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Monday April 11th, 2011
When Arthur casually asks him if he wants to work on chem together after school, it’s not clear whether he actually means that they should do their chemistry homework, or if he just wants to push Merlin against his Doctor Who posters and ravage him for a few hours. It makes him feel a gut-roiling blend of guilty and aroused, because Arthur has developed an uncanny ability to redirect Merlin’s bloodflow from his brain to his cock whenever they are in the same room, and it’s starting to show. Mr. Muirden certainly seems to have noticed them distracting each other, going by the glares he’d aimed at them this morning, but Merlin can’t say he’s disappointed when Arthur’s tongue slides against his own for the fourth time that week – even though it’s only Monday.
However, they do really need to do their homework, so he shoves at Arthur’s shoulders half-heartedly. Arthur just sucks his tongue harder.
“Come on. You promised you’d help me with covalent bonding, remember?” He unwinds Arthur’s hand from around his belt loops and tries his best to look slightly stupid and affable.
It works, after a fashion. Arthur bites Merlin’s nose and pats the top of his head fondly. “I will never understand your priorities.” And after stretching and bending over obscenely to pick up their textbooks, he plops down on Merlin’s bed and opens to the relevant chapters.
“I can’t understand how you got 97 on our last test, but you can’t do covalent bonding.”
“Whatever, you got 3 out of 10 on those practice questions, so you’re not one to talk.”
“Well I would have done better if you hadn’t been fondling me all weekend, you slag.” Arthur chucks a notebook and some pencils at Merlin’s face. “Just take a whack at the second problem set, wake me up when you’re done.” He extravagantly fluffs a pillow and splays like a starfish under the covers while he waits for Merlin to make noises of confusion.
Ten minutes later, he’s kicking Merlin’s thigh from under the covers and chucking wads of paper at his Farscape action figure tableau. Meanwhile, the idiot has screwed up the last practice problem in three different ways. If Arthur doesn’t hammer this into his head, then they won’t get into the advanced stream together and they won’t be able to do homework together and Arthur will be stuck with all of the work instead of half of it.
He sits up, grabs the books out of Merlin’s hands and pushes him around until he’s sure Merlin can see the pages in his lap. “Look, you just need to add up all the valence electrons, that’s all.”
Merlin scrubs a hand through his hair. “I know that, it’s all this shit with the shells that gets me.” It’s not that far from the truth – he really does have trouble getting his head around p subshells and s subshells and all the crap about transition metals, but then, so does Arthur. But one of the only ways Arthur seems to learn anything is by lecturing other people, so Merlin is willing to ask stupid questions to keep them both on track.
He’s curved over Arthur’s shoulder, watching him prod diagrams in the textbook and it is ridiculous that Merlin is getting so distracted by his ear, which keeps brushing his every time Arthur makes an emphatic gesture. There’s a part of his collar that got all flipped up and scrunched when Arthur shamelessly crawled under his sheets and it’s slowly driving Merlin insane.
He needs to ask Arthur about this whole... situation. Just that morning he’d opened an email from Freya, which said something along the lines of, “FFS Merlin, get your head out of his ass. Talk about it before I find you dead in the Mystic River!” which is all very good in theory, but a different matter all together when Arthur is right there being lickable and hot in his bed.
So Merlin ignores the voice in his head that’s telling him to be sensible and starts dragging his shirt off by the collar, elbowing Arthur in the process.
“Ow. That was my face!”
Merlin just knocks the textbooks onto the floor as he reaches to turn off his bedside light. The slice of sunlight around the edge of his drawn curtains cuts through the middle of the mattress, highlighting the dip where Arthur had just been snuggling, and Merlin pushes him back into it as he slides his fingers across Arthur’s scalp. Arthur shivers and meets his mouth halfway.
It suddenly seems imperative that Arthur be wearing less clothes. Unfortunately, that requires a break in the kissing, which is not something Merlin is interested in doing at present, so he puts his hands under Arthur’s shirt instead.
Luckily, Arthur takes only a few seconds to get the hint and begins to work his hand between them to unbutton himself, while Merlin nips his fingers in encouragement.
Arthur takes advantage of his freed mouth to exclaim in a mocking tone, “You have to teach me, this science stuff is so hard Arthur, oh, please, I don’t get it at all...” to which Merlin just bites down rather firmly on a knuckle. Arthur’s original plans are, of course, the best. Merlin always comes around to them eventually.
They’ve been up to this sort of thing for almost two weeks. It is turning out to be just as enjoyable and pleasantly distracting as Arthur figured it would be, without the awkwardness in between that they’d had at first. It is a perfect arrangement really. He cards his fingers through Merlin’s hair as he centres in on Arthur’s stomach.
“You enjoying that, are you?” Arthur asks, as Merlin licks his way across his six-pack. He deliberately flexes under Merlin’s tongue.
For this he receives a bite on his left oblique. “Show off.”
It would be nice if Merlin came back up to Arthur’s face so they could get on with the business of getting off. He tries to tug Merlin’s head up, but apparently he’s feeling stubborn today. No doubt he’s bitter about his own lack of abdominal definition, because he starts licking with renewed fervour. Arthur lets his head fall back onto the pillows, finding the little jabs of Merlin’s tongue in his belly-button unexpectedly hot. His breath hitches, and he feels Merlin smirk against his damp skin.
“You enjoying it, Arthur?” Merlin pointedly rubs his chest over Arthur’s cock.
“No I’m not. Get up here, you -” He pulls on Merlin’s hair again. “I can’t reach you when you’re down there.”
Merlin smacks his hand off and unlatches his lips. “Stop nagging.” He wriggles away until he’s perpendicular to Arthur’s torso, and even further out of reach. “Just let me, yeah?”
It ought to tickle, Arthur thinks, but Merlin’s tongue is warm and his hands on his chest are firm. When Merlin bites down on one of his nipples, Arthur tenses automatically, expecting to feel all of Merlin rubbing up against him. Instead, he returns to working more tight circles around the edge of his navel, so Arthur mumbles, “Have you gotten out all of the lint yet?” He gets no response, except for a little snort and another swipe at his belly-button.
The house is quiet, save for the soft, wet noises of Merlin’s mouth on his chest, which makes it all the more heady, somehow. Goosebumps break out across his skin as Merlin slowly drags his fingers down towards his belt.
Merlin ignores the other nipple.
Arthur reaches to rub at it, and tries not to be too disappointed when Merlin doesn’t do more than unbuckle his belt and slide his hand in to cup him through his pants.
Despite his earlier urgency, Merlin is content to take his time. It feels good just to lick Arthur’s skin, to explore all the dips he hasn’t yet had a chance to investigate. They do have a tendency to get carried away with things whenever they’re by themselves - it’s usually just frantic jerking in the bathroom at lunchtime, and even when they’re at home alone, it inevitably descends into snogging and handjobs on the duvet. Arthur is nothing if not goal-oriented. Now that he’s got Arthur captive, so to speak, Merlin is bloody well going to take advantage.
He traces his tongue over Arthur’s pelvis, where it pokes out from his school trousers, and pulls his knees under himself to ease the pressure off his cock. Apparently Arthur can’t cope with Merlin’s mouth straying too far below his navel, because he squeaks and jerks his hips.
When he glances up, Merlin can see Arthur’s hands fisted in the bedclothes.
It doesn’t take long after that. Arthur's breathing gets huffy and broken, his expression goes slack and Merlin pushes down on the cotton over his cock just a fraction, rubbing his fingertips over Arthur’s balls as they draw up.
Once Arthur has finished and his pants are all warm and sticky under Merlin’s palm, Merlin finally wriggles up. He presses one last kiss to Arthur’s stomach, looking much too pleased with himself, and settles his legs around Arthur’s thigh.
“Sorry about that,” he says, completely unapologetic as he starts rolling his hips up and back. Arthur attempts to scowl at him, but only manages to look dopey and spent. He certainly isn’t prepared to do anything so complicated as moving, even if it’s to rub Merlin’s cock. He settles for lifting his thigh just a fraction, but it’s enough to disrupt Merlin’s rhythm. He starts up a second later, faster than before and grunting shamelessly, uncaring that his belt buckle bumps into Arthur’s hip with every thrust.
Afterwards, he slumps over Arthur, chuckling once he’s caught his breath. Arthur cracks open an eyelid. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Merlin contemplates shucking off his trousers and tossing the whole mess into the laundry basket, but can’t seem to summon the energy. The most he can do is graze his nose back and forth across Arthur’s shoulder.
Arthur prods the side of Merlin’s face. “Lies. Tell me.”
“It’s, well, I did make you come by licking your belly-button.”
“Says the boy who was just humping my leg?”
“Whatever. Your leg was convenient.”
“So when I’m not around you‘ve been humping the furniture?”
“Nah, but just about any warm body will do. You know me. ‘M’not that picky.”
Arthur is uncharacteristically silent, but when Merlin looks up, his eyes are closed. Carefully, he drags his textbook off the floor and props it against the pillow, finally able to concentrate despite the cadence of Arthur’s snores.
FIN.