Archive of Our Own

*****

Merlin was surprised- pleased, but surprised- at how willingly Arthur had accepted that he was magic. He hadn’t been quite sure what his reaction would be, but it definitely turned out in the most favorable way he could have imagined… Granted, Arthur hadn’t been exactly lucid the two times Merlin had shown him a tiny bit of what he could do, but he couldn’t necessarily blame him either. Arthur riding his cock like that, head thrown back against the door, looking for all the world like the most blissful man he’d ever seen. That image was now burned into the back of Merlin’s brain. Gone were his princely airs and the heavy weight of the kingdom’s worries upon those broad, golden shoulders.

Ugh, he was getting hard just thinking about it, which was soooo not convenient right now as he was in the middle of making his daily rounds delivering potions and medications for Gaius to the castlefolk.

Walking just got a wee bit harder. Agh! No, not harder, bad choice of words! Difficult. Yeah, that’s it. Walking was difficult because his pants were suddenly way too tight. And he was wearing friggin’ leggings! Oooooooh but Arthur’s legs were so smooth under his leggings, little blond peach fuzz on the front of his thighs where they rubbed against his pants…

FUCK!

He needed to think of something to make it go away before he had to take matters into his own hands – literally. Ok think…

Uther Pendragon naked on a cold day. Uther Pendragon naked on a cold day.

Merlin shivered. Well at least it worked. He was going to have a really tough time looking the king in the face for a while now, but come to think of it, he tried to avoid eye contact with the king in general because it tended to get him thrown into the dungeon or the stocks, so it actually wouldn’t be such a hard, er, DIFFICULT thing to do.

His cock was just starting to calm back down when he literally ran into Arthur coming around the corner. Merlin managed to save his basket of medicine from crashing to the ground with a quick flash of his eyes and an outstretched hand so that anyone nearby would think he had made a lucky save. Arthur, however, was currently clutching Merlin’s shoulders to keep them both from falling, so he had a front-row seat for the magic show.

Merlin had made a split-second decision to save the basket with magic in front of Arthur because he knew that particular cat was out of the bag. Belatedly he remembered that Arthur’s incoherence the other day when Merlin revealed to him that he was magic didn’t exactly bode well for experiencing it again while completely lucid. He received an answer to his unspoken question in the slightly appalled, slightly nervous expression on Arthur’s face. They straightened up and separated, the prince tugging on his red tunic, the warlock repositioning his blue neckerchief.

He was trying to busy himself with checking on the potions in the basket but the gravity of Arthur’s undiminished stare, glare was more like it, drew his gaze up to meet Arthur’s eyes, albeit sheepishly.

“Woops, sorry, Arthur, didn’t see you there, you alright?”

“…”

Silence. Now Merlin was starting to get nervous.

“Wot?”

“My chambers. NOW,” Arthur growled out.

Merlin was quick to point out that he needed to finish his rounds for Gaius first and slipped off before Arthur could growl anything more at him.

He finished his deliveries, returned the basket to Gaius and told him the prince needed to see him. He paused at the door to look back at Gaius for what could possibly be the last time if Arthur was more like his father than he’d feared, but left before Gaius could lift The Eyebrow and ask him what he’d done this time.

So on his way up to Arthur’s room he resolved to persuade the prince that his magic was only for good and that their destinies were dependent upon it, planning to totally skip over the whole underground prophetic-riddle-spewing dragon part. Thaaaat was a whale of a tale for another time.

When he got to the door he knocked, trying to buy himself a few more seconds for Arthur to – hopefully – calm down. He heard the prince mutter to himself exasperatedly that *now* his idiot manservant learned some proper etiquette. Merlin bristled at the idiot part but refrained from yelling, “Well if you weren’t such a *prat* I wouldn’t feel the need to scoff at these silly rules!” through the door because insulting the prince when your neck was on the line was not the same as doing it any other time, when it was just plain fun. Merlin entered upon hearing Arthur give his permission and stood just inside the room.

Arthur was pacing up and down the room, nervously running his fingers through his hair. He had removed the jacket of his tunic and little tufts of chest hair could be glimpsed through the V-neck opening of the white shirt underneath. Merlin’s eyes were glued to that triangle of visible skin and when Arthur looked over at him on one of his passes and Merlin tore his eyes away from the golden expanse to meet Arthur’s, he saw the prince blush and quickly turn back the other way.

Blushed! Oh no he didn’t. Nuh-uh.

It really was no wonder that Merlin kept jumping Arthur if he was just going to be doing things that pushed all of Merlin’s buttons. He closed his eyes and counted backwards from 10 slowly. 10, 9 and a half, 9, 8 and a half…

He was interrupted by a voice that was both closer to him now and less harsh than it had been outside.

“Are you really magic?”

Merlin kept his eyes shut for a completely different reason now. He nodded once.

“Are you here to kill me?”

The voice was directly in front of him now, sweet breath in his face. It sounded pained. Pained and resigned. Merlin’s eyes popped open and were met by two gorgeous but fear-stricken blue eyes.

“Wh-what?”

“Every other sorcerer who’s come to Camelot has tried to either kill me, my father, or both of us. You’ll excuse me if I’m just a wee bit paranoid.”

“But Arthur, that’s not—”

“And to find out, through circumstances we are NEVER telling my father about, that my idiot manservant is actually a sorcerer, one who has infiltrated the castle to the utmost level, right into the crown prince’s bedchamber even!” Arthur hung his head dejectedly and murmured “and his heart” so quietly that Merlin was *sure* it’d been his mind playing tricks on him.

“Um, what now?”

But the other man continued as if Merlin hadn’t spoken. “What’s the plan, then, eh? You’re going to have to do it here, because I refuse to leave Camelot to her fate without going down fighting as is my right and duty as Crown Prince–”

Merlin wasn’t listening; all he could focus on was what he thought he’d heard. “Did you just say ‘and his heart’?”

“–All I ask is that you leave my father and Morgana in peace. And Gaius, too. And um, even Guinev–”

Merlin had had enough of this nonsense and shut Arthur up the best way he knew how: with his lips. Arthur froze at the soft lips covering his, their eyes still locked on one another in a desperate attempt to express every feeling one had for the other since words were getting them nowhere fast.

Well, not all words. Three in particular.

It was a chaste kiss as their kisses went, merely a touch of lips on lips, and Merlin released Arthur’s to lean back far enough to place one hand on the prince’s heart and one on his ass as he had the other day in the broom closet.

“When I said you were mine,” he whispered, “I meant it.”

Arthur shivered involuntarily and his eyebrows rose in question but Merlin forged on, “I’m here to keep you safe, Arthur Pendragon. To put my magic at your service–”

“But my father, the ban–”

“All in good time. When you are king, Arthur, it will be up to you how you protect the people of Camelot and Albion from your enemies, magical and otherwise.”

Arthur’s eyes widened at the idea. Not surprisingly, this was a novel concept for someone who had grown up under an iron-fisted reign where being magic, let alone using it, was punishable by death. Merlin could see the fog of responsibility starting to descend over Arthur’s eyes which were no longer completely focused on him.

Sensing the need for a bit of levity to steal the prince away from his troubles, Merlin squeezed the hand that was still resting on Arthur’s ass and grinned when he jumped at the sudden stimulation. “I’m here to keep this safe, too.”

Arthur actually laughed. That was a good sign.

“Well you’ve been doing a smashing job of it so far,” he sighed in a sultry voice. The sigh made his chest heave and the heaving chest caught Merlin’s attention where the aforementioned golden expanse of chest hair lay glistening in the muted light of the morning sun and he just couldn’t stand it any longer. Counting to 10 be damned. He moved his hand from Arthur’s heart to the opening of his shirt and lightly ran the pads of his fingers over the wavy hairs. Arthur let out a rush of air and his whole body stilled, as if anticipating Merlin’s next move. The only warning he got, however, was the quick golden flash of the warlock’s eyes before he was suddenly seated in his dining chair with Merlin straddling his hips.

Merlin loved this chair, perhaps a little too much, since he’d had fantasies of fucking Arthur in it back before he had started acting on his… urges. He grinned the devilish grin he knew made Arthur’s breath catch in his throat and leaned in to whisper in the prince’s ear, “I’ve wanted to fuck you in this chair for the longest time…”

Arthur just groaned and squirmed under Merlin’s weight to get some sort of friction going.

“Do you still believe I’m here to kill you?” he asked as he pulled Arthur’s shirt over his head and tossed it behind him.

Arthur closed his eyes. “If you are, at least I’ll die a happy man.”

Merlin smiled a big toothy grin at his prince, marveling at this carefree Arthur who trusted Merlin enough to surrender his prized control to the young warlock as he had to no other. This made Merlin love him all the more as he flashed away the rest of their clothing and pushed Arthur farther down into the luxurious white fur draped over the chair.

As Merlin showed Arthur how he could indeed take him apart with less than one blow he heard him whisper again, this time loud enough for Merlin to hear perfectly.

“Yes, he infiltrated the castle to the utmost level, right into the crown prince’s bedchamber and straight into his heart.”

-the end-