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The problem began when Merlin said he wanted to celebrate Christmas this year.
Actually, Arthur reconsidered, the problem began on New Year’s Eve the previous winter, when the clock had been ticking down to zero, everyone at the party quickly coupling up so as not to be alone at midnight, and Merlin hadn’t moved from where he sat next to Arthur, instead shrugging in his direction with that awful half-smile on his face that Arthur couldn’t possibly refuse, and leaned in when the confetti canons went off.
Arthur was in a weird sort of haze when it actually happened – he may have blacked out for a moment – and presumed it would just be a peck that they’d have a laugh about later.
But then they didn’t break apart when they were meant to, and just kept kissing.
Well, actually, the problem went back that stupid economics lecture in Arthur’s first year of university that served absolutely no purpose in his education or degree but had led him to sitting in the desk next to Merlin’s, which led to becoming Merlin’s study partner, becoming his friend, becoming his flat mate, becoming so endlessly entangled in Merlin’s life that there was no way out.
Yes, that was the problem.
But the problem wasn’t really a problem, it was the best thing that had ever happened to Arthur, which was a problem because it meant that Arthur had to somehow plan the best Christmas in the world.
“I’ve never celebrated Christmas before,” Merlin had told him years ago with a simple shrug of his shoulders while Arthur blinked in confusion. “I wasn’t raised religious and my mum’s a Marxist – Christmas is capitalism’s playground. That’s what she always said when I asked.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Arthur remembered telling Merlin at the time. “It’s an awkward, obligatory dinner alone with my father where I pretend I’m still majoring in business and he pretends that he actually cares that I’m there.”
“Sounds like you’ve never celebrated Christmas either,” Merlin had told him with that infuriating way of seeing straight through Arthur’s self-deprecating jokes to see the vulnerability lurking somewhere underneath Arthur’s layers and layers of snarky deflection.
Damn Merlin.
The point remained that although Arthur had never had an enjoyable Christmas, he had least had experience with the Christmas traditions where Merlin had none. Which meant he had to give Merlin the most perfect Christmas imaginable.
Which was shit, because he already had to plan the most perfect New Year’s imaginable since that was their first anniversary. That was two whole things to plan, and it was making Arthur anxious enough that he threw up twice in the week leading up to Christmas.
Whatever.
“Arthur, I just want a Christmas tree. That’s all,” Merlin had told him before he left for his mum’s. He and his mum had a little party together every winter to make up for a lack of Christmas, a party that reportedly was called Yuletide and involved Uncle Gaius reading passages from Karl Marx and Louis Althusser while Uncle Kilgharrah drank deeply and told everyone their creepy fortunes, or so Arthur exaggerated Merlin’s stories.
Arthur hadn’t been invited and Merlin was going to ask his mother if he could come but Arthur was already nervous enough for the holidays without meeting Merlin’s mother. Instead, he said “Go have fun with your family, and then I’ll have the perfect Christmas waiting for you when you get back.”
Which was a very stupid thing to say.
Because now Merlin was approximately an hour away from getting back and there was a half-baked ham in the oven, potatoes that were getting cold on the countertop and lights that for the life of him, Arthur could not get to string around the Christmas tree.
“You’re the most important thing!” Arthur yelled down at the inanimate twinkling objects in his hand, feeling a little woozy from spinning around the tree too many times with nothing to show for it. He was going to wait until Merlin got there so they could decorate the tree together, but he wanted to have the lights up first so he could make them flash when Merlin came in the door.
This was his master plan. Merlin loved little gestures like that.
He could hear the Merlin-voice that was always in the back of his mind laugh at him and say, “I love it when you try. That’s the most important thing.”
That voice, while probably accurate, was also the voice of defeat, and Arthur wasn’t defeated quite yet. He still had thirty minutes until Merlin’s train got in, plus the fifteen back to the flat, and Merlin wasn’t exactly known for his timeliness.
Arthur glared at the lights for a few moments to regain his sense of balance, and then began the tedious process of stringing them on the tree.
It was a real tree from a lot because Merlin came from a hippy-dippy family and would absolutely frown upon fake trees. Arthur’s father always put up a fake tree, but Arthur had never been allowed to decorate it. The maids did it every year, and sometimes Arthur got glimpses of them stringing the lights, but he’d never gotten to do it himself.
“Wasn’t missing much,” Arthur griped to himself as he tugged on the string of lights to straighten it out. He knew that his grumpiness would fade when Merlin got home and they put the ornaments up together. Arthur had made one of the ornaments himself – it was a picture of the two of them together, last New Year’s, maybe ten minutes before they kissed for the first time.
It had taken them six years to kiss, and Arthur wasn’t having Merlin leave him after only one year together just because Arthur couldn’t figure out how to work some goddamn lights.
“It’s your upper-class upbringing fucking with you again,” the Merlin voice in his head laughed. “Those of us with ordinary families actually got to experience life every once in a while.”
“Not like your family is ordinary,” Arthur griped aloud to distract himself from screaming at the tree. “You couldn’t light the tree either. You and your leftist hippie uncles. Not much better…”
It was much better, Arthur was all too aware, if they were comparing childhoods. Merlin’s Marxist mum and leftist hippie uncles loved him and showed it constantly. Arthur’s father did not.
Which was why Arthur needed to have the perfect Christmas this year. Because it really was his first real Christmas, a Christmas spent with someone who loved him.
And Arthur had to prove that he loved Merlin just as much, because he was very bad at showing it, he knew all too well, but if he could just manage to string these fucking lights –
“Babe?”
Arthur must have been inattentive to the door, because he hadn’t even heard the key turn when he whirled around, the last string of lights still unstrung, to see Merlin standing in the doorway, snow dripping from his shoulders, giving Arthur that awful half-smile that he couldn’t possibly refuse.
“You’re early,” Arthur said a little weakly, quickly spinning the last string of lights around the tree and fumbling at the outlet before the tree lit up green and red. “The ham’s not done yet.”
“C’mere,” Merlin’s smile was affectionate as he hung his coat up, meeting Arthur in the middle of the room to tug him close, hugging him tightly.
Arthur sighed into the hug, stress melting from his shoulders. Merlin always made things softer, easier.
“I got an earlier train,” Merlin said into the crook of Arthur’s neck. “I texted you but you didn’t reply.”
“I was in the zone,” Arthur mumbled back, thinking about his long-forgotten phone lost somewhere in the mess of ornament boxes.
“Did you raid a Macy’s?” Merlin laughed at him, releasing him to go run his hands across one of the three boxes of ornaments that Arthur had picked up from the store. Arthur’s heart thumped when he saw Merlin pick up the frame on top of the box, however, the ornament that Arthur had made by hand.
“Oh,” Merlin whispered quietly, his eyes going wide and soft around the edges. Arthur couldn’t help but blush. It was too sappy, but Merlin liked sappy, as long as it wasn’t too sappy, but Arthur knew he’d like it. He had to like it. He liked little gestures like that.
“I thought we could take another picture this year,” Arthur mumbled under his breath, wanting to deflect attention from New Year’s. One holiday at a time. “And every year. You know. Like a tradition.”
“Holiday tradition,” Merlin said quietly, fingers still tracing the frame almost reverently. “I love it.”
He raised his head and Arthur moved closer, leaning down to kiss him lightly. Merlin tried to deepen the kiss, but Arthur moved away with a quick cough.
“You’ve had that cough since before I left,” Merlin’s forehead creased worriedly. “Have you seen a doctor?”
Arthur shook his head with a scoff. “Don’t need a stupid doctor.”
“Should’ve come home with me, my uncle Gaius is a doctor,” Merlin stood up and smoothed back Arthur’s hair as if to check for a temperature. No one had ever done that for Arthur before, which made him a little weak in the knees. Not that he’d admit it out loud.
“I’ll come some other time,” Arthur said. “That’s your family’s tradition, I didn’t want to infringe –”
“Well, now we’ve got a tradition,” Merlin hummed, clearly deciding Arthur was healthy enough. “Can we decorate the tree now?”
“After –” Arthur began, but was cut off by an incessant beeping noise.
The smoke alarm.
“ – dinner,” Arthur finished with a wince. Merlin’s eyes widened and he quickly moved away from Arthur and toward the kitchen, Arthur hot behind him.
Smoke billowed from the oven slowly and steadily, and Arthur wondered how he possibly couldn’t have smelled that before now. Merlin had allergies and could barely smell anything, but Arthur, Arthur should’ve noticed, should’ve remembered –
Arthur’s eyes started watering in the smoke and was suddenly overcome with a worse coughing fit than he’d had in days. Stupid smoke, stupid lungs, stupid Arthur for thinking that he could possibly make a Christmas ham when he could barely cook an ordinary dinner and not knowing how to put out the fire that he’d started, stupid Merlin for coming home too early, or maybe smart Merlin for making it back in time to correct all of Arthur’s pitiful, pitiful mistakes.
“Hey, hey, no harm done,” Merlin winced at the heaping mess in front of them once he’d managed to put out the stovetop fire. “Looks like you left the potatoes on a little too long, huh?”
Arthur coughed a few more times to keep from answering, knowing that Merlin had to be disappointed in him. A pet peeve of Merlin’s was Arthur’s lack of ability to understand anything about how the kitchen worked, and now, the night before Christmas Eve, Merlin’s very first Christmas Eve, Arthur had royally fucked it up again…
“Babe, I’m taking you to urgent care.”
Arthur wasn’t fully aware of Merlin’s hand on his until he looked down. Merlin’s eyes were on his, incessant and worrying. Worrying. Merlin worried a lot. It was something he did. Arthur kind of liked it when Merlin worried about him.
“Don’t need to,” Arthur said weakly but coughed midway through his sentence. “It’s Christmas…”
“Not Christmas yet, and you sound horrible,” Merlin, starkly honestly Merlin, cracked a little sympathetic smile at him. “C’mon. It’s only half five and you’ll never go if I don’t make you. Do you have any other symptoms?”
Merlin knew him too damn well, Arthur thought, suddenly more aware of his aching head than he had been while in the zone working on the Christmas tree. “I threw up a couple of times.”
Merlin gave him a you should’ve called me look or maybe just a you should’ve called someone look but Arthur liked to hope that Merlin wanted to be the one who was called. He thought Merlin would want that, at least. Maybe he would’ve a few days ago before Arthur ruined Christmas.
“Well, I guess since there’s apparently no supper now,” Arthur said.
“We’ll get chicken soup on the way home,” Merlin said, casting a look over at Arthur’s ruined ham and potatoes. “You go get your coat while I clean this up. It’s snowing hard outside.”
“Okay,” Arthur muttered under his breath as he stumbled back toward their bedroom to get his shoes first. When he came back into the living room, he could hear Merlin humming Silver Bells off-key.
Arthur wanted so badly for this to be perfect, the fact that it wasn’t left him aching a little.
He slumped in the armchair by the Christmas tree, whose lights twinkled down at him and made him crack a smile. At least he’d figure out the tree, and gotten Merlin that ornament. They could decorate when they got back, as long as Merlin still wanted to.
“Hey,” Merlin gently prodded his arm a few moments later, or maybe not, maybe Arthur had dozed off. “Let’s pick up some Christmas movies on the way back, yeah? I’ve never seen Christmas movies before.”
“Me neither,” Arthur mumbled, letting Merlin help him to his feet and keep an arm around his waist as Merlin steered him toward the door. He usually hated being so dependent, but it was different when he was sick. Different on Christmas.
Different when he was with Merlin.
Merlin couldn’t help but flicker his eyes to Arthur every five seconds. He was driving, so he couldn’t do much more than once-overs, only five or six-overs with a few cursory glances at the road.
Arthur’s eyes were closed, or at least Merlin thought they were. He’d gotten whiter the closer they’d gotten to the doctor’s, and spent most of their time in the waiting room with his head on Merlin’s shoulder. He didn’t do that kind of public affection very often and Merlin didn’t know if it was because it was sick or if it was because it was the holidays.
It left a fluttery feeling in Merlin’s chest all the same. He wished Arthur would do it more often.
He didn’t like to be coddled, Merlin had to remind himself every thirty seconds on the way home, and tried to distract himself by memorizing the doctor’s instructions. Arthur had influenza, so there were no antibiotics, no easy fix, but Merlin had picked up cough drops and painkillers and extra Kleenex along with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman before heading back to their flat.
He hoped they would cheer Arthur up. Arthur had tried to assure Merlin again and again that we had Christmas when I was a kid, I know what to do, but Merlin knew that an Uther Pendragon Christmas wouldn’t count as a Christmas in anyone else’s mind. And he wanted this to be so special for Arthur, their first real Christmas, their first Christmas together…it twisted his insides that Arthur had to spend it sniffling.
Even if he was pretty cute when he was sniffling, Merlin noticed during one of his paranoid lookovers. Back when they’d been just friends, Arthur always shut him out when he was ill or just feeling vulnerable in general. He’d get tetchy and cross and refuse to let Merlin help him, even though all Merlin had ever wanted to do was take care of Arthur.
For years, that had been all he wanted, and now he had it, and it was as incredible as it was terrifying.
“We’re home,” Merlin was surprised by the hoarseness of his voice when he gently nudged Arthur, whose eyelids fluttered just slightly. Merlin’s chest went bright and warm. “C’mon. Does soup sound good for dinner? It’s either that or burnt ham…”
A despairing look crossed Arthur’s face and he didn’t reply.
“That was a joke,” Merlin informed him with a small smile. Arthur took failure, even misconstrued failure, very personally. Normally, he would’ve taken Merlin’s jibe as an offering of peace, of forgetting about it, but apparently his illness was catching up to his normal, deflecting ways.
Merlin leaned over intending to peck the side of Arthur’s head, but Arthur moved his head too quickly, unbuckling and opening the car door, and Merlin felt a rush of disappointment as he fell back into the driver’s seat.
He wanted so badly for this to be perfect, and now Arthur wouldn’t even talk to him.
Sighing, he grabbed the bag with their dinner and Arthur’s medicine from the backseat and followed his boyfriend inside. It only took a few long strides to catch up with him, and even though Merlin didn’t take a hold of his waist, he brushed their shoulders together so Arthur would know that he was there.
Arthur leaned in, just slightly, and it was enough to make Merlin relax and stop overthinking things just for a second.
Arthur didn’t talk when they got back to their flat, and Merlin told himself that it was just because his throat hurt even though he wasn’t necessarily sure how true that was. Still, Arthur was depending on Merlin for food and sustenance and affection, three things Merlin hoped he still wanted.
Merlin distracted himself by quietly stirring the can of soup Merlin bought at the market and waiting for Arthur to reappear.
He eventually did, wearing one of Merlin’s threadbare t-shirts, sweatpants, and thick fuzzy socks that made him pad into the kitchen. He stared at the soup for a moment and Merlin quickly said “It’ll be done in two minutes.”
Arthur nodded, gave Merlin a half-smile, the awful kind that Merlin could never refuse.
Merlin reached out to press his knuckles to Arthur’s forehead. “Bit of a fever, yeah?”
Arthur nodded, but added with a hoarse voice “Kind of chilly, though.”
“Get one of the blankets from the hall closet. I’ll bring the soup out when it’s ready and we can watch Rudolph, okay?” Merlin said, and Arthur gave him a real smile for the first time since they left the doctor’s.
“You’re nice when I’m poorly,” Arthur said with a little laugh that caught in his throat. “Very attentive. Very unlike your usual.”
“I’m very attentive,” Merlin stuck his tongue out in Arthur’s direction. “When you deserve it, that is.”
“Ooh…” Arthur’s laugh turned into a cough, and Merlin emphatically thumped him on the back a couple of times.
“I hate being sick,” Arthur said in the most long-suffering voice Merlin had ever heard, and even though it was overdramatic as hell and clearly meant to gain Merlin’s sympathy, it left Merlin aching all the same with a desire to fight off the monster lurking somewhere in Arthur’s lungs.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin whispered because it was all he could really do. Arthur smiled at him, just a little, before padding out of the kitchen.
Taking extra care to turn the oven off – Arthur’s inability to know anything about how the kitchen worked was equal parts endearing and annoying – Merlin spooned two bowls of chicken noodle and got out a sleeve of Saltines, knowing that Arthur’s stomach wouldn’t be up for much else.
Arthur was curled up on the couch when Merlin passed him his bowl of soup, and he made a vaguely nauseated expression as he began playing with his spoon but not eating. A lack of an appetite was a little concerning. Arthur never passed up an opportunity to eat. Still, the flu was a perfectly valid excuse and Merlin needed to stop overthinking these things.
Sitting next to Arthur once he started the DVD, he situated himself so he could lean his head on Arthur’s shoulder while still giving them both access to their bowls of soup. Arthur made a disgruntled noise and tried to shrug Merlin’s head away.
“I’m sick, we can’t cuddle when I’m sick,” Arthur griped, but there was a whining quality to his voice that made Merlin sure that he wanted, needed Merlin to be close to him and was just trying to be chivalrous, so Merlin persisted.
“I had my flu shot this year,” Merlin pointed out. “And you’re shivering.”
“I guess I am shivering,” Arthur relented, just slightly, giving Merlin that awful half-smile again as Merlin leaned in and Arthur accepted the gesture, melting into Merlin’s side like he’d never left.
“Have you ever seen Rudolph before?” Merlin asked sleepily as the opening credits played, laughing a bit at the Claymation, feeling the rumble of Arthur’s chest when he chuckled.
“No,” Arthur whispered. “My father never let me…said it was too childish. We went to see A Christmas Carol once. The play…”
“And your father didn’t see the irony in that?” Merlin laughed under his breath, the parallel between Uther Pendragon and Ebenezer Scrooge all too apparent.
Arthur laughed a little, too; he somehow felt looser than he had when Merlin first got home that day, his anxiety spiraling away. “No, not as such. He’s never been too self-aware.”
“I’m sorry you’re sick on Christmas,” Merlin leaned in to peck Arthur’s lips, but Arthur squirmed away.
“A flu shot won’t protect you from making out!” Arthur yelped, and Merlin couldn’t help but giggle.
“I’ll resist until New Year’s, then,” Merlin pressed a kiss to Arthur’s knuckles instead.
“New Year’s,” Arthur sighed. “We can still salvage New Year’s even if Christmas is ruined.”
“Christmas isn’t ruined,” Merlin said, realizing how true it was when the words came out of his mouth. “We’ve got Rudolph, and a Christmas tree, and all of those ornaments. And it’s not even Christmas Eve yet. We can try the ham again. And…and since you’re sick, I’ll take care of you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Arthur. To take care of you when you need it.”
Merlin’s heart thumped too loudly in his chest at this admission, at this vulnerability, at these words that had been true since that stupid economics lecture in university where he and Arthur collided for the first time.
Arthur’s expression went soft around the edges, his eyes wide and glassy, lips quirking upward into a smile. Merlin’s fears melted away. “That’s all I want, too. To take care of you. To give you the perfect Christmas…”
“This might not be perfect, but it’s definitely…memorable,” Merlin decided on the word with a laugh. “We’ll never forget our first Christmas together. First Christmas ever. Right?”
Arthur nodded, hand finding Merlin’s and intertwining their fingers together. “Right.”
“Now we have to rewind Rudolph because we were being sappy,” Merlin remarked with a pithy grin and Arthur laughed at him. “We missed the whole exposition, Arthur! Can’t have that.”
Arthur didn’t reply, but he nestled his head against Merlin’s, which was all the answer Merlin needed.