Chapter three for you all my lovelies! I should probably note that I don't own Merlin which is owned by the BBC. I'm just playing around with their lovely characters and then giving them back in one piece hopefully.
Thanks to AmandaFray, I swear I'm not crazy and Nini03 for their reviews last chapter!
In response to Nini03's question: In the last chapter, Merlin and Arthur were technically still in the acquaintance stage of their relationship despite knowing each other for two and a half years. They're still at odds with each other even though Arthur has been secretly crushing on Merlin since they met.
Christmas One Year After Meeting
Arthur had had to pretend he hadn't known it was Merlin's birthday on December the first, so he hadn't been able to give the brunette the cook book he'd impulsively bought while thinking of Merlin when he'd been in a particularly maudlin mood.
"Merlin should really consider dating me so he can have me as a sugar daddy, I buy crap for him whenever I'm depressed," Arthur thought moodily as he paid the gift wrapper at the bustling mall to wrap the book up. It was a fairly pricey cook book Merlin had been gushing over to Gwen a while back when the group had wandered to the mall in a fit of boredom. Merlin was still gushing over it even after two months and no one had gotten it for Merlin yet or was planning on doing so to the best of Arthur's knowledge. So Arthur decided it was a safe gift for Merlin that the other boy would like.
"Can you write the card for me too?" Arthur queried the tired and annoyed looking gift wrapper, favouring her with a winning smile that seemed to have no affect. She grunted in annoyance and swiped up a pen from the counter holding it over a simple blue snowflake patterned gift tag.
"Erm, write to Merlin, Happy Christmas."
"Any from?" the girl asked after scrawling it out in surprisingly neat print. Arthur blinked in confusion before realizing what she meant before shaking his head in the negative.
"Secret Santa and all that," he lied smoothly and swept up the gift after she neatly taped the gift tag to the present.
Giving the gift to Merlin without being found out was harder than anticipated for Arthur and the thankfully decently sized cookbook stayed safely in his satchel for almost a week before he'd found the perfect opportunity to stealthily offload it one evening at the end of term.
In a stroke of luck, he'd been with Lance when Gwen had unceremoniously shoved a scarf in to Lance's hand hurriedly explain that she'd borrowed it from Merlin and needed Lance to return it for her before she forgot after which, she dashed off madly for her last final.
Since Arthur and Lance had plans, Lance had 'dragged' Arthur with him to Merlin's dorm where they'd been let in by a rather flustered Merlin who explained to Lance while generally ignoring Arthur that he was in the middle of packing but do come in. Arthur's chance had come seconds later in the form of Will- Merlin's best friend and roommate- bodily dragging both Lance and Merlin off to take a look at something in his room and no Arthur wasn't allowed to see it let alone go in to Will's room because if possible, Will hated Arthur more then Merlin did.
Arthur didn't take offense to it that time because it gave him the chance to madly dash in to Merlin's room, dump the red and gold present, make a false start to leave the room, turn around and rearrange the presents on Merlin's bed to more effectively hide his secret present before madly dashing out of the room again and arranging himself in artful innocence on one of the rickety dining room table chairs just as the three other boys exited Will's room.
They all looked suspiciously at Arthur while Arthur made a show of staring studiously at his blank phone screen.
Mission success.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter, I've gotten quite a bit of the later parts of their relationship written out but I have to decide what order to post them in. But stay tuned for more! As usual, reviews and concrit are welcomed. Flames will be doused in a pool of ice cold water. :P