Merlin - a drabble-ish thing for catchtheskies
Merlin was looking at the flower, but his gaze wasn’t focused on the brilliant red rose in front of him. His mind was rather glumly occupied with something, someone, else.
“Merlin, you’ve been staring at that blasted flower for ages. What’s wrong?”
Startled, Merlin snapped his gaze up to meet Arthur’s questioning look. The prince was sitting on his bed, pulling off hit boots. It occurred, dimly, to Merlin that he’d hadn’t noticed him come in.
“It’s Freya.”
Arthur’s boot hit the floor with a solid thump.
“Oh,” he said quietly.
“Yeah.” Merlin laid the rose down gently and leaned back in his chair.
“How did you do it?” Merlin asked, turning to Arthur. “I mean, with Gwen.”
Arthur pretended to ponder it for a moment. Merlin knew he had no problems remembering the event in question.
“Well, there was a field, with flowers, of course. You know about the picnic-“
“That I helped you fix,” Merlin added with a slight smile. Arthur frowned slightly at him, before carrying on.
“And of course, I was a complete gentleman during the whole thing. She kept asking me what was up, but I admitted to nothing…it really was wonderful. We stayed out until it was starting-“
“Arthur, this isn’t helping.”
“Right. Anyway. I just walked her back to her house, and that’s when I did it.” The prince frowned a bit. “Not sure how well that would work for you though.”
Merlin resisted the urge to completely ignore the man, and he turned back to the table. Picking up the rose, he began twirling it between his fingers. It was slightly frightening, the way he was so obsessed with making it perfect. He worried she wouldn’t like it, or that she might not even agree to it.
His mind was still stuffed full of warring ideas when Gwen decided to make an entrance, her beautiful purple dress flowing behind her and a radiant smile on her face.
“Hello Merlin.” She smiled brightly at him and he returned it, then quickly occupied himself with the flower while Arthur and Gwen said their own private hellos. He fought off the urge to cover his ears, close his eyes, and start singing loudly.
“Thinking about Freya?”
“Huh?”
For the second time Merlin was startled out of his thoughts by Gwen’s question. She’d finally moved away from Arthur and taken a seat next to Merlin at the table.
“Yeah.” Gwen’s eyes glinted knowingly and she nodded, a grin spreading across her face.
“I think, you should use the rose. You know, hand her the closed rose, and then open it up in her hands.” She leaned in a bit closer to Merlin. “I think she’d love it.”
For the first time that day, Merlin’s eyes lit up and he eagerly jumped out of the chair, nearly knocking it over in the process.
“Gwen! That’s brilliant!” He quickly reached down and gave her a crushing hug before disappearing out the door.
“Thank guys!!” echoed up the hall.
Gwen laughed and turned back to Arthur, who was smiling, if a bit confused by everything.
“Did you have that much trouble when you were proposing to me?”
Arthur’s eyes widened slightly before he could hide it. He furiously shook his head no, and she just smiled. “Mhm.”