Sam liked to think he was used to weirdness. It came with being a Winchester, really– when as a child he complained about the monsters in his closet, his father's only reassurance was to hand him a .45 and instruct him to aim a little low and to the left. Ghosts and monsters were everyday life to Sam. He was practically an authority on weird. So when this blue-eyed stranger calling himself Merlin asked about getting back to Camelot, Sam should not have gotten lightheaded.
"Did you say Camelot?" he asked. He didn't even need to look at Dean to know he was rolling his eyes.
"Have you never heard of it?" Merlin asked, a worried wrinkle forming between his eyes.
Long hours sprawled in the back seat of the Impala reading Thomas Malory and T.H. White flitted through Sam's mind. "I've... heard of it," he admitted cautiously, wondering exactly how much Merlin and Arthur– Prince Arthur– would be willing to hear, and how much would be wise to tell them. Clearly some of the legends didn't fit their case. This Merlin didn't look any older than Sam, hardly the sort of person to hold the essence of time in his hands and bend it to his will. To be honest, he looked like the sort to have trouble carrying a stack of books across a room.
"You two are aware that Camelot doesn't exist, right?" Dean said beside him, belligerent as always. "Or did your magical unicorn friends tell you otherwise?"
"Dean, cut it out," Sam muttered.
"The last time we saw a unicorn, Arthur shot it," Merlin said helpfully. "But that put a curse on Camelot, and the famine nearly–ouch!" Arthur elbowed Merlin rather sharply in the ribs, hissing something in an undertone. Sam could guess what was being said: shut up, don't talk to strangers, it's none of their business. It's what Sam had heard every time the Impala rolled into a new town, and the litany that ran in the back of his mind whenever he'd tried to make a new friend. Merlin set his jaw mulishly but didn't say anything more.
"You've gotta be shitting me," said Dean. "Camelot? Seriously? You can't even come up with an original name for your made-up fantasy land?"
Arthur stepped up within half a foot of Dean, his blue eyes angry. "Camelot is a great country, far superior to your Bostonmassachusetts," he said, rolling Boston and Massachusetts together into a single word. "You would do well to remember the strength of our armies before you insult it further."
"Not. Real," repeated Dean, leaning into Arthur's space with that grim smirk he wore whenever he started a bar fight. Arthur's nostrils flared.
Sam's eyes flickered behind Arthur to Merlin's face, which had gone pale, his eyes even more prominent on his face, his cheekbones stretching the skin taut. Something in his eyes made Sam think of himself, six years old, realizing that he didn't have a home, not the way the kids at school did. For Sam there was just the backseat of the Impala as it zigzagged across the country, and a string of motel rooms and pre-furnished apartments that they left the same way they'd found them. He imagined what it would be like if that one familiar place and everything else he knew was suddenly torn away from him.
"Why don't you guys come with us and we'll figure this out, okay?" he said. Dean glared at him– of course– but Sam looked straight at Merlin, whose entire face loosened with relief. Despite Dean's grumbled curses as they led the two back to the hotel, Sam couldn't bring himself to regret the offer.
Sam and Dean seemed eager to shepherd Merlin and Arthur through the large building as quickly as possible, but Merlin couldn't stop staring at the bizarre, elaborate decorations around him. A chandelier not unlike the one in the Great Hall of Camelot dangled above them, but rather than candles, it was hung with strange white globes of steady light. Perhaps magic was commonly used in this country. There certainly could be no explanation but sorcery for the small metal box they entered, which shook and rose and opened again into a long carpeted hallway somewhere completely different. More of the unflickering lights shone down from the ceiling.
"Room's this way," said Dean, and led them to a door labeled "508." He opened it with a small white square unlike any key Merlin had ever seen, and once all four of them were inside, he locked the door behind them.
Someone had spilled salt in a line across the doorway– Merlin stepped over it, but thought it best not to mention that it was there. Dean probably wouldn't appreciate housekeeping tips from strangers. The room widened past the doorway, where two beds almost as large as Arthur's sat side by side, both with intricately patterned red quilts. Merlin caught a glimpse of a smaller room adjoining the first, with what appeared to be a small white water pump attached to the wall. Sam opened the curtains, letting in a burst of sunlight. Merlin gaped to see all the towers overlapping each other far into the distance, crowding out the clouds.
"Okay, first things first." Dean pulled a silver flask from his jacket and held it out toward Arthur. His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Here, have a drink," he said. "Standing outside in that getup, you're probably thirsty."
Arthur reached for the flask, but Merlin stopped him. Images of Arthur lying unconscious on a beach flashed through his mind, and he noted the way Dean's grip tightened around the neck of the flask when he asked, "What's in it?"
"It's, uh, it's just water," said Sam from behind him, crossing the room to stand next to Dean. "Look." He grabbed the flask and took a swig, then offered it to Arthur. "Nothing wrong with it. Promise."
Merlin snatched the flask from Sam's large hand. It didn't seem likely that Sam would drink poisoned water just to trick them, but this was a strange and possibly magical land; he wasn't about to let Arthur take that chance.
"Merlin," Arthur said, reaching for the flask, but Merlin batted his hand away.
"How many times do we have to have this argument before you accept that I always win?" said Merlin, and took a sip while Arthur blustered indignantly. He waited, aware that everyone was watching his reaction. The water had a slight metallic tang, but nothing happened for several minutes, and presently Merlin took another swallow. It had been quite hot outside, after all. "It's water," he said, and allowed Arthur to take it.
"Oh, thank you, Merlin, really, I don't know what I'd do without your keen powers of observation," Arthur said. He drank down half the flask in one go, and Dean watched him carefully like he was waiting for something. Merlin looked at Arthur too, but couldn't see anything amiss aside from the sweat darkening the hair at Arthur's temples. Sam, he noticed, looked relieved.
Arthur wiped his mouth and matched Dean's stare. "So can you help us return to Camelot or not?"
Sam and Dean exchanged glances. "Here's the thing," Sam began.
"Sammy and I need to have a little talk," said Dean. "Excuse us for a second, won't you?" He gripped his brother's elbow and marched him into the smaller room near the door. Arthur watched them go, frowning.
"Dean is almost as infuriating as you are, Merlin," he said. "I hope we can trust him."
"And he's nearly as bossy as you, sire, but we don't have much of a choice," Merlin replied. The ringing in his head hadn't stopped since they had gotten to this strange country, and now that the room was quiet, his headache intensified. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to concentrate on the muffled voices emanating from being the closed door, occasionally punctuated with a thud. Arthur paced the room, but didn't look away from the door to where Sam and Dean were still arguing.
Suddenly Merlin felt a burst of not-sound, like a bird flapping its wings against the backs of his eyelids. The ringing in his head crystallized into one high, clear note, and Merlin could sense his own magic swirling through his veins, singing something in return, even as his skull pounded like it was about to split open. The noise kept getting louder until even the hands he clapped over his ears couldn't block it out. "Arthur?" Merlin gasped, and then crumpled to the floor.
"What the hell, Sam," Dean said as soon as the bathroom door swung shut behind them. "I did not sign up to baby-sit a couple of dudes who think they came from freakin' Camelot! I just want to waste whatever evil mother Chuck sent us here to deal with and get the hell–"
Something in the back of his mind clicked. Surely Chuck hadn't called them in for these two. They were crazy, yeah, but they didn't look evil, even if Merlin did tend to stare at everything a little too long. And why were delusions of medieval grandeur their problem, anyhow? But Chuck had been the one to send them to Boston, to a hotel they normally wouldn't have given a second glance, which just happened to be across the street from a guy carrying a sword and his string bean of a body guard, both of whom were looking for Camelot. If this was Chuck's fault, Dean was gonna cut that bitch, archangel or not.
"What if they're the reason Chuck sent us here?" Sam said, one step ahead as usual.
"Then Chuck can go die of liver failure!" said Dean. "No way am I wasting my time trying to get Blondie and Dumbo out there back where they came from! We don't even know who they are."
"They're Merlin," Sam replied, "and Arthur. Prince Arthur, apparently, and Merlin doesn't look older than twenty, so that's a bit of a plot twist."
"Fuck's sake, Sam." Dean slammed his hand down on the sink. "I know this is like your nerdy medieval dream come true, but could you maybe stop swooning over them and help me figure this out? We got no proof they're who they say. Just cause they crossed the salt line and drank holy water doesn't mean they're not dangerous."
"Dean, there are legends about them, just like everything else we deal with," Sam said, maddeningly calm. "And don't even pretend you didn't read those books when we were kids. You didn't think angels existed either, remember?"
"Sure, shove that in my face, not like they were so goddamn helpful."
"This location is unexpected," intoned a voice from the shower. Dean jerked backward and knocked the plastic hair dryer from its holder on the wall, which sent a cascade of complimentary body lotions clattering to the tile floor. Sam sniggered.
"Jesus, Cas," Dean griped as the angel emerged from behind the shower curtain. "We've talked about this."
"Why are you two in the bathroom together?" asked Castiel, tilting his head.
"Why are you in the bathroom with us?" Dean shot back. "We didn't tell you we were coming here. Do our rib tattoos have an expiration date or something?"
"It is written that you should be here," Cas said, his blue eyes looking straight into Dean's in his typically unnerving way. "That is why I came. It appears that the Prophet Chuck is meddling with forces that should not be under human control. He has called the Once and Future King before his time."
Dean punched the wall. Next time he saw Chuck Shurley, he was going to wring that bastard's scrawny neck. "Seriously? Seriously, Cas? The guy's fucking with time and he sends us Prince Arthur? What the hell kind of sick joke is this?"
"There's no need to be so dramatic," Cas said. Sam just grinned at him.
"Don't think I won't kick your ass," Dean told his brother, who managed to ooze smugness without saying a word. "Right. So. We've got once and future douchebag out there, and his little sidekick too, just to make this a real party. What're we supposed to do with them?"
Something flashed across Castiel's face, too quick for Dean to catch, but it held more emotion than he'd ever seen from the angel. "He has a companion?"
"In most legends, King Arthur and Merlin are nearly inseparable," Sam said. "Arthur's success as a ruler was due in large part to Merlin's magical assistance. It makes sense that they're here together."
"All right, geek boy, could've just said yes," said Dean, but he was more concerned with the way Castiel's eyes kept flicking to the door behind him. Before Dean could ask what he was looking at, the bathroom door burst open.
Arthur stood there in a fighter's stance, clearly no novice when it came to using the sword he held in his hand. The way his eyes flashed, Dean could maybe believe that this kid would grow up to be something legendary. "What did you do to him?" said Arthur, his voice dangerously even.
"What?" said Sam, just as Dean said, "Who?"
Arthur gestured furiously behind him to where Merlin was crouched on the floor, clutching his head. Dean's stomach dropped. That pose, and those whimpers of pain, were all too familiar. "Shit," Dean said.
"I'll get some aspirin," said Sam, rifling through the medicine bag. Arthur's attention swung to Castiel, who was staring at Merlin, unblinking.
"Who is that? How did he get here?" said Arthur, raising his sword to point at Cas's throat.
"Hey, easy with the sword," said Dean– that blade was sharp, and the bathroom was pretty cramped with four grown men in it. "I know the guy needs a shave, but trust me, Ladies' Gilette is much more his speed."
"That doesn't answer my question." Arthur didn't lower his sword. Dean couldn't exactly blame him– Dean would have kept the Colt pointed at a demon for the exact same reason: because the person he cared about most in his life was hurting, and he wasn't about to let that shit stand.
"My name is Castiel," Cas said, but his eyes were still fixed on Merlin. "I'm an angel of the Lord."
"You're a sorcerer," said Arthur. "Whatever spell you cast on Merlin, I command you to undo it."
"You didn't actually mojo him or anything, did you?" Dean asked Cas in an undertone. "Cause I gotta say, you're not really helping things along here."
"Here it is," Sam said. Arthur turned to glare in Sam's direction, still blocking the doorway, and Sam raised his hands. "Look, I've got some medicine that might help him. I used to get those same sorts of headaches."
"Not doing him a lot of good standing in this bathroom, either," said Dean. Arthur's jaw clenched, but Sam was doing his earnest face with the puppy eyes, and Dean had seen more than one homicidal monster back down when they got that look. Eventually Arthur stepped back and let them by, though he kept his sword pointed toward Castiel. Sam knelt on the floor next to Merlin and offered him a paper cup of water.
"Hey, it's okay," he said soothingly. Merlin's eyes were pinched shut, and tears ran down his cheeks, but he didn't flinch away when Sam put a hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "I know your head hurts, but I brought you some medicine, okay? Can you swallow these?"
Merlin blindly choked down the pills, eyes still closed and his hands covering his ears. The only sound in the room was his shaky breathing. Dean avoided Sam's eyes and hoped that whatever kind of freaky demon vision Merlin was having would pass soon.
"Merlin Emrys," said Castiel. Merlin unfolded himself and looked up, a mixture of pain and awe on his face. His eyes glowed gold.
Shapeshifter. "Sammy, get away from him!" Dean said, scrabbling for the silver knife in his boot, but Arthur had his sword to Dean's chest before he'd gotten the knife halfway unsheathed.
"If you touch him, I will run you through," said Arthur. Sam jumped to his feet, pulling a gun from the back of his jeans– that's my boy, thought Dean– but Merlin's voice cut through the three-way standoff, his own attention focused entirely on Cas.
"Who are you?"
Castiel walked forward until his face was mere inches away from Merlin's, staring into those unnaturally gold eyes. "My name is Castiel," he said. "I am your father."
There was silence in the room for a long moment. Slowly, Arthur lowered his sword.
"Cas," Dean said. He felt an overwhelming need to become wildly drunk, preferably forever. "You, uh." He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again.
"...Did you just make a Star Wars reference?"