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The outside world was locked out; the sunlight was pushing weakly through the closed curtains, outshined by the rarer, stronger flames of the candles by the bed and by the door. The afternoon stretched out before them, free of obligations, 'till the evening, all theirs.
"Ung," Merlin said.
Which wasn't very eloquent, admittedly, but as he was currently kneeling naked on the crown prince's bed, upper body bent forward so said crown prince could comfortably wind rope around his crossed arms more often than strictly necessary, he felt he couldn't be blamed for not being up to making sterling speeches, even though he felt that the way Arthur briskly jerked the rope snug, tying it, again, in a double knot, would have deserved a few angry words.
"Hmm," Arthur hummed in answer, in a deceptively sunny way.
"How long is this going to take?" Merlin snapped.
He'd been sceptic about the whole thing at first, but then Arthur had produced some silky rope quite unlike what Merlin had been expecting, the material soft yet unyielding against his skin, and he had relented; and he hadn't regretted it at all – though sometimes he wondered about the prince.
At the moment, Arthur was kneeing right behind him, closer than was really practical, strong thighs pressing against him from both sides, and arousal brushing against his backside, so Merlin really didn't see why and how he was being so patient; surely, tying him up couldn't be that fun.
"As long as I want it to," Arthur replied haughtily, possibly with more honesty than he would have if he'd had time to think about his reply, and added another layer of rope. "Stop squirming."
Merlin tried to turn his head to glare at him, but Arthur pressed him down easily, his fingers brushing through his hair. Still, he must have sensed his irritation, for a moment later – enough for plausible deniability about acting according to Merlin's wishes – Merlin saw his hand appear in his line of vision, as he reached for the knife he'd laid down on a stool beside the bed. Merlin stared, transfixed, when he lifted it and turned it easily between his fingers: he always found the way Arthur handled weaponry entrancing – maybe with the exception of the times when said weaponry was used to hit him, and even then it wasn't a given – but usually couldn't fully enjoy it, as the enjoyment was almost always mingled with worry: even tournaments and practice fights weren't completely safe.
Arthur drew his hand back with measured slowness, and Merlin pouted into the mattress at the loss both of the sight and of the feeling of Arthur's body pressed over his back when the prince straightened back up and cut off the two ends of the rope and tossed them aside carelessly. Merlin breathed out in relief, as quietly as possible, and began to move to the side a little, trying to turn round: as nice as it was, being crotch to ass with Arthur, the position wasn't that comfortable for a longer time.
Arthur carefully shifted away, and lay down next to him; Merlin, knowing better than to expect any help from his prat of a lover, inelegantly let himself fall to his side, unbent his legs with a relieved sigh – and stared at Arthur.
The prince was lying on his back, looking at the ceiling, naked safe for the rings on his fingers, his breathing deeper than usual but even, chest raising and falling, the patterns of light and shadows that the flames of the candles were painting on his body altering slightly with every breath; his legs were spread, knees pushed up, throbbing arousal very obvious.
Merlin opened his mouth, and winced and held back a curse when he automatically tried to reach out and jerked his arms against the rope holding them behind his back.
He shuffled closer instead, with some difficulty, grinding his body against the sheets.
"A little help here?" he demanded, when Arthur continued to ignore him.
The prince conceded to turn his head to him, but made no move to touch him, and instead looked him over critically before declaring:
"I think I'll need more rope."
If Merlin hadn't already had his mouth open (maybe salivating, just a little), he would have dropped it open now.
"What for?" he snapped.
Arthur smiled at him.
"You'll see."
Merlin felt a small shiver run through his body at that, and strained his arms against the restrains again, this time on purpose; he stared at Arthur's lips, very nice, full lips, when Arthur leant a little closer and then briskly stopped and said in an irritated voice, or at least in his best impression of it, considering the circumstances.
"What are you waiting for?"
"What am I – with what?" Merlin asked stupidly.
"I said," Arthur explained with exaggerated exasperation, "that I will need more rope." Merlin blinked; Arthur gestured widely at the room with one hand. "I threw some away just now. Go fetch it."
"You –" Merlin spluttered and gave him a wide eyed-look. "You threw it away. And I'm – You fetch it if you want it."
"Merlin," Arthur sighed. "We went through this. I'm the prince. You're my servant. I want some mundane task done, you do it for me."
"Are you sure that includes instances when I'm lying on your bed, with my hands tied?" Merlin snapped, through grit teeth.
"There aren't any exceptions," Arthur said, and this time he rolled to his side and did move in to kiss him, very briefly, before he pulled back; Merlin made a frustrated sound and darted out his tongue. "Go on then," he prodded him gently with one foot.
"You're not serious," Merlin complained, even as he looked Arthur over: his arousal was still evident, red and full and tick, his hands were carefully, resolutely laid down flat on the mattress, his heavy breathing was clearly more difficult to hide when he spoke, and his eyes stayed riveted on Merlin's half-open mouth: there was no way, Merlin thought, that he was going to hold on enough to insist on this; but – he had that look on his face that Merlin had learned to recognise to mean: "I, Arthur Pendragon, think that being a prat is better than sex."
And there was something deeply wrong with Arthur making that face often enough for him to have come up with a name for it.
"Yes I am," Arthur said, dropping the haughty tone and instead sounding completely inappropriately cheerful in that way he never seemed to have around anyone else, and prodded him with one foot again.
Merlin closed his eyes briefly and breathed in deeply. He was pretty sure that the first time they'd had sex, he'd made a few objects in the bedroom hover for just a moment when he came; Arthur had never mentioned it, and it wasn't far-fetched to assume that he'd been too distracted to notice anything about the furniture at all, but at times like this Merlin wondered if maybe Arthur had figured things out a long time ago and was only hiding it so he could pretend to believe it when Merlin pretended he couldn't get out of his restrains and have Arthur flat on his back and unable to move in the blink of an eye.
Then he opened his eyes again and decided that this was ridiculous, because considering how much he wanted to wipe the stupid smug look from Arthur's face right now and couldn't, Arthur would have to be an evil genius to have come up this, and he wasn't. A genius. Merlin was quite positive about the "evil" bit.
"Fine," he snapped, when Arthur gave him another nudge. "Sire," he added, with as much venom as he could. He rolled unto his back, then reached around blindly with his legs for the edge of the bed, and once he found it, carefully manoeuvred himself into a sitting position, before standing up. "Where is it then?"
Arthur was staring at him intensely and grinning, still lying on his side, legs very carefully crossed, and Merlin glared at him for making him stand up at such a time.
"Over there," he gestured to the back of the room.
So Merlin edged his way over the small heap of discarded clothes, handkerchief right by the foot of the bed, both their trousers, shirts, Arthur's red coat which he walked onto on purpose, partly in revenge, but mostly because it was pleasantly soft – it was a poor revenge anyway, considering he was the one who'd have to make it presentable again –, and stopped before the two lengths of rope; on of them, closer to the bed, was just a stump, so he edged his foot towards the other, longer bit, trying to lift it up with his toes.
There was a snicker from the bed. Merlin turned to glare; he'd like to see Arthur, with his hands tied and painfully aroused, trying to stand on one foot; it wasn't as easy as you'd think.
With a defeated sigh, and with his back to Arthur, Merlin carefully went down to his knees, one leg after the other, and bent down to retrieve the rope with his teeth; the floor was perfectly clean, at least: he should know. Then he braced his toes against the ground to push himself back up, wavering dangerously.
"Just come back already," Arthur snapped; Merlin turned towards him again, to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, legs obscenely spread, and staring at him very intently. "Now. Don't stand up."
Merlin felt his hold on the rope loosen as he stared back, lips quivering a little, and quickly clamped his teeth close again.
Arthur smiled when, after a moment of consideration, Merlin obeyed, and crawled back towards the bed, never taking his eyes off him; his ringed fingers curled against the mattress on his sides. The clothes suddenly constituted much more of an obstacle, as Merlin carefully edged his way over the silky fabric of Arthur's coat, tousling it completely this time, went round his own shoes, and purposely walked over the rest of their clothes to avoid the cold stone floor.
"I knew I'd get you to walk on your knees for me," Arthur remarked, smile edging into a smirk, voice a little breathless.
Merlin briefly considered rolling his eyes at him, decided that is wasn't worth looking away, and then suddenly grinned.
"That was why?" he asked, through his clenched teeth, and cocked his head to the side. "Was it getting called an arse that turned you on so much?"
His grin widened when Arthur gave him a positively miffed look at that; for someone who had grown up with the Lady Morgana, Arthur was remarkably bad at responding to verbal attacks.
He stopped between the prince's spread legs, dropped the piece of rope into his waiting hand, and rested his head against his thigh. Arthur twisted the rope between his fingers, and Merlin started to lick at his skin hungrily.
"Happy, sire?" he murmured sarcastically against his thigh.
"Hmmm," Arthur hummed, and caressed through his hair with one hand; he tried to nudge him in direction of his cock, but Merlin refused to budge. "I suppose you aren't completely useless at everything." Merlin smiled against his skin. "Are you going to blow me or not?"
Merlin's smile turned into a grin, and then he moved to gently lick one of his balls, all the while looking up at Arthur.
"Oh, I don't know," he said, between careful licks right under one of Arthur's balls, satisfied with the sharp intake of breath above him.
He was a lot less satisfied when Arthur yanked his head away by the hair.
"Then make yourself useful."
"Wha –" Merlin began, and then watched with wide eyes as the piece of rope flew over his head, unfolded in the air, and landed in the back of the room, farther away than the first time.
"Fetch it back," Arthur ordered, gave his head a last jerk, and retreated unto the bed.
Merlin slowly turned his gaze from where the rope had landed back to Arthur, who stretched out languorously on his side and was staring at him intently. Without taking his eyes off him, he lowered on hand to his aroused member and stroked it slowly; Merlin shifted forwards, his body bumping against the bed, and let escape a badly repressed whimper: this was, in some obscure way, cheating.
"And stay on your knees," Arthur added.
Merlin narrowed his eyes at him. Arthur looked back at him blandly, for a moment, before a fond and amused smile curved his lips, the kind that landed Merlin in the stocks for lying (badly) to the king, because he couldn't refuse anything to Arthur when he smiled at him like that. Maybe he'd been wrong about his earlier idea after all: even if he could openly cast lightening from his fingers, he'd still indulge the prince and play fetching with him.
He slowly crawled a few inches back.
"Don't touch yourself until I'm back," he tried.
They stared at each other for another moment; then, very slowly, very deliberately, Arthur opened his hand and lifted it to rest it on his hip.
"Hurry, then," he said, in a low voice.
Merlin bowed his head mockingly in agreement, and did his best to obey.