Chapter Text
Arthur arrived at school on Monday to find Merlin already seated in maths, his nose buried in an old, ratty book. He was so absorbed in his reading, he didn’t notice Arthur dropping into the seat beside him, or that Gwaine had stuck a collection of caramel wrappers in his hair.
“How are we Gwaine? Pull up alright after Friday?”
“Yeah, not bad man. You?” Gwaine stuck one of the unwrapped caramels into Merlin’s mouth, who had turned around to belatedly say hello. Arthur ground his teeth but remained seated, watching Merlin suck on the sweet. Merlin gave a jaunty wave, and picked up his book again, oblivious to Gwaine sticking the wrapper on the top of his head.
“Yeah, alright I ‘spose.”
Leon thumped his bag on the table next to Arthur. “Hello all. Merlin. Arthur. You both well?”
“Good, thanks Le-le.” Merlin said absently.
They had just begun a unit on antidifferentiation. Arthur found it ridiculously easy and he always ensured Merlin was up to speed, so he was happy to sit back and make the most of their first lesson of the day.
“So apparently Willow and Matthew had a bit of a barney at Mary’s thing on Saturday?”
“I heard she kicked him in the balls!” sniggered Gwaine, “But seriously, I wouldn’t complain about getting one in the ‘nads when she’s doing the kicking. God, the legs on her.”
“You are so whipped, mate.” Merlin was doodling a herd of unicorns in the margins of his notebook.
“Piss off.”
Leon turned around with a furious expression. ”Would you shut it? We’re not all maths freaks, okay?”
They all shrugged and settled in to the problem sets on the board. Arthur waited until the early morning chatter rose up around them once more, leaned over to Merlin and poked his side.
“You left these at my place.” He shoved Merlin’s freshly laundered green pants into his lap. “Didn’t know you were the type to go commando,” he whispered.
Merlin’s eyes bulged and he quickly stuffed the flash of emerald fabric into his rucksack. Arthur made use of his momentary distraction to grab hold of Merlin’s knee and give it a squeeze. Merlin tried to push him off but just ended up making his chair scrape across the floor.
“Stop it!” he laughed.
“Comaaaandoooo.” Arthur slid his hand up Merlin’s thigh. “I thought it was kinda hot, actually.”
“Yeah? Did you get hard when you found them?” He crooked an eyebrow.
“You fucking tease.”
Merlin opened his mouth for a retort, when Mr Tal, their old, rather grumpy maths teacher gave them an ominous glare.
They ducked their heads, but Arthur did not retrieve his hand.
Once Mr Tal had turned away, Merlin bent over again. “I didn’t go commando.”
“What? As if! You can’t even remember to bring lunch to school.”
Merlin grinned wickedly.
“You are a filthy liar, Merlin Emrys.” Arthur punctuated this statement with a firm prod to Merlin’s inner thigh.
Merlin didn’t respond, just hunched forward in his seat some more, causing his trousers to slip an inch down his hips. They kept up their argument until the end of the class by way of passed notes and sotto voce bickering, to the great displeasure of Mr Tal.
“Do they still have the heat on you think?” Merlin shucked his blazer off and tucked it into his bag, loosened his tie. He untucked his shirt, too, and as he stubbornly blocked the aisle to practically undress in front of the entire class, Arthur caught a flash of something bright as his shirt tails flicked up. It was... red?
Over the weeks, Arthur had developed an intimate knowledge of Merlin’s pants, and had often teased him about their boring colours. It was his nagging that had led Merlin to invest in the emerald briefs, which Arthur had christened by rubbing him off through them the first time he had worn them. So, he knew for a fact that Merlin did not own any red pants, and yet, there they were.
“See you after Bio, yeah?”
Arthur blinked and tore his eyes away from Merlin’s bottom. “Yeah, meet you in the common room?”
Merlin stuffed a hand into his pocket, flashing the red pants again in the process. “Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go to the library to get started on the Dev project.”
He had his bottom lip caught in his teeth, and Arthur knew that look. He adjusted his blazer. “Sounds good. See you there.” He was too distracted to care that his voice was suddenly an octave higher.
Arthur had no recollection of getting to Japanese as he was too busy trying to will down his burgeoning erection. It was no mean feat, given that Merlin had just invited him to exchange sneaky handjobs in the back of the library. Before his fantasies began to take on an elaborate edge, he was startled out of his thoughts by the arrival of Gwen, who began shaking his arm frantically.
“Arthur! Arthur! I think I might have a date with Lance on Thursday. What do I do?”
He frowned. “I thought you’d fancied him for ages?”
“Yes, exactly.” She banged her head on his shoulder. “Sorry. I know I’m being all melodramatic, it’s just - there’s all this pressure now, you know? We hang out all the time and I thought I’d finally managed to act normal around him, at least as normal as I ever get, but you know how he is, he’s going to get all respectful of me now and what if I don’t want him to...” Arthur tuned her out as she babbled on.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a dark-haired girl smiling manically at him, flashing an impressive pair of gap-teeth. He grabbed Gwen and hauled her into the seat beside him.
“You have to save me!” he hissed, ducking down, “Helen is trying to sit next to me again!”
Gwen looked at him strangely. “What’s wrong with Helen?”
“I think she likes me.” He smiled weakly over at the girl. “Last time she sat next to me, she collected all my pencil shavings and put them in her bra!”
“Aww, that’s sweet.”
“Gwen. No. That’s not sweet. If you think... I’m going to text Lance right now and tell him I take back my advice. My advice, mind you, where I told him to ask you out.”
Gwen didn’t miss a beat. “In that case.” She made as if to stand up.
“No, no okay, I promise I won’t,” he said desperately.
“And you have to promise to double-date with us, or I’ll give her the combination to your cricket locker and she can steal all your dirty clothes.”
“Yes, yes I promise.” He didn’t let go of her until she’d pulled her text book out. On the other side of the classroom, Helen was staring daggers at the pair of them. “Wait, what? Double date? Gwen!”
Gwen just smiled. "Ohayo Pendragon-san! Hiruyasumi wo tanoshimi ne."
“Boku no bento wa umeboshi bakkari.”
By the end of Japanese, Arthur’s arousal had well and truly wilted, as Helen held up a drawing of A+H surrounded by hearts in a rainbow of sparkle gel pens, which she had scrawled all over her notes. When Gwen gave him a friendly shove, Helen aimed the V of her fingers at her own eyes and then pointed vehemently in Gwen’s direction. Arthur was surprised his balls didn’t shrivel.
“You coming back to the house?” Gwen asked as they were picking up their books.
“Nah, we’ve got a big project for Dev and Merlin wants to get started before all the good books are pinched.”
“The pair of you are such nerds, it’s so adorable.”
Arthur rolled his eyes and did his best not to think of where, exactly, he was going to push Merlin up against the shelves in a few minutes’ time.
“Remember! Double date or Helen sniffs your cricket box!” Gwen walked backwards down the hall, pointing.
He found Merlin scuffing his feet on the tiles outside the library, with his shirt still untucked and tie askew. Little pieces of tinfoil still shone in his hair from Gwaine’s attentions in maths.
“What took you so long?” Merlin asked, grabbing a fistful of Arthur’s blazer and dragging him inside.
“Sorry, Gwen was blackmailing me again.” He let Merlin push him up against a shelf at the back of the physics section.
“Speaking of Gwen,” Merlin smiled as he untucked Arthur’s shirt, “you know what Lance finally got around to doing...”
“Asked Gwen out on a proper date?” Arthur bit down on his ear, shivering as Merlin’s cold fingers traced the skin above his belt.
“Yeah, but he was all - “
Arthur cut him off with a kiss. “Mate, I do not care, right? You’ve been a right bloody cock-tease all morning... christ.” He cupped Merlin’s arse and pulled them flush against one another. “What’s the deal with the pants then? D’you get them yesterday or something?”
“Got ‘em Saturday morning.”
Arthur slid his hand under Merlin’s belt and palmed him firmly through his pants. He realised after a moment that they weren’t snug like the briefs Merlin usually wore. Merlin’s grin was utterly shameless.
“D’you realize I could nick anything from your room when you’re asleep like that?”
“Fuck - you mean-” Arthur choked off as Merlin pushed a thigh between his own, rubbing it purposefully against his cock.
Merlin reached up to peel away at Arthur’s collar and bit just below the neckline. “Mmm-hm. When do you want ‘em back?”
Arthur reached up behind Merlin to grab the edge of the shelves for balance. “Keep the bloody things for all I care, just -”
Infuriatingly, Merlin stopped and looked up from the fast-forming mark on his clavicle. “But you brought back mine, all clean, too.”
Arthur groaned, fumbling his belt open and pressing Merlin’s hand to his cock. He seemed to get the hint then, sliding his fingers under the elastic and pressing little kisses soundly onto Arthur’s open mouth.
They came, gasping softly, just as the rest of their class filed in. Merlin, because he was a dirty little pervert and planned these things, wiped off their hands with a little towel he produced from his rucksack, and tucked Arthur’s cock back into his pants.
“So apparently Lance and Gwen want to do a double-date or something,” Merlin said some time later, hooking his foot around Arthur’s ankle and bobbling it restlessly as he flicked through a book on the history of road building.
“Mmm, she said something of the sort to me in Japanese.” Arthur sighed. “Maybe I should invite Helen, just to make my point”
“Oh.” Merlin twisted a corner of his page between his fingers. “I thought maybe we could go. Together.”
“No - what? No. Merlin, this is a date.”
“Yeah, well?” He drummed his knuckles on the tabletop, held Arthur’s eyes.
Arthur put his pen down. He spoke in a very quiet, vehement tone. “Look, Merlin. This -” he gestured between them, “it’s just, you know - we’re just getting off, yeah? I’m not gay or anything.”
Merlin pulled his foot away and leaned forward. “Oh, come on! Every time we’re alone, you kiss me or,” he dropped his voice to an angry whisper, “you get all handsy, you keep sending me stupid text messages in the evening and you told me you wanted to feed me sandwiches while you jerked me off in the common room! What the fuck am I supposed to think?”
“What the fuck Merlin?” Arthur slammed his book shut. “Just because you have, I don’t know, latent queer tendencies doesn’t mean I -”
“Gentlemen.” Mr. Monmouth cleared his throat. “You are disturbing the rest of the students. You can continue this outside and see me in my office after class.” He pointed to the exit with a sweep of his pendulous arms.
“Fine.” Merlin shoved his books into his rucksack and stormed out.
Arthur actually bothered to check out a book before leaving, and smacked into Merlin just outside the door. Merlin grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him down the hall to the nearest bathroom.
“Where are we - ? No, Merlin, I’m not- what the fuck are you doing?”
Merlin was shucking off his trousers and pants, right there in the middle of the bathroom where anybody could see, his face set.
“I do not have queer tendencies you half-formed, calf-brained, two-faced fucking... cock-sucker! And neither do you!” He balled up the red pants and flung them as hard as he could at Arthur’s face. “Have your fucking pants back. Try not to wank in them too much if you can help it.”
Arthur was poleaxed. He wasn’t even tempted to laugh as Merlin bent over, pale little arse in the air as he dug out his own green pants and pulled them on.
“It won’t be that hard, will it? It’s not like you’ve got any tits and I’m sick of your bloody great cock anyway!”
“Fuck right off, Pendragon.” Merlin jerked the door open, making it bang against the wall.
“Well, fuck you too, Emrys,” Arthur shouted after him.
The bathroom seemed too quiet after all the shouting. His hands were shaking. He turned the tap on and splashed water in his face, trying to slow his breathing. Shite. He’d never wanted to punch Merlin before, not even when he’d been a chubby little twerp, dead-set on making his Friday afternoons miserable. And now he wanted nothing more than to slam his bloody head into a wall.
Arthur carefully wrapped his hand up in his blazer, in one of the bizarre moments of calm that only happened when he got properly angry. He inhaled, and slammed his fist into the nearest stall door.
He went through the rest of his classes in a daze. He ate his lunch in the back of the language wing, and went to run extra laps in the remaining time. He didn’t sit near Merlin again that day. After the last class, he made a point to leave first and walk in the opposite direction to the badminton courts.
As all the students streamed out through the front gates, catching their trains and buses and lifts from friends, Arthur jogged up to a girl who was making her way to her little blue car. “Sophia! Sophia, have you got a second?”
Sophia turned around in a sweep of long wavy hair. She frowned a bit at him. “Oh, hello Arthur. What’s up?”
“Look, you know Gwen right?” Arthur tilted his hips, tried to look nonchalant.
She pursed her lips. “Sure...”
“And you know how her and Lance have fancied each other since, like, the stone age?”
“Mmm?”
Arthur was starting remember again, how this was done. So he grabbed obligingly onto her forearm. “Will you come with me and save me from the horror of going on their first real live date? They’ve ganged up on me and want to double and Soph, you’re my only, my best hope!” He tilted his head just so, and gave her the puppydog eyes.
She sighed. “Oh, alright, you numpty. But you’re paying.”
“For you? Platters of Lobster Thermidor and buckets of Dom, of course.” Arthur arced his hand through the air.
“More like vodka and caviar but who’s counting?” She laughed lightly, hooking her arm into his. He smiled. This was easy. This, Arthur could handle.