#also to clarify uh this is obviously not how i feel personally about arthur!!

[bibuck-saved-me]

it’s a selfish thought and arthur knows it because merlin has spent so much time hiding a vital part of his existence, his very being, all because of arthur. so he presses it down into the deepest recesses of himself and focuses on doing everything he can to support merlin, to give merlin the world he deserves. a world where he is free.

but sometimes, when he’s alone in his room surrounded by his endless responsibilities, he will think to himself, i am nothing.

merlin and the old religion hold him as this once and future king, but no matter what they say, he can’t understand why they think any of this is about him. it was never him. everything he’d done, every accomplishment and fight he’d won had never been his to claim. he was a fraud. he was a lonely king with nothing to his name beyond the blood on his hands, the blood staining his every crevice.

he isn’t the once and future king. he doesn’t deserve any of the praise. he is the moon, a piece of rock in the sky that shines only because of the sun. without the sun, the moon is worthless. without the sun, no one would have ever looked at the moon twice.

arthur had never been proud of his mistakes and his inaction when it came to his father’s slaughter, but he had been proud of the things he had done to keep his kingdom and his people safe and healthy and happy. he has fought and fought and fought only to discover he had never even landed a punch. every knockout, every victory he had held up to hide the ugly nothingness of his true, empty self was never his to hold. with the discovery of merlin’s magic, any worthiness he thought he’d earned had slipped through his fingers like sand through a sieve.

merlin is beautiful and powerful. merlin is a god amongst men, a gift given to this world, given to arthur, and for what?

this prophecy for arthur was always about merlin. he carried the weight, he fought and fought and fought and he won, merlin was the one who had carried this kingdom on his back until they reached the safety of the golden era of the current day.

it’s a selfish thought, to be thinking of himself in relation to merlin’s magic when merlin has suffered every single day because of arthur. and yet, in those moments, he can’t help but wonder why he was born at all, why he was named savior of a group of people who would’ve never died if only he had stayed unmade, a whisper of nothingness in his mother’s womb.

his first breath caused a massacre, a genocide, and yet he was given an angel and a title and a prophecy of greatness he could never actually fulfill.

he would never tell merlin about these thoughts he had. merlin would end up feeling guilty somehow, would carry the weight of arthur’s worthlessness even more by taking on the deserved revulsion arthur had for himself.

no, he couldn’t tell merlin about this. merlin would tell him he was wrong, would try to talk him up and fix it. would use that endless kindness to tell arthur endless stories about his own importance. merlin would shine his sunshine on arthur until arthur forgot he was just a lump of rock. he wouldn’t rest until arthur loved himself, until arthur took all the credit for merlin’s own accomplishments again.

no, he would keep this to himself. he would give merlin the attention and love he deserves. this story isn’t actually about arthur pendragon. it never was.

#idk what this is #anyway #sorry #me? projecting? never #also to clarify uh this is obviously not how i feel personally about arthur!! #i love that man i just wanted to explore how the insecurities we see him have in the show would look post magic reveal #merlin #arthur pendragon #bbc merlin #bbc arthur #merthur #it’s hinted at more than anything though #character study #character introspection #might delete later #ficlet #angst

[timeisacephalopod]

Snapshot

A lil Ned/ Peter AU because these boys don’t get enough love! They’re aged up, so they’re in their twenties rather than teens, but still. Its a celeb AU also- Peter plays Spider-Man instead of being him.

“Oh my god I can’t go out there,” Ned hisses at Michelle. She looks nonplussed but she always looks like that even when there are celebrities here. Ok, there are always celebrities here but Ned doesn’t really care about most of them its just that he happens to be a huge Spider-Man nerd and Peter Parker is the best person he’s ever seen cast as the character. Toby Maguire was a travesty, and Andrew Garfield is pretty but not the perfect fit. Peter Parker though, Ned has never seen someone bring the character to life the way he does. Everything about him is absolutely perfect and now he’s sitting at a table with Tony Stark and okay this is... this...

“Ned, get your head out of your ass, he’s in your section,” Michelle tells him.

“You’ve got this!” Liz tells him over the little half wall that separates him from the kitchen area she’s in.

Yeah, he’s got this. He’s totally got this- Peter Parker is just a regular dude looking for food and Ned happens to know the food here is good. He probably eats too much of it, though to be fair he works a lot. Celebrities give good tips and he has school bills to pay for and also rent.

He starts walking over and okay never mind he does not got this he’s a lowly fat boy in school walking towards a person who plays one of the most iconic characters on television right now he is not worthy. He goes to turn around and give his table to Michelle when Peter god damn Parker notices him and smiles, waving a little excitedly and Ned has no choice now he has to go over.

“Uh, hey. I’m waiter, I’ll be your Ned this evening. I mean I’m a waiter, my name is Ned. I will be waiting. On the food. With the food, on you. Um. I’m going to shut up now,” he says, wishing he could banish himself to the shadow realm forever for that. Holy Christ he managed to embarrass the hell out of himself in less than two seconds this is the worst day of his life he hopes the earth gets hit by an astroid large enough that he’ll die long before he has to deal with poor Peter.

*

Yeah, Peter knows Ned is embarrassed but it was cute, watching him flounder a little. “Do you ever get used to that?” he asks Tony.

He shakes his head, “not really. I mean you get used to it in a way that you kind of expect it, but not in a way where you can really accept why people treat you that way. Or I didn’t, I know a lot of people who kind of let that kind of treatment go to your head and we’ve all watched what happens when child stars leave Disney. It really does fuck with people to have everyone treat you like a god only for them to turn around and get pissed off that you act like one now too.”

Shit, yeah Peter has seen that happen plenty but that’s just... not him. He grew up in Queens and didn’t even think he had a shot at landing the role of a lifetime. Hell, he would have ended up working a shitty dead end job because he couldn’t afford to go to college if not for Tony finding him at an improv group and deciding he had enough talent to fund his education. He’s always loved acting, putting on a show, and boy that has come back to bite him in the ass in really weird ways but in the end things worked out really well. Except for the part with the crazy fans, he doesn’t care for that, but that’s part of the job so.

“Hm. It wouldn’t be like... creepy to ask a fan out, right? Like because they’d be way less likely to say no to you? Would that be weird? I think that might be weird I won’t say anything,” he says, sealing his own fate.

Tony laughs, “depends on the fan and that one isn’t the type to worship you and also isn’t the type to stalk you. Keep in mind that consent goes both ways and fans are just as likely to ignore your boundaries. Maybe more, actually, since totally ignoring our privacy and personal space is considered normal and kind of encouraged. But that guy- just flustered. Probably a comic book nerd too,” he says.

If he’s a comic nerd Peter doesn’t see why he’d like Peter much. He can’t even believe the amount of blowback he got from the comic fandom over the fact that he’s trans and playing Spider-Man. Yeah, he obviously expected some blowback because that’s... well, normal not that he wants to admit that casual transphobia is alive and well. But it is, and he expected it, but the sheer amount of people that thought just that part of who he is should disqualify him from playing the character was nuts. Thankfully Peter Quill happens to be a crazy bastard and basically told everyone and their dogs to shove it because he knows what he’s doing. Which, to be fair, he does. And casting happens to be a skill he’s especially good with.

“Think you might be wrong about the comic nerd thing,” Peter says. Comic nerds are bird brains, he has decided.

“If you say so, kid,” Tony says and Peter can tell Tony thinks he’s right but he doesn’t say it.

*

Tony is trying to explain how he and Arthur Curry of all people ended up in a relationship when Ned comes back with food. Poor guy already suffered through drinks and Peter tried to talk to him to try and make him feel more comfortable but it didn’t really work. So when he comes back over Peter grins, “that smells so good,” he says and he is starving. Being stuck under film lights all day is actually exhausting work contrary to popular belief and obviously he gets fed but he’s like a bottomless pit with food. Can’t ever seem to get enough, but he’s always that way. The bonus is now that people read him as a guy no one asks if he should eat that much they just kind of assume he’s a glutton. Which, yay, because pastries.

“Um yeah, its pretty good. I’ve tried basically everything here except the caviar and the escargot because I draw the line at rich people food that sounds like it should be poor people food,” he says and Tony snorts, laughing into his hand.

“Yeah, guess fish eggs kind of do sound more like a thing poor people would eat than rich people. Weird. Also, not good- I’ve tried it and I don’t get the hype,” he says, shrugging.

“Tastes like spunk, I don’t get it either,” Tony says and the response obviously surprises Ned because he looks at Tony with a shocked expression on his face which, in hindsight, is probably why he doesn’t notice Peter’s food go overboard and into his lap. He jumps up before the hot food can do damage, then winces when the plate ends up in several pieces on the ground and Ned looks horrified.

“Its okay!” Peter says fast. “Things happen!”

“I am so sorry!” Ned says, eyes wide in horror.

“Its fine! I’ve had worse things thrown at me,” he says fast. Which is true, but also.

Ned rolls his eyes, “all those people who decided you couldn’t play Spider-Man because of some comic book inaccuracy or whatever bullshit need to look at those comics again because in issue 1034, which was released eight weeks before you even got the role, Gwen Stacy asks if you can lay eggs. Tom Holland, not you, you just play him. Whatever. Anyway, Gwen Stacy is a genius so she’d definitely know that only lady spiders can lay eggs. Also, Spider-Man is well known for his slightly high pitched voice and sure, people can argue that’s because he’s a teenager but I was sixteen once too and by then my voice was normal, so for Tom Holland to have hit puberty that late its totally acceptable to consider the effects of T on his voice and also- wait, no, oh my god. You don’t give a shit about any of this, people suck. They’re transphobes and also you have the perfect frame for it and lets be real, Christian Bale would have been a better choice than Toby fucking Maguire,” he says, flapping a hand around and wincing at his rant.

Peter raises an eyebrow, “there’s actual comic text evidence for trans Spider-Man?” he asks and Ned shrugs, cheeks turning a little red.

“I mean, you kinda gotta dig but if they can randomly make Captain America HYDRA and then unmake him HYDRA when everyone hated that shit trans Spider-Man is much less controversial. Actually, its totally inconsequential because why would that affect being Spider-Man, it just means you gotta take T and you- Tom Holland not you- got bit by a radioactive spider. Is being trans really more unrealistic than that? Because any idiot who claims realism probably need to pull their head out of their ass because the real world ain’t got super soldier serum to give you a shredded bod. Which, by the way, is my kind diet plan- just taking some experimental serum and come out hot. You don’t care about that either, oh my god, I’m getting comic nerd on a celebrity and also your food and-” Peter cuts Ned off to save him from himself.

“I think I might be in love with you, Ned,” he says and then winces, looking to Tony in a panic. Why the hell would he even say that!

“What he means,” Tony interjects smoothly, “is that he thinks you’re adorable, and he wants you number. Maybe a date, if you’re comfortable.”

Ned stares for a long moment. “Oh my god this is exactly season two episode four where MJ asks Gwen out for you even though that’s dumb because MJ and Gwen clearly belong with each other,” Ned says, eyes wide.

“Yeah I know right? Peter- Quill-” he clarifies when he remembers too late there’s two Peters involved in Spider-Man, “keeps pushing for it but stupid TV people won’t let him. So now he’s writing them as gay as possible to piss everyone off, except its kind of backfiring because now everyone thinks he’s queerbaiting but he’s not he’s queer expliciting as much as he can before someone fires him. Also yeah, I just don’t think Gwen is a good match for my character anyways, I mean she’s nice and all that but they’re kind of... platonic. Oh, um, do you know what a Miles Morales is?” he asks because Quill mentioned him and Peter has no idea who that is.

Ned does because he lets out a loud noise that’s halfway between a huff and a squeal and Peter is sure he’s never heard a noise like it before. “Oh my god they’re introducing Miles Morales! Yes!”

Tony throws a dinner roll at him and it bounces off his head, “you shit head, don’t give away spoilers!” he says like it isn’t a meme that Peter consistently gives stuff away. At this point they’ve started using it as marketing material it happens so often. Like that time he opened a supposedly internal poster on his Instagram and faked being shocked when he realized it wasn’t supposed to be public. Everyone ate it up even if they all knew it was fake- obviously it was considering the video was never taken down, but the fans loved it anyway.

“Give me every single spoiler now!” Ned says, excitement written all over his features.

Peter considers saying no but he’s not good at peer pressure, its how he got talked into doing shrooms when he was thirteen and that was a bad plan. “The multiverse explodes and one of the spider people dies but I can’t tell you which one,” he says quickly. Tony throws another roll at him for it but he can’t help it.

Ned lets out a loud screech, “oh my god if Peter Quill kills you I’ll go kill him!” he yells way too loud. People turn to stare and Peter waves them off.

“Talking about a TV show!” he assures people and Ned, to his credit, looks like he kind of wants the earth to swallow him.

“Peter doesn’t die,” Tony says, “and we’re going to leave before Dipshit McGee lets any more spoilers loose. You might not want to tell anyone any of that stuff, people will find you and I really wish that was a joke but its not. You’ll get like twelve cease and desist letters.”

“That’s true, I have like fifty of them in frames and also I’ve been banned from reading scripts until shooting schedule because I really am terrible at keeping things secret and this is really Quill’s fault for telling me any of this stuff and hey wait I don’t have his number yet,” he says and Tony drags him off.

“I’ll get his number and pay, you stop spoiling Quill’s hard work before he decides to kill you next,” Tony says.

#peter parker x ned leeds #fanfiction #alternate universe #writing