Fic 8: link

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Prompt: Arthur and Gwen bake বড়দিন বিস্কুট together

“Merlin, can আপনি help me with—” Arthur stops cold, staring at the person in his kitchen. “You’re not Merlin,” he says dumbly, finishing pulling his tie free from its knot.

“Hi, Arthur,” Gwen answers, chuckling. She is measuring flour into a bowl. “Sorry, Merlin took an extra shift at the hospital. My চুলা is broken, and he ব্যক্ত I could bake my বড়দিন বিস্কুট here. Hope that’s okay.”

“Um, yeah,” he stammers. “It’s fine, Guinevere.” Arthur is thrown দ্বারা her appearance in their apartment. Certainly he knew Guinevere. Well, he’d met her once অথবা twice through Merlin. He didn’t work at the hospital with them, preferring a life of mergers and acquisitions over saving people’s lives.

What’s really thrown her is the fact that she’s standing there in a rather tight t-shirt, her hair in pigtails, a smudge of flour on her cheek. Usually she’s in স্ক্রাব with her hair up. He’d be lying to himself if he ব্যক্ত that he’d never found her attractive, but today, right now, she looks completely adorable.

“Arthur?” Gwen prompts, noting his stare.

“Can আপনি help me with these?” he asks, offering a wrist. “I seem to have issues with cufflinks.”

“Sure,” she says, wiping her hands on her butt before stepping around the টেবিল to him. Arthur looks down, amused, to see she has an পরিচ্চদ-রক্ষক বহিরাবরণ around her waist. Backwards.

“I thought those were supposed to go the other way,” he says, holding his hand out so she can deposit the first cufflink into his palm.

“This way works better for me,” she chuckles, turning. “See?”

Arthur looks to see what is clearly a series of hand-wipings on the apron, one hand per (very round and attractive) cheek. “Um, yeah,” he says. “Thank you,” he adds, taking the সেকেন্ড cufflink now.

A few মিনিট later he has returned to the kitchen, in comfortable clothes now, drawn like পোকা to flame. “What kind of বিস্কুট are আপনি making?” he asks, helping himself to a glass of water.

“Sugar. Would you… would আপনি like to help?” she offers, puzzling over why on earth she thinks he would like to help.

“Can I?” his voice is small, like a small boy.

“Sure. Your টেবিল is taller than mine; I can’t get good leverage to roll out the dough.” Suddenly Gwen remembers something Merlin has told her: Arthur’s mother died when he was very young. And she was a pastry chef.

Arthur comes around to Gwen’s side of the table. She passes him the rolling pin. She’s got the dough shaped into a fat disc on the floured টেবিল already, so he sets the pin on the dough and pushes.

Pushes the rolling pin straight through the dough, bisecting it roughly, smearing the back chunk backwards.

“Oh,” he says, lifting the pin.

Gwen laughs and steps over, gathering the dough back together, sprinkling আরো flour. “Not so hard,” she says gently. “It’s not a rival company আপনি are trying to crush, Arthur. It’s cookie dough. Here,” she hands him the rolling pin again, and tries to প্রদর্শনী him what to do, reaching around him but finding her face to face with the very solid দেওয়াল of Arthur’s back.

He smells really good, she thinks fighting the urge to nuzzle. You barely know him, what are আপনি doing?

“Um, right. That’s not going to work,” she recovers her sense and speaks. “Wait.” Gwen tucks herself under Arthur’s elbow, standing in front of him now. She places her hands over his on the rolling pin and guides him, pushing gently, pausing to প্রদর্শনী him how to roll in several directions, spreading the dough out until it is an even layer on the table.

Arthur is trying to pay attention to what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s struggling with her small hands over his, the lavender scent of her hair, her distracting backside occasionally brushing his groin.

“Now what?” he almost whispers.

“Now we cut out the বিস্কুট and put them on the trays to bake,” Gwen answers, just as quietly. She puts her hand on his forearm and he moves it, reluctantly releasing her.

She comes back with several shapes: a bell, a star, a tree. Arthur takes the তারকা with a wistful smile.

“Press straight down. Don’t scoot it,” she says, pressing the ঘণ্টা cutter into the dough, close to the edge.

Arthur follows suit with his star, but he presses it in right in the middle.

“Arthur! Keep them close together, so we don’t have wasted dough,” Gwen admonishes, but she is giggling.

“Sorry,” he says, watching as she turns the ঘণ্টা cutter and fits it পরবর্তি to the first cut, impressed at how she can get them so close, almost as if they were puzzle pieces. He frowns, concentrating, and presses another star, close to the first.

Gwen looks up at his face, smiling at how he’s taking this so seriously. It’s really cute. I wonder…

“Can I ask আপনি something?” Gwen ventures, reaching for the বৃক্ষ cutter now.

“Mmm-hmm,” he answers, still focused on his task.

“Did you… did আপনি do this with your mum when আপনি were little?” she asks, very quietly.

He doesn’t answer for a minute, he just contemplates the তারকা cutter. “Yes. It’s one of the few things I remember of her.”

“The star?” she prompts, touching a corner with her fingertip.

“My favorite. I was…” he stops, flushes red a moment, and cuts another cookie.

“You were what?” she asks, her hand on his arm again.

“Promise আপনি won’t tell Merlin,” he answers. As he looks at her, his expression softens from sad to sweet.

“I won’t say a word,” Gwen breathes, her brown eyes meeting his blue ones.

“I was her little star.”

Gwen smiles, but says nothing. She lifts up on tiptoe and kisses his cheek, then quickly moves back to the dough, peeling the excess away around the বিস্কুট and wadding it into a ball.

She shows him how to সরানো the বিস্কুট onto the parchment-lined trays, and soon they are in the oven, only one তারকা looking slightly আরো like a starfish now because its points got slightly stretched and bent.

“Christmas Starfish,” Gwen had declared.

“We shall call him Patrick,” Arthur nods, and Gwen laughs. “I have nephews,” he explains quickly, not wanting her to think that he watches SpongeBob.

“Whatever floats your boat,” she says, holding her hands up. “Now, we re-roll the scraps and do it again.”

This time Arthur is able to roll the dough expertly, though he contemplates messing it up again just to make her come back into the বৃত্ত of his arms.

As they work, Arthur’s wistful sadness lifts from his shoulders. She teases him about his inability to properly sprinkle flour, resulting in another hands-on lesson. He keeps sneaking bites of dough, thinking she’s not seeing him.

“When do we decorate them?” he asks. Wait, ‘we’? What am I committing myself to?

“Depends. If we want to be lazy, we can sprinkle colored sugar অথবা other sprinkles on them now. অথবা we can frost them once they’re cool, which is what I usually do.”

“Okay.” He reaches across her for the rolling pin again just as she reaches across him for the last scrap of dough, and they pause a moment, face to face, both leaning over the table.

Arthur finally reaches up and brushes the smudge of flour from her cheek with his thumb. “Been there since I got home,” he mutters.

“Oh,” Gwen answers, blushing a little, embarrassed. “Arthur…” she starts, not exactly sure what she wants to say, but he never gives her the chance anyway.

His lips find hers, softly, testing. Warm. Succulent. Her eyes flutter closed and she feels his hand lingering at her cheek, his long fingers caressing her neck.

The timer dings, and they part, blinking at each other.

“Wow,” she breathes.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I heard bells.” He smirks at her, eyes twinkling, and she swats his chest to go rescue her cookies.

Merlin returns প্রথমপাতা an ঘন্টা later, tired. The apartment smells fantastic, though, and he knows Gwen has been busy. He heads to the kitchen, hoping for a sample.

The রান্নাঘর is empty; racks of বিস্কুট are cooling on the counters and table.

“Gwen?” he calls. Then, warily, “Arthur?”

He reaches Arthur’s bedroom door, knocks and opens it before he is bidden enter.

“Whoa! Sorry!” Merlin blusters, slamming the door, the image before him seared into his brain, never to be unseen.

Arthur quickly pulling the blankets up, covering Gwen’s curvy brown body, his leg draped over hers, her hand on his chest. He is স্নেহ চুম্বন her all the while.

Merlin walks back to the kitchen, befuddled, not sure if Gwen even noticed. “Nevertheless, I think they owe me a cookie,” he says, snatching one from a rack.

FIc 10: link