PRON PRON MORE PRON

[ineptshieldmaid]

This time, I wrote it.

Title: What's in it for the warlock?
Fandom: BBC Merlin.
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rating: M15
Prompt: Someone at the Kink Meme wanted Virgin!Arthur and Experienced!Merlin, and it took off from there. This was going to be just an entertaining snarky conversation, but first Merlin got sentimental and then Arthur got all turned on. Silly boys.

Merlin stared at him. 'And here was me thinking being the Crown Prince was a fun job. Nice clothes, shiny weapons, big feasts, ladies throwing themselves at you...'

'And you can't touch a single one of them,' Arthur muttered. 'Get me more wine, Merlin.'

Apparently Merlin thought this was worth his obedience, and the wine was poured without so much as a sarcastic remark.

'You mean you've never - not -'

'No.' Arthur concentrated on his goblet and wondered why the conversation had started.

'But... ok, not noblewomen. This place has got to be full of serving girls who'd have you, though.' Merlin might actually make a half-decent manservant, if he learnt to shut up. Arthur didn't even need to ask him to top up the wine this time.

'Bastards,' Arthur announced.

'Absolutely mad,' Merlin concurred. 'And obviously blind, too.'

This conversation had taken a wrong turning somewhere. 'Bastards,' Arthur repeated. 'Can't have 'em. Not before I'm married and with a proper heir and so on.'

Merlin whistled through his teeth. 'Bugger,' he said.

'That's about the sum of it,' Arthur agreed. 'Believe me, Merlin, I envy you. And I order you to tell me every detail. Who is she? What's she like?'

Merlin frowned, and then plonked his presumptuous arse down across the table from Arthur. He helped himself to some wine while he was at it.

'Look, Arthur,' he began. 'You do know there's... other things you can do, don't you? Without causing unfortunate progeny?'

Arthur stared at him. Merlin was blushing right up to his ears, and, on reflection, the best punishment for him broaching this topic was to let him go on.

'There's... look, you have to get the right girl, but you're the Prince and everything, shouldn't be a problem,' Merlin was actually babbling now. 'You get her to use her, her mouth, on your... well. You get the idea. Or her hands, hands works.'

Arthur removed the wine bottle from his manservant's hand. 'Believe it or not, Merlin, I am aware of how these things work.'

Merlin looked horribly relieved. 'Oh. Well. Then why don't you -'

Arthur sighed. He really did not want to be having this conversation. 'I have,' he said shortly.

Merlin just raised his eyebrows at him.

'Honestly, Merlin. I'm not that selfish, am I?'

Merlin blinked. 'You are quite self-absorbed on occasion, sire. But I fail to understand what your problem is in this case.'

This time it was Arthur's turn to be surprised. He'd expected better of Merlin. 'I'm an honourable fellow, Merlin. I don't like it. What's in it for them? I refuse to believe that my manhood is so magnificent that everyone just wants to touch it.'

At this, Merlin had the temerity to fall about laughing. Arthur glared at him, and poured himself more wine.

'Shut up,' he ordered his manservant. 'More magnificent than a scrawny runt like you, at any rate,' he said, smugly.

Merlin was having so much difficulty composing himself, he had dropped his head onto the table, and his shoulders were shaking convulsively.

'Whatever gave you that idea?' he managed, wheezing.

'What? Merlin, I've seen you, and I assure you, you are no way equipped to match my magnificence. But regardless, I don't see what's in it for the girl.'

'Man,' Merlin corrected.

'The what?'

'Man. You said you wanted to know who she was. It's a man.'

'MERLIN. We are not talking about your liaisons right now. We are talking about why I'm not... taking advantage of serving women.' And Arthur was not the tiniest bit curious. Not at all.

'Oh, right.'

'Who is he?' Fine, so he was curious. Well, honestly. Who'd want Merlin? Nothing but skin and bones, and really, really not magnificent at all.

'Can't tell you that, sire.'

'Can't tell me that?' Arthur stared at Merlin. So obviously it was someone important then. And, if you insisted, Merlin did have lovely long fingers and that idiot look of his was kind of endearing. But honestly, did this court have no taste?

'I could lie?' Merlin twinkled up at him, his head still on the table.

'Don't, you're terrible at it. I could order you to tell me, you know.'

'And then you'd just have to put me in the stocks no matter what I said,' Merlin concluded, mournfully.

'It's one of my knights, isn't it?'

Merlin was managing to keep a surprisingly straight face. Arthur sighed, and decided this line of investigation could be left for another day, or perhaps extracted from his knights by means of shouting and whacking things.

'Well, in that case, I take it back. I do not want to know the details. Whatever you're getting up to with this person is your own business.' He ought to enforce a vow of celibacy on Merlin, he thought. A good manservant should endure his master's tribulations with him.

Merlin nodded. 'Thank you, sire.' Arthur dragged the bundle of food Merlin had brought him across the table and dug into it.

'It's a pity, though,' Merlin said, thoughtfully.

'What is?'

'Well, you see, I could tell you what's in it.'

Arthur stared at the pastry in his hands. 'It's blueberry, clodhead.' Sometimes Merlin really was a colossal idiot.

Merlin sighed, as if talking to a particularly stupid child, which was a bit rich, coming from Clodhead the Chief of Idiotsville. 'I mean, what's in it for the girl, sire. Or man. As the case may be.'

'Merlin!'

'Yes, sire?' Merlin was attempting to school his expression into bemused innocence, but Arthur knew when he was being strung along.

'You can't expect me to believe you've... well...'

'Of course I have, sire.' How had he never noticed how big Merlin's eyes were? Look at him there, all wide-eyed and pretending to be bemused. Arthur had seen those eyes dozens of times, peering down at him when he overslept, twinkling at him across the banquet hall, blinking sleepily up at him while Merlin laced or unlaced his boots. Merlin's big eyes between his knees, dragons and pixies, he did not just entertain that thought.

Arthur glared across the table. 'You tell me who he is. At once. And I'll kill him for you.'

'Arthur,' Merlin sighed. 'I don't want him killed.'

'You don't?'

'No.'

'But - you're just a boy! He shouldn't make you -' There was something tight and angry in Arthur's chest. This was his manservant, how dare anyone touch his manservant... And besides, it seemed grossly unfair that he, Arthur, should be restraining himself around servants in the name of honour, while some miscellaneous knight was enjoying his own manservant!

Merlin reached across the table and wrested the wine bottle out of Arthur's hands. Seeing that it was almost empty, he placed the bottle to his lips and downed the contents in one go. 'Arthur. This is what I'm trying to tell you. It's fun. I had fun. I'm going to have fun again.'

'That magnificent, is he?'

Merlin appeared to think for a moment. 'Not bad, no.' He put on his most insolent smirk: 'Oh, I'm sure he's not as magnificent as your princeliness, but one takes what one can get...'

'Fuck you, Merlin.'

'Later,' Merlin said. 'I'm trying to explain something.' He snagged a pastry from Arthur's snack plate, which Arthur thought was rather rude, but Arthur was too interested in hearing what Merlin had to say next to care very much. Interested because he had to look after his servant's welfare, you understand, had to make sure no one was taking improper advantage of him.

'Right.' Merlin sat straighter in the chair. 'Not everyone likes it, you understand. There's... well... man-smell. Which is different to girl-smell. And then there's choking and gagging and so on but you can avoid that, someone who's good at it will know how, but if you're propositioning people you ought to be careful about pushing and pulling them.'

'Merlin.' Arthur frowned at his manservant. 'What part of 'I'm not that selfish' don't you understand? Of course I'd try not to make it completely hideous. That's not the same as an incentive.'

Merlin held up a hand. 'Hold on, I'm coming to that.' He chewed on his lip for a moment, a nagging, worrying movement which Arthur found himself imitating. He extricated his own lip from his teeth and stared hard at Merlin's ear until Merlin's fidgeting in the chair had driven him thoroughly mad.

'Stand up,' Arthur ordered. Merlin raised one eyebrow and got to his feet. Arthur sat up straighter in his chair, mimicking his father's pose.

'Report. What, precisely, is so excellent about the act of fellatio?'

Merlin narrowed his eyes, and instead of standing there like a decent servant and answering his master's question, he began to pace.

'Arthur,' he began. 'Sire.'

'I'm waiting.'

'Yes. Well. So, imagine you're a serving girl.' He turned around at the end of the table, making some kind of incomprehensible gesture with his arms. Arthur obediently imagined he was a serving girl, the first serving girl who came to mind.

'Now, imagine this serving girl has been lucky enough to catch Prince Arthur's eye. So she's feeling pretty flattered.'

'Morgana would kill me,' Arthur blurted.

'What?' Merlin spun around, flailing his hands at Arthur. 'We're not talking about Morgana! You can't talk about Morgana, she's a noblewoman, that's different!'

'You said to imagine I was a serving girl!'

'Morgana is your father's ward.' Merlin was looming over him now, those big eyes (deep. Deep eyes. Had they always been this deep?) peering at him in concern. 'By all the little flowers, you're in love with her, aren't you?'

'NOT MORGANA,' Arthur roared, standing up out of his chair and pushing Merlin back. 'Her serving girl!'

'You're in love with Gwen?'

Arthur had to take Merlin by the shoulders and shake him. 'No, Merlin. You told me to imagine that I was a serving girl. And so I did. I imagined I was Guinevere.'

Merlin frowned up at him. 'You did? Why?'

'I don't know! I see a lot of her. She's always hanging around you.' Arthur was pleased to see Merlin flush at that one.

'Yes, well,' he stuttered. 'Don't imagine you're Gwen, please. Imagine you're... I don't know. Someone new. Someone Prince Arthur might conceivably sleep with.'

It was awfully hard to imagine anyone with Merlin standing right there in front of him. Arthur released Merlin's shoulders, but Merlin didn't take the hint and step away. He was staring at Arthur's arm, or right past it.

'Imagine you're a serving girl. Or boy. It doesn't matter,' Merlin said softly. 'And you've been propositioned by Prince Arthur. Now, he's the prince, so you're flattered just by that. But he's also Prince Arthur, and he's...' Merlin's voice trailed off a little. 'He's handsome, but plenty of people are handsome. He's exacting, that's more important. You know he won't settle for just anyone or anything. He's a bit of a prat,' here Merlin snuck Arthur a sidelong grin. 'And he can be cruel sometimes. But he's being nice to you, and so you think you're seeing a better side of him. The real Arthur.'

Arthur swallowed, and put out a hand to stop Merlin.

'Is it?' he asked.

'What?' Merlin blinked up at him, his eyes dark pools.

'The real Arthur.' For some reason it was crucial that he find this out. Merlin's hand came up and clasped his, just for a moment.

'You won't know. If you knew for sure... some of the charm would be gone. You just have to keep believing you're right.'

'So... what do I do?' Arthur dropped his hand to his side as Merlin released it, where it hung, feeling useless. He rested it on the mantelpiece instead.

Merlin took a step back now, drumming the fingers of his left hand on the table. 'You, that is, the servant you're imagining, you've accepted Prince Arthur's proposition. If you're lucky, he's brought you up here to his chambers.' Merlin gestured at the sitting room and the bedroom beyond it. 'You're glad, because it's private up here, and you're flattered again, because this is Prince Arthur's private space.'

'I am aware what my own rooms are like,' Arthur drawled. 'Get on with it.'

Merlin started. 'Right. Where were we?'

'Fellatio. The act of.' Good grief, if the boy liked it that much, why was he so hesitant?

'Imagine you have Prince Arthur stripped down and spread out in front of you.' Arthur tried to imagine himself stripped down and spread out in front of himself, and unfortunately only managed to imagine himself stripped naked before Merlin. How was he supposed to imagine a miscellaneous servant, anyway? Obviously he should have stuck with Guinevere, who was much less skinny than Merlin, even if Morgana would kill him for ever thinking such a thing. 'Now, if this is to be done properly,' Merlin went on, 'you're not just going to suck him off.'

'I'm not?' Arthur squeaked.

Merlin rolled his eyes at him. 'No, idiot. No wonder you think it's no fun.'

'It was,' Arthur swallowed, and got his voice on an even keel again. 'It was fun enough. Before. For me.'

'Not nearly as much fun as it could be, trust me on this.'

'Trust you.'

'I am the experienced one here,' Merlin said, with a supercilious smirk. 'Now. As I said, you're not going to just suck him off. You're going to enjoy the view, for one thing, as Prince Arthur is spectacularly handsome.' That, at least, Arthur knew. 'And you're going to take the opportunity to kiss him, not just on the lips. The side of his neck, or his collarbones, maybe his nipples.' Was Merlin's voice cracking just a little? Arthur rather hoped so. It occurred to him that this educational talk must be rather odd for Merlin. 'You've got hands,' Merlin added. 'You'll be stroking his skin, too. Maybe scratching, if he likes that sort of thing.' Arthur had no idea whether or not he liked that sort of thing, and wondered why he'd never found out. 'He might just lie there and enjoy it,' Merlin was twinkling up at him again. 'But if you're lucky he'll be doing the same to you.'

Strangely, this was not something Arthur had ever considered. In fact, he wasn't sure if any clothing had ever been removed in any of his past encounters. It had never occurred to him that he might want to kiss or caress some serving girl (noblewomen, now, noblewomen were another matter, but that was about all you could do with a noblewoman, so you might as well enjoy it). He thought of Merlin doing this to one of his knights - he thought of one of his knights doing this to Merlin - and something hot and aching settled into his belly. Dragons and pixies, even his manservant had a better sex life than he.

'And when you have him,' Merlin was continuing, and yes, his voice was definitely wobbling. 'When you have him in your, your mouth, it probably tastes a bit strange if you're not used to it, maybe you don't like the smell, maybe it all feels as awkward as ice-skating on greased skates and part of you thinks "what the hell am I doing here with the Crown Prince's cock in my mouth and, trees and little flowers, what if I'm no good at it?". But lets say, for the sake of argument, that you are good at it, and then you have Prince Arthur spread out in front of you, and he's writhing a bit, and he has his head tipped back and his hands caught in the sheets. He's handsome enough in ordinary things, but he's gorgeous like that, and you think he's the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen, but you're biased because you're enjoying the fact that you made him like that.'

'Glerk,' said Arthur, and wondered if there was anyway to end this before Merlin noticed how incredibly hard he, Arthur was. Merlin turned back to him and he was smirking from ear to ear.

'That's another thing,' Merlin added, and as he speaks he closed the space between himself and Arthur again. 'there's the noises he's making, too. You're not sure what his sensitive spots are but you'll hit one of them accidentally. You'll probably have to hold him down by the hips,' and at that point, he laid his palms flat against Arthur's hips, by way of demonstration. Arthur managed to hold himself perfectly still as Merlin went on, 'He's not a demonstrative person, Arthur. So you'd have to be really very good to get him thrashing about and moaning. But anything you could get out of him you would count as a victory, because this is Prince Arthur of Control-A-Lot, and seeing him give up his precious composure might just be the most arousing thing you've seen.'

Merlin stopped, and dropped his eyes in what Arthur might have mistaken for a humble gesture, if it hadn't meant Merlin was now staring straight at his cock.

Merlin swallowed. 'So, um. There you have it. I'm sure there's plenty of serving girls -'

'Shut up.' Arthur reached a quick decision - one which he would no doubt regret later - and cut Merlin off. 'Just... shut up.'

Merlin's face went shuttered and his hand's fell away from Arthur's hips. Arthur did the only thing he could think of, and his arms snapped out and caught Merlin by the waist before he could get away. He tugged Merlin sharply up against him, and yes, it was rather embarrassing that he, Arthur, was very very hard right now but Merlin had managed to give that whole speech and Arthur had only the crack and wobble in his voice to suggest it had affected him at all.

'Arthur?' There was that gratifying wobble again.

'Shut up,' Arthur repeated, burying his face in Merlin's shoulder, ripping the silly scarf off so that he could lick and nibble at the skin.

Merlin, the little bastard, pushed him away. 'What do you think you're doing?' he asked, his voice enviably steady.

Arthur reached out for him again, and Merlin caught his hands and held them away. 'Fuck, Merlin,' he whined, hearing the petulance in his voice and unable to modulate it.

Merlin laughed. 'It's considered polite to ask first,' he said, eyes dancing.

'Please...' There really wasn't anything else he could say. Merlin grinned up at him, and reached up to tangle his hand in Arthur's hair and pull him down.

'If you insist,' he murmured, against Arthur's lips. 'If you insist, sire.'