Short one-shot I've had in my head since Arthur's Bane part 2. Please review!
Merlin was not having the greatest day.
So far today, he'd almost fallen down a crevasse, got rotten vegetables dumped on his head, been attacked by Aithusa, and been thrown against a wall by a high priestess of the old religion.
And this was just taking the biscuit.
He'd awoken to find himself if the same dark cave he'd lost consciousness in before, with the glowy creature from before healing him. They'd had a nice chat about destiny and such, before Merlin had informed the Diamair that he would have to go – he couldn't be completely sure that Arthur hadn't already got involved in some life-threatening situation in the few minutes he'd been away.
And now, Arthur, and the knights, were nowhere to be found.
Muttering darkly about disappearing prats, Merlin turned a corner, wishing that he'd asked the 'Key to all Knowledge' where the hell everyone had got to, or maybe he could have just asked whether he had a map Merlin could borrow. He stepped over another still body of a Saxon guard as he continued forward. Maybe that was the way to find the knights, follow the dead bodies. His new tactic worked surprisingly well, and within a few minutes he could hear the sound of voices coming around another bend in the cave's path.
Pushing himself around the corner, his face broke into a grin as he saw a large group man ahead, including a familiar dark-haired man.
"Gwaine!" Merlin called out, and Gwaine turned around.
"Merlin!" he called back, closing his bag and looking up at him. "How are you doing?"
Merlin blinked once. "You're not going to ask me where I was?"
"You were gone?"
Merlin stared at Gwaine in more-than-mild disbelief. He'd have expected that Arthur might not have noticed his disappearance (he wasn't exactly the most observant man in the world), but Gwaine was a different matter. Gwaine who'd been trying to get Merlin drunk for at least 3 years, Sir 'you're-the-only-friend-I've-got' Gwaine, who'd come along with Merlin on a dangerous trek to the perilous lands for crying out loud!
Who apparently hadn't noticed the Merlinlessness of his surroundings!
Gwaine didn't seem to notice that anything was wrong, and threw his pack onto his shoulders. Merlin continued to gape at him.
"You were gone?" He repeated incredulously.
"Nope" Gwaine said "You were gone, apparently."
"I was gone?" Merlin said, voice rising in pitch somewhat.
"Are you sure you didn't hit your head on something Merlin?"
Merlin opened his mouth to answer, opened and closed it rapidly like a goldfish, before closing it again.
"Merlin!"
Arthur had joined into the discussion, which probably wouldn't help matters in the slightest. He had his own pack slung around his shoulders, and was stowing his sword back on his belt. Merlin was just about to say something (again) when Arthur turned away from Merlin.
"We'll be going in a few minutes, so I'm just checking you've got everything ready to go."
"Isn't anyone going to ask me where I was?" Merlin interjected indignantly as Arthur turned to leave.
"You were gone?" Arthur asked in surprise.
"I was gone?!" Merlin repeated; voice even higher than before. If it got any higher, only bats would be able to understand him, and the cave did certainly have a lot of those.
"Mate, we've gone through this before" Gwaine said 'helpfully'.
"Shut up Gwaine!" Merlin said, his head snapping towards Gwaine quickly. "I just woke up, in a deserted cave! And none of you seemed to have noticed! I was thrown against a wall by a powerful sorceress, and then left for dead! Nobody noticed I was gone! Do you know how that feels?!"
"You were gone?"
There was a sound suspiciously similar to a large pile of explosives going off as Merlin rounded on Percival, who had just come over. For some reason, he still was not wearing a shirt, despite the rest of the knights discovering a large pile of the things a few minutes ago. Then again, this was the same Percival who wore a sleeveless shirt when he went to patrol in icy wastelands.
Merlin opened his mouth, but was interrupted again, this time by Percival.
"Arthur, the knights are ready to leave."
A dull 'thunk' resonated through Merlin's head as he noticed the packed bags slung across each of the knights shoulders, as well as the general air of 'we're going home!' that was filling the cave.
Merlin turned to Arthur again, "You were going to leave me? Here?"
Arthur looked decidedly uncomfortable. "We didn't know you were missing, to be completely honest…" He trailed off as he saw the look on Merlin's face. It was an interesting mix of incredulity, anger and anxiety.
"You didn't notice I was missing"
"Merlin, stop repeating everything Arthur says."
"Shut up Gwaine!"
"So" Merlin said, the look on his face making the three knights quail under his look "You left me alone in this cave, to die! And nobody noticed or cared!"
An awkward silence followed his words.
"That's the general gist of it, yeah…" Arthur said hesitantly.
"That's the general gist of it…" Merlin repeated again, something he had been doing a lot of so far today. "Do you know how dangerous these caves are?"
"We had got rid of most of the dangerous things…" Gwaine said fairly, "It wasn't that dangerous."
"Dangerous?!" Merlin said, his voice now on the wrong side of hysterical. "Dangerous?! No, there was nothing dangerous in these caves, oh no! Just the Saxons, Morgana, the Saxons, Aithu- the Dragon, Hypothermia, Roof collapse, the Saxons, starvation, and did I mention the SAXONS!?"
"We got rid of most of the Saxons…" Percival muttered.
"Sir Percival and his topless army!" Merlin said "Somehow, the thought doesn't reassure me!"
"Hey! That topless army was cool!"
"Gwaine, shut up."
"Percival was sort of busy at the moment though…" Merlin muttered, more to himself then to the knights. "Unlike you!" he turned to face Arthur again.
"I had to check on the other knights!" He protested.
"The strong, hand-picked knights of Camelot need a babysitter now, do they?" Merlin asked waspishly.
He glanced over at a nearby pack of knights, watching Sir Kaius poke himself repeatedly with the end of the sword in an attempt to see how sharp it was, while nearby Sir Magnus was chasing after a piece of dust floating around the cave, a look of pure glee plastered onto his face.
"Actually" Merlin conceded "they probably do."
Arthur looked smug.
"That doesn't mean you should have abandoned me though!" Merlin insisted "You could have made Percival look after them, he's mature enough, when he isn't abandoning people to their deaths."
"I'm mature too!"
"Shut up Gwaine!"
"I was sort of unconscious at the time!" Arthur protested, pointing at a rather large stab wound in his side. "Evil half-sister, remember? How was I supposed to help you when I was dead to the world? I was unconscious!"
"That's convenient…"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Arthur asked, eyebrow raised.
"Nothing!" Merlin said, his voice oddly bright compared to the irritated tone he had taken up earlier. Arthur looked disconcerted by the change in tone, and even more so when it returned to being irritated when Merlin began to speak again. "I was just hoping that one of my friends would check that I was OK before abandoning me to die alone and afraid in a tunnel, because my friends had buggered off after about a nanosecond!"
"I needed to get back to knight Mordred" Arthur objected "I needed to get back quickly!"
"Yeah." Merlin said, sarcasm dripping off every syllable. "The guy you've known for about a minute (who, by the way, was part of a group that tried to kill you) is way more important than the person who keeps dying for you, who you've known for, what, 10 years?"
"Yeah Arthur! Why'd you abandon Merlin?"
"Shut up Gwaine! You left me too! You didn't ask after me or anything, did you?"
"Well no" Gwaine admitted "but I had just recovered from being attacked by Saxons, and rescued by a glowy thing! Percival didn't come and look for me then!"
"Gwaine." Merlin said.
"Yes Merlin?"
"Shut up."
"Shutting up now."
A moment's silence.
"Look Merlin, if you want us to say sorry-"
"I don't!" Merlin said loudly "But the next time an immortal army invades Camelot (probably next Tuesday if security remains the same), I'm not HELPING!"
Merlin glared at the knights before turning and stalking off in what might have been a dignified way if he hadn't tripped over Sir Magnus, who was lying on the floor, hugging a big ball of dust. Scowling, he stood up and brushed off the dirt.
"You were gone?!" He muttered to himself "Oh, it's just Merlin, it doesn't matter if he's been missing for an hour, just go! He'll be fine! No, don't worry about me!"
"Merlin! Where had you got off to earlier?"
Merlin took a second to wonder about why the only person who seemed to care whether he had died in a cave or not was the one prophesised to kill the 'other side of his coin'.
And briefly, Merlin wondered whether Mordred needed any help.