FIC: First Time Santa (Merlin/Arthur - 3479 - G)

[winter-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: First Time Santa
Author/Artist: ???
Pairing(s): Arthur/Merlin
Prompt: Arthur and Merlin spend Christmas with their daughter Aithusa/ Baby's First Christmas
Word Count/Art Medium: 3,479
Rating: G
Contains (Highlight to view): *Abandonment of babies, adoption, some angst and lots of fluff*
Disclaimer: Merlin characters are the property of Shine and BBC. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Thanks our wonderful mods for this fest! And thanks to everyone who inspired me.
Summary  Merlin's never celebrated Christmas, so, maybe - just MAYBE - he's going a little overboard in preparing for his children's first one. As in, making his house look like a Hallmark film site.
Read it on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12950700

Truth was, Merlin had gotten more than a bit frantic about the whole Christmas thing.

Not that he much cared about Christmas — he certainly hadn’t celebrated it at home, no, his parents had been quite proud to avoid the mainstream thing, as almost everyone in their reserve, and just shared a very nice Yule night. And it was not that Merlin didn’t love Yule, he did and he was looking forward to it too, but — Christmas!

Merlin had accepted and adapted to the whole socially-celebrating-Christmas thing once he and Arthur had gotten together. In fact, he was almost sure that this had been the very occasion when he had been first introduced to Uther, who, of course, was appealed that Merlin seemed to know so little about How Things Are Properly Done. The whole thing seemed alien to him, though he had to admit that he liked all the cheesy decoration and the way people seemed to want to spread the joy.

(Arthur was more cynical, talking about endless shopping lines and consumerism and wasting far too much electricity on something like that, but Merlin did not listen to him. He hadn’t grown up overexposed to it or in such a cold household that it would make the whole season feel like a lie. Even now he could smell his mom’s mulled wine, the fresh baked breads that would be served at supper, fresh meat and the happiness when everyone was gathered around the fire after a night spent in the dark).

He knew that he looked much like a child waiting for Santa, but truth was, the greatest gifts he could hope for had arrived but a couple months before. Him and Arthur had been waiting for so long, and they had gone through so much effort, so much red-tape to get to this point that it still did not feel real to him. It was like it was all a dream, or one of those cheesy Christmas movies that he saw around.

Which brought him back to the real issue: He may be overdoing the whole Christmas thing.

Truth was that Merlin was more than a big drunk on Christmas by this point. He had bought so many fairy lights, so many ornaments, so many little things that it could have decorated a whole square, let alone their small house. He couldn’t help it, because, every time he saw the way the kids were looking at the magical glittering things, his heart would melt and he would cave and bring in something new for their little house thing.

Even Arthur had left his cynicism behind and positively glowed with delight upon seeing their two kids experiencing the whole thing for the first time.

It had been a stroke of luck, really; that they were having the chance at all. The two of them had been in line for adoption for long, and still far enough behind that they hadn’t even prepared the room when the call came. Mithian seemed at once thrilled, hopeful and worried when they spoke — this girl, she was having twins and had not allowed for them to be parted for adoption, but once the children were born the couple had given up because one of the children might face slight difficulties and would they want to come and visit the babies to check if they would be willing to adopt?

Normally, the system wouldn’t have sprung it upon them like this, but later they learnt Mithian had already called five other couples.

It was but the matter of a quick call to Arthur, telling his PA George to free his schedule, leaving a notice to the head of his department that he couldn’t deliver his lectures this afternoon, and the two were on their way to the hospital, their hearts racing, wishing, hoping, wanting to meet their possible future children.

They hadn’t, before, considered the possibility of adopting two, let alone twins, but it somehow felt right to go around and see those children. Merlin might have been sold on the whole “two for the price of one” deal before they even arrived. If he hadn’t, seeing them for the first time would have make the choice very easy indeed.

Mordred was the first they met — incredibly dark hair against pale skin, his eyes open-wide and with a small pink mouth, the delicate lips pressed against each other. Arthur had been the first to hold him in his arms, and there had been tears in his eyes.

“He looks so much like you,” he had whispered, and Merlin couldn’t even answer because his whole focus was on the perfect little human in front of him, pink and healthy and it was a few moments before he could take his eyes away and look at Mithian, who seemed weary.

“And the other?” he asked, because it was obvious that if there was a problem, it wasn’t with the baby in Arthur’s arms.

Mithian had led them to an incubator with the top covered by a soft fabric. Inside, there was the cutest, most delicate baby Merlin had ever seen. She wore a pink headband, the only splash of colour in her — everything else was so pale as to be almost translucent; the skin could not hide the spidery traces of her blood vessels, the hair in her head almost silver. She was, in all ways he could see, perfect, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

He had received her in his arms, and she had briefly opened her grey eyes to look at him, before frowning and closing them again. Even in her sleep, she had snuggled closer to Merlin, and his heart had cracked with it. He knew, better than most, what the baby’s looks meant, but he couldn’t care less. It didn’t matter. Some people may be afraid because of the differences, some people may allow prejudice or superstition to blind them, but not Merlin. He had looked to his husband, and he seemed just as amazed as Merlin himself was, and he hadn’t hesitated in speaking to Mithian.

“These are our children,” he then turned around and lowered his head, allowing his lips to softly caress the baby’s forehead. “Welcome, Aithusa.”

(How he had managed to make Arthur accept Aithusa as a name he could not begin to explain — then again, Arthur had picked Mordred in spite of Merlin saying it was a bit creepy of him. Still, who was counting?)

It hadn’t even been that quick, actually getting the children, but they had finally come home to them two months before, almost half an year after their first encounter. They still ruled the house and their fathers’ hearts, and Christmas was to be special, the first of their little family. He knew, of course, that neither child would be able to remember it, but Arthur and him would remember for them.

Everything had to be perfect, even if it meant going overboard.

So, by late November, Merlin had already achieved a number of things. First of all, he had ordered Santa costumes online for both children, Aithusa’s sporting a pretty little skirt, both full with shoes and Christmas caps. Later, he had bought them ornaments and a tree — Arthur had, at least, convinced him that living in the city, it was absurd to hope for a real tree — along with enough fairy light as to light up the Eiffel Tower — Morgana’s words, not his. They had worried, for a moment, that Aithusa’s sensitive eyes would be bothered by all the light, but the sight of it had made her cackle with glee, and that alone had made Merlin buy another colourful set just to twirl around her bed.

Although they had never celebrated Christmas, his mom had been more than willing to knit socks for the children so that Merlin could hang them in the mantel, which was one of the perks of their old-fashioned apartment, one of those things that came with the ridiculous amount of money that Arthur had. He had also procured a sack full of pine to add to his little decoration, and had scourged YouTube after children’s videos for with Christmas Carols and other songs, that would be played every time they got in a car or sat down to play before dinner, spreading the season’s magic through the air.

(“It’s absurd,” Arthur would say of it, eyeing the whole thing critically. “They’re not old enough to understand the videos.”

“But — music sticks in the memory, even if they don’t remember Christmas, they’ll remember the warmth it made them feel.”

Arthur had grumbled at it.

“Not that these videos make sense in any way. I mean — why do we have a bunch of Japanese children singing Christmas songs? They don’t even celebrate Christmas!”

“Not religiously, no, but this is the globalised world — people do it for the sake of it. Also, they’re Korean.”

Arthur had swiped at the air with his hand.

“Oh, yeah, I should’ve known — they’re trying to indoctrinate people on to K-POP from babyhood. It’s all a scheme to take over the world with their music. I swear, that’s how it starts — with dancing Christmas Carols, and before you know it, our children will be dying their hair in crazy colourful colours and asking for tickets for their concerts.”

“Colourful colours?” Merlin had asked, amused, and Arthur just gestured again.

“You know what I mean! Like, pink and blue, and what the hell is ‘mermaid green’ supposed to mean? Is that the future you want for your children?”

“I’m pretty fond of purple myself,” Merlin had pointed out, and Arthur had sighed dramatically.

“I see — they’ve already seduced you to the dark side. Soon you’ll be posting videos of yourself singing Baby Shark on YouTube.”

“Baby Shark?” Merlin had asked, without the slightest idea of what Arthur meant. His husband had given him a sidelong look, hands on the wheel, before he just shook his head and spoke in an ominous tone.

“You do not want to know.”

But even Arthur couldn’t deny they were adorable as they tried to repeat the gestures from the children on TV with their chubby little arms).

By the second of December, the whole house had been decorated for the season, fairy lights spread through every room (yes, including the bathrooms). Red, green, blue, golden and silver Christmas baubles were hanging from a variety of places beyond the three, in green ribbons adorning the rails, the doorsteps, the whole damn place. Merlin had also managed to find them a few moving Santa toys, including a Santa riding a motorcycle while blasting Christmas songs loudly that Mordred had loved above anything else and kept trying to pick up when it was turned off and chase with his limited crawling skills when it was on.

He had also made permanent ornaments for both of them — dipping their little feet in paint and stamping it against transparent plastic baubles, before doing the same with their tiny hands. Merlin dressed up the Children on their costumes, and took hundreds of pictures, which he shamelessly posted in every Social Media platform he was in. Uther had sent them, as a gift, a small elegant ornament made of silver, a round coin with drawn up baby feet and proclaiming it to be their first Christmas, the border registering their birth dates, heights and weights. They had never seen eye to eye in a single topic — including Arthur, even if they acted similarly, both often criticised his ways and hoped for “better”, though what they meant by it diverged so much as to the point of it not being the same thing. Uther had never said much in favour of their relationship, and more than once had he warned against adopting for the dangers if might bring. But, now, Merlin took the ornaments as the olive branch they were and in truth he was glad to make a whole thing out of hanging those in the tree, and, for once, both his father-in-law and him had some common ground.

(Uther had then sat on the floor with the children and played with them and with their fake-gingerbread toys, all while telling Merlin, pretending that he was talking to Mordred and Aithusa for the sake of appearances, about Arthur’s Christmas when he and Morgana were children, before Ygraine had died leaving behind a boy of five and a girl of seven. There was a sad glint in his eyes as he told these stories, the painful memories of a family that had been, if not perfect, exactly what he wanted. Merlin had felt incredibly moved, and covered Uther’s hand with his own at one point, the two of them silently sharing his new chance at experiencing the happiness of the holidays though the children that were a mirror reflex of Uther’s own. That night, when Arthur arrived, Merlin had talked them into laying underneath the tree with both Mordred and Aithusa, like Ygraine used to do with them. It was clear by his reaction and protest that he had no memory of it, no clue of the sensory explosion they would experience, and in spite of his complaints, he did lay down with both babies. Aithusa had yelled, Mordred had cooed, and Arthur had tears in his eyes that he could not explain. Merlin, phone in hand, took as many pictures of it as he could, and filmed it too for good measure. Those pictures, though, he shared with Uther alone).

The pictures, of course, were not only for the sake of it, no. Merlin’s wish to go traditional — and by traditional, he meant in the spirit of the seasonal movies he had watched now and then — included making Christmas Cards using pictures of Mordred and Aithusa in their Santa costumes, printed and with addresses hand-written. Then, he had just decided to go ahead and start a secondary photo book just to register their holidays.

(At this point, Arthur had raised his eyebrow.

“You really meant it, about doing things like the movies.”

“What’s wrong with the book?” Merlin asked back, offended, and Arthur just smirked.

“Have you decided which one are we leaving behind when we drive to my dad’s?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, if we’re following film traditions, then we cannot forget the greatest one of them all — Home Alone.”

Merlin had laughed softly at it.

“I guess we can wait a few more years for this one”.

“And get ourselves that many children?” Arthur’s arms wrapped around Merlin’s waist, and he leaned backwards, chasing the warmth of his husband’s body as they watched Mordred and Aithusa try and chase the motorcycle Santa, even if she wasn’t quite crawling yet as much as slithering.

“… I may just be amenable to the idea,” Merlin had whispered, and the kiss that followed was so content that he couldn’t have wished for more.)

The week before Christmas, Merlin had finally talked Arthur into going to the Christmas Market. Even if Mordred and Aithusa couldn’t really understand, he made a big show out of explaining what they were seeing and pointing at different things. Not even the long line to get a picture with Santa dampened his mood: this was something they would keep forever, the image of the two of them, not quite nine months old, on the lap of St. Nic.

The next morning, Arthur had woken up to find that Merlin had dipped the children’s hands in the rest of the paint and stamped a dozen sheets that were now waiting for him in a pile for “some Christmas crafts for our fridge. At this point, Arthur had long since given up on arguing and just nodded accepting the duty of turning the small fists into reindeer, snowmen, and other seasonal images. The smile in his husband’s face and the excited yelling of the kids being enough reward for the time he considered wasted.

Merlin had laid down the the children on Christmas Eve, telling them long stories about Christmas parties, broken toys and dreams of magic, his body across their double house-shaped bed, fairy lights illuminating the room against the dark, and as usual, Modred decided that since Merlin was around, it was time to throw his leg over Merlin’s to stop him from leaving while Aithusa tried the more fail-proof method of snuggling close against Merlin’s chest, tucking her head underneath his chin. Merlin would neither confirm nor deny Arthur when, having found his husband asleep with the children for the third time in a week, he accused Merlin of having talked them into using Montessori height beds instead of cribs just to be able to cuddle the babies.

(The other four days, it had been Merlin who found Arthur fast asleep with their kids, but he wasn’t pointing fingers).

So on Christmas morning, they had woken up to the sound of tiny feet against the floor, and small hands pulling at ornaments. Arthur had picked Aithusa up, Merlin with Mordred on his arm, and the four of them had gathered — after some nice warm milk and just a dash of biscuit — around the tree for presents. Merlin had looked carefully for the best option for each child, and had taken them to bed for story-time leaving the place with only a handful of boxes, so he was surprised to find the floor around the tree overflowing with gifts.

Because, when it came to presents, Arthur was the one that overdid it.

After being contaminated by Merlin’s enthusiasm, Arthur had gone online and tried to find the best possible toy to gift their children — Mordred like softer colours, but obvious movements like chasing a ball. Aithusa liked nothing better than loud sounds and thumping everything as to make more noise. He had looked, and there had been just so many options, and at each turn he couldn’t help but picture him or Merlin playing along and it made him feel so warm and happy that it was hard to choose just one. Luckily, his bank account meant he didn’t have to. So, he didn’t.

(He did, of course, keep it a secret from Merlin, who wouldn’t approve. For someone who had never celebrated Christmas, the man sure had a lot of opinions on it. And if, maybe, just maybe he dressed up as Santa before putting the packages under the tree, well, he was just practising for the future!).

However, Christmas Morning was not the time for complaints: it was the time to simply enjoy it, see the glimmer in the children’s eyes as they opened up the different boxes, it was time to laugh at Arthur’s face when his fancy toy was left behind because the empty cardboard was just so interesting. It was time to just be, together, sharing love and warmth and hope for a brighter future.

They left soon enough, riding to the old Pendragon Estate, but, if Merlin had ever feared that the whole experience would be painful and just not the joyful vibe that Christmas had, it was clearly without a good reason. Having children — wanted, loved, healthy children — Uther had applied himself to the feelings of the Holiday almost as much as Merlin had — though, probably, not as personally as nobody could picture Arthur’s old man climbing trees to put fairy lights on the trees in the perimeter of the mansion.

He had, also, expected Uther to buy the children some super-expensive grandiose gift that would be just one more way to prove his social standing, but he had nothing but two small silk bags, embroidered with the children’s names. Inside each of them stood a silver spoon, with little animals engraved on it, and various initials on the back.

“It’s a long, prestigious line,” he said, rubbing his finger on top of it, “of all Pendragons that used these spoons. I want you to have it.”

“I can’t",” Arthur answered, trying to give back at least one. “What if Morgana decides to have children?”

Uther’s eyebrow had a half-amused, half-exasperated tilt to it, as Morgana looked up from where she was, on the floor, helping the kids with some game.

“Don’t you try to give me children!,” She exclaimed, as if she had been personally attacked. “I prefer them where I can handle their dirty bodies back to their mommy,” Morgana eyed Merlin for a second before adding. “Or their dads.”

The whole thing was far more pleasant than Merlin had expected, far more than he had thought possible mere weeks ago. As they drove back, Arthur was whistling seasonal songs, and he couldn’t help but to want to lower his head on his shoulder and just stop time while he felt so incredibly happy and at peace.

Maybe getting frantic about Christmas wasn’t that bad a thing after all.