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An elementary school. Lunch time. The most popular girl in their year walks up to Gwen and Merlin. “Hello, I am Morgana.”
“I am Gwen and this is Merlin,” Gwen hurries to explain.
“Nice to meet you, Gwen, Merlin. We could be friends?” Morgana says.
Gwen nods.
The blonde behind Morgana pipes up, “You have big ears. Like, Mickey Mouse.”
“And you look like a toad.”
Thus begins a long story of supposed enmity that is nothing but an irritating friendship. One you hate when they are in front of you but also miss when they are gone for a long while.
A middle school. Two classmates holding a grudge against Merlin falsely accuse him of cheating on an important test. Arthur stands up for Merlin and saves his day.
Afterwards, “Learn to take care of yourself. I can't solve all your problems for you,” accompanied by a smirk.
A scoff. “I had it under control.”
“Sure you had, if that helps you sleep at night,” Arthur vanishes off with his friends.
A bar. Final year finals over for everyone. Gwen and Morgana have called an emergency meeting. Arthur and Merlin are the first ones to arrive and spend their time criticizing the other’s drinks and food and clothing choices.
Gwen and Morgana arrive hand in hand. Arthur and Merlin turn to each other with matching and conflicting looks of happiness and despair trying to gain dominance on their faces. Their biggest nightmare and source of greatest happiness is coming true. They have discussed this before. They have to draw up elaborate schedules now to not bump into each other too frequently now that one’s best friend and the other’s sister are dating.
Happiness because the long pining period is over. Despair because they can’t cut each other completely out of their lives.
A restaurant this time. Meeting called by Elyan and Gwaine. Merlin and Arthur, despite having busy jobs, haven't yet managed to cut down on the hours they spend in each other’s company.
Elyan and Gwaine have decided to date. This is a source of happiness. Gwen instantly plans a vacation for the six of them. Merlin and Arthur’s nightmare- they have to spend even their vacation with their sworn enemy.
Gwen hung up the call and breathed a sigh of relief. Morgana, who was comfortably half asleep even while standing and using Gwen as her personal support system, raised a sleepy eyebrow.
“Merlin has been convinced to rent a car and drive here from the airport. With Arthur,” she said in reply to the silent question.
“Aren’t they traveling by the same flight? We should be prepared to calm them down. With food preferably,” Morgana sleepily mumbled.
“Let’s hope they aren’t seated together in the plane and the holiday spirit keeps them from fighting. We should sleep now, if we are to have any hopes of surviving the world war we might witness tomorrow.”
Merlin was sitting at the airport, boarding pass in hand, regretting his decisions in life. Oh why had he decided to befriend Gwen in school (not that he hated her, she was his best friend, a literal angel, but sometimes she went ahead and put him in tight spots like this one.) Morgana and the bully she had in the name of a brother went to the same school. Gwen was always a friend to Morgana, even Merlin liked her if he could ignore her scary personality. Merlin and Arthur, to everyone’s surprise, were always fighting (Merlin would like to maintain he was innocent, it was Arthur who sought him out and needled him. Merlin never did anything to irritate Arthur.)
The most baffling detail of his life seemed to be the fact that Merlin had somehow managed to remain in touch with Arthur even after all these years (maybe because his best friend dated the prat’s sister) and their fights never stopped. One would assume they would mature over the years and stop being at each other’s neck every time they met (which was quite frequent) but that was yet to happen.
Merlin had a suspicion that Arthur didn’t really hate him. He also had a suspicion that he himself didn’t really hate Arthur, it was just that irritating him was so much more fun than anything else. Just when he had started thinking of Arthur in a non-negative light, a blonde head struck him on his chin and rudely broke him out of his reverie.
“Can’t sit still for a moment, can you?” a voice laced with a posh accent drawled.
Merlin realized he did, in fact, hate Arthur.
“What were you looking at, you prat?” Merlin asked in an outraged voice.
“Your boarding pass,” Arthur shrugged.
“Why?” Merlin was very confused now.
“To check your seat number. I am disappointed to inform you that you will be seated next to me for the flight.”
“You could have just asked,” Merlin said in an exasperated voice. “Anyway, you can exchange your seat with someone if you are scared of me.”
“Scared? Of you?” Arthur scoffed. “Own up, you are scared of me so you can exchange your seat if you want to.”
“Arthur, I know you are an idiot but you brought up the topic of changing seats. If anyone is moving, that’s you. Not me.”
“Fine, don’t. But don’t complain about anything later.”
As it turned out, both of them had a lot to complain about for the duration of the whole fight.
They were still bickering about why Merlin, who had the middle seat, had to use the washroom so many times and make Arthur move out of his way when they stepped out of the airport gate and groaned in sync. They had just remembered that they had a few more hours to spend together before they could meet their friends who could play a referee for their fights.
Merlin, being the self-proclaimed more mature one, said, “We rent a car, I drive for half the way, you sleep for that time. Then you drive and I sleep. That way we won’t be tempted to fight and we might just survive this trip with our sanity intact. Deal?”
Arthur grasped Merlin’s proffered hand in a tight grip and shook on it. “Deal.”
Arthur could not sleep. Merlin was driving too slow. They would have to give up hopes of reaching the cottage by sunset at this rate. But he had effectively made a promise to not fight and Arthur was first and foremost, a man of his word. He wouldn’t fight.
But he had had enough when Merlin suddenly stopped the car at the side of the road. “What are you doing, Merlin? Why did you stop here? Do you not want to reach there by today? ” he asked angrily.
“I am trying, okay?” Merlin answered. He seemed to be in distress. He suddenly wrenched open the door and stepped out.
Arthur followed only a moment later to find Merlin dry heaving at the side of the road. He looked extremely sick so Arthur felt a little guilty and brought out a bottle of water for Merlin.
He rubbed Merlin’s back to soothe him and led him back to the car when he looked a little better. “You should have told me you weren’t well enough.”
“I had to drive half the way.”
“Not when you are sick. I should be allowed to have your back then,” Arthur replied as Merlin settled in the back seat and he tried to awkwardly make sure Merlin was comfortable.
“I am sorry for delaying us,” Merlin whispered just before drifting off.
“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur’s voice had no heat in it.
The sleep seemed to have brought back Merlin to good spirits as he was back to cheerily ordering around Arthur while he unloaded their bags from the car.
“Come help me take out bags instead of just ordering me around, Merlin.”
“You are forgetting that I was sick. I am allowed this joy of watching you toil. And Gwaine and Elyan are helping you.”
“I don’t know if they are helping me or making moon eyes at each other.”
Both of them turned to watch Gwaine and Elyan stare deeply into each other’s soul and proceed to kiss. Merlin and Arthur groaned again.
“I thought nothing could be worse than their mutual pining,” Merlin grumbled.
“Tell me about it,” Arthur sighed.
Merlin shot him a commiserating grin and decided to lend a hand to the unloading process.
Morgana greeted them both with a hug when they entered the living room. “Thanks for bringing the car. We didn’t realize the town would be so far away.”
The group of six friends had decided to celebrate their Christmas holidays in a quiet cottage detached from bigger human settlements.
Morgana continued, “Gwen has gone to buy necessities from the town and left me to do this hard bit. One of the rooms has a broken heating system so you two have to share.”
“What?” Arthur squawked.
“Morgana, are you trying to have the worst Christmas ever? We were on a flight together, seated next to each other, we spent hours together in a car and now we have to share a room? Merlin is sick. If not for me, spare us for his good health.”
“Please consider this a favour to me. Or Gwen.” Morgana knew well that Gwen held more sway over both Arthur and Merlin. “Also, Arthur, I know you start most of your fights so promise me you won’t fight with Merlin,” Morgana glared at her brother.
“Ok, ok, I promise,” Arthur thought he was taking pity on poor sick Merlin.
“I am sorry about this but it’s useless asking Gwaine and Elyan to separate. I wouldn’t want to do that to them considering they just got together. And I am simply not not sharing a room with Gwen.”
Merlin and Arthur accepted their fate and silently prayed for patience and strength.
Arthur decided to be a good roommate for once and herded off Merlin to the bedroom to sleep off the nausea. He left Merlin with promises of soup and tea.
When Arthur was ready to sleep, he tried creeping into the room so as not to wake up Merlin. But it seemed Merlin’s clumsiness was contagious as he walked into the table.
“Arthur?” a small voice asked.
“Yes. Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“That’s fine. The soup helped and I am feeling much better. And the nap was very useful too but I don't feel sleepy now.”
Arthur hummed and prepared to fall asleep in the comfortable bed.
He was almost successful in convincing his brain to shut down when Merlin called him again.
“I can’t sleep. I know you can’t too. You have been moving around for the last half an hour. Please entertain me,” Merlin demanded.
“Am I your court jester? No, your personal jester?”
“Yes, you are. And I am sick. You should help sick people. Otherwise, I will tell Morgana you fought with me and broke the promise,” Merlin said petulantly, like an innocent child.
Arthur didn’t know how everyone fell for this ruse of Merlin. His innocent facade only came to the surface when he was scheming something evil. Like, keeping Arthur from his sleep.
But Arthur figured he wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon and he would rather talk to Merlin. Merlin could be pretty fun when not on a mission to make Arthur’s life hell and considering how he was slightly sick, Merlin wasn’t his devious self in its entirety right now, Arthur decided to humor Merlin and started talking about Doctor Who, an interest common for both of them.
Arthur was in the midst of passionately ranking the Doctor Who Christmas episodes in an attempt to make Merlin understand how his choices were superior to Merlin’s when his phone lit up with an incoming message. He reluctantly stopped his lecture to get his phone.
'Morgana says, "You promised not to fight with Merlin, little brother. Please stop fighting or do I need to remind you what happens when someone breaks their promise to me," Arthur read aloud.
'But we aren't fighting,' Arthur said sullenly from across the room.
Discussing things they both liked with Arthur always cheered Merlin up. It was surprising that for all their clashing personalities, they liked almost all the same things with slight variations. Merlin could almost imagine the pout gracing the blonde's face. He heard Arthur reading along as he typed his reply, 'We can't stop fighting 'cause we never started. Do you want us to start fighting so that we can stop?'
'That would teach her,' Arthur said triumphantly.
Just then, Merlin's phone chimed with a message from Gwen. 'Gwen says I am the more mature of the two and could we please stop talking and disturbing their sleep,' he read aloud for Arthur.
'How are you the more mature one when any amusement park ride makes you jump like a five year old?' Arthur asked indignantly.
'Ah well, since it's Gwen asking and I am obviously the more mature of the two of us, I give her my solemn word that we won't disturb their sleep,' Merlin answered.
'Can I continue this conversation in the morning to prove why my list is better than yours?' Arthur asked.
'We both know you will do so regardless of my answer.'
'Hmmm, you might just be as mature as me,' Arthur mused.
Merlin went against his instinct of throwing a pillow at Arthur because his comfort would be compromised by that petty act. But sleeping proved difficult.
'Arthur!' Merlin whispered dramatically into the darkness of their room a while later.
'What? Can't sleep?' Arthur whispered back equally dramatically.
'Yes! But we can't possibly continue talking in a whisper and I don't want to disturb Gwen and Morgana.'
'Scared of your best friend or my sister, Merlin?' The mischief in Arthur's tone was unmistakable.
This time a pillow hit Arthur right on his face.
'Ok, ok we can have this pillow fight and conversation properly if we push our beds together,' Arthur said with a laugh but was a little surprised when Merlin actually got up and started pushing his bed towards the middle of the room without a word of protest.
Arthur, caught off guard by the immediate success of his plan, was a second late in following Merlin's example. By the time he managed to join his bed to Merlin's, another pillow had been thrown his way.
'This one is for implying you are more mature than me,' Merlin giggled.
'As if this,' Arthur made a gesture at the pillow Merlin had stolen from Arthur's bed and was clutching like his last weapon of defense, 'is helping your case.'
Merlin immediately ducked to avoid being hit by a pillow-missile. The rest of the night was spent by engaging in friendly debates and pillow fights, and giggling and trying to shush each other's giggles so as not to disturb their next room neighbors. Sleep had to wait a long time to work her magic on them.
The morning saw Merlin totally cured. He pulled out the bag of ornaments he had brought along for decorating the tree. His mom was on a cruise with his uncle Gaius and he was in charge of all the memories of his childhood stored in the ornaments.
Most of the decorations had already been put up so Merlin sat down to make two separate piles of the ones he would use and the ones he wouldn’t. After that was done, he started putting up the ornaments. Arthur walked in while he was up on a stool trying to reach a higher branch and started sifting through the unused ornaments pile.
“What is this treasure I found?” he asked, holding up one of the ornaments triumphantly.
“Don’t laugh but that is supposed to be Gwen and me from that time we celebrated Christmas together while in middle school. I did my best to represent us with stick figures,” Merlin balanced precariously on the stool while trying to get a proper look at the one in Arthur’s hand.
Arthur walked up to him and steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. “Take care of yourself, you big baby. Who does it for you when your arch nemesis is not around?”
Merlin very maturely stuck out a tongue at Arthur. “I can take care of myself just fine. And who said someone so stupid like you can be my arch-nemesis?”
“You obviously can’t take care of yourself, Merlin. Also, who are you calling stupid. You didn’t stop even when you were unwell yesterday. You started a pillow fight yesterday night. You were just going to fall. You are forgetful besides being stupid. What is going to happen to you in the big wide world?” Arthur teased.
“Arthur, have you forgotten I am a doctor. I can handle ‘the big wide world’ pretty well, thank you. Yesterday was just an exception.”
A while later, with Merlin almost done putting up the ornaments and their bickering having reached a satisfactory end, Arthur held up ‘the Gwen and Merlin as stick figures’ ornament excitedly and suggested, “Let’s make one with all six stick figures of us, as a memoir of this Christmas.”
Merlin was on board at once. “We don’t have coloured pens or pencils, so a black and blue pen will have to suffice,” Merlin rattled off while scavenging for said pens.
They both sat down and started drawing stick figures of their friends. Gwaine got long hair and a label saying ‘L'oreal Paris model’. Next to him was Elyan with an arrow saying ‘wittiest comebacks’. Morgana was labeled as ‘has the steeliest glare’ and Gwen got ‘a literal angel’.
Arthur drew a crown for himself and a pointy hat for Merlin, as a nod to their legendary namesakes. Merlin was offended by the ridiculous hat and wrote ‘actually a toad’ next to Arthur’s stick figure for which Arthur retorted with ‘actually an idiot’.
Morgana and Gwen walked in to them arguing over whose insult was more original and creative and fitting.
“Is it just me or their arguments are veering into banter territory now?” Morgana wondered aloud.
“Maybe it is the magic of Christmas. Here's to hoping it stays. They would really be the best of friends if they allowed themselves to get over their petty differences.”
There was a thunderstorm raging when Arthur’s sleep broke in the middle of the night. He had always hated thunderstorms, maybe even a little scared. Merlin was sleeping peacefully next to him- they had decided late night conversations were very important and the beds were still joined- and he didn’t want to disturb his sleep so Arthur tried to go back to sleep. But his efforts were futile as the loud sounds made his eyes fly open in fear.
Merlin woke up when a particularly loud thunder rolled and his gaze immediately found Arthur who was shivering. His sleep addled mind immediately opened his arms in invitation to Arthur who let Merlin pull him close without a second thought. Merlin knew about his fear of thunderstorms because Arthur had lost his mother on a similar day and tried to soothe his friend’s panic by running his fingers gently through his hair and mumbling reassurances. Arthur fell asleep after a while, but Merlin stayed awake for a longer time, looking at the bundle of warmth sleeping peacefully in his arms and feeling warmth encompass him. He really didn’t, couldn’t, hate Arthur.
Arthur woke up feeling more content and at peace than ever. He realized Merlin’s hair was tickling his nose and smiled to himself. Merlin fought with him about everything, but when it mattered, he was one of the few people Arthur could count on. He had remembered Arthur’s fear of thunderstorms, just after it being mentioned to him only in passing and had been able to soothe him. Whatever everyone else thought, he really didn’t dislike Merlin. He only needed to convince Merlin of that fact.
Arthur and Merlin were wandering aimlessly in the market, commenting at random things and giggling together when Elyan and Gwaine came up to them with a mischievous glint in their eyes. It was Christmas Eve and the four had been sent to the town to do last minute shopping.
“Elyan is going to propose to me in that bakery over there,” Gwaine said in lieu of a greeting.
“Why?” Merlin asked warily.
“See, we do a grand Christmas proposal, as we are in a bakery, we look for wedding cakes, they give us free samples. This ruse is sponsored by the prospect of free cake,” Elyan explained triumphantly.
“That’s a great plan,” Arthur remarked, unimpressed. “I will have nothing to do with it.”
“No princess, we need you to back us up. Think of all the cake,” Gwaine helpfully supplied.
Arthur turned to Merlin as his last resort but found him already won over by his evil friends. The idiot was giving him puppy eyes.
“Free cake, Arthur,” Merlin said with glowing eyes.
Arthur sighed. He didn’t know since when he had lost his immunity to Merlin’s puppy eyes.
The plan worked like magic. They had sampled almost all the types of cake the bakery had to offer. Emboldened by the success, Gwaine suggested the repeat the same trick, but this time with Merlin and Arthur at a different bakery.
Arthur felt his face growing warm. He convinced himself that it was because of the inevitable embarrassment. They were always fighting, no one was going to believe them if they staged a proposal, not even total strangers. Maybe he didn’t hate Merlin, but the same couldn’t be said about Merlin’s feelings towards Arthur. What if this ridiculous situation created cracks in their tentative truce and friendship? He didn’t want to risk it. But Merlin’s puppy eyes and reassurances that he would have Arthur’s back crumbled his oppositions and Arthur found himself on his knees, looking up at a gorgeous Merlin with jumbled thoughts running havoc in his mind.
“Merlin, you are the most important person in my life. You fight with me when everyone else lets me do as I want and keep the size of my head in check. You are there for me in the lowest moments of my life and I appreciate your kindness and your friendship and your love. I want to take care of you when you are sick, I want to wake up to your smile everyday. Please, marry me?”
Merlin pulled him up into a hug as he cheerily replied with a yes. It wasn’t much later when Arthur was enjoying the fruits (cakes) of his hard work when he realized his speech, devoid of the exaggerations, was actually true.
Oh, he had feelings for Merlin.
That night, all the six friends settled down to watch a horror movie, After much protest from Merlin and Elyan (something on the lines of who watches horror movies for Christmas?) they decided on a movie.
Arthur ended up sitting next to Merlin and commenting on how stupid some of the scenes. It almost made their friends wish they were fighting rather than acting like best friends and snickering at every other thing. Almost.
This went on right up to the point when a particular jump scare in the movie startled Arthur and he subconsciously reached for Merlin’s hand. When he realized what he was doing, it was too late to act like nothing had happened. He found himself looking into Merlin’s eyes, who was staring back at him intensely. Arthur freed his hand and ran to the kitchen, afraid that he had crossed some boundary and Merlin would never talk to him again.
Merlin could sense the walls he had built against Arthur crumbling now that they weren’t continuously fighting. Arthur had taken care of him when he was sick, he looked so content sleeping in his arms, he made Merlin laugh so easily. Merlin regretted not giving Arthur a chance and not extending the olive branch before. He really had missed out on having a good friend by his side for all these years. But Merlin realized he did have Arthur by his side all this time- whenever Merlin had a bad time, Arthur would turn up and irritate him out of his misery. Not the best way to go about cheering him up, but it did work. At least he tried.
And then there was the way Arthur had looked at him in the bakery during the staged proposal today, with so much awe and admiration. Merlin had convinced himself Arthur was just that good of an actor, because the other possibility was just wishful thinking on Merlin’s part.
Merlin had convinced himself to stop daydreaming when Arthur went ahead and grabbed his hand. Merlin could also tell himself that Arthur had involuntarily done it, but the way he had looked at him after that, so scared, convinced Merlin something was going on. He found himself walking to the kitchen even before he consciously decided to do so.
Arthur was sitting on the counter, swinging his legs back and forth. He was startled when Merlin walked in and stood right in front of him.
“Arthur, what’s wrong?” he asked softly. He couldn’t remember anyone ever talking to him with such kindness. The memories of Merlin comforting him during the night of the thunderstorm came rushing back.
He couldn’t help but sway forward and place a small kiss on Merlin’s lips. What he didn’t expect was Merlin wrapping his arms around Arthur’s neck and kissing him back.
When they finally broke apart, Merlin didn’t let him go very far. Their foreheads were still touching when Arthur whispered, “No matter what others say I don’t hate you.”
“I know.”
“I like you actually.”
“I figured,” Merlin said with a slight smirk.
“I mean, I like like you.”
“Arthur, I like you too. Took me some time but I got there eventually.”
Merlin was grinning angelically and Arthur couldn’t help kiss him again.
Nobody noticed when they returned to the living room that they were wearing matching content grins and were holding hands.
“Merlin,” Arthur whispered into his hair late in the night.
They were wrapped around each other and Merlin was almost asleep.
“Hmm?”
“I don’t know how to come out to them.”
Merlin opened his eyes fully.
“There is no rule that says you have to,” Merlin reassured him.
“But I want to. How else do I show off my gorgeous boyfriend?”
Merlin felt joy spreading across his entire soul at being called Arthur’s boyfriend.
“Just tell them whenever you feel comfortable. I can do it for you if you want me to?”
“Thanks for having my back,” Arthur smiled.
“Always.”
They woke up early by Morgana and Gwen’s decree and gathered like children near the tree for opening gifts on Christmas. Merlin and Arthur, without any pre planning, had got each other matching “You are the dollophead” custom t-shirts. They wore the t-shirts and goofy smiles on their faces, leaving their friends confused because the Arthur and Merlin they knew would have chewed each other by now for the gifts. Morgana had started scolding Arthur for being so petty but Merlin himself had stopped Morgana. Gwen was sure the peace would hold.
Gwaine suggested a game of ‘Never Have I Ever’ just after their hearty breakfast. Everybody had groaned at the idea and Arthur had accused Gwaine of trying to get them all drunk. In the end, Gwaine had won everyone over by suggesting eggnog as the beverage.
They were deep into the game now and all the routine questions had been asked when Elyan said, “Here’s a silly one, never have I ever kissed someone in this room.”
Morgana, Gwen, Gwaine and Elyan predictably took a sip. Merlin had decided not to take a sip so as not to out Arthur before he was ready, when Arthur himself took a sip, holding eye contact with Merlin the whole time. Merlin smiled and took a sip too.
Their friends were stunned into silence.
Gwen was the first one to recover. “What happened here that we don’t know of?” she asked incredulously, looking between Merlin and Arthur.
Arthur slowly put down his glass (Merlin was already proud of his dramatic boyfriend) and said, “I kissed Merlin.” As if this announcement wasn’t surprising enough for his friends, he added, “Also, I am dating him. I am bi by the way.”
His friends wore matching looks of surprise and it took a few moments for all the news to sink in. Then began the incessant flow of congratulations and well-done’s.
“Oh! So all this fighting was actually pigtail pulling. You two are so immature and such oblivious idiots,” Morgana observed in the midst of all the chaos.
“We didn’t know we liked each other,” Merlin whined, trying to gain sympathy.
“Like Morgana said, so immature and idiotic,” Elyan added with a laugh.
Merlin found even the well meant jabs of his friends couldn’t dampen his spirit when Arthur smiled at him like he had hung the moon and the stars and pulled him into his lap to kiss him.
All six of them returned to the cottage next year for Christmas. Merlin and Arthur were given their old room with two single beds and asked to join them together. When Merlin complained that this was unfair because why should they live in misery every time, Gwen retorted that the bed was lucky for them. Arthur came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist and kissed his pout off his face. Merlin found out he didn’t really mind as long as Arthur was there with him. Over the course of a year, they had moved in together, Arthur had been unofficially adopted by Hunith and he threatened to rat out Merlin to her every time he did something petty and their definitions of home had been rewritten to start and end at each other.
Their friends were joking though. They got a comfortable double bed and their ‘old man’s spine’ didn’t have to suffer.