Merwaine is my not-at-all-guilty pleasure. Got any head canons to share?
never feel guilty about merwaine! ughhhh i’m glad you asked! my three fave merwaine headcanons:
1. merlin and gwaine would steal poppy milk from gaius’ store and go to the top of the battlements and stargaze
2. whenever gwaine went on patrol or on a quest for a long time, merlin would personally pack his bags and made sure he had extras of his favorite foods - and when gwaine got back he would go straight to merlin, just to ensure merlin that he was still alive. and the conversation when gwaine returned was word for word always the same: “ah, merlin, long time no see,” gwaine would say. and merlin would reply, “longer than you know,” because arthur’s been driving him crazy and merlin had no one to vent about it to while gwaine was gone. (oh yeah, merlin vents about arthur to gwaine a lot and gwaine just laughs and teases him)
3. gwaine is smart. we all know this. but, in the latter seasons, he kinda became the comic relief and the butt of all the jokes. i personally think this is because the other knights treated him like that, and gwaine had never really belonged anywhere before - so he kinda conformed to what they expected of him, because i think he was afraid they’d reject him if he didn’t. but merlin knew gwaine before the other knights, and he knew how savvy and intuitive gwaine had always been. so i think, when gwaine was kinda tired of playing the part of idiot, he would go find merlin, and he knew he could be 100% himself around merlin and merlin would never reject him for it. (this headcanon kinda sprouts from the episode where gaius gets kidnapped by the catha and merlin and gwaine go rescue him. merlin initially finds gwaine in his chambers and gwaine says, “i got tired of playing soldiers.” and, in the episode, we see gwaine as his old self again - not the comic relief, but the gwaine we knew in s3. also, in s5, when it’s just gwaine and merlin alone - like in DOTD2 and Another’s Sorrow - gwaine’s not all goofy like he is with the knights. he’s himself again, because he’s with merlin.)
also i just wanna throw in here that gwaine totally knew about merlin’s magic and he was just waiting for merlin to tell him about it. and i think it made him sad that merlin didn’t want to open up to him about it, especially because gwaine felt he could be himself around merlin - but merlin didn’t feel the same way. but also he understood why and didn’t blame merlin at all because gWAINE IS UNDERSTANDING AS FUCK!
