Chapter Text
How did I get here? Lancelot wondered. Cold and shivering, without a room of his own. It was a situation he’d hoped never to be in again.
He knew Merlin would share with him but god knew what arrangement of Merlin Gwaine Elyan and Percy he might find if he knocked on any of their doors now. He knew he’d be welcome to join but he really wasn’t in the mood tonight. Leon might well let him share, but that was only if Lance could find his room.
Which was a problem. Because right now Lancelot was lost. And trying desperately not to think of what most of his friends were doing right now, because that would lead to thinking about two friends in particular.
He was trying so hard not to think about that in fact, he nearly ran smack into one of the friends he was trying not to think about.
He screeched. Gwen screeched. Arms went flying and Gwen’s hand accidently connected with his nose at quite a velocity.
“I’m so sorry Lance!” Gwen was in anguish, trying to mop at his bloody nose with the unrolled sleeve of her shirt, the other hand anchored on his shoulder.
“It’s fine, it was my fault,” he mumbled thickly, before freezing.
Wait.
Shirt.
Arthur’s dress shirt, loosely buttoned and ending at her mid-thigh.
He jumped away from her like he had been burned. “What are you doing out here?” he asked, hastily resuming the mopping with the hem of his t shirt. Anything to distract himself from her bare brown legs, scattered with soft dark curls, the daisy chain tattooed around her left ankle, her toenails painted purple. Looking into her face was worse though: her hair was tousled, dark amber eyes bright like polished gemstones, her cheeks tinged a delicious pink. “I thought you’d be… busy.” It was his turn to blush, and he internally chastised himself. It was painfully obvious how busy she was.
Gwen blushed even harder, dragging her eyes away from where they seemed to be glued to his exposed abdomen. “I was- we were- I thought you’d be too. Not that I mean- I just needed to get something from my room. I just meant- I was wondering why you were out here?” She blinked as though only just noticing the state he was in. “Why are you soaked?”
Lance blinked too, having just been letting the trademarked Gwen-oversharing-ramble wash over him, savouring it even amid the crippling awkwardness. “The tap broke and flooded my room,” he mumbled.
“And do you have a place to sleep now?”
“Not exactly?” he hedged sheepishly. She knew him too well. “I was going to ask Leon, but I don’t exactly know… where he is?”
“Then come to our room!”
At his protesting squawk she hurried on.
“Just to clean yourself up a bit and get some dry clothes from Arthur! He might know where Leon’s room is anyway. Room 313. I’ll catch you up in a minute.”
“I don’t want to disturb you,” Lancelot mumbled feebly, knowing he was making a valid point but also knowing that Smith generosity was not something easily overpowered.
“It’s partly my fault,” Gwen pointed out, voice stronger now she knew she would imminently be leaving this awkward encounter. She reached up to pat his shoulder but then left her hand there, trailing absently down to his chest. “And I’m sure there are worse people to share out room with.”
He would have laughed at the patented Smith-accidentally-slightly-insulting-compliment had her voice not been low and smooth like honey, her touch scorching his skin. He must have given an audible gulp because she suddenly blinked as if waking from a daze.
“I should-“ She gestured frantically and slipped past him. “Oh- and you might- er- want to knock before you go in.”
He grimaced in anticipation of more embarrassment. “Right. Thanks.”
He nearly didn’t go. He told himself it was a bad idea, that he should walk straight past room 313 and hope some magical trail led him to Leon’s room. Or just keep wandering the entire night. Surely anything was better than imposing on Arthur Smith on his wedding night. This was surely the mother of bad ideas.
But despite all these thoughts, he found himself hovering outside room 313, unable to go any further. His heart was in his mouth, but he sighed, resigning himself, and knocked.
“You know, you don’t need to knock Guinevere,” came Arthur’s voice from inside, a sultry affectation to it that Lancelot had never heard before. Despite being soaked to the skin and shivering, Lancelot suddenly felt rather hot, and he couldn’t quite fool himself that it was just embarrassment.
“Um, it’s Lancelot.”
There was a squawk and a clonk as Arthur presumably fell off the bed. “Lance! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Uhm, Gwen sent me.”
“She WHAT?”
Lancelot winced. Horrible move. “No! I just-“ This would be the moment that he ran away to Australia, but a cleaner had just passed, eyeing him suspiciously. “Please, can I come in? I just need to use your bathroom.” Worse and worse.
Luckily, Arthur just heaved a sigh. “All right,” he acquiesced. “Hold on a minute.” There was some shuffling, then Arthur opened the door, clad obviously hastily in his dress pants, his hair sticking up in all sorts of interesting ways. He blinked at Lance’s bedraggled and bloodstained state. “What happened to you?”
“I ran into Gwen,” Lancelot replied with a sheepish grin. “Literally.”
His eyes widened. “Is she all right?”
“Yes!” he rushed to reassure him. “She says she’ll be back in a minute, I just, um- do you have a spare shirt? My tap flooded my room too.”
Arthur blinked. “Umm, of course. I’ll find one, you go and wash up.”
Lancelot went into their ensuite and gratefully stripped off his sodden, chilly shirt. He gingerly dabbed at the dried blood crusted around his nose with toilet tissue, thankful the pain was fading and it didn’t seem broken. Merlin would never have let him or Gwen live it down. When he looked halfway presentable, he stepped back out.
Arthur was sitting on the bed, another of his button-downs lying out on the covers for Lancelot. He looked up when he opened the door, and Lancelot suddenly became acutely aware that he was that he was still half naked. It wasn’t like he hadn’t realised, or like he’d never been shirtless around Arthur before - at the beach and such - but it somehow felt more in this small, intimate space – more vulnerable, more loaded.
“Thank you,” Lancelot said, moving to pick up the shirt and put it on. It was loose on him if not long, and he couldn’t help remembering that Gwen was also wearing one of Arthur’s shirts. Arthur inclined his head, still not taking his eyes off him. Lancelot finished buttoning the shirt, then couldn’t think of what else to do but to sit down beside him.
The space between them hummed with something almost tangible;. Lancelot stared at the wall and willed himself to break the silence, willed himself to draw it out forever, one last glittering thread in the tapestry of hope that was quickly fading.
“So,” he managed at last, hating himself for it even as he spoke. “Do you know where Leon’s room is?”
Arthur shook his head. “I don’t, no.”
“Oh.” The silence resumed.
Lancelot couldn’t tear his eyes away from him. He’d seen Arthur shirtless a lot, when he used to stay over at theirs and he'd encounter him in the mornings, yawning with a cup of coffee, and he’d have to try and ignore the painful jerk of longing in his heart. But it felt like he’d never seemed quite so beautiful as tonight. The lamplight shadowing the gentle handsomeness of his jawline, his full pecs, the defiant curve of his belly hung low over the waistband of his dress pants, the covering of golden hair glowing.
“I should go before Gwen comes back. I don’t want to intrude.” He didn’t mean it, couldn’t mean it however loudly part of his brain was screaming at him to get out and let them go, but it felt like the only appropriate thing to say.
Arthur nodded, a crease between his brows. “Of course. If you want. But where will you go?”
Lancelot sighed, returning his gaze to the wall. “I don’t know.” He was so tired of trying to work that out himself, where he would go without them.
“It’s all right.” Arthur’s voice held that gentle quality, so powerful for how hard he had fought to reclaim it, that threatened to split Lance wide open every time he heard it. “We’ll help you. Or something.”
“Or something,” he mumbled. There was a lump lodged in his throat, choking him.
Another long, quivering moment.
“I’m so glad she’s got you,” Arthur said softly. “Gwen, I mean. She loves you very much.”
Lancelot blinked, but of course he knew that. “And I her,” he answered, turning to look at him again.
“Me too,” Arthur continued. It was barely a whisper. He was staring at the wall. “I’m very lucky to have both of you.”
His head turned and his eyes found his, dark blue in the shadowy light; wide like he was afraid, soft like he was safe.
Lancelot didn’t realise he was reaching out to him until his fingertips brushed his wrist. They both jumped a little, but before Lancelot could pull back with a stuttered apology Arthur’s other hand was covering his, fingers intertwining. Arthur shifted closer to Lance, and one hand reached for his hair, tucking a strand of it back behind his ear before slowly sliding an arm around his shoulders. Lancelot couldn't think, could do nothing but lean into him, his head coming to rest on his warm bare shoulder, his eyes falling shut with a sigh.
He was tired, too tired, to fight his arms around him, to even question it. Not when he wanted it so badly, not when it would only be out of what was proper. There was the sound of the door opening and Lancelot did not even start. He knew who it was, and he would never be able to dread her arrival, whatever the context. He opened his eyes to face whatever her reaction would be, only to see her standing in the doorway watching them with a look of pure love on her face.
She was before them in a moment, leaned down and wrapped her arms around them both. He pressed his face against her neck and inhaled her sweet smell, her touch as familiar as his own but strange at the same time.
He’d cuddled with both of them before now of course, though with Arthur only when he was too drunk or sleepy to worry about dignity. But this felt different. The tension and longing thrumming between them, gilded strings taut with anticipation, that Lancelot couldn’t quite say was all in his head any more.
Time became a bit blurry after that. He didn’t know exactly how they ended up kissing, only that he’d shifted his head slightly and found familiar lips waiting there, and he’d been entirely unable to resist. It had started out soft and gentle to begin with, but then got more insistent.
Somehow he ended up straddling Arthur’s lap, running a thumb reverently over his lips before kissing him with two year’s hunger, and Gwen was pressed against his back, arms winding around his shoulders and the two of them working together to unbutton the shirt he’d only just put on as they kissed over his shoulder. And then Gwen was kissing along his jaw to reach his mouth again and the sweet tangling bliss of familiarity and newness filled him like honey, thick and sweet and heady, and then-
Well.