fest fic: The Love of Freddy and Hazel (pt 2)
Christmas trees were meant to be perfect. They were to have tinsel and lights and bobbles, and if children were involved (with Hazel still baking diligently away inside Merlin there was a child involved), lots of gifts from Santa.
"You want to put things under the tree for Hazel from Santa Claus when she won't be here for three more months?" Arthur rolled his eyes and walked into the kitchen to make tea.
He got more testy with Merlin and the now very very pregnant man's moods, but honestly this was not an emotional moment brought on by chemicals. "Is it so wrong to want to be able to show Hazel how much we love her even before she's born?"
"Then we can each buy a present for our little girl and place it under the tree for her with our names on it. Why do we need some mythical creepy fat man that breaks into houses involved when she can't even compose a letter to him yet?"
"Oh Arthur. Don't tell me you never had a gift from Santa?"
"I never needed such things. Father never approved of imaginary nonsense. And the stipend I was issued each year was more than enough to buy anything I could want."
Merlin reached out and hugged Arthur fiercely. No gift from Santa and no gifts from his own father. The 'blubbering' commenced without fail. Merlin couldn't help it. It was the saddest thing he had ever heard and once again his mind flashed back to that first night he saw Arthur on stage. Alone, vulnerable and in need of someone to hold him close. Merlin tightened his grip letting his tears fall all over Arthur's shoulder.
"Why the devil are you crying now? I had good Christmases. I played with Morgana. We ate ourselves silly on a huge feast and got to stay up late bickering and fighting until we were forced to go to some evening prayer service."
Merlin's eyes were still puffy and filled with buckets of water, but he popped his head up off of Arthur's shoulder. "You have a religious history? We never talked about Religion. I assumed you weren't ..." Merlin let out a long sob that was closer to a wail. "Now we're going to have to fight about what belief structure to raise our little Hazel in." The last thing he wanted to do was have a conflict about Religion. His mother performed the occasional Wiccan rite when things in her life seemed to need it. She also liked Buddhist Prayer beads for calm and focus, but she never chose one religious community over another because she said they all had good things to learn in them. Merlin always liked that and thought narrowing things down to just one horribly wasted humanities good ideas.
Arthur pet down the back of Merlin's neck. "The services we went to were political. We never went on any other day of the year. It was a show and nothing more. I have nothing to argue with you about aside from our tea getting cold."
Merlin wanted to stop crying, he did, but now he was crying about crying so much and making Arthur feel bad and how Christmas was now ruined for a man that really never had Christmas like it was meant to be had all because Merlin couldn't stop crying.
Arthur huffed out into his hair and kissed the side of his face. "How about I take you to see Santa. You can tell the scary fat man all that you want and what you think our little Hazel wants. Hmmmm?"
The fact that Merlin cried louder at the mere suggestion of something so sweet and wonderful only proved to both of them that this was a moment of pure hormones and would pass in about ten minutes. It would be followed with the other more pleasant side effect. Because really there had to be something to this pregnancy thing besides being big as a house and craving strange things.
__________
"Shit. Yeah. Oh god. Just like that. Shit."
"You shouldn't say such things with our little Hazel in there." Arthur teased. Then he turned his fingers deeper inside Merlin's body. They had gotten as far as getting ready to go to the mall to see Santa, when both of them naked, and in their bedroom thought of something better to do with at least the first half of their Sunday afternoon.
Merlin tilted his ass forward up off the bed. The dampness of the sheets beneath him, a testament to how much lube used this time. The sexy dirty fucking noise of Arthur pressing back to meet his body also told a similar tale. Slowly two fingers stretched, crossing and uncrossing inside Merlin before turning and fucking with a steady pounding at least half a dozen times. Each one resulted in whimpered grunts and white knuckles over a slatted headboard. "Please." Merlin begged with ragged breaths for completion. Sweat slipped down the sides of his face. "Please."
Normally Arthur wasn't like this. It wasn't their special time of the month were they laid in bed exploring each other for hours on end, but it was such that now Arthur really couldn't stop bending Merlin in every imaginable position and in every location of the house. Merlin's body had become an Arthur aphrodisiac. One that turned an otherwise sane older gentleman into a humping beast. Good thing too since Merlin humped right back every single time.
Merlin was sure the only reason Arthur wasn't already inside him was because he had already fucked him twice that day. And it was fucking. Once they had gotten the all clear that Hazel would be safe during 'as much sex as you want', Arthur decidedly went to town on Merlin's arse. Not that Merlin ever felt he wasn't loved, but this was Fucking with the capital 'F'. And god every time felt deliciously good.
Arthur bent Merlin's body a little to protect the baby from the pounding that was about to commence. Merlin clenched his fists tighter waiting in anticipation. His hole open and wet, fingers withdrawn, gaping and searching. "Please Arthur. I need..."
Arthur pushed deep inside him to the multitude of little gasps of air filling Merlin's lungs as every inch of Arthur's cock filled him up. The shudder of sensation rolled through both of them and then Arthur's hips rolled down and Merlin let out all the air he had taken in opening himself further to the firm penetration. So frustratingly hot too, thick and wet. Merlin wanted to suck him off. And that was really the problem. When Merlin finally got Arthur so blessedly deep inside of him he needed to taste the wetness of his lover, another craving perhaps, but a damn good one. "Fuck me till you are about to cum, then let me drink it down again." He begged.
Arthur started swearing in ernest. He never could last long when Merlin talked dirty to him. Something about absence of propriety and Merlin being 'such a good soul saying such naughty things' made him lose his mind.
Merlin fought to keep clear enough for speech. "I can't seem to get enough. I want you in me all the time and then I - fuck - must suck you off." God, Merlin wanted to suck every last drop of cum out of Arthur right now, but would have died if Arthur didn't keep fucking his ass to oblivion.
Arthur pulled out slow till just the tip stretched Merlin. His eyes were screwed shut. A hum of his lips tightly closed told of his concentration in not coming too soon. Finger's gripped Merlin's thighs and the heavy fullness of a cock grinding back into place made both men whine out pleasure filled moans. Arthur pumped his hips again. This time faster and with more force. Again. Again. Each time increasing speed and friction, because Merlin was clamping down with his muscles. He wanted Arthur to get so very close to coming. He wanted to come with Arthur's pulsing dripping cock in his mouth and Merlin was already so very close. "Please Arthur." There was no question as to what he begged for.
The signature grunt of satisfaction and tension in Arthur's back was enough to give Merlin desperate relief. Soon. So very soon. Till then, more furious rubbing against his prostate had him arched high into every punch of Arthur's cock. So good. Delirious, he shook his head back and forth trying to make sense of how something could feel so amazing and yet he still wanted more.
Arthur hooked both of his legs further apart. The spread and angle change made blinding heat crawl up his spine. His own cock leaked the same as a broken spigot before, but was now suffering the onset of his own climax. "Please Arthur let me suck you down while I come." he tried to say, but the words stuck in his throat.
His perfect lover though was absolutely perfect. Arthur pulled out and shimmied up the side of the bed near to his face. He stroked his own cock two times before Merlin latched on and sucked hard.
_____________
Morgana turned out to be...interesting. She turned up on Christmas day looking for the reason Arthur disappeared from work at the end of a normal business day rather than stay until all hours. She obviously cared for Arthur, but she also was brutal in that way that only family could be.
Merlin hid his odd shape with clothes and a carefully shaped arm cast, but then Morgana surprised both of them by outing herself as one of the financial backers for Avalon. Her and Merlin's therapist, Dr. Ryan, apparently had some kind of sisterhood-esque friendship that transcended time and space.
"Don't bother covering it up Merlin. That cast can't be comfortable for you to eat with, and I want to have a good chat with the reason Arthur finally is a decent human."
____________
It was just after Christmas that Merlin knew he had to see his mom and tell her everything, so he went to Avalon and got a permission form. He learned his lesson with Giaus. He also asked the old physician to come with he and Arthur to answer any questions she might have had.
The result surprised no one, lots of hugging and more crying than even Merlin was comfortable with, but they were happy tears and good solid hugs despite Arthur squirming through his round of them.
"Don't be scared Merlin. He loves you." His mom said to him in a quiet whisper. How could moms always tell what their children were thinking? Would he be able to do that with Hazel? Would he know her on that kind of level because he carried her inside of him?
___________
Leon was Arthur's oldest friend. They both thought it wise to let him in on all of it and make him and Morgana god parents. Leon however refused to sign the waver without knowing all the details first. And even then he didn't believe what Arthur was telling him and tried to get both he and Merlin to seek professional help. Then Merlin lifted up the bottom of his shirt revealing his stomach and his baby in it's thirtieth week of gestation.
"Holy Mother." Leon passed out much the same way Merlin did.
Merlin briefly had a flash of Morgana using Avalon's special tea on Leon so he could carry her child, but that wasn't how the drugs worked and they weren't really a couple, so he blotted that idea out of his head.
_________
The day of the birth came and went. A baby girl they named Bethany Hazel Emrys-Pendragon, was legally the daughter of both men and biologically the daughter of Merlin by birth record. No mother was listed.
Merlin cooed at their little girl. The stitches from the c-section pulled a little even when he breathed too hard so he did his best to remain calm and still while holding their bundle.
"Can we do it now?" Arthur impatiently swayed from foot to foot. There were times the spoiled side of him, the side that got every toy in Christendom, flared to perfect impatience.
"I'm sitting here recovering from delivering our child and you want to do this now?"
Avalon's facilities would be Merlin's home for the next couple of days still, and he was on strict bed rest after delivery of their girl less than forty-eight hours ago. This was, however, Arthur's thirty-seventh time since they arrived at the hospital for the delivery to ask for this particular request.
"I wanted to do it over a year ago when you first hugged me, but I figured you would think I was a bit crazy. Now that you know that I'm completely insane for you, I really wonder why you would doubt that I want this right now?"
"I have no idea what you're going on about Arthur. When have you ever been insane for me?" Merlin tried to hide the double smile on his face. The first smile had been permanently glued there when he saw their baby's perfect tiny toes wiggle. This second one harmonized into place with the first. Arthur put it there with his constant demands for this moment over the last couple months.
Honestly, Merlin's own insecurities about things may have held him back about it, but Arthur never left his side. Not once. Not when Merlin's back needed rubbing near constantly. Not when neither of them could sleep because Merlin had to keep getting up to go to pee all night, and not when Arthur's father tried to break them up for the sixth time in as many months.
A pouting Arthur stomped his foot. "It's not proper! I love you and our little Hazel." The petulant cuteness of it always made some part of Merlin giddy. Yeah, they could have epic battles of will, but somehow when Arthur showed this most vulnerable yet spoiled need for anything, Merlin caved.
"Stop it. You're making my stitches hurt." Merlin snickered and winced at the same time. If their little girl was anywhere near as good as Arthur pulling stricken faces, she would get away with everything she ever wanted.
Arthur's pout grew bigger. Obviously he didn't want Merlin to hurt, but he wanted to keep pressing the issue. The prat didn't know how to do both and it made him all the more adorable. It also didn't hurt that Merlin knew Arthur had everything ready on the other side of the hospital room door; few friends that would say they were just visiting if Merlin said no again; a suspicious man with a funny white collar that Merlin never met, but had seen three times outside of his room, and no doubt some horrid karaoke machine filled with Arthur's beloved Freddy was sitting on some medical equipment cart just waiting to be wheeled in.
"Oh, all right." Merlin teased. He looked down at their precious Bethany Hazel. "At least we now have a proper flower girl."