A/N: Posting another chapter today because the last one was short and I'm feeling eh today. So, have some smut with too much plot and a great rest of the week!
Friday before a long weekend was a teacher's worst nightmare. He'd checked with the staff if they needed in-class help and organized extra hallway monitors. Head Boys and Girls were excused from part of their classes for the day to help out, and Arthur still found himself cleaning up random fireworks from the bathrooms and stopping a literal food fight-where the food had been charmed to fight each other-luckily before it got too out-of-hand.
By the end of the day, Arthur was ready to snap. Nash had sent him an owl letting him know he'd be by first thing tomorrow morning, and Arthur had scowled through first hour. He'd had to be the "mean" professor all day and he was, frankly, sick of it. He wanted to curl up in front of his fireplace with the hot chocolate spell his mother had taught him and read a book. Or get into a wizarding duel. Or talk with Eames. But instead of doing any of that, he was busy helping two Slytherin girls he had given detention scour off the Bundimun infestation he'd found on the passage to the Slytherin common room.
"Ew, this smells so bad," one of the girls whispered under her breath, aiming an ineffective scouring charm at the patch while she tried to cover her nose with the sleeve of her robe.
"Careful there," Arthur frowned, "we'll use the secretions to make Doxycide in Potions class, so when you get done scouring it off, put it in the-"
There was a puff of smoke and a charred smell as the girl accidentally fried the Bundimun she'd been trying to clean off.
"-bucket," Arthur sighed. He opened his mouth to issue a new string of procedures when the sound of a commotion could be heard from upstairs. Arthur frowned again, directed the girls to keep working, and went to investigate.
Students had started to leave after the last class, so the large crowd gathered at the bottom of the stairs in the Entrance Hall surprised Arthur.
"Miss Pith, what's happening?" Arthur demanded as he saw her standing and whispering with another girl.
"Oh, uh, Professor!" Ophelia jumped, "Uh, Bradley and Jack were doing that stupid dueling thing they do again, when she showed up."
Arthur felt his stomach drop and he moved so he could see the landing at the top of the staircase. Sure enough, two boys were standing at the top of the staircase, their backs to the gathering crowd down below. In front of them, hovering a few feet off the ground and seemingly growing larger by the moment, was Mal's ghost. She was berating the two students for misbehaviour in the hallway, citing the Hogwarts rules for proper use of spells outside of classes and getting louder and more intense as she went.
"Is that really Professor Cobb?" Ophelia asked, and Arthur wasn't sure the question was directed at him or just in general.
"You boys should know better! Because I've talked to you about this before," Mal's ghost shouted at the top of the stairs. She was floating closer to one of the boys and he took a half step back. "Haven't I, MR. SIMMONS?!" In her anger, her transparent figure charged the students standing in front of her.
Bradley Simmons, startled by her sudden lunge and forgetting she was quite obviously a ghost, took a full step back to get away from her. Mal floated right through him, but Bradley's foot stepped onto empty air at the top of the stairs. His arms pinwheeled helplessly for a second as he started to fall.
"Immobulus!" Arthur shouted, his wand extended before he'd even thought about it. A few of the students shrieked, but Bradley was frozen mid-fall, his face an exaggerated grimace of fear looking behind him and his arms akimbo. Arthur pushed past students, doing his best to maintain a look of control as he reached Bradley and carefully maneuvered him a safe distance from the edge of the steps.
Mal floated over to him as he worked on the thawing charm. He clenched his jaw.
"Did you need a megaphone? Because that's the only way you could be louder." Arthur took down his Occlumency shields and "shouted" at her, And you're being a bitch, and everyone can tell.
Mal's ghost raised an eyebrow at him, shrugged one shoulder, and floated nonchalantly through the ceiling. Arthur watched her go, one eye still on Bradley and noticed Dom standing in the hallway, staring at the space where Mal had disappeared. He looked shaken. Arthur frowned at him as he finished up removing the freezing charm and making sure Bradley and the other students were okay. The cluster of kids at the bottom of the stairs were breaking up, but Arthur would need to make an announcement to the school if they weren't able to get this fixed before break was over. Fuck. Sometimes he hated this.
He made his way to Dom and pulled him to the side. "We need to fix this. Mal is terrifying the students. She almost hurt someone."
"I've got this under control," Dom said, his jaw clenched.
Arthur wasn't impressed. "I'd hate to see it out of control."
Dom refused to look at him, just spun on his heel and walked away. Arthur sighed again. He seemed to be sighing a lot today.
Arthur headed back down to the dungeon to find a bucket full of mostly serviceable Bundimun secretions and not one detention student to be found. He checked his watch and they'd only cut out about ten minutes early and the infestation appeared to be taken care of, so he let it go. Christ, he was tired. He trudged the bucket to Yusef's storage facilities, taking care to seal and label it according to the posted sign.
"Don't forget to SEAL! And LABEL! EVERYTHING!"
The sign contained a picture of glaring Yusef, just daring you to leave something unlabeled, and it wrung a smile out of Arthur every time he saw it.
Arthur was willing to forgo fire and book for bed and oblivion by the time he got to his rooms. However, as he drew near, he saw a flicker of light in the sliver under the door and in an instant, his exhaustion was forgotten. He drew his wand cautiously, making his way to the handle but staying to the side as he opened the door.
It creaked open, slowly, clicking as it bounced against the stones on the other side. Arthur didn't move, just waited to see if anything would come out.
"Arthur?"
"Eames?" Arthur asked, bewildered. "What-" Arthur spun around the corner to find out why the other man was in his rooms, but the sight of Eames strolling out of his bedroom threw him off course.
"What is going on?" Arthur asked, his eyes flitting over every flat surface, which were currently covered in blazing candles. "What is all this, Eames?"
Eames sighed a long-suffering sigh. "Okay, but when I tell you what these are, you're going to feel silly that you didn't figure it out on your own."
Arthur furrowed his brow at him, but Eames just smiled, wide and crooked, back at him. He had left his spelled robes out of sight, but the peach and brown shirt he wore instead might have been worse. Arthur fought the urge to roll his eyes at the man. "Look," he confided, "I'm not really sure I'll be good company tonight, to be honest." Arthur dropped a file of work to do on the growing pile on his table and turned to Eames. "I'm in a pretty shitty mood, and I'm not sure you want me to hang out with you."
Eames shrugged, unbothered, and cast another spell to light the remaining candles.
"I've met you before. You can't scare me that easily." He grinned, and Arthur felt himself relax almost against his will. "Come here."
Arthur raised an eyebrow but walked forward into Eames's embrace. His strong arms circled Arthur's shoulders and Arthur buried his nose in the soft skin above Eames's collar. He breathed in a deep breath of the warm, woodsy smell of Eames. He could smell chalk, and the outside, and under it something indefinably Eames. He wrapped his arms around Eames's waist and lowered his head to his shoulder. Eames dropped a kiss to his temple.
"Have you eaten?" Eames asked as he stroked his wide hand over Arthur's shoulders and neck.
Arthur hummed and melted into his touch. "Hmm, yeah."
"Then come on," Eames said and dropped his arms in order to tug Arthur into his bedroom.
He stowed their wands on top of Arthur's dresser and Arthur unzipped his robes, taking in all the candles Eames had lit here too. The bed taunted him lewdly so he refused to look at it, instead busying himself hanging the robe and removing an imaginary piece of lint.
What is my problem? It's not like this is the first time. But Arthur knew what his problem was. The first time had been frantic, pheromone-fueled, flat-out sex. This felt very different. This was deliberate and potent. He could feel Eames's eyes on him and he tried to swallow the ridiculous nervousness that was coming over him as he turned to him.
Eames's face was intense, and Arthur felt a little pinned under it. He swallowed, determined not to back up when Eames strode toward him. His eyes flickered everywhere, but when Eames reached him, he slowed and placed a gentle hand on Arthur's jaw.
"Hey," Eames rumbled, pressing a delicate kiss to the corner of Arthur's mouth. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to do. I just wanted to see you tonight."
Arthur let out a breathy half-laugh at himself and drew in a breath. He let it out slowly, his eyes closed and his forehead tipped against Eames's. "I'm glad you came," he admitted.
"Yeah?" Eames ran his palms over Arthur's shoulders and arms. "Would you still be glad if I said I wanted to see all of you tonight?"
Arthur drew back far enough to raise an eyebrow at him, a slight smile on his lips. Eames smiled back, unabashed, and then kissed him. Arthur melted, a sudden crashing of all his walls as soon as Eames's tongue touched his. Eames reached for his collar and Arthur tilted his head to deepen the kiss, but Eames pulled back. He placed a sweet kiss on Arthur's lips, then focused on the buttons of Arthur's shirt, undressing him with care. He stopped at Arthur's pants, just maneuvered him back towards the bed.
"Lie down," Eames said, "on your front."
Arthur obeyed, kicking his shoes and socks off as he went. He stretched out on his stomach, arms under his head and closed his eyes, a shiver working his way through him as he heard a rustle of fabric behind him.
He felt Eames's bulk dip the bed before settling over his thighs. There was a spicy, earthy scent and then Eames was touching him, a warm oil spreading over his back, kneading the muscles there. Eames pressed with this thumbs, his strong fingers working over the knots of tension Arthur had been carrying all day. Arthur's eyes rolled back in his head when Eames found a particularly tight spot in his shoulders and an inhuman gargle made its way out of his throat.
Eames chucked, low and warm. "Good?"
"Gnnh, so good," Arthur groaned. "You're hired," he muttered nonsensically, all higher level though gone out the window because Eames's hands were fucking magical and they were casting some kind of spell that qualified as dangerous.
He was working on a kink in Arthur's lower back and Arthur muffled his moan into the quilt. "Merlin's beard," Eames swore, "you have got to stop making those noises."
"What noises?" Arthur rasped into the bed.
Eames's hands straddled Arthur's hips as he leaned low and whispered in Arthur's ear. "The ones that make me want to fuck you."
Arthur stretched his hands far above his head and rolled his hips up, letting out a long, low groan as he felt Eames's erection pressing into him.
"Fuck," Eames whispered, his hands going to Arthur's ass and kneading there too. "You are just…" but he trailed off as Arthur reached beneath himself to pop the button on his pants.
Eames made a sound low in his throat, and Arthur hid his smile in the quilt. Eames smoothed his palms from Arthur's shoulder blades to the waistband of his pants, sliding his fingertips underneath the loosened material. He scrunched them down, as far as he could, each millimeter of skin exposed he followed with his lips and tongue. Arthur's shallow breaths huffed around his face, every nerve and though focused on Eames touching him. He squeezed his eyes shut as his pants slid halfway down his ass, Eames's teeth nibbling gently right where they stopped.
"Tell me you want this," Eames rumbled, working his way back up Arthur's body, dropping kisses everywhere.
"I want this," Arthur whispered, "but…"
Eames froze. "But?"
"Can we pause for a second?" Arthur felt like an idiot for asking. "I just need to…" He pushed up on his arms and Eames jumped back like he'd been caught doing something illegal. Arthur sat back and smiled at him, grasping one of Eames's hands in his and squeezing his fingers. Then he slid off the bed and grabbed his wand. Pointing it at the four corners of his room, he muttered protection spells that would keep out a wide range of things, but were some of the best known barriers against ghosts. He also, blushing furiously, laid down soundproofing charms while he was at it. When he was done, Eames was leaning back on his hands, watching him with a strange look on his face.
"There," Arthur cleared his throat. "That's done. Sorry to spoil the mood."
Eames shook his head with something like wonder in his eyes. "Don't apologize," he insisted. "So, just us now?"
Arthur set the wand back on top of his dresser, resting it snugly next to Eames's. He nodded, then pushed aside his embarrassment and looked Eames in the eye. "Can we try that again?"
Eames rose and stood next to him and when he brushed a thumb over Arthur's lips, Arthur's eyes slipped shut. He pressed a kiss to the pad of Eames's thumb, letting his hands skate up his chest, pressing the shake out of his fingers. He leaned in and kissed Eames, pressing himself in a hot line up against his body and letting Eames's tongue shut off his brain. The rough pads of Eames's hands scraped over Arthur's chest, his nipples hard and wanting and making him hiss when Eames lavished attention on them. Arthur fought with the opening on Eames's pants, flushing when Eames backed up and took over. He opened his own, shoving them down his thighs along with his least favorite pair of briefs before Eames could see them.
Then Eames was standing in his bedroom, naked and hard, and Arthur couldn't breathe. "God," he whispered, unaware he was even talking. His nails dug into his palm, grounding himself and bringing him down a notch. Between being touched by Eames like he was something precious and the way Eames was looking at him like he wanted to destroy him, Arthur thought he might go off like a firework if he didn't get it together.
His eyes raked over Eames, devoting as much as he could to memory. When he got to Eames's cock, proud and jutting, a small sound escaped his lips and Eames's cock twitched, hard. Then they were both moving, hands grasping and mouths crashing together, stumbling backwards towards the bed.
In between whispered, "You like that?" and "God, yes," came a very serious, "Can I…?" and a fervent, "You fucking better," and Eames was touching him, stroking over his rim and lapping at the juncture between his groin and thigh. Arthur groaned as the tip of Eames's thumb breached him. They both whispered, "Lubricus," at the same time and Arthur was the first to laugh when the wetness sopped over Eames's hand, ruining his sheets. He laughed at the surprise on Eames's face, then at the flush that rose up his cheeks, then at the cleaning spell Eames muttered and when Eames finally chuckled back, Arthur kissed him.
"You are fucking beautiful when you laugh, darling," Eames said, and Arthur blamed the hitch in his breathing and the thrill in his chest on the finger that Eames slid inside him at the same time. Eames's wide, thick fingers were clever, stroking and seeking and Arthur babbled out encouragement.
By the time Eames worked in a second finger, Arthur thought his dick might just explode. "Now, Eames," he begged.
"You sure?" Eames asked, and Arthur nodded, using the seconds while Eames cast his protection spell to draw in deep breaths and grasp the slats in the headboard. Eames paused, eyeing him and Arthur rolled his hips purposefully, reminding him. Eames's gaze darkened and he gripped himself around the base of his erection, lining up and gritting out, "Ready?"
"Fucking yes," Arthur growled, then gasped at the burn as Eames pushed in. He savored the ache, letting it bring him back from the edge. He'd forgotten how big Eames was, and it had been a while since he'd done this. He forced himself to relax as Eames bottomed out and they both panted together for a second.
Arthur pulled back, seeking Eames's face. He brushed the sweaty fringe off of Eames's forehead and when he caught his eye, rolled his hips again. Eames groaned this time, and Arthur felt a swell of pride. I did that to him. Me. Arthur grinned and opened his thighs even wider, taking Eames that much deeper.
Eames grinned back, his crooked teeth flashing in the low light. "Good?" he whispered.
"Very," Arthur said back. Eames stroked him from hip to knee, his wide palm pressing up into the back on Arthur's thigh. He leaned into it, his weight pinning Arthur, and then started to move, pulling out and pressing in, deeper and deeper strokes each time.
"Ah, ah," Arthur keened, before clamping his bottom lip between his teeth. Fuck, that feels… fucking FUCK! he thought as Eames shifted at hit the perfect spot.
Eames noticed, of course, because he adjusted his angle and picked up speed, slamming into Arthur again and again. "Christ, pet, you keep making those noises," he grunted, and Arthur had no idea what he was talking about. He grappled at Eames's arms, then back to the headboard, his hips rolling of their own accord. The hand Eames was using to hold down his leg slipped and Arthur almost cried when he stopped to maneuver his knees to a slightly different position.
He could hear the grin in Eames's voice when he said, "You just hold on there, pet. I've gottcha." He tossed Arthur's legs over his shoulders and then cradled his ass with his firm hands, lifting and squeezing. Then he started to move. He rocked into Arthur with tiny thrusts, then longer, deeper, Eames leaning over him and pressing him almost in half. Eames found his prostate again with one more shift and Arthur yelped, fingers digging into Eames's muscled shoulders.
"Gnngh," Eames groaned, eyebrows furrowed, "so good, Arthur,..."
His focus was maddeningly accurate and Arthur's brain could not physically process what was happening as Eames brushed a hand around his cock and he came, hard, spurting over Eames's chest and belly, at only the slightest of touches. The throbbing sensations continued as Eames pounded into him, still striking his prostate on every thrust and Arthur tried to tell him yes, and Christ, that's good, but he couldn't form coherent words, couldn't think. The rock of the mattress and the creak of the bedsprings were perfectly timed with the sounds Arthur couldn't hold back, and Eames's breathing was ragged.
"Ah, God, don't stop," Arthur begged when he finally found his breath, and Eames fucked him harder. Arthur tried to listen, because his eyes kept rolling back in his head and he couldn't focus, but the slap of skin and the panting moans bouncing around the room were the stuff of fantasies. And still Eames drug the world's longest orgasm out of him, or was this another one? until Arthur was crying out and coming again.
"Bloody buggering fuck," Eames swore, burying himself to the hilt as he spilled his seed inside Arthur without warning, cursing and collapsing.
"I'm sorry, darling," Eames panted, dropping kisses over Arthur's face. "Fuck, I'm sorry."
"Are you kidding me?" Arthur gaped as he tried to make his limbs function again. "You're sorry?! Sorry for what?!"
Eames hefted himself on one elbow and pulled out, pausing to catch his breath. "I'm sorry," he repeated, "that was not my best. You're just so… I can't help myself around you."
Arthur blinked up at him. "That was not your best?" he asked again, aghast. "Christ," he said, his head falling back against the pillows. "You're going to kill me. I'm going to die."
"Why didn't you ever play professionally?"
Arthur was using Eames's bicep as a pillow, which couldn't have been comfortable and it was too warm anyway, but before he moved, he asked the question that had been on his mind for a long time. "And where did you go after you graduated?"
Eames shifted and Arthur released his arm, scooting away so he could see his face. Eames looked surprisingly closed off. Then he smiled.
"Bit of this and that. I was all over. Sort of a world traveler, so to speak," Eames said.
Arthur thought about that, about what Eames said and hadn't said.
"Is it a secret?" he asked quietly, studying a tattoo and keeping his eyes down, because he could sense a fragility in Eames that he hadn't seen before.
Eames propped his head on his hand and watched Arthur. "It is, actually," he murmured, grasping Arthur's hand. "At least, it has been up to now. Partly because that part of my life is very unbecoming a Hogwarts professor." Eames licked his lips and Arthur could see his discomfort in every line of his body. "But mostly because it's not really something to be proud of. It was a long time ago and not who I am anymore."
Arthur was fascinated. Eames could say anything right now and Arthur would believe him. Arthur's imagination was running wild. He stroked Eames's fingers and tried to quiet his heart rate. "Does it have anything to do with how you were already in my rooms when I got here, even though I didn't let you in?"
Eames shifted and Arthur looked up. He stopped Eames as he tried to roll away. "Wait," Arthur insisted, grabbing his shoulder. "I'm not mad." Eames looked skeptical, but Arthur continued, "It's just that I'm the fucking DADA professor and I do know my way around a protection spell." He tipped a grin at him. "I am impressed, Mr. Eames."
Eames, ever a chameleon and always comfortable wherever he was, looked like he was trying to slip back into a costume that was too tight. He gave Arthur a half smile and muttered, "Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur, thank you."
Arthur just chuckled and rolled into Eames's bulk. He pressed his lips against Eames's neck and breathed in. "Will you stay?" he asked, tentative. "I'm trying to dream a little bigger."
He could feel Eames relax in inches. Warm breath caressed his scalp, warming his whole body. Arthur felt Eames's arm settle over him and sleep tugged at him, even though he wasn't convinced he wasn't already dreaming when he heard the soft whisper, "Always."