FIC: Just a Little Push For Santa (Merlin/Arthur - 3411 - PG-13)

[winter-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Just a Little Push For Santa
Author/Artist: ???
Pairing(s): Arthur/Merlin; minor pairings: Gwen/Lance; Morgana/Mithian; Gwaine/Leon
Prompt: "We’re at a Christmas party and our friends got drunk and started going on about how cute we would be together AU"
Word Count/Art Medium: 3,411
Rating: T
Contains (Highlight to view): *Pushy friends, drunkness, UST,, embarrassing memories*
Disclaimer: Merlin characters are the property of Shine and BBC. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes:I'd like to thank the mods for organising this fest (lovely!) and everyone on Merlin_Chat for being awesome and if you don't generally go to Merlin Chat, you REALLY SHOULD.
Summary So, yeah, Arthur and Merlin were ridiculous and obvious, and Gwen was drunk and absolutely not responsible for the spillage of words that came from her mouth -- or whatever consequences it brought.
Read it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909405

Gwen had always known she should get a better hold of her own mouth, but it was really hard to do so when she had already drunk so much, and her friends were being ridiculous in their bickering — in fact, they were often ridiculous in their bickering, like some sort of old married couple from tv that wouldn’t stop nagging one another but really clearly loved each other. So, yeah, they were ridiculous and obvious, and she was drunk and absolutely not responsible for the spillage of words that came from her mouth.

“You two would really make the loveliest couple!”

That did give Arthur and Merlin a pause, and Arthur looked horrified while Merlin was doing the whole gapping like a fish thing he did when he couldn’t believe something he had heard and Gwen needed a moment to rewind and try to figure out what had been the problem and, as soon as she heard her own words, she was flailing and putting her hands in her mouth and really, she had promised she would quit the shipping, or, at least, never voice it out loud.

Lance, who really was the kindest man ever, held her arms, keeping her safe from her own drunken self and she smiled up at him besottedly — and if they had been described as saccharine, their looks and smiles still couldn’t hold a candle to the communication between Arthur and Merlin.

“Are you out of your mind?” Arthur asked, then, his voice posh and Morgana looked ready to slap him.

She often looked ready to slap him. Morgana was slap-happy, and they all knew it, Arthur more than most.

“She’s just saying what we’ve all been thinking, mate.”

Gwen had not expected help to come from Gwaine; he had been one of the people that had suffered most because of Arthur and Merlin’s ridiculously denied mutual attraction and the fact that they saw nothing apart from themselves. Though he had never said, Gwen was almost sure Gwaine had been more than a little bit in love when they first met. Of course, he was more than over it, but still. Then again, being in the middle of it might be even more reason to want them to just get their acts together.

“And saying behind your backs, too, just to make it clear,” her best friend added, and Gwen was not sure if she loved Morgana or if she was making it worse.

“I have never said such thing,” Leon said, loyally, for he had been Arthur’s very first friend, only to be forgotten once Merlin arrived and stole his best friend post forever and ever. Morgana looked at him with a smirk, and the man grinned in a mischievous way she had never seen before and continued. “Mostly because I prefer not to state the obvious.”

Gwaine let out a guffaw, leaning to kiss his boyfriend’s cheek. Leon turned towards him just in time, and the Irish considered it an excuse as good as any to start a making out session.

“He does have a point,” Mordred added, hands massaging Percy’s scalp. “It’s like you two were made for each other.”

“I never knew you still resented me for those days when we were kids,” Merlin replied, seeming to try to sass his way out of the situation, and Gwen knew he was good, but it was about damn time and if they tried to deny it, she’d personally drag them to the closest closet and force them to play seven minutes in heaven while naked.

There was a heavy, pregnant pause while she looked around, Arthur’s cheek’s in flames, Gwaine pointing and laughing while Morgana looked at her proudly.

“What?” she asked, not sure how the attention had returned to her.

“You do know you said that out loud, right, love?” Lance asked, and she hiccupped her horror.

“I did not!”

“I’m afraid you did,” Morgana agreed, smiling. “You have amazing ideas, Gwen.”

“I disagree,” Arthur said, and, really, who was he trying to fool?

“You really, really don’t,” Mordred corrected, and Arthur shot him a dark look. Mordred just smiled back like a little angel, because, really, who could stay mad at him for long? He was also creepily good at reading people and knowing their very thoughts. “Neither do you, brother, don’t even try.”

Merlin, who had leaned forward to protest, leaned back in, incapable of speaking. He just looked around wildly, looking for support, but there was none because if there was something they all agreed on was that they should get together already to see if the rest of them could smell anything other than their ongoing sexual tension.

They also agreed, naturally, that there was nothing better than some spiced cider.

“It’s my favourite,” Lance agreed, and Gwen didn’t even bother wondering if she had said it out loud because it was obvious that her head-to-mouth filter had taken the night off.

“No, really, I was absolutely shocked when Morgs told me you weren’t an item,” said Mithian, her hand intertwined with her girlfriend’s. “It just felt so surreal that you were not together.”

“Surprise, people can get to know each other without spreading their legs,” Arthur huffed, clearly annoyed. “Not that you’d know that,” he said, with a gesture that encompassed their group in general.

It was… Both rather rude and fair. They had had their share of sleeping around, all of them, with Gwaine being the worst offender — to no one’s surprise. Arthur, however, was no different to be the one saying anything.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen my brother with his legs spread for you more than a couple times,” Mordred pipped in, with a sly grin and the two men gasped and rushed to defend themselves.

“That was something else…”

“…Not at all sexual, really, Mordred…”

But the torrent of denials was pretty much like clouds before the rain, they just added to the tension instead of dissipating it. Gwen grinned to herself, snuggling closer to Lance and pretty proud of her achievement, even if she hadn’t meant to say anything.

“Mordred, can you possibly be holding out on dirty stories?” asked Gwaine, and the younger man shook his head.

“I don’t know half of it, just walking in to our bedroom to find Merlin with his trousers on his ankles and Arthur kneeling…”

Merlin’s shriek silenced his brother, alright, but the damage was already done, and they were all rushing to try and find the most outrageous innuendo possible for the situation while Merlin kept whispering under his breath.

“Kill him, I will kill him, I don’t care what mom says, I’ll just…”

Ignoring their friends and antics, Arthur just petted Merlin’s head, and the result was almost immediate, with Merlin growing easier and grumbling a bit less. Normally, it was Merlin calming Arthur about something Morgana said, but both had a very tense relationship with their siblings.

Which, of course, just made it easier for the two of them to team up against them.

“Can you imagine mom’s face when I asked her about it?” Mordred could be cruel, and there was a shit-eating quality to his smile that would have made Gwaine proud.

It did. Gwaine made sure to say so.

“Oh, it can’t have been worse than when Uther walked in naked Merlin in Arthur’s bedroom,” Morgana answered, and Mithian just had to know what it was about.

“It was a misunderstanding!” Merlin said, and Morgana laughed before continuing.

“Like a great best friend and a good gentleman, Arthur offered his room for Merlin to lose his virginity in — he had been dating some toss from another year…”

“…His name was Edwin and you know it,” Arthur added. “He was always sending you flowers.”

“Creep,” Gwen muttered under her breath because, really, he had been a major creep. Morgana, however, ignored them both.

“He was sure Uther wasn’t going to be home, because we had gone with me to check some Uni things, but he was, of course, wrong. So off goes Arthur to his girlfriend’s house — that was back when he thought he was fooling someone, and she was right a bitch too, but I digress — and leaves Merlin alone in our place to wait for his boyfriend.”

“I’ll admit I should have known better than to leave him alone.”

“So, Merlin decides he wants the be sexy for his boyfriend, so he strips and lays naked in bed. There we come, not a clue of the two dumbos scheme, and Uther is going on and on about tuition fees, and barges into Arthur’s room, and there is Merlin, on his birthday suit, spread in the bed like an albino starfish,” they were all laughing, even if they all had heard the story before. “I don’t know who was less capable of reacting, Uther or Merlin, and in comes Merlin’s boyfriend, so confused about Uther’s presence in the hallway, and it was just priceless.”

“I don’t know how I ever got the never to look him in the eye again,” Merlin agreed sheepishly, and there was a glint in Morgana’s eye when she continued the story.

“Of course, Uther never really believed that Edwin was therefore Merlin, or that Arthur had nothing to do with it.”

“He spent months being oddly sweet, trying to convince me it was okay to come out,” Arthur reminisced, a grin on his face.

“And, trust me, if you think Uther’s is scary, that’s nothing compared to him trying to be kind. It’s as if he just decided to use a kilt and speak mandarin at once. Totally bonkers.”

“It is quite discomfiting. The man tries to comfort you and you end up needing to be comforted because of his attempts,” Merlin added with a shudder.

“You’d think that, if anything, it would have made Arthur ready to come out as soon as he figured out, but no. He spent ages pretending to an increasingly confused Uther.”

“I didn’t want him to have a heart attack at the idea of not having grandchildren,” Arthur defended himself, and Gwen chuckled.

“Nonsense, you just didn’t have the courage to say it. Also, you knew what would happen and you were trying to avoid it — still are.”

“What happened?” Mithian prodded, and Gwen took the liberty to answer.

“What do you think happened? Uther’s first words were to ask if Arthur was ready not to admit that Merlin had been waiting for him. He’ll never let them live this down.”

“Oh, nothing’s going to convince him that they’re not together, “Leon agreed, with a knowing nod. “You know he did apologise on Arthur’s behalf one day, saying that it would have been perfect for us to get together, but that there were things of the heart that just couldn’t be denied — because even Uther knows the power of Merthur.”

“Merthur?” Merlin squeaked, and it was Mordred’s turn at teasing again.

“Yeah — you know, like they do in Japanese? Combining the names to form a name for the ship? Yours is Merthur.”

“Ship names?” Arthur echoed, shaking his head. “Really, Mordred…”

“Oh, no, that was not Mordred, that was Percy. “

All eyes turned to the bigger than usual man that was curled on the floor under Mordred’s hand. He gave a small shrug, but it was enough to capture all of their eyes.

“It seemed to fit,” he said, finally.

“It seemed to fit,” Arthur enunciated, offended. “Really? It seemed fitting to refer to two of your friends like they were some sort of fetishist, Japanese, girl-aimed, homosexual themed anime?”

Gwen could only shake her head. Arthur was rather good at the whole deflection thing, and the next few minutes were spent in an eager, if drunk, discussion of the merits of anime, slash and the use of certain tropes. She couldn’t really follow it all as Morgana voiced her opinions out loud, gesturing and referencing some academic or another, Mordred and Percy disagreed completely — one for academic reasons, the other because he was such a fan, and Lance’s fingers threading through her hair were so delicious, it was half-way to heaven, and she might have napped for a bit. Might.

“Look at that,” Lance muttered, and she opened her eyes only to notice the argument about anime had led them to a much more vocal argument about the intricacies of sport. Arthur and Morgana were engaged in a shouting match that would have made an Italian family proud as each put forward their cases in the most passionate way possible. The day’s topic seemed to be Cricket versus Rugby, not that the two of them followed either. Morgana wouldn’t be caught dead watching sports and kept her long-held love for horse-racing a secret as to not scare people away with her poshness, and the only sport Arthur ever cared about was football, but it did not stop them from disagreeing. Gwen, who also had an annoying younger brother, really did understand the need of pointing out and fixing one’s sibling’s terrible opinions, but Arthur and Morgana took it to a whole other level — it was a sport in itself.

All through Arthur’s rather loud argument, Merlin set behind him, massaging his back and rubbing comforting circles whenever Arthur got more and more upset in the middle of the argument. She couldn’t help but giggle at the sight, because she could see her boyfriend doing much the same had the subject been anything of importance, such as “are Hufflepuffs really just the left overs of Hogwarts?”

(Just to make it clear: NO. Hufflepuffs were amazing, strong, and had a sense of humour, too. And no, they were not all food obsessed. Normally).

She nudged Leon with her foot, catching the man’s eye before pointing at their two friends and their natural, unnoticed, PDA. It made Leon snort, and Gwaine, noticing it too, sniggered. The two of them looked towards Mordred and Percy, to which the youngest of them commented.

“I know, right? It’s been like this all the time, it’s sickening! I swear, if they would only shag…”

“I think it’s sweet,” interrupted Mithian, and that was what made Arthur and Morgana realise they were no longer at centre-state.

“Oh, you would,” Morgana teased, catching up with the conversation in a second. She was one to drink all of them into the ground without losing her head. Yes, even Gwaine. “You love nothing more than some good old pining.”

“Unrequited love — it’s fantastic,” the woman said, staring right into her new girlfriend’s eyes, and Morgana was glowing under that look. “because it never has to change, never has to grow up, and it never has to die.”

“Really?” Gwaine asked, as if he couldn’t really believe what he had heard, and Leon slapped his head.

“Don’t be daft, it’s a quote — they’re having a moment.”

Morgana shook her head, as if to clear her mind from the daze Mithian put it in — and weren’t they precious, too — only to critically eye Arthur and Merlin once again.

“Maybe that is the issue, isn’t it?” She asked, with a tilt of her head. “It’s not that they don’t know things are going on, or that they can’t admit, it’s just that they’re so afraid of changing.”

“It’s a valid theory,” Lance agreed, nodding emphatically. “I mean, I can see how it’s hard to…”

“We’re right here, thank you!” Merlin spurted, indignant.

“Shush,” Gwen said, nudging him with her left foot. “The grown-ups are talking now.”

Her unusual shortness made Leon laugh and Morgana shot her a fond look. She was more than capable of being less than perfectly nice, thank you, she just didn’t think there was a reason to most of the time.

“I mean, truly, it’s the only valid explanation,” Mordred added, his face gone serious. “They’re not so daft as to think…”

“Since when does Mordred qualify for a grown up if I don’t?” Merlin asked, looking as if someone had stolen his puppy.

“Since I’m not the one pretending not to be in love with my best friend of a decade,” Mordred shot back, shaking his head.

“I’m not…” Merlin started, and, really, it was such a common sentence to hear that they all could finish it for him.

“In love with that Prat, God,” their voices in a chorus rang really nice, and Gwen was proud of their work.

The result, however, was not as pleasing as Merlin stood up, furious and cleaned imaginary dust out of his trousers.

“Right,” he said as little amused as Queen Victory in a Doctor Who episode. “I forgot, you know better than me. I’m just a dim, slow, little useless Merlin who can’t even figure out his own feelings. Well, excuse me if Arthur and I can’t just be in love to match your expectations of romance and that we just happen to be close!'“

“You mean co-dependent,” Mordred pointed out, and it was more than Merlin could take.

“Fuck you,” he said, venomously, to his little brother. “You know what? Just — just fuck you.”

He negotiated his way out of the room, stumbling twice on their many sprawled limbs and receiving offers to help him straighten up which Merlin studiously ignored as he tried to leave.

“Merlin…” Arthur tried, but the man did not look back.

For a moment, Arthur was clearly torn between following him or staying just to prove them wrong. He looked around, making it clear with his eyes alone that he held each of them personally responsible for the situation, before standing up as well.

“Right. I’d better…”

“Yeah. God forbid my brother from dealing with his feelings on his own,” Mordred’s voice was bitter, and Arthur, who normally doted on him, couldn’t be bothered now.

“That’s enough, Mordred,” he said, a warning in his voice.

As Arthur left, Mithian seemed surprised at the quiet in the room.

“I’ve never seen Arthur like this.”

“Oh, yeah, touch Merlin and he will become furious very quickly,” confirmed Leon, and Morgana smirked.

“Yes — do you guys think it was enough?”

Gwen looked around, a bit thrown off by the comment.

“What do you mean?” She asked, and Gwaine grinned at her.

“Enough to get them worked up enough to talk about their feelings,” he explained, and as Gwen just blinked at him, confused because when really had it become a conversation with an aim rather than real reactions? “Just… Check the Bet group.”

“Mordred may have overdone it a bit,” pondered Leon, while she picked up her mobile from where it had been left in the ground and, sure enough, the little Whatsapp group that they used to control their bet holdings as they waited for Arthur and Merlin to get their shit together and, well, get together was filled with messages about using the opportunity to goad them into admitting how they felt.

“Whatever works!” Mordred sing-sang, and at moment Gwen could understand why Merlin would sometimes say he was a bit of a nightmare. “It’s been a decade. I really don’t need to live my life as a re-run of Queer as Folk.”

“Oh, but that was so good,” Mithian protested, and the conversation might have turned towards the show if Gwaine hadn’t gotten to the window and shut them all up.

“I’d say, it was perfectly measured,” he said, with a huge grin on his face and looking down to the gardens. “Check this out.”

Standing up was a hardship after so much rum, but, really, Gwen felt she didn’t want to miss this. She rushed as quickly as she could to the huge panelled window and looked down as well. There, illuminated only by fairy-lights sparkling in green, blue and red, two figures were clearly embracing, their mouths locked together at last. It made Gwen feel warm and funny inside. To complete the scene, slowly, the first hints of snowflakes started to descend, and she wondered if she had ever felt more like the world was magical.

“Some gift we gave them,” Gwaine mused, his arm around Leon. “How long, do you think, before we need to get them something for Christmas?”

“Shut up,” Leon murmured, nuzzling at his shiny hair. “We are the ones with a long-waited present.”

And, as she looked around at their group and back down at the newly minted couple, she couldn’t stop herself from agreeing — this was, indeed, all the Christmas they could need.