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koalas-koalas-everywhere · 2 years ago

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Mercelot Week Day 2: Forest/Kidnapping (When Love Was An Act Of Defiance Sneak Peak)

In which Lancelot doesn't die and that changes... well, not that much, actually. Up until it does.

<< That's what the summary would be IF I HAD A COMPLETE FIC TO POST. These are sneak peaks posted as part of Mercelot Week 2023.

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Merlin wants to go back to Arthur and finish the quest to get rid of the Dorocha, but there's not way Lancelot's going to take him anywhere but Camelot. He can barely hold his head up! It's not like he'd be of much help in sealing the Veil in these conditions...

Prompt Fill for Day 2, Forest/Kidnapping! Mostly because they're in the forest, but Lancelot does sort of kidnap Merlin... This scene belongs to ep 4x02 The Darkest Hour (as you might've guessed...) or "I Think There's Been A Glitch". Fun fact! That might have been the title of the fic, but I thought it went better as the name of the chapter. This is actually the first scene of the fic!! Ao3

Lancelot woke up and stretched out his arm. His senses, finely tuned by years on the road as well as his training as a knight, scanned his surroundings for threats his still blurry and mostly closed eyes couldn’t see. Neither of these actions required any thought on his part. He was pleased when they informed him that nothing had woken him up but his own body, well-rested, and that Merlin was still lying next to him on the ground.

Groping down his sleeve, he found his hand. He thought it was warmer than the day before, although that may have been his imagination. He was still shivering, but without the desperate edge from the night before, gasping like the small movements caused him pain.

When he opened his eyes, he welcomed the new day with a smile. The forest was painted with fog, diluting the early morning sun into a glow that brightened it from within. He could almost believe that it was the Vilia still illuminating them, but they were gone. The only thing to be heard was the gurgle from the creek and chirps and crows from the various animals greeting the morning. It felt like a good omen — like nothing bad could happen amidst that beauty. He squeezed Merlin’s hand before letting it go and getting up.

He only woke Merlin up once he had breakfast ready out of some bread and porridge made of more water than oats, but well-warmed from the fire he had going. He would’ve liked to have made it closer to his friend, so he could soak its heat without needing to move, but the ground wasn’t as stable near the shore, nor did it offer any convenient seats.

He crouched next to him and reached out. He stopped for a moment, searching his face for undue discomfort and appreciating it when he found none, before shaking his shoulder.

“Merlin,” he whispered. At his groan, he switched to rubbing the spot and called again.

In fits and starts, Merlin woke up.

“… lanslot,” he slurred. Lancelot had rarely heard a better sound.

“That’s right,” he said. He gave his friend time to study his surroundings, but he could barely lift his head and it kept dropping to the ground. “Take it easy. You are supposed to be dying, after all.”

“… that explains that,” Merlin mused with a pensive expression. Lancelot laughed at his silly earnestness, at his own relief, at the Dorocha, at the Vilia, at the spot of dirt in Merlin’s cheek.

“You’re actually doing a terrible job at that,” he reached out to swipe it away.

“Sormm,” Merlin smiled, although Lancelot wasn’t sure that he wasn’t just reacting to his mirth. Then he reached out a shaky hand. Lancelot tried to grab it, thinking it was what he wanted, but instead he braced it on the ground and pushed. Soon enough, he was sitting up without any help, other than a hand on the shoulder when his swaying took him too far in one direction.

“Absolutely rubbish,” Lancelot rejoiced.

“What?” Merlin frowned in confusion.

“Don’t worry about it,” he hushed him, then grabbed his elbows and urged him up. “Breakfast’s ready. You can get warm for a bit before we go on.”

“On…” Merlin said dreamily. “To Arthur?”

“To Camelot,” Lancelot corrected. He poured his attention on the ground as they went, hoping it would help avoid the upcoming argument. “You were hurt, remember? The Dorocha got you. You survived, but…”

“We need to go back,” Merlin interrupted, as firm as he was capable of being at the moment.

“You were barely there, Merlin. Arthur was this close to just leaving the quest and bringing you back himself. This is what he’d want,” he finished by setting him up on a trunk near the fire. Merlin over-balanced and would’ve face-planted right into it if it wasn’t for Lancelot, but he was mostly able to move under his own power.

“Well, Arthur doesn’t…”

“I’m not convinced you’d have survived the night without the Vilia’s help. I need you to understand this, Merlin. Merlin,” he crouched next to him and turned his face towards him. Even with its mulish expression, he felt a thrill at the awareness he found there. “We’re past luck. We’re past magic. You’re alive by a miracle.”

Merlin was quiet for a second.

“Vilia…?”

Lancelot sighed, unsure about whether his actual point had gotten through.

“Some kind of spirits, released along with the Dorocha. Good ones, though. They were tied to the water.”

“Spirits… of the lake?” A hazy light went on in Merlin’s eyes.

“Of the creek,” he clarified, relying on his friend’s grogginess and his casual tone to skim over any painful associations.

Merlin nodded slowly and gazed at the fire. He didn’t look melancholic so much as dazed. Lancelot passed him one of the bowls he’d left warming near the logs.

“Come on, eat your breakfast. We’re not going anywhere until you do.”

“Back to Arthur,” Merlin said with as much threat as he could muster given his state and the spoonful of porridge he was shoving into his mouth.

Lancelot laughed softly. It took him a few seconds to remember that he had to eat, too, and not just stay there staring at Merlin, no matter how wonderful it was to see him even slightly recovered. With one last squeeze of his shoulder, he took his own seat and tucked in.

The meal went by quickly and in silence. Lancelot was struck once more by how peaceful the forest was. He had to remind himself of the perils that everyone in the land was facing, especially his prince and brothers in arms. It was too easy to get lost in the birdsong and the pleasure of Merlin’s company, when two nights ago he’d feared they would never sit across each other like this again. Eventually, he noticed his friend flagging, just stirring the watery porridge around. His head hung low, not so much looking down as incapable of staying upright.

“Full already? I’m not surprised — it’s your first bite in two days,” he said, already reaching for the bowl.

“‘Znt hunry,” Merlin slurred. The only sign he gave of noticing when his food was taken away was curling up on himself.

Lancelot considered taking him to the horse, but decided to let him stay by the fire while he broke camp. It wasn’t much and he didn’t put much care into most of it. The bowls would probably always keep lumps of dried porridge from the thoroughly unthorough washing he gave them. The horses, however, were fed and watered and had their hooves checked before he saddled them. He spent an age making sure that Amice was comfortable even with the straps tighter than usual to account for Merlin’s inability to actually ride with her, instead of swaying along like so much dead weight. When he was done, he put out the fire. Merlin stirred, rattled by his own shivers.

“Hey, hey,” Lancelot rushed to his side. He grabbed him by the shoulders in an attempt to comfort him, then switched his grip to his elbows and pulled him up. “Come on, you’ll feel better with a fireplace, and some blankets, and an actual healer caring for you.”

Merlin just hummed, not too awake even as they walked to the horses and Lancelot helped him mount Amice. Once up, he immediately leaned forward into her neck, seeking her warmth, Lancelot suspected. Full stomach, happy heart, rung his mother’s words in his head and he grinned.

“I’m gonna strap you in, now, okay?” he said, already taking his wrist to tie it down. He usually wouldn’t risk tying someone’s legs to the saddle as well, too wary of the horse getting out of control or, worse, turning and crushing them underneath, but he trusted Amice. She was a Camelot mare, smart and brave, as well as a sweetheart. The danger was greater that Merlin, out of it as he was, would topple over and hang from his wrist until she figured out to stop. So Lancelot tied his knees down, like he had the day before.

“Lancelot?” came the weak but surprisingly awake call.

“Too tight?” He looked up and searched his friends face for discomfort, pointless as it was. He wouldn’t have been able to distinguish it from the strain of the last few days.

“We need to go to Arthur,” Merlin told him again.

Lancelot sighed and fiddled with the cords to avoid his plaintive gaze.

“And do what? You can barely lift you head.”

“Don’t need to,” he insisted.

“Your magic doesn’t work. Not with the Dorocha.”

Merlin shook his head against Amice’s mane. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand something you don’t — Arthur wants you safe. We all do.” Lancelot stepped back. Arguing with Merlin was like talking to a wall at the best of times. Right then, he wasn’t even sure he understood what he was saying.

As always, though, he couldn’t ignore Merlin for long. He looked back once he was on Marchegai, ready to soothe any sore moods, and found his friend asleep. Truly asleep, and not the unconsciousness or unresponsiveness that would take him the day before.

“Just a little bit longer, now. We’ll be home in a matter of hours,” he said.

Suddenly, a sense of foreboding came over him. He remembered the Vilia’s assertion that Arthur would need them. Another memory, one he’d been escaping since he’d left the group, of the promise given to Gwen, already neglected, but salvageable still. Then there was Merlin, who always seemed to know something everyone else didn’t. Lancelot wavered. Maybe they should go back to Arthur, as he kept insisting.

He might have done so, if reflex hadn’t made him glance at the subject of his thoughts, held to the back of his mare by ropes instead of any strength or will. His conviction turned to steel. Arthur had all the other knights to keep him safe — Merlin only had Lancelot. He urged Marchegai forward, followed obediently by Amice, and kept the fastest pace he could towards Camelot.Notes:

Amice, the name of Merlin’s horse, means “Friend” <3. The other option was Brith, meaning “Mottled”, aka Spot. Marchegai – means “Proud Walker” If you want a behind-the-scenes image, just picture me going back and correcting every other sentence because I forget Arthur isn’t king yet. These mfers don’t even have coffee. It has nothing to do with this chapter, just something I found out. Full stomach, happy heart (A pancita llena, corazón contento) is a saying I heard all the time when I was little. I don’t know if it exists in English or how common it is outside of Argentina. Since Santiago Cabrera is from Chile, though, I thought it would be a nice touch.

#MercelotWeek 2023 #mercelot #lancelot lives au #alt season 4 #Merlin #Lancelot #Merlin BBC #MercelotWeek2023 #wlwaaod #When Love Was an Act of Defiance

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francrows · 6 days ago

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more than anything

@mercelotweek day 2 baby!!

#todays flower is asphodel #which as far as i could find is associated with #the underworld death and mourning #peace tranquility and remembrance and eternal life #“beloved of the dead” is one that really got me ngl #did most of this on paper which like. never happens #merlin #bbc merlin #mercelotweek2025 #mercelot #merlance #sir lancelot #mercelot parallels

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kissme-withyour-cherrylipstick · 1 day ago

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@mercelotweek day 7 - free day + rainbow

I went through a couple different versions before settling on incorporating the rainbow into the background. I'm surprised I finished in time but they grabbed me by the inspiration and forced my hand! I love them!!! 🫶

#mercelotweek2025 #mercelot #merlance #merlin #lancelot #bbc merlin #bbc merlin fanart #merlin fanart #bbc lancelot #my art

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personaje-fics · 6 days ago

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For @mercelotweek day 2: hurt/comfort.

AO3. 2/6

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Merlin was grinding down marigolds in the physician’s chambers when Lancelot stumbled in with a hand on his chest. He hastily closed the door behind him and leaned against it, panting. His voice was worryingly weak when he said:

“My chest hurts.”

Merlin dropped the mortar and pestle. He hurried to take Lancelot’s arm and lead him to the cot. He unbuckled the armour with magic and quickly took the pauldron off. He was an expert at this kind of thing by now. He just wished he was able to take Lancelot’s armour off in situations that weren’t strictly medical.

Focus, he chided himself, and tried not to wince at Lancelot’s pained groan when he had to raise his arms for Merlin to slide the chainmail off. Then off were the gambeson and the tunic, too wet with blood.

The wound was horrible. He had no other word for it.

“A sorcerer attacked you?” he asked, but it wasn't a question.

Lancelot had been leading a patrol on the outskirts of the city. Merlin had assumed he had gotten hit or slashed by a bandit, not— not this. No sword nor mace nor axe could tear the skin in such long, clean strips.

Lancelot hummed. He was looking down at his wound. Wounds. Many of them. They didn’t stop dripping blood.

“I didn’t tell anyone. That it’s a magical wound. In case you can— you know. If you can, that is.”

They had learned Merlin wasn’t as terrible with healing magic when he was reciting a spell instead of trying to mend the wound by sheer will. Merlin summoned a book from one of Gaius’ unreachably high shelves and started reading it with his magic. Well, not reading it, exactly. The book had pictures.

He found a picture that looked like what happened to Lancelot’s chest, however vaguely pictographic. He settled the book on Lancelot’s lap, and he grabbed it to keep it on that page as Merlin gathered water and cloth to clean the cuts. After an incident not long ago, he had stopped making the water basin fly to him.

Lancelot’s heavy gaze was on him the whole time he cleaned the wounds. It made his hands tremble. Or maybe it was the red gashes of open skin in front of him, moving under his touch that did it. Once they were clean, he read the counter spell, rehearsing it under his breath over and over again until the words blurred together.

He made his hands hover over the wounds as close as possible without touching them. He could feel the heat of Lancelot’s skin. Too hot, certainly. Merlin swallowed and started chanting, Ic durhhæle díc líc-sar mid dam sundorcræft dæru ealdan æ. Wherever his fingers hovered, golden light emerged from the wounds, and they slowly closed.

This, too, hurt. Quite a bit, if the way Lancelot kept twitching and whimpering was of any indication. Merlin just wanted to get this over with, because the more he went on, the more it sank in that he had a very shirtless Lancelot right in front of him.

Merlin’s fingertips hovered over what must have been a deeper gash, because Lancelot’s twitch was violent. By that, he meant Lancelot moved enough that Merlin accidentally touched the raw skin. Lancelot cried out. Merlin pulled his hand away, an apology halfway across his lips, but he froze before he could say anything. The whole area where his fingers had touched was completely healed, with not even red marks like the rest.

“I need to touch you,” Merlin said, glancing down at the book. And then he registered what he had just said. Not a rare thing for him to think, but he never really had the opportunity to externalise it.

“Whatever makes this end quicker.”

Merlin winced sympathetically, then steeled himself and started chanting again. He could feel the wounds close under his palms. Lancelot groaned, head dropping, and his arms shook with how hard he grabbed the cot’s sheets.

Merlin started to move his hands around, and Lancelot almost jumped, making the book fall from his lap to the floor with a thud. But now the wounds were disappearing quickly with no trace behind. Soon enough, they were all gone.

Merlin didn’t lift his hands from Lancelot’s chest, though. Not just yet. He gently caressed the skin, letting his eyes roam over it with the excuse of looking for any more injuries. When he looked up, Lancelot found his eyes immediately. His breathing was heavy, and he stayed silent for what felt like an hour, just looking at him.

“Thank you,” he said. And after another long moment: “I think that was worse than the original spell.”

Merlin made a face but kept rubbing his thumbs over Lancelot’s chest in what he hoped was a soothing motion. Risky, to touch him like this, but he hadn’t been pushed away yet, so he was going to seize the moment.

“Hey, at least now you have a nice shave,” he tried to joke. Tried, because his voice, too, had gone breathy.

Lancelot looked down and snorted. ‘Nice’ was not a word either of them would use. Patches of his skin had been left hairless and slightly pink. ‘Ridiculous’ may have been more appropriate. Maybe even ‘worse than the work of a blind and handless man with a dull shaving knife and no cream.’

Lancelot looked back up at Merlin with a smile and parted his lips to say something, probably along the lines of Merlin’s own thoughts. Merlin tried to keep his eyes on Lancelot’s and not on his bitten-red lips. And then—

And then the door to the physician’s chambers swung open.

“Merlin, do you know where— Oh.” Percival stopped dead in his tracks and stared at them with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. I, uh. We needed Lancelot for the debrief. Um. Sorry.”

And then he left.

Merlin looked at Lancelot, and they lasted a single second before they burst out laughing. They kept laughing, and when they finally calmed down, Merlin had to lend Lancelot one of his shirts and shoo him to the debrief. As soon as Lancelot left, he sighed deeply. He needed a moment alone. The tips of his fingers kept feeling hot— tingling, kind of. And he was certain it had nothing to do with the magic.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [+1]

#mercelotweek2025 #mercelot week #merlin #merlance #mercelot #my writing #merlin fanfic #merlance fanfic #mercelot fanfic #hehehehe :D i do love to physically harm him

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thefollow-spot · 7 days ago

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Voltage of Your Skin (Release)

|| Lancelot/Merlin ● E ● 2.8K ● Warning: Violence ||

Summary: Grief-stricken from what happened on the Isle of the Blessed, Merlin is determined to free Lancelot's mind from Morgana's shade-curse. Months prior, he surrenders himself to Lancelot's touch. // Written for Day 1 of @mercelotweek 2025, for the prompt, "Lancelot Du Lac episode AU".

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“Violence occurs; through violence we are intimate” —Anne Carson, Grief Lessons

The shade wears Lancelot’s body, and rests in Merlin’s bed. Watching it mimic sleep, Merlin is unlike himself, too; in grief, he’s tried to remember what kind of man he is, and cannot.

He thinks, this is Morgana. She’s using him.

And feels like someone violent: like a man who might kill for pleasure. Then, he imagines having to slay it—performing Lancelot’s murder, seeing the corpse—and becomes shaky with terror.

From his pallet on the floor, he cowers, never looking away. A thought comes, and Merlin stops breathing: what if it’s a curse, and I can free him?

Most of the castle was on their way to sleep, at the end of the week. It had been several days of clear, beautiful skies, and good weather to work in. And in the evening, even the field labourers had parked their wagons until the sunrise.

But Merlin was wide awake—laid out on Lancelot’s bed, like a fine tunic he couldn’t wait to put his hands on. After a shared dinner by the fire, there was something else exciting planned.

“Have you done this before?” Merlin said. Lancelot stood over him, with the laces of his shirt undone. He looked reverent, and handsome, and hungry.

“Never… never with a man,” Lancelot admitted. “But I want to take care of you. I’ll make it nice—if you’ll trust me.” His lips touched Merlin’s: a question. And Merlin leaned in, responding in kind.

He felt shivery and open—his shirt was already shed, from when they’d kissed over their empty plates. It was on the floor now, while Lancelot ran his hands over Merlin’s bare shoulders. Chaste, yet. Anticipatory.

“I do. Trust you,” Merlin said, soft. More than anyone in a long, long time. “Just, nervous, that’s all.”

Lancelot hushed him with lips to his exposed neck. It was luck that he had his kerchief to covered the marks later—for now, it too was with his shirt on the floor. There would be marks: Lancelot loved to taste him here with enough passion to bruise.

Merlin sighed at the pressure and warmth against his pulse. It was so much to have all this skin bare simply for someone to touch, and look at him. No one looked at Merlin the way Lancelot did. Lancelot held the beating fire within him called magic, and kept that secret. Kept him—from all of the people whom Merlin loved and feared. With Lancelot, he was safe. Even before deciding he wanted Lancelot to have him, he’d been exposed—since, bregdan anweald gafeluec.

Their kisses deepened; Lancelot’s lips parted, easing his tongue into Merlin’s mouth. This, they’d done before, and he opened his mouth to enjoy it. The bed creaked as Lancelot put a knee forward, leaning his weight on the bed, easing them down. Soon, Merlin was on his back, with Lancelot climbing over him.

Merlin gently broke the kiss. His chest rose and fell; he looked up and saw Lancelot’s dark, tender gaze keeping him anchored.

“I’ve never…” he said, “not with anyone…”

“That’s alright.” It was a promise. Lancelot’s lips only skimmed his, this time, until Merlin leaned up and invited him down for more; his hand roamed down Merlin’s chest, slipping under his shirt. Merlin thought of running his hands through tall summer grass, and of lying in a meadow with sunlight upon him.

Merlin has not slept for two nights and three days. The dry heat of insomnia burns behind his eyelids while he shoves furniture against walls, making room for a large casting circle he must paint on the floor. If Arthur has noticed the shadows beneath his bloodshot eyes, he hasn’t said anything. But then, he’s been busy with preparations for the wedding.

Merlin has been busy with the business of grieving. Sleep has eluded him since the Veil. He’s been awake for weeks at a time, pondering the curse of himself: is it his fault that everyone precious to him dies? Perhaps it would be better if he never loved anyone again. Perhaps he is salt to the earth.

Sometimes, he sobs. Mostly, he lays silent in the dark. And if he’s lucky, the fates take pity on him, and let him collapse without dreaming. Every morning, Merlin climbs from bed with stiff limbs and a full-body ache he cannot cure. This is the nature of how Lancelot left him.

This is madness, he thinks as he kneels down and begins marking the floor. Lancelot is gone.

Still, he has to try. He’ll never forgive himself if he passes up even the slightest chance to have Lancelot back. He needs it more than anything.

So, he makes the casting circle, and enchants it—with a spell out of one of Gaius’s books—to cleanse a soul, and imagines failing because—somehow—that’s easier than imagining success. He imagines a limp body: freed of Morgana’s influence, hollow. Never to wake. What kind of further damage would that do to him? How many months of sleep would it cost? Maybe after that, he’d say to hell with it all, and tell Arthur about his magic. Unrestrained of his secret, he’d set himself loose to hunt Morgana, and force her to answer for all of this pain. It wouldn’t matter, the damage he left in his wake.

Thinking like this scares him.

The paint is mixed according to the book’s recipe: from charred foxglove and blood of the victim’s beloved. Merlin knows with certainty that his will suffice—scarred in his lungs is the grief to prove it.

You are more important than anything, Lancelot said, the night before he was gone. Merlin didn’t hear that for what it was until it was too late.

He’s hiding behind the cupboard door, breathing dust and waiting for Lancelot to return from the post-tourney feast and dance. Gaius is in the lower town, and will be for a while, seeing to a dying man whose passing is likely to be difficult. Merlin is glad not to be observed; he can’t explain how—attempting this—he feels like some sharp-toothed beast lashing out in preparation to lick its wounds.

Footsteps, in the corridor. The door creaks, and swings inward, disturbing the air.

Lancelot enters, unaware that he isn’t alone.

It’s not him, Merlin thinks. It’s not.

Yet his stride is unchanged. Merlin remembers walking the woods with him, collecting herbs while samaras landed in Lancelot’s hair. He looks so himself that after all those weeping black nights, the sight still stops Merlin’s heart. He’s lovely in the broad curve of his shoulders, and the easy line of his back. Merlin watches him through the crack in the door, and could mark every place he used to hold.

When Lancelot notices the circle on the floor, he kneels down and examines it—putting his fingers on the spelled line of Merlin’s blood. Merlin imagines Lancelot reaching inside him and plucking at his veins.

Now is his chance, and his mouth is dry; his palms are clammy. Come back to me, he thinks, and braces himself. He summons his magic, a powerful trick. Merlin shoves the door open—it collides with the wall in a BANG!

“Adwæscan!” Merlin shouts, whipping his hand out. To extinguish.

Magic surges forward in a flash of freezing air, groaning floor boards, and pots rattling. It collides with Lancelot’s torso, dousing every firing impulse of his mind, and he jerks bodily before dropping into the circle. A puppet with cut strings.

“I might not get this right,” Merlin said. “I don’t… want you to be disappointed.”

He’d never had, or been had, by anyone. Had never opened himself over sheets. Lancelot was the one with some experience, and Merlin was afraid he would be underwhelming. Awkward. Embarrassing.

“I won’t be,” Lancelot replied.

Merlin had shimmied up the bed, relaxing against the pillows and the headboard. And Lancelot was between his legs, loosening the laces of his trousers. He caught Merlin’s eye as he tugged at them, and something about him must have been a sight, for Lancelot went all disarmed. His eyes softened; he sighed, pleased.

Oh, Merlin thought, I’m adored.

Soon, his trousers were off, then his smalls. They shed the rest of their clothes, unhurried. Merlin traced curious fingers up Lancelot’s chest—circling thin, dark curls. As the physician’s assistant, he knew bodies. But experiencing one like this was entirely new.

Lancelot got back on top of him once they were undressed, and they locked against each other: skin to skin. Legs tangled; Lancelot put his mouth on the peak of Merlin’s nipple. Heat pooled in his belly as Lancelot’s insistent tongue wet places he hadn’t known were sensitive. His hand slid down to Merlin’s inner thigh, then inward through rough hair, finding his arousal, stroking him as he stiffened.

“Lancelot…” he gasped.

He knew Lancelot’s hands to be firm, but he hadn’t expected them to be so deft. Lancelot fetched oil, and his fondling became slick and eased. Merlin groaned, and Lancelot grasped him with the same reverence he would pay a sword’s hilt.

As Merlin approaches him, he has a single electrified breath to realize something is wrong. Lancelot—supposed to be utterly senseless—wakes. His body jerks, instantly re-strung, and he kicks—taking Merlin’s legs out at ankle and calf.

Merlin goes down; his hip and elbow slam into the floor, and he wheezes in pain. From somewhere, steel rings. A sword. Lancelot’s—

He throws himself to the side as Lancelot rises and comes at him with the blunt, heavy pommel. He thinks in abstract alarm—heft into speed into bone into blood—and dodges just in time. The pommel misses his forehead, but the blade gets his cheek and draws a jagged, hot line of blood. Merlin cries out in pain, clapping his hand to the wound.

Now Lancelot is on his feet and Merlin is half-supine. The cut is deep.

Lancelot lunges for him, and Merlin jerks away, colliding with the legs of the table he moved earlier. Several fragile glass bottles roll off the edge and smash on the floor next to Merlin’s head. He flinches as cool liquid splatters against his face.

And he is crushed as Lancelot descends on him, re-situating his blade, straddling Merlin’s twisted position and restricting his lungs. The sword shaves up against Merlin’s throat and he goes rigid, shoving his hand against Lancelot’s wrist to force the blade away.

I’m not going to die like this, he thinks, straining. Not like this. Not like this.

A strange voice in him answers, at least it feels familiar.

And that’s right, isn’t it? Lancelot’s weight on him, his smell. The exact circumference of his wrist—how many times has Merlin clutched bits of him? But his face—it’s wrong. Even in struggle, the shade’s face is vacant. It makes Merlin furious, for something to wear his image dispassionately. The true Lancelot burns: with desire, with conviction. The true Lancelot is hopelessly expressive.

But Merlin is losing the contest of brute strength. Not like this. Not like this.

If he does die by these hands, Merlin thinks feverishly, he hopes the shade will have the decency to make it feel at least half-sweet.

When Lancelot’s fingers breached him, Merlin lost his breath. The pressure was blunt; too much, it nearly hurt, before it settled into a bone-deep, aching right. It felt right. Then, friction. Lancelot dragged his fingers out and it was like nothing Merlin had ever known. He gasped, and Lancelot’s fingers went back in, sharper this time, setting him shivering.

He made another noise—a wavering, helpless moan.

Nothing was like this: not his own hand, not dreams. All the while, Lancelot continued stroking his hard length. Merlin was gasping; his hips shifting back and forth. He needed more and faster.

Within him, Lancelot found some trick angle, and Merlin’s entire body tensed, before relaxing into a new bout of trembling. He cried out, straining up to put his mouth somewhere on Lancelot’s skin. His chin, his neck, his shoulder—anything would do.

“More…” Merlin begged, clutching at the back of Lancelot’s neck. “More… more…”

He tilts his head back, trying to escape the blade. His cheek is bleeding profusely and it runs down his face, into his eye. It’s the stinging, red pain that ignites him.

Merlin yells, and his chest thump-THUMPS, and his magic acts independent of thought. It seizes the entire length of Lancelot’s sword, wrapping the weapon in his arcane will, feeding its craft into his senses. Merlin tastes metal, and clove-oil polish—a strange, erotic sense memory—and flings the sword across the room without moving. As it goes, it cuts another line across his chin.

Lancelot tracks it, then turns back to Merlin and punches him hard in the face. He doesn’t expect the brutal pain. Someone screams; a second later, Merlin realizes it was him. His nose wells with blood. Lancelot punches him again.

Before he can recover, hands close around his neck.

Panic hits him like a battering ram. His mouth drops open, and lines of blood snake from his cheek and nose onto his lips, and he tastes copper, and chokes as it drips straight down, hitting his gag reflex, but air won’t come. And pressure builds in the space behind his nose, but air won’t come. And his cut chin slicks the space between Lancelot’s fingers, but air won’t come. Only his empty lungs prevent him from screaming again.

Lancelot examines him sedately. Merlin remembers watching him do up a shirt once, with the same expression. He’s disgusted; enraged.

She’s using him, he thinks again. Not like this! Not like this!

With strength he didn’t know he possessed, aided by his magic and his wrath, Merlin jabs his knee upward into the meat of Lancelot’s body, and flips them over. He slams Lancelot’s head into the ground. Creature or not, this dazes him.

Merlin drags them both the extra inch, into the casting circle. His wrestling isn’t clean or skilful as he puts knee to spine, fist to wrist, and leans over with everything he has to keep Lancelot held down.

He nearly forgets the incantation.

No. No, it’s there. It is. He remembers. He opens his mouth, and the words come: the spell to free this soot-tagged body. Merlin chokes them out through his ragged, air-starved throat.

Sweet-slick pleasure mounted in waves, synchronized to his breathing. Lancelot’s two fingers moved in and out, coaxing him closer to the edge. At tempo, Merlin’s toes curled and uncurled. Tensing, gasping. Lancelot was inside him and all over him, looking down in naked adoration; Merlin had never been so vulnerable. Trying for words, he only managed to moan.

“Ohhh…!” he sobbed. “I’m—I’m—!”

“I’ve got you, love,” Lancelot said. “Yes.”

Merlin whimpered and shook; his knees fell apart, and he arched up with a cry: his body like a banner—high, waving. Snapping and then unfurling in the wind.

Once it’s done, Lancelot lies corpse-still. It’s a sight so horrific that Merlin nearly faints: he looks dead. And Merlin thinks, oh god, I’ve killed him. His vision swims.

It isn’t a decision, feeling his way to the short stairs by his bedroom door. His body is weak. He slumps against the steps, the heels of his hands pressed over his eyes, his skin turning numb.

He stays like this until the ringing in his ears stops.

Blood dries on his face: his gashed cheek needs stitches; his nose is clogged. The entire front of his neck is flaking crimson. But Merlin only holds very still in the middle of these ransacked chambers, surrounded by broken things. He waits for Lancelot to breathe.

Perhaps an hour passes. Perhaps two.

At last, he does: first ragged and thin, and then deep. As if dreaming. Lancelot twitches in his sleep, then settles. Slowly, Merlin raises his head and watches Lancelot’s shoulders move like a hesitant tide on the shores of a lake.

He hears footsteps approaching. Perhaps Gaius. Perhaps Arthur.

He still cannot move, so he looks at the man here on the floor, and prays:

Please come back to me.

“You were wonderful,” Lancelot said. “That was wonderful.”

Merlin was splayed out, mind buzzing blankly. Instead of speaking, he reached up and ran his hands over Lancelot’s smooth, muscled back. Outside, the window took up a light pattering: the first fresh water all week. The sound was a surprise—he’d forgotten that the rest of the world existed outside of this room.

“May I say something?” said Lancelot, as Merlin blinked at him: slow, lax, elated. “You look beautiful like this.”

Never so content as now, Merlin felt himself smile, and closed his eyes to the sound of the rain.

#merlance #mercelot #merlin fic #ynnealay's fic #mercelotweek2025 #Mercelot week

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not-rome · 4 days ago

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Burn My Heart (Fill My Dreams) by augustulus (2.3k words)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Lancelot/Merlin (Merlin)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence; Heavy Angst

Summary:

Lancelot begins dreaming of Merlin.

For @mercelotweek day 4: "i will be the greatest loss of your life."

#bbc merlin #merlin #merlin emrys #mercelot #merlance #lancelot #my writing #mercelot week 2025

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beeaatrix · 5 days ago

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a habit to kick; the age-old curse (788 words) by bumblebearr Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Merlin (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Lancelot/Merlin (Merlin), Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), (implied)

Summary: Day 5: “what about me?” + the darkest hour AU Gwen is utterly alone. She knows, now, that everyone who ever loved her chose someone, or something, over her. Morgana? Vengeance. Arthur? Camelot. And Merlin and Lancelot? Each other.

work under the cut!

@mercelotweek

The second the bells ring out, reverberating through what must be the entire kingdom, Gwen is running out of the palace, her feet pitter-pattering on the cobblestones like harsh rain or hail on a hot, dry day. The king has arrived, they cry. Arthur, sings her heart. And—if God is so willing—Lancelot.

Except—

There is no crown of wheat offset by shining blue eyes to greet her. She skids to a stop, like her heart, nearly tripping over herself. No.

She searches desperately through the crowd surrounding the knights, cataloguing them like they are items in her father's smithy. Elyan is there, his eyes solemn, searching for—her. Their eyes meet, and his shoulders slump: relief, or sorrow? Gwaine is there too, Percival towering over behind him, his eyes devoid of their usual levity. Her hands raise to her mouth. The ground shifts beneath her feet, her breathing coming quick and shallow. At the front is Lancelot (thank God, her mind whispers, unbidden, because despite all attempts, she has never quite been able to forget how he looked at her when he first arrived in Camelot), holding Merlin, clinging to him like guilt and fear and misery clung to her when her father died and clings to her now.

She can make out Elyan, a blur of deep brown hickory-wood and silver and red, shoving through his brothers-in-arms to get to her, his arms thrust in front of him to catch her. His arms make their way around her midsection, and she clings to him, catching a glimpse of Merlin and Lancelot again.

Elyan rubs his gloved hands in circles over her back and murmurs what must be words of comfort at her, as if she is some kind of livestock, but Gwen can only focus on the way Lancelot holds Merlin tightly; the intimacy in their gazes as she watches their faces, Lancelot pulling Merlin's up to hold his jaw gently and softly stroke over his cheek

(and she swears she can feel the soft lambskin of Arthur's glove tracing over her cheekbone and the other thumbing the base of her neck, gentle, soft, loving)

and put a thumb to the base of his neck. Gwen has seen this before; Gwen has been here before.

This is the moment: she can tell, now, that everyone who has ever loved her chose someone, something, over her. Morgana? Vengeance. Arthur? Camelot.

Merlin and Lancelot? Each other.

She watches them kiss from underneath Elyan's arm, her mouth frozen in an O. Her eyes are wide open. It is a short kiss, a chaste kiss, but God knows—Gwen knows—what kind of intimacy a chaste kiss can hold; the softness of it, the slow dance of it: nothing like a kiss for taking, nothing so desperate, nothing so consuming.

A chaste kiss is love; she knows this from Arthur, who loved her more than anything except for his kingdom.

What about me? she wants to scream, taking in deep, gasping breaths. She had thought—she had thought that Lancelot had felt something of the same for her; that at least if Arthur were gone, she could have someone who would understand the kind of longing she would always feel.

She'd seen, then, the kind of horridness of the thought: to settle, for someone like Lancelot? Honourable and noble and perfect, with no flaws; loyal to a fault. He deserved better.

And he'd found better, she thinks to herself, hysterical. This was better, wasn't it? Lancelot and Merlin, the two best people she knew, and they were in love.

This is the moment: she can tell, now, that she will never live out the dream of a loud home; she will never live out the dream of wining and dining with friends and whomever she loved. Perhaps they'll commission her for something for their wedding. Hand-fasting?

She won't braid flowers into Morgana's hair as she and Arthur argue over something stupid, just to hear the sounds of their voices, swelling in dissonant harmony. She won't kiss Merlin when he invites her out for herb-gathering and they get distracted or he's running late to serve Arthur and she distracts him with a mission to steal pies. She won't kiss Arthur before he leaves for a battle, a hunt, a war, a patrol; he won't promise her that he will come back to her. Because he hasn't. He has left her behind like all sense has.

There will be no looking at his endearing crooked tooth, revealing itself from the chapped pink lips in its imperfect joy. He has gone from her and the world.

The ring on her finger sits heavy as she realises they never even got married.

#arwen (bbcm)#bbc merlin #bbc gwen #bbc lancelot #bbc elyan #the darkest hour #au #lancelot lives #mercelotweek2025 #trying something new soon #(mercelot)#this time not straying out of my comfort zone #(arwen angst)#see you soon happy endings ... hurt/comfort ... i'm coming my darlings #it's been so long

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