Amped - Part 7
Nov. 7th, 2011 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwyllionTitle: Amped
Author: gwylliondream
Genre: Modern au
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin
Rating: NC-17
Words: 57,554
A/N: This was written for NaNoWriMo 2011. For additional notes, warnings, etc, please refer to Part 1 here.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime! Thanks so much for reading!
Arthur hadn’t intended to find himself in the pub at 5 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, when most of Camelot’s residents were enjoying dinner with their families, but the thought of spending an hour at the same table with his father and Morgana proved too much for his nerves.
At least there was plenty of parking outside The Hasty Snail.
Drowning his sorrows in a pint, he didn’t notice the woman approach, until he involuntarily threw his head back in response to her nails across the nape of his neck. Whether he wanted to avoid the touch or lean into it harder, he couldn’t really say for sure.
“A bit lonely in here for a Sunday afternoon,” she said.
Arthur nodded to the empty barstool beside him.
She delicately placed her martini glass on the oak bar and smoothed her red dress, before sliding onto the leather seat.
She was young, barely old enough to be served, Arthur thought. Her scarlet nails tapped the side of her glass, signalling to the bartender that she needed another.
“Nimueh,” the bartender nodded, pouring the gin from the strainer into her glass and garnishing the drink with an olive.
Nimueh reached for her purse, but Arthur stopped the motion of her hand.
“Nimueh, allow me,” Arthur said, handing his credit card to the bartender. “I can’t let a lady pay her own way.”
“Why, Arthur Pendragon,” Nimueh said, in a voice more sultry than Arthur expected. “How very chivalrous of you.”
“Excuse me, but do I know you?” Arthur asked, his eyes squinting from the ale haze.
“I may have met you a long time ago, perhaps when you were a child,” Nimueh said.
Arthur smirked. Either someone had spiked his pint, or he was a poor judge of the woman’s youthful appearance. He’d never make it as one of those fortune tellers at the fair- the ones who used their powers of observation to bilk a shilling out of an unsuspecting citizen.
“What brings you here, Mr. Pendragon?” Nimueh asked, tracing the rim of her glass with a moist finger.
“Same as you, I suspect. Just trying to drown my sorrows a bit,” Arthur replied, feeling muzzier than one pint should have allowed.
“Two can play at drowning them,” Nimueh said. “What is troubling you today?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur said, cradling his pint glass in both hands. “My band. Our roadie quit, and now we have a new guy. Something’s wrong with him. I worry that he’ll prove to be inept.”
He felt Nimueh’s hand squeeze the back of his neck.
“I’ve got a lot riding on this tour. I don’t know if the Knights will be ready. My father... he... The opening band...” Arthur pressed his fingertips against his temples to ward of the beginnings of a dehydration-fuelled headache, made worse by the ale. “They’re going to upstage us, certainly.”
“What do you say that we head to my place and see if we can’t get you sorted out?” said Nimueh, running a sharp fingernail down Arthur’s jawline.
“How about we stay here, and get to know each other first?” Arthur asked, taking Nimueh’s hand and brushing his perpetually chapped lips across the inside of her wrist.
Nimueh laughed softly. “I hardly think the Chief of Police’s son would want to be seen in public with me.”
“I don’t see why not,” Arthur said, chewing his lip. “I’ve been seen with worse than the likes of you.”
Arthur released her hand and twirled the silver ring that adorned his index finger, thinking of his band mates and their new roadie. No wonder his father looked at them with such disdain. None of his posse looked as elegant as Nimueh, but it wasn’t Nimueh who needed his care or protection. There was nothing vulnerable about her that evoked Arthur’s empathy.
Nimueh snatched his hand back into her own. “Let’s get out of here,” she pleaded.
“Sorry, Nimueh,” Arthur said. “I need to get home.”
***
“If spending time with your old man is an attempt to make me forget that you’re throwing your life away, you’re wasting your time,” Uther said, making Arthur worry that he wasn’t buying Arthur’s devoted son routine.
Arthur had arrived home half-drunk from his outing at The Hasty Snail. Fortunately, he was able to pull the wool over his father’s eyes much more easily at twenty-four years of age than he was at eighteen.
Arthur leaned against the bathroom door frame. “What do you say to a trip to the firing range tomorrow morning?” Arthur asked, running his tongue over his teeth to make sure the minty toothpaste was the only scent his mouth emitted, lest his father discover his transgression of getting behind the wheel of his tin can of a vehicle.
Uther’s eyes met his, and for a minute, Arthur thought he was going to get called out for trying to cover up the alcohol.
“You’re on,” Uther said, clasping his son’s shoulder. “I’ll wake you for breakfast.”
That’s how Arthur ended up sitting in the passenger’s seat of the Vectra while Uther weaved through the Monday morning rush hour traffic.
Although it weighed heavily on his mind, Arthur didn’t bring up the situation with The Round Table Tour or his anger about being pitted against The Black Zigzags, a challenge that was entirely his father’s doing. Instead, he just absorbed the experience of spending time with his father, perhaps trying to figure out what made him tick, what made him the man he became. He’d play the good son, and see where it got him. Hell, maybe he’d even learn something.
The Range Officer embraced Uther and shook Arthur’s hand before showing them to their soundproof gallery.
They chose their weapons from Uther’s private collection. After Arthur listened intently to Uther’s refresher in gun safety, the men donned their ear protection and for the next hour, they took turns firing at the paper target emblazoned with the figure of some poor human who undoubtedly committed the crime of the century.
Arthur inspected his target. He hadn’t performed too badly, considering how seldom he visited the range. He compared his results with Uther’s. The perpetrator’s image had more holes than a round of Swiss cheese.
Arthur grinned. “How do you do it, father?”
“Don’t forget, I’ve had years of practice, here at the range and in taking down criminals on the streets,” Uther replied knowingly. He took the paper target from Arthur and nodded.
“That’s not what I meant,” Arthur said, licking his lips.
Uther laid the targets on the table and raised his eyebrows in question.
Arthur bit his thumbnail. “I mean, how can you muster the will to fight, to injure or even shoot and kill a criminal, or someone who has hurt others? How do you get that drive?”
“Arthur,” Uther said, placing a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “As an officer of the law, it’s my job to protect those who are vulnerable, those who can’t protect themselves from society’s ills. It’s my job to keep society free from such filth.”
Arthur sighed.
“I see that drive in you, son,” Uther said. “It grows stronger every day. Your mother would be so very proud of you.”
It wasn’t the answer Arthur was looking for, but it was an answer that pleased Uther to give. Maybe Arthur could store it away, in case it became useful to him some day.
***
“Don’t move a muscle,” Arthur said, wringing the washcloth in a one-handed squeeze. The candles wavered with the soft summer breeze that cooled the stone walls of the castle chamber this warm night.
Merlin stood naked in the bath water up to his knees, a curl of petal-scented steam rising from the depths of the tub to encircle him.
Arthur paid little attention to Merlin’s long white limbs and his pretty cock nestled beneath a shock of black hair. Instead, he slid the warm rag across Merlin’s face, wiping off as much mud as possible before turning to plunge the cloth into the basin to rinse it again.
“Merlin, I swear, you get into more trouble simply collecting herbs than you do when battling the most demonic of sorcerers.”
Merlin yawned as Arthur wiped the slimy brown mess from his eyebrows.
“You seemingly could care less that the Camelot’s Court Sorcerer has been seen traipsing through the corridors, dripping with mud, his hair draped in sphagnum,” Arthur said, standing on tiptoe to get a closer look at the mess of weeds that coursed through Merlin’s hair, down his neck and behind his ears.
Merlin simply hummed in approval.
Rinsing again, Arthur took extra care to free the grime from the long dark lashes that fell against the pale skin of Merlin’s cheeks. With renewed warmth to the cloth, Arthur cupped Merlin’s chin in one hand and gently scrubbed clean his cheekbones and the tiny crease between his soft lower lip and his chin.
“Can I sit now?” Merlin asked. “I’m so tired, I can barely stand.”
“Go ahead,” Arthur said, sliding a hand to the small of Merlin’s back, letting him sink into the inviting bath. “You’ve got more dirt on your face than there was in the entire bog where I found you.”
He rinsed the cloth again and went to work on the sides of Merlin’s nose and all the places Arthur loved to kiss: his lips, his delicate jawline, and the cords of his throat that grew taut when Merlin braced his head against the pillows and moaned in pleasure.
Merlin dozed in the water’s embrace, his chest flushed from falling into the chilly bog, despite the summer’s heat.
“Lean your head back,” Arthur said, and Merlin obliged, allowing Arthur to pour warm water through the dark locks, working to free them from the forest debris with combing strokes of his fingers.
When he was satisfied that Merlin’s hair was clean, he let Merlin soak, while he kneaded the bath-warmed muscles of Merlin’s shoulders.
“You’re quite lucky that you have me to take care of you, Merlin. I’d hate to think of what would happen if I weren’t here,” Arthur whispered.
Merlin stirred from his repose. “But I have magic, Arthur… I could have just magicked myself clean and warm.”
Arthur woke to the ticking alarm clock.
“He had the power,” Arthur said. “He had the power to get himself out of that mess.”
Author: gwylliondream
Genre: Modern au
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin
Rating: NC-17
Words: 57,554
A/N: This was written for NaNoWriMo 2011. For additional notes, warnings, etc, please refer to Part 1 here.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime! Thanks so much for reading!
Arthur hadn’t intended to find himself in the pub at 5 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, when most of Camelot’s residents were enjoying dinner with their families, but the thought of spending an hour at the same table with his father and Morgana proved too much for his nerves.
At least there was plenty of parking outside The Hasty Snail.
Drowning his sorrows in a pint, he didn’t notice the woman approach, until he involuntarily threw his head back in response to her nails across the nape of his neck. Whether he wanted to avoid the touch or lean into it harder, he couldn’t really say for sure.
“A bit lonely in here for a Sunday afternoon,” she said.
Arthur nodded to the empty barstool beside him.
She delicately placed her martini glass on the oak bar and smoothed her red dress, before sliding onto the leather seat.
She was young, barely old enough to be served, Arthur thought. Her scarlet nails tapped the side of her glass, signalling to the bartender that she needed another.
“Nimueh,” the bartender nodded, pouring the gin from the strainer into her glass and garnishing the drink with an olive.
Nimueh reached for her purse, but Arthur stopped the motion of her hand.
“Nimueh, allow me,” Arthur said, handing his credit card to the bartender. “I can’t let a lady pay her own way.”
“Why, Arthur Pendragon,” Nimueh said, in a voice more sultry than Arthur expected. “How very chivalrous of you.”
“Excuse me, but do I know you?” Arthur asked, his eyes squinting from the ale haze.
“I may have met you a long time ago, perhaps when you were a child,” Nimueh said.
Arthur smirked. Either someone had spiked his pint, or he was a poor judge of the woman’s youthful appearance. He’d never make it as one of those fortune tellers at the fair- the ones who used their powers of observation to bilk a shilling out of an unsuspecting citizen.
“What brings you here, Mr. Pendragon?” Nimueh asked, tracing the rim of her glass with a moist finger.
“Same as you, I suspect. Just trying to drown my sorrows a bit,” Arthur replied, feeling muzzier than one pint should have allowed.
“Two can play at drowning them,” Nimueh said. “What is troubling you today?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur said, cradling his pint glass in both hands. “My band. Our roadie quit, and now we have a new guy. Something’s wrong with him. I worry that he’ll prove to be inept.”
He felt Nimueh’s hand squeeze the back of his neck.
“I’ve got a lot riding on this tour. I don’t know if the Knights will be ready. My father... he... The opening band...” Arthur pressed his fingertips against his temples to ward of the beginnings of a dehydration-fuelled headache, made worse by the ale. “They’re going to upstage us, certainly.”
“What do you say that we head to my place and see if we can’t get you sorted out?” said Nimueh, running a sharp fingernail down Arthur’s jawline.
“How about we stay here, and get to know each other first?” Arthur asked, taking Nimueh’s hand and brushing his perpetually chapped lips across the inside of her wrist.
Nimueh laughed softly. “I hardly think the Chief of Police’s son would want to be seen in public with me.”
“I don’t see why not,” Arthur said, chewing his lip. “I’ve been seen with worse than the likes of you.”
Arthur released her hand and twirled the silver ring that adorned his index finger, thinking of his band mates and their new roadie. No wonder his father looked at them with such disdain. None of his posse looked as elegant as Nimueh, but it wasn’t Nimueh who needed his care or protection. There was nothing vulnerable about her that evoked Arthur’s empathy.
Nimueh snatched his hand back into her own. “Let’s get out of here,” she pleaded.
“Sorry, Nimueh,” Arthur said. “I need to get home.”
***
“If spending time with your old man is an attempt to make me forget that you’re throwing your life away, you’re wasting your time,” Uther said, making Arthur worry that he wasn’t buying Arthur’s devoted son routine.
Arthur had arrived home half-drunk from his outing at The Hasty Snail. Fortunately, he was able to pull the wool over his father’s eyes much more easily at twenty-four years of age than he was at eighteen.
Arthur leaned against the bathroom door frame. “What do you say to a trip to the firing range tomorrow morning?” Arthur asked, running his tongue over his teeth to make sure the minty toothpaste was the only scent his mouth emitted, lest his father discover his transgression of getting behind the wheel of his tin can of a vehicle.
Uther’s eyes met his, and for a minute, Arthur thought he was going to get called out for trying to cover up the alcohol.
“You’re on,” Uther said, clasping his son’s shoulder. “I’ll wake you for breakfast.”
That’s how Arthur ended up sitting in the passenger’s seat of the Vectra while Uther weaved through the Monday morning rush hour traffic.
Although it weighed heavily on his mind, Arthur didn’t bring up the situation with The Round Table Tour or his anger about being pitted against The Black Zigzags, a challenge that was entirely his father’s doing. Instead, he just absorbed the experience of spending time with his father, perhaps trying to figure out what made him tick, what made him the man he became. He’d play the good son, and see where it got him. Hell, maybe he’d even learn something.
The Range Officer embraced Uther and shook Arthur’s hand before showing them to their soundproof gallery.
They chose their weapons from Uther’s private collection. After Arthur listened intently to Uther’s refresher in gun safety, the men donned their ear protection and for the next hour, they took turns firing at the paper target emblazoned with the figure of some poor human who undoubtedly committed the crime of the century.
Arthur inspected his target. He hadn’t performed too badly, considering how seldom he visited the range. He compared his results with Uther’s. The perpetrator’s image had more holes than a round of Swiss cheese.
Arthur grinned. “How do you do it, father?”
“Don’t forget, I’ve had years of practice, here at the range and in taking down criminals on the streets,” Uther replied knowingly. He took the paper target from Arthur and nodded.
“That’s not what I meant,” Arthur said, licking his lips.
Uther laid the targets on the table and raised his eyebrows in question.
Arthur bit his thumbnail. “I mean, how can you muster the will to fight, to injure or even shoot and kill a criminal, or someone who has hurt others? How do you get that drive?”
“Arthur,” Uther said, placing a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “As an officer of the law, it’s my job to protect those who are vulnerable, those who can’t protect themselves from society’s ills. It’s my job to keep society free from such filth.”
Arthur sighed.
“I see that drive in you, son,” Uther said. “It grows stronger every day. Your mother would be so very proud of you.”
It wasn’t the answer Arthur was looking for, but it was an answer that pleased Uther to give. Maybe Arthur could store it away, in case it became useful to him some day.
***
“Don’t move a muscle,” Arthur said, wringing the washcloth in a one-handed squeeze. The candles wavered with the soft summer breeze that cooled the stone walls of the castle chamber this warm night.
Merlin stood naked in the bath water up to his knees, a curl of petal-scented steam rising from the depths of the tub to encircle him.
Arthur paid little attention to Merlin’s long white limbs and his pretty cock nestled beneath a shock of black hair. Instead, he slid the warm rag across Merlin’s face, wiping off as much mud as possible before turning to plunge the cloth into the basin to rinse it again.
“Merlin, I swear, you get into more trouble simply collecting herbs than you do when battling the most demonic of sorcerers.”
Merlin yawned as Arthur wiped the slimy brown mess from his eyebrows.
“You seemingly could care less that the Camelot’s Court Sorcerer has been seen traipsing through the corridors, dripping with mud, his hair draped in sphagnum,” Arthur said, standing on tiptoe to get a closer look at the mess of weeds that coursed through Merlin’s hair, down his neck and behind his ears.
Merlin simply hummed in approval.
Rinsing again, Arthur took extra care to free the grime from the long dark lashes that fell against the pale skin of Merlin’s cheeks. With renewed warmth to the cloth, Arthur cupped Merlin’s chin in one hand and gently scrubbed clean his cheekbones and the tiny crease between his soft lower lip and his chin.
“Can I sit now?” Merlin asked. “I’m so tired, I can barely stand.”
“Go ahead,” Arthur said, sliding a hand to the small of Merlin’s back, letting him sink into the inviting bath. “You’ve got more dirt on your face than there was in the entire bog where I found you.”
He rinsed the cloth again and went to work on the sides of Merlin’s nose and all the places Arthur loved to kiss: his lips, his delicate jawline, and the cords of his throat that grew taut when Merlin braced his head against the pillows and moaned in pleasure.
Merlin dozed in the water’s embrace, his chest flushed from falling into the chilly bog, despite the summer’s heat.
“Lean your head back,” Arthur said, and Merlin obliged, allowing Arthur to pour warm water through the dark locks, working to free them from the forest debris with combing strokes of his fingers.
When he was satisfied that Merlin’s hair was clean, he let Merlin soak, while he kneaded the bath-warmed muscles of Merlin’s shoulders.
“You’re quite lucky that you have me to take care of you, Merlin. I’d hate to think of what would happen if I weren’t here,” Arthur whispered.
Merlin stirred from his repose. “But I have magic, Arthur… I could have just magicked myself clean and warm.”
Arthur woke to the ticking alarm clock.
“He had the power,” Arthur said. “He had the power to get himself out of that mess.”
