Ok sadly, i do not own merlin or any of the affiliated characters :( bbc does
:( i also don't own anything other than any origional characters that are yet to come, any recognizable(or perhaps unrecognizable but still have the name in resemblence) to a known character, i don't own.
beta..cuz i fail at writing :P omg she's going to kill me for that. thanks to writing2death.
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Oh my god, Arthur is hot! Gwen thought. Then she looked down at her nail she was trying to buff into an actual straight line - it wasn't working. This helped her tune our her teacher Mr. Crazy-if-he-thinks-we-are-listening-too-this-stuff (schwann) who was trying to teach her about myelin sheath cells, whatever those were (diagram to come, she was sure).
Arthur was at least taking notes but Gwen just could not get her nail to file into a straight line. If it didn't work out she wouldn't have a nail anymore because she would have filed it off. She was getting really annoyed. She should condition her hands more and her knees because really, they were just really dry and summer was coming soon. She wasn't vain, she just didn't want to miss swimsuit season because she neglected her knees. Yeah, right!
"Shouldn't you be taking notes?" Freya whispered and shook her head disapprovingly - it was only the best friend's job. Then she turned to look at what Gwen was doing. "Oh, no, you can't, you have to get that nail fixed Hun. You can borrow mine after.
"Do you even get any of this?" Freya reached out to poke Arthur in the back with her pencil.
"Of course I do. Why don't you just listen more clearly instead of talking all the time?"
Mr. Schwann dropped his pointer stick signaling Arthur to turn back around, his cheeks, neck and delicious jaw line were a pale red in blush all the way up to the tips of his ears and everyone could see. Arthur slowly formed a face-palm by squishing his perfect nose into his hand while making a raspberry noise. He only tried to hide the blushing with the the face-palm which everyone laughed at, including Gwen - he turned around to see. Clearly his whispering had been a little louder than intended.
As soon as everyone was back to work the three of them went back to talking. "I could teach some of it to you if you want? You know, later? Are your parents home?"
"Yes, but we could just go over to Gwen's; no one's ever there. Right, Gwen? Your dad and your mom are running the kids all over the place?" Freya nudged Gwen with her elbow this sent Gwen's file grinding into her nail, a piece suddenly chipping right off. This sent what was left of her nail sailing right towards Arthur's eye. It was a disaster.
Arthur whipped his head back in surprise just in time to hit Mr. Schwann in the chest as he was now standing over all of them. The entire room was watching now. "You may go to the office now, Mr. Pendragon, to have that looked at."
"Oh I don't really need to, I'm sure it's ok," Arthur said smiling back at the girls.
"Yes, I think you do, that seems like a serious injury. Plus you need to call your parents and tell them that you have detention."
"No! I can't have detention. I have practice." Arthur burst out looking up at Mr. Schwann.
"Fine, I'll give you a break but you had better win that game. You should still go have that looked at, Arthur," Mr. Schwann said indulgingly and said enthusiastically, "Break!" and he threw up his hand for a high-five.
"Great. I hope to see you at that game Mr. Schwann," Arthur said returning the high-five and with a smile he left the room.
"You two, I cannot stand this constant confrontation! Both of you need to go to the office as well, you will be calling your parents and telling then you'll be late. You have detention."
"Oh, but we have practice too, Mr. Schwann," Freya smiled, pointing her pen at Gwen then to herself.
"I know you do but they don't need you to win and this way you'll have more time to learn the material. You won't even need Arthur to help you." He pointed to the door as they packed their things, "and I'll take that file Gwen, if you don't mind."
She handed it over as they bustled out of the room. Once they were in the hall she pulled a new one out and started to re-file the nail.
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If you saw her out on the street on a weekend with her family, you wouldn't think of Gwen as the all-American cheerleader. Gwen was a coloured girl- that sounds so 50's 'coloured'. Gwen was black- a beautiful, almost milk chocolate, coloured girl with small eyes and high cheek bones which were not defined enough for the ponytail she always wore. It made her look even more out of place. The difference was, that when you saw her walking down the hall in school, wearing just enough blush on her cheeks to make them stand out, in a mini-skirt or on a game day when she wore her red and white cheer uniform, she looked like every other cheerleader; she fit in. But there was always something that kept her pushing for more.
.
When Gwen and Freya sauntered into the office, Arthur was already there, he was turning to leave. They blocked the doorway stopping him. "We need to use the phone to call home," Gwen said over Arthurs shoulder to the secretary. All the office personnel knew, well, they knew all of their names - and numbers - off by heart, so she started to dial.
"So you get out of detention and we get to hang out with Mr. Should-Pay-Attention-To-His-Own-Business-And-Not-Make-Me-Have-Detention instead of hanging out with Arthur tonight." Gwen said, gazing up at Arthur with faux attitude trying to get his sympathy but still look cute.
"Well maybe we can hang out after the game, I can um, help you with your homework? You know, to make up for it?" Arthur flirted.
Arthur touched Gwen's hand and took the phone from her other. "Hi, my name is Arthur Pendragon. Yes, I am on the football team." There was a pause as Arthur listened to Gwen's mother on the other end. "No, I had no idea she talks about me all the time," he laughed into the phone. With a smile he looked at Gwen as her cheeks blushed, but he was still touching her hand.
I could puke, Freya thought, only looking down at her shoes and rolling her eyes.
"I am really sorry but I got Gwen into a little bit of trouble and now she has detention after school. I hope I didn't get her in to too much trouble with you?" Arthur was still looking at Gwen as he spoke but his face had melted into a soothing smile. His smooth talk and high status had done it again. He had melted the hearts of Gwen's parents too. "I was also looking for a favour of you. Do you think I could ask such a thing?" There was another pause but Arthur kept smiling. "How do you feel about Gwen coming out with me after the game this Friday? I promise to have her home at whatever hour you believe to be suitable. Yes, a decent hour I'll have her home for sure. Yes, that should be great. Thank you. Do you still need to talk to Gwen? Ok, well you have good afternoon. I will see you at the game right? Yes, see you there!" He smiled warmly again Gwen melted and turned to Freya who was still staring at her shoes.
Freya thought about it as they were heading back. Arthur and Gwen went at a faster pace, high on looking into each other's eyes, excited. Freya hesitated but followed them slowly. She stared at their backs and rolled her eyes. So the jock liked the cheerleader. It was so cliché, too cliché.
.
"All set to learn now students?" Mr. Schwann asked as Arthur, Gwen and Freya shuffled back to their desks. "Gwen, I'll take that file now." She handed it over and sat down. "Now, let me get you caught up on the work you missed." He dragged a chair up to their desks, "we're working on a project. Arthur, you are partners with Merlin; he'll explain it to you. Girls, here's the sheet if you have any questions, ask. Do your work now please. I don't want to have to send you back to the office!" he smiled and went back to his bench.
Arthur sat up tall and stretched his neck to look around the class. He saw a few rows over sitting alone, was the skinny boy with short, dark hair- kind of reminding him of Harry Potter's hair, but less messy and just scruffy, less uncontrollable, though- he was slouched over his desk. Arthur grabbed the sheet Mr. Schwann has given him and slowly walked around the rows of desks to the one where Merlin was sitting. As Arthur made his way over, he could see that on Merlin's desk, was a page already completely blue from writing. Stretching out his finger hesitantly and poking Merlin where his head showed most. Merlin did not stir. Arthur curled up his finger again and with two short thrusts, rapped his knuckles against the same part of Merlin's head.
"Yes?" His mousy voice, higher than Arthur's own and went very well with Merlin's large, protruding ears, crawling from beneath his bent head.
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"Keep your head up or else they'll just ram right into you every chance they get! Keep that ball under you're grip and don't let go."
The coach was being really rough with them surprising it was the practice before a game "Ok boys, it's three now. Go shower and go home. But I want you back here before Six. Game at Seven! Arthur! A word? Arthur, you better be good out there. Everyone is ready to get you down. You're our only hope. I heard about today in class, good job getting out of it. If I ever hear anything else, you will-as much as it pains me to say- have to sit out a game. And oh the laps you will run, you will know every blade of grass from here to eternity. Am I understood?"
"Yes Sir, sorry Sir." Arthur turned and rolled his eyes walking toward the showers.
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Three unread messages, said Arthur's cell phone when he came to get dressed. He picked it up and flipped it open to check them. They were all from an unknown number.
Arthur was dead tired and there was no one else in the locker room, so this was turning more to look like one of those creepy horror movies, where in the hunky jock dies first leaving a tail of blood for the other's to find and a piercing scream echoing in the condensation of soap, sweat and steam. Arthur needed to stop watching horror movies, and thinking so highly of himself - the bad guys never liked that. That, and eating pizza before bed because that's just generally frowned upon.
He opened the first text.
Arthur, I got your number from Freya -Merlin.
And the second one.
Due to the mediocrity of most newer cell phones I have to use more than one message to say what I want.
And finally the third one, the totally warranted paranoia was wearing off now.
Mine's a new cell phone. We need to meet. Message me back.
All of them appeared to be sent right after another. And one could assume that they were all from Merlin, though it didn't say. Arthur added the number into his contacts under 'bio ass' with no period. He snapped his phone shut, resolving to text Merlin back when he had at least put pants on. No sooner did he set down the phone did it start to buzz. This time it was a text message from 'bio ass'. Quickly pulling up his shorts then jeans, he grabbed up the buzzing phone.
The message read:
I just saw a bunch of footballers walking across the parking lot. Coming over.
Another:
Don't move I live across the street.
Arthur sighed and grabbed his loose t-shirt. As soon as his head was through the hole though, another alert went off. This time when he looked down and saw 'bio ass', Arthur wanted to hurl his phone across the room into the toilet. He set a reminder in his phone to kill Freya the next time he saw her (it's not like anyone would miss her, so annoying) before even looking at the text.
This one said:
Second thought- come over here. Cross the parking lot I'm straight ahead waiting.
Since when did the geeks tell him what to do?
As Arthur crossed the parking lot, he looked at the clock on his phone. It had been a half hour, if he was too long at Merlin's he would not be able to go home before having to straight right back to the school. Merlin had definitely better not make him late.
He hadn't even noticed that there were even houses back here. By 'houses', Arthur didn't really mean 'houses' in the typical sense. They were lo income, rent-to-own type developments. They were very ugly, but on good sized plots of land. Across the street, Arthur could see Merlin. He was sitting on a bench in the front lawn head down. Ugh, why were geeks so childish and submissive? They were weak.
"Why do you keep texting me? You have no right. We don't know each other. What do you need?" Arthur yelled as he strode crossed the street and up to the slumped over body staring down at Merlin's dark head.
"I have every right. I'm not going to do this project all by myself. Do you even know what it's about?" Merlin continued to stare at his phone, texting.
"The project? That's what this is all about?"
"That's what this is about. What did you think?"
Arthur felt a buzzing, in his hand, from his phone. He opened it to find text, from 'Bio Ass', it read:
Our project is a debate (you're con).
Another:
The statement you ask? "Life-prolonging medicines and techniques are ultimately weakening our gene pool."
His fingers must detach from his hand or fly or something when writing these to get them done so fast:
I know you forgot. -.-