Hello, all. This is a song-fic drabble thing. It's a series of pairings, some Slash and some Het.
I'm taking the lyrics from Maroon 5's Don't Know Nothing.
Don't own ANYTHING. Thanks for reading. Please review.
Living inside my head
Pulling my strings
Letting me think I'm in control
I should have known. The moment he convinced me to follow him halfway across the country with no more information than "You are Uther's son. You are the king." That was the moment, I should have known something was not right. Morgan accused me of being a sorcerer's figurehead, a puppet on Merlin's strings. I denied it, but I was wrong. Of course, I'm not exactly what she accused me of being. It's not that he promised me riches and power to act as the heir, to be a pretender. One, because I honestly believe I am Uther's son. Igraine can be convincing when she wishes. But more importantly, two, I don't care about power or riches. No, Merlin holds my strings with a different hand. Or rather, not with his hand at all, much to my disappointment. He keeps me on my puppet strings with his knowing smirks, his sidelong glances and intense stares, the occasional brush of his hand against my skin.
I am a sorcerer's figurehead, but only until I can become a sorcerer's counterpart.
Giving you all of my heart
Was a good start
But it turns out you want my soul
Father was right about him. The one useful piece of advice that man ever gave me and it was already too late. I'd told him that I was going to marry Merlin. "Everything will be yours, except your soul." He was right. I told Merlin what he said the night I drugged him. He told me it was too harsh. I don't think it was harsh enough. I'm not married to Merlin and yet he already has my soul and my heart along with it. The hair and nails I took from him are not powerful enough to bring him under my power. He is much too strong and much too old for that. So now I must find another way. His blood perhaps.
I must get him away from the boy-king long enough to take back my soul from him, or perhaps take his in its stead.
I don't know nothing about that
In fact I don't know nothing at all
I'm tired of proving you right
By doing everything so wrong
I've been a pawn in this game for much too long. I no longer even remember what it feels like to have any kind of agency of my own. But I think it feel something like the touch of Merlin's fingertips on my skin when he offered me an apple slice. Or the weight of his gaze from across the courtyard. It certainly wasn't the press of Uther's body above mine the night Arthur was conceived. "Sorcery and rape" he keeps calling it and he's right. The sorcery cut a deeper betrayal than the rape, but I did not know Merlin then. Though he still has not apologized for it or for taking my child from me. Agency also was not the sticky fingers of my daughter from my first marriage who died of plague when she was five and whose body I was forbidden to see. It wasn't the grasping claws of My Lord the Duke of Cornwall, my first husband.
I am not certain I have ever feel the heady touch of agency and every move I make of my own seems a misstep, but the warmth of Merlin's body when he stands next to me is as close as I think I may come to it.
Go ahead, take your swing
What did you think,
I was just gonna roll over? Oh no
The cold, clean press of the iron blade against my throat makes me gasp, arching my back and pressing my head into Arthur's thigh. He thinks I don't know what he's doing. He thinks I don't see the way he looks at her, at my wife. But I do. And he is my king, so I allow it. But this? This open challenge is too much. He takes one step too many. And it's worse, because Guin doesn't pull these reactions from me. For her, I am protection and strength and home. I am those things, the power inherent in them and the control they represent. But Arthur has complete control over me. He is my king and I am his champion. And I take too much pleasure in the cool press of his blade against my skin.
This would not have happened if Merlin had not gone chasing phantoms and I would not be fighting to suppress unwelcome thoughts.