merlinity

Title: Beltane
Author: Harlequin
Universe: Merlin
Characters featured: Merlin/Gaius
Category, Word count: Short story; 4260 words
Rating: R
Summary: Gaius hasn’t seen Merlin since the aftermath of Camlann, and misses him dreadfully, but the Beltane celebrations bring a number of visitors to Camelot along with the promise of renewed life.

Notes: For riventhorn, in humble gratitude for the beautiful story Ember Day, and also for isisanubis and moonflower999. I love that you all love these two men as much as I do.

With humble apologies to those who know far more about Beltane and all things medieval than I do. I’m afraid I went with the show’s example of wantonly borrowing and adapting only what suited the story.

Fic on AO3: click here

Title: The Man I Love
Author: slashweaver
Beta: isisanubis
Rating: NC17
Universe: Merlin (modern day AU)
Pairing: Gaius/Merlin (and Arthur/Gwen)
Word count: 9967 words
Warnings/Enticements: As you'll see from the prompt, this is almost but not quite parent-child incest. It is also a May-December romance.

Summary: To quote the prompt: Merlin grew up raised by Gaius, not knowing he wasn’t his father, until the day his magic manifested and Gaius explained everything. Suddenly, those feelings Merlin’s been having aren’t quite so wrong…

Notes: This was written for the untold_legends 2014 challenge. Thank you to emjayelle for running it! It's been a real pleasure to take part.
And with many thanks to the awesome isisanubis for the lovely prompt. ♥

Fic at AO3: click here

Title: Seven Steps
Author: Harlequin aka slashweaver
Artists: The awesome tindu for the art, and the wonderful gealach_ros for the graphics.
Betas: The amazing asifidletyou, with admirable support from altocello and cinnatart on technical matters; Thank you, all! Remaining infelicities and misguided choices are alas my own.
Pairings/characters: Merlin/Gaius, with a full supporting cast of Alice, Arthur, Erika (OFC), Freya, Gwen, Hunith, Lance, Leon, Morgana, Teague (OMC), and sundry others
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 36,400
Warnings: Includes a secondary character death, as per canon. Also involves, as will be obvious, a significant age difference between the two lovers.
Summary: Merlin is an art student, working as an orderly at a Pendragon Care care home during the summer break; he falls in love with Gaius, one of the (temporary) residents. The feeling is mutual, but such an unexpected relationship is never going to be easy to establish when both men feel so diffident about their claims on each other. And that's before taking into account the mutual antipathy between Merlin and Gaius's beloved godson Arthur, not to mention a surprising addition to Merlin's family, and Merlin's grief over his best friend Freya being institutionalised…
Author's notes: This all grew out of a Gaius/Merlin prompt on kinkme_merlin: 'When Merlin signs up to be a summer volunteer at the local old age home, he never once expected to meet the great love of his life there.' My first thought was, 'Ooh! I could do that.' Then I dreamt up Pendragon Care, and Gaius's relationship with Uther and Arthur. And then… Well. All this happened!
♦ I would very much like to thank everyone who encouraged me along the way, and I'm especially grateful to my artists and betas. It's just wonderful that so many of you feel kindly towards this rare pair! And really, as a writer, I feel I have an embarrassment of riches in collaborators here…
♦ A special thank you is also due to the_muppet for organising yet another brilliant paperlegends challenge!
Artist's notes: Coming soon!
Story link: Read it at our Seven Steps website, or on AO3. Both of those are broken into chapters; if you want it all on one page, read it at my fic website.
Art link: art by tindu
Graphics link: graphics by gealach_ros
Disclaimer: We do not own these characters, and are only taking the liberty of playing with them for a time…