Pornathon reposts

[srin]

Now that the pornathon's finished I figure I might as well repost the stuff I wrote for it. Some of these I like, some of these I'm not so keen on, but here we go.

First challenge: tentacles, Merlin/Arthur, NC-17.


Arthur is used to Merlin collecting weird magical objects and toting them around until he’s managed to work out what they’re for, so he doesn’t think much of it when Merlin arrives for bed one night with a large, smooth, greyish-purple sphere about the size of a man’s head.

“What’s that?” Arthur asks, undressing.

“Dunno,” says Merlin, who’s already naked, sitting on the bed with the thing in his lap. “’s not dangerous, got it from one of the druids I can trust, but she wouldn’t tell me what it does.”

Arthur nods and finishes putting his clothes away.

The half-moan, half-sound-of-surprise that Merlin gives a moment later is a bit weirder.

“Merlin?”

“It felt like it, um, stroked me,” Merlin says, lifting the thing to stare at it.

There’s a tentacle protruding from the bottom of the sphere. It waves at them in a friendly manner.

“Um,” says Merlin.

“Um,” agrees Arthur. “Was this druid by any chance the same one who gave you that silver thing? With the oil, and the … vibration?”

They both pause for a moment to enjoy that memory, and then Merlin nods. The ball sprouts more tentacles.

And that’s about when things get really weird. ‘Weird’ in the sense that, ten minutes later, Arthur and Merlin find themselves held down side-by-side on the bed by a series of warm, pleasantly slippery appendages wound about their limbs. Arthur would like to ask Merlin if he’s sure this thing is really safe, but speaking is a bit difficult given the hot, heavy length that’s worked its way into his mouth. It’s thick and firm, with a groove for his teeth so his jaw needn’t ache, and has a faint savoury flavour to it, and basically it’s like having a cock in his mouth but better, nicer tasting and no hair to get caught in the teeth. (This - being on his back with a solid shaft between his lips - makes him think of that time last week when he was sprawled in bed, Merlin straddling his chest, holding his cock out for Arthur to suck.)

There’s a series of smaller tentacles coiled around Arthur’s cock and balls and between his legs, stroking and pulsing. (It doesn’t feel quite like fucking Merlin, but it’s close enough to remind him - two days ago, Merlin bent over the table, swearing and thrusting back against him.)

And one with these little suckers that feel incredible on his nipples. Oh, and then there’s the slick one teasing at his hole and sliding in, stretching him carefully as it grows fatter and fills him even more deeply. (Like yesterday, when Arthur was on his side, Merlin pushing into him from behind and biting at his shoulder to muffle the endearments spilling from his lips. Arthur had nothing to bite, nothing to stop him spilling his own heart.)

So, yes, Arthur would love to say something to Merlin, only Merlin’s in more or less the same state, and Arthur’s also a bit too overwhelmed by the sensations and the sense-memory to form a coherent thought. The tentacle around the base of his prick is just tight enough to stop him coming, and the one inside him is enormous and amazing and has some sort of bump or something poised right at his prostate, rubbing over it again and again until Arthur would be whimpering and begging and shouting if he could.

It feels incredible, if a bit methodical and impersonal, but then - then Merlin somehow manages to reach over and grab Arthur’s hand. All of a sudden, in addition to everything else, Arthur could swear he feels Merlin’s tongue on his cock, (like this morning,) Merlin’s fingers on his body, the tender wandering touches that Merlin bestows on him when they’re going at it slow and lazy. (Like last week, like yesterday, like-) And then the tentacles are rearranging them so they’re on their sides, facing one another, hands still clinging and Arthur can see the flush in Merlin’s skin, the sweat on his brow and dripping down his collarbones, the glazed look in his half-closed eyes, the way his body is shuddering and twitching under the tentacles’ ministrations.

Merlin squeezes his hand, and meets his gaze, and Arthur comes, no hope of holding on any longer.

(Later, when they’ve recovered and the ball is just a ball again, Arthur squeezes Merlin’s hand and says,

“Think she’s got anything else for you?”

Merlin just grins.)

Second challenge: AU, Merlin/Arthur, I don't even know, let's just say R to be safe.

I quite liked this one, and won second place in the challenge, which was awesome. :D

“Hello there!” Merlin says cheerfully, as he’s put down on the floor beside Arthur’s - well, beside the pieces that are shortly to become Arthur.

Arthur ignores him.

“Hello?” Merlin tries again. “Oh no, you aren’t broken, are you? You look like you’d be such fun to put together, all those nice clean lines, love the red colour…”

Arthur sniffs, in as much as it is possible for a stack of wood and glass and a random collection of hardware to do so.

“I don’t need a cordless drill,” Arthur says haughtily. “I come with my own tools.”

“What, that tiny little hex key?” Merlin scoffs. “That’ll take ages. I’m much better, trust me. Have you together like magic.”

“Your bit wouldn’t even fit in my holes,” Arthur tells him dismissively. No one has ever talked to him like this before. Granted, no one’s ever talked to him much at all, he’s spent most of his existence shielded in cardboard and plastic, alone, waiting to take up the place he was built for. Uppity power tools were not specified on his instruction sheet.

“Oh, I have plenty of bits. Interchangeable. All different sorts. Flat head, Phillips, hex head, even one of those funny star-shaped ones. Never met a slot I couldn’t fill,” Merlin says proudly.

“I bet you strip them all,” Arthur mutters, though he sounds a bit less sure of himself.

“Never! I’ll just slide it right in, fill you up perfectly, screw you so good and tight,” Merlin promises, practically purring.

“We’ll see about that,” Arthur says sceptically, as his parts start being arranged.

“Just you wait,” Merlin tells him. “Bet you’ve never been assembled by someone like me. Those hex keys are so awkward, shift your grip and they just pop right out of you, or else put it in at the wrong angle - terrible. But when I do it, I move so fast, everything gets all warm, especially the screw I’m putting in you, twisting into your lovely pre-drilled holes…”

“If you say so,” Arthur mumbles, a bit shy now. He always expected to be slapped together in a rather matter-of-fact manner; nothing like what Merlin’s describing.

“You don’t believe me? How was it last time, then?”

“Last time?”

“Oh! You’ve never been assembled before, have you?” Merlin asks.

“Well I’m just out of the box aren’t I?” Arthur objects hotly.

“Right, of course you are, yes. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you,” Merlin assures him, a gentleness to his tone that wasn’t there before. Arthur isn’t nervous, he isn’t, but - well, maybe there’s a tiny bit of trepidation. Or there would be, if there weren’t something about Merlin that makes Arthur trust him rather more than the little piece of metal that Arthur was shipped with.

The first parts are in order now, and Merlin’s moving in against Arthur, his bit slipping into the head of the screw - it really is a perfect fit - and then he lines up the tip with Arthur’s hole, pressing against the opening, and starts working it in with a mechanical growl.

“Oh!” Arthur exclaims, stunned by the sensation. It’s one thing having his parts held together by hand, but this, this hard shaft driving into him, heat and pressure in his hole that feels like it’ll tear him apart even as it locks him into the shape he was made to have -

“Mmm,” Merlin groans, finishing off the first fastener. He pulls back, and Arthur feels bereft without Merlin’s bit in his screwhead, even with the screw itself filling him.

“You okay?” Merlin asks, carefully aligning the next one.

“More,” Arthur gasps, overwhelmed.

“Knew you’d like me,” Merlin hums, pleased, and starts again. “You’ll be so good when I’m done with you, so strong and sturdy. This room really needs you, you know, something to tie it all together, you’ll be perfect, I know you will-”

“Harder, please, put it in-”

“Yes, that’s it, just like that, you take it - oh! And your wood! You’re real wood, not even particle board - oh - I knew you were something special, you lovely thing, oh yes-”

*

When Arthur’s fully assembled, Merlin gets a place of honour in one of Arthur’s top drawers. And if sometimes the drawer sticks a little, and Merlin can be heard buzzing inside Arthur’s body of his own accord, well, luckily Gwen isn’t much inclined to complain.

Third challenge: kink meme prompts, Merlin/Arthur, NC-17, prompt was one-night-stand

Last night was one of those parties with more booze than familiar faces, which is surely why Merlin’s memory of the whole thing is a bit fragmented and fuzzy around the edges.

There was dancing and shots and more dancing, sweat, too many hot bodies in a too-small room, and this blond bloke with one sleeve already rolled up, fumbling with the button on the other cuff. Merlin didn’t think, just reached over to help. The guy smiled at him, startled but pleased; there was more dancing,

“I’m Arthur,” shouted over the music,

“Merlin,” likewise,

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Merlin had said, laughing, because his name’s weird enough when he isn’t meeting people called Arthur, and Arthur looked the sort to make smart remarks, and Merlin didn’t want to get into it, not when Arthur’s hips were grinding against his and they’d probably forget each other after another few drinks.

“Sure,” Arthur had said, moving even closer, and then Merlin’s recollection fizzes out for a while - more dancing, probably, and more shots, and then they were in some corner, Arthur holding him against the wall, thigh between Merlin’s legs, mouth open to Merlin’s tongue. And then someone was muttering,

“Wanna get out of here?” (Arthur, probably, because Merlin was mostly drunk and horny, but at the back of his mind also a little surprised at himself for being so easy for a stranger.)

Merlin found his coat and they were stumbling down the stairs, out to the street, halfway across the park (Merlin’s jeans are still damp from the wet grass, but he didn’t care then, not with Arthur’s arm around his waist and Arthur’s lips on his jaw) before they remembered to decide where to go, laughing at themselves.

Merlin’s, they went to Merlin’s, and Arthur was naked but Merlin had only got his jeans and boxers down halfway to his knees before Arthur tackled him to the bed with a needy growl. Arthur tackled him to the bed, and an hour later, sticky and sated, they took turns in the bathroom, and then Arthur dressed, and grinned at Merlin, and left.

And in the morning, Merlin half-thinks the whole thing was a drunken hallucination. But -

But his jeans are still damp, and there are blond hairs stuck in his sheets, and there’s a condom packet on the floor by his bed, not the sort Merlin buys himself. He remembers Arthur fumbling it from his jacket pocket at one point and them both stopping to stare at it. Arthur looked uncertain and Merlin didn’t want to talk about who was going where, didn’t want to worry about the details of fucking someone he just met, so he pulled Arthur down over him, pulled their cocks together, mumbled,

“Like this, ‘s good,” and Arthur groaned, forgot the condom, kissed him again.

Merlin also remembers Arthur’s nudity and the burn of arousal and all that, yes, but it’s other details that are curiously vivid: Arthur’s hot mouth closed around Merlin’s earlobe and sucking; the smoothness of Arthur’s arse next to the sparse but coarse hair on his thighs; the way their noses felt, rubbing together as Merlin tilted his head for a better angle to the kiss. The texture of Arthur’s fingerprints on Merlin’s tongue, and his hair tangled in Merlin’s hands, and Arthur’s eyes right before he came, bewildered and desperate and full of too much affection for maybe two hours’ acquaintance.

When it was over, they were both sober enough to be a little embarrassed with themselves. Arthur returned from the bathroom announcing that Merlin was out of toilet paper, and Merlin snorted, and almost asked Arthur to stay but didn’t, afraid to ruin the mood if Arthur was only after a good time and not sober enough to realize that Arthur couldn’t look him up later, Arthur didn’t even know his name.

Arthur stared at Merlin for a moment, and his expression might have meant I can’t believe we just did that or it might have meant Ask me for my number because I’m too afraid to ask for yours, but before Merlin could decide which, the look was a grin and Arthur was out the door.

(A week later, Merlin finds a crumpled receipt - from a Tesco he doesn’t frequent - stuffed into his Arthurian lit book. There’s an unfamiliar mobile number scrawled on the back, and Merlin feels fragmented and fuzzy and inexplicably happy.)

Fourth challenge: Not Merlin/Arthur, Emmyria/Alvarr, NC-17

She’s nestled in the crook of a thick tree branch, chilly but otherwise comfortable, when he stumbles into the clearing, calling her name and sounding rather worried, actually. Well, that’s edifying. Still, she lets him stumble a moment longer before jumping down to land near-silently just behind him.

“Emmyr- Oh!” he startles, when she taps him on the shoulder. He spins around, eyes wide, and then quite unexpectedly sweeps her into his arms.

“Thank the gods,” Alvarr breathes in her ear, “I’d feared the worst.”

“Please, I can take care of myself,” Emmyria says tartly, patting his back without much enthusiasm. He releases her, smiling.

“Of course you can. Forgive my doubt.”

“Perhaps. And yourself? All in one piece, then?”

“Thanks to the Lady Morgana, yes,” Alvarr says, smile slipping into a smirk. Emmyria rolls her eyes.

“If you succeed in making me jealous, it will only be because I’d have liked to have her myself,” Emmyria says, and then Alvarr’s smirk turns positively filthy, and he tugs her in against him again, this time by the hips.

“Oh yes?”

“She is very beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you.”

“Flattery now?” Emmyria sighs, and shoves half-heartedly at his arms, though she doesn’t make any further effort to break the embrace. “It won’t bring the dead back, you know. Or your little druid pet who ran off. That was a disaster, Alvarr.”

He sighs as well, tipping his head down against her neck.

“I know. I know it was. We will have to - there is much to consider. Tomorrow. But now…” His lips find their way to her throat, and for a moment she intends to pull away, but - Well. He’s right. The arguing and planning and regrouping can wait.

“Now?” she repeats, teasing, threading her fingers through his hair.

“You didn’t fear for me even a little?” he asks, a pout in his voice, the words vibrating over her skin.

“Perhaps a little,” she admits, as he slides his mouth down to her collarbone, teeth scraping carefully. She arches her back, brings their lower bodies closer so she can feel him, half-hard already. He hums quietly; drags his mouth to hers, and suckles at her lip until she pushes her tongue between his. She pushes her tongue between his lips and pushes his body back against the tree, and kisses him, gropes him through his trousers, doesn’t even try to hide her shiver when he gets his hand up her shirt and rubs her nipple with cold but quickly warming fingers.

They sink down together after a while, he with his legs folded under him and she straddling his lap, grinding against him, and the night’s too cool to take much off so she only undoes his laces to tug his prick out, then opens her own trousers and pulls them down just enough to get him inside her.

He groans at the feeling and she grins, raises and lowers herself a few times just to admire the shattered look on his face. No matter how many times they do this, no matter how good it feels to take his length into her body, it’s always him that falls apart here, moaning and lost for a few minutes before he can gather himself enough to see to her pleasure in return. But gather himself he does; just as she’s starting to ache for more, his thumb finds her nipple again and he works his other hand down past the awkward bunch of her trousers until his calloused fingers are exactly where she wants them.

Emmyria allows herself to forget, then; forget the failure and the dead and all they have ahead of them, and just enjoy Alvarr, the thickness of him in her and his clever hands and the heavy-honeyed words that spill from his mouth when he isn’t licking her skin or catching her lips.

Still, the thoughts return after, when they’ve righted their clothes and he’s muttered the spell to banish their fluids. She doesn’t leave his lap, and he doesn’t take his hands off her, just carries on kissing her, softly, without urgency, and murmuring promises that they’ll manage somehow, druid boy or no, crystal or no, they’ll find a way to have their revenge and their better future, they won’t always be like this, alone against a cold night and a colder king. Emmyria isn’t sure she believes him any more, but she lets him hold her, and lets herself pretend.

Fifth challenge: crossover/fusion, Merlin/Arthur + Farscape, PG-13

I really don't like this one at all; just including it for the sake of completeness.

“I need to feed you more,” Arthur says. He’s slouched against a big tree near the riverbank, with Merlin sat between his legs and leaning back into his embrace.

“Not that I’m complaining, but why?” Merlin asks.

“Too bony. All your bits digging into me when we do this.”

“I thought you liked my bits in you,” Merlin says, cheeky.

“You are a filthy -” Arthur begins mock-reproachfully, but breaks off, because there are voices approaching from the woods.

“-Can’t be, we never had dragons on Earth!” says the male one.

“If you never had them, how do you know so much about them?” asks the female one.

“They’re imaginary creatures! We have stories about them, St. George, Puff The Magic, take your pick, but they never really existed. Why are you so convinced this is Earth, anyway?”

“It looked like Earth when we landed. It does not make sense. Like Earth.”

At that point the pair emerge from the trees. The man’s hair is short and brown, the woman’s long and black, and they’re both wearing more smooth, shiny black leather than Merlin and Arthur have ever seen before. The woman spots Merlin and Arthur immediately, and marches right up to them where they sit, bewildered.

“What is this planet?” she demands.

“Planet?” Merlin repeats blankly.

“This place,” the woman amends, “What is it called?”

“Camelot,” Arthur supplies. “In Albion.”

The man bursts out laughing, and the woman turns to him, unimpressed.

“You have mentioned a Camelot before” she says. “You sang. It was dreadful.”

“It’s fictional!”

“My kingdom is not fictional!” Arthur objects.

“Lemme guess,” the man says, turning to them, “King Arthur?”

“Well,” Arthur says, uncomfortable. “Prince. Prince Arthur.”

“Riiight,” says the man, and then he turns a curious eye on Merlin, takes in the intimacy of their position. Arthur stiffens, but he only asks, “So who’re you supposed to be? Lancelot?”

“No, I’m Merlin. You know Lancelot?”

“…Not personally,” the man says carefully. “You. You’re Merlin.”

“Yes? Were you expecting someone else?”

“Old guy. Beard. Robe. Stupid hat.”

“I think you want Geoffrey,” Merlin says.

“The stupid hat can be arranged,” Arthur says at the same time, grinning. Merlin elbows him in the side, and Arthur grunts but doesn’t stop smirking.

“Geoffrey,” the strange man repeats. “Like Geoffrey of Monmouth? You have got to be kidding me.”

“He’s the librarian and court genealogist,” Arthur says. The man starts laughing again, a little helplessly. His companion rolls her eyes, steps forward, and starts talking. Merlin and Arthur don’t understand most of what she says, but they do manage to gather that the pair are looking for the landing site of yesterday’s comet, so they provide directions as best they can. When the strangers are about to leave, the man speaks up again.

“Hey now Arty, make sure you build that round table. Don’t reckon Lancelot and Guinevere’ll be much of a problem for you,” he glances knowingly at Arthur’s hands on Merlin’s waist, “but keep an eye on any punks named Mordred. And don’t forget the spam. A lot.”

Arthur opens his mouth to ask what on earth ‘spam’ is, but the woman grabs the man’s arm and hisses,

“Do not sing.” And then she nods at Merlin and Arthur, and says, “Thank you for your assistance. We are leaving. Now,” and drags the man off into the woods again.

“Well,” says Arthur. “That was very odd.”

“Yeah,” Merlin agrees.

“I’ve no idea what they were on about; why would anyone want to put a ship through a worm’s hole? It would have to be an absurdly tiny miniature, and even then…”

“I can think of another large thing I’d like to put in another small hole,” Merlin says, wriggling his hips.

“Merlin!”

Merlin tugs at Arthur’s wrists, pulling Arthur’s arms more securely around Merlin’s body. Arthur doesn’t resist.

“Or we could do that later,” Merlin allows. “I like this. ‘S nice.”

“Mmm,” Arthur agrees, tilting his head to nuzzle against Merlin’s cheek. Merlin leans into the touch, and trails his fingers over the back of Arthur’s hand. He shuffles around after a moment, throwing both his legs across one of Arthur’s thighs so he can kiss Arthur’s mouth, and Arthur supports him in the slightly awkward position with an arm across his back, holding him close. By the time they get their hands down one another’s trousers, they’ve forgotten all about the strange visitors.

Sixth challenge: villains, Merlin/Arthur + Sophia, R

Sophia did not die so much as … disperse. Pieces of her scattered over water and shore, small and separate but with something like a memory of a larger form. A memory, and patience.

When the sword hits the water the pieces of her tremble and jolt, and land a little closer together than before. Close enough to feel one another’s pull, to shiver and shift and slide into place over the length of a season.

Her body is barely substantial, even when there is enough to call a body. A human body, like the one she had before but a little older, a little more worn. It has not been in the world to age but the ways of magic are strange and the ways of humans stranger; she does not question it.

Her memory is crackled mirror-glass, bits missing and the remainder distorted by the lines of the break, but this much is clear: a prince, and an enchantment, and home.

She waits.

He comes, eventually, tendrils of magic twisted around him but still blunt and fragile at the core of him, still human. The man with him feels like one of her lost silver shards; he brings a sense of familiarity, a sense of loss and anger and fear, but on the surface he’s only a young man, too much in ears and elbows, and Sophia knows nothing else.

The prince. She had to make him love her, she remembers that. She has little power now, feels it slip away like water when she reaches for it, but there’s enough to drip inside him and have a look around. Her body hides behind a tree, and watches the prince watch the elbow-boy as he lays out a blanket and a lunch.

The prince was full of empty places before, she remembers that too, nooks and hollows she could flow into, cold spaces to fill up so his eyes would fall only on her. That was how it was before, she’s sure, but it’s crowded inside him now. There was warmth then too, little embers she could damp down, but now he’s all heat, a fire that has him glowing and makes her steam around the edges when she tries to get too close.

The prince and the other settle on the blanket. They eat, and laugh, and sit very close together. Sophia’s human eyes see the prince’s lips curve when the elbow-boy speaks, and she feels his warmth flare when their fingers brush over their bread.

They call one another by name and the syllables trickle through her mind, Arthur and Merlin. They press their lips together and that’s a memory too, touching her human mouth to Arthur’s, though she’d felt nothing then, while she feels this through them - a surge of want unfamiliar to her, and more of that heat, a bewildering swirl of raw emotion. She swims in it, dizzy, struggling to hold on to her purpose. She must make Arthur turn all that on her, must seep into him and make him forget Merlin but…

But she’s still so weak, and this thing between them has more strength than she does. They’re laid out on their sides now, mouths locked together, making such filthy, unrefined sounds, and grinding their hips, and clutching at one another as though separation would drown them. There’s an unbelievable tenderness in the movement of Arthur’s hands over Merlin’s body, and overwhelming care in Merlin’s answering touches, and no space at all in between them for Sophia to wash into.

She watches with her human eyes, and lets her power feed her the unfamiliar tide of them together. Affection and need, hot coals of longing, and underneath a steady burn, strange feelings her memories name as friendship and loyalty and love. Arthur’s fingers twist in Merlin’s hair and dance across his back, slip beneath his tunic, seek out more skin. Merlin presses into the contact and curls his leg across Arthur’s thigh, and their sounds grow more desperate, quieter in their breathlessness, until finally they both shudder and groan and still.

Even after, they stay tangled together. Merlin murmurs something in Arthur’s ear; Arthur laughs and licks his jaw and then into his mouth again. Sophia drifts out, tentative, but Arthur is as full of that odd heat as he was before, no space left for her to soak.

She watches them a little longer and then Sophia lets herself dissolve, and waits. There will be other princes, surely.

Seventh challenge: wanking, Merlin/Arthur, NC-17

It’s not that Arthur doesn’t like the sex. Arthur loves the sex. The sex is great. It’s frantic and desperate and a whirlwind of shed clothes and grappling hands, bitten lips and bitten-off moans and biting Merlin’s shoulder so hard when he comes that he worries he’ll break the skin.

It’s great. It’s everything Arthur should want. It should be everything Arthur wants. It’s very nearly everything Arthur wants.

It’s just that, sometimes, Merlin will brush his fingers lightly across the back of Arthur’s neck while straightening his collar. Arthur will hide his shiver, and ignore the way his skin tingles at the gentle touch, sensation skittering through his body, making his throat tighten and something in his chest throb.

He ignores it, until he’s alone in his room.

He shouldn’t notice such small things, such little pointless tidbits of contact, certainly shouldn’t crave them like a starving man craves food. But he does. That’s why he’s in bed now, alone and nude, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to trail his own fingers along his hairline exactly the way Merlin does. That’s why his cock fills as he brings his fingers down his arm, a strange delicate motion so unlike swinging a sword or grabbing at Merlin to drag him closer for an uncoordinated kiss. Arthur’s always been a tactile man and surely he has his fill of physical encounters - on the training field, in bed, just manhandling Merlin about - but nothing so sweet or intoxicating as those tiny brushes of Merlin’s fingers.

Merlin. Arthur keeps his eyes closed and imagines Merlin leaning over him, giving him these light, deliberate touches, so tender they make him ache as much as they arouse him. It isn’t that Merlin wouldn’t fuck him like this if he asked; Merlin almost certainly would, if Arthur dared ask. Arthur can demand that his socks be darned, ask Merlin to accompany him on dangerous quests, pull Merlin into his lap and kiss him until neither of them can breathe. That’s fine, because Arthur is the prince and Arthur is Merlin’s friend and Arthur is more than glad to give Merlin at least as much pleasure as he gets himself. That’s fine, but it is one thing to fuck his friend; it would be quite another to ask his servant to love him like this, to admit a desire he shouldn’t have, much less articulate.

So Arthur lays in his bed, and imagines that his hands are Merlin’s. Touches his neck and his collarbones, sweeps feather-light fingers along his arms and lingers over his nipples, skates faint caresses over his stomach and hips. Pretends that his movements are guided by whatever whimsy leads Merlin to skim Arthur’s wrist while straightening his sleeve, or to push sweaty hair from Arthur’s forehead during a break in training.

When he’s hard enough to leak small drops of fluid and he can’t wait any longer, Arthur curls his fingers around his cock and strokes. Sometimes, when Merlin’s spent the night in Arthur’s bed and they both wake up aroused and lazy, Merlin will get him off like this, with none of the urgency of their usual coupling. It’s the sense-memory of those mornings that Arthur sinks into now.

He doesn’t listen to his own hitched breathing, or the rustle of the sheets beneath him, or the owl outside. (Or the quiet click of his door, opening and then closing.) He only hears Merlin’s voice in his head, focuses on the slow glide of his hand on his prick, the imagined warmth and familiar scent of Merlin’s body beside his. He allows himself to want, to fall into the fantasy that the gentle hands tugging and touching him are Merlin’s. Arthur mumbles when he’s close, Merlin and please, and maybe some other words too, small and heavy in the quiet night.

His orgasm, when it comes, isn’t loud or shattering, but it leaves him satisfied, mind blank, body spent.

It takes him a moment to realize that he’s opened his eyes, and that the image of Merlin before him is real. Arthur freezes then, numb with surprise and shame, but Merlin only smiles, soft, and climbs into the empty space in the bed.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Merlin explains.

“Oh,” Arthur manages.

Merlin touches his shoulder, (Arthur would shudder were he not so sated,) and curls into Arthur’s side like he belongs there.

Merlin settles, easy and comfortable, and Arthur’s shame melts into wondering contentment.

Emo mixtape bonus challenge, Merlin/Arthur, PG



Everybody Loves Me, Baby
Fortune has me well in hand, armies wait at my command
My gold lies in a foreign land buried deep beneath the sand
The angels guide my ev'ry tread, my enemies are sick or dead
But all the victories I've led haven't brought you to my bed
You see, everybody loves me, baby, what's the matter with you?
Won'tcha tell me what did I do to offend you?
(Come on, Merlin, keep up. -Arthur) [Such modesty! -the management]

Above You, Below Me
I will take you as you are
Please accept me as I am
Find your lonely life bizarre
I know it's above you
I know it's below me
(Please?)

Everything You Want
I am everything you want
I am everything you need
(You know it’s true.) [Maybe you should try some Humble Pie, Arthur.]

Jet Pack
So, the way you act, is it just an act
Or some strange courtship ritual?
A habitual nervous reaction?
Hey, it's just me, set yourself free
Why don't you let me know what's going on
Inside your cluttered head?
(Don’t think I haven’t noticed, Merlin.)

All For You
It's hard to say what it is I see in you
Wonder if I'll always be with you
But words can't say, and I can't do
Enough to prove,
It's all for you
(Self-explanatory, I should hope.)

You’re My Best Friend
You're my sunshine
And I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
(Ooh) Oh, you're my best friend
(Even if you won’t date me, Merlin, this will always be true. Yours, always. -Arthur)