Chapter Text
“It was green, you dolt.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Arthur scoffed in his most long-suffering tone, the one he seemed to save for Merlin alone as it typically preceded a comment disparaging his lack of intellect or faulty personal constitution, and almost always heralded one of their more pathetic bouts of bickering.
“But it was!”
“There’s something to be said for your idiocy, Merlin,” Arthur said, combativeness welded into the cut of over-enunciated consonants. He tipped his face to the sky as if to behold a beautiful day; as if it were sunny and warm rather than grey and spitting. “No matter the occasion – rampaging beast, maniacal sorcerer, or teetering tray of food – it’s terribly consistent.”
“As is yours,” Merlin retorted through chattering teeth, eyes narrowed. “Because it was green.”
A cackle of a laugh burst from Arthur in that supremely ‘Arthurian’ strain of guffaw of his, so startling in its mimicry of a baying mule, so bloodcurdlingly insulting in tone. Back in Camelot, Arthur’s face would have scrunched in horror, so obvious was his distaste for releasing the uncouth sound into the world. Out here, however, deep in the woods of Cardigan, he evidently had no qualms letting it reign free. Probably because the grotesque sound would only assault Merlin’s poor ears. Him being the target of said ridicule, after all. The unfettered sound—so hilariously unaesthetic and unkingly—would be contagious if it weren’t so condescending.
“In what world was last night’s stew green?”
“Well, it wasn’t yellow!” Merlin gestured to the Pendragon crest stitched to Arthur’s sleeve. “That is yellow.”
Said embroidered dragon was almost too yellow. It hovered atop crimson fabric with an air of delicacy unlike any dragon Merlin had met in real life, though the aplomb with which it did so was spot on.
Arthur stared ahead, eyebrows arched, focus unmoving. His refusal to drop his gaze, to offer a suggestion of deigning to humor Merlin, lit a fire of indignation in Merlin’s gut. He poked Arthur’s arm—hard—to coax his gaze to the thread-work. This only earned him an irritated swat.
“Perhaps not the same shade,” Arthur conceded without it sounding like a concession at all. Pomposity sat comfortably in every vowel he ever rallied, woven into the fabric of him at birth. Merlin shouldn’t bristle at its presence, tired and overwrought as it was poised on Arthur’s lips, but it was hard not to when directed at himself. “But it was yellow.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Merlin argued.
“Are you blind?”
“Not half as blind as you!”
It had been ages since they’d gallivanted in the woods – free from the trappings of castle life and kingly duties – with time enough to devolve into such an extended verbal spat. It almost felt like old times.
As if mirroring his thoughts, a reluctant smile tugged the corners of Arthur’s lips. Even as he pointedly swiveled in his saddle, dismissal clear. One palm rose to shield his eyes from the non-existent rays of a shrouded sun.
The shining slope below rendered Leon and Gwaine’s descent tedious, a skid here, a flail of arms there. At the trough of the ravine, a lonely wagon loitered amidst puddles of mud and slick leaves.
Reports of banditry in the woods surrounding Cardigan had reached Camelot’s looming halls in piecemeal fashion. An attack on a farm in the western foothills. Items stolen from windowsills. Gossip cast behind cupped palms. Whispers of impending escalation. Normally, rumors of such ilk — scattered and nebulous — barely merited a bat of the eye let alone a personal investigation from the king himself. But it had been a while since they’d ventured from the citadel. The prospect of a good ole scuffle with heathens after too long anchored to his throne, drowned in meetings, mired in bureaucracy, had propelled Arthur right out of his throne. The council had nearly talked him back into it… but then another report had arrived, this one chronicling the disappearance of all livestock in the area. And then there was nothing for it. It was everything Merlin, Leon, and Gwaine could do to keep up with Arthur’s sailing gallup.
So far, the trip had yielded few clues, little out of the ordinary beyond the abandoned wagon sitting proud and pristine at the base of the steep ravine and their unusually prickly attitudes. The dismal weather put a literal damper on everything. All Merlin wanted was to be dry, warm, and fed. Preferably ensconced in a bed. Let the bandits rule the countryside.
“It was green,” Merlin muttered.
“The cook called it ‘Yellow Pea Soup,’ Merlin.”
“She was being ironic.”
“How is it ironic to call a green soup yellow? That’s not remotely witty.”
“It was full of green vegetables—”
“In a yellow broth!”
Every fiber of Merlin’s being itched to paint the ground with Arthur’s stupid, obstinate face. His fingertips veritably crackled with the requisite magic. It would be too easy. And stupidly satisfying. Unfortunately, he had already unseated Arthur from his saddle once today. It would only heighten suspicion if this time, too, occurred at the peak of Merlin’s breaking point in an argument. It spoke to Merlin’s self-restraint – something Gaius accused him of lacking on a daily basis – that he reined it in.
Knowing Gaius, however, the first de-horsing would nullify his score rather than earn this magnanimity any bonus points.
A stubborn silence fell over the forest as they dawdled at the crest of the ravine. Below, Gwaine and Leon circled the wagon. Minutes later, they began the task of scaling the steep ridge. Another dead end, it would seem.
“Tell you what.” Arthur guided his horse around to face Merlin. “We’ll settle this the honorable way.”
“By you humbly conceding I’m right?”
“We’ll ask an objective party.” At Merlin’s inquisitive look, Arthur tilted his chin to Gwaine and Leon.
“That’s hardly objective.”
Leon would side with Arthur because he was Leon. Even if Gwaine managed to agree with Merlin, who had every intention of mouthing ‘green!’ whilst waving a leaf behind Arthur's shoulder, Arthur would proclaim himself the Royal Tie-Breaker and grant himself the win. Such was life with Arthur. Merlin possessed the forbearance of a saint to have tolerated Arthur's personality for so many years without resorting to murder.
A saint would have found the de-horsing too gentle a retribution.
“Fine,” Merlin said. “But whoever loses has to sleep on the floor.”
Arthur’s face split into a grin that Merlin recognized all too well. He would have to kill him if he won. Destiny be damned.
“Deal.”
Once Gwaine and Leon collected their horses, Arthur hollered out in that exceptionally arrogant caw of his, and Merlin knew. The second either man said ‘yellow’ – if one said ‘yellow,’ because Merlin still held the stew had been green – Arthur would whip around and laugh obnoxiously in Merlin’s face.
Gwaine’s hand swept through mist-dampened locks. “Last night’s soup?” He exchanged a thoughtful glance with Leon. “Kind of a greeny-yellow?”
“Yellowish-green?” Leon offered.
Merlin’s jaw fell open. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur sputtered, nose scrunching into a disbelieving snarl.
“Let’s go,” Gwaine said, oblivious to the gawping speechlessness he’d just spurred. “I’m starving.”
Woolen reticence enveloped their trek back to the inn. Merlin refused to acknowledge Arthur, flummoxed as he was by the complete failure of their wager. In their world, there was no such thing as no winners or losers, no arrogant ribbing or cacophonous celebration.
For his part, Arthur seemed just as determined to train his gaze anywhere but on Merlin.
By the time they arrived at the inn, everyone had fallen into a quiescent stupor, replete with sleepy head-bobs and deep yawns. Dinner had been cooked hours prior, so the food flirted with the wrong side of lukewarm, but the mulled mead hailed straight from the flame. It seared the esophagus and festered the stomach, almost too hot to bear.
Merlin cupped his palms around the steaming mug and breathed its cloying scent. His fingers prickled as feeling returned to numb tips.
Arthur was the first to speak in so long that Merlin jumped when he said: “Come on, Merlin.”
“Eh?” Merlin inspected his plate. It was empty. He couldn’t remember eating. His stomach felt pleasantly plump, however, so he felt reasonably confident no one had misappropriated his share while he dozed atop his palm. “What?”
“Bed.”
“Oh.” Merlin was not about to waste another minute not sleeping, though he could not call awake his current status either.
Crossing the threshold of their room in an exhausted haze, Merlin toed out of his boots and padded across the floorboards, overcoat shrugged to the floor behind him. With a drawn-out groan, he flopped unceremoniously onto the bed.
It was the same room as the night before. Tonight, the stench of old cheese permeated the air, marauded the nostrils. Courtesy of the day’s humidity.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Arthur demanded from the doorway.
“Going to sleep,” Merlin replied, eyes closed. “Shh.” His entire body throbbed like a hammered thumb… though not a recently hammered thumb. An old bruise? But not too old, not one that had yellowed out. Or greened out. Yellow. Green. Ugh.
Perhaps he’d imbibed too much mead.
“Who says you get the bed?”
“Gwaine and Leon. They said the stew was green.”
“Greeny-yellow!” Arthur corrected haughtily.
“Semantics,” Merlin murmured with a flippant wave. In the ensuing silence, the air strung tight as a bow. Merlin peeled open one eye to find Arthur gawking at him in visible indignation, eyebrows sailing for the rafters. “What? I didn’t lose.”
“Neither did I.” Arthur charged across the room. “Shove over. I won half of the dispute, so I get half the bed.”
“Oh no, I’m not sharing with you.”
Arthur's brows sank back to where they belonged… then plunged further past, gathering into a low, dangerous furrow as he gritted out: “Excuse me?”
Merlin canted a Look at him, one that hopefully conveyed some variation of: I know you’re not that stupid, but sometimes you make me reconsider, but his exhaustion probably dumbed it down to: moron. Which would suffice, too.
Peril flashed in the inky black of Arthur’s pupils. “Is this about Roxburgh? This is about Roxburgh. I did not try to cuddle with you.”
“Mmm, no, it was more like draping all of your limbs over my body.”
Arthur sniffed and looked away. “It was cold. I was unconsciously seeking body heat.”
Merlin propped himself on his elbows to deliver Arthur the proper scowl that blatant lie deserved. “It was the dead of summer. And one of the hottest nights of the year, although I might be mistaken as to the actual temperature since I had a human ember draped over my back all night.”
“I do not drape!”
Merlin sank back onto the mattress, eyes fluttering shut. “Whatever you say, Arthur. I’m still not sharing.”
The prowl of imminent danger licked at Merlin’s senses, sluiced through the haze of fatigue and warned him to brace. With mere seconds to do so, Merlin yelped when the heels of Arthur’s palms dug into his ribs and sent his body sailing. His elbow smacked the nightstand a split-second before his back struck the floor with a skeleton-jarring thud.
As he lie on the flagstones in a daze, not surprised in the slightest to find himself asprawl down here, the warmth from his body bled into the unforgiving floor like a gaping wound. Head spinning like a top, Merlin crawled back onto the mattress. It was a credit to Arthur’s honor – what little he vaunted some days – that he’d left space for him. Merlin settled on his side, facing away. His elbow bore a heartbeat of its own.
“Dollophead.”
“I don’t care how many times you use it,” Arthur said. “Dollophead is not a word.”
“Odd, because it describes you perfectly. Who would we have to talk to to get it officially recognized? Geoffrey?”
“My fist.”
“You’re a barbarian.”
“I embody chivalry,” Arthur replied, matter of fact.
“My elbow takes issue with that designation. As does my head.”
“Your head takes issue with intellectual conversation.”
Merlin buried his face under his side of the pillow. “Why must I have to share a room with you?” Merlin needled. “Didn’t you vow to get another room after I made fun of your hair this morning?”
The invisible daggers aimed at the back of his head were thankfully only that.
“First, Merlin, you are not sharing the room with me. I am magnanimously sharing it with you. Second, you did not make fun of my hair. You loaded it with the ointment for hand calluses to make it stand like a line of trees without my knowledge. And third, there’s no way you’d prefer to sleep wedged between Leon’s hairy chest and Gwaine, when the latter might bring the innkeeper’s daughter to bed right next to you.”
“He only did that the once!”
Arthur flopped back with a sardonic huff. The pillow thumped as Arthur punched his side into shape. “You forgot to blow out the candle.”
“You were the last one in bed.”
“I’m the King of Camelot,” Arthur retorted.
“Don’t care.”
“It’s a fire hazard.”
“Let the inn burn.”
With a put-upon huff, Arthur rolled off the mattress, shuffled across the floorboards, and pinched his fingers over the flame. “You’re a lazy, good-for-nothing servant, you know that?”
“Mm-hmm.”
The bed-frame shook as Arthur dropped beside Merlin once more. “Goodnight, Merlin.”
Merlin smiled despite himself. “Goodnight, Arthur.”
Merlin stirred to an uneasy feeling deep in his bones.
His eyelids fluttered… and he jolted at the unexpected sight of Arthur’s face mere inches from his own. Apparently, Merlin had twisted in his sleep and Arthur had proceeded to drape all over him. Again. His bare arm had settled over Merlin’s torso, fingers brushing the small of his back, while one leg lie tangled between his.
The night air carried a harrowing chill. The tip of Merlin’s nose felt like ice. The rest of his body smoldered, ensconced as it was under Arthur’s sloppy embrace. Each puff of Arthur’s breath peppered Merlin’s lashes, caressed the fine skin of his cheek.
Light from the half-moon steeped the room in unfettered light.
Merlin smiled fondly at Arthur’s sleep-soft features, so close to his own, touched by those velvety beams of lunar blue, kissed porcelain by the chilly nighttime air. His mop of blond stuck out every which way, tickled Merlin’s forehead and wove between midnight locks much as his limbs had done.
Arthur couldn’t sleep any way but recklessly and audaciously spread-eagle, ever marked by an utter lack of restraint. How he would live if he weren’t king. How he lived when he ignored he was king. The draping was inevitable, and so very Arthur that Merlin could not fault him for it. Especially when the sweltering drape of his octopus limbs transcended the toasty heat of a roaring bonfire.
Merlin's gaze traced the frown lines that sleep could no longer erase from Arthur’s face. They were a sign of age; the mark of a king who cared too much and bore too many burdens for his people. Arthur had become a great king. Fair. Thoughtful. Devoted. One would have to submit Merlin to torture with a burning iron to admit that to Arthur, whose ego was already plenty oversized, but it was true all the same.
Affection tangled in his chest, battled for dominance over pride. Beneath it all lie that other feeling. The one he’d buried deep, long ago; never touched, rarely acknowledged, given no name.
Because they had an illustrious road before them. A world to build, a Golden Age to seed. So much to do.
I know we can do it. Together.
A sound creaked outside the door. Merlin froze, alarm bells trilling in his head. The doorknob turned, slow and careful.
Was it not locked?!
Merlin sensed the moment Arthur heard it too. In an instant, rigidity supplanted laxity, limbs hardened with purpose and resolve; a warrior’s instincts, sharply-honed, brought to the fore. His eyelids flickered open, gaze locking on Merlin’s in the semi-darkness. If he was startled by the proximity of their faces, he hid it well.
Merlin, for his part, cast a frank glance at Arthur’s draped arm, then quirked his brow in silent mockery. Maybe it was inappropriate, given the situation, but the silent crow of victory bouncing off his insides suffused him with indescribable satisfaction. Finally – finally – he had won a battle! And this one was golden. Arthur had been denying the Roxburgh-draping for months.
Arthur scowled and pinched his side, careful not to draw the attention of their intruder, who had passed the threshold, door clicking shut behind them. His lips formed a silent: ‘Lie still.’ Merlin pinched him back for good measure, because he was not actually an idiot.
Arthur’s muscles tensed, poised for attack.
When the intruder reached Arthur’s side of the bed, they burst into action. Merlin dove to the floor, throwing a silent ankle-fusing curse at the man’s legs while Arthur cast him backwards onto the bed.
A scroll skittered to the floor, rolling partway under the bed and fetching alongside Merlin’s outstretched arms. Perplexed, Merlin gathered it and rose.
“What is your business, here?” Arthur demanded, the dagger he kept under his pillow pressed to the throat of a round-faced, scraggly-looking man. The blade kissed his wrinkled skin but drew no blood.
“I—I came to warn you, Sire. You are in danger.”
“You came to warn me,” Arthur echoed, voice flat. “Thus the creeping about my room while I slept?”
“Arthur,” Merlin called. After a reluctant moment, Arthur’s eyes met his. “He dropped this.”
Arthur eyed the rolled parchment in Merlin’s palm before returning to the man, whose quivering hands remained aloft. “Speak, old man. How am I in danger?”
“It’s the outlaws you seek.” The man’s voice jittered like a field mouse caught under the arcing shadow of a bird of prey. “They are a danger to you.”
“What outlaw isn’t?”
Arthur turned into an ogre when awakened in the night… or too early in the morning. Or anytime, come to think of it. It was to his own peril that Merlin taunted this cantankerous beast on a daily basis. This man had no idea the danger he courted.
Or perhaps he did, Merlin amended, as Arthur’s fingers flexed around the hilt of the dagger and the man’s breath hitched.
“They aim to kill you, Sire, and they will succeed.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “They will succeed?”
“Tomorrow,” the man confirmed. “You must leave Cardigan.”
“You’re mad. I’m not going to die.”
“Sire, I….” The man hesitated. He licked his lips, tongue catching on each dry ridge as he shot an imploring glance to Merlin and back. “I am a seer. A powerful one.”
Merlin shared a shocked glance with Arthur. With his ragged coif and missing fingers, the man appeared so… meek.
“Your demise has plagued my sleep,” the man continued. “I cannot let it come to pass. They say that despite your father’s legacy, you are a friend to magic. They say you will one day bring magic back to this land. And there is talk of the great mage, Emrys, who will stand by your side until the end.”
An expression of incredulity pulled across Arthur’s features, deepening the creases about his eyes, flattening the moue of his lips. He flitted a perplexed look at Merlin, the unspoken ‘have you any idea what he’s talking about?’ hanging in the air between them.
Heart pounding, Merlin shrugged noncommittally.
“What you say is treason,” Arthur said. “And a lie. I know no one by the name of Emrys. Nor would I ally myself with a person of magic let alone legalize it. Not when magic only ever allies with evil.”
“Magic is not evil, Sire. It has gifted me with the Sight and the ability to save you.”
“You are addled, old man,” Arthur snarled, tone dark and eyes haunted. “I know what the Sight does to people.”
Cold feathered through Merlin’s veins as images of their last skirmish with Morgana flashed through his mind — sunken, haunted eyes; sneering lips; the unearthly claw of her fingers in the air as she sullied magic into blades of evil. From the hunch of Arthur’s shoulders, his mind has gone down the same path.
“I have seen it. You must believe me!” The man struggled to rise, but Arthur forced him down with a powerful thrust to the shoulder.
“Arthur,” Merlin interjected, marshaling his own knee-jerk instinct to distrust this man. Because he, of all people, knew better than to attribute the ill actions of the one to the motivations of any other. Especially not when someone’s—not just any anyone, but Arthur’s—life might hang in the balance. “He could be telling the truth.”
“Or he could be lying.”
“I’m not lying!”
Arthur massaged the bridge of his nose, a tell-all sign that his patience — what little he’d possessed to start with — had run dry. “You are old and confused, and it is late, so I will grant you leniency this once. Merlin, show him out.”
The man scrambled to follow Merlin to the door.
“Lock the door this time, would you?” Arthur called after him.
“Last one in,” Merlin countered, pointing at Arthur.
Locks were irrelevant in the face of magic, as Arthur should well know. The man would have got in, locked or unlocked.
“He’s not usually this cranky,” Merlin explained in apology as he guided the man into the hallway. “I’m sorry.”
“He refuses to confront his own mortality.”
Merlin could not fault Arthur’s skepticism. Prophecies and dreams were something Merlin, too, approached with abundant hesitancy.
“Is it true?” Merlin asked. “Did you see him die?”
The man looked at him – really looked at him – and said: “Get him out of here.”
Arthur was unbearably, transparently chipper the next day.
It was a gorgeous, sunny afternoon, skies rich aquamarine and clouds delicate wisps of white, so Merlin could not begrudge him some cheerfulness when yesterday had been so murky. But basking in the delightful weather was not Arthur's play. He was not that simple a man.
His behavior reflected a blatant overcompensation for the fact that he was supposed to die today.
Stubborn arse that he was, Arthur went out of his way to be reckless. He laughed his donkey bray at the smallest things, shouted when he could have spoken, and directed his horse over every brittle twig on the path.
Only Gwaine and Leon’s presence stayed Merlin’s hand from magicking Arthur’s face into stone.
It was a small consolation that Arthur wore chainmail instead of his usual riding fare. Merlin had scored that win by implying Arthur had become too fat to fit in his armor. Before he could finish his sentence, Arthur had shed his riding jerkin and thrust his chainmail into Merlin’s startled hands.
“Merlin, you can’t actually believe what that old codger said?” Arthur chortled after Merlin’s third time jumping at an innocuous sound, this time a hare fleeing beneath the horses’ hooves. “I’m not in any danger.”
“What old codger?” Leon asked.
Arthur waved his hand as if to swat a fly. “It’s nothing.”
Merlin shot him an irritated look. “Just because you wish magic were immaterial does not make it so. You can close your eyes all you want, stuff your head in the sand, do what you do best where magic is involved, but magic is real, and it is powerful.”
“You’re paranoid. We’ve not found anything in all the time we’ve been out here.”
“All the more reason to be wary. The forest quiets in the presence of a predator.” Merlin adjusted his position on the unforgiving saddle, arching his torso with knuckles pressed to the small of his back. The roll of his head shielded another visual sweep of the woods. “That man had no ulterior motive telling us what he did last night.”
“Unless he wanted to put us on edge.”
“Well, I’m on edge,” Merlin muttered.
“Slow down, ladies,” Gwaine interjected. “What’s this about an old man and danger?”
Before Merlin could open his mouth, Arthur blurted: “A crazy old man stumbled into our room last night and declared I would die today.”
“Arthur.”
“Oh, for—Merlin, if we so much as see a bandit, I give you permission to say: ‘I told you so.’ Would that make you happy?”
“No.”
Not ten minutes later, scores of arrows rained down on them.
“Take cover!” Arthur shouted, vaulting from his horse.
Merlin dove behind a tree as Arthur, Leon, and Gwaine set upon the bandits in the concerted effort that made Camelot’s knights the most formidable force in all of Albion. They moved as one, swift and steady, controlled yet lethal.
Merlin spared their defensive formation – fluid as water, unspoken and natural – an admiring glance before an arrow sang past his ear and stole his attention. Assured that the others were skillfully holding their own and suitably distracted, he magicked a smattering of arrows from their original trajectories back to their owners. Another sweep of his hand sent a branch hurtling onto a man.
They were outnumbered. Desperately outnumbered.
Merlin crept further around the tree and yelped when something bowled him over. His body impacted the ground with a bone-jarring thump.
A second later, a thrown ax pierced the spot where he’d stood.
“Arthur,” Merlin grunted, tone falsely light as if commenting on the price of figs. “I told you so.”
Arthur’s breath huffed across Merlin’s cheek in a light chuckle. “Uncouth damsel in distress.”
His weight, compounded by the heft of his chainmail, drove Merlin’s back into an unpleasantly knobby tree root while simultaneously asphyxiating his squashed ribs. The sight of Arthur overhead, however – eyes sparkling with the exhilaration of battle, gleaming with sweat, and beaming down at him as if nothing gave him more joy than such brushes with danger – made the pain momentarily worthwhile.
“Get up, you oaf,” Merlin wheezed around a breathless smile of his own. “You’re heavy.”
“Milady.”
As Arthur's hands shifted to brace the ground, one on either side of Merlin, his body gave a sudden, sharp jolt. Blue eyes widened above him.
Something jabbed Merlin’s chest.
Merlin peered down and choked on a gasp at the unmistakable sheen of a blade protruding from between the links of Arthur’s chainmail and disappearing into Merlin’s own tunic. Red collected in the material before his eyes, blue morphing gruesome brown, splintering across the rough weavings like bolts of lightning across the nighttime sky.
Merlin’s head jerked back up, eyes gone wide. “Arthur?” His voice came out a whimper.
“Merlin,” Arthur gasped, pupils foggy and face ghostly pale.
The blade withdrew. Merlin cried out as its scant inches left his own body. The sharp keen of metal against the broken links of Arthur’s chainmail brought his heart into his throat.
A drop of blood escaped Arthur’s mouth.
“Arthur, look at me.”
Arthur slumped into him.
Unthinking, Merlin cast his hand at their attacker, projecting the man into a tree with a fatal thud.
The warm, wet sensation of blood trailing down his ribs sent Merlin’s world spinning, toppling, shattering. His tunic was saturated with it. How much was his versus Arthur’s, he could not know. A lot. There was a lot of it.
A frenzied whisper of words and flash of gold shucked Arthur of his heavy chainmail. Merlin clutched Arthur’s limp form and rolled him over, cradling Arthur’s head in the crook of his elbow.
Bile rose in his throat at the devastation.
“No!” Tears raced down his face.
The blood… it was everywhere. Its sinister red blossomed over Arthur’s chest, streaks branching across the weavings of his tunic like spindly veins.
For a frozen moment, Merlin’s limbs refused to respond, paralyzed by horror, atrophied by anguish. He’d learned enough under Gaius’s tutelage to comprehend what he beheld – the precise location of the wound, the sheer volume of blood lost in a matter of seconds.
The way Arthur’s eyes remained open, glazed and unseeing, despite the jostling.
“Arthur.” Merlin placed a shaking hand over the wound. Where there had been a strong, thrumming heartbeat moments ago lay horrible stillness. “No, no, no,” Merlin cried, shaking his head. “Arthur. Arthur!”
Merlin vaguely registered the sound of advancing footsteps.
“He’s dead! King Arthur is dead!” The bandit gave a triumphant whoop and cackled manically.
Despite his vision drowning in red, Merlin felt his eyes sear vicious, lethal gold. When he opened his mouth, a string of words – lyrical and complicated and full of magic beyond his comprehension – spilled from his lips. The remaining bandits toppled to the ground like puppets snipped from their strings. Tendrils of liquid light rose from their strewn bodies and gathered in effervescent threads in and around Merlin’s outstretched palm. Shaking with concentration and guided by a power he did not know, Merlin pressed his hand to Arthur’s chest, willing, begging the shining life forces to take hold, to sink their talons into anything they could find purchase, like a frantic, trapped beast.
Merlin had seen Arthur like this so many times before – unconscious, limp, bloodied. It would be fine. Merlin would save him like he had so many times before (and probably receive no credit, as so many times before).
It would be fine.
Merlin held his hand firm against the gaping wound. “Come on, come on.”
A dim streak of light bled from Arthur’s back into the crimson puddle gathering on the forest floor, followed by another. Then another. The threads weaving about his palm lost their luster and fizzled out too.
“Arthur,” Merlin gasped, unable to find his voice. “Wake up. Please!”
Merlin reached deep into his magic center and voiced every healing spell he had ever learned, one after another, until his voice was nothing but a jagged rasp and Arthur’s body had grown cool in his arms.
A tear trickled down Merlin’s cheek, clung to the edge of his jaw, then dropped onto the waxy skin of Arthur’s lifeless face.
“Arthur!”
In the distance, Leon dropped to his knees. Gwaine lingered further back, sword hanging from limp fingers, mouth ajar.
Merlin had never felt so helpless. “I don’t know what to do. I….” His voice broke. His lips formed around words of promise, hope, and happy endings that they would laugh about later. Arthur's alleged immortality had become a running joke. He had escaped death so many times.
Merlin gathered Arthur’s body to his chest, brushing blood-smeared fingers through Arthur’s golden locks, and pressed their foreheads together. He vaguely sensed rain. The clear, sunny skies from moments ago had morphed into a squall. He held on tight, determined to keep Arthur’s body warm, dry, and safe, and rocked his body in his arms.
This was not the end. It was too… abrupt. They had not done so many things.
Merlin prayed to gods known and unknown to wake him from this nightmare. He wanted nothing more than to awaken draped, warm, and comfortable beneath Arthur’s splayed limbs.
It had to be a dream.