Fic: Four times Morgana got too hot, and one time Arthur cooled her down.

[gnimaerd]

Title:  Four times Morgana got too hot, and one time Arthur cooled her down.
Rating:  NC-17
Pairing:  Arthur/Morgana
Warnings: post-coital nudity
Summary:  Arthur and Morgana growing up.

Notes: written for the merlin_rarepair  'five things' challenge; beta-ed by clanne . This one's almost 5,000 words long - got a tad carried away... XP

 

Four times Morgana got too hot – and one time Arthur cooled her down:

 

1. Fever:

 

Morgana was ten years old, and the fever currently gnawing at her bones was making her shake.

 

The journey from her father’s lands to Camelot had been a long one, and she had not been in the best of health when she had set off – a head cold that she hadn’t had the heart to fight in the terrible aftermath of her father’s death, now tearing through her body like an angry bull.

 

Upon arriving, she had immediately been put to bed, the physician dosing her up with ice water and rosehip tea and creamy porridge too rich for her to stomach without retching. She lay in the great big bed in the great big room she’d been given, glaring stubbornly at the ceiling, shivering and sickly and hating them all – hoping, vindictively, that she would die and make everyone suffer for dragging her from her home to this strange place.

 

The physician would not let her have more than one blanket and insisted on keeping the windows of the room open, even as she trembled. For all she insisted that she was freezing to death, he reassured her that she was, in fact, far too hot, and that she needed to be cooled for the shivering to stop.

 

Morgana sincerely doubted it. But he had threatened to put her into an ice bath if her fever did not break soon – even if Morgana had no intention of letting him do any such thing.

 

The door to her great big room opened, and Arthur Pendragon put his head round, to stare at her.

 

He’d been doing that on and off all day. It was beginning to become annoying – Morgana did not like being treated like some kind of exhibit. Why didn’t he come in and say something, for goodness sake? Was he struck dumb? Like a dog or a baby?

 

She couldn’t remember ever hearing anything to that effect about the prince, but she also couldn’t remember much about him at all – the last time she’d seen him she’d been much younger than she was now.

 

She glared at him anyway, hoping to drive him off through sheer force of will.

 

But the boy didn’t disappear again, like he had the previous few times he’d put his head round the door. He slipped inside instead, and lingered for a moment, before striding purposefully across the room, his head held high, his little shoulders squared.

 

Morgana thought him very short; his round, moon-face set in a look of comical determination.

 

He was holding a doll by its skirt, the cloth legs dangling lewdly in midair, as he stood next to her bed, and stared at her.

 

Morgana stared back, unintimidated.

 

“Father said you’d play with me,” the young prince began, abruptly.

 

Morgana rolled her eyes. “I’m sick.”

 

“Yes, well.” Arthur grimaced, as if she’d contrived to be ill purely to disadvantage him. “Why are you shivering? Gaius says you’re too hot.”

 

“I feel too cold,” Morgana replied, “and they will not give me another blanket. I’m going to die.”

 

“Oh,” Arthur blinked. “Well, I’m to give you this.” He held out the doll, expectantly. Morgana made no move to take it from him. She was too tired to reach out for it and she had no interest in engaging him.

 

Thwarted, Arthur grimaced again, then, leaning over the bed, dropped the doll unceremoniously onto her chest.

 

Morgana didn’t bother to thank him.

 

He seemed about to leave, when he paused again, frowning at her. Then began, “don’t die. It would be very silly of you, you know. You can’t come back.”

 

“I know,” Morgana rolled her eyes, peeved, “that’s the point. I’ll go to heaven and be with my father again.”

 

Arthur gave her a long, sceptical look. “If you die on purpose you’ll go to hell for killing yourself, and that wouldn’t do you any good at all.” He paused again, then reached out and awkwardly patted the top of her head. “Don’t die, Morgana.”

 

And then he strode back out of the room, and closed the door behind him.

 

 

2. Sparring:

 

There was sweat trickling down Morgana’s back, her tunic sticking to her flesh, damp patches blooming under the pits of her arms. She exhaled, heavily, narrowing her eyes to points to keep the sweat from oozing past her eyelashes.

 

“Not tiring are you, Morgana?” Arthur’s grin was insufferably cheerful – although Morgana knew that he was fairing no better. His fringe was plastered to his forehead, his shoulders twitching with discomfort beneath the heavy leather jacket he was too proud to remove.

 

It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but the friction of muscles flexing and skin shifting – taughtening, loosening, clenching and folding – beneath cloth as they sparred, meant that they were both on the verge of reaching the limit of what they could bare in terms of body heat.

 

That, as much as anything else, was exhausting.

 

Morgana whirled her sword, testing what remained of her strength. For all Arthur had sprouted several inches this year and finally piled on a great deal of muscle to help hold aloft his ballooning ego, she was still perfectly capable of beating him. She was lighter on her feet than he was, and far more agile.

 

The problem was that as he grew, he was learning to overcome her through sheer brute force – which, increasingly, she simply couldn’t match him for. What had started off as pudge when he was a little boy had become a heavy, sturdy, square frame on which to hang his strength as he’d hit adolescence. It was only a matter of time before, no matter how quick she was, she would be unable to best him on the practice field.

 

Besides, Uther had hardly been approving of her handling weaponry when they’d begun to spare as children. Now that she was nearing her sixteenth birthday he was making it clear that he would not tolerate such behaviour from her for much longer.

 

She ought to be seeking out a suitable husband, not whacking Camelot’s prince around a practice field – in breeches, no less.

 

Arthur came at her again, sword raised – Morgana ducked, dancing easily away.

 

“Can you not try any harder than that, Arthur? I’m getting bored, you know.”

 

“Hah,” Arthur spat, thrusting his hair out of his eyes again. “I’d rather go a little easier on you, you know – shouldn’t want you to over exert your delicate little self.”

 

“Whatever you say, sire,” she bowed, mockingly – then promptly leapt backwards to avoid another blow.

 

Whirling about the practice yard for perhaps another ten minutes, each found themselves unable to ever quite gain the advantage. Sweat pooling beneath her breasts and at the nape of her neck, Morgana finally lost patience and, without pausing as she knocked Arthur back again, hauled both tunic and shirt together off over her head.

 

She was left only in the shift she wore beneath her clothes, and breeches – instantly, beautifully cool – but also, she realised, a moment later, rather indecently exposed. The shift was not the most substantial of garments to begin with, and it was now sodden with sweat and clinging to her in a number of extremely inconvenient places. The fine linen was not leaving much of her chest to the imagination.

 

Arthur had stopped dead, his eyes turning to the size of saucers in his head as he stared at her – but Morgana only raised her chin, proudly defiant.

 

“Come on, Arthur,” she dropped back into a ready position, “else you’ll have to forfeit.”

 

Arthur’s expression rearranged itself into one of extreme consternation, but he said nothing – pausing only long enough to finally shrug off his jacket.

 

A final, desperately chaotic round ensued, as Morgana realised that, at last, she had her opponent off-balance. Arthur was distracted, fumbling parries and twice nearly dropping his sword as Morgana drove him back across the yard until he finally lost his footing and fell, Morgana leaping onto his chest and pressing the tip of her blade to his jugular.

 

“Yield!” She demanded, triumphant.

 

Arthur grimaced, “that’s not fair!”

 

“Yes it is!” Morgana took the blade from his throat and delivered him a quick poke in the ribs instead, “I’ve beaten you, Arthur Pendragon, and you can’t say otherwise.”

 

Arthur screwed up his face and jerked beneath her, “get off me.”

 

“Say I’ve beaten you.”

 

“You haven’t – ”

 

“Say it!” Morgana gave him another poke.

 

“Ow!” Arthur struggled to sit up, “fine, fine – you’ve beaten me – whatever you want to believe. You still cheated though.”

 

“How could I possibly be cheating?” Morgana demanded.

 

“With – those,” Arthur pointed at her chest, “how am I meant to concentrate if they’re flying everywhere?”

 

“I beg your pardon?” Morgana folded her arms, disguising sudden self-consciousness with outrage. “You can’t be much of a warrior, Arthur, if just the mere suggestion of… of my chest is going to set you so off-kilter!”

 

Arthur finally succeeded in jerking her off him, sitting upright and looking distinctly sulky. “It’s still cheating,” he muttered, resentfully, as he clambered back onto his feet.

 

Morgana rolled her eyes, “you’re such a baby.”

 

And then she slipped her shirt back on to cover herself, abruptly far too aware of the way that he had been looking at her. He’d never looked at her that way before – not like he did some of the older girls at court. It felt… well, she didn’t know how it felt – but she didn’t like it one bit.

 

 

3. Ambush

 

It was a muggy day in late summer, the air thick with warmth, muted just enough by heavy cloud to make it bearable, but nonetheless a sticky, awkward, clinging kind of heat.

 

They were riding through the forest just outside of Camelot, when Morgana became abruptly aware of something wrong.

 

They were a large party – Uther up ahead, herself and Arthur a little behind, all surrounded by guards. She was eighteen, Arthur seventeen, having accompanied Uther on a diplomatic mission south to Cornwall and now returning. No one was particularly expecting trouble here – they were nearly home, after all, and if they were going to encounter someone hostile surely they were more likely to strike on the open road, further from Camelot, where help was less available and escape harder.

 

But Morgana felt a prickle of warning travel up her spine – followed by a wave of heat enough to make her feel, for a moment, light-headed – before the first of their ambusher’s leapt from the tree-line onto the road.

 

There was a screaming hoard of them – a gang of men that at least matched their group for numbers if it didn’t outnumber them completely – all brandishing swords, axes, darts and – Morgana felt her stomach turn over – wands.

 

And before she really had time to process what was happening, they were being attacked, and she was suddenly, desperately aware that she – being a woman – was the only member of their party without a weapon with which to defend herself. She had a knife tucked into one of her boots but it would do her precious little good in this situation. The most she could do was keep her head low and try to control her horse in the sudden chaos.

 

There were people screaming and blood flying and horses panicking and Morgana couldn’t make out who was winning through the maelstrom. She yelped as somebody grabbed her leg and kicked the would-be assailant away, felt a sudden sharp pain as she realised an arrow had grazed her left shoulder and hit her horse.

 

The animal shrieked in pain and reared, very nearly bucking Morgana off.

 

“Morgana!” Arthur, his face ashen, his sword raised, was urging his own mount towards her, “hold on!”

 

Morgana kicked away another attacker but could not quite dislodge the masked stranger, his blade raised ready to plunge into her thigh. She shrieked, the blind panic of the moment – oh dear Christ I’m about to be stabbed – making her instinctively reach for the nearest person capable of helping her. “Arthur!”

 

In one terrible, fluid movement Arthur brought his sword down into the back of her attacker’s neck, blood erupting forth with shocking force as the man crumpled away. Without pausing to see the result of his work, the prince threw his free arm about Morgana’s waist and dragged her from her wounded horse onto his own, depositing her sideways in front of him.

 

“I have you!” he was trembling, which Morgana did not find particularly reassuring.

 

She clung to him anyway, very much aware that he was currently the only thing between her and a possibly fatal attack. A knife to the leg didn’t sound like much but she knew as well as any knight that a lot of blood ran through the thigh – a well-placed blade there could be deadly, and clearly their assailants knew it. She had never felt so completely defenceless in her life and she was not enjoying the sensation.

 

“Arthur! Get her out of here!” Uther was shouting to his son over the uproar.

 

“Father – ” Arthur shook his head.

 

“Run, Arthur!” Uther’s command would brook no argument, and even as Morgana grabbed at Arthur’s shirt –

 

“Don’t – Arthur – we should fight – ”

 

The prince was already turning his horse, seeking the weakest point in the wall of fighters their assailants had set up around them. Morgana could only duck low against his horse as arrows zipped past her head and she felt something slice at her ankle – and then they were out the other side, the horse scrambling up the bank and into the trees.

 

Arthur kicked their mount into a gallop, taking them through the forest at a rate fast enough to make Morgana’s heart pitch in her chest. Trees, shrubbery, a startled deer all rushed past them, the world becoming a sickening blur, Morgana’s skin hot with fear – sure that she could feel Arthur’s heart hammering in his chest through his clothes. She chanced a quick glance round him, back the way they had come, but could see no sign that they were being followed.

 

“Arthur!” She gave his shirt a tug, “stop!”

 

Arthur did not appear to have heard her. His gaze was distant, his expression set. Morgana, more worryingly, could feel herself slipping – she was not in the best position to maintain her balance and the violent pace of their journey was not making it easier for her to hang on.

 

“Arthur!” She delivered a punch to his shoulder, “slow down!”

 

That seemed to awaken him somewhat and he blinked, finally pulling his steed back into a canter.

 

“Where are we going?” Morgana asked, glancing about her.

 

“I…” Arthur drew in breath, “I don’t know. We should – we should head back to Camelot.”

 

“I think we should stop for a moment,” Morgana advised, “there’s something wrong with my ankle and you look like you’re about to be sick.”

 

“I’m not going to be sick,” Arthur grimaced, but he stopped the horse, sliding off and then helping her down – for there was indeed something wrong with her ankle. A sword had sliced right through one of her boots and into the flesh, delivering a painful wound – although, thankfully, it did not appear to be particularly deep, despite the copious amounts of blood that it was shedding.

 

Morgana sat on the damp earth, still sweating profusely, peeling her boot from her foot and gazing distastefully at her bloody ankle.

 

“That’s going to scar.”

 

Arthur took one look at the wound and had to turn aside and stumble away. Morgana listened to him retching in the bushes, deciding it wiser not to comment.

 

He returned after a moment, wiping his mouth, his face the colour of blank parchment, his eyes bloodshot. He was shaking worse than she was, still.

 

“I – um…” he looked at his blood-spattered sword, where he’d dropped it next to his horse, “I should…”

 

Morgana glanced at him stoically. “You’ve never killed anyone before, have you?”

 

The prince only shook his head, mutely.

 

The silence of the forest was deafening. They couldn’t even hear the battle that must still be raging perhaps a quarter of a mile away – the dense foliage had seen to that.

 

There was very little sunlight here – only a deep, humid heat, from the very earth itself, perhaps. The hot day beyond the forest permeating the undergrowth enough to make the damp ground begin to steam a little, if not shed any real light.

 

The shock of the attack, the fright and the heat were enough to make Morgana aware that she was sticky – that she smelled horribly of sweat. The hair on the nape of her neck was plastered there.

 

Arthur was standing still, gazing blankly at the forest floor, absently chewing his lip.

 

He glanced up, abruptly. “It was so easy.”

 

His expression creased around the words, as if they tasted wrong in his mouth.

 

“Come,” Morgana held out a hand to him, quietly.

 

So he came and sat down next to her on the earth – and would not put his head on her shoulder until she tentatively placed a hand upon the back of his neck, and insistently pulled him closer.

 

There they stayed in silence, sitting in the damp heat, listening to the hushed forest, until Uther and his men came to find them, half an hour later.

 

4. Heat Wave

 

Morgana could not remember a summer so hot in any of her twenty one years. She was stretched out on the cool, smooth surface of her writing table – because the bed retained too much of her body heat – wearing the lightest of her linen dresses, gently sweltering in the midday heat.

 

Gwen was asleep on the hearth rug – Morgana had insisted that she lie down and rest a while, for the heat made working a great deal more difficult than usual, and, unsurprisingly, the maid had been knocked into a stupefied slumber not long after. Morgana didn’t blame her. There was little else to do at this temperature but find the shadiest spot available and doze until the evening and some reprieve arrived.

 

She was exhausted and she had had to do no more than attend breakfast with Uther that morning; poor Gwen had been scrubbing floors, mending dresses and washing windows.

 

Beyond her chambers, she heard a distant clatter – and then a string of what were probably expletives, rendered incomprehensible by the wood of her door. She allowed herself an amused smile as she recognised Arthur and Merlin’s voices – now most likely raised in argument. Then, seeing Gwen begin to stir, she slid off the writing table to her feet. She would not have them waking her friend.

 

“Arthur!” She made sure to firmly close the door to her chambers behind her, before leaning over the landing at the top of the flight of stairs that led to her rooms.

 

Arthur and Merlin were below her, in the middle of a spilled pool of armour.

 

“Hush!” She put a finger to her lips.

 

Arthur glanced up, and rolled his eyes. “So sorry to be disturbing your afternoon nap, my lady.”

“It’s not my nap I’m worried about,” Morgana retorted, “Gwen’s asleep – she needs to rest and if you wake her I shall have to think of something very unpleasant to do to the pair of you.”

 

Arthur still looked somewhat peeved, but both did seem at least a little more cooperative. When it came to Gwen, of course, they always were.

 

“I was only explaining to Merlin the necessity of not flinging my armour around the castle like so much scrap metal,” Arthur informed her.

 

Morgana descended the steps towards them – saw the angry tension in Merlin’s shoulders, and the way Arthur’s knuckles had whitened around a breastplate. The weather was certainly shortening tempers as well as stamina, and the boys tended to bicker like old wives at the best of times.

 

She sighed, and gently eased the breast plate out of Arthur’s hands, calmly handing it to Merlin.

 

“I’m sure he didn’t drop it intentionally, Arthur.”

 

“Well that’s besides the point – ”

 

“Arthur,” Morgana put a calculated hand on his chest, “such petty arguments are below you.”

 

Arthur glanced down, abruptly, then took a deep breath and exhaled.

 

“She’s right – Merlin – just… take the armour to my chambers and try not to drop it again, alright?”

 

Merlin hastily began gathering up the rest of the polished metal, “yes, my lord.” He cast Morgana a grateful look and then hurried away – although no sooner had he rounded the corner than yet another almighty crash followed.

 

“Merlin – ” Arthur made as if to storm after the hapless manservant, but Morgana grabbed his arm.

 

“Arthur – Arthur, leave him,” she gave him a gentle tug, “let him get on with it – he hardly needs you shouting at him to know he shouldn’t be dropping your armour. The heat will be making his hands slippery – he probably can’t hold onto it properly. Come on – accompany me to the library.”

 

Arthur did not look particularly happy, but allowed himself to be led away.

 

They walked arm in arm down the corridor that led to the castle’s east wing. The air here was no less stifling than it was everywhere else – Morgana could feel sweat trickling down her back, and could smell it clinging in Arthur’s shirt.

 

“How are you faring?” He enquired of her, after a while, “in this heat?”

 

“Well enough,” Morgana shrugged, “you?”

 

“It’s tiresome,” Arthur grimaced, “you can’t do anything in weather like this. I haven’t managed to get onto the practice field in days.”

 

“You poor thing,” Morgana cooed, just a little mockingly.

 

Arthur gave her a disparaging glance and then drew them to a stop. They were standing in front of a stained glass window – depicting the battle between a knight and a dragon – casting a rainbow of soft, silken colours over the floor and Arthur’s face. Here they drew apart, as much because of the heat making proximity unbearable than because of anything else.

 

“Father wants to marry you off,” he said it abruptly, not looking at her.

 

Morgana snorted, “what else is new?”

 

“He wants you married off soon,” Arthur emphasised, “I mean within the next year, Morgana.”

“And what would he plan to do with me after that? Put me in a nunnery?” Morgana allowed her lips to curl into a feline smile.

 

Arthur did not look amused, “I’m serious, Morgana. He’s talking about betrothing you to that Mercian lord he was in trade talks with last year. He’s worried that if you wait much longer you’ll be too old to easily find a husband for.”

 

“And what a tragedy that would be,” Morgana made a face.

 

 

“I think he’s worried about letting you stay in the castle much longer,” Arthur ran a hand through his hair, “that business with Gwen’s father and you… spending a night in the dungeon – and then all those nightmares and you getting hysterical when I was hurt… he’s worried it’s because you’re…”

 

“Allowing my womanly frustrations about still being a maiden to come to the fore?” Morgana suggested, coolly. “Please, Arthur.”

 

“I’m not saying I agree,” Arthur waved a hand, “just that that is where father’s mind has travelled recently, so just… be careful. If he tries to introduce you to any strange lords…”

 

“I’ll gird my loins appropriately,” Morgana assured him, with a wry smile.

 

Arthur snorted, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I just thought… you might appreciate the warning.”

 

“I do,” Morgana gave him a gentle nudge, “thank you, Arthur.”

 

“You’re welcome,” Arthur bowed, only a little mockingly.

 

 

5. Cooling Down

 

Morgana squirmed as Arthur moved over her. The sweet lull that always followed a climax was still warm in her veins and she was feeling pleasantly exhausted, but the trailing ends of the heat wave that they were still experiencing were not overly dulled by the night, and the blankets and the passion generated by their tryst meant that she was now uncomfortably hot.

 

She squirmed again, and gently pushed Arthur away from her, struggling to free herself from the sheets.

 

Arthur blinked, looking somewhat bemused. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing,” Morgana murmured, absently rubbing at her eyes, “just… mm – a little too hot.”

 

She yawned, draping one arm over her eyes.

 

Arthur paused for a moment, then leant over her to plant a tender kiss on her throat – her collar bone – the smooth dip in the flesh between her breasts. Morgana roughly combed the fingers of her free hand through his fair hair, feeling where it was damp with sweat, thumbing his brow and jaw bone. He had lain his cheek on her breast, his eyelashes fluttering against the palm of her hand.

 

I love you too, she thought to herself, as she smoothed down his hair. Letting him come to her at night – sit on the end of her bed and mumble something about needing her – letting him slip his hands beneath her nightdress and plant tentative, clumsy kisses all over her face – was far easier than saying out loud what they both knew.

 

“If I ask you to marry me,” he’d murmured, the first time – the evening after she’d intervened between Merlin and he, and he’d warned her of Uther’s current plans for her. They’d been lying together, afterwards, curled tight about each other like petals still wrapped in the flower’s bud, “you’d say no, wouldn’t you?”

 

She hadn’t answered that, either – just kissed his forehead; his warm, wet mouth. He’d kissed her back and not asked her again, for which she was grateful.

 

“I thought father would have you thrown into the dungeons for how you snubbed that lord tonight,” Arthur murmured, currently.

 

Morgana smiled, still stroking his hair. “He’d do no such thing. Besides, he’s out of his mind if he thinks I’d marry someone so terminally dull.”

 

She felt Arthur’s mouth curl into a grin against her breast.

 

“Arthur?”

 

“Mm?”

 

“I wasn’t joking when I said that I was too hot.”

 

“Oh – right,” Arthur propped himself up on his elbows and obligingly rolled off her, “sorry.”

 

“That’s okay.” Morgana idly brushed her fingers over his jaw.

 

Arthur kissed her knuckles, then sighed, heavily, “I hate this weather.”

 

Morgana laughed.

 

They lay in silence for a while, fingers intertwined but otherwise not touching – each listening to the other breath.

 

Arthur was the first to move again, pressing a wet kiss to her neck – and she would have laughed and pushed him off again had he not then done something entirely unexpected and released a soft breath of air onto her damp skin.

 

She opened one eye, bemused. “What are you doing?”

 

His smile was sheepish, “cooling you down?”

 

She snorted, but waved a hand. “Go on, then.”

 

Without a word he ran his tongue from her breast to her collar bone, and blew onto the silvery path he’d left on her flesh – the sensation deliciously cold. Morgana squirmed, settling more comfortably into the mattress as Arthur established a rhythm. She’d always liked his mouth, as a general rule. Where his jaw was proud and his brow stubborn, there was something soft, sweet, funny about his mouth – something of that well-meaning little boy who had brought her a doll and told her not to die when they were children.

 

The feel of it put to such use as it was now was exciting. The muted, moist sound of lips and tongue gliding over skin. The feel of him mouthing the faint bruise on her shoulder where he’d knocked it sparring the other day; breathing gentle sighs over the damp patches he had left on her body. Swirls of air still warm from his chest cutting through the atmosphere already heavy with heat to turn brilliantly icy on her skin.

 

It did not take him long to dip teasingly between her thighs – Morgana inhaled sharply, curling her toes as his tongue grazed over where she was still slick from her last climax.

 

“Arthur…”

 

“Mm?” He glanced up, grin wolfish.

 

Morgana rolled her eyes, reaching down to ruffle his hair. “You’re incorrigible.”

 

“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

 

And then he blew a soft, cold breath onto her clitoris, and Morgana closed her eyes.