How to Win a Merthur - MERLIN - PG-13
Title: How to Win a Merthur: a case study in 9 parts
Author: anamuan
Fandom/Pairing: Merlin; Gwen/Morgana, background Arthur/Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,144
Warnings: Some language
A/N: This is err, something quite like remix fic for skellerbvvt's Coffeeshop Muffins. mycroftnext sent it to me at work one day and I was like 'I AM IN LOVE' and 'I WANT TO WRITE MORGANA/GWEN' and 'JKFLEAGEIA3HGELKAGEA!!!' she said 'ask permission and do it!' and skellerbvvt was lovely and flailed yes at me. And so I did. Beta by the ever-lovely mycroftnext; britpick done by my favourite gingifere.
"You know, I didn't think you were serious about the sandwich thing." Morgana hadn't been, truly, but that doesn't stop her from helping to make the cookies. She consults the recipe again, and then dumps in the last of the dry goods.
"The Arthur has two different kinds of pickles on it," Gwen says. She takes over the cookie dough so Morgana can go dig out the rolling pin and the cookie cutters she bought Gwen special for the endeavour. Keeping them a secret had lasted all of four hours, but they'd spent two and a half of those hours together, so Morgana definitely counts that as a success.
"They're going to start thinking that we make cookies after this, you know," Morgana says, doing her best to warn Gwen, even though Gwen definitely already knows.
"We do make cookies," Gwen says, and leans over to drop a kiss on Morgana's lips, so Morgana maybe starts humming as she takes the bowl of half-mixed dough back from her girlfriend instead of arguing. "Baby duck shaped ones! And there was the time with the little fishes."
"Well," says Morgana dubiously, between random snatches of tune, "Probably they'll have forgotten all about the cookie-demands as long as everyone calls them 'biscuits' for the first three seconds. Or if we can distract them into another cookie versus biscuit argument in the meantime."
Gwen looks absolutely aghast at the idea of Merlin and Arthur fighting and even stops playing with the duck-shaped cookie cutters (Morgana had bought two, one for each of them, even though she wasn't entirely sure if 'them' meant Merlin and Arthur or her and Gwen) and Morgana has to rush to reassure her that fighting for them means more of the usual except they only sat in each other's laps half as much and maybe Arthur ate twice as many pickles until they were friends again. This would last approximately an hour and a half, and then Merlin would run to the shop to get Arthur more pickles because he might run out in a couple days, and then everything would be completely normal again.
"They're coming out cookies!" Gwen tells her, when they've finally baked up a couple dozen hearts and baby ducks. "They seemed so disappointed that everyone took it in stride. You know, their getting together," she explains.
"That's because they've effectively been together since Arthur was five and Merlin was three, respectively. They don't need coming out cookies."
"You're just jealous because you want cookies for yourself," Gwen says.
Morgana pouts at her petulantly. "Yes, well. I can't help it. They're tasty."
Gwen takes a cookie out of the bag they were filling for Merlin and Arthur and feeds it to Morgana with her fingers. Now there are only 17 heart cookies to go with the 36 ducks, but the smile on Morgana's face--more from being doted on than from want and delivery of a cookie--makes Gwen think that's just the perfect number.
"So what's in the Merlin?" Morgana asks, as they're cleaning up evidence of their cookie-baking escapades before The Boys get back from their date. If you can call it that when it's really only getting a post-exam consolation dinner, which they'd have done anyway, just like with every other thing they do together. Gwen says it counts. Morgana doesn't, but she's still a little sore that she'd thought they were playing her for so long.
"Bacon!" Gwen chirps happily.
~~~
"Why is their's the Den of Iniquity if they're not, you know, having any sex?" Gwen asks once, early on.
"Have you looked in there recently? It's a dangerous, dangerous place," Morgana replies. "Why, do you want us to have a Den of Iniquity?"
"Well, a little iniquity never hurt," says Gwen, and manages somehow to look coy and lecherous all at the same time. Needless to say, they get rather distracted from the subject at hand. Gwen is adorable when she flails over The Boys, as she's adorable in just about everything, but Morgana has no complaints at the change in subject.
~~~
Arthur dares Morgana to make out with Gwen as revenge for yet another time she sets him and Merlin up in truth or dare at a party. The thing is, Morgana kind of already has a crush on Gwen, which she'd accidentally let slip one day to Merlin, which means, of course, Arthur knows too. He'd promised to keep it a secret, but Morgana knew better the moment it left her mouth. Merlin keeping a secret from Arthur was the same as asking Merlin to keep a secret from himself. It just didn't work.
Right, so Arthur knows, and Morgana had kept increasing the amount of time he and Merlin were supposed to keep a lip lock, and nothing says sweet revenge than sending Morgana off to talk a girl she barely knows and actually likes into snogging her. Morgana's not really the gets embarrassed type, but something about Gwen makes her feel almost shy. ("She's just so pretty," Morgana had murmured as Gwen had wandered past, coffee in one hand, class notes in the other, cramming frantically. Merlin overheard because Morgana was not nearly as sneaky as she thought she was. Morgana also had the perfect colouration to make a blush really, really noticeable, and they always, always gave her away. So even if Merlin hadn't heard her, Morgana would have given herself away with the bright cherry colour her face went.) She's really not the type to back down from a challenge though, which is probably the only motivation in the world that gets her to actually go over and say 'Hullo.'
Morgana does go over, and she says hello and actually blushes as she does it. Gwen immediately starts blushing as well, in sympathy, even though she doesn't really know what is going on. Arthur has actual video of it, though Merlin keeps shaking the camera because he's attached to Arthur's side like a limpet and is trying not to laugh too hard. He only likes to be malicious if it's Arthur involved, because Arthur knows he doesn't actually mean it.
Oddly enough, Gwen stops blushing the moment she gets Morgana's tongue in her mouth. Morgana stays an amusingly bright cherry hue until Gwen breaks away and asks, Arthur and Merlin find out later, if Morgana didn't want to go back to her apartment and sexile Gwen's roommate for once.
So Morgana really only knows Gwen because of an act of petty revenge. Best revenge ever, but Morgana is never ever telling Arthur that. Or Merlin, because, again, they're effectively the same thing. She doesn't want them to get inflated ideas about themselves. Mostly Arthur.
~~~
Morgana realizes she is in trouble (and by 'trouble' she means 'kind of ridiculously in love') when she finds she'd stopped doodling Indiana Jones fighting snakes in space, and started doodling Gwen as High Queen of the Hippopotamuses riding to the moon. At least she seems to be keeping with the space theme.
She shrugs it off mentally, though, because she isn't really studying anyway, she just has the notebook open out of habit because she should be studying. Really they were all four of them crammed on the Laptop Couch watching telly. Or OK, three of them are watching telly, and Gwen is hiding her face in Morgana's shoulder because the Borg are scary and mean and she doesn't like them. Her lips tickle Morgana's shoulder, and her hair tickles Morgana's neck. Morgana is not entirely adverse to this. By which she means not adverse at all, and in fact, rather enjoying it.
On screen, a random crew member extra is assimilated. Morgana turns her head and drops a kiss on top of Gwen's curls. And promptly gets a pillow in the face from Arthur.
"Stop that. You're being disgusting again," he says. "Some of us are trying to watch telly."
"Your face is disgusting!" It's not the best come-back ever, but it's effective and has been since Arthur was about six. Why mess with a classic?
Gwen doesn't really know them well enough yet to feel comfortable protesting their inherent and total adorability, but she thinks it, very hard. When she laces her fingers through Morgana's, Morgana sticks her tongue out at Arthur and gets another pillow to the face for her trouble.
~~~
Morgana surveys the strip of skin that peeks out from the bottom edge of Gwen's tank top assessingly. Vaguely she thinks Gwen and Merlin are having a conversation about weekend plans, but she isn't paying enough attention to be sure.
"Right, OK! Enough talking. Say goodnight to the boys," Morgana interrupts suddenly, though to her credit, she'd been distracted and hadn't really realized Merlin was mid-word and not between sentences. Gwen is very distracting. As is her skin.
Gwen barely gets enough time to get goodnight out to both of them before Morgana drags her unceremoniously to their recently-appropriated bedroom, where Morgana stops her from laughing by kissing her. Morgana's not positive Gwen was laughing at her, but she has her suspicions.
~~~
Gwen has an alarming tendency to lose her own gloves. Morgana thinks she goes through three and a half pair the first two months they're dating. The only thing that kept Morgana from buying Gwen a new pair of gloves and sewing them to her jacket like a little kid is that she manages to keep that last glove (the other half of the half pair she'd managed to lose) for most of one of those months, and uses her lack of glove as an excuse to keep her hand tucked into Morgana's pocket whenever they're together.
This kind of makes Morgana feel ridiculously giddy, so when Gwen finally loses that last glove, Morgana just silently hands her the other half of the pair she's wearing. She's not been getting much use out of it anyway. She'll just buy them a new pair when Gwen loses that one.
It turns out that Gwen is only careless with her own gloves. When it's Morgana's, she learns how to darn from the internet to fix it when it gets a little hole in the thumb, even though Morgana's had a reserve pair tucked into the Boys' hall closet since they went on clearance when the weather got warm again.
No one suggests that they each use their own pair of gloves. It would be a waste of gloves.
~~~
"You know, if we eat a couple of the duck cookies, it'll be like we planned it. For their anniversary, even. It's their seventeenth this year, never mind that seventeen is just shy of a dozen and a half."
Gwen pretends not to notice as Morgana sneaks a couple more cookies out of the bag.
~~~
"Don't you think it would be a good idea to go flat-hunting sometime?"
"We'd spend all our time at the Boys' flat anyway," Morgana pointed out matter-of-factly.
"Well, yes. But it would be nice to have sex in the living room without worrying about rolling onto an abandoned pickle," Gwen countered.
"...You make a very compelling argument, Guinevere. Very compelling indeed."
~~~
It's one of those snooty coffee shops where they don't let you order iced coffee because it "ruins the integrity of the beans" or some bullshit like that, but it's right on the corner across from the university gates and part of their snooty hipster aesthetic means you can crash there all day for the price of an (admittedly over-priced) single coffee. This is excellent for days when Gwen and Morgana oversleep--through no fault of their own, of course--and don't make it to the library in time to claim their usual seats (which actually do have their names on them, scratched in during a particularly productive bout of petty vandalism, if not a particularly productive study session. It was exam period. Sometimes you just have to carve your name onto the library furniture or you go crazy and maul nearby students with the bagels you had to smuggle in so you didn't have to get up and leave your seat to be stolen by some first year who didn't deserve it in the first place.).
Gwen and Morgana enter the way they usually enter places: attached by ungloved hands tucked into Morgana's jacket pocket. This time there's a small travel-sized packet of tissues in there along with the usual contents, though the screwdriver's been left under the giraffe-spotted couch. Arthur and Merlin haven't asked them to start paying rent yet, and the girls are trying to stave that day off by taking the initiative on minor repairs around the flat. It's probably safer for everyone in the long run that way anyway.
They disentangle cheerfully, rather than reluctantly, as though they know they're going to be reunited to do sickeningly cute things like play footsie under the table when (they think) no one's watching and they're going to keep reuniting to do similarly sickeningly cute things for the rest of their natural lives. Morgana secures a table, because she's more vicious and therefore better able to guard their territory against would-be intruders, and Gwen goes to place their order. It's just the beginning of winter holiday, but they'd gotten to be kind of regulars in the past two months (the next time they make it back to the university library, they find their names have been scratched over with someone else's. This is entirely unacceptable, never mind that they did it to a rising third-year only the year before), and the barista doesn't even really need Gwen to say what they want before she's already making it.
It's also the kind of coffee shop that occasionally actually brings your order to you, when it's slow and the baristas are bored, so Gwen gets shooed back to her table after only a couple of moments waiting by the counter. They notice one of the tellers watching, because it's really just that slow with everyone avoiding campus post-finals, so they settle for just playing with each other's fingers as they wait for their coffee to come up.
"Here you go girls," says a different server than the one who always made them their drinks. "On the house," he adds before either of them can open their mouths to say 'But we didn't order any muffins.' "You're just too cute."
"But," Gwen starts, trying to protest that all complementary coffee shop muffins are the natural tribute of Arthur and Merlin for being the cutest couple to ever walk the face of the Earth ever, and they couldn't possibly mean for her and Morgana to be getting them, no matter how cute they may or may not be, because they just can't compare. No one can. Of this, Gwen is certain. None of that actually comes out, though, because Gwen is so beside herself with getting muffins that clearly aren't meant for them (or for anyone not Merlin and Arthur) that she can't manage to form coherent sentences.
Morgana tries to soothe her by petting the back of her hand gently, and when that only elicits further excitable pointing at the muffins, she tugs on one of Gwen’s curls to watch it spring back into shape when she lets the lock go. Sometimes you just have to let Gwen run her course. After a few delightful sproings, Gwen's finally calmed down enough for Morgana to make out 'muffins' and 'Merthur' and that's enough for Morgana to understand where Gwen's going with this.
"Yeah, I know, baby," Morgana agrees, which settles Gwen down even more, and she wraps her hands around her mug, satisfied that Morgana understands. Until Morgana takes one of the muffins and starts unwrapping it.
"What are you doing?" Gwen asks her, appalled.
"Free muffins!" Morgana tells her. Gwen pauses, considering. "We'll split this one, and take the other one home to them. How about that?"
"Sounds fair," Gwen says at last.
"That was fast," says Morgana. She doesn't waste any time in pressing her advantage, though, cutting the muffin messily in half with one of the disposable forks the server had left on their table with the tray before Gwen could change her mind. Apple spice is her favourite, and Morgana is going to get to eat some.
"Free muffins!" Gwen reminds her.
"Mmng," Morgana responds around a bite of muffin, eyes closed to keep them from rolling back unattractively in her head from the sheer deliciousness. Gwen would still love her if she looked ridiculous, she knew, but why risk it? A few moments later, Morgana remembers to take the fork out of her mouth so she can chew.
Gwen forgoes forks entirely and takes her own bite with her fingers. Under the table, she nudges the side of her foot against the back of Morgana's calf. The corners of Morgana's mouth curl up a little, and Gwen knows that has absolutely nothing to do with apple spice. She steals another crumbly piece from the plate. Muffins, Gwen decides, taste better with Morgana pressing back against her toes.
(Over behind the coffee shop counter, the new girl who's not getting any training because there's no one to make drinks for, is flapping her hands around excitedly near her mouth and trying to keep from making too many embarrassing squeaking noises. She's trying to be subtle about it, and failing spectacularly, but fortunately Gwen only has eyes for Morgana, and Morgana only has (closed) eyes for apple spice muffins, so the only patrons in the shop don't notice.
"We know, honey. We know," says the one who'd dropped the muffins off at Morgana and Gwen's table. The other one, who'd made their drinks, pats the new girl's shoulder and nods in sympathy. They both drag her behind the espresso machine before her flaily motions get too obvious. "They're always like that.")
Author: anamuan
Fandom/Pairing: Merlin; Gwen/Morgana, background Arthur/Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,144
Warnings: Some language
A/N: This is err, something quite like remix fic for skellerbvvt's Coffeeshop Muffins. mycroftnext sent it to me at work one day and I was like 'I AM IN LOVE' and 'I WANT TO WRITE MORGANA/GWEN' and 'JKFLEAGEIA3HGELKAGEA!!!' she said 'ask permission and do it!' and skellerbvvt was lovely and flailed yes at me. And so I did. Beta by the ever-lovely mycroftnext; britpick done by my favourite gingifere.
"You know, I didn't think you were serious about the sandwich thing." Morgana hadn't been, truly, but that doesn't stop her from helping to make the cookies. She consults the recipe again, and then dumps in the last of the dry goods.
"The Arthur has two different kinds of pickles on it," Gwen says. She takes over the cookie dough so Morgana can go dig out the rolling pin and the cookie cutters she bought Gwen special for the endeavour. Keeping them a secret had lasted all of four hours, but they'd spent two and a half of those hours together, so Morgana definitely counts that as a success.
"They're going to start thinking that we make cookies after this, you know," Morgana says, doing her best to warn Gwen, even though Gwen definitely already knows.
"We do make cookies," Gwen says, and leans over to drop a kiss on Morgana's lips, so Morgana maybe starts humming as she takes the bowl of half-mixed dough back from her girlfriend instead of arguing. "Baby duck shaped ones! And there was the time with the little fishes."
"Well," says Morgana dubiously, between random snatches of tune, "Probably they'll have forgotten all about the cookie-demands as long as everyone calls them 'biscuits' for the first three seconds. Or if we can distract them into another cookie versus biscuit argument in the meantime."
Gwen looks absolutely aghast at the idea of Merlin and Arthur fighting and even stops playing with the duck-shaped cookie cutters (Morgana had bought two, one for each of them, even though she wasn't entirely sure if 'them' meant Merlin and Arthur or her and Gwen) and Morgana has to rush to reassure her that fighting for them means more of the usual except they only sat in each other's laps half as much and maybe Arthur ate twice as many pickles until they were friends again. This would last approximately an hour and a half, and then Merlin would run to the shop to get Arthur more pickles because he might run out in a couple days, and then everything would be completely normal again.
"They're coming out cookies!" Gwen tells her, when they've finally baked up a couple dozen hearts and baby ducks. "They seemed so disappointed that everyone took it in stride. You know, their getting together," she explains.
"That's because they've effectively been together since Arthur was five and Merlin was three, respectively. They don't need coming out cookies."
"You're just jealous because you want cookies for yourself," Gwen says.
Morgana pouts at her petulantly. "Yes, well. I can't help it. They're tasty."
Gwen takes a cookie out of the bag they were filling for Merlin and Arthur and feeds it to Morgana with her fingers. Now there are only 17 heart cookies to go with the 36 ducks, but the smile on Morgana's face--more from being doted on than from want and delivery of a cookie--makes Gwen think that's just the perfect number.
"So what's in the Merlin?" Morgana asks, as they're cleaning up evidence of their cookie-baking escapades before The Boys get back from their date. If you can call it that when it's really only getting a post-exam consolation dinner, which they'd have done anyway, just like with every other thing they do together. Gwen says it counts. Morgana doesn't, but she's still a little sore that she'd thought they were playing her for so long.
"Bacon!" Gwen chirps happily.
~~~
"Why is their's the Den of Iniquity if they're not, you know, having any sex?" Gwen asks once, early on.
"Have you looked in there recently? It's a dangerous, dangerous place," Morgana replies. "Why, do you want us to have a Den of Iniquity?"
"Well, a little iniquity never hurt," says Gwen, and manages somehow to look coy and lecherous all at the same time. Needless to say, they get rather distracted from the subject at hand. Gwen is adorable when she flails over The Boys, as she's adorable in just about everything, but Morgana has no complaints at the change in subject.
~~~
Arthur dares Morgana to make out with Gwen as revenge for yet another time she sets him and Merlin up in truth or dare at a party. The thing is, Morgana kind of already has a crush on Gwen, which she'd accidentally let slip one day to Merlin, which means, of course, Arthur knows too. He'd promised to keep it a secret, but Morgana knew better the moment it left her mouth. Merlin keeping a secret from Arthur was the same as asking Merlin to keep a secret from himself. It just didn't work.
Right, so Arthur knows, and Morgana had kept increasing the amount of time he and Merlin were supposed to keep a lip lock, and nothing says sweet revenge than sending Morgana off to talk a girl she barely knows and actually likes into snogging her. Morgana's not really the gets embarrassed type, but something about Gwen makes her feel almost shy. ("She's just so pretty," Morgana had murmured as Gwen had wandered past, coffee in one hand, class notes in the other, cramming frantically. Merlin overheard because Morgana was not nearly as sneaky as she thought she was. Morgana also had the perfect colouration to make a blush really, really noticeable, and they always, always gave her away. So even if Merlin hadn't heard her, Morgana would have given herself away with the bright cherry colour her face went.) She's really not the type to back down from a challenge though, which is probably the only motivation in the world that gets her to actually go over and say 'Hullo.'
Morgana does go over, and she says hello and actually blushes as she does it. Gwen immediately starts blushing as well, in sympathy, even though she doesn't really know what is going on. Arthur has actual video of it, though Merlin keeps shaking the camera because he's attached to Arthur's side like a limpet and is trying not to laugh too hard. He only likes to be malicious if it's Arthur involved, because Arthur knows he doesn't actually mean it.
Oddly enough, Gwen stops blushing the moment she gets Morgana's tongue in her mouth. Morgana stays an amusingly bright cherry hue until Gwen breaks away and asks, Arthur and Merlin find out later, if Morgana didn't want to go back to her apartment and sexile Gwen's roommate for once.
So Morgana really only knows Gwen because of an act of petty revenge. Best revenge ever, but Morgana is never ever telling Arthur that. Or Merlin, because, again, they're effectively the same thing. She doesn't want them to get inflated ideas about themselves. Mostly Arthur.
~~~
Morgana realizes she is in trouble (and by 'trouble' she means 'kind of ridiculously in love') when she finds she'd stopped doodling Indiana Jones fighting snakes in space, and started doodling Gwen as High Queen of the Hippopotamuses riding to the moon. At least she seems to be keeping with the space theme.
She shrugs it off mentally, though, because she isn't really studying anyway, she just has the notebook open out of habit because she should be studying. Really they were all four of them crammed on the Laptop Couch watching telly. Or OK, three of them are watching telly, and Gwen is hiding her face in Morgana's shoulder because the Borg are scary and mean and she doesn't like them. Her lips tickle Morgana's shoulder, and her hair tickles Morgana's neck. Morgana is not entirely adverse to this. By which she means not adverse at all, and in fact, rather enjoying it.
On screen, a random crew member extra is assimilated. Morgana turns her head and drops a kiss on top of Gwen's curls. And promptly gets a pillow in the face from Arthur.
"Stop that. You're being disgusting again," he says. "Some of us are trying to watch telly."
"Your face is disgusting!" It's not the best come-back ever, but it's effective and has been since Arthur was about six. Why mess with a classic?
Gwen doesn't really know them well enough yet to feel comfortable protesting their inherent and total adorability, but she thinks it, very hard. When she laces her fingers through Morgana's, Morgana sticks her tongue out at Arthur and gets another pillow to the face for her trouble.
~~~
Morgana surveys the strip of skin that peeks out from the bottom edge of Gwen's tank top assessingly. Vaguely she thinks Gwen and Merlin are having a conversation about weekend plans, but she isn't paying enough attention to be sure.
"Right, OK! Enough talking. Say goodnight to the boys," Morgana interrupts suddenly, though to her credit, she'd been distracted and hadn't really realized Merlin was mid-word and not between sentences. Gwen is very distracting. As is her skin.
Gwen barely gets enough time to get goodnight out to both of them before Morgana drags her unceremoniously to their recently-appropriated bedroom, where Morgana stops her from laughing by kissing her. Morgana's not positive Gwen was laughing at her, but she has her suspicions.
~~~
Gwen has an alarming tendency to lose her own gloves. Morgana thinks she goes through three and a half pair the first two months they're dating. The only thing that kept Morgana from buying Gwen a new pair of gloves and sewing them to her jacket like a little kid is that she manages to keep that last glove (the other half of the half pair she'd managed to lose) for most of one of those months, and uses her lack of glove as an excuse to keep her hand tucked into Morgana's pocket whenever they're together.
This kind of makes Morgana feel ridiculously giddy, so when Gwen finally loses that last glove, Morgana just silently hands her the other half of the pair she's wearing. She's not been getting much use out of it anyway. She'll just buy them a new pair when Gwen loses that one.
It turns out that Gwen is only careless with her own gloves. When it's Morgana's, she learns how to darn from the internet to fix it when it gets a little hole in the thumb, even though Morgana's had a reserve pair tucked into the Boys' hall closet since they went on clearance when the weather got warm again.
No one suggests that they each use their own pair of gloves. It would be a waste of gloves.
~~~
"You know, if we eat a couple of the duck cookies, it'll be like we planned it. For their anniversary, even. It's their seventeenth this year, never mind that seventeen is just shy of a dozen and a half."
Gwen pretends not to notice as Morgana sneaks a couple more cookies out of the bag.
~~~
"Don't you think it would be a good idea to go flat-hunting sometime?"
"We'd spend all our time at the Boys' flat anyway," Morgana pointed out matter-of-factly.
"Well, yes. But it would be nice to have sex in the living room without worrying about rolling onto an abandoned pickle," Gwen countered.
"...You make a very compelling argument, Guinevere. Very compelling indeed."
~~~
It's one of those snooty coffee shops where they don't let you order iced coffee because it "ruins the integrity of the beans" or some bullshit like that, but it's right on the corner across from the university gates and part of their snooty hipster aesthetic means you can crash there all day for the price of an (admittedly over-priced) single coffee. This is excellent for days when Gwen and Morgana oversleep--through no fault of their own, of course--and don't make it to the library in time to claim their usual seats (which actually do have their names on them, scratched in during a particularly productive bout of petty vandalism, if not a particularly productive study session. It was exam period. Sometimes you just have to carve your name onto the library furniture or you go crazy and maul nearby students with the bagels you had to smuggle in so you didn't have to get up and leave your seat to be stolen by some first year who didn't deserve it in the first place.).
Gwen and Morgana enter the way they usually enter places: attached by ungloved hands tucked into Morgana's jacket pocket. This time there's a small travel-sized packet of tissues in there along with the usual contents, though the screwdriver's been left under the giraffe-spotted couch. Arthur and Merlin haven't asked them to start paying rent yet, and the girls are trying to stave that day off by taking the initiative on minor repairs around the flat. It's probably safer for everyone in the long run that way anyway.
They disentangle cheerfully, rather than reluctantly, as though they know they're going to be reunited to do sickeningly cute things like play footsie under the table when (they think) no one's watching and they're going to keep reuniting to do similarly sickeningly cute things for the rest of their natural lives. Morgana secures a table, because she's more vicious and therefore better able to guard their territory against would-be intruders, and Gwen goes to place their order. It's just the beginning of winter holiday, but they'd gotten to be kind of regulars in the past two months (the next time they make it back to the university library, they find their names have been scratched over with someone else's. This is entirely unacceptable, never mind that they did it to a rising third-year only the year before), and the barista doesn't even really need Gwen to say what they want before she's already making it.
It's also the kind of coffee shop that occasionally actually brings your order to you, when it's slow and the baristas are bored, so Gwen gets shooed back to her table after only a couple of moments waiting by the counter. They notice one of the tellers watching, because it's really just that slow with everyone avoiding campus post-finals, so they settle for just playing with each other's fingers as they wait for their coffee to come up.
"Here you go girls," says a different server than the one who always made them their drinks. "On the house," he adds before either of them can open their mouths to say 'But we didn't order any muffins.' "You're just too cute."
"But," Gwen starts, trying to protest that all complementary coffee shop muffins are the natural tribute of Arthur and Merlin for being the cutest couple to ever walk the face of the Earth ever, and they couldn't possibly mean for her and Morgana to be getting them, no matter how cute they may or may not be, because they just can't compare. No one can. Of this, Gwen is certain. None of that actually comes out, though, because Gwen is so beside herself with getting muffins that clearly aren't meant for them (or for anyone not Merlin and Arthur) that she can't manage to form coherent sentences.
Morgana tries to soothe her by petting the back of her hand gently, and when that only elicits further excitable pointing at the muffins, she tugs on one of Gwen’s curls to watch it spring back into shape when she lets the lock go. Sometimes you just have to let Gwen run her course. After a few delightful sproings, Gwen's finally calmed down enough for Morgana to make out 'muffins' and 'Merthur' and that's enough for Morgana to understand where Gwen's going with this.
"Yeah, I know, baby," Morgana agrees, which settles Gwen down even more, and she wraps her hands around her mug, satisfied that Morgana understands. Until Morgana takes one of the muffins and starts unwrapping it.
"What are you doing?" Gwen asks her, appalled.
"Free muffins!" Morgana tells her. Gwen pauses, considering. "We'll split this one, and take the other one home to them. How about that?"
"Sounds fair," Gwen says at last.
"That was fast," says Morgana. She doesn't waste any time in pressing her advantage, though, cutting the muffin messily in half with one of the disposable forks the server had left on their table with the tray before Gwen could change her mind. Apple spice is her favourite, and Morgana is going to get to eat some.
"Free muffins!" Gwen reminds her.
"Mmng," Morgana responds around a bite of muffin, eyes closed to keep them from rolling back unattractively in her head from the sheer deliciousness. Gwen would still love her if she looked ridiculous, she knew, but why risk it? A few moments later, Morgana remembers to take the fork out of her mouth so she can chew.
Gwen forgoes forks entirely and takes her own bite with her fingers. Under the table, she nudges the side of her foot against the back of Morgana's calf. The corners of Morgana's mouth curl up a little, and Gwen knows that has absolutely nothing to do with apple spice. She steals another crumbly piece from the plate. Muffins, Gwen decides, taste better with Morgana pressing back against her toes.
(Over behind the coffee shop counter, the new girl who's not getting any training because there's no one to make drinks for, is flapping her hands around excitedly near her mouth and trying to keep from making too many embarrassing squeaking noises. She's trying to be subtle about it, and failing spectacularly, but fortunately Gwen only has eyes for Morgana, and Morgana only has (closed) eyes for apple spice muffins, so the only patrons in the shop don't notice.
"We know, honey. We know," says the one who'd dropped the muffins off at Morgana and Gwen's table. The other one, who'd made their drinks, pats the new girl's shoulder and nods in sympathy. They both drag her behind the espresso machine before her flaily motions get too obvious. "They're always like that.")