Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, I'm just playing in the sandbox.
There will probably be more coming for this. Please check my Livejournal account (earyn_black . livejournal . com) for updates and also for links to my latest help Japan auction offers, including two fictions.
Job Description
Merlin has been Arthur's servant for two weeks when he recieves the summons. He walks to Uther's chambers with heavy feet, fear clenching in his chest and the swing of the executioner's axe keeping time with his steps. So when he walks in, and it is just him and an almost not unpleasant Uther, he relaxes and feels like he's dodged the blade.
Then Uther starts talking. He spends so long telling Merlin about the unplanned, unwed mothers among the servants in his father's day, tells him about ordering around a young servant, then finding out the boy was actually his half-brother. Tells him about his grandfather, adn his grandfather before him. Then, incongrously, he tells Merlin about his own manservant, a pleasant sort apparently, who didn't cause Uther any trouble at all.
It takes Merlin probably longer than it should to realise that what Uther means is the manservant didn't get pregnant. Being a man.
It takes even longer to realise that this is Uther's round about way of ordering him to let Arthur fuck him, instead of impregnating a slew of young maidservants.
Merlin tries to put the conversation behind him, forget about it and move on. It works as well, for two whole days, before Arthur comes storming in, more furious than he's ever seen him.
"My father – my father has just ordered me not to sleep with the maidservants!" He steams at Merlin, who feels his heart sinking. "As if I'm that crass! Tells me he doesn't want the line of succession clouded by bastard half-children running around!"
"Well, Sir..." Merlin starts, then trails off in the face of Arthur's indignation and his own embarrasement.
"I don't even get to have much sex anyway, and I've certainly not gone all the way with them, but now if I'm even found so much as flirting with one my father will have my head!"
"Um... I suppose you could find someone who won't get pregnant..." Merlin tries. "Like... a man, or something."
Arthur snorts and says "What, like you?" With such derision that Merlin feels a heady moment of relief that obviously, Arthur isn't going there. Followed by crushing terror, because Uther ordered him to... and if he doesn't try... and if Arthur somehow gets one of the girls pregnant anyway...
Apparently, Arthur manages to mistake Merlin's blind panic for some kind of veiled confession of lust, because he smirks and preens.
"Well, of course you would want to. Look at me, who wouldn't? Hmm, I suppose it would be more convenient. Okay then. Come here, Merlin."
And that's how Merlin ends up sucking someone's cock the first time. It's not pleasant, but it's not horrible, either. Neither is the second, or the third, and he starts to think maybe he can get used to this, or at least not hate it, like helping Arthur dress - it seemed monumental and horrible to start with, but now it's just another chore. Sometimes it can even be a little fun.
That, of course, is when Arthur starts getting bored, and thinking of other things. Which inevitably leads him to remember overheard conversations about the things two men might do together, and to start looking at Merlin like his mouth isn't where he want to put his cock any more, after all.