over the pulsepoint of Arthur's neck. Merlin is looking at him, really lookng at him, now. "She can't have you," Arthur says. "You may be a rubbish servant, but you belong here with me."
"Arthur," Merlin says again, and his impending orgasm is there in the rasp of his voice. "You don't know-"
"I don't care, either," Arthur says, fiercely. "I am prince of Camelot, and I will not yield one acre of barren land or one lame beggar to Nimueh, and I will not yield you."
All of Merlin's attention is on him now, as it should be. "Touch me," Merlin says, and there's really no misunderstanding that, not in this context. So Arthur pulls Merlin farther onto his lap, rucks up his jacket and tunic and loosens the leggings and then reaches in to grasp Merlin's prick. (Even in this crisis, Arthur can't resist taking a moment to compare them, quickly deciding that Merlin is skinnier than Arthur here as well as across the shoulders.) His prick is hard, and hot, and damp at the end as Arthur strokes him, tight and rough, while Merlin shudders.
Merlin's eyes stay open, and stay on Arthur. With a bolt of light like lightning, he tips over the edge, but it's the prince's name he cries when he comes. And then Merlin is merely limp, all the weird light is gone, and Arthur is pretty sure that he's won and Nimueh has lost.
Like many another fight, this one leaves Arthur frustrated and hard. After holding Merlin for a moment longer (he isn't rude, after all), he begins to ease away to take care of his own erection.
Merlin, still clumsy in the wake of his orgasm, grasps the prince's shirt. "Let me," he says, and he is lovely laying there, looking both ravished and sated. He pulls Arthur into another kiss, before saying with a remarkably straight face, "In this, as in all things, I am your servant."
Arthur can't help it, he snorts. "That's bollocks, Merlin."
"Well yeah," Merlin admits, "but let me help you out, anyway."
Arthur lays down next to him on the hard cave floor, and does.