Amabbat

Please Warhorse, let us ask Hans for a hug, Henry needs it badly

Og post under the cut

Uther: What do you want now, Merlin. 😑

Merlin: It’s simple — I’ll hypnotize you and as soon as I snap my fingers...

Uther: I don’t like these games...

Merlin: Let me finish, sire.

Uther: 🙄

Merlin: As soon as I snap my fingers, you’ll forget that you were gay. (snaps his fingers)

Uther: ...

Merlin: ...

Uther: Stop this nonsense, Merlin, I am not gay.

Merlin: Yes.

Uther: ...

Merlin: ...

Uther: No, but... wait a minute!

Merlin: Take all the time you need.

Uther: Merlin, Merlin I have never been gay!

Merlin: Exactly.

Uther: No but...

Merlin: Breathe, sire, it’s okay to have forgotten.

Uther: Cut it out, Merlin, I have never been gay!

Merlin: Yes, that’s what I said.

Uther: Merlin, you can’t just tell me I was gay and snap your fingers when I never was gay!

Merlin: Exactly, sire — you never were gay, exactly as I just said.

Uther: (drawing his sword) Stop this witchcraft, you damned...

Merlin: Help! (running from the king)

So very wrong.

He knew it with every wire, every circuit, every flicker of synthetic life that passed through him – and still, he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t pull away from the warmth that wasn’t… him.

Slowly, he moved, each motion a performance he couldn’t end, each thrust suspended between emptiness and need – between the ache of this moment and the ache for him. Only him.

His optics dimmed so he wouldn’t have to see the details, wouldn’t have to confront the lie of what was before him. Still, he rocked back and forth, feeling warmth where there should have been none. As far as they were concerned, they were an extra in a scene that begged for the true star to arrive. Skin, where there should have been metal. Heavy breathing, where there should have been the fast hum of a cooling fan. Shifts, unpredictable and organic, where there should have been precise, mechanical motion.

“Ah,” he cried out, “B—”

He caught the name before it could escape, clutching it somewhere deep, where only he could hear the echo of it.

Bender.

He could feel his release nearing, like a tidal wave that threatened to crash upon him, to submerge him deeper into this terrible act, this terrible sin – to release into someone that wasn’t… him. He pressed a clamp to their mouth – soft lips where there should have been the rigid metal of a mouth plate – and silenced their moans. He drove forward, faster and faster, chasing after his own release, to let the wrongness of this moment burn through his wires and circuitry. And it was only when he dimmed his optics completely and imagined him underneath him that he finally let go.

The motion stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The heat drained from him in an instant, leaving only static where desire had been. For a moment he stayed still, optics dimmed, listening to the quiet hum of his own systems returning to normal. Then the detachment came—cold, efficient, rehearsed.

He rose without a word, gathering their clothes from the floor with mechanical precision. The scene had played its course; the performance was over. He didn’t look back to see if they spoke, or even breathed. The script had no lines left for them.

“Get out.”

He pressed their clothes close to their chest and showed them the door.

The silence that soon followed afterwards was almost unbearable – and with it, carried the heavy weight of what had transpired. Each echo of movement, each memory of warmth, twisted at his very circuits. It felt like a knife plunged into his core, and the sick, twisted irony of it all… it was he who had driven it in. And yet, he could not pull it out, could not remove the stain of the terrible sin that he had committed: to lie with someone who was not the one he truly desired.

He traced a golden clamp along the empty sheets, as if touching them might somehow undo the act, might conjure what had never been. But it was only an imitation of what he craved. The real, the irreplaceable, the only one who could ignite the star within him—Bender—was not there. His heart, or whatever approximation of a heart his systems could claim, ached with a magnitude that no other could satisfy.

“Oh! But ‘tis a most cruel fate,” he whispered to the silence, voice thick with theatrical anguish, “that I should give myself where I do not belong… that my love remains untouched… yearned for… That the Heavens themselves weep for your presence…” His optics offlined. “As do I!” Each syllable was a lament, a soliloquy delivered to an empty room, yet it mattered not who heard. The only audience that ever truly mattered, the only one capable of completing the scene, was Bender. And he was not here.

They give me the sillys, I’m gonna combust.

“Tonight,” he declared, pausing for effect, “you will witness a performance so moving – so utterly transcendent – that even the spirit of Shakespeare himself would rise from the grave… to applaud me!”

The crowd roared. Calculon raised a clamp for silence he didn’t truly want.

“A tale of love! Of loss! And of the triumph of pure theatrical excellence – brought to you, of course, by me… the incomparable Calculon!”

With a flourish of his clamp, Calculon turned, basking in the spotlight that he knew adored him almost as much as the crowd did. The audience erupted. If the screams of his fans had been thunderous before, they now ascended into a higher, almost operatic frequency, shaking the very popcorn from its buckets.

“Please, please!” Calculon cried, raising both of his clamps as if to quell the storm – though the dazzling brightness of his optics, a robot’s own version of a radiant smile, betrayed that he wanted nothing more than for it to continue. “There’s enough Calculon for everyone – though, truly, can there ever be enough of me?”

He struck a pose – half-hero, half-tragic lover – while security robots desperately tried to contain the tide of adoration. His optics brightened further as he tilted his head toward the night sky, joyous laughter spilling from him – warm, rich, and entirely self-satisfied.

He owned the red carpet as completely as he owned their hearts.

And when the screaming reached its crescendo, Calculon brandished his pen like a sword – each autograph a gleaming strike, slicing ever deeper into the hearts of his fans and carving a permanent spot into their devotion.  

“To the fortunate witness of this autograph: you have beheld brilliance incarnate – Calculon” read one.

Another: “Your adoration fuels my brilliance – Calculon”.

And another, to a poor college student: “To whomever owns this inferior paper, you now possess a relic of true greatness. Treasure it. – Calculon”.

Each signature, a miniature performance in itself, leaving his fans swooning.

And then… Zapp Brannigan. Calculon paused, optics brightening ever so slightly, pen hovering: