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Merlin’s birthday is coming up, and it’s the first birthday they’ll celebrate as a couple, so Arthur is extra determined to get him something special. He’s already got a few small gifts - a new scarf, for one thing; that thing is ratty as hell - but he’s found nothing yet that adequately says, “You’re my best friend, I’m in love with you, and I cherish you with all my heart.”
Anyone who thinks that’s too much pressure to be putting on a gift has not met Mr Icicles.
Obviously, the best gift would be a stuffed animal. It would be like telling Merlin he reciprocates all the love Merlin has given him all these years, frequently in the form of fluffy toys. Arthur’s thinking maybe a dragon, or perhaps a classic teddy bear…
The problem is buying the damn thing.
Arthur’s always hidden his stuffed animals. Since he was ten. That part’s sad, he knows, but also, he’s a grown man now, and he cannot go around shopping for stuffed animals.
Sure, nobody has to know it’s for his boyfriend, rather than for some child in his life. Except, the problem isn’t standing in the check-out line. Well, that’s a small part of it, but the real problem is standing in the toy aisle with little kids and their judgey parents around, petting the bears to see how soft they are, trying to find the one with the cutest face (no they are not all identical!), and stifling laughter when he thinks of names Merlin might appreciate.
Arthur runs away in under thirty seconds.
*
He tries online shopping next.
The big brands have the issue that Arthur won’t get to pick the right stuffed animal, the one with the best face rather than the one with a weirdly crooked eye, so he skips right over them and goes to Etsy. There, at least, the pictures show the actual stuffed animal he’d be sent if he bought one. But now the problem is that the reviews are less numerous and specific. Arthur gets his eye on a teddy bear, and its fur looks soft, but looks can be deceiving! And the picture doesn’t tell him how cuddly it would be!
He ends up with 15 tabs open. Maybe he should just buy them all. (What, Arthur supports small businesses! This is totally logical!) Surely, one of the 15 would be adorable, cuddly, and soft enough to meet Arthur’s standards. He couldn’t throw out the 14 bears, dragons, and the world’s most adorable sloth he decided against giving to Merlin - he’s not a monster - but he could donate them.
But. Merlin would definitely notice if Arthur got 15 different parcels over the course of the next few weeks, and Merlin likes to investigate things, and it would ruin the surprise.
Arthur sadly closes all his tabs.
After bookmarking the sloth.
*
He makes another try at shopping in real life, but this time he arms himself better: he goes over to Gwen and Lance’s place and offers to babysit their daughter.
“No need,” Gwen says. “We’re having a weekend in. But you’re welcome to join, of course.”
Arthur has a gift card in his wallet to Merlin’s favourite restaurant, but he can get another one before Merlin’s birthday.
“No, no,” he says, giving her the card. “You and Lance are going out to dinner! My treat.”
“That’s very kind of you, Arthur,” Lance says.
Gwen crosses her arms. “Do you have some sort of nefarious plan involving my daughter?”
“Nope! Never!” Arthur says, ducking out the door with five-year-old Lily over his shoulder and her shoes in his hand.
He takes her to a toy shop and goes to the stuffed animal aisle. He’s narrowed it down to seven contenders when Lily says, “I’m bored.”
“I told you you could pick your own stuffed animal,” Arthur says. “My treat!”
“I don’t want a stuffed animal,” Lily says. “You can’t make me get stuffed animals just because I’m a girl.”
There are two girls who look about seventeen years old within hearing range, and they look directly at Arthur and Lily upon Lily’s loud declaration. One of them is wearing a knitted pink pussy hat. Arthur decides not to pick this battle.
“Okay, Lily, what toy do you want,” Arthur sighs, and the teenage girls stop looking murderous.
Lily leads him to the Star Wars section and grabs a Rey costume and a lightsaber.
The cashier accepts a very large sum of Arthur’s money, and tells Lily jealously, “I wish this came in my size.”
Arthur and Lily walk out to his car together, Lily beaming with victory.
*
Buying a stuffed animal is not going well for Arthur. Three failures should tell him that it’s time to change tacks. Besides, how hard could making a stuffed animal really be?
Arthur returns to the internet.
A few hours of searching later, he’s decided that learning to knit or crochet and then finishing an entire project, all before Merlin’s birthday, is completely out of the question. It’s just way too complicated. Sewing, though. Arthur already knows how to sew on a button! He has a needle, somewhere! This is doable.
He finds a pattern for a recycled sweater teddy bear. Perfect. Arthur has a red sweater that Merlin was constantly stealing, until one of them ripped a large hole in the sleeve and it got pushed to the back of his closet and forgotten. It’s still there, and it’s just as soft as Arthur remembered, and it will make the perfect teddy bear.
Arthur buys some stuffing and thread - this is easy, it will all be hidden inside the bear anyways, no need to pick out the perfect colour - and then sets to work.
*
When Merlin’s birthday finally comes around, they have a lovely day together and Merlin clearly appreciates all his gifts, but when they’re lying in bed that night, he turns to Arthur and asks, “Arthur?”
“Yes?”
“Look, don’t take this the wrong way, because I really love everything you gave me, and you gave me way more presents than you needed to - but what was the present you were being really secretive about working on finding?”
“What?” Arthur asks, because he hadn’t ever mentioned anything about his small project to Merlin.
“You weren’t doing a good job of hiding it!” Merlin says. “You kept taking your computer away from me to delete your search history, and then disappearing for hours at a time. Also you have band-aids all over your fingers, and I was getting worried you’d tried to adopt me a very angry cat, or something.”
“Oh,” Arthur says. “Well, if you must know, I was trying to buy you a stuffed animal.”
“Really?” Merlin says, smiling at him. Then he looks a bit confused. “Well, what happened?”
“Well,” Arthur says, stalling because he’s not sure he wants to admit to Merlin that he was too embarrassed to be in a toy aisle to buy Merlin a bear. But he can’t lie to Merlin on his birthday, so he admits, “Judgemental parents in toy stores,” and Merlin bursts out laughing.
“Also,” Arthur says, “Terrifying teenage feminists.”
Merlin buries his face in Arthur’s shoulder and keeps snorting with laughter. “Thank you for trying to brave these terrible enemies for me, Arthur.”
“Oh, that’s not the worst of it,” Arthur says grimly.
Merlin looks up at him questioningly.
“Well, since I failed at buying you a bear, I decided to make you one. It… did not go well. I stabbed myself a lot,” he admits, holding up his injured fingers.
“Aww,” Merlin says, and grabs Arthur’s hands in order to lay kisses on each of his fingertips. When he’s done, he asks, “Did you finish the bear?”
“...yes,” Arthur says. “But. It’s hideous.”
“Arthur!” Merlin scolds. “Don’t talk about our newest stuffed animal that way! I hope it’s somewhere out of earshot.”
“It is. It’s out in the hall closet.” Arthur pauses. “Where it can’t kill us in our sleep.”
Merlin lightly slaps his shoulder. “Arthur Pendragon, bring our new bear here right now.”
Arthur sighs, but gets out of bed. He crosses the room, then pauses in the doorway and turns back to Merlin. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says.
“Stop disparaging our bear,” Merlin says.
Arthur sighs again and heads down the hall to get his failed sewing project. It’s in a bag, inside a box, hidden at the back of the closet they rarely open.
He takes out the bear and brings it back into the bedroom.
The bear is about a foot tall, made of red hoodie material and foolishly sewn with black thread that shows through in most places. Arthur’s initial stitches along the sides of the bear’s torso were way too big, so wispy white stuffing is leaking out along the seams. Its arms and legs are uneven, its feet are horrifically triangular, one of its ears is a few centimeters higher than the other, and the buttons for its eyes are creepishly shiny and far too large for its face.
“I love him,” Merlin says.
“I know he’s terrible, Merlin, you don’t have to pretend to like him.”
“I love him. Let me give him a hug. What’s his name?”
“Oh,” Arthur says, handing the bear over. Merlin is smiling hugely, and he hugs the bear very carefully - so as not to dislodge further stuffing, presumably - and he looks genuinely touched.
Apparently it is the thought that counts.
“Arthur? Name?”
“Oh,” Arthur says again. “I didn’t give him one. You can pick.”
“No!” Merlin says. “You gave him to me, you have to pick his name!”
“Oh. Well,” Arthur says. He looks down at the red bear with its black stitching holding its arms, legs, and head on, and its disturbing eyes, and suggests, “Creepy McCreepface?”
“You’re the worst,” Merlin says. “Just for that, Creepy McCreepface is going to look at you all night long.”
He tucks the bear in under the covers, and Arthur climbs in with them.
“I love you,” Merlin says.
“I love you too,” Arthur says, smiling as he closes his eyes.
As he drifts off to sleep, something - that feels suspiciously like a teddy bear nose - pokes him in the ear, and a menacing voice whispers, “Now I can kill you in your sleep.”
Arthur shrieks, and Merlin falls off the bed laughing.