As the two men caught the barge back to their Honeymoon suite Arthur kept his arm round Merlin. The barge driver looked at them in expectation as if he was expecting them to have a major snogging session, but instead Arthur kept his arm around Merlin, drawing him in close as they watched the city lights go past. Once they got to the Dorchester and booked in, they were taken up to their room to find that Agravaine hadn't booked a suite, but a large room with a king-sized bed; so much for Arthur's plan of sleeping on the sofa if there was one. He immediately offered to sleep on the chair, but in the end they decided that the bed was big enough to share.
They both changed and kept their boxers on and carefully got into bed, both men were sober enough for them to consider this wouldn't be a problem. By morning they were both in the centre of the bed and wrapped around one another. Arthur woke up first, and realising just how close he was to Merlin tried to disentangle himself. He knew he had his normal morning stiffy, and also that he had been dreaming of a proper honeymoon night with Merlin. Arthur hoped he could get out of bed without waking the younger man. After quite a bit of careful manovering he managed it. Then he called down to room service for breakfast, before waking Merlin. They had a leisurely breakfast before Arthur went to have his shower and get dressed, Merlin followed. Then the two men then went down to a taxi that was taking then to the airport. They were flying to the Maldives for their honeymoon.
When they got to the resort Merlin found Arthur had booked them a small house that stood on supports over the ocean. They spent the next two weeks resting, swimming and going on boat trips. Merlin was taught the basics of scuba diving by Arthur. The two weeks went remarkably well and by the end they had settled into an uneasy friendship. Both men were getting good at maintaining their boundaries but still appear to be together. As it was a well known honeymooning destination they continued with the façade and in company acted out the typical newlywed persona, just in case someone either of them knew was there.
Once back in the UK they continued with this plan. All of Merlin's clothes and personal effects were kept in Arthur's room, even though most of the time he slept in one of the spare rooms. Twice a week he changed the bed linen and removed all trace of its occupation, when the cleaner was due. If they had anyone stay overnight then the two men shared Arthurs king sized bed. Both men were still hiding their feelings from one another, but coping in different ways. Arthur had decided that he would take comfort in the displays of affection he could give when they were in public, and distancing himself when they were alone. Merlin however was finding it much harder. While he craved Arthur's touch, the public displays only showed him what could be, and made the truth harder to bear. He was also beating himself up about lying to his mother and uncle. His only route was to withdraw into himself and keep as busy as he could. Unfortunately he couldn't work for six months as part of the visa conditions.
It was November when they got back from honeymoon and Merlin decided to improve his cooking skills, this would hopefully reduce the times they went out for meals, and thus in public. He also collected his medical text books from his mothers when they arrived with her things from America, and spent the evenings studying. During the first week Merlin went to speak to the Dean of University College London about restarting his course there. They had received a glowing report from Harvard so where happy to accept him. The Dean suggested he restart in March to familiarise himself with the English methods before starting his third year in the autumn. At least this time he wasn't going to be a scholarship student as Arthur was funding him. The cooking was going well and the lessons he was taking allowed him to mix with other people and lose himself for a time. The rest of the time he spent exploring London or visiting his mother and uncle.
Arthur was back to work with a vengeance. He was glad Merlin was filling his time, but frustrated about how much time he actual got to spend with Merlin. It was nice to have home cooked meals, and he enjoyed them, but they reduced the time he could actually show affection to Merlin. So he found himself accepting more dinner invitations for them both from business colleagues. Arthur gladly signed the forms to fund Merlin's studies, and also cleared a space in his home office for Merlin to study at. This way at least they would be in the same room in the evenings. He also increased Merlin's allowance so he could purchase all the new books he needed.
Hunith and Morgana were both convinced of the two men's true emotions, and tried between them to get them to admit the truth. Hunith was hampered in her efforts by the fact that Merlin determined to pretend that the marriage was a love match. But although she thought she knew the truth, at the same time couldn't be completely sure. But at the same time Hunith was well aware that Arthur thought more of her son than he was admitting. Morgana was in much the same situation knew her brother well enough to realise the truth, but also knew he would never admit it, but she didn't know Merlin enough to be sure of his feelings, she knew he was sexually aroused by Arthur on occasion, but that didn't mean he loved her brother. So the two women got together to force the two men together as much as possible, and the upcoming Christmas festivities would be part of that.
Merlin went to visit his mother one day and Christmas came into the conversation. "Merlin would you and Arthur like to spend Christmas with us? Uncle Gaius and I thought if you came for dinner and stayed over until Boxing Day, it would give us time together. And I could cook the dinner."
Merlin looked at her before replying "I'll ask him but he may want to spend some of the time with his family."
"Oh don't worry about that. I've spoken to Morgana she's going to ask you both to spend New Year with her as they're going to Leon's family for Christmas." Hunith grinned thinking she had him trapped.
"I'll still ask him mum; I think we had hoped to spend time alone together as it's our first Christmas." The idea of spending both holidays in 'public' with Arthur filled him with dread. He realised that New Year parties would be a problem, but Christmas as well! He cursed his mother's friendship with Arthur's sister. It also reminded Merlin he would need to buy presents at sometime. By the end of the visit his head was swimming.
Later that evening he mentioned his mother's plans to Arthur, who because of his wish to spent time with Merlin, so he could indulge in signs of affection, thought it a great idea and immediately agreed. No matter how Merlin tried to get out of it, the two holidays were soon fixed events.
Shopping was easily sorted, Merlin offered to do it all, that way he wouldn't have to go round the shops with Arthur. He did try to get ideas of Arthur but found he normally gave gift tokens. Arthur supplied him with a list of people and a very generous budget and Merlin spent days going round the shops, coming home blissfully tired and resulting in some good night's sleep. The one thing that did suffer was his appetite and although he ate in the evenings with Arthur he wasn't eating much else, he was genuinely dreading the festive period, whereas Arthur, with his coping strategy, was looking forward to it for the first time in years.
The works Christmas party was the first big event of the festive season. Merlin dressed in his favourite blue shirt and slacks was sitting in the lounge waiting for Arthur to finish getting ready; at least he didn't have to wear a suit! Arthur walked in wearing a red shirt that Merlin loved for all the wrong reasons; it accentuated Arthur's blond hair and made him look so sexy that it made Merlin heart ache. They set of the venue where they were soon the centre of attention. It was the first time many of the companies staff had seen their boss's husband. Arthur played the perfect partner to perfection and was attentive all evening. Gwaine flirted as usual, which Merlin thought seemed to upset Arthur, he supposed because it might make him look bad if Merlin responded. Agravaine and Morgause were there and Merlin did his best to avoid them, although he couldn't all evening. Agravaine made some snarky remarks but otherwise it wasn't too bad. Arthur loved showing of Merlin and he introduced him to any of the staff who hadn't met the raven haired man. The mistletoe was Merlin's worst enemy that evening, there seemed to be so much of it about. Merlin found he had so many kisses from Arthur on the pretext there was mistletoe near, be he also had one from Gwaine and two from Morgana.
By the time they left Merlin was slightly tipsy, just enough for him to have a glow, but not enough for him to do or say anything stupid. He had made sure of that and several of the pot plants at the venue received alcohol that evening. Arthur however had drunk all of his drinks and was just short of drunk. So when they got home Arthur tried to get Merlin in the king sized bed. Merlin resisted and in the end helped Arthur undress and then he put the blonde to bed where he fell asleep immediately. Merlin put Arthur's actions and words down to drink, but then spent several hours wishing he had gone along with the blondes suggestions, knowing he could have put it down to drink the next morning. But he didn't want one nights of drunken sex, he wouldn't have been able to live with Arthur, or himself, afterwards. The rest of his night was full of dreams of what could have been.
The next morning Arthur thanked Merlin for putting him to bed "I hope I didn't do or say anything to embarrass you" Arthur asked knowing full well what he had done. He had been drunk but not out of his head. He was glad in the end Merlin hadn't taken him up on his offer as he wanted something more meaningful with Merlin than a drunken fumble.
"No, no problem" Merlin said, He was glad the other man didn't know how his night had been spent. After that the incident wasn't talked about.
Christmas morning the two men had a bit of a lay in then got up and had a light breakfast before setting off to Gaius's house. When they got there they were shown to the room they would be sleeping in that night. To Merlin's dismay he realised that the bed was a normal double and not the king size he had shared with Arthur on the odd occasion they had shared a bed. Leaving their overnight bags they went down for lunch and afterwards exchanged presents. Merlin was pleased to find Arthur had brought him a pass to most of the London attractions.
"I know you have time to kill at the moment and you love history" Arthur said by way of explanation. He had also given Merlin Rolex watch, which as more the sort of gift he would have expected from Arthur.
Merlin had given Arthur a pair of cuff links set with ruby's "They are your birthstone as well as your favourite colour" Merlin explained. He had also brought him a couple of CD's "Sorry it was nothing exciting but I was spending your money on you and it seemed wrong" Merlin explained.
"It's our money darling, thank you anyway I love them" Arthur said which made Merlin blush.
Once all the presents had been opened they sat and watches TV but talking as well. They had a very pleasant day before retiring for the night. Merlin's apprehension notched up as they went upstairs, what if he hugged Arthur in the night or acted out any of his dreams? Arthur was also concerned; he didn't want to embarrass either himself or Merlin. They had settled into an almost friendship and he didn't want to ruin it all, it was one thing to show affection in public, but in private he had to keep the pretence going if nothing else he wanted Merlin to become a good friend and not just for the five years.