A/N: Well, I've already managed to completely fail at updating...but here's chapter two! Again, the whole story is posted on my AO3 account jinkandtherebels, but I'll try to be better about updating it here! Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter Two

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Arthur does not wake. His breathing is easier, his heartbeat strong, but he doesn't speak, and he doesn't wake.

Merlin tries to keep calm by remembering that wounded men need as much sleep as they can get; it was one of the first things Gaius ever taught him, and surely all of the rules don't change just because someone was stabbed with a dragon-forged blade instead of a normal one. Surely.

He drags his king away from Avalon and back into the woods. He doesn't know when his oath to the Sidhe will take effect, exactly, and he isn't interested in finding out what will happen if he breaks it, even accidentally.

Little is left of their rations—there was no chance of Merlin leaving Arthur alone and defenseless, even for a short hunt—but Merlin starts another fire and settles them both down as comfortably as he can.

And then he waits.

He waits through the night, staying awake, keeping the fire going, checking Arthur's breathing more often than he'll ever admit. Unpleasant as they are, the Sidhe have never outright broken their word. Merlin reminds himself of this at least once an hour.

But when the sun begins to dip towards the horizon again, Merlin begins, against his own better judgment, to panic.

What if they really had been lying? What if he's been tricked? It wouldn't be the first time, after all—Kilgharrah, Morgana, Edwin and his remedies, Julius with his quest for the dragon's egg, even Gwen when she'd been bespelled. Merlin has come to the conclusion that perhaps he'd be better off forswearing trust altogether.

You never trusted Mordred, and that didn't help either, did it? a nasty little voice in his mind points out. Merlin shoves it viciously away. Thinking about Mordred doesn't lend itself well to staying calm.

As the sky darkens he finally gives up and stands. He's going to do—something, maybe look around and find some herbs that he missed yesterday, something that might help.

He's halfway out of their makeshift campsite when he hears Arthur's voice, little more than a croak.

"Merlin?"

Merlin is kneeling at his side in a breath, reaching for his hand, worry and relief combined making it hard to breathe. Arthur's eyes are open and fixed on him, but there's something there, something—

"Something's wrong," Merlin says out loud.

Arthur doesn't seem to have the wherewithal to tell him off about being annoyingly vague and unhelpful, which is just another indication that he's right. Something is very wrong, and the way Arthur's eyes roll back in his head not a second later is the final confirmation.

"Arthur," Merlin urges, panic rising like bile in his throat. "Come on—Arthur, you can't sleep now—"

Arthur groans, or at least he tries to, but it comes out sounding like a croak again. He's shuddering. Barely thinking, Merlin presses two hands to his breastplate, breathes the first spell that comes to mind for healing, and—nothing. Nothing happens.

And then everything does.

At first Merlin thinks it's just the growing dark interfering with his vision, or the firelight playing tricks, or the lack of sleep—anything—and he digs his knuckles into his eyes to try and rub the illusion away. Because Arthur is blurring in front of him like he's drifting in and out of the world and that is impossible.

The image doesn't go away. Merlin blinks hard, wincing as Arthur's fingers dig into his arm and then slacken, and then—

It happens so fast. One instant he's looking at his friend and his king and the next, he sees nothing but empty armor lying in the dirt.

Everything has gone quiet.

Stunned by the abrupt stillness, Merlin leans in to get a closer look. Something pokes out of the metal, he realizes—it's a bird, a raven, its feathers gleaming in the dim light from the flames.

Feeling sick, Merlin reaches for it.

The raven jolts upright at the first brush of skin against its feathers, crowing in indignation, warning.

Its eyes are blue, and suddenly Merlin knows what's just happened. Knows it with a sick, bone-deep certainty. Knows it just as he knows he has failed.

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Mordred comes back to consciousness in fits and starts, his vision still fuzzy as he blinks and tries to remember why he's on the floor.

Then it hits him and he sits up with a jolt. Which, if the pain in the back of his head is any indication, was not one of his better ideas.

What the hell was that?

He tries to calm down by taking stock. He's not tied up or gagged or anything weird like that, so either his kidnappers are incompetent or he hasn't been kidnapped at all. The shop is dim, the sky he can see through the window is dark, and there doesn't seem to be anyone around.

So what, he just…lost control of his limbs like he hasn't since he was two, somehow knocked himself out? Even in his head it sounds stupid.

He remembers an angry voice. He remembers the skinny man with the blue eyes.

He remembers the way they'd gone gold in his fading vision.

There's a sound in his peripheral hearing, a lock being turned, followed by footsteps on stairs. Mordred stands, heart pounding, and tries vainly to see something—anything—in the oppressive dark.

Okay, this is fine. Everything is fine. You have— He looks around in a faint panic and thinks he can sort of see the outline of the book pile Big Ears was carrying earlier. Books! You have books. Books are heavy. You can work with this.

There's a shadow in a doorframe at the back of the shop.

Heart in throat, Mordred reaches out and grabs a weighty book off the pile just as the lights come on, temporarily blinding him. He swings the book as the footsteps come nearer, letting out a yell.

Not that it helps. The person catches his clumsy swing, wrapping strong fingers around his wrist and tightening their grip until he drops the book with a wince.

"So it was you," the person says quietly. It's a male voice. Mordred blinks hard and forces his eyes all the way open.

It's a blond man, blue-eyed and tight-lipped. In another situation Mordred thinks he might be offended by how pissed everyone seems to be with his presence.

But the man does look like he's capable of killing Mordred and making certain the body is never found, so Mordred goes for what he does best, which is to lie like a rug.

"Look," he says, trying for calm. "I don't know what your problem is, but my mum is going to call the cops on me if I come home late again, so—"

"I'm not kidnapping you," the man interrupts, dropping Mordred's wrist like a hot iron. Mordred also notices that he sounds genuinely indignant at the thought, which is really just offensive to Mordred's intelligence.

"What part of this doesn't read as kidnapping to you?" he demands. "You drug me, knock me out, lock me up in your creepy-as-hell shop, and then bluster in all intimidating—am I supposed to be getting warm feelings from all this? Seriously?"

The man opens his mouth like he's going to argue, then stops. His frown deepens. Mordred is seized by a mad urge to warn him that his face'll get stuck like that if he keeps glaring at everything like it's done him some personal wrong.

"Drugged. Right," he says. "I can see where that may have gotten confusing."

Mordred bristles, but the man isn't finished. "We—that is, there's a phone behind the desk if you need to call home. Let your mother know you haven't been, ah…kidnapped."

He still seems put out about the accusation. It's his own fault, Mordred thinks mulishly. Him and Big Ears. Going around knocking people out and then…

Well, there's that, and then there's the reasonable little voice saying he can grumble all he wants inside of his own head, it's not going to change what he saw before he passed out. It's not going to change the way his heart seemed to jump in his chest—not from fear, either.

He remembers thinking, thank you.

Thank you to whatever higher power or mysterious force it is that has finally tipped luck in his favor. Thank you to whatever twist of fate that might've sent him someone who can actually help.

Someone, it occurs to him, who's been absent since he woke up.

"Where'd Big Ears go?" he blurts before he can think about it. "You know, with the…" He moves his hands in a way that's supposed to convey 'bizarre wearing of neckerchief' but probably looks like he's trying to throttle himself.

But the blond man, to his credit, seems to know immediately whom Mordred's talking about. His mouth twitches; Mordred recognizes the look from many a boring school function over the years, an expression seen when someone knows they're about to start laughing at a seriously inappropriate time.

"Merlin is…out," he answers.

Mordred figures rolling his eyes and potentially pissing the guy off isn't a smart move, but it's a close call. As it is, skepticism still drips off his next words. "Merlin. His name's Merlin."

Blondie raises a single eloquent eyebrow. "You really want to go there, Mordred?"

And fine, okay, maybe he walked into that one with his eyes wide open. Mordred starts to protest—the old standby about his mum being an ex-hippie with a seemingly endless line of Welsh ancestry behind her, honestly, he was doomed from birth—but something stops him short.

"I didn't tell you my name," he says slowly.

The other man blinks and shrugs it off. "No, but you did tell Merlin, and he passed it on. Satisfied?"

Mordred doesn't remember that particular exchange, but then he's been having a really bizarre day, so one more weird thing on top of all the others doesn't matter much. He goes back to his earlier point.

"Do you know when he'll be back? I need to talk to him."

The glare comes back, killing any leftover trace of amusement. "Really."

That tone doesn't exactly fill Mordred with confidence, but he presses on. "Look, I know it sounds weird, but I need his help. I think he's—" Watch it, he warns himself. Thin ice. "I think he could help me with something, that's all," he finishes lamely.

Blondie stares at him. "Will wonders never cease," he says dryly, more to himself than to Mordred. Then, "He'll be gone most of the night. You're going to have to come back in the morning. Come on, I'll get the phone and you can call—"

Panic rises in his throat, sudden and choking. "I can't."

A pause. "What do you mean 'can't'?"

"I—" It's hard to swallow, and his throat makes a clicking sound when he tries it. "I can't go home."

The blond man's attention is fully focused on him again. Mordred finds himself wanting to look away.

"How long has it been since you've been home?"

Mordred shrugs uncomfortably. "Not long. Day or two, but—I can't go back. Not right now."

Blondie hesitates, awkward. "If you're worried about your mother being angry—"

"It's not that."

He tries again. "Is there anyone else I can call?"

Mordred shakes his head, hard enough he fancies he can feel something rattle. He knows it makes him look like a little kid, but he can't—he can't. Not now.

Not ever, maybe, if this whole grasping-at-big-eared-straws thing doesn't work out.

The thought kind of makes him want to throw up and cry at the same time, and some of that must bleed onto his face because Blondie sighs and suddenly looks a lot less threatening.

"There's some armchairs in the room behind those shelves there, you see them?" Mordred nods. "It's dusty, but it won't kill you. You can sleep here tonight." He gives Mordred a serious look. "Mordred. I can't promise anything else."

Relief drowns any protest he might've made. "I understand. And thanks for…" He coughs. "Well. Just. Thanks."

Blondie gives him the oddest look, but he nods and turns away, toward the door in the back of the shop. Out of some badly timed fit of curiosity Mordred calls after him.

"Hey."

The blond man turns. "I'm not going to tuck you in," he warns.

"Oh, shut up," Mordred grumbles. "I wanted to know what your name was. Git."

He hesitates again, just long enough for Mordred to wonder if he's pushed his luck up and over a cliff. But then:

"It's Arthur."

By the time Mordred's formulated an appropriately scathing response about shitty, mythologically-informed names and casting stones in glass houses, Arthur's scaled the stairs and is out of sight.

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He's still mired in panic when he breaks his oath to the Sidhe, not three days after making it.

Or at least he tries to.

It's only after a good half an hour spent tearing himself in two with worry over whether he can leave Ar—the bird, leave the bird alone, whether it's still sick in this form. Finally he cradles it gingerly in his neckerchief and holds it to him, a small warm weight, and tears through the woods with terrified rage clawing its way up his throat.

"You lied!" Merlin shouts into the woods like a madman. "You lied to me!"

He's going back to Avalon, promises be damned, because the Sidhe have broken theirs. Merlin asked for Arthur's life, and—

He'd asked for his life.

Merlin trips over a root and nearly brains himself on a tree and barely notices any of it.

He had asked for Arthur's life, and given the heartbeat going steady and strong under his hands, the Sidhe have given it. But it had never occurred to Merlin to ask for the preservation of his form.

His human form.

Merlin tastes bile. He starts running, trying to find his way back to Avalon's shores. It seems to be taking forever and a day to reach the lake, and it's not until he sees the same damn gnarled tree for the third time in an hour that Merlin understands.

He swore. He swore on his oath and on his own blood that he would leave Avalon be, and Avalon itself has ensured that he cannot break that promise.

On a whim, he tries to "see" the path as he's been able to in the past. Nothing reveals itself. The lake is hidden from him. Merlin knows, with a sinking sense of finality, that not even his magic can help him find it now.

He sags against the tree and stares, numb, at the bird in his arms.

The raven's eyes are blue.

Well, of course. They are Arthur's, after all.

And somehow that makes it sink in when nothing else has, the realization that Morgana had managed to defeat them after all. Arthur might not be dead, but he is trapped, and he has less than no chance of ruling like this.

Merlin at least has the presence of mind to realize that his breathing is getting quick and harsh and his vision fuzzy; he's a trained physician, he recognizes a panic attack when it's happening. He sits down slowly.

"We're going to work this out," he hears himself say. The words are quiet and shaky and don't sound nearly as confident as he'd like them to be. The raven seems to think the same, if the warning nip it gives Merlin's fingers is any indication.

But maybe it isn't. Maybe he's just reading into things, ascribing meaning to the meaningless motions of an animal. Maybe he really is just holding a raven.

Maybe Arthur is lost to him after all.

He shakes his head viciously. No. That's still an 'if' that doesn't bear contemplation. Arthur is the king who will usher in Camelot's golden age, and Merlin is Emrys, and Kilgharrah and everyone else seems to think that means something. This isn't the way their story ends, Merlin is sure of it.

It can't be.

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Arthur makes it as far as the door of their flat before his mind flatlines. He finds himself standing with arm outstretched, fingers inches from the doorknob, and abruptly unable to move.

Which should concern him more than it does, he thinks.

He lets the hand drop limply to his side and continues to stare at the wood grain.

Well, that was surreal.

Mordred's face is burnt into the backs of his eyes. Fierce, adrenaline-driven bravery followed by deep suspicion, followed by the appearance of a sardonic little shit. Nothing of rage and nothing of murder or murderous intent.

He's just a boy. He's a child who's most likely never held a sword in his life, and yet Arthur swears he'd felt something burning all the same. A scar stretched across his abdomen—ancient now, but it had never fully healed.

Arthur closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. Tries to take slow breaths. Notes, with some dry and distant amusement, that this is possibly what a panic attack feels like.

There's no point in trying to avoid Merlin for long, and since he's managed to work out the whole movement thing again, Arthur doesn't really have an excuse. He reaches out again and lets himself into the flat, bracing himself for the inevitable.

An almost palpable sense of disapproval fills the air when he shuts the door, emanating (naturally) from the sleek black shape sprawled over the couch. Bright blue eyes dart up at the sound of movement and Arthur swears he can see exasperation in them.

"Don't look at me like that," he warns.

The dog huffs in a way that manages to convey the likelihood of that happening. Which is to say, nil.

He sighs and plops down onto the sofa, the dog giving an irritated grumble but still moving over to accommodate him.

"You couldn't expect me to just leave him down there," Arthur points out. "You can't tell me something like that and not assume I'm going to do…something stupid." He smiles a bit, remembering the wording from Merlin's note.

The dog grumbles again, but he doesn't slink off when Arthur puts a hand behind his ears, which means he's forgiven. Until Merlin regains full use of his vocal functions, anyway.

There's work to be done in the shop, and probably orders to fill out if Merlin was too busy panicking to get them done, but Arthur makes no move to do either. Merlin's breathing is steady beside him and he wants nothing more than to close his eyes for a while. But the merry-go-round of thoughts in his head won't let him. He keeps seeing Mordred's face—this boy he doesn't know at all, the young man who saved his life and called him brother.

The man who put a sword through his chest and smiled.

"Should I be angry?" he murmurs into the silence. The dog looks up at him steadily, like he understands exactly what Arthur means. He elaborates anyway. "If that boy really is Mordred, am I supposed to hate him for it? Or should I be asking his forgiveness?"

Merlin growls.

"You can't deny there would be cause," Arthur says.

But the thing is, if Merlin had voice to deny it, he would, over and over until his voice withered away to nothing. It's a point on which they've never managed to see eye to eye. As it has been with many of those Arthur called family once, those who then betrayed him— Morgana, Agravaine, Mordred. A cascading line of failures for which Arthur still holds himself accountable. Merlin has never laid the blame for them at Arthur's feet, and Arthur would be bitterly curious to know exactly where he does lay it. He has a feeling he knows.

They've always been partial to self-blame, the pair of them. It's made for a lot of circular arguments.

The dog nudges his hand carefully. Arthur dredges up a smile for him; they've worked out methods of communication as best they can, and at this point the little gestures can almost serve as well as words. Almost.

"What are we going to do?" he asks.

It's a completely rhetorical question, of course. Even if Merlin could answer, Arthur knows, the resulting silence would be the same.

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