Two and a Half Men - A Merlin fanfiction (Part 1)
Title: Two and a Half Men
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rate: PG-13
Word count: 2240
Warnings: nothing
Summary: Merlin finds a baby at the door and he and Arthur decide to look after him. Or at least they try to...
Author's note: Characters belong to BBC, I do not own anything.
Two and a Half Men - Part 1
I can say that it all started with Morgana, when she got an invitation to Lady Enid, but Arthur didn’t, and although he pretended not to be upset about it, he clearly was. He kept saying that he didn’t give a single care about those girly things they were doing right now, while he was walking up and down in his chambers, then suddenly stopped, looking at me.
“You have no idea what these girly things are, do you?” he asked. Why should I know such things, really? So I just shrugged my shoulder and went on with my work. I think he was afraid that the ladies would gossip about him. Or at least, Morgana. Gwen wouldn’t do such thing. Whatever. The point is that the whole thing started here, with an upset Arthur.
It was early in the morning, and I was about to go to wake our crown prince up, however, I couldn’t go further than the door of our chambers. Opening it, I found a basket on the corridor with a sleeping baby in it. Yes, a baby, covered with soft white canvas; I could only see the face: it was round and peaceful with a tiny nose and small eyebrows - simply adorable. I couldn’t decide whether it was a boy or a girl, it could be both. “Who are you, little thing?” I asked, squatting down next to the basket, looking for a note or something that could tell me more about the baby. “Who brought you here?”
“Merlin! Aren’t you supposed to be working by now?” I heard Gaius’ voice behind my back, so I got up and turned around to explain the situation.
“I was about to go when I found this,” I said, making a gesture towards the basket. Gaius’ eyes widened and his glance was jumping between me and the baby, with a face turning white.
“Merlin! What did you do?” he asked in an angry-worried tone.
“Nothing, I just opened the door, and…” I started, when I realized what he had meant by this question. “No, it’s not what you’re thinking about…” I shook my head.
“No?” Gaius raised a brow.
“It’s not my child,” I told him. “It was just there in the basket, sleeping,” I explained, throwing a glance at the baby, who had woken up hearing us speak louder. “Well, not anymore,” I added, hoping that the baby wouldn’t start to cry. “I don’t know whose child it could be, but I think we just can’t leave it here.”
Gaius nodded in agreement and now he didn’t look angry at all. I guess he could understand that I had nothing to do with this baby. This wasn’t true in case of another one, I thought when I heard a familiar male voice calling out my name: “MEER-LIIIN!” It meant only one thing: I was late from work and it would make Arthur be a bigger prat than the one he normally was. Great.
“Could you please look after the baby?” I asked Gaius, trying to look as innocent as I could. “You know, it’s my destiny calling,” I added, then, not even waiting for his answer I ran to Arthur’s chambers.
I was right: he behaved like a bigger prat today. And he gave me his whole armour to clean, when it was not dirty at all. I know, because I cleaned them yesterday. So I returned to our chambers carrying the armor, hoping that I wouldn’t drop anything to the floor - it would’ve frightened the baby. Everything was quiet there, too quiet, so I looked around and I was surprised to see that Gaius wasn’t there, while the baby was still in the basket, sleeping again. Next to it I found a small bottle and a message: I was called to go to Joseph’s house, he fell off his horse and got seriously hurt. By the way, the baby is a boy. Gaius. The ink hadn’t dry on the paper which meant that he had only had to leave a few minutes ago. I turned to the baby, smiling. I don’t know why, but I always felt like smiling near a baby. I had done it in Ealdor, too. “So you’re a boy,” I told him softly. “Good,” I added. “Well, not that it would be a problem if you’d be a girl; don’t get me wrong!” I laughed a little, then I sat down to clean Arthur’s armor again. Actually, I only wiped it down with a cloth, since it was already clean.
I was humming on a song, when I heard some familiar steps from the corridor and in less than a minute, Arthur entered our chambers. “Are you still cleaning my armour?” he asked. “What takes you so long?” Actually, I had finished it a long while ago and I went to look for a book about babies on Gaius’ shelves. Hearing Arthur’s voice, I almost fell off the chair. “I’ve finished that a while ago,” I said, after catching my balance. “It’s there, near the table,” I added as I climbed down and walked towards him. He turned to the table to find the armour, when he noticed the basket with the baby. His eyes widened and his chin hit the floor in surprise. “Merlin!” he exclaimed. “What did you do?”
“Why does everyone think that the baby is mine?” I burst out instead of answering. “I just found him at the door this morning!”
“Yeah, sorry, I shouldn’t have started with that,” said Arthur; surprisingly, since he wasn’t the person who often admitted his mistakes. There was something wrong with it. “You need a girl for having a baby.” Here we go.
“Really?” I raised a brow. “I didn’t know that,” I said. I couldn’t help it, just slipped out o my mouth.
“Oh, shut up, Merlin!” Arthur groaned then went to the basket to take a closer look at the baby. His facial expression changed completely: he was now smiling, almost melting down, like when he got to know that in the kitchen they had made that delicious strawberry cake. “Hello, little man,” he said in a tone he had never spoken before. It was like syrup; almost disgustingly sweet, but it made me smile. However, it had the opposite effect on the baby: he started crying. I saw a complete confusion on Arthur’s face and I had no idea what to do either. I ran to them and carefully took the baby out of the basket, lifting him up to my chest, trying to keep a firm grip on him, just as I saw it in Ealdor once when our neighbor, Sarah had a baby. I started to rock him gently, surprising Arthur even more.
“I know he’s scary, I work for him,” I told the baby in a soft voice, still rocking him, “but he’s a good person, he won’t harm you.” It didn’t help - he was still crying.
“So you think I’m scary?” Arthur asked with furrowed brows.
“If I said he were as gentle as a lamb, that would be the problem,” I told the baby, loud enough for Arthur to hear it, too.
“As gentle as a lamb? Really, Merlin, really?” Arthur sounded quite angry, making the baby cry more.
“You’re not helping,” said I, throwing a glance towards him.
For a short while we stayed quiet, while the baby was still crying. I continued rocking him, but it didn’t help either. Then I felt a strange smell: a strange, unpleasant one. It was so unpleasant that if I said it was stinking like hell, that would be a euphemism. “What it that smell?” Arthur asked and I suddenly understood why the baby was crying.
“Er… Arthur… Sire,” I started. “Could you hold the baby while I go for clean nappies?” I asked.
“Clean nappies?” Arthur raised a brow.
“We have to change his nappies,” I told him. “Because that is what smells so bad.”
“So the baby smells,” Arthur stated. Sometimes I’m really amazed how brilliant his mind is. “And you want me to hold him? Merlin, are you an idiot?!”
“You can go for nappies if you wish,” said I. Although I doubt you know where to find them, I added in thoughts. “But just decide it please!”
He was thinking for a terribly long moment, then nodded, taking a step closer. “All right, Merlin,” he said. “Give the baby to me.”
I was surprised how carefully he could hold him when he took him away from me. Since I saw him fight every day, it always astonished me how gentle he could be sometimes. On his face there was that soft, peaceful expression again (sorry, I can’t describe it with another word) - it seemed that a baby could change even the roughest people.
“Oh, God… he smells horrible,” he said. Sorry, I was wrong: he didn’t change at all. “Hurry up, Merlin!”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said standing at the door. “Please don’t drop him!”
Walking away I heard him shouting after me, but I couldn’t understand what it was. I could guess it, though: it could be either “Shut up, Merlin!” or “Merlin, you’re an idiot!” or both.
When I got back with the nappies, Arthur was still holding the baby, as gently as possible holding something that was constantly screaming right into his ear. “At last, Merlin!” he sighed when he saw me. I put the nappies on the table and then ask Arthur to do so with the baby. “Now what?” he asked.
“We have to take off his clothes,” said I, making Arthur’s eyes widen.
“He doesn’t have clothes, just this swaddle thing,” he pointed at it.
“Thank you for the information, Sire,” I murmured, stepping closer to them, being sure of that I would be the one who had the honor to change the baby’s nappies. He was still crying when I carefully undressed him and changed his nappy.
“Does he have a name?” Arthur asked. For some unknown reason he seemed a little embarrassed, as he was standing there, watching me taking care of the baby; as if he wanted to help, but had no idea what to do. “Er… can I help?”
“Can you give me a clean one?” I asked, making a gesture towards the small pile of nappies I had brought in. I could’ve reached them, too, but if he wanted to work, who was I to stop him? “I don’t know, I don’t think so,” I said. Since there was no message in the basket, the only thing we knew about the baby that he was a boy.
“Maybe we should give him a name,” Arthur mused. “He’ll be my squire when he grows up, so he needs a name.”
Hearing this, I had to stop and stare at him for a little while. “What do you mean by that?” I asked. He sounded like he wanted the baby to be brought up in the castle and it surprised me.
“We have to look after him,” Arthur said. I hoped that by ‘we’ he didn’t mean that I had to look after the baby, with him watching it. “We can’t let him die and you seem to be good at these things,” he said. Yes, it he did mean that.
“Arthur,” I started, “it’s quite a female job, looking after a baby.”
“Yes, but since Guinevere and Morgana are not here, you’re the one who has to help,” he said. “Especially because the baby likes you. He stopped crying.” I should have known that! He was still annoyed because he wasn’t invited to Lady Enid’s.
Yes, he did, because I had finished changing his nappies. Now he was happy, or at least less sad. I flashed a small smile at him then I turned to Arthur. “We have to find his mother and ask her why she put him at our door,” I said.
“We will find her,” Arthur said. “But now let’s take him to my chambers. This place is too dangerous for him. There are a lot of different tools he could hurt himself with. My chambers are much safer.” I opened my mouth to object but he didn’t wait for that: he carefully lifted the baby up and started to walk out of the room. “Bring the basket, Merlin.” he said.
“So how could we call him?” Arthur asked as we entered his chambers. All right, it was a less chaotic place and there weren’t medicines everywhere, only dirty socks. And his sword, which could be dangerous, but luckily, Arthur was smart enough to keep it in its sheath. There was no way that the baby could take it off from the back of the chair where it was hanging and then pull it out. He was right this time.
“I don’t know,” said I, starting to think of a name. I threw a glance at the baby again and said the first thing that had come into my mind: “Galahad.” He looked quite like a Galahad, after all.
“Galahad?” Arthur raised a brow, then laughed. a little. “Where do you find these names, Merlin?”
“It was in one of Gaius’s books,” I answered, shrugging my shoulder.
“He looks like a Galahad,” Arthur stated with a small smile and the baby seemed to like this name as well. So it was settled.
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rate: PG-13
Word count: 2240
Warnings: nothing
Summary: Merlin finds a baby at the door and he and Arthur decide to look after him. Or at least they try to...
Author's note: Characters belong to BBC, I do not own anything.
Two and a Half Men - Part 1
I can say that it all started with Morgana, when she got an invitation to Lady Enid, but Arthur didn’t, and although he pretended not to be upset about it, he clearly was. He kept saying that he didn’t give a single care about those girly things they were doing right now, while he was walking up and down in his chambers, then suddenly stopped, looking at me.
“You have no idea what these girly things are, do you?” he asked. Why should I know such things, really? So I just shrugged my shoulder and went on with my work. I think he was afraid that the ladies would gossip about him. Or at least, Morgana. Gwen wouldn’t do such thing. Whatever. The point is that the whole thing started here, with an upset Arthur.
It was early in the morning, and I was about to go to wake our crown prince up, however, I couldn’t go further than the door of our chambers. Opening it, I found a basket on the corridor with a sleeping baby in it. Yes, a baby, covered with soft white canvas; I could only see the face: it was round and peaceful with a tiny nose and small eyebrows - simply adorable. I couldn’t decide whether it was a boy or a girl, it could be both. “Who are you, little thing?” I asked, squatting down next to the basket, looking for a note or something that could tell me more about the baby. “Who brought you here?”
“Merlin! Aren’t you supposed to be working by now?” I heard Gaius’ voice behind my back, so I got up and turned around to explain the situation.
“I was about to go when I found this,” I said, making a gesture towards the basket. Gaius’ eyes widened and his glance was jumping between me and the baby, with a face turning white.
“Merlin! What did you do?” he asked in an angry-worried tone.
“Nothing, I just opened the door, and…” I started, when I realized what he had meant by this question. “No, it’s not what you’re thinking about…” I shook my head.
“No?” Gaius raised a brow.
“It’s not my child,” I told him. “It was just there in the basket, sleeping,” I explained, throwing a glance at the baby, who had woken up hearing us speak louder. “Well, not anymore,” I added, hoping that the baby wouldn’t start to cry. “I don’t know whose child it could be, but I think we just can’t leave it here.”
Gaius nodded in agreement and now he didn’t look angry at all. I guess he could understand that I had nothing to do with this baby. This wasn’t true in case of another one, I thought when I heard a familiar male voice calling out my name: “MEER-LIIIN!” It meant only one thing: I was late from work and it would make Arthur be a bigger prat than the one he normally was. Great.
“Could you please look after the baby?” I asked Gaius, trying to look as innocent as I could. “You know, it’s my destiny calling,” I added, then, not even waiting for his answer I ran to Arthur’s chambers.
I was right: he behaved like a bigger prat today. And he gave me his whole armour to clean, when it was not dirty at all. I know, because I cleaned them yesterday. So I returned to our chambers carrying the armor, hoping that I wouldn’t drop anything to the floor - it would’ve frightened the baby. Everything was quiet there, too quiet, so I looked around and I was surprised to see that Gaius wasn’t there, while the baby was still in the basket, sleeping again. Next to it I found a small bottle and a message: I was called to go to Joseph’s house, he fell off his horse and got seriously hurt. By the way, the baby is a boy. Gaius. The ink hadn’t dry on the paper which meant that he had only had to leave a few minutes ago. I turned to the baby, smiling. I don’t know why, but I always felt like smiling near a baby. I had done it in Ealdor, too. “So you’re a boy,” I told him softly. “Good,” I added. “Well, not that it would be a problem if you’d be a girl; don’t get me wrong!” I laughed a little, then I sat down to clean Arthur’s armor again. Actually, I only wiped it down with a cloth, since it was already clean.
I was humming on a song, when I heard some familiar steps from the corridor and in less than a minute, Arthur entered our chambers. “Are you still cleaning my armour?” he asked. “What takes you so long?” Actually, I had finished it a long while ago and I went to look for a book about babies on Gaius’ shelves. Hearing Arthur’s voice, I almost fell off the chair. “I’ve finished that a while ago,” I said, after catching my balance. “It’s there, near the table,” I added as I climbed down and walked towards him. He turned to the table to find the armour, when he noticed the basket with the baby. His eyes widened and his chin hit the floor in surprise. “Merlin!” he exclaimed. “What did you do?”
“Why does everyone think that the baby is mine?” I burst out instead of answering. “I just found him at the door this morning!”
“Yeah, sorry, I shouldn’t have started with that,” said Arthur; surprisingly, since he wasn’t the person who often admitted his mistakes. There was something wrong with it. “You need a girl for having a baby.” Here we go.
“Really?” I raised a brow. “I didn’t know that,” I said. I couldn’t help it, just slipped out o my mouth.
“Oh, shut up, Merlin!” Arthur groaned then went to the basket to take a closer look at the baby. His facial expression changed completely: he was now smiling, almost melting down, like when he got to know that in the kitchen they had made that delicious strawberry cake. “Hello, little man,” he said in a tone he had never spoken before. It was like syrup; almost disgustingly sweet, but it made me smile. However, it had the opposite effect on the baby: he started crying. I saw a complete confusion on Arthur’s face and I had no idea what to do either. I ran to them and carefully took the baby out of the basket, lifting him up to my chest, trying to keep a firm grip on him, just as I saw it in Ealdor once when our neighbor, Sarah had a baby. I started to rock him gently, surprising Arthur even more.
“I know he’s scary, I work for him,” I told the baby in a soft voice, still rocking him, “but he’s a good person, he won’t harm you.” It didn’t help - he was still crying.
“So you think I’m scary?” Arthur asked with furrowed brows.
“If I said he were as gentle as a lamb, that would be the problem,” I told the baby, loud enough for Arthur to hear it, too.
“As gentle as a lamb? Really, Merlin, really?” Arthur sounded quite angry, making the baby cry more.
“You’re not helping,” said I, throwing a glance towards him.
For a short while we stayed quiet, while the baby was still crying. I continued rocking him, but it didn’t help either. Then I felt a strange smell: a strange, unpleasant one. It was so unpleasant that if I said it was stinking like hell, that would be a euphemism. “What it that smell?” Arthur asked and I suddenly understood why the baby was crying.
“Er… Arthur… Sire,” I started. “Could you hold the baby while I go for clean nappies?” I asked.
“Clean nappies?” Arthur raised a brow.
“We have to change his nappies,” I told him. “Because that is what smells so bad.”
“So the baby smells,” Arthur stated. Sometimes I’m really amazed how brilliant his mind is. “And you want me to hold him? Merlin, are you an idiot?!”
“You can go for nappies if you wish,” said I. Although I doubt you know where to find them, I added in thoughts. “But just decide it please!”
He was thinking for a terribly long moment, then nodded, taking a step closer. “All right, Merlin,” he said. “Give the baby to me.”
I was surprised how carefully he could hold him when he took him away from me. Since I saw him fight every day, it always astonished me how gentle he could be sometimes. On his face there was that soft, peaceful expression again (sorry, I can’t describe it with another word) - it seemed that a baby could change even the roughest people.
“Oh, God… he smells horrible,” he said. Sorry, I was wrong: he didn’t change at all. “Hurry up, Merlin!”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said standing at the door. “Please don’t drop him!”
Walking away I heard him shouting after me, but I couldn’t understand what it was. I could guess it, though: it could be either “Shut up, Merlin!” or “Merlin, you’re an idiot!” or both.
When I got back with the nappies, Arthur was still holding the baby, as gently as possible holding something that was constantly screaming right into his ear. “At last, Merlin!” he sighed when he saw me. I put the nappies on the table and then ask Arthur to do so with the baby. “Now what?” he asked.
“We have to take off his clothes,” said I, making Arthur’s eyes widen.
“He doesn’t have clothes, just this swaddle thing,” he pointed at it.
“Thank you for the information, Sire,” I murmured, stepping closer to them, being sure of that I would be the one who had the honor to change the baby’s nappies. He was still crying when I carefully undressed him and changed his nappy.
“Does he have a name?” Arthur asked. For some unknown reason he seemed a little embarrassed, as he was standing there, watching me taking care of the baby; as if he wanted to help, but had no idea what to do. “Er… can I help?”
“Can you give me a clean one?” I asked, making a gesture towards the small pile of nappies I had brought in. I could’ve reached them, too, but if he wanted to work, who was I to stop him? “I don’t know, I don’t think so,” I said. Since there was no message in the basket, the only thing we knew about the baby that he was a boy.
“Maybe we should give him a name,” Arthur mused. “He’ll be my squire when he grows up, so he needs a name.”
Hearing this, I had to stop and stare at him for a little while. “What do you mean by that?” I asked. He sounded like he wanted the baby to be brought up in the castle and it surprised me.
“We have to look after him,” Arthur said. I hoped that by ‘we’ he didn’t mean that I had to look after the baby, with him watching it. “We can’t let him die and you seem to be good at these things,” he said. Yes, it he did mean that.
“Arthur,” I started, “it’s quite a female job, looking after a baby.”
“Yes, but since Guinevere and Morgana are not here, you’re the one who has to help,” he said. “Especially because the baby likes you. He stopped crying.” I should have known that! He was still annoyed because he wasn’t invited to Lady Enid’s.
Yes, he did, because I had finished changing his nappies. Now he was happy, or at least less sad. I flashed a small smile at him then I turned to Arthur. “We have to find his mother and ask her why she put him at our door,” I said.
“We will find her,” Arthur said. “But now let’s take him to my chambers. This place is too dangerous for him. There are a lot of different tools he could hurt himself with. My chambers are much safer.” I opened my mouth to object but he didn’t wait for that: he carefully lifted the baby up and started to walk out of the room. “Bring the basket, Merlin.” he said.
“So how could we call him?” Arthur asked as we entered his chambers. All right, it was a less chaotic place and there weren’t medicines everywhere, only dirty socks. And his sword, which could be dangerous, but luckily, Arthur was smart enough to keep it in its sheath. There was no way that the baby could take it off from the back of the chair where it was hanging and then pull it out. He was right this time.
“I don’t know,” said I, starting to think of a name. I threw a glance at the baby again and said the first thing that had come into my mind: “Galahad.” He looked quite like a Galahad, after all.
“Galahad?” Arthur raised a brow, then laughed. a little. “Where do you find these names, Merlin?”
“It was in one of Gaius’s books,” I answered, shrugging my shoulder.
“He looks like a Galahad,” Arthur stated with a small smile and the baby seemed to like this name as well. So it was settled.