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Summer hols are officially over, and Merlin honours his skateboard these last few times before the rain is back for sure. The weather is lenient this year; these last few weeks, the sun was in a good enough mood to keep the heat at a bearable level, and the rain clouds buggered off most days, leaving Merlin to learn how to grinding down the rails at the local park in peace. Will still calls him show-off like it’s offensive--then fastens his inline skates and grinds down the rails like it’s no biggie, shooting him a filthy grin after.
Merlin grumbles about the bugger that Will is (the ‘best mate’ being optional) all the way to school. He enjoys the wind on his cheeks and bare arms and ruefully comes to a halt outside his school, hefting his skateboard under his upper arm as he walks inside. There are familiar and unfamiliar faces washing past him in the student sea filling the foyer. He smiles at those he knows and those he doesn’t when they catch his eye. Some of them shoot him a glare and elbow his skateboard tucked against his side pointedly, but he just raises his eyebrows at them and pushes himself through until he reaches the hall.
He scans the rows of chairs for a known shock of curly brown hair and finds it within a minute. “Hi, stranger!” Gwen beams up at him and grabs him in a hug before he can say hello back.
“Stranger yourself,” he says when she lets him go. He looks over her, checking for any changes: Gwen looks resplendent as always in her yellow dress, a bag Merlin hasn’t seen her wear before in her lap, but her grin is brighter than usual--brighter and wider, actually showing teeth. Merlin can’t help but grin too, pushing his skateboard and backpack under his chair, and turns towards her. “So who’s the lucky man?” he asks without much preamble.
Gwen clicks her tongue as if in reprimand but doesn’t deny it. She leans forward the way she does when she’s about to share a secret, and Merlin ducks his head in conspiration.
Gwen’s curls tickle his cheek in a pleasant way. “Morgana,” she says immediately, and Merlin knows she’s been dying to tell him from the way she can’t hold her fingers still in her lap, from the way they’re fussing with the strap of her bag. Her excitement becomes his excitement, and his grin is widening already because yes, she’s finally over Lance, it was about bloody time that she was with the way she’s been moping for months--except…
“Morgana,” Merlin repeats, pulling back.
She nods, her curls bouncing with it (and Merlin is so glad to be off the hook at last. Being teased for over a year for admitting, that one time they’d been all three sheets into the wind, that Gwen’s hair bouncing was the single most “ad’rble shing in theee eeentire world!” had left its marks). “Yeah.” She looks breathless with the news, stares at him a second longer, and then the word-vomit comes, bumbling and endearing as always. “We were in France, right, and we went to visit the Eiffel tower and other stuff--I mean, not that there isn’t more to see than the Eiffel tower of course, because there is, it’s just the Eiffel tower really is the thing, and you really should see it, Merlin, I know how you don’t like heights but you just--you just have to see it. So, okay, yeah, after we were on the Eiffel tower we got dinner, and we’d agreed on splitting the bills and this time it was my turn but Morgana insisted on paying and then she took me to a picnic, Merlin, a midnight picnic, and it was just, oh God, no one’s ever done that for me, and then she--and I--and it just…”
"Morgana,” Merlin says slowly, looks right into Gwen’s eyes and holds her gaze, “is not a man.”
“I know,” she says quietly.
“How?” Merlin says, because the question is burning in the back of his mind, and he’s never been known for tact. It’s just… Gwen had a crush on him, dated Patrick and Ian and then Lance, over whom she’s been hung up for over one and a half years for sod’s sake, but she never dated a girl. Never.
Until now.
“Dunno,” she mumbles, keeps staring down at her lap. She shrugs and avoids his gaze like she’s uncomfortable. "It just... happened, I guess."
Merlin realises it not a second later: how twattish he sounded. “God, Gwen, no, don’t, no, it’s not--I don’t care. I don’t care because nobody gets to care except for you.” She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and he grimaces. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way even though I said it that way, it’s just--you know, Morgana is also… well, she’s also Morgana,” he says helplessly. “Evil stare, supermodel hair-flip, sleeps on money--and we still haven’t figured out if she’s just a mob or actually a mafia boss!”
Gwen’s lips quirk at that. “Yeah,” she agrees. “She is that, besides being our friend.”
“My friend and your hussy,” Merlin corrects without thinking. “Not that I can’t see the appeal, of course,” he adds with a teasing grin.
When Gwen’s heel stomps down on his foot, Merlin supposes he deserves that.
“Quiet, please!” the headmaster’s voice booms out through the speakers, and the students around them fall silent. Merlin sighs in frustration and leans back in the chair, foot beginning to tap an impatient beat with the headmaster’s fifth word. He hates these welcome-back-to-school speeches. Sure it’s a new year, sure he’s now in upper class, but except for how stuck-up it all sounds (upper class, really, that’s just a step away from saying hoity-toity class), he can’t bring himself to care. To him, it’s all the same. Another year to slave through. And there are more pressing matters on his mind, now.
He sighs through his nose and slouches down. The headmaster keeps droning on, and the teachers stand by his side as if in educative solidarity. Six more minutes pass, and Merlin can’t help nudging Gwen’s leg with his. He almost regrets it when she gives him a look that says ‘be quiet, or else...’ and normally, Merlin knows better than to press. This time, though, he sits up and leans forward with his chin on her shoulder. It’s uncomfortable, his head wiggling back and forth from the way Gwen is bouncing her left leg.
“What is it?” Gwen asks lowly, twitching her shoulder in an attempt to push him off.
Merlin is resolute. “Are you…” he begins hesitantly, then decides to just go for it. “Are you happy?” he asks right into her ear.
The bouncing stops, and the moment drags on. It feels as though everything is silent around them, even though the headmaster’s voice is loud and echoing from the speakers. Merlin doesn’t hear any of it.
Then, at length, Gwen says, “I am,” quietly, and the sounds come back.
“That’s all I’m asking for,” Merlin murmurs, and when he sits back up and pushes his hand into Gwen’s lap, she intertwines her fingers with his.
It’ll be a good year.