Notes: the prompt was from the kinkme_merlin Project Diversity on LiveJournal. The prompt - Hunith/Will, accidental contact or friction.
Disclaimer: Based on the tv series, Merlin, by BBC and Shine. No money has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
It was just small touches at first, nothing out of the ordinary: an accidental brush of fingers across her arm that time he'd come to ask how Merlin was getting on at Camelot, warm sweating hands when he asked her to dance at the village celebration, his mouth smiling sweet-drunk and she couldn't say no, an arm around her as he hovered protectively when Kanen's men appeared that first time.
She knew him, had known him for years. She'd watched him, her son and Will, two puppies tumbling in the dirt and she'd smiled indulgently then. A child he was, petulant and fiercely loyal. She'd seen him grow, heard the first time his voice cracked, listened to him complain to Merlin about shaving and girls and what he'd do when he was a man, watched him trembling helpless with rage when his father had died, wanted to comfort him when he looked so lost afterwards. She'd invited him into their home and into their lives. But she hadn't thought it would be more than that, just Merlin's mother and Merlin's friend, missing her son with equal measure.
She'd never thought of him touching - her.
It had been too long since Balinor had left her, twenty years or so. A long time to be without love, without someone to look at her as Will was looking at her now. She'd tried to be faithful but she was a woman still and had needs that her son could never understand.
But Will seemed to. Sweet, passionate Will.
Now she had a choice. She could go back to her cold bed, ignore the longing in Will's eyes, turn away from warmth and need and love. Or she could sink into his arms, learn to live again, and damn the consequences. As she had done once so long ago.
Decision made, Hunith turned to the boy, the man waiting so patiently for her answer and said….