Title: Nerves Alight
Content/Warnings: Voyeurism, Manhandling, Canon Era, Mildly Dubious Consent
30 Day OTP Challenge Prompt: Day #4 "masturbation"
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"Don't turn around."
Merlin's heart thudded his ribcage. He wondered for a fear-stricken moment if it was loud enough for everyone to hear.
The warmth and nearness of another person came at Merlin's back, moved in, but no hands grabbed onto him, dragged him back.
"Don't," the voice ordered when Merlin sharply inhaled, beginning to remove his hands from the confines of his trousers. Even then his smalls were sopping.
"Don't," it repeated, no longer a harsh command.
A pair of lips touched in Merlin's hair.
"It's just me, Merlin."
Relief drained out the terror of being caught, of being off his guard crouching with his arse bared. Merlin whispered, face hot, "Sire."
He knew how Arthur managed to discover the tiny alcove. It wasn't difficult to figure out since the older man had been raised inside the castle since babe, ran from nurses down these corridors and likely hid in the winding passageways of the chambers and their antechambers.
How or why he had been following Merlin was another matter entirely. He flushed again as Arthur's glove-clad hands settled on his waist, mortified.
When it went quiet, Merlin speculated if Arthur had ever glimpsed on other people through cracks of light, nerves alight with curiosity.
Enid, a serving girl often seen batting her eyes at a very timid Sir Erec, was now opening up her frumpy robes in front of Sir Leon, stepping out of them nude. Her reddish-brown in glossy curls to the middle of her back. The tops of her shoulders and her forearms burnt pink by the sun.
She whined, mouth relaxing as Sir Leon gathered her in his lap, his long, blood-dark prick disappearing between her thighs glistening. He kissed her, his tongue prodding and lathing the circle of her ruddy, full lips.
The smell of their copulation began hanging over the air, managing to trickle in through the slants of the barred wooden door Merlin hid behind.
Merlin let out a strangled, low noise, as if he were stifled for air. It may have been a tiny hiding place but he never had a problem with closed-off spaces. Even with someone else crowding him inside.
One of the gloves went to his mouth, avoiding Merlin's nose and silencing more noises, the material cool on contact and velvety-soft.
Despite himself, he could imagine one of Arthur's hands clamping down on the length of Merlin's prick, roughly stroking him off, chaffing him dry.
And within seconds, Merlin felt it stiffen up again.
"Is this where you go instead of the tavern…?" A hot, damp gust of breath in Merlin's left ear. Arthur chuckling in the dark. "This shouldn't surprise me. You can hardly keep your impertinence to yourself around your betters… why should you ever deny yourself pleasure?"
Arthur's other hand on Merlin's waist rucked up his tunic, to his chest, dragging leathered fingers over the prominent bones of Merlin's ribs.
Merlin nudged into the sensation, exhaling out his nostrils.
"Has anyone ever been with you like this, Merlin?" The hand on his chest vanished. Merlin's eyebrows bunched in, head swimming. Fingers then pinched down and twisted Merlin's flesh on his naked arse. "Answer me."
A wrecked, euphoric cry strained itself into Arthur's glove to his mouth. Merlin shook his head wildly, the corners of his eyes watering.
"Oh god," Arthur groaned out, saliva-wet mouth plastering to Merlin's perspiring neck. Merlin replied with a slower nod this time.
For a reason Merlin didn't have the foggiest about because his hand was still wriggled down his trousers while the king of Camelot acted like this should be ordinary to watch his manservant do—Arthur's gloved hand lowered, Merlin now being able to pant through his mouth.
Within the storeroom, Sir Leon grunted with each frantic skin-slapping thrust, matching the over-enthused, shrilling whimpers of Enid.
"Touch me," he murmured, gritting his jaw until Merlin's teeth ached.
Soon, the hand on Merlin's chest vanished, too. "No," Arthur sounded far too self-satisfied, and Merlin wanted very much to turn around and punch him in his gods-damn face. "You're going to bring yourself off like this, Merlin… with just the feeling of my breath on your neck."
A rumbling growl left Merlin's throat—whether it had been irritated or partly of arousal, it wasn't the time for him to guess.
Merlin tugged himself out, welcoming the lack of captivity, jerking himself at a slow pace, building it up, hearing the noises beyond the alcove and trying to find a similar rhythm.
He pulled back his slickened foreskin and thumbed over the ridge of cockhead with each pull. Arthur must have been paying attention to how Merlin's breathing labored, or perhaps he couldn't resist temptation within easy reach—Arthur's hands returned, without the feeling of buttery-smooth leather. They rested on Merlin's hips, occasionally stroking his arse.
"Very good, Merlin." The sigh of praise. Arthur's voice without emotional flatness curled Merlin's toes in his boots. "You're doing beautifully… "
"Shut up," Merlin said, waspish, his muscles clenching where Arthur's fingers grip on and drive his narrow hips forward, right into his fist.
"I'm the king, Merlin. You can't tell me what to do."
"I just did, you overgrown cabbagehead," he replied, grinning stupidly big. Merlin tipped his head back, as Arthur pressed whole-bodied into him, thumb and forefinger working under Merlin's tunic, blindly searching out a nipple. The same time Merlin's nipple squeezed painfully, the orgasm rippled a cry from him, thankfully against his own hand.
Wringing himself, savoring the last twinges of a carnal gratification, hot fluid dribbled over Merlin's fingers.
Low murmurs filtered in from the storeroom, what sounded like clothes and robes being buckled on and rustling, and then nothing.
Arthur pawed the nest of dark hair at Merlin's sternum, fingering the tangles. He whispered nonsense, humming words against Merlin's throat.
"If you turn up missing for chores and Gaius mentions the tavern, am I to assume you will be skulking the grounds?" Merlin's didn't actually believe skulking was the phrase Arthur meant to use, but gave a nod anyway.
"It's likely."
He sort of wished he could see Arthur's face in the dark, squinting up to those summery-blue eyes, when the next heal-filled chuckle left Arthur.
"I always knew there was something about you, Merlin."
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