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"The shop assistants all think it's terribly nice my boyfriend has come along for moral support and to help carry bags and such," Merlin reported. He was wearing the last dress he'd tried on, something soft pink and frilly which Susan had hated at first sight but which had seemed somehow to have grown on her at second.
She thought that it was probably safe to blame Merlin for that. In a roundabout way, she supposed that was a little like blaming herself: she had been the one to agree to go shopping with him, after all.
"Are you finally going to buy anything?" she asked, hoping she sounded impatient rather than rude.
Susan's idea of shopping was to enter a shop, find something you wanted and were able to afford, and buy it. Simple, straightforward and practical.
Thus far, Merlin's idea of shopping seemed to be limited to entering a shop and chatting with all the shop assistants. Susan supposed 'chatting to the shop assistants' might qualify as 'something Merlin wanted and was able to afford', but in her opinion, it didn't really qualify as shopping.
"Does this dress make me look more attractive than usual?" Merlin twirled.
Susan tried to consider the question with some amount of objectivity. It felt more difficult than she felt it ought to. Merlin would have looked attractive wearing a sack. Susan knew this, and Merlin knew this.
Merlin also knew that Susan knew, which was mildly embarrassing, though it became less so every time Merlin pointed it out, which was often. Which just possibly was why he did it, though Susan hadn't quite made up her mind about that yet.
"About as attractive as usual, I think," she said, to answer Merlin's question.
"Hm." Merlin studied his reflection in the mirror. "I was hoping for something a little more. If possible, something irresistibly sexy, guaranteed to make anyone fall hopelessly in love with me."
"Alas," Susan said, because confessing that she strongly suspected that she, at least, already had seemed unlikely to do anyone any good whatsoever and besides, it might not even be true.
It was true that she liked Merlin a great deal, and true that he seemed to like her as well. It might even be love. At the moment, Susan felt reasonably confident that there would be another date in their future.
She preferred not to think ahead further than that.
"Oh well. It was worth a try." Merlin shrugged. "Let me get out of this and we can try next door. I saw some jeans in the window that might suit you very well." Merlin's expression brightened. "I can let the shop assistants tell me what a nice girlfriend I am, for accompanying my boyfriend while he's shopping for new trousers. And then after, I can treat you to some lunch?"
"Lunch sounds good," Susan said. She wasn't sure if Merlin would get any further than introducing himself in the time it usually took her to pick out a pair of trousers.
"Excellent." Merlin smiled at her, and then at the shop assistants, who seemed sympathetic rather than disappointed when Merlin announced that he wasn't going to be buying anything after all.
They waved at Susan as she and Merlin left. Susan waved back, feeling only a little bit like a fraud, because she knew very well that even if Merlin had bought anything, she'd definitely have let him carry his own bags.