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Arthur was a stubborn, arrogant prat.
A stupid, infuriating, overweening sod.
An irritating, dumb-as-bricks, overbearing knob.
And a… a bloody foolish dollophead!
No matter how many times Merlin had to come to his rescue (on a near-weekly basis it seemed, sometimes), this pig-headed, pompous clotpole would just not listen to Merlin cautious words of hard-earned wisdom, and just HAD to stick his ineffably blonde head and shapely arse where they would inevitably encounter grievous danger, forcing Merlin to intervene and magically produce an eleventh-hour feat that would get them narrowly saved and that he, Merlin, would get absolutely zero thanks for.
So, just a regular Tuesday.
Merlin glared at the regal tent of foreign design and ridiculous proportions that Arthur had disappeared into – yesterday morning.
It was a magical tent, Merlin knew that much.
It shimmered, for one thing – always a sure sign that something magicky was going on. The canvas was made from a delicate silk brocade that changed colour with the breeze and the position of the sun as it spanned the sky and inundated the beautiful clearing. Then there was the whole invisible barrier around it that had gone up the moment Arthur had walked inside. Not a trap, Merlin had been assured. Only a protection to keep the discussions private. Merlin had squawked in outrage and loudly complained that he was the king’s manservant and that it was terribly poor observance of Camelot protocol for him to be separated from his master. When that didn’t yield any result, he’d huffed and glared ominously. And when that only yielded a dubiously amused arched eyebrow from Sir Otomo the foreign knight guarding said tent, then he’d muttered all the colourful invectives in his repertoire and started pacing.
But Arthur had remained inside the tent and Merlin most decidedly outside.
It was the end of the afternoon on the morrow by now. Arthur had spent almost a day and a half inside the blasted tent.
Then a quiet call came from inside and Otomo gracefully got up from his cross-legged sit on a folded blanket. The slim nobleman who had shamefully absconded Arthur came out, carefully letting the tent flap fall back over the doorway, and his fond dark eyes immediately found Merlin’s.
“Merlin,” he greeted in his strangely rolling, melodic accent. The way he always pronounced Merlin’s name, in a low soft voice, sounded like ‘Merulinoh’. “I have finished with your king,” he said with a controlled and very respectful bow. The silks of his exotic outfit swished harmoniously.
Merlin felt like he had to bow similarly. These two envoys, an ambassador and his knight, were from a faraway land in Orient, beyond the Levant, beyond even the Indus – and Merlin had only the vaguest idea of where these places were, but they were definitely far. Yet these esteemed men and their caravan had made the perilous journey to meet with King Arthur of Camelot and had brought sumptuous presents for the king and his court – not the usual trinkets, but jewels, silks, spices and scrolls on medicine, astronomy, metalwork, phylosophy. The visitors’ munificence was only equalled by their unfeigned awe and delight at discovering the citadel of Camelot. They had a well-selected present for each of the knights and their ladies – from knives of the sharpest blades to exquisitely decorated fans and scarves to boxes of ivory game pieces with painstakingly translated instructions on how to play said game. They had even brought something for Lancelot and Gwen’s newborn.
No one had been forgotten, except Merlin of course.
“Merlin-sama,” Lord Minamoto said, bowing again and using a suffix that was understood to be a mark of respect. “It has been my utmost honour to finally meet you,” he added deeply, as if their meeting had been foretold. “King Arthur is indeed blessed to have you by his side.”
Merlin couldn’t hold back a soft snort.
“Can I let him know you said that? Better yet, can I have it in writing?”
Minamoto’s lips curved into a restrained but knowing smile.
“Your king knows already. His soul, valiant as it may be, is but the half of a whole,” the man said very solemnly.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Merlin nodded as politely as he could and gave a brittle, long-suffering smile. If he’d had a coin every time someone had told him something to that effect…
“He is a proud man, is he not?” Minamoto continued.
“You can say that again.” Proud. Cocky. Arrogant. And prone to letting notions of misplaced honour command his behaviour. One of these days, Merlin was going to have to smack him for being so damn reckless.
“It is a flaw common in great men,” the nobleman went on. “He only needs to accept that he cannot be the legend he is meant to be as long as he refuses to surrender to the truth in his heart.”
Merlin idly wondered if Minamoto had met with Kilgarrah as the nobleman looked back over his shoulder at the tent.
“His enlightening will be my gift to you,” Minamoto then announced in a low, meaningful tone.
And that definitely got Merlin’s attention. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes.
“He is alright though, isn’t he? You haven’t weaved any enchantment on him, have you?” he questioned, wiggling his fingers in illustration.
As soon as they’d met, Minamoto had subtly acknowledged Merlin’s magic. He’d even privately implied that it was part of the reason he had launched into such a long journey. Magic was only on its way to becoming legal in Camelot and Arthur still had no idea that his manservant was the mysterious and almighty Emrys who had provided such crucial help at the battle of Camlann.
Minamoto bowed his head in deference.
“Your king is unharmed, Merlin-sama. I haven’t touched a hair of his head in disrespect. Nor have I wielded any magic against him.” The wording sounded very precise. Almost hand-picked. “I only wish to see him appreciate the treasure in his hands.” Then the man added in a quiet thoughtful murmur. “The heart of a Dragon Master is an immeasurably precious gift that should neither be taken for granted nor allowed to waste away.”
Merlin swallowed uneasily. His palms itched. This stranger knew far too much about Merlin’s pastimes. Minamoto’s explanation that he had seen Arthur and Merlin in his temple’s sacred divination barks and read their prophecy in the stars had done little to reassure Merlin as to his motives and intentions. All Merlin knew about prophecies was that they had a unique way of shitting on you from a very great height.
He let his eyes drill into Minamoto’s in silent diffidence, aware that his stance now held an edge of warning.
“I have alarmed you,” the nobleman said, bowing again. “Yet I assure you that King Arthur is safe and secure. But do not let me keep you from attending him. He is waiting for you.” Still bent at the waist, Lord Minamoto pivoted back and away to leave Merlin a clear path to the entrance of the tent.
Merlin glanced at the knight who hadn’t spoken a word in hours. Holding himself flawlessly still, Sir Otomo looked ominous in his strange black armour. He and Merlin had engaged in some casual conversation around the campfire while their betters were conferring inside the warm, comfortable, magic-infused tent. At no point had he seemed likely to run Merlin through with either of his horrendously sharp swords. Even now, he was looking on benignly, seemingly unconcerned by Merlin’s crispier tone and more belligerent stance.
“I assume you will be gone by the time we come out of the tent?” Merlin said.
“I have taken leave of King Arthur and I am eager to head back to my homeland to recount the marvels I have witnessed,” he explained with a gentle smile. “The memory of our meeting will endure in my heart. Fare thee well, Merlin-sama.”
Another bow. Solemn and quiet. To which Merlin replied in kind.
Then, in three strides Merlin was at the tent’s entrance. He pushed the flap of dense fabric and slipped inside.
He was surprised to realise that although he had passed the threshold, he was still not inside the tent proper. There was a sort of antechamber. A small space where the daylight was taking on a golden hue as it filtered through the rich canvas. In front of him and blocking the way was a curtain of sorts, blue in colour and fastened to the walls of the tent with a series of tied ribbons. At a glance, Merlin estimated at least a dozen knots.
“Arthur?” he called, still not completely reassured that Minamoto hadn’t done something nefarious to his clotpole.
“Merlin?”
All right so, not dead. Nor unconscious. But Arthur’s voice was tense. Worried in an oddly self-conscious way. He also sounded strangely out of breath.
“Are you alright?”
In the softest whisper possible, Merlin articulated a spell to undo the knots. Then felt his stomach do an unpleasant drop when the spell fizzled out and the knots remained. He tried once more, to the same effect.
Fearing a trap now, Merlin began to work on one of the ties. It wasn’t a knot that Merlin had encountered before, but after a short tussle, it easily gave. Right. So, those were not magical knots. Just regular knots protected by magic. Many, many regular knots.
After undoing the first one, he tried to pull the fabric to have a peek inside the tent to check on Arthur, but was miffed to realise that some sort of enchantment prevented him from seeing inside. There was nothing his eyes could make sense of – it was like looking through a blurry kaleidoscope. Clearly a distortion spell of some sort. Simple but effective.
It was then that Merlin realised that Arthur hadn’t replied to his question.
“Arthur? Are you alright?”
An uncomfortably lengthy pause.
“Fine.” Arthur sounded odd and his voice was still a little breathless. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” Merlin asked, a little surprised. “I’m… uh, trying to get to you, but there are some knots. Lots… of knots.”
“Right. Knots.” He could swear Arthur had just given a dry chuckle.
Merlin stopped what he was doing and listened intently.
He could hear Arthur breathing. Or, well, some slightly unnerving version of it. More like careful inhaling and shallow exhaling.
“What… are you doing?” Merlin asked cautiously. On the other side of the fabric, there was an impatient grunt, soon followed by a faint gasp. “Arthur? Is something wrong?”
Instead of replying, Arthur then asked, “Are you on your own?”
“Of course.” After 3 straight days of farewell feasting in the banquet hall, Minamoto and his knight had asked to be escorted back to the edge of the Darkling Woods, announcing that he had one final gift – a Prophecy, of all things – that he wished to give to the king. Only a short ride from here, a contingent of the Knights of the Round Table were waiting for their king’s return. As per Minamoto’s express request, only Merlin had been allowed to attend the meeting. But outside the rudy tent. “Why do you ask?”
“Just making sure,” Arthur said, sounding rather awkward.
Merlin seldom heard this brittle, vulnerable tone from Arthur. It tugged at some raw, deep-seated instinct. The same protective, almost possessive urge that tended to turn him into a merciless beast of a sorcerer if anything or anyone threatened his clotpole.
“I’m working on the knots,” he said, gritting his teeth against the urge to do something spectacularly unwise. He had to remind himself of Minamoto’s vow: no harm had been done to Arthur. Only a prophecy and some sort of ‘enlightening’, whatever that meant. Arthur was fine and had said so himself – and the fact that he sounded anywhere between flummoxed and constipated while saying it wasn’t a sign that he was in actual immediate danger. “Hang on tight, I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Once more, Arthur seemed to give a tired, mirthless chuckle.
“Not going anywhere,” the king muttered, his sarcasm ringing unsteady.
Damnit. Merlin paused in the manual disentangling of the knots for a moment and pulled out his knife, hoping to slice through the ribbons, but as he’d half-expected, the tent was enchanted and his blade was most decidedly not forged in a dragon’s breath, proving to be about as efficient as an uncooked sausage. He went back to plucking, yanking and undoing the knots the good old-fashioned way.
“Halfway done,” he announced after a short while. Again, he had tried to slip a shoulder through the yawning gap in the fabric, only to realise that he was encountering magical resistance. It seemed the bloody tent wanted him to undo all the knots before moving forward.
“Merlin… I need you to promise me something,” Arthur then murmured.
An uneasy shiver dripped down Merlin’ spine at the faint undertone of vulnerability.
“It’s going to be all right, Arthur,” he hastened to reassure.
“I want you to promise me…”
“I promise,” Merlin insisted.
“I want you to promise me,” Arthur repeated more firmly to command Merlin’s silent attention. “I want you to promise me that whatever you see in here, you shall never mention it to anyone.” The words were strained and the voice tight, with again this slightly ragged, breathless quality to it. “I want your word.”
“You have it.” By all the gods, if Minamoto had hurt Arthur in any way, Merlin would hunt him down and make him see the error of his blasphemous ways by hanging him with his own entrails. “You have my word, Arthur,” Merlin rumbled solemnly.
From inside the tent there was a soft groan and then a stifled gasp.
Merlin swore to himself and redoubled his efforts on the knots
“I’m working as quick as I can, I promise. Only four knots to do and I’ll be with you.” Then Merlin felt the need to furnish the silence with words. “I fear Minamoto will be gone by the time I get you out of here, but the knights will be on his trail. Did he even actually give you a prophecy? He promised me he hadn’t put any enchantment on you or done anything to hurt you.” Then he had a sobering thought. Because an enchantment was different from a potion, wasn’t it? “Were you given anything to eat or drink while you were in there that seemed suspicious to you? But of course you were,” he babbled to himself. “You’ve been in there for more than a day. What did you…?”
“Merlin, please!” Arthur interrupted abruptly with an urgency that Merlin didn’t recognise. It almost sounded like Arthur was… begging? “Please...” Merlin heard him gulp around his laboured breathing, and what the hell was going on? “Please shut up,” Arthur pleaded, the words utterly drained from their usual arrogant bite.
“Arthur, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Just… Just please stop talking.”
Merlin closed his mouth, trapping the question already on the tip of his tongue.
“Just… get on with the knots and get your arse in here. That damn magician said only you could set me free.” Arthur’s words betrayed his frayed nerves, but Merlin couldn’t ignore the relevant information they held.
“Set you free?”
“Merlin.”
“Just one more knot,” he said.
Arthur gave a subdued, “okay.”
Merlin wrenched at the ties, his fingertips slightly numb and tingly from the repetitive task by now. Then, at last, the final recalcitrant knot gave and unravelled. Merlin was free to enter, and he did just that, without any finesse or hesitation. He stepped inside the tent, the distortion spell immediately rending apart, but he was not ready for what came next.
He was assailed by the unexpected heat and the heady scent, both wrapping around him like a blanket of sensual indulgence. The heat was the kind of perfect body-temperature glow one enjoys in a cocoon of thick covers on a crisp winter morning. The scent, gods, the scent was unlike anything Merlin had ever smelled – warm and honeyed with a tang of flowery, peppery spice. And beneath the surface, lacing the air with lewd design, was the unmistakeable aroma of arousal. Unbidden jealousy fleetingly nibbled at Merlin. The atmosphere in here was loaded with sultry promise, soft like hooded eyes and musky as sin to the point of being almost inebriating.
And it was in the midst of this decadent space, bathed in mellow, carmine-infused light, that Merlin finally found Arthur.
What he saw robbed him of the breath in his lungs and tripped up his heart.
There, in the warm cocoon of the tent’s opulent interior, kneeling on a thick, plush matting that looked as soft and welcoming as royal bedding, was his king – naked, blindfolded and intricately bound.
And while Merlin had unfortunately seen plenty of poor wretches tied up and defenceless, this was nothing like it.
This was…
Heaven have mercy.
The sight brought an immediate rush of heat to Merlin’s cheeks and ears, as well as a head-spinning flood of dishonourable appetite to his animal nether regions.
Merlin knew Arthur’s body. He knew it in all its practised strength and matter-of-fact frailty. Knew every scar on his torso and every freckle on his shoulders. Knew the shape of those pectoral muscles Arthur was so vain about, as well as the shape of the nascent love-handles he was so self-conscious about. Merlin knew Arthur from the everyday intimacy of helping him dress and undress, of washing his back, of cleaning wounds and applying salve on his battle-marked body. He knew Arthur’s body in its mundane nudity.
But never had Merlin seen Arthur like this.
His king was kneeling on the soft material, knees apart, a band of blue silk meticulously placed over his eyes and tied behind his head. As for the rest of Arthur, it was elaborately restrained with a blue rope that criss-crossed in an exquisitely complex design over his torso, wound several times around his arms, then snaked twice around his waist before somehow gripping the top of each thigh before spiralling the length of each muscle in tight coils down to where it was the thickest. Even the base of Arthur’s prick was encircled in three loops, one of which also went behind his balls. Amazingly enough, it seemed that the one same rope had been used to produce this stunning masterpiece of fancy binding. But most importantly, the overall impression was not one of cruel punishment, but of painstaking dedication to an aesthetic achievement the likes of which Merlin had never seen or heard of before.
Simply put, Arthur looked magnificent bound like this.
His hands were restrained behind his back and he was leaning forward for balance, the posture emphasizing the breadth of his solid shoulders and the bunching of his hard thighs. Everywhere the rope went, whether it framed a nipple or twined around a limb, it highlighted the grain of the skin or the bulge of a muscle. The very bite of the blue tie seemed calculated for visual effect, not physical pain. Arthur was artistically trussed-up in a way that made Merlin’s brain grind to a halt and his mouth go dry. He could feel his loyal heart fighting his lustful nature and splintering under strain.
“Gods above, Arthur…” Merlin murmured.
The words felt unnaturally loud and hoarse in the hushed quiet of the lavish tent, and Merlin saw Arthur react to them with a jolt and a gasp.
And in a second, Merlin snapped back to reality, saw the distress and the embarrassment in his friend – the sheen of sweat over flushed skin, the ripples of tension coursing through his frame.
“Sorry,” he said. But gods above, the contrast between the blindfold and those parted lips…
Merlin shook the salacious notions out of his head and sprang forward to help.
“Are you all right? What happened?” He couldn’t see any wounds or lacerations as he knelt in front of Arthur and cupped his blindfolded face. “Wait, don’t move,” he coaxed when Arthur rocked back a little at his touch, a breathy moan on his lips. “Let me help you.” His voice sounded terribly loud and deep to his own ears, to the point where it almost gave him goosebumps as he reached around the blonde head to untie the strip of blue silk. “Was this part of a ritual? Are you hurting anywhere? Can you feel all your extremities?” Only for Arthur to go rigid under his touch.
“Stop!” the king whispered, stifling a whimper.
“Arthur, what’s wrong?” Merlin’s hands stilled. The sound of his own voice, he began to realise, seemed amplified in the tent.
“Stop talking… And stop touching… Please…”
Merlin kept his mouth shut and leaned back a little.
Arthur took some deep, steadying breaths, and Merlin took a moment to actually look at him. He was flushed and his skin was dewed with sweat all over, and oh fuck... Yeah, okay, Arthur was aroused. Ragingly so. Was he already that aroused when Merlin had entered the tent a minute ago? Because right now, Arthur’s very healthy erection was actually adding to his torture through the increased tension to the rope.
Merlin’s eyes lingered over the smooth veiny shaft and the full, shiny tip. He struggled to wet his lips as his mouth now felt awfully dry. Thank fuck the blindfold was still on.
“Listen,” Arthur then rasped carefully. “I need you to stay quiet, because your voice… Your voice is not helping.” Arthur seemed to blush an even deeper shade of red at those words. He shook his head slightly. “The tent… there’s a spell or something and voices are turned into vibrating touches… that I can feel.” A muscle in Arthur’s jaw twitched and his lips pinched wryly before he went on, “All over me.”
Oh.
Ah.
Which explained the delicate state of things.
“Now, this whole mess is embarrassing enough without me humiliating myself further in front of a friend.”
“There’s nothing humiliating about…”
“Merlin!”
“Sorry,” he whispered.
And Merlin realised. The goosebumps. His voice was indeed amplified and deepened to a point where the sound turned into a thrumming, rippling caress. Damn. So all the time Merlin had been babbling, Arthur had been… um, stimulated.
Arthur’s breathing was a little ragged, sweat was beginning to collect above his upper lip, and there was a low tremor to his posture, but he nodded his approval.
“Rid me of this blindfold,” he rasped, then tagged on a rather unusual “…please.”
Very carefully, Merlin got up and went round Arthur, noting that the rope work in the back was just as intricate as it was in the front, and that three strands of rope dug their way between Arthur’s buttocks. He kept his mouth firmly shut when he saw the stylised dragon that had been painted on his friend’s back in dark blue ink. The beast was depicted in profile, its long body curling and folding upon itself like that of a monstrous serpent. Its eye and its claws were dashes of gold and its whole dark silhouette gleamed as though it had been infused with gold dust.
But first things first. Merlin realised the knot tying the silk around Arthur’s head was a quick-release one. He gently pulled on it and the blindfold went slack, sliding off the blonde hair with a swish.
To the side, he noticed a silver ewer and a pair of matching cups, and after checking that the ewer contained nothing but water, he poured a deep cup.
Once more, Merlin knelt before Arthur, who was blinking while studiously avoiding eye contact. With slow measured moves, Merlin took off his neckerchief and used it to wipe most of the dampness from the beloved flushed face. Fingertips on the chin. A thumb tracing the line of the jaw. Gestures that came so naturally to him after years of nursing Arthur through injuries and poisonings and fevers. These gentle touches never failed to make something achy, fierce and fragile flutter in the pit of his stomach.
Then he brought the cup to Arthur’s lips and did his best not to follow the rivulets of spilled water dribbling their erratic way down Arthur’s throat. Then chest.
Merlin wiped Arthur’s lips with the pad of his thumb, the brush of wet flesh sending a spike of something unmentionable straight to his groin. And now was not the time.
Arthur nodded again, his eyes catching Merlin’s briefly, brittle with thankfulness.
“The rope is enchanted,” Arthur said, breath still shallow and laboured. “You can’t cut it.”
“Yeah, I suspected as much.”
The sound of Merlin’s voice, lush and generous like a lover’s caress, rippled through the air – and Arthur closed his eyes even as his lips parted on a sigh.
Fuck.
Bathed in the warm, languorous atmosphere of this extravagant nest, faced with a hot and bothered Arthur artfully laid out like a feast for the senses, Merlin found himself shamefully mired in unbecoming thoughts. This was… It was all his darkest, deepest weaknesses and animal urges being played upon. His feelings stripped bare and strummed into a wanton mess of lurid heat he could feel lengthening and thickening his selfish brute of a cock.
But Arthur needed him.
No, not like that.
Arthur needed his help.
Not his lust.
What sort of creep got aroused off the misfortune of his dearest friend, anyway?
Merlin lightly bumped his closed fist on his forehead a few times, trying to knock some decency into himself. He needed to tread lightly, because their predicament promised to become far more awkward if he couldn’t get a handle on his own stirrings.
Arthur swallowed, then gave a slow inhale, then a tremulous exhale, but kept his eyes shut.
“There’s only one knot,” he rasped. “And I was reliably assured it’s easy to undo.”
Merlin gave a soft snort, which made Arthur finally train a wryly amused though slightly watery gaze on him. Merlin mouthed a cheerful “Great!” then began to shift on his knees, but Arthur immediately stopped him.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he murmured. “I know where it is.”
Merlin sat back on his heels and waited.
And waited.
And waited. And still Arthur wouldn’t say, seemingly busy catching his breath and looking obscenely edible.
Mindful of not making a sound, Merlin dabbed his neckerchief over Arthur damp temples, then the hollow at the base of his throat, and then waited some more. Arthur would eventually spit it out, but the very fact that he was so reluctant to surrender the information was telling in itself and leaving Merlin with very little doubt as to the delicate nature of the place where said knot was hidden.
At the end of his… uh, patience, Merlin decided it was time for some tough love and that he was getting far too hot with his jacket on. He began to shrug out of it, and that seemed to bring Arthur out of his embarrassed sulk.
“What are you doing?” he muttered, eyeing Merlin like he was about to inflict something disgraceful upon Arthur’s modesty.
“Well, unless it has escaped your attention, it is rather warm in here,” Merlin said in a deliberately low voice calculated to get a maximum effect from the enhancing spell. “And it seems we’re going to be here quite a while if you can’t bring yourself to tell me where that damn knot is. So I figured I might as well get comfortable.”
Arthur gulped and glared sweatily.
Merlin arched an eyebrow and allowed a corner of his lips to curl into a ready-when-you-are smirk.
“It’s behind my balls, Merlin,” Arthur snapped. “Happy now? It’s behind my bloody churning balls, and the second you’re going to reach for it you’re going to get more than you ever bargained for when you woke up this morning.” His words were taut and quivering with equal spite and desperation.
Merlin gave a long-suffering sigh and shook his head.
“Arthur, I have had the dubious honour of being in your service for nigh on a decade now. I have seen you bleeding, I have held you vomiting, I’ve heard you singing, and I empty your chamber pot every morning,” he said. “I think I can handle you getting a stiff cock because I’m rummaging behind your precious royal balls.” Then gave a pointed look at the way Arthur’s erection bobbed eagerly its approval.
“Easy for you to make fun of this. You’re not the one being humiliated in every way possible.”
“Oh for the love of fuck,” he huffed, rolling his eyes.
Merlin leaned forward and pulled the bare broad shoulders into a comforting hug. Arthur froze in place and time seemed to stop. By the force of things, it was a one-sided embrace, but Merlin persisted, letting his fingertips stray into Arthur’s hair at the nape of his neck, running soothing circles, and maybe just maybe Merlin also wallowed a little in the rich scent of his hot and bothered king. Then, Arthur gave a barely-there moan, and to Merlin’s relief, some of the tension in his frame began to melt away.
“There’s nothing for you to feel humiliated about,” Merlin crooned softly. “Gods, if you could see yourself… You look magnificent.”
Arthur didn’t answer, his breath coming in conflicted ragged pants by now, but after a few heartbeats, he very gently leaned his head against Merlin’s. A soft admission. A meek surrender.
“He said I needed to trust you and accept the truth in my heart,” Arthur confessed in a shivery whisper.
Merlin stroked his damp hair and brushed phantom kisses into the gold strands before murmuring, “I won’t claim to know what truth is in your heart, but I trust it’s a worthy one.” Then turning his head so he could look into the vulnerable blue gaze. “You can trust me, Arthur. Nothing you can say or do can ever change the way I feel about you. You are my friend and my clotpole and my king and I will serve you until the day I die.”
Merlin felt his heart hammer alarmingly in his chest. He had never come so close to admitting his most fiercely guarded secret to anyone. He feared to think how much of his sweet, hopeless turmoil his eyes were giving away, but Arthur needed him and the reassurance he could provide.
“The amount of faith you’re ready to place in me…” Arthur began hoarsely.
“…is my problem,” Merlin finished for him, then gently tucked a limp strand of hair behind the royal ear.
Arthur let out a soft snort.
“You’re not making this any easier, Merlin,” he groused, eyes indulgent but failing to hide their needy hope and uncertainty.
“Well, you know me. I love a challenge.”
They shared the moment. And a look. Then Arthur nodded gently.
“Come on, then. Set me free,” he prompted with more cockiness than he probably felt. “And know that you might be undoing more than a rope with those impertinent fingers of yours.”
“I aim to please,” Merlin breathed teasingly as his hand cautiously glided down Arthur’s lower belly and carefully circumvented the base of the royal cock to dive ever lower in search of the stub of rope that would bring about Arthur’s deliverance.
Arthur trembled and puffed, then let his head thud and roll on Merlin’s shoulder.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Of course I’m enjoying this. I’m groping royalty.”
Arthur gulped dryly. “Don’t make fun of my torment,” he complained weakly, the gush of air making Merlin light-headed. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea, actually,” Merlin countered, trying to keep his voice steady. “A pretty impressive idea, in fact.” He briefly scrunched his eyes shut and bit his lips as a lazy drop of pearly stickiness was inadvertently rubbed on the inside of his forearm.
Arthur swallowed a moan. “I guess I might as well tell you about the truth in my heart at this point.”
“Yeah? I’m all ears.”
To be honest, though, Merlin was all blind fingertips at the moment. Trying to explore an enticing territory while trying not to trigger anything untoward. It was an impossible mission, of course. The patch of tender skin was hot and damp with sparse fine hair and every other drag of Merlin’s fingers caused Arthur to make sweet sounds and his cock to jolt greedily in defiance of the restraints.
And that wasn’t even taking into account the wanton reactions of Merlin’s own culpable flesh. “Is it a noble truth?” he asked, attempting to distract his urges.
Arthur gave a strangled scoff. “Hardly.”
“Is it shameful?” Merlin questioned.
“No,” the king then replied with soft, quiet certainty. “Never shameful. Shifty, sometimes. And irreverent all the time, and infuriating, and even unfathomably stupid on some occasions, but never shameful.”
Merlin’s fingers stilled and his heart skipped a beat.
“Does this truth have a name?” he asked, tilting his head to read Arthur’s face as it rolled towards him. He looked sweaty and tired, and his eyes had accents of longing and trepidation behind their usual bravado.
“It has a name,” Arthur agreed, his gaze fastened to Merlin’s. “But more importantly it has its hand curled around my balls, and in completely unrelated matters, he means everything to me.”
Merlin frowned and then laughed and then stopped laughing and tried to convey how much he returned all manners of colossal, beautiful, romantic feelings of undying love and fiery passion by way of his facial expressions only, while his scrabbling, slippery fingertips finally located the end of the cursed rope.
“This is really the most poorly timed admission of love ever,” Merlin pointed out, his mouth now mere inches from Arthur’s.
“Was there ever going to be a right time to admit to loving a prat?”
“You dollophead,” Merlin breathed before kissing his king. But oh the rush of that first kiss. The hot, messy, sensual slide of lips. The at-first tentative but soon lickerish tangle of tongues, and through it all the thrilling, raspy counterpoint of Arthur’s unshaven chin. Against his forearm, Arthur’s erection twitched and smeared more sticky wetness. “Whereas my timing, I’d like you to note,” Merlin murmured, “is impeccable,” as he pulled on the rope.
The release of the knot freed the bits of Arthur that were most eager to be released, and Merlin was there to welcome them with open palm and loving fingers. Arthur groaned in relief, then grunted in need, pushing shamelessly into the waiting hand with stuttering hips, searching for another kind of release.
With the rest of him still trussed up and the slack in the rope propagating only sluggishly over sweaty skin and working muscles, Arthur was still very much captive yet nothing seemed as important to him as greedily kissing Merlin and relishing the firmness of his fist.
To test a theory, Merlin hummed through the kiss, and oh yes… The tent spell enhanced the low vibrations, deepening them until they felt like a thrumming caress. Arthur had no choice but to wrench his lips free to pull in much-needed air and whimper.
“This spell intrigues me,” Merlin purred deviously. “I wonder if it would work as well with anyone else’s voice. Would any other voice brush so perfectly over you? Would any other voice drag so sinfully over your heated skin?” Against him, Arthur stifled a curse into Merlin’s neck. “Or is it only my voice that does it for you? Is it only my voice that fills you with lascivious thoughts and insistent need?” A shiver went through Arthur and his cock jerked to rigidity, providing an answer. “Is it only my voice that can set you free and make you spill?”
“Merlin,” Arthur begged brokenly, all but gnawing on Merlin’s neck.
Merlin’s hand gave the final wring, the ending twist.
“Come for me, my king,” he breathed, sultry and loving into Arthur’s ear – and was immediately rewarded with Arthur’s abundant undoing.
Merlin held him through the tremors, then through the ensuing collapse. His own need could wait. Right now, nothing could exceed the need to take care of his wiped-out lover. He laid him out on his side on the plush, thick matting, then swiftly spelled the now inert rope to finish unwinding itself from Arthur’s body.
By the time Arthur came out of his daze, Merlin had him cleaned up, wrapped up in a cloak and folded into his protective embrace.
“How do you feel?” Merlin murmured into the blonde hair. The enhancing spell seemed to have worn off, leaving only the softness of his regular voice to inadequately convey the sum of his endless love.
“Close to dead,” Arthur rasped. “In a good way,” he amended wryly.
Merlin snuffed a chuckle.
There was a tired grunt but barely a stir from the beautiful, noble and very naked man in Merlin’s arms.
“You need to drink something.”
“Not sure how that would help,” Arthur commented sleepily.
“Water,” Merlin specified.
“Ah. Yeah, that might help.” A pause. “In a minute, though.” An indulgent wiggle as the king of Camelot nestled more comfortably into his manservant’s arms.
“There are things I need to tell you,” Merlin then murmured. “Secrets that I shouldn’t withhold from you now.”
Arthur sighed. “Do you love me?”
“More than I can ever tell, to my dismay.” Merlin’s heart and soul were filled with the baffling yet immortal love he carried for Arthur. His body and his magic rang with it.
“Then that’s all I really care about,” Arthur said with far too much good sense. “Because I love you with all I have and I would hate for any of this to be a one-sided business.”
A cloud of mad butterflies took flight all at once in Merlin’s stomach, and he tightened his hold on the handsome bane of his existence.
“Things aren’t that simple, though,” he pushed on. “There are things you don’t know about me. Things…”
“I know you have magic,” Arthur interrupted. “I’ve known for years, actually.”
Ah. Why did Arthur always have to ruin Merlin’s moments like that?
“But do you know how much magic I have?”
Arthur snorted. “Enough to be a major nuisance, I reckon.”
Well…
“There are other things too.” Like the fact that he was a Dragonlord.
“Things that could explain why Minamoto painted a dragon on my back and told me I was to kneel and wait for the arrival of the Dragon Master?”
For fuck’s sake, would Merlin ever be allowed to have a bloody moment?!
“Maybe,” he groused, hiding a territorial kiss in Arthur’s hair in retaliation.
Arthur responded with a lingering kiss to Merlin’s collarbone that re-awakened inappropriate stirrings. Then the king lifted his head from the crook of his manservant’s neck and trained perfect blue eyes on said manservant to full devastating effect.
“I think I’d fancy that cup of water now,” Arthur wheedled, an irresistible crooked smile on lips.
Merlin did his best to appear unmoved.
“I could turn you into a toad, you know,” he huffed.
“And I could… take you apart with one blow,” Arthur replied promisingly as his hand closed around Merlin’s fast-stiffening cock.
*Fin*