Chapter Text
The festive season descended on the city in a haze of tinsel and tinny carols, somehow coming as a surprise despite the fact Arthur was a calendar addict and it had been December for two weeks already. The only places he had been lately apart from work and home were entirely wedding-centric, and Caerleon was not the kind of office where they put up decorations. Annis tolerated the existence of a non-denominational end-of-year party that she never attended and that the organisers, without fail, always turned into a full-on Christmas party complete with red and green holiday cocktails at the nearest tacky bar, but Arthur had given it a miss this year to attend his wedding rehearsal instead.
It had not snowed yet. An icy drizzle had set in on Tuesday instead and showed no signs of letting up three days later. While it looked quite pretty from the other side of a café window, Arthur wasn’t looking forward to going back outside. It was, however, a long-standing agreement that Arthur and Morgana would suffer through Christmas shopping together, so that they could complain about their friends, families and above all their father. The Pendragons didn’t have many Christmas traditions and a bit of unpleasant weather wasn’t going to stop Arthur keeping this one.
Morgana was in fine form. “Uther doesn’t deserve a gift,” she said darkly, taking a swig of her gingerbread latte. “I vote we don’t buy him anything.”
“It’s Christmas,” Arthur said charitably. “Also, he’s paying for my wedding.”
“As an apology for fucking up, it doesn’t count.” Morgana tapped her glossy black fingernails on the table-top, eyes narrowing contemplatively. “I could give him a lump of coal. See if he got the message. Though, no, he’d probably just use it to set fire to unflattering newspapers. You know the one that does those cartoons? With him in the crown? I loved those. I ordered prints.”
Arthur snorted. “Let’s go look at ties.”
“Have it your way.” Morgana stood up, swinging her handbag over her shoulder. “How are the wedding plans going, by the way? Have you had any screaming fights I’d want to hear about?”
“You have a very weird concept of romance.” Arthur opened an umbrella over the two of them as they walked out into the rain. “Ever since Merlin finished up his exams he’s been catching up on sleep, he hasn’t been awake long enough to argue about anything lately. There’s not much left to do now anyway. Just the party tomorrow.”
“I know, the engagement-house-warming-Christmas party. I’m expecting fireworks and a brass band with all that hype, you know.”
“Expect a mess,” Arthur sighed. “There are still boxes all over the house.”
They went into a gentleman’s apparel shop and looked at ties. Morgana held up several options against her low-cut black lace blouse, squaring her jaw and making dire pronouncements on the state of the economy in quite good mimicry of Uther, while Arthur looked at cravats and wished he’d brought along George. His PA got along incredibly well with his father, a lucky coincidence that had rescued him from more than a few awkward phone calls. George would probably pick the perfect gift within minutes, in much the same way that he made the perfect coffee and kept the perfect filing system.
Bringing Merlin along on this shopping trip had been a non-starter; Arthur had suggested it this morning and Merlin had stared at him blankly for half a minute before rolling over to squash his face firmly in the pillow. He had fake-snored loudly until Arthur went away. From the sounds of it Vivian had done a similar thing, only with more sarcasm. “Well, they’ve met us,” Morgana had said, when Arthur complained about it, and he had to admit she was right.
She was not right about ties. The ones she wanted to buy were very hideous Christmas novelties patterned with comical snowmen or a scarlet HO HO HO that the media would have a field day over if Uther ever actually wore it, which he definitely would not. Arthur eventually convinced her to get a more tasteful poinsettia design that might not languish in a drawer for the rest of its natural life and bought a pair of golden cuff-links shaped like holly leaves on his own behalf. Uther was not a very enthusiastic celebrator of Christmas, but he liked seasonal accents for December’s round of social events.
The rest of the morning was spent darting in and out of the car, umbrella at the ready, while Arthur and Morgana argued through the rest of the Christmas shopping. She tried to drag him into a sex toy shop to choose Vivian’s present (“get something for Merlin while we’re at it! The gift that keeps on giving, Arthur, I’m just saying”). He retaliated by combing at unnecessary length through a hardware outlet for an appropriately expensive set of power tools for Elyan, as a thank you for all those bookshelves, while Morgana made meaningful comments about shovels and chemicals and the useful tips on body disposal that she had acquired from binge-watching every crime show ever.
There was a brief ceasefire when they went into a big department store to pick out a present for Aithusa. Morgana and Vivian were in the early stages of the adoption process and were going to be spending Christmas Day with their not-yet-officially-daughter, under Finna’s supervision. Morgana cornered no less than five sales assistants for an impromptu vote on what constituted the perfect present for a girl of three and a half, looked like she was going to bite the one who suggested a pink plastic stove, and eventually settled on a dinosaur hoodie because it looked enough like a dragon costume. Arthur gave her the thumbs up and allowed the sales assistants to make their escape.
The peace shattered when they both decided to buy the same perfume for Gwen, leading to an undignified squabble in the cosmetics section. Arthur lost. He sullenly bought an enormous ornate plant stand that wouldn’t fit in the car and would have to be delivered.
“What about your father-in-law?” Morgana inquired sweetly, having just selected whiskey for hers. There was no call for her to look so smug. Vivian had been texting instructions for an hour.
“Balinor is not my father-in-law yet,” Arthur snapped, trying to find space for the whiskey in the overcrowded boot of his Porsche. He had no idea what Balinor would want; he had not so much as seen the man yet. “Merlin agreed, we’re buying presents separately this year – him for his family, me for mine, and we’ll figure it out together next Christmas.”
“That all sounds very tidy,” Morgana said, “except for the bit where you’re spending Christmas with his family instead of yours.”
Arthur slammed the boot shut and turned on her indignantly. “You started it. You haven’t spent Christmas Day with us in years and you’re only going this year as an excuse not to see Vivian’s family.”
“You could at least come for dinner on Christmas Eve. It’s not fair I have to go along and play nicely with the politicians if you don’t have to.”
“I told you, we’re staying overnight on Christmas Eve, Merlin wants to spend some time with his family. He hasn’t seen them in ages and they’ve come down from Wales especially for the wedding.” They got into the car and Arthur admitted, “I thought it would be at Hunith’s when I agreed to go, but apparently they always do Christmas at Kilgarrah’s. So that’s where we’re going.”
“This being the Kilgarrah who invents wacky cocktails and talks about destiny all the time?”
“Yep.”
“You poor sucker,” Morgana said kindly. “I can enjoy Uther’s party now.”
* * *
Merlin loved sleeping. There were so many good places to sleep in his new home, unpacked boxes notwithstanding: the new squashy red sofas, a padded bench set into the bay window, the king-size bed transferred from Arthur’s flat to the bedroom in Camelot Court with every single one of its hundred or so pillows. Cocooned in the sinfully fluffy duvet, drowsily contemplating a late breakfast at the bakery around the corner, Merlin had not one twinge of regret for abandoning his fiance to gift shopping with Morgana, and could even feel the pride of being ahead of Arthur’s planning for once, since Merlin’s present-buying had been dispersed over the course of the year. All that remained now was remembering which box they were all in.
He wasn’t worried about the party tomorrow, either. Merlin had spent the past month and a half in a state of constant worry about one thing or another and now he had finally worried himself out the other side into a floating, peaceable state of not giving a fuck. This party was officially the problem of the best men and woman. Merlin and Arthur hadn’t even put up a tree, since they wouldn’t be here at Christmas to appreciate it. Their decorating plan was to finish unpacking the boxes in the sitting room, so that nobody would be tempted to sit on them.
After hot chocolate and a pecan danish at Camelot Kitchens – during which he entertained himself by reading Arthur’s increasingly desperate narration of Morgana’s quest to find the perfect gift for Morgause, accepting no substitutes – Merlin walked home to get started on unpacking boxes. They were mostly his books. Halfway through the shelving process, he realised he’d opened one of Arthur’s boxes, flipped interestedly through a few of the books inside and started finding spaces for them among his own collection. It felt almost as big a commitment as the upcoming wedding vows. Merlin had lost a signed copy of Guard, Guards! during the break-up with his last boyfriend, Gilli, and was still a little bitter about it. When he was done unpacking the books and they were finally all lined up on the beautiful shelves Elyan had built, he stood back with a slightly choked-up feeling, as it hit home all over again that he was getting married.
“I’m getting married,” he told his mother, sitting on the floor with the phone pressed against his ear.
“I know, sweetheart,” she said patiently. “Has something happened?”
“No, just…I’ve never planned on living with someone before, Mum, I only moved in with Gilli because I was too broke to do anything else. This is so strange. Good strange.”
Hunith made understanding noises, then turned away from the phone to shout, “Please stop antagonising the neighbours, Taliesin, and put the mirror down.”
“Um. So how’s it going with the guests?”
“I’m managing. Balinor and Taliesin are going to stay with Kilgarrah from Christmas until the wedding, so it’s not for very much longer anyway…” Hunith broke off. “For pity’s sake, now he’s in the rockery. Goodbye, darling, give my love to Arthur,” and she hung up, presumably marching out to stop Taliesin demolishing her garden.
From Merlin’s memory, his great-uncle on his father’s side was a sweet and very opinionated old man who liked to take everything apart to see how it worked, and whose favourite running joke was pretending that he could read minds. Put that together with Balinor’s usual misanthropic gloom and the high probability Kilgarrah was around somewhere cackling to himself over a joke nobody else understood, and Hunith was in for a very long week. Merlin was guiltily grateful that he didn’t have enough room to put them up himself. He was hoping that when he finally introduced Arthur to Balinor and Taliesin, a combination of Christmas spirit and the desire not to annoy Hunith any more would keep the conversation out of dangerous territory.
He finished clearing boxes out of the living room and decided, virtuously, to get all his gifts wrapped at once. He then spent the rest of the morning trying to find them, eventually tracking down the right box to the cupboard under the kitchen sink, past!Merlin having applied the logic that Arthur wouldn’t look there – which, after all, he hadn’t. He was battling a roll of recalcitrant sticky tape when Freya rang.
“Do you have balloons?” she asked, without preamble.
Merlin surveyed the carnage of wrapping paper. “Probably not. Why?”
“Never mind. What about forks? How many have you got?”
“I have no idea. Again, Freya, why?”
“Will can’t plan a party to save his life, is why,” Freya said crisply. “And I can.”
She hung up and Merlin took two seconds to wonder what that meant for tomorrow, before giving up with a shrug. He was sure Freya could handle it.
Arthur got home late, exhausted, and was not in a party mood when he woke up the next morning. “Why do I keep having parties?” he mumbled plaintively around his toothbrush. “Why didn’t you stop me inviting people?”
“You wouldn’t have listened if I’d tried,” Merlin pointed out unsympathetically, from the shower. He rinsed the suds out of his hair then poked his head around the curtain to add, “And it was your idea to bundle up three celebrations into one party.”
“Don’t rub it in,” Arthur said severely. “It’s unattractive to be smug.”
“Take it from me,” Merlin said, kissing his jaw on the way to the towel rack, “it’s not.”
Arthur’s idea – and it had definitely been Arthur’s idea – had been to have a relaxing all-day get-together, with friends dropping in when they could and no pressure. Freya showed up at eleven with heart-shaped caramel brownies, pumpkin spice cocoa mix and absolutely no patience left with everyone else who had been planning the party. Arthur made sympathetic noises and three mugs of the cocoa. The two of them seemed to have bonded over their crafting session, though Arthur would probably have warmed to anyone willing to whinge about Will with him.
“He’s so obstructive!” Freya said. “You know, he didn’t even want to play my wedding game?”
“We’re totally playing the wedding game,” Arthur promised, too fast for Merlin to stop him.
Luckily, it was not a board game. Pendragons, Merlin had learned the hard way, should not be allowed near board games if you wanted guaranteed survivors. Freya’s idea was part quiz, part scavenger hunt, and it ended with them out in the garden throwing balloons at each other. By that point Leon, Mithian and Elena had shown up and the girls displayed the kind of competitive streak that explained exactly why they were friends with Arthur. There was a wild scuffle over the balloons that led to everyone getting splattered with mud. Elena howled with laughter when Leon’s balloon exploded in a rose bush, and Mithian – who had somehow stayed very nearly clean throughout – won when her white balloon was the only one to survive the game.
They had washed off most of the mud when Gwen and Lance arrived with several boxes of their mutually excellent cooking. Freya and Lance sat down to talk recipes while Merlin gave Gwen a tour of the house and when he came back, Gwaine was stuffing his face with the apple tartlets. His presence explained the playlist of eighties love ballads now blasting from the sitting room speakers. He bounded over to say hello, kissing Merlin and Gwen each on the cheek and throwing his arms around them both in time for Elena to take a photo.
“Happy Housengagementass!” he yelled over the music. “Let’s dance!”
Will opened the door half an hour later to Gwaine twerking and Merlin nearly choking on his laughter while he tried to keep up. “We played my game and it was awesome!” Freya called, dancing nearby with Arthur. Will never did confused if he could do grouchy and stomped off to the kitchen, where Vivian and Morgana were mixing up what they called ‘fruit punch kickers’. They had refused to let Merlin help but immediately put Will to work chopping strawberries.
Sometime while Merlin was not paying attention, red bunting appeared on the bannisters, spelling out ‘CONGRATULATIONS ARTHUR AND MERLIN!’. Will sat a mini fibre optic tree on the coffee table like a spiky seasonal disco ball. Mithian tied back Leon’s hair with a stray ribbon. Everyone opened presents and drank the fruit punch kickers against their better judgement, and Merlin had a hazy impression of Gwaine talking several people into a conga line before he passed out on Arthur’s lap. Arthur must have fallen asleep too, because when they woke up the next morning someone had covered them in a blanket and scrawled on Merlin’s hand for better. Arthur’s read or worse.
Merlin stumbled into the kitchen to get water, nearly tripping over a couple of guests sleeping on an air mattress on the floor, a timely present from last night. He switched on the coffee-maker, spread leftover brie on toast and contemplated a set of novelty drinking glasses shaped like pineapples lined up beside the sink. He wondered who had given those, and whether Arthur would want to keep them. That was the thing about getting married, it was suddenly important to know your significant other’s opinions on things as obscure as pineapple-themed glassware.
The glasses came in useful, as it happened, because Will, Gwaine and Elena had all stayed the night and now expected breakfast, and nothing from yesterday had been washed up yet. Arthur managed to sleep through the hungover shuffle of departure but woke up at once when his phone started buzzing. “Hello? Dad? Yes?” he garbled into it. “Tonight. Yes. Okay.”
Merlin emerged from the kitchen at that ominous assortment of words. “Was that Uther?”
“Yeah.” Arthur sat up, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. “He wants me to come to lunch.”
“On your own?” Merlin asked, suspicion uncoiling in his stomach. He did not object to Uther wanting private father-son time, but he did object to Uther in general and knew very well how much Uther felt about him. “Is this a Christmas thing?”
“I expect so,” Arthur said, but he was not awake enough to lie convincingly.
Merlin drew in a breath to say something both unpleasant and true, then let it go. Arthur had agreed to spend Christmas with the Emrys family; if the price of that was an hour or two of Uther dropping dark hints over a restaurant table, it was a balancing act that Merlin would just have to get used to. He went outside to pick scraps of popped balloon out of the rosebushes and took deep breaths of cold air, which helped his hangover. The rain had finally cleared. Merlin threw a handful of shredded plastic in the rubbish bin and returned inside to sulk discreetly over a cup of tea. He even managed to say “Wish Uther a merry Christmas for me!” when he saw Arthur off, because Merlin was by far the better liar in this relationship.