Chapter Text
The crowd watching the fencing match clapped loudly as Gwaine pushed his mask off his head and shook his bedraggled shoulder length brown hair out, lifting his épée to acknowledge the kudos. This is where he usually got the biggest rush, but somehow, on this day their cheers rang hollow. He felt empty and off his game. And alone.
He looked into the crowd and spotted his history professor, Arthur Pendragon and his assistant, Merlin, watching him carefully. Huh, he thought, they’re here again? He couldn’t understand why they kept coming to his matches— as far as he knew they didn’t attend any other sporting events. He was struck by the difference in their expressions.
Merlin was smiling widely at him, holding his gaze with those startling blue eyes of his as he clapped and cheered loudly for Gwaine. The Professor’s expression was inscrutable— a steady gaze, one hand rubbing his beard, as he leaned over to talk to Merlin, all the while still looking at Gwaine.
Gwaine sighed and took himself off to his post-match shower where he closed his eyes and allowed himself the luxury of a quick soapy wank while thinking of Merlin… and Arthur…and Merlin-and-Arthur… and.. Merlin and him… His eyes shot open as his come shot out of him. Where on earth had those thoughts come from?
Merlin… that he could understand. If he hadn’t known any better he would have thought Merlin wanted him too, but Merlin was just lovely to everyone. It didn’t stop Gwaine from wanting Merlin, like a physical ache bubbling inside him. And Arthur? Well he was a complete shit to Gwaine in lectures, either ignoring him or humiliating him. And even worse, he had given Gwaine a failing grade on the first assignment. Despite all this, in his weaker moments, Gwaine found his mind drifting to Arthur’s golden hair, his regal profile, his beard, and imagining…
Arthur Pendragon was young to have been granted tenure. Word around campus was that he had just appeared one day together with his assistant, and the university (for reasons that were not quite clear) had fallen over themselves to offer him a chair. Further whispers had it that Arthur’s one condition of employment was that his assistant and rumoured boyfriend, Merlin Emrys, was offered a permanent position with full academic privileges and tenure track.
Merlin was the one who took all of the post-lecture tutorials and even led some of the lectures. Arthur was a handsome and brilliant, if somewhat grumpy bastard, and it was clearly Merlin’s role to be the Arthur-whisperer. Merlin was well equipped to do this as well as to be the middleman between the students and Arthur. He was intelligent, kind, and soft-spoken with occasional hints of a delicious biting sarcasm.
And hot. Oh gods, was he hot. Gwaine shivered a little as he thought again of Merlin’s striking gunmetal-blue eyes, his dark lashes, cheekbones you could cut yourself on, and his lips, plush and built for sin. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure Merlin was a big part of the reason he had failed the assignment. He just could not concentrate when Merlin was around.
Gwaine was in the first term of their course - An Introduction to Albion. He had thought it would be an easy way to get his academic credits while on sports scholarship as an Olympic level fencing champion. He had expected to cruise this course, much like his other teammates had done, but that right royal prat had failed him!
He needed to ask for a re-mark or an extra credit assignment. He felt nervous. He would have rather spoken to Merlin about this but these things were not in Merlin’s gift.
So this is how he found himself, on Valentine’s Day, standing in front of a nondescript door with a simple yet elegant brass nameplate on it: ~Professor Arthur Pendragon~ and waiting to speak to the grumpy bastard instead, sword and proverbial dick in hand. He gulped and knocked loudly on the door.
Merlin answered. While Gwaine had been surprised to see him, he would later remember that Merlin did not seem as surprised to see Gwaine.
He took in Merlin’s tousled hair, his eyes, the start of a filthy grin, and Gwaine’s pulse quickened. He had to stop himself from disappearing into the daytime wet dream threatening to overwhelm his senses.
“I need to see the Professor,” he said.
“Arthur’s not here– and is not likely to be in for the next two weeks,” Merlin replied.
“But this is urgent,” Gwaine muttered, his distress rising. “I’ll be kicked off my fencing team if I don’t sort this out.”
Merlin smiled sympathetically. “Then perhaps you should come round to his house this evening. He is hosting a dinner party. He’ll be in a good mood and you could speak with him then.”
~~oo~~
And so, this is how Gwaine finds himself later that evening standing in front of another of Arthur’s doors, his throat uncomfortably dry and his heart fixing to pound right out of his chest. He tries to tell himself that this is all just his nerves about losing his place on the team. But, in truth, it isn’t.
He has lusted after this man from afar ever since he clapped eyes on him in the Uni canteen. Arthur is tall, with golden short cropped hair, starting to pepper with majestic silver at the temples, and a full but well trimmed beard that Gwaine finds he is now dying to rub his face all over. “Stop it,” he tells himself, and knocks. Loudly.
Arthur answers the door and the sight of him knocks whatever breath Gwaine has left clean out of him. Arthur, for his part, looks surprised to see Gwaine.
Merlin, who has now appeared, just smiles a secret delicious smile of pleasure. “Oh, Arthur, I meant to tell you. I invited Gwaine to our dinner tonight. I felt sure you wouldn’t mind…”
Gwaine inhales slowly as his mind struggles to compute what he has just heard. Our dinner?!? Merlin and Arthur live together. And it's our dinner not your dinner party…
Gwaine’s brain goes into overdrive. This is going to be tricky. He is going to have to plead his case while sitting across from not one but two of the hottest men he has ever met, and not get distracted by thoughts of what he wants to do to either of them… both of them… gods, at the same time. Gwaine’s brain promptly short circuits.
Arthur’s eyes are glinting with a quiet amusement at Gwaine’s obvious discomfort. “Come in,” he says, “let me take your coat. Thank you for this lovely bottle of wine.”
Merlin ushers them to the dining room and quickly puts Gwaine at ease. Both the wine and the conversation start flowing easily. The meal, when Merlin serves it, is tasty and filling yet not heavy.
Gwaine feels himself relaxing and watches how Merlin and Arthur interact with each other. He catches them looking at each other’s lips as they speak. Arthur seems hypnotised by Merlin’s mouth.
It may be the effect of the wine, or his fevered imagination, but he has caught them both looking at him intensely, too. He feels naked under their gaze, and secretly a little turned on.
Gwaine reaches over for some bread at the same time as Arthur. Their hands touch. Arthur takes the opportunity to hold Gwaine’s hand, his thumb expertly plying idle circles on the inside of Gwaine’s wrist. Gwaine looks up at Arthur’s face, and sees his right eyebrow lift slightly, the smallest hint of a smile playing at his lips.
Arthur looks over at Merlin, who is watching them both eagerly, his pupils widening slightly and the tip of his tongue moistening those sinful lips.
Gwaine feels a jolt of pure pleasure run straight to his dick, which is hardening. It couldn’t be. Could it? The thick fog of desire clouding his brain shifts when Arthur clears his throat.
“It might be time for desert, my love,” he says to Merlin, while his eyes return to Gwaine, raking over him.
Gwaine has been fantasising about them both so vividly during the evening that his blood burns hot at the meaning now implicit in Arthur’s words.
Merlin stands up and walks around the table to take Gwaine by the hand. Gwaine’s breath is coming in shallow gasps now, and he gets struck by a sudden attack of nerves, worrying that he has horribly misread the situation.
And, even worse, he is going to have to stand up in front of his professor with a hard-on tenting his trousers. He decides to brazen it out. What’s the worst that could possibly happen?
He flips his long fringe back, takes Merlin’s hand and follows him down the hallway to the kitchen. He turns around to find Merlin standing close behind him, and ends up staring deep into his mesmerising eyes. He takes a step back.
Merlin puts a long elegant hand on his arm. “Don’t. Please don’t. You don’t know how long Arthur and I have wanted this…”
Gwaine does a double-take. Merlin, he could have believed. He was always coming over to check on Gwaine in tutorials, leaning in close, offering advice and little touches. Gwaine knows his attention to detail is bad sometimes but he could have sworn that once he even caught Merlin smelling him! He thought he had been imagining things, but … here they were.
But Arthur? Gwaine was just flummoxed. Arthur never showed any sign of interest in him before.
He was struck by a thought and looked at Merlin with a worried expression on his face. “Unnh… it’s Valentine’s day. This was your romantic dinner?”
Merlin smiled archly and nodded. Gwaine continued, “So I feel like I am gatecrashing, and obviously I didn’t bring a gift.”
Merlin huffed with laughter. “You silly man, you are the gift. If you want to be that is….”
Gwaine was struck by yet more thoughts about the situation now, which were becoming increasingly filthy. He thought about his previous sexual partners, and how for some inexplicable reason he was going through a dry spell right now. He thought about how he had been in many threesomes before, but never just with men, and he thought about how excited this was making him feel now.
He looked at Merlin. “Yes, I think I do, if you are sure the Professor wants it… I mean…uh... I don’t want this to end up affecting my marks.”
“Oh Gwaine, you may be razor sharp with your sword, but quite blunt to the intentions of others. Why do you think Arthur gave you the grade he did at the time he did? To force an opportunity for a personal conversation. He wouldn’t ever say, but he wants this just as much as I do. Even more maybe. He has done nothing but talk about you for months.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” Gwaine asked, surprise and pleasure both colouring his voice.
“Why would it,” Merlin raised one eyebrow and grinned, “when I have been doing the same?”
“But why didn't you say anything earlier?”
“Well, he couldn’t — that would have been inappropriate — and I wouldn't, not without Arthur…”
Gwaine thinks about this. “So the fact that I have come here tonight of my own free will, not during office hours, changes things?”
Merlin replies with some tact. “It does and it doesn’t. You could still make Arthur’s life difficult if you wanted but we have both been watching you for some time now. I think that as loud and rowdy as you are, you are also extremely loyal to your sexual partners and you don’t kiss and tell. You know how gossip spreads at our small university, and faculty are the worst of the lot. So if we did this, your discretion would be more about protecting Arthur’s faculty position as a professor who is involved with a student, and less about him being gay. Everyone knows about that.”
Yes, thought Gwaine, everybody does know about that. The Professor was hot, gay and unattainable. And so, up until this very night, Gwaine has forced himself not to think about Arthur explicitly in this way, not to fantasise about sucking him off, about being fucked by him…
Something clicks in Gwaine’s mind. He had once revelled in his reputation as the greatest swordsman, not just with an épée. He is going through the longest dry spell because he is ready to move on from meaningless sexual encounters that drain both his balls and his soul. He has a feeling he wants something else, something more.
Yes, he thinks to himself, what he wants is the comfort of domesticity with a man as scorchingly sexy as Merlin, as devastatingly handsome as Arthur. He wants what they have.
More than that, he suddenly realizes with startling clarity, he wants to be part of what they have.
He takes a deep shaky breath in. This could be the start of something good, and a new beginning for him.
“Yes,” he says again, simply.
~~oo~~
Merlin asks Gwaine to wait in the kitchen as he goes to speak with Arthur, leaving him slightly nonplussed. But he soon hears Merlin’s soft earnest tones parrying with Arthur’s rumbling baritone.
He hears Arthur say, “Are you sure he wants this?” and Merlin’s reassuring but excited response.
Arthur carries on, “Are you sure you want this, my love?” To which Merlin makes no verbal response although Gwaine is sure he can hear panting and kissing noises coming through the thin partition.
He sees Arthur walk past the kitchen door. Merlin pops his head in, and reaches his hand out to lead Gwaine into what is clearly the Professor’s master bedroom. The room is lit by seductive lighting, and decorated in welcoming shades of red and gold. And the man clearly loves a dragon, or two.
Arthur has stripped down to his underwear and is lying back on the bed, his head resting on one folded arm. He looks at Gwaine. “You know what we want, what we are asking you to do? To be?”
Gwaine holds Arthur’s disarmingly blue gaze. “I understand. I want this too. I …want… you two.”
He feels Merlin's arms circle his waist from behind. Merlin's hands lift his shirt over his head, and undo his trouser buttons, helping Gwaine to shimmy out of them. To everyone’s delight, and no-one’s surprise, Gwaine has gone commando.
“It helps the boys breathe, you know?” he shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot, wondering to himself at exactly what point in the evening he had suddenly turned into an awkward virgin, as he eyes Arthur palming his own cock over his underwear.
Merlin, who has magically managed to make all of his own clothes disappear while all that was happening, turns Gwaine around to face him. Gwaine looks into blue eyes, such intense blue eyes whose pupils are widening as he watches. He slowly looks down Merlin’s body and is thrilled at what he sees— Merlin’s physique (usually hidden under baggy clothing and hideous beanies) is muscular, but lean. His chest is peppered with dark hair which trails down to his cock.
Oh, glory. Merlin’s cock is already hard and he reaches out to stroke Gwaine’s as he leans in for a kiss. A tender kiss that deepens and becomes sloppy with desire. Gwaine groans around Merlin’s tongue and he takes both their cocks in hand, rubbing slowly at first and then picking up speed as the lightning pools in his groin.
He throws his hair back and Merlin licks up his neck, nipping at the hollows and along his jaw, as Gwaine watches Arthur, who is naked by now, stroking his hard dick furiously with one hand while palming his balls and playing with his arsehole with the other, panting and groaning loudly.
Gwaine looks down at the sight of his and Merlin’s cocks, held in his hands, tips glistening with pre-cum. He pulls back from the kiss, and leads Merlin to the bed where Arthur has now found lube.
“Tell us what you want Arthur,” Merlin moans with anticipation.
“I want to see you fuck him, and then I want you both to fuck me.”
Despite his brain having just about dissolved with desire, Gwain still has the presence of mind to think: Oh. My. God.
Merlin takes the lead and pushes Gwaine onto the bed, marking his body with a trail of kisses down to his twitching cock. Gwain watches, fascinated and dumbstruck as his cock disappears into Merlin’s mouth rhythmically, and his cheeks hollow in a delicate counterpoint. Merlin hums as he licks and sucks like he has been dick-starved. His hands come up to cradle Gwaine’s balls, and tug gently on them. Oh. Oh. He reaches his hand out for Arthur to put lube on his fingers., not missing a beat with the steady suck-and-release that is threatening to send Gwaine over the top like an excitable virgin. Merlin’s fingers tease his puckered hole. “Fuck, Merlin,” he says in a guttural grunt.
‘That’s the idea,” Merlin laughter vibrates around his cock, nearly making him come then and there. But then, oh… then the filthy wanker proceeds to stick a finger up his arsehole, going slowly at first, then deep to the third knuckle.
He pauses and looks at Gwaine as if to say, is this OK? Gwaine nods. Then Merlin starts a rhythm with that finger that feels like… uuunnhgh… and then… then he finds the spot, and angles down, applying steady pressure and gentle friction.
Gwaine’s mind and cock both explode with energy of a thousand suns, and Merlin drinks it all in, with only a small drop escaping down his chin, which Gwaine wipes off with his thumb and sucks as Merlin kneels and strokes his own cock in a ragged rhythm, coming loudly and messily in his hand and over Arthur’s body.
Arthur shudders out his own orgasm, his come dotting his chest and stomach. Merlin and Gwaine kneel down on either side of Arthur, bending down to lap up the come and stroke him through the aftershocks. Gwaine lies down alongside Arthur, his hands running up and down Arthur's torso and he leans in to kiss him, a slow, deep, gentle inquisitive kiss that makes Arthur’s toes curl.
“Unh… I can’t again… not just yet …” his voice is deep and his laugh is throaty.
“That's OK, my love, you’ll do the heavy lifting next time,” Merlin smiles at Arthur, the filthiest, most loving smile Gwaine has ever seen. His heart spasms with the longing to have someone smile like that at him, just once…
~~oo~~
Gwaine finds himself lying between them both, facing Merlin with Arthur spooning him. Merlin leans in and gives Gwaine a deep, slow, comforting kiss as Arthur nuzzles into Gwaine’s hair, while reaching around him to stroke Merlin’s face.
A cold sharp thought hits Gwaine. He has just fucked his professor and his tutor. He is overtaken by an urge to flee and starts to scramble up from the bed.
Arthur’s arm tightens around his waist and pulls him into a close embrace. “Stay,” he murmurs.
“Yes, please stay,” whispers Merlin.
Gwain takes a deep breath. Aaah well— in for a penny, in for a pounding, he thinks to himself as he lies back down.
The three of them settle into a comfortable cuddle pile, limbs intertwined, the pace and rhythm of their breaths slowing down and synchronising as sleep sneaks up on them.
As Gwaine’s mind slowly drifts off, he hears Arthur mumble, “Don’t worry, this won’t affect the adjusted mark I give you.”
Gwaine’s last thought before sleep claims him is to wonder exactly what this all means.