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Percival almost ran into Gwaine’s back when the short knight stopped walking in front of him. Gwaine nudged Elyan, nodding towards the prince’s closed chamber door that they had just been walking past.
Leon sighed as a groan echoed from inside Arthur’s room. Elyan and Gwaine chuckled. Lancelot tried to chivvy the two of them onwards, blushing slightly. And Percival frowned in confusion.
“Are they…?” Elyan asked, hiding his smirk behind one hand.
“Hmm. ‘Poetry lesson’,” Leon said, with an almost concealed smirk.
“Poetry?” Elyan replied sceptically.
From inside the room there was a groan and the creak of a chair moving.
Gwaine snorted. “Poetry in motion” – he gave a thrust of his hips – “if you know what I mean.” Lancelot smacked his arm.
Percival wasn’t sure he knew what any of them meant. He would be the first to admit he didn’t know much about poetry, but what he could hear through the prince’s door didn’t really sound like poetry. Not enough words and too much movement. Maybe they were dancing? Maybe that’s what Gwaine meant by poetry in motion?
“You’d think they could come up with a better lie, wouldn’t you?” Elyan said with a laugh.
“Don’t know why they bother to lie, we’re not judging them,” Gwaine said reasonably, shrugging. He pressed close to the door again, winking as Elyan put a hand over his mouth to stop giggling.
“Get to your chambers,” Leon huffed, giving Elyan and Gwaine a push. “Go on.”
Elyan chuckled and Lancelot started dragging him off down the corridor. Leon sighed and headed the other way. Gwaine, still grinning, nudged Percival in the ribs with a sharp elbow then followed Elyan and Lancelot towards the knights’ chambers. Keeping in step with Gwaine, Percival tried to work out exactly what the conversation had been about.
It was times like these that Percival really felt like the commoner he was. Of course, he knew the rest of Arthur’s chosen knights (apart from Leon) were all commoners too, but they all seemed to know more than Percival. They were better educated, more worldly. Gwaine especially, even though he tried to hide it, not wanting to be thought of as the smart one. And he was a couple of years older than Percival too.
Percival was the youngest, and the most naïve, and the least clever – or in any case that’s how he felt compared to the others.
Once Elyan and Lancelot had bid them goodnight and gone into their respective chambers, Gwaine glanced over at Percival, his eyes twinkling.
“I was thinking of doing a little poetry reading in my chambers tonight,” he offered casually. “You wanna come?”
Percival felt like Gwaine had slapped him. His stomach twisted in embarrassment and hurt.
“Gwaine.” The hurt spilled into his voice as his eyebrows dipped and his cheeks darkened. “You know I can’t read.”
It wasn’t like Gwaine to be so insensitive. To invite Percival to something he knew he couldn’t participate in. Percival hunched his shoulders, crossed his arms over his chest, gripping his opposite elbows, and not looking at Gwaine.
“Oh sweet Percy!” Gwaine stopped walking, turning to him and grabbing his biceps. He reached up to cup the back of Percival’s neck, his fingers brushing through the short hair. “I didn’t mean actually reading poetry!”
“Didn’t you?” Heat rushed up Percival’s face as he desperately tried to make sense of Gwaine’s words, to try and figure out exactly what it was he had meant.
“No!” Gwaine chuckled. “Poetry in motion, my friend,” he said enticingly, swaying his hips.
“You mean… you want to dance with me?”
“Well, if you’d rather call it that…”
Percival frowned. “What?” He was completely lost.
Gwaine frowned too, his eyes searching Percival’s as if looking for a joke. When he saw that Percival was just confused, he leant forwards to press his body against his, his hand sliding onto Percival’s lower back, his hips pushing against him. The hand on the back of his neck curled slightly and pulled Percival’s head down so that their lips could connect.
Percival loved kissing Gwaine. They’d only done it few times; after a feast when Gwaine was tipsy, in the armoury after the first time Gwaine had unseated Percival in jousting. And a week ago after Gwaine had narrowly escaped getting himself killed in a bandit ambush while on patrol. That time it had led to a little more as well, Gwaine desperately rutting against Percival as he pressed his tongue firmly into his mouth. It had been searing hot and left Percival wanting more.
“Like this,” Gwaine whispered against his lips. “Poetry. In. Motion.” Each word was punctuated with another kiss and a slow grind of Gwaine’s hips. Percival could feel that Gwaine was hard in his breeches, the hot line of his erection pressing into Percival’s thigh with every movement of his hips.
“Poetry… oh.” Percival suddenly felt incredibly stupid.
Gwaine hummed in agreement, rolling his hips forward again.
That’s what ‘poetry’ meant. Oh. Percival’s mind replayed the groaning sounds from Arthur’s chambers. Arthur and Merlin…? Oh! “Merlin’s sleeping with the prince?” he asked in surprise.
“You didn’t know?” Gwaine leant back, a bemused grin on his face. “They have been for… well, ages, before I first met them.”
“Oh.” Percival tried to think of any reason he would have had to suspect them. They certainly spent a lot of time together, but Merlin was Arthur’s manservant so of course they did. “I didn’t know…”
“Good for them, I say,” Gwaine said with an easy grin.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t help the smile that spread over his face, happy for his friends.
“But enough about them.” Gwaine pushed his hips against Percival’s again. “Did you want to come to my chambers? For a little ‘poetry’ of our own?”
Now he understood what Gwaine was talking about, Percival found he was blushing for an entirely different reason. He still couldn’t quite believe Gwaine liked him like this. But he was more than happy to reciprocate it.
“No reading?” he checked, unable to keep the helpless relief from his voice.
“No reading, sweetheart,” Gwaine confirmed, stroking gently and reassuringly up Percival’s arms, a soft smile on his face.
“Yes please then,” he muttered, leaning down to kiss Gwaine again and feeling his own cock start to swell.
But Gwaine pulled back from the kiss, instead guiding Percival along the corridor and into his chambers, kicking the door shut behind them.