Merlin: You're A Mile Away And You Have Their Shoes (2/3) PG-13
Title: You're a Mile Away and You Have Their Shoes 2/3
Author: mad_maudlin
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur, and also Merlin/Arthur
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: All episodes
Warnings: Crack, shovels, massive rupture of the fourth wall.
Summary: Arthur wanted to know what was going on in Merlin's head. He just didn't mean it so literally.
He somehow ended up back in bed, but he barely slept; come morning, the environs around the castle were littered with frogs both living and dead, and when Gaius nagged Arthur out of bed he stood on the steps leading up to the room and asked, "Hypothetically, if I've run utterly mad, would I be able to tell?"
Gaius, who was examining frog shrapnel altogether too close to his breakfast plate, just looked up and did the eyebrow thing. "I did attempt to diagnose you yesterday, Arthur, and you insisted at great volume that you were fine."
"Yes, well, I might have changed my mind." He took his own plate of eggs and bread and tried to concentrate on the food so his brain would stop running in tiny little circles.
Fact: he and Merlin had switched lives.
Fact: Merlin was a warlock and had been hiding this from him for about a million years. All right, since he came to Camelot. Close enough.
Fact: The natural order of the universe was coming apart at the seams, what with Morgana going mad and the rain of frogs.
Fact: Merlin had been lying to him this entire time.
Fact: Arthur was now solely responsible for saving all Albion from destruction.
Fact: It wasn't like Arthur was an idiot, either--Merlin was actively hiding things from him.
Fact: Arthur had no idea what to do next.
Fact: Why didn't Merlin trust him? Did he think Arthur wasn't going to understand? Did he think Arthur wasn't going to be grateful for all the life-saving? Especially after the fiasco with the druid brat--no, no, not thinking about that sort of thing, because the echoes of someone else's memories just make his head hurt even worse.
Fact: He and Merlin had switched lives...
"If you're done massacring your breakfast," Gaius said, "everyone with a spare hand has been requested to help with the, ah, sanitation."
Arthur realized he'd torn apart his bread into tiny pieces. "I'm not hungry," he declared, and stomped out into the courtyard.
At least chasing frogs around with a shovel gave ample opportunity to exorcise his immediate feelings of anger and betrayal--not as well as a good round or five with the knights, but since he couldn't be trusted to hold a sword by the right end at the moment it would have to do. By the time he'd filled his sack with little corpses, it was mid-morning, and one of the kitchen staff who was manning the piles of burning frogs told Arthur, "Prince Merlin is looking for you."
Oh, yes, Merlin. Who was living it up in Arthur's life, who'd lied to him about being a sorcerer, whom Arthur had snogged and then run out on and now he probably thought Arthur was a freak and there's this random bit about soulsand...god, could this possibly get any worse? "Wonderful," Arthur told the cook, and dumped his frog sack on the flames. "If I don't come back, please tell my mother I love her."
Arthur was halfway up a staircase inside before he realized what he'd said, and it stopped him in mid-step. It's a figure of speech, he told himself. I know who my mother was, and she's dead. She didn't live in Ealdor and write letters to Gaius. That was Merlin's life, which hopefully he'd be resuming shortly. Arthur totally knew the difference.
He found Merlin stomping about the prince's room, muttering to himself under his breath and picking up various articles of clothing only to drop them again immediately. He had on the red coat again, and one part of Arthur's brain couldn't help but notice the color suited him while various other parts were occupied with being annoyed, betrayed, exhausted, hungry, and apprehensive. It didn't leave much room for deference in the mix. "You wanted me?" he asked, and then tried not to flinch because oh god that was an unfortunate choice of words.
Merlin glanced up, and his expression sort of flattened out--he looked less angry, but no more happy. Just...less everything. "I hadn't seen you yet today," he said. "I thought I should give you some instructions before I go to the lower town."
"What's in the lower town?" Arthur asked.
"My father," Merlin said, and wow, Arthur hadn't know it was possible to back that much resentment into one word, "has ordered me to locate the sorcerer responsible for last night's, er, disturbance. And he seems to think the lower town is the most appropriate place to start."
"As opposed to...?"
"Lady Rowena's rooms," Merlin said, and there was the seething anger again. "I told him that she was the only newcomer to the castle, and since the frogs didn't fall more than three feet from the curtain wall it was the castle that was the target, it makes sense to start with her--what?"
Because Arthur had been unable to resist the urge to slap his open palm against his face. "Of course she's the first suspect, but she's a guest," he reminded Merlin. "You don't just say that about a guest. What if you were wrong?"
"I'm not wrong, though!" Merlin said. "We've both had a bad feeling about her since she got here, and it makes sense."
Completely inappropriate affection bubbled up from somewhere in Arthur's chest; prince or pauper, Merlin couldn't just leave anything be. "So when the search in the town turns up nothing, she's the first target within the castle. After, you know, the royal household, so it doesn't look like you're singling anybody out," he suggested.
Merlin looked at him oddly. "Since when did you know so much about etiquette?"
Shit. "I don't," Arthur said, trying to keep a straight face. "I'm completely talking out of my arse. In fact, I may even be insane, you can ask Gaius."
That got him a snort of laughter, and even a bit of a smile. "God, you're weird," Merlin said in a warm tone of voice that should not have made Arthur's heart flutter anything like it did. But a moment later the smile was gone, and Merlin was rubbing one of his temples with a pinched expression. "Ugh, d'you think Gaius has anything for a headache?"
"He has about six things for headaches, and they all smell horrible," Arthur said. "You all right?"
Merlin shrugged. "Seeing as I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by a rain of frogs..."
"Hey, at least you didn't have to shovel them up this morning," Arthur pointed out, but he couldn't muster much indignation; a sudden fear had sparked in him, after seeing the dragon's rotten wings and Morgana screaming and all those frogs...and Merlin had stopped his indignant pacing just within arm's reach. Hardly even thinking, Arthur reached out and touched Merlin's shoulder, a little too close to the neck to be entirely innocent.
Two things happened at once. First, Merlin's face went instantly slack, as if all the tension in his head and shoulders had evaporated at once. Second, Arthur felt something flare inside him--not the firestorm of the night before (god, was it only the night before?) but similar, like a flame had kindled somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. Maybe the first time round he'd been too distracted to notice (what with the snogging and all) but now he recognized the feeling for what it was, and pulled his hand away immediately. The prickling heat faded, slowly, and almost reluctantly, which was good; Merlin gave Arthur a piercing look, which was very, very bad.
"Gwen," Arthur blurted, before Merlin could say anything; that just made Merlin's face close up with something like hurt. "I mean, me and Gwen. I mean Gwen and I can search Rowena's rooms while you're in the town."
"Right," Merlin said slowly. "Because she won't be suspicious of strange servants coming in and out of her rooms."
"We'll say we're checking for frogs," Arthur said. "I'll carry a shovel. It'll look very official."
Merlin nodded, seemingly reluctant. "All right. And if you find anything..."
"I'll come find you straight away," Arthur promised. He knew all too well what the word of a servant would mean against Lady Rowena, and somehow he felt that trying to explain how he wasn't actually a servant would probably do harm than good to his credibility.
"Right." Merlin rubbed his temple again. "I'm going to the lower town. Be careful, and don't get caught, and when you're done snooping, could you figure out what happened to all my shirts? It looks like they got dropped in a fire or something."
"Of course," Arthur promised, and luckily Merlin was already sweeping his way out and didn't see him flinch.
X
Arthur figured Gwen would be in Morgana's room--did she ever leave these days, even in the real world?--and he was right; when he knocked, she called, "Just a minute!" and he took it as permission to come in.
The broken window had been covered with a piece of oilcloth until a glazier could repair it; there was no sign of any more frogs or fragments thereof, and Morgana was sitting in a chair, staring with her eyes dilated larger than Arthur thought possible. "Good morning, uh, Lady Morgana," he said, and hoped that once this was sorted out she never remembered him saying the words.
"Hello, Arthur," she said in a singsong voice. "Aren't they beautiful flowers?"
He looked around the room, but he didn't see any flowers; there was an empty vase on a table, and a that was about it. "Aren't, uh, are what--"
Gwen came out of another corner and put her finger to her lips. "They're lovely flowers, Morgana," she said loudly.
"I like pink," Morgana sighed, and grinned widely.
Gwen waved Arthur into the hallway, where he immediately asked, "What on Earth--"
"I know," she sighed. "Gaius couldn't get her to calm down any other way. She just kept talking about death and fire and..." Gwen shuddered; she looked like she'd slept even less than Arthur had. "Did you need something?"
"Er, yeah," he said. "Merlin and I have this theory about who caused the frogs--maybe Morgana's nightmares, too," he added, on the logic that it all had to be interconnected somehow. (Having more than one secret sorcerer around the castle would just be weird.)
"Is it somebody named Hermes?" Gwen asked suddenly.
Arthur blinked at her. "How did you know--?"
"Morgana...some of the things she was saying." She shrugged. "Something about breaking Hermes forever, she said that a few times. Then again, she was also saying something about slashed dragons, and after Gaius gave her the medicine she started muttering 'the circle must be broken' for a while so I wasn't sure what to make of anything..."
"Well, it's actually Lady Rowena," Arthur said, determined to stay on the topic. "Who started the problem, I mean. So somebody needs to go through her rooms and look for, you know...magicky...stuff."
Gwen looked at the door, and for a moment Arthur thought she was going to refuse, but then she squared her shoulders. "Just let me get Morgana put to bed," she said. "It won't take long, will it?"
"In and out like that," Arthur promised. "Just let me get a shovel."
X
In the end it was anticlimactic; Gwen found an excuse to deliver some flowers to Rowena's room and pretended to see a frog, which was Arthur's cue to step in, wielding his shovel (he deliberately chose one encrusted with frog guts for effect) and promising to rid the room of the nasty beast. Rowena didn't seem to know which was more horrifying, Arthur or the alleged frog, and cleared out of her own free will. "All right, that'll keep her out for a while," he declared, and tossed the shovel in the corner. "Start looking."
He dug into one of her trunks first--Rowena had come with an alarming number of trunks--and started pulling out handfuls of silky and satiny lady-things. He stopped when Gwen screeched "Arthur!" in a scandalized tone.
"What?" he asked. "Did you not get the part where we're searching for things?"
"That's her clothes!" Gwen said. "She could have underwear in there! Private things!"
"Private magical things," Arthur pointed out.
Gwen seized a flimsy shift from Arthur's hands. "I'll look through her clothes," she said. "You look at...not her clothes. Deal?"
"Fine," he said. "Deal."
He wasn't entirely certain what he was looking for, exactly, which made things harder; the dragon said Rowena had a spell to go with the rings, but Arthur didn't know if it would be on parchment or in a book or engraved on a stone tablet or what. Really, considering how often various warlocks, sorcerers and practitioners of the black arts threatened Camelot, one would think somebody had done some kind of research...but as it was, Arthur was just hoping he'd know the thing on sight, or even that it might have a helpful label. (Wicked Plot, maybe, or Book of Villainous Sorcery.) He went through an enormous jewelry box and an equally huge box of make-up, a case that turned out to contain a hideously out-of-tune lute, an entire truck of different sorts of pointy hats, a book...
He paused on the book. Scraps of paper and parchment were sticking out between the pages. "Hang on," he told Gwen, who was efficiently rifling through trunk number two. He started to flip through the pages.
Gwen huffed at him. "You think it's a spellbook or something?"
"Does Rowena seem like a reading sort of person to you?" he asked. It was a book of prayers, it looked like, invocations to the old gods, but the scraps between the pages were poems and verses of songs and one that said buy more salt, and then he came to one piece of parchment--badly cut and badly scraped--that made his hands itch with magic. He could barely read the sloppy lettering on it, but he knew in his gut--or that place behind his heart--that this was it. "Got it."
Gwen tried to take it from him to look. "Are you sure?"
"Call it a hunch." He stuffed the parchment into his pocket and tossed the book onto the jumble of hats. "Thanks for your help, Gwen."
"Hold on," she said. "We can't just leave her things like this, she'll know we searched."
Arthur shrugged, and shouldered his shovel. "We'll say it was a very energetic frog."
She sighed and shook her head and declared, "You are hopeless," in an affectionate tone of voice, but she also made only a token effort to sort out the rainbow of gowns trailing from a trunk before following him out of the room.
X
Arthur was a man of his word, but he had also studied rhetoric (about as successfully as he'd studied logic) so he knew full well that his word actually only meant whatever he wanted it to mean. He went straight from Rowena's room to the bedroom in Gaius' laboratory, locked himself in, and went to work on the spell. It wasn't any language he recognized, and he wasn't sure about what some of the letters were, but he could feel that it was powerful, that it had to be the right thing. He made certain he had the Hermes ring in his hand--he'd seen that Merlin was wearing the other--and solemnly intoned the words on the parchement.
Nothing happened.
He tried saying it louder. He tried pronouncing things differently, or substituting some of the letters that weren't exactly clear, or moving the accents around. He tried saying it in different tones of voice. He tried gestures. When that nearly resulted in the ring getting flung out the window, he gave up and flopped down on the bed and swore at the dragon a lot. How hard would it be to toss in a step-by-step solution in the middle of the history lesson? If the same spell didn't work to undo the damage, how was Arthur supposed to fix it?
He remembered the dragon had said he'd need Merlin's help. Not that Merlin should know anything about magic, since he was theoretically living Arthur's very non-magical life, with all his distinctly unsupernatural memories. Though of course with variations, like how he seemed to really actively hate Uther, whereas Arthur just sometimes occasionally wished he had a father who could not be described as intermittently evil. (Part of him wondered if this was another limit of the magic--even if it made Uther and Merlin think they were father and son, maybe there was still something missing, some bond that meant Arthur could disappoint in a million ways and Uther could murder a thousand blacksmiths and they were still, helplessly, hopelessly, family, and all each other had.)
But the magic seemed to recognize its proper owner--that was the only explanation Arthur could think of for why it went nuts whenever they were close together. He wondered if Merlin would remember everything, if he got his magic back (and if Arthur would thus forget). Maybe Merlin knew something Arthur didn't that would make the spell work, even though Arthur was supposed to have a version of all Merlin's memories and so he ought to know everything Merlin would properly know about magic, and the dragon could just go fuck itself. Unless of course, one of those little differences actually meant something. If, in the real world, Merlin had heard something or done something or read something in the book that Arthur, in his altered past, couldn't recall...
Wait a minute, what book? He sat up and looked around the little bedroom. Of course that book; he knew exactly which book, it had just...snuck up on him. Which didn't mean anything. The dragon said Merlin's magic would protect him from losing his real memories, so unless he somehow lost the magic...which he wasn't going to do, right? The Old Religion was holding it all together.
And as the rain of frogs attested, doing a wonderful job.
Arthur dug the book out of its hiding place, feeling the same magical itch in his palms that he got from Rowena's spell, times about a thousand. His head crowded with mixed-up memories as he flipped through a few random pages, taking in the exquisite lettering, detailed illustrations, and careful instructions for how to turn somebody into a newt (which Arthur noted were marked with a piece of string for easy reference). There wasn't any index, so he had to sort of flip through and hope that the Hermes Rings were mentioned somewhere; if they weren't, he'd go back down into the dungeon and make the bloody dragon tell him what to do. Somehow. Probably he should bring the shovel.
He was nearly at the end of the book when he heard Gaius stomping about in the outer room. "Arthur!" he called. "Arthur, come here, I need your help!"
He left the book on the bed, open to his stopping point, and found Gaius ladling a vivid purple liquid out of a bucket and into a series of vials. "What's that?" Arthur asked, flinching when the sickly-sweet smell of the stuff hit him.
"Prince Merlin and his men drew it out of the wells in the lower town," Gaius said. "Help me fill these vials so we can tell if it's safe to drink."
Arthur held up a vial to the light; the contents were nearly opaque. "You mean this is water?"
"Apparently."
"It's purple."
Gaius sighed. "Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me, Arthur."
He took the ladle from Gaius and started filling the vials. "It smells like...grapes," he observed. "Or maybe what you'd think grapes would smell like if you'd never actually smelled grapes before. Like more than grapes."
"It's apparently coming out of the pumps for the castle as well, only pink," Gaius said, and dropped a burning brand into one of the vials; whatever was in the liquid, it was definitely not water, because it burned with a bluish, rippling flame. "Troubling."
"Just a little." And another reason Arthur needed to solve the problem as quickly as he could, because a rain of frogs was an inconvenience, but Camelot couldn't survive without water. They'd been through this one before.
"We need to explore its actions upon various organic systems," Gaius declared. "Are there any of those frogs left from this morning, do you think?
Before Arthur could answer (emphatically in the negative) there was a knock on the door. Merlin came it without waiting for an answer, and at first Arthur thought he understood why--he looked distinctly ill, with a graying complexion and circles under his eyes. But Merlin was followed in by several men at arms, and his first words were, "I'm sorry, Gaius, but the king has asked us to step up the searches in light of the attack on the water supply."
"I must protest," Gaius said, but he made no effort to stop the king's men from rifling through his books and papers. "Do you really think I wouldn't notice a sorcerer hiding under my own nose?"
"It's just a formality," Merlin said dully, and made his way up the steps to Arthur's room.
Gaius gave Arthur the eyebrow, and it took him approximately two and a half seconds to realize what that meant and another second to realize what it meant meant. He shoved past a guard and leapt into the room, to find Merlin going through his cupboard. The book was still open on the bed, face-up and incriminating. "You, ah, you think you're going to find something in there?" Arthur asked, trying to edge his way to the bed without looking like he was edging his way anywhere.
"I just said it's a formality," Merlin said with a bit more snap; his eyes, at close range, were bloodshot. "Unless you nicked one of the frogs this morning for a pet..."
"Well, you know, they're just so cute and cuddly before they splatter." Arthur tried frantically to think if there was anything incriminating in the cupboard--had he ever been in Merlin's cupboard before? He hadn't noticed anything particularly sorcerous when he got dressed that morning, and of course now that he actually needed to remember something of this altered life, the false memories weren't coming to him.
"Did you find anything in Rowena's room?" Merlin asked in a non-too-hushed voice, apparently heedless of the men turning over Gaius's room beyond.
"Yeah, actually," Arthur said. "I was just, uh, waiting for you to get back."
Merlin looked at him. "Well? What was it?"
"It's a--I think it's a magic spell," Arthur said, and then cursed himself, because he'd tucked the parchment between the pages of the book.
"And where is it?" Merlin asked, but it was all right, Arthur could be completely calm about this. He picked up the book, slapping it shut as he did so, and pulled Rowena's parchment out. He tucked the book under his arm as he turned, and handed the parchment to Merlin, and for a moment he thought he was completely in the clear.
But Merlin took only a cursory glance at the parchment, and then his eyes focused on the book. Dammit. "What's that?"
"This?" Arthur took the book and flashed it briefly at Merlin--luckily there were no markings on the cover to give it away. "Just something I borrowed from Gaius. I was, er, trying to look up the words--"
"Let me see it," Merlin said suddenly, and reached for the book.
Arthur, on pure stupid reflex, pulled it back--and knew instantly that he was caught. "I told you, it's one of Gaius's," he said anyway. "It's not magical."
Merlin looked him in the eye. "Come on, Arthur, just let me have a look."
"You don't have to," Arthur said, trying for noble and commanding and ended up with weasley and whiny.
Merlin's mouth bent into a frown, and as he snapped "What's so important that I can't--" he reached for the book, faster than he ought to be, too fast for Arthur to get entirely out of the way.
Their fingers overlapped on the book's cover and it was like a little explosion in Arthur's chest. He couldn't breathe for a moment--he had to hunch his shoulders again the heat and pressure inside, and he wondered what Merlin would do if Arthur's heart just burst out of him, then and there. But Merlin--this time, Merlin noticed, he must have noticed, because he gasped a little bit and his too-pale cheeks became suddenly, vividly flushed. Like he felt something, too. Perhaps like he knew.
There were men-at-arms mere feet away, too close and too many, so all Arthur could do was stare into Merlin's face and will him to remember, understand, whatever. Merlin stared back, blank and uncomprehending, but unlike Arthur he didn't seem to be in pain--in fact, every heartbeat brought more even color back to his face, and even the broken veins in his eyes seemed to be thinning and fading away. An idea half-formed in Arthur's head, or perhaps more like an urge, and he--well, there wasn't really a good word for it. He pushed some of that painful fire out, not into the candles or the book or the all-too-flammable furniture, but into Merlin, or through him, or something like that.
The pain eased for a moment, and for a moment Arthur saw little tongues of fire bloom in Merlin's eyes, gold swirling over and subsuming the blue. He wondered if his own eyes looked the same.
Then Merlin jerked away, stepping back and panting like he'd just fought off an army. The golden light in his eyes went away, and Arthur was left with nothing but the heartburn ache in his chest. "All right," Merlin said; his first try was shaky, but then he manage a firmer tone. "All right. We're done here. I expect you to attend me in my quarters tonight."
"Yes, sire," Arthur said, and he even managed to stay on his feet until Merlin and the soldiers had gone, just barely. Then he collapsed onto the bed, still hugging the book to his chest, and concentrated on being able to breathe.
It was no surprise that Gaius came looking for him almost immediately. "Arthur? What's the matter?"
"Just," Arthur said, but talking hurt, like the inside of his throat was scorched. He swallowed. "Nothing. I'm all right."
"You most certainly are not." Gaius pried the book out of Arthur's hands and pressed a palm to his forehead. "Dear god, boy, you're burning up. When did your symptoms start?"
Arthur shrugged as best he could. "Yesterday morning. You know, when I woke up mad." Gaius gave him the eyebrow again. "Look, I'll be fine. Everything's under control."
"Did Prince Merlin see the book?" Gaius asked.
"Nyeo," Arthur said. "It's complicated. But I know what kind of spell's on the castle and how to reverse it, I just...need to figure a few things out first."
"Such as?" Gaius asked.
Such as whether Merlin remembers enough of anything to help me, Arthur thought. "I'll explain later," he muttered, hoping he'd have to do no such thing.
Gaius scowled, but patted his arm in a fatherly sort of way, albeit a way Arthur's actual father had never done. "All right, Arthur, I will trust you on this. But in the meantime you will get some rest--at least until that fever goes down. I'd offer you water, but..."
"Rather not take my chances," Arthur agreed. He toed off his boots and stretched out on the bed; Gaius pulled up the blanket for him but refrained from actually tucking him in. He only meant to lie down until the ache in his chest eased, but given the kind of night he'd had, he shouldn't have been surprised that he fell asleep...
X
He packed a bag, not that he really expected to need anything ever again--more a formality, a habit. He still had a chance to make things right, to make sure Camelot still had its prince and its physician and one desperately devoted farmwife. There was still a way to save everyone.
Well, everyone but himself.
He said his farewells to his mother, even though she was too delirious with fever to respond; he kissed her forehead, but she only blinked the eye that wasn't swollen shut and murmured "Jack?" And it was too late, much too late for Arthur to find out what that meant; he had to put it aside, along with all the ridiculous hopes he'd had for his future. Warlock or not, he was nothing but a farm boy, never to be more than that; he'd finally learned his place, and it was to die for country and future king. He wondered if Merlin would be amused by the news.
Merlin. Right.
One last goodbye to make.
Arthur knew Merlin would be in his room, still weak even though the Questing Beast's bite was basically healed. He pushed his way in, but couldn't bring himself to come past the door. Merlin was sitting by the fire, holding a goblet in his bad hand so he could toy with the edge of the sling with the other; he looked up at the sound of the door, though. "Arthur," he said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him.
Arthur nodded, suddenly and inexplicably nervous. "How are you?" he asked, for want of anything more constructive to say.
"Good," Merlin shrugged with his good shoulder and set the wine goblet aside. "Well, better than I was."
Arthur forced a smile. "I'm pleased."
"Yes, well, Gaius is a talented physician," Merlin said vaguely.
That stung, a bit--Arthur wondered if it would ever stop stinging, even when he was about to make the greatest unacknowledged sacrifice possible. "I need to talk to you," he forced himself to say, and to look up from his boots to Merlin's profile in the firelight.
Merlin, as usual, looked vaguely amused by Arthur's forwardness. "Really? And what's pressing on you so urgently?"
Arthur thought of everything he could possibly say, everything he'd ever wanted to say about Merlin and their unexpected friendship and everything else it could have been, all the hopes he was putting aside. What came out was, "Don't be such a coward."
Whatever Merlin had expected, it wasn't that; his eyebrows rose halfway to his hairline. "Excuse me?"
"All right, not a coward," Arthur said. "But...you're going to be a great king someday, and everybody seems to believe that but your father and you. Just...have a little faith in yourself," And since he was saying his last words anyway, "And don't whinge so much, for god's sake."
Merlin stared at him for a moment, then snorted a little laugh, followed almost immediately by a flinch and a rub at his wounded shoulder. "God, Arthur, just when I think I know you..."
"Oh, don't tell me you don't like it," Arthur said. "It keeps you on your toes. In fact, if you get another servant--" he swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. "When you get another servant, don't let him be a bootlicker."
"Is this your way of trying to quit your job?" Merlin asked, sounding honestly confused now.
Arthur swallowed again, drinking in a last look at how the firelight played over Merlin's face, the high angle of his cheeks, the red and yellow gloss on his dark hair. "No," he said, struggling around a surge of emotion so big he was surprised he didn't burn himself up with the force of it. "No, I'm happy to be your servant until the day I die."
"Then why does it sound like you're saying goodbye?" Merlin asked quietly.
"Nothing," Arthur said, "it's just...nothing..." because if he didn't get out of here now, he never would. "I just wanted to tell you..."
"To stop whinging?" Merlin asked.
"Yeah," Arthur said firmly.
Merlin looked at him piercingly, like he was waiting for something. "Anything else?"
I've killed people for you. I'll die for you. You're the best friend I've ever had. I might even be a little in love with you. "No," Arthur forced himself to say. "That's all." And he slipped out the door before he could say anything else. He'd never be more than a servant to Merlin; there was no point in pining for something he could never have.
X
Arthur woke up disoriented, his window filled with a gloaming light that made it impossible to judge the time of day. His head hurt, and so did his chest, but for a moment he was caught up in the all-too-vivid vestiges of the dream. Why was he thinking about that, anyway? Nimueh was dead, everyone had recovered...there was something about Merlin, maybe, something important, but it sat on the tip of Arthur's sleep-addled tongue and he couldn't place what it was.
He slouched out of his room to find Gaius carefully examining a ripe apricot by the light of a candle. "What time's it?" he asked, barely suppressing a yawn.
"Barely six o'clock," Gaius said gravely. "And certainly not the season for apricots."
And just like that, Arthur remembered everything, with the clarity of a knife's edge. He stared at the apricot in Gaius's hand; next to it, just as perfectly ripe, were a date-plum, an apple and a bowl of cherries. The sky outside was lazy-summer hazy, but air in the room had a wintry chill to it--neither of which were appropriate to October. "It's getting worse by the hour," he said out loud.
"Which is why I do hope you are right about your solution to the problem," Gaius said, pushing the fruit aside. "The well in the castle is now running some sort of blue jelly, and the three rats that tasted it all seized and died."
Arthur dropped onto a stool opposite Gaius and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. The dragon had promised the magic would protect him...but then again, look at the state of the dragon. Maybe Arthur wasn't going to rot away through his skin, but the Old Religion could eat away his mind, his memories, until no one was left to work out how to fix this and the stars really went out one by one.
Presuming, of course, he was going to let it.
"Gaius," he said, "I'm going to have to ask you to trust me on something really, really big. I know it's going to sound utterly mad, but I--I don't think I can do this alone."
"And here it comes," Gaius said, but it was indulgent, fatherly, not mocking or annoyed. "What have you gotten yourself into now, Arthur?"
"I didn't do anything," he said, but Gaius gave him the eyebrow, so he reached into his pocket for the ring. "Look, have you ever heard of something called a Hermes Ring?"
Gaius's eyes went wide. "So that is what's happened," he said slowly, and Arthur was relieved he wouldn't have to repeat everything the dragon had said. "Do you know who used it?"
"I don't think it matters," Arthur said, because as much as he still wanted to kill Rowena, that was going to have to come later. "She didn't know what she was doing and it's not going to help solve the problem."
"Do you know who's been affected?" Gaius asked. And then, in a low voice. "I must ask--was it Morgana?"
"No!" Arthur said. "God, no, anything wrong with her brain was there when it started. I think." He rubbed his eyes and considered whether it was worth it to tell all the gory details to Gaius--to convince him that two days ago Arthur had been the prince of the realm. Clearer than ever he could hear the voice of the other Arthur, the servant, the peasant, who had once been so desperate to rise above his birth; that voice warned him that Gaius would mock and jeer, or at least be suspicious, and too much was at stake for Arthur to risk that. "The point is, I've got one of the rings and I've got the spell that activated them, but I don't know how to, I don't know, switch them off."
"Well, to begin with, legend has it you need both rings to break the spell," Gaius said. "I presume you know who has the other one?"
"Yeah, I know where to find it." Second finger on Merlin's right hand, not that Arthur had been looking, except for the obvious tactical reasons of knowing where both rings were at a time. (And because Merlin's hands were kind of nice to look at.) "So if I've got both rings together, then the spell will work?"
Gaius went for his books. "The Hermes Rings are shrouded in legend, Arthur. I know of no one who knows exactly how they work." Arthur refrained from bringing up the dragon; he wasn't sure if Gaius knew about that and either way, he didn't want to implicate himself in anything worse than your run of the mill capital sorcery. "Even among sorcerers, the rings were considered too dangerous to use or speak of. The stories that remain to us today say that those who used them took great pains to conceal one or both of the rings afterwards, in order to prevent them behind being destroyed or used to undo the damage."
Arthur perked up on the word destroy. "So if I just chuck this one in a fire, will it all be over?" He was positive he could do fires.
Cue eyebrow. "Arthur, have you ever heard of the doom that fell upon the Picti? The one that destroyed the great Giant's Causeway between Albion and Hibernia?"
"Nyeo," Arthur said. (The history tutors had been the least successful of all.)
"It is widely believed that was caused by the improper disposal of a Hermes ring," Gaius said.
"So...no fire?"
"No fire."
Arthur spun the ring on the tabletop and then caught it. "Is there anything in the legends that's actually useful, then, or am I going to have to make this up as I go along? Because as little as I want to blow up the castle, I can't just let people all over Camelot die of thirst, either."
"Let us first see what the legends are before we jump to any hasty conclusions," Gaius said, and dropped a stack of books in front of Arthur.
Arthur suddenly remembered why Gaius had been his least favorite tutor.
X
It was fully dark by the time Arthur looked up from the books, and his eyes were threatening to cross from reading all the fine and spidery print. He'd re-learned everything the dragon had told him, plus about a million examples of ancient sorcerers causing different kinds of mayhem with the rings. Such as the doom of the Picti. Arthur was pretty sure he couldn't create a fireball quite that big.
Only when his own stomach started to growl did Arthur remember that he was supposed to be in Merlin's room for dinner. He shoved the books away and hurried off with a few word for Gaius, his mind already jumping ahead to the conversation he was about to have. Merlin had remembered something, Arthur was sure of it; maybe it wasn't necessarily anything helpful, but having the prince on his side certainly couldn't hurt his chances of getting things sorted out. Maybe he could make Merlin help with the heavy reading. At the very least, they could share a laugh, and maybe after that...
No, not getting ahead of himself. He needed to sort out the rings first, and the angry bit of displaced soul with them, or they wouldn't be able to so much as shake hands without Arthur's heart trying to burst into flames inside him. At least he could explain that bit now, if Merlin realized things had gone wrong; Arthur could explain and make certain Merlin hadn't jumped to any untoward conclusions about all the aborted touching and fleeing that had been going on. Because (he was starting to realize) if the magic meant they were protected from the spell, it was quite likely that one or both of them was going to remember everything later...and Arthur wasn't going to risk any misunderstandings.
(Not that he was quite certain anything here counted. Just because Prince Merlin seemed to fancy Arthur the Servant, it didn't mean Proper Merlin felt anything towards Arthur the Prince. Unless it did. The dragon said the spell couldn't change souls, after all, couldn't really make them other than who they were--Merlin still treated everyone as his equal whether he was supposed to or not, and he was still a sneaky little bastard even if it was with a sword instead of sorcery, and if he had really saved Arthur from the Questing Beast, had been ready to lay down his life like that...but it was all confused in his head, because Arthur seemed to be inappropriately besotted with Merlin in any life, and with everything so upside-down he couldn't trust his own feelings, never mind extrapolating them into an alternate universe.)
He was halfway to his destination when he remembered he was supposed to be serving dinner, and so he had to detour back down to the kitchens for a tray and a healthy dose of disturbing rumors. Plants flowering and bearing fruit out of season, trees growing backwards into the ground, animals running mad as Morgana, rains of frogs and fish and fresh fried eggs...even if Arthur dismissed half of them as hearsay by superstitious and ill-informed wait staff, that left plenty of dangerous signs that the natural order was spinning out of control. Arthur accepted a tray and hurried back up to Merlin's rooms, mind already planning out a dozen different routes the conversation could take.
He couldn't knock properly with his arms full, so he kicked the door twice to announce his presence and then went through backwards, trying to keep the tray balanced--all in all, it was more difficult than it looked. "All right, sire," he called as he maneuvered his way through, "here's your dinner, and now I think we need to have a talk..."
"Yes, we do," Merln said, in a strange strangled voice. Arthur found him standing by the fire, wearing the long red coat; his back was to the door, but not even the flickering shadows could hide the way Merlin swayed on his feet. "Set the tray down, please."
Arthur set it down on the table, asking as he did, "Are you feeling--"
And then Merlin was on him, swinging a naked blade that had been concealed by the coat. Arthur staggered out of the way of the first blow, but Merlin wasn't dancing now, he was pressing the attack, and the rings had robbed Arthur of all his coordination. His back hit the wall, and then the sword was at his throat, pinning him there. Merlin was wearing riding gloves that tucked into his sleeves, and he'd put on a high-collared tunic and knotted a handerkerchief under his chin in a bizarre parody of the scarves Arthur normally saw him in. His face was ghastly white now and sheened with sweat; his eyes were glassy, and spit dribbled from his mouth when he snarled, "Sorcerer."
This was not one of the scenarios Arthur had anticipated. "Merlin, could you put the sword down--"
Instead he pressed harder, enough that Arthur could feel the edge of the sword bite into his skin. "You lied to me," Merlin snarled. "All this time, you've been lying to me, in my own father's house...what else have you been lying about?"
"I've been trying to help you," Arthur protested, trying to stay as calm as he could. (And privately, just a bit, resenting that Merlin got to have hysterics over this, whereas he, Arthur, had had to content himself with smashing a few frogs and then get over it for the good of all Albion.)
Merlin just chuckled evilly. "Help, right," he said. "Like you helped Morgana?"
"I don't know what you're--"
"You were in her room the night she went mad," Merlin said. "You were sneaking about the castle doing god-knows-what the night the frogs fell. And you were oh so helpful about Rowena, searching her rooms for me, telling me just what I wanted to hear...and then you tried to put a spell on me..."
Arthur couldn't even swallow now for fear that the sword would shear off his Adam's apple. "I have never--" he tried to say.
"Liar!" Merlin shouted, trembling with more than just indignation. "I felt it, there, in your room...even this morning...you're trying to, to bewitch me, to seduce me, making me see things...want to make yourself the king..."
Arthur looked into Merlin's glazed eyes, the wide dark pupils, and realized that reason had gone utterly out the window here. "Merlin, you're not well," he said as calmly as he could with a sword to his throat. "You've got it all wrong. Please, let me go, and I'll get Gaius, okay?"
"Are you afraid?" Merlin asked, almost as if Arthur hadn't spoken.
"Just a bit, yeah," Arthur confessed.
Merlin leaned close enough that Arthur could feel the feverish heat pouring off of him, even though they weren't touching. "Then stop me," he hissed. "Use your sorcery and save yourself."
Arthur breathed deeply. "No."
"Do it."
"No," Arthur repeated. "I won't--I won't hurt you, Merlin." Not that he wasn't thinking about it--it would be so easy to call up enough magic to fling Merlin across the room, hold him down, keep him quiet. Easy to reach out and touch him, make that connection and let the magic try to fix whatever had gone so very wrong, because it all had to be connected, didn't it? Morgana was mad, Merlin was ill, apricots were ripe in October and Arthur was the one who had to fix it all.
And maybe, just maybe, something broke through Merlin's mad haze, because for a moment his eyes seemed to really focus properly, and his angry face seemed to slip a little. "You wouldn't let me kill you," he said.
"You would never try," Arthur said, and he realized believed it, in any world, at any time. "Merlin, please, put the sword down."
And Merlin staggered backwards a step, letting the sword fall away. Arthur automatically reached up and felt blood oozing from the cut on his throat, but it wasn't deep or serious, at least compared to whatever was addling Merlin's brains. Merlin stammered "You...you..." a few times without completing the sentence, and then the sword dropped from his gloved fingers. It hit the floor just a beat before Merlin's entire body.
"Shit!" Arthur blurted, and carefully rolled Merlin onto his back. His eyes had rolled up into the back of his head and he was shaking, twitching all over, and even though all his layers of clothing Arthur felt the magic burning in him, as hot as ever, almost too painful to bear. But it wasn't enough to stop the seizure, and so Arthur tore his hands away and staggered, gasping, out into the hall.
A servant--Gregory crossed Arthur's mind, but he really couldn't be sure--was walking the halls with an empty dinner tray. Arthur nearly staggered into him. "Get Gaius," he blurted. "Merlin's ill, he needs Gaius." Gregory stared at Arthur with big blank eyes. "Don't just stand there, you idiot, get help!" Arthur snarled, and went back into the room, leaving the door hanging heedlessly open.
The seizure seemed to be over, but Merlin lay deathly still now, barely breathing. Arthur seized him again, and tried the same trick that had worked in his room earlier, of pushing all that burning magic out and through, back where it belonged, but it wouldn't work when his hands were just clutching Merlin though his clothes; he fumbled briefly to get the gloves off, then gave up and pressed his hands to Merlin's clammy face.
He imagined that this was what water felt like when a dry sponge was dipped in it; the fire was practically sucked out of him, draining away into Merlin's still body. It didn't hurt at all--just the opposite, it felt good, it was a relief to get rid of the heat and pressure that was smothering him from inside. Merlin took a deep breath, and another, and the last thing Arthur remembered seeing was his eyes flicker open briefly, twin pools of golden light.
Part One
Part Three
Author: mad_maudlin
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur, and also Merlin/Arthur
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: All episodes
Warnings: Crack, shovels, massive rupture of the fourth wall.
Summary: Arthur wanted to know what was going on in Merlin's head. He just didn't mean it so literally.
He somehow ended up back in bed, but he barely slept; come morning, the environs around the castle were littered with frogs both living and dead, and when Gaius nagged Arthur out of bed he stood on the steps leading up to the room and asked, "Hypothetically, if I've run utterly mad, would I be able to tell?"
Gaius, who was examining frog shrapnel altogether too close to his breakfast plate, just looked up and did the eyebrow thing. "I did attempt to diagnose you yesterday, Arthur, and you insisted at great volume that you were fine."
"Yes, well, I might have changed my mind." He took his own plate of eggs and bread and tried to concentrate on the food so his brain would stop running in tiny little circles.
Fact: he and Merlin had switched lives.
Fact: Merlin was a warlock and had been hiding this from him for about a million years. All right, since he came to Camelot. Close enough.
Fact: The natural order of the universe was coming apart at the seams, what with Morgana going mad and the rain of frogs.
Fact: Merlin had been lying to him this entire time.
Fact: Arthur was now solely responsible for saving all Albion from destruction.
Fact: It wasn't like Arthur was an idiot, either--Merlin was actively hiding things from him.
Fact: Arthur had no idea what to do next.
Fact: Why didn't Merlin trust him? Did he think Arthur wasn't going to understand? Did he think Arthur wasn't going to be grateful for all the life-saving? Especially after the fiasco with the druid brat--no, no, not thinking about that sort of thing, because the echoes of someone else's memories just make his head hurt even worse.
Fact: He and Merlin had switched lives...
"If you're done massacring your breakfast," Gaius said, "everyone with a spare hand has been requested to help with the, ah, sanitation."
Arthur realized he'd torn apart his bread into tiny pieces. "I'm not hungry," he declared, and stomped out into the courtyard.
At least chasing frogs around with a shovel gave ample opportunity to exorcise his immediate feelings of anger and betrayal--not as well as a good round or five with the knights, but since he couldn't be trusted to hold a sword by the right end at the moment it would have to do. By the time he'd filled his sack with little corpses, it was mid-morning, and one of the kitchen staff who was manning the piles of burning frogs told Arthur, "Prince Merlin is looking for you."
Oh, yes, Merlin. Who was living it up in Arthur's life, who'd lied to him about being a sorcerer, whom Arthur had snogged and then run out on and now he probably thought Arthur was a freak and there's this random bit about soulsand...god, could this possibly get any worse? "Wonderful," Arthur told the cook, and dumped his frog sack on the flames. "If I don't come back, please tell my mother I love her."
Arthur was halfway up a staircase inside before he realized what he'd said, and it stopped him in mid-step. It's a figure of speech, he told himself. I know who my mother was, and she's dead. She didn't live in Ealdor and write letters to Gaius. That was Merlin's life, which hopefully he'd be resuming shortly. Arthur totally knew the difference.
He found Merlin stomping about the prince's room, muttering to himself under his breath and picking up various articles of clothing only to drop them again immediately. He had on the red coat again, and one part of Arthur's brain couldn't help but notice the color suited him while various other parts were occupied with being annoyed, betrayed, exhausted, hungry, and apprehensive. It didn't leave much room for deference in the mix. "You wanted me?" he asked, and then tried not to flinch because oh god that was an unfortunate choice of words.
Merlin glanced up, and his expression sort of flattened out--he looked less angry, but no more happy. Just...less everything. "I hadn't seen you yet today," he said. "I thought I should give you some instructions before I go to the lower town."
"What's in the lower town?" Arthur asked.
"My father," Merlin said, and wow, Arthur hadn't know it was possible to back that much resentment into one word, "has ordered me to locate the sorcerer responsible for last night's, er, disturbance. And he seems to think the lower town is the most appropriate place to start."
"As opposed to...?"
"Lady Rowena's rooms," Merlin said, and there was the seething anger again. "I told him that she was the only newcomer to the castle, and since the frogs didn't fall more than three feet from the curtain wall it was the castle that was the target, it makes sense to start with her--what?"
Because Arthur had been unable to resist the urge to slap his open palm against his face. "Of course she's the first suspect, but she's a guest," he reminded Merlin. "You don't just say that about a guest. What if you were wrong?"
"I'm not wrong, though!" Merlin said. "We've both had a bad feeling about her since she got here, and it makes sense."
Completely inappropriate affection bubbled up from somewhere in Arthur's chest; prince or pauper, Merlin couldn't just leave anything be. "So when the search in the town turns up nothing, she's the first target within the castle. After, you know, the royal household, so it doesn't look like you're singling anybody out," he suggested.
Merlin looked at him oddly. "Since when did you know so much about etiquette?"
Shit. "I don't," Arthur said, trying to keep a straight face. "I'm completely talking out of my arse. In fact, I may even be insane, you can ask Gaius."
That got him a snort of laughter, and even a bit of a smile. "God, you're weird," Merlin said in a warm tone of voice that should not have made Arthur's heart flutter anything like it did. But a moment later the smile was gone, and Merlin was rubbing one of his temples with a pinched expression. "Ugh, d'you think Gaius has anything for a headache?"
"He has about six things for headaches, and they all smell horrible," Arthur said. "You all right?"
Merlin shrugged. "Seeing as I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by a rain of frogs..."
"Hey, at least you didn't have to shovel them up this morning," Arthur pointed out, but he couldn't muster much indignation; a sudden fear had sparked in him, after seeing the dragon's rotten wings and Morgana screaming and all those frogs...and Merlin had stopped his indignant pacing just within arm's reach. Hardly even thinking, Arthur reached out and touched Merlin's shoulder, a little too close to the neck to be entirely innocent.
Two things happened at once. First, Merlin's face went instantly slack, as if all the tension in his head and shoulders had evaporated at once. Second, Arthur felt something flare inside him--not the firestorm of the night before (god, was it only the night before?) but similar, like a flame had kindled somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. Maybe the first time round he'd been too distracted to notice (what with the snogging and all) but now he recognized the feeling for what it was, and pulled his hand away immediately. The prickling heat faded, slowly, and almost reluctantly, which was good; Merlin gave Arthur a piercing look, which was very, very bad.
"Gwen," Arthur blurted, before Merlin could say anything; that just made Merlin's face close up with something like hurt. "I mean, me and Gwen. I mean Gwen and I can search Rowena's rooms while you're in the town."
"Right," Merlin said slowly. "Because she won't be suspicious of strange servants coming in and out of her rooms."
"We'll say we're checking for frogs," Arthur said. "I'll carry a shovel. It'll look very official."
Merlin nodded, seemingly reluctant. "All right. And if you find anything..."
"I'll come find you straight away," Arthur promised. He knew all too well what the word of a servant would mean against Lady Rowena, and somehow he felt that trying to explain how he wasn't actually a servant would probably do harm than good to his credibility.
"Right." Merlin rubbed his temple again. "I'm going to the lower town. Be careful, and don't get caught, and when you're done snooping, could you figure out what happened to all my shirts? It looks like they got dropped in a fire or something."
"Of course," Arthur promised, and luckily Merlin was already sweeping his way out and didn't see him flinch.
X
Arthur figured Gwen would be in Morgana's room--did she ever leave these days, even in the real world?--and he was right; when he knocked, she called, "Just a minute!" and he took it as permission to come in.
The broken window had been covered with a piece of oilcloth until a glazier could repair it; there was no sign of any more frogs or fragments thereof, and Morgana was sitting in a chair, staring with her eyes dilated larger than Arthur thought possible. "Good morning, uh, Lady Morgana," he said, and hoped that once this was sorted out she never remembered him saying the words.
"Hello, Arthur," she said in a singsong voice. "Aren't they beautiful flowers?"
He looked around the room, but he didn't see any flowers; there was an empty vase on a table, and a that was about it. "Aren't, uh, are what--"
Gwen came out of another corner and put her finger to her lips. "They're lovely flowers, Morgana," she said loudly.
"I like pink," Morgana sighed, and grinned widely.
Gwen waved Arthur into the hallway, where he immediately asked, "What on Earth--"
"I know," she sighed. "Gaius couldn't get her to calm down any other way. She just kept talking about death and fire and..." Gwen shuddered; she looked like she'd slept even less than Arthur had. "Did you need something?"
"Er, yeah," he said. "Merlin and I have this theory about who caused the frogs--maybe Morgana's nightmares, too," he added, on the logic that it all had to be interconnected somehow. (Having more than one secret sorcerer around the castle would just be weird.)
"Is it somebody named Hermes?" Gwen asked suddenly.
Arthur blinked at her. "How did you know--?"
"Morgana...some of the things she was saying." She shrugged. "Something about breaking Hermes forever, she said that a few times. Then again, she was also saying something about slashed dragons, and after Gaius gave her the medicine she started muttering 'the circle must be broken' for a while so I wasn't sure what to make of anything..."
"Well, it's actually Lady Rowena," Arthur said, determined to stay on the topic. "Who started the problem, I mean. So somebody needs to go through her rooms and look for, you know...magicky...stuff."
Gwen looked at the door, and for a moment Arthur thought she was going to refuse, but then she squared her shoulders. "Just let me get Morgana put to bed," she said. "It won't take long, will it?"
"In and out like that," Arthur promised. "Just let me get a shovel."
X
In the end it was anticlimactic; Gwen found an excuse to deliver some flowers to Rowena's room and pretended to see a frog, which was Arthur's cue to step in, wielding his shovel (he deliberately chose one encrusted with frog guts for effect) and promising to rid the room of the nasty beast. Rowena didn't seem to know which was more horrifying, Arthur or the alleged frog, and cleared out of her own free will. "All right, that'll keep her out for a while," he declared, and tossed the shovel in the corner. "Start looking."
He dug into one of her trunks first--Rowena had come with an alarming number of trunks--and started pulling out handfuls of silky and satiny lady-things. He stopped when Gwen screeched "Arthur!" in a scandalized tone.
"What?" he asked. "Did you not get the part where we're searching for things?"
"That's her clothes!" Gwen said. "She could have underwear in there! Private things!"
"Private magical things," Arthur pointed out.
Gwen seized a flimsy shift from Arthur's hands. "I'll look through her clothes," she said. "You look at...not her clothes. Deal?"
"Fine," he said. "Deal."
He wasn't entirely certain what he was looking for, exactly, which made things harder; the dragon said Rowena had a spell to go with the rings, but Arthur didn't know if it would be on parchment or in a book or engraved on a stone tablet or what. Really, considering how often various warlocks, sorcerers and practitioners of the black arts threatened Camelot, one would think somebody had done some kind of research...but as it was, Arthur was just hoping he'd know the thing on sight, or even that it might have a helpful label. (Wicked Plot, maybe, or Book of Villainous Sorcery.) He went through an enormous jewelry box and an equally huge box of make-up, a case that turned out to contain a hideously out-of-tune lute, an entire truck of different sorts of pointy hats, a book...
He paused on the book. Scraps of paper and parchment were sticking out between the pages. "Hang on," he told Gwen, who was efficiently rifling through trunk number two. He started to flip through the pages.
Gwen huffed at him. "You think it's a spellbook or something?"
"Does Rowena seem like a reading sort of person to you?" he asked. It was a book of prayers, it looked like, invocations to the old gods, but the scraps between the pages were poems and verses of songs and one that said buy more salt, and then he came to one piece of parchment--badly cut and badly scraped--that made his hands itch with magic. He could barely read the sloppy lettering on it, but he knew in his gut--or that place behind his heart--that this was it. "Got it."
Gwen tried to take it from him to look. "Are you sure?"
"Call it a hunch." He stuffed the parchment into his pocket and tossed the book onto the jumble of hats. "Thanks for your help, Gwen."
"Hold on," she said. "We can't just leave her things like this, she'll know we searched."
Arthur shrugged, and shouldered his shovel. "We'll say it was a very energetic frog."
She sighed and shook her head and declared, "You are hopeless," in an affectionate tone of voice, but she also made only a token effort to sort out the rainbow of gowns trailing from a trunk before following him out of the room.
X
Arthur was a man of his word, but he had also studied rhetoric (about as successfully as he'd studied logic) so he knew full well that his word actually only meant whatever he wanted it to mean. He went straight from Rowena's room to the bedroom in Gaius' laboratory, locked himself in, and went to work on the spell. It wasn't any language he recognized, and he wasn't sure about what some of the letters were, but he could feel that it was powerful, that it had to be the right thing. He made certain he had the Hermes ring in his hand--he'd seen that Merlin was wearing the other--and solemnly intoned the words on the parchement.
Nothing happened.
He tried saying it louder. He tried pronouncing things differently, or substituting some of the letters that weren't exactly clear, or moving the accents around. He tried saying it in different tones of voice. He tried gestures. When that nearly resulted in the ring getting flung out the window, he gave up and flopped down on the bed and swore at the dragon a lot. How hard would it be to toss in a step-by-step solution in the middle of the history lesson? If the same spell didn't work to undo the damage, how was Arthur supposed to fix it?
He remembered the dragon had said he'd need Merlin's help. Not that Merlin should know anything about magic, since he was theoretically living Arthur's very non-magical life, with all his distinctly unsupernatural memories. Though of course with variations, like how he seemed to really actively hate Uther, whereas Arthur just sometimes occasionally wished he had a father who could not be described as intermittently evil. (Part of him wondered if this was another limit of the magic--even if it made Uther and Merlin think they were father and son, maybe there was still something missing, some bond that meant Arthur could disappoint in a million ways and Uther could murder a thousand blacksmiths and they were still, helplessly, hopelessly, family, and all each other had.)
But the magic seemed to recognize its proper owner--that was the only explanation Arthur could think of for why it went nuts whenever they were close together. He wondered if Merlin would remember everything, if he got his magic back (and if Arthur would thus forget). Maybe Merlin knew something Arthur didn't that would make the spell work, even though Arthur was supposed to have a version of all Merlin's memories and so he ought to know everything Merlin would properly know about magic, and the dragon could just go fuck itself. Unless of course, one of those little differences actually meant something. If, in the real world, Merlin had heard something or done something or read something in the book that Arthur, in his altered past, couldn't recall...
Wait a minute, what book? He sat up and looked around the little bedroom. Of course that book; he knew exactly which book, it had just...snuck up on him. Which didn't mean anything. The dragon said Merlin's magic would protect him from losing his real memories, so unless he somehow lost the magic...which he wasn't going to do, right? The Old Religion was holding it all together.
And as the rain of frogs attested, doing a wonderful job.
Arthur dug the book out of its hiding place, feeling the same magical itch in his palms that he got from Rowena's spell, times about a thousand. His head crowded with mixed-up memories as he flipped through a few random pages, taking in the exquisite lettering, detailed illustrations, and careful instructions for how to turn somebody into a newt (which Arthur noted were marked with a piece of string for easy reference). There wasn't any index, so he had to sort of flip through and hope that the Hermes Rings were mentioned somewhere; if they weren't, he'd go back down into the dungeon and make the bloody dragon tell him what to do. Somehow. Probably he should bring the shovel.
He was nearly at the end of the book when he heard Gaius stomping about in the outer room. "Arthur!" he called. "Arthur, come here, I need your help!"
He left the book on the bed, open to his stopping point, and found Gaius ladling a vivid purple liquid out of a bucket and into a series of vials. "What's that?" Arthur asked, flinching when the sickly-sweet smell of the stuff hit him.
"Prince Merlin and his men drew it out of the wells in the lower town," Gaius said. "Help me fill these vials so we can tell if it's safe to drink."
Arthur held up a vial to the light; the contents were nearly opaque. "You mean this is water?"
"Apparently."
"It's purple."
Gaius sighed. "Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me, Arthur."
He took the ladle from Gaius and started filling the vials. "It smells like...grapes," he observed. "Or maybe what you'd think grapes would smell like if you'd never actually smelled grapes before. Like more than grapes."
"It's apparently coming out of the pumps for the castle as well, only pink," Gaius said, and dropped a burning brand into one of the vials; whatever was in the liquid, it was definitely not water, because it burned with a bluish, rippling flame. "Troubling."
"Just a little." And another reason Arthur needed to solve the problem as quickly as he could, because a rain of frogs was an inconvenience, but Camelot couldn't survive without water. They'd been through this one before.
"We need to explore its actions upon various organic systems," Gaius declared. "Are there any of those frogs left from this morning, do you think?
Before Arthur could answer (emphatically in the negative) there was a knock on the door. Merlin came it without waiting for an answer, and at first Arthur thought he understood why--he looked distinctly ill, with a graying complexion and circles under his eyes. But Merlin was followed in by several men at arms, and his first words were, "I'm sorry, Gaius, but the king has asked us to step up the searches in light of the attack on the water supply."
"I must protest," Gaius said, but he made no effort to stop the king's men from rifling through his books and papers. "Do you really think I wouldn't notice a sorcerer hiding under my own nose?"
"It's just a formality," Merlin said dully, and made his way up the steps to Arthur's room.
Gaius gave Arthur the eyebrow, and it took him approximately two and a half seconds to realize what that meant and another second to realize what it meant meant. He shoved past a guard and leapt into the room, to find Merlin going through his cupboard. The book was still open on the bed, face-up and incriminating. "You, ah, you think you're going to find something in there?" Arthur asked, trying to edge his way to the bed without looking like he was edging his way anywhere.
"I just said it's a formality," Merlin said with a bit more snap; his eyes, at close range, were bloodshot. "Unless you nicked one of the frogs this morning for a pet..."
"Well, you know, they're just so cute and cuddly before they splatter." Arthur tried frantically to think if there was anything incriminating in the cupboard--had he ever been in Merlin's cupboard before? He hadn't noticed anything particularly sorcerous when he got dressed that morning, and of course now that he actually needed to remember something of this altered life, the false memories weren't coming to him.
"Did you find anything in Rowena's room?" Merlin asked in a non-too-hushed voice, apparently heedless of the men turning over Gaius's room beyond.
"Yeah, actually," Arthur said. "I was just, uh, waiting for you to get back."
Merlin looked at him. "Well? What was it?"
"It's a--I think it's a magic spell," Arthur said, and then cursed himself, because he'd tucked the parchment between the pages of the book.
"And where is it?" Merlin asked, but it was all right, Arthur could be completely calm about this. He picked up the book, slapping it shut as he did so, and pulled Rowena's parchment out. He tucked the book under his arm as he turned, and handed the parchment to Merlin, and for a moment he thought he was completely in the clear.
But Merlin took only a cursory glance at the parchment, and then his eyes focused on the book. Dammit. "What's that?"
"This?" Arthur took the book and flashed it briefly at Merlin--luckily there were no markings on the cover to give it away. "Just something I borrowed from Gaius. I was, er, trying to look up the words--"
"Let me see it," Merlin said suddenly, and reached for the book.
Arthur, on pure stupid reflex, pulled it back--and knew instantly that he was caught. "I told you, it's one of Gaius's," he said anyway. "It's not magical."
Merlin looked him in the eye. "Come on, Arthur, just let me have a look."
"You don't have to," Arthur said, trying for noble and commanding and ended up with weasley and whiny.
Merlin's mouth bent into a frown, and as he snapped "What's so important that I can't--" he reached for the book, faster than he ought to be, too fast for Arthur to get entirely out of the way.
Their fingers overlapped on the book's cover and it was like a little explosion in Arthur's chest. He couldn't breathe for a moment--he had to hunch his shoulders again the heat and pressure inside, and he wondered what Merlin would do if Arthur's heart just burst out of him, then and there. But Merlin--this time, Merlin noticed, he must have noticed, because he gasped a little bit and his too-pale cheeks became suddenly, vividly flushed. Like he felt something, too. Perhaps like he knew.
There were men-at-arms mere feet away, too close and too many, so all Arthur could do was stare into Merlin's face and will him to remember, understand, whatever. Merlin stared back, blank and uncomprehending, but unlike Arthur he didn't seem to be in pain--in fact, every heartbeat brought more even color back to his face, and even the broken veins in his eyes seemed to be thinning and fading away. An idea half-formed in Arthur's head, or perhaps more like an urge, and he--well, there wasn't really a good word for it. He pushed some of that painful fire out, not into the candles or the book or the all-too-flammable furniture, but into Merlin, or through him, or something like that.
The pain eased for a moment, and for a moment Arthur saw little tongues of fire bloom in Merlin's eyes, gold swirling over and subsuming the blue. He wondered if his own eyes looked the same.
Then Merlin jerked away, stepping back and panting like he'd just fought off an army. The golden light in his eyes went away, and Arthur was left with nothing but the heartburn ache in his chest. "All right," Merlin said; his first try was shaky, but then he manage a firmer tone. "All right. We're done here. I expect you to attend me in my quarters tonight."
"Yes, sire," Arthur said, and he even managed to stay on his feet until Merlin and the soldiers had gone, just barely. Then he collapsed onto the bed, still hugging the book to his chest, and concentrated on being able to breathe.
It was no surprise that Gaius came looking for him almost immediately. "Arthur? What's the matter?"
"Just," Arthur said, but talking hurt, like the inside of his throat was scorched. He swallowed. "Nothing. I'm all right."
"You most certainly are not." Gaius pried the book out of Arthur's hands and pressed a palm to his forehead. "Dear god, boy, you're burning up. When did your symptoms start?"
Arthur shrugged as best he could. "Yesterday morning. You know, when I woke up mad." Gaius gave him the eyebrow again. "Look, I'll be fine. Everything's under control."
"Did Prince Merlin see the book?" Gaius asked.
"Nyeo," Arthur said. "It's complicated. But I know what kind of spell's on the castle and how to reverse it, I just...need to figure a few things out first."
"Such as?" Gaius asked.
Such as whether Merlin remembers enough of anything to help me, Arthur thought. "I'll explain later," he muttered, hoping he'd have to do no such thing.
Gaius scowled, but patted his arm in a fatherly sort of way, albeit a way Arthur's actual father had never done. "All right, Arthur, I will trust you on this. But in the meantime you will get some rest--at least until that fever goes down. I'd offer you water, but..."
"Rather not take my chances," Arthur agreed. He toed off his boots and stretched out on the bed; Gaius pulled up the blanket for him but refrained from actually tucking him in. He only meant to lie down until the ache in his chest eased, but given the kind of night he'd had, he shouldn't have been surprised that he fell asleep...
X
He packed a bag, not that he really expected to need anything ever again--more a formality, a habit. He still had a chance to make things right, to make sure Camelot still had its prince and its physician and one desperately devoted farmwife. There was still a way to save everyone.
Well, everyone but himself.
He said his farewells to his mother, even though she was too delirious with fever to respond; he kissed her forehead, but she only blinked the eye that wasn't swollen shut and murmured "Jack?" And it was too late, much too late for Arthur to find out what that meant; he had to put it aside, along with all the ridiculous hopes he'd had for his future. Warlock or not, he was nothing but a farm boy, never to be more than that; he'd finally learned his place, and it was to die for country and future king. He wondered if Merlin would be amused by the news.
Merlin. Right.
One last goodbye to make.
Arthur knew Merlin would be in his room, still weak even though the Questing Beast's bite was basically healed. He pushed his way in, but couldn't bring himself to come past the door. Merlin was sitting by the fire, holding a goblet in his bad hand so he could toy with the edge of the sling with the other; he looked up at the sound of the door, though. "Arthur," he said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him.
Arthur nodded, suddenly and inexplicably nervous. "How are you?" he asked, for want of anything more constructive to say.
"Good," Merlin shrugged with his good shoulder and set the wine goblet aside. "Well, better than I was."
Arthur forced a smile. "I'm pleased."
"Yes, well, Gaius is a talented physician," Merlin said vaguely.
That stung, a bit--Arthur wondered if it would ever stop stinging, even when he was about to make the greatest unacknowledged sacrifice possible. "I need to talk to you," he forced himself to say, and to look up from his boots to Merlin's profile in the firelight.
Merlin, as usual, looked vaguely amused by Arthur's forwardness. "Really? And what's pressing on you so urgently?"
Arthur thought of everything he could possibly say, everything he'd ever wanted to say about Merlin and their unexpected friendship and everything else it could have been, all the hopes he was putting aside. What came out was, "Don't be such a coward."
Whatever Merlin had expected, it wasn't that; his eyebrows rose halfway to his hairline. "Excuse me?"
"All right, not a coward," Arthur said. "But...you're going to be a great king someday, and everybody seems to believe that but your father and you. Just...have a little faith in yourself," And since he was saying his last words anyway, "And don't whinge so much, for god's sake."
Merlin stared at him for a moment, then snorted a little laugh, followed almost immediately by a flinch and a rub at his wounded shoulder. "God, Arthur, just when I think I know you..."
"Oh, don't tell me you don't like it," Arthur said. "It keeps you on your toes. In fact, if you get another servant--" he swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. "When you get another servant, don't let him be a bootlicker."
"Is this your way of trying to quit your job?" Merlin asked, sounding honestly confused now.
Arthur swallowed again, drinking in a last look at how the firelight played over Merlin's face, the high angle of his cheeks, the red and yellow gloss on his dark hair. "No," he said, struggling around a surge of emotion so big he was surprised he didn't burn himself up with the force of it. "No, I'm happy to be your servant until the day I die."
"Then why does it sound like you're saying goodbye?" Merlin asked quietly.
"Nothing," Arthur said, "it's just...nothing..." because if he didn't get out of here now, he never would. "I just wanted to tell you..."
"To stop whinging?" Merlin asked.
"Yeah," Arthur said firmly.
Merlin looked at him piercingly, like he was waiting for something. "Anything else?"
I've killed people for you. I'll die for you. You're the best friend I've ever had. I might even be a little in love with you. "No," Arthur forced himself to say. "That's all." And he slipped out the door before he could say anything else. He'd never be more than a servant to Merlin; there was no point in pining for something he could never have.
X
Arthur woke up disoriented, his window filled with a gloaming light that made it impossible to judge the time of day. His head hurt, and so did his chest, but for a moment he was caught up in the all-too-vivid vestiges of the dream. Why was he thinking about that, anyway? Nimueh was dead, everyone had recovered...there was something about Merlin, maybe, something important, but it sat on the tip of Arthur's sleep-addled tongue and he couldn't place what it was.
He slouched out of his room to find Gaius carefully examining a ripe apricot by the light of a candle. "What time's it?" he asked, barely suppressing a yawn.
"Barely six o'clock," Gaius said gravely. "And certainly not the season for apricots."
And just like that, Arthur remembered everything, with the clarity of a knife's edge. He stared at the apricot in Gaius's hand; next to it, just as perfectly ripe, were a date-plum, an apple and a bowl of cherries. The sky outside was lazy-summer hazy, but air in the room had a wintry chill to it--neither of which were appropriate to October. "It's getting worse by the hour," he said out loud.
"Which is why I do hope you are right about your solution to the problem," Gaius said, pushing the fruit aside. "The well in the castle is now running some sort of blue jelly, and the three rats that tasted it all seized and died."
Arthur dropped onto a stool opposite Gaius and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. The dragon had promised the magic would protect him...but then again, look at the state of the dragon. Maybe Arthur wasn't going to rot away through his skin, but the Old Religion could eat away his mind, his memories, until no one was left to work out how to fix this and the stars really went out one by one.
Presuming, of course, he was going to let it.
"Gaius," he said, "I'm going to have to ask you to trust me on something really, really big. I know it's going to sound utterly mad, but I--I don't think I can do this alone."
"And here it comes," Gaius said, but it was indulgent, fatherly, not mocking or annoyed. "What have you gotten yourself into now, Arthur?"
"I didn't do anything," he said, but Gaius gave him the eyebrow, so he reached into his pocket for the ring. "Look, have you ever heard of something called a Hermes Ring?"
Gaius's eyes went wide. "So that is what's happened," he said slowly, and Arthur was relieved he wouldn't have to repeat everything the dragon had said. "Do you know who used it?"
"I don't think it matters," Arthur said, because as much as he still wanted to kill Rowena, that was going to have to come later. "She didn't know what she was doing and it's not going to help solve the problem."
"Do you know who's been affected?" Gaius asked. And then, in a low voice. "I must ask--was it Morgana?"
"No!" Arthur said. "God, no, anything wrong with her brain was there when it started. I think." He rubbed his eyes and considered whether it was worth it to tell all the gory details to Gaius--to convince him that two days ago Arthur had been the prince of the realm. Clearer than ever he could hear the voice of the other Arthur, the servant, the peasant, who had once been so desperate to rise above his birth; that voice warned him that Gaius would mock and jeer, or at least be suspicious, and too much was at stake for Arthur to risk that. "The point is, I've got one of the rings and I've got the spell that activated them, but I don't know how to, I don't know, switch them off."
"Well, to begin with, legend has it you need both rings to break the spell," Gaius said. "I presume you know who has the other one?"
"Yeah, I know where to find it." Second finger on Merlin's right hand, not that Arthur had been looking, except for the obvious tactical reasons of knowing where both rings were at a time. (And because Merlin's hands were kind of nice to look at.) "So if I've got both rings together, then the spell will work?"
Gaius went for his books. "The Hermes Rings are shrouded in legend, Arthur. I know of no one who knows exactly how they work." Arthur refrained from bringing up the dragon; he wasn't sure if Gaius knew about that and either way, he didn't want to implicate himself in anything worse than your run of the mill capital sorcery. "Even among sorcerers, the rings were considered too dangerous to use or speak of. The stories that remain to us today say that those who used them took great pains to conceal one or both of the rings afterwards, in order to prevent them behind being destroyed or used to undo the damage."
Arthur perked up on the word destroy. "So if I just chuck this one in a fire, will it all be over?" He was positive he could do fires.
Cue eyebrow. "Arthur, have you ever heard of the doom that fell upon the Picti? The one that destroyed the great Giant's Causeway between Albion and Hibernia?"
"Nyeo," Arthur said. (The history tutors had been the least successful of all.)
"It is widely believed that was caused by the improper disposal of a Hermes ring," Gaius said.
"So...no fire?"
"No fire."
Arthur spun the ring on the tabletop and then caught it. "Is there anything in the legends that's actually useful, then, or am I going to have to make this up as I go along? Because as little as I want to blow up the castle, I can't just let people all over Camelot die of thirst, either."
"Let us first see what the legends are before we jump to any hasty conclusions," Gaius said, and dropped a stack of books in front of Arthur.
Arthur suddenly remembered why Gaius had been his least favorite tutor.
X
It was fully dark by the time Arthur looked up from the books, and his eyes were threatening to cross from reading all the fine and spidery print. He'd re-learned everything the dragon had told him, plus about a million examples of ancient sorcerers causing different kinds of mayhem with the rings. Such as the doom of the Picti. Arthur was pretty sure he couldn't create a fireball quite that big.
Only when his own stomach started to growl did Arthur remember that he was supposed to be in Merlin's room for dinner. He shoved the books away and hurried off with a few word for Gaius, his mind already jumping ahead to the conversation he was about to have. Merlin had remembered something, Arthur was sure of it; maybe it wasn't necessarily anything helpful, but having the prince on his side certainly couldn't hurt his chances of getting things sorted out. Maybe he could make Merlin help with the heavy reading. At the very least, they could share a laugh, and maybe after that...
No, not getting ahead of himself. He needed to sort out the rings first, and the angry bit of displaced soul with them, or they wouldn't be able to so much as shake hands without Arthur's heart trying to burst into flames inside him. At least he could explain that bit now, if Merlin realized things had gone wrong; Arthur could explain and make certain Merlin hadn't jumped to any untoward conclusions about all the aborted touching and fleeing that had been going on. Because (he was starting to realize) if the magic meant they were protected from the spell, it was quite likely that one or both of them was going to remember everything later...and Arthur wasn't going to risk any misunderstandings.
(Not that he was quite certain anything here counted. Just because Prince Merlin seemed to fancy Arthur the Servant, it didn't mean Proper Merlin felt anything towards Arthur the Prince. Unless it did. The dragon said the spell couldn't change souls, after all, couldn't really make them other than who they were--Merlin still treated everyone as his equal whether he was supposed to or not, and he was still a sneaky little bastard even if it was with a sword instead of sorcery, and if he had really saved Arthur from the Questing Beast, had been ready to lay down his life like that...but it was all confused in his head, because Arthur seemed to be inappropriately besotted with Merlin in any life, and with everything so upside-down he couldn't trust his own feelings, never mind extrapolating them into an alternate universe.)
He was halfway to his destination when he remembered he was supposed to be serving dinner, and so he had to detour back down to the kitchens for a tray and a healthy dose of disturbing rumors. Plants flowering and bearing fruit out of season, trees growing backwards into the ground, animals running mad as Morgana, rains of frogs and fish and fresh fried eggs...even if Arthur dismissed half of them as hearsay by superstitious and ill-informed wait staff, that left plenty of dangerous signs that the natural order was spinning out of control. Arthur accepted a tray and hurried back up to Merlin's rooms, mind already planning out a dozen different routes the conversation could take.
He couldn't knock properly with his arms full, so he kicked the door twice to announce his presence and then went through backwards, trying to keep the tray balanced--all in all, it was more difficult than it looked. "All right, sire," he called as he maneuvered his way through, "here's your dinner, and now I think we need to have a talk..."
"Yes, we do," Merln said, in a strange strangled voice. Arthur found him standing by the fire, wearing the long red coat; his back was to the door, but not even the flickering shadows could hide the way Merlin swayed on his feet. "Set the tray down, please."
Arthur set it down on the table, asking as he did, "Are you feeling--"
And then Merlin was on him, swinging a naked blade that had been concealed by the coat. Arthur staggered out of the way of the first blow, but Merlin wasn't dancing now, he was pressing the attack, and the rings had robbed Arthur of all his coordination. His back hit the wall, and then the sword was at his throat, pinning him there. Merlin was wearing riding gloves that tucked into his sleeves, and he'd put on a high-collared tunic and knotted a handerkerchief under his chin in a bizarre parody of the scarves Arthur normally saw him in. His face was ghastly white now and sheened with sweat; his eyes were glassy, and spit dribbled from his mouth when he snarled, "Sorcerer."
This was not one of the scenarios Arthur had anticipated. "Merlin, could you put the sword down--"
Instead he pressed harder, enough that Arthur could feel the edge of the sword bite into his skin. "You lied to me," Merlin snarled. "All this time, you've been lying to me, in my own father's house...what else have you been lying about?"
"I've been trying to help you," Arthur protested, trying to stay as calm as he could. (And privately, just a bit, resenting that Merlin got to have hysterics over this, whereas he, Arthur, had had to content himself with smashing a few frogs and then get over it for the good of all Albion.)
Merlin just chuckled evilly. "Help, right," he said. "Like you helped Morgana?"
"I don't know what you're--"
"You were in her room the night she went mad," Merlin said. "You were sneaking about the castle doing god-knows-what the night the frogs fell. And you were oh so helpful about Rowena, searching her rooms for me, telling me just what I wanted to hear...and then you tried to put a spell on me..."
Arthur couldn't even swallow now for fear that the sword would shear off his Adam's apple. "I have never--" he tried to say.
"Liar!" Merlin shouted, trembling with more than just indignation. "I felt it, there, in your room...even this morning...you're trying to, to bewitch me, to seduce me, making me see things...want to make yourself the king..."
Arthur looked into Merlin's glazed eyes, the wide dark pupils, and realized that reason had gone utterly out the window here. "Merlin, you're not well," he said as calmly as he could with a sword to his throat. "You've got it all wrong. Please, let me go, and I'll get Gaius, okay?"
"Are you afraid?" Merlin asked, almost as if Arthur hadn't spoken.
"Just a bit, yeah," Arthur confessed.
Merlin leaned close enough that Arthur could feel the feverish heat pouring off of him, even though they weren't touching. "Then stop me," he hissed. "Use your sorcery and save yourself."
Arthur breathed deeply. "No."
"Do it."
"No," Arthur repeated. "I won't--I won't hurt you, Merlin." Not that he wasn't thinking about it--it would be so easy to call up enough magic to fling Merlin across the room, hold him down, keep him quiet. Easy to reach out and touch him, make that connection and let the magic try to fix whatever had gone so very wrong, because it all had to be connected, didn't it? Morgana was mad, Merlin was ill, apricots were ripe in October and Arthur was the one who had to fix it all.
And maybe, just maybe, something broke through Merlin's mad haze, because for a moment his eyes seemed to really focus properly, and his angry face seemed to slip a little. "You wouldn't let me kill you," he said.
"You would never try," Arthur said, and he realized believed it, in any world, at any time. "Merlin, please, put the sword down."
And Merlin staggered backwards a step, letting the sword fall away. Arthur automatically reached up and felt blood oozing from the cut on his throat, but it wasn't deep or serious, at least compared to whatever was addling Merlin's brains. Merlin stammered "You...you..." a few times without completing the sentence, and then the sword dropped from his gloved fingers. It hit the floor just a beat before Merlin's entire body.
"Shit!" Arthur blurted, and carefully rolled Merlin onto his back. His eyes had rolled up into the back of his head and he was shaking, twitching all over, and even though all his layers of clothing Arthur felt the magic burning in him, as hot as ever, almost too painful to bear. But it wasn't enough to stop the seizure, and so Arthur tore his hands away and staggered, gasping, out into the hall.
A servant--Gregory crossed Arthur's mind, but he really couldn't be sure--was walking the halls with an empty dinner tray. Arthur nearly staggered into him. "Get Gaius," he blurted. "Merlin's ill, he needs Gaius." Gregory stared at Arthur with big blank eyes. "Don't just stand there, you idiot, get help!" Arthur snarled, and went back into the room, leaving the door hanging heedlessly open.
The seizure seemed to be over, but Merlin lay deathly still now, barely breathing. Arthur seized him again, and tried the same trick that had worked in his room earlier, of pushing all that burning magic out and through, back where it belonged, but it wouldn't work when his hands were just clutching Merlin though his clothes; he fumbled briefly to get the gloves off, then gave up and pressed his hands to Merlin's clammy face.
He imagined that this was what water felt like when a dry sponge was dipped in it; the fire was practically sucked out of him, draining away into Merlin's still body. It didn't hurt at all--just the opposite, it felt good, it was a relief to get rid of the heat and pressure that was smothering him from inside. Merlin took a deep breath, and another, and the last thing Arthur remembered seeing was his eyes flicker open briefly, twin pools of golden light.
Part One
Part Three