A/N So close guys! Two reviews away!

Then again I gave you less time than normal. ;) One of my fastest updates yet I believe!

Thanks again for all the reviews/favorites/follows! This has waaaaay more follows than any other of my stories! Places second for most favorites. =D I'm so happy!

Anyway, I was bored and... this happened. It's short and filler-ish, but I like how it turned out. The calm before the storm let us say...

Oh, and this was only hastily looked over by myself before being posted. Sorry for mistakes!

Enjoy!

"-thur? Arth-r?! Wa- p..."

Arthur groaned. His hearing was fading in and out and it was driving him mad and why did his head hurt so much?

"I think- to."

It was a different voice this time, with more of a relieved undertone than the panicked one before.

"Arthur?"

It was no more than a whisper, but the voice was familiar.

"Arthur, please wake up..." It pleaded. Definitely familiar...

Merlin!

The prince shot up, gasping.

He heard three sighs of relief breathed in unison.

"Thank God. Are you alright?"

Arthur squinted at the blurry figure that the voice appeared to be coming from until it suddenly came into focus.

He nodded. "I believe so, Lancelot."

The knight's shoulders visibly relaxed and he nodded.

In that instant, Arthur remembered the voice that woke him up and where he remembered being last and his head whipped around, looking for the mop of ebony hair and that ridiculous neckerchief.

Catching sight of his tiredly grinning manservant, Arthur smiled back.

It disappeared when he saw his friend's wrists shackled to the cold stone wall behind him.

"Merlin?" Glancing around, he saw Gwaine and Lancelot were restrained too. A simple pull of his own arms proved he was not. "Where are we? What happened?"

Merlin sighed; a long-suffering sigh accompanied by a weary expression that had no right to be on the boy's face.

"I woke up in the cave to the sounds of a fight, just as you jumped up and ran to help. I don't think you realized I was awake. I can't really give details, but as far as I can tell there were five bandits. You guys took out all but one, but the last snuck up on you and knocked you out with a piece of wood. Gwaine and Lancelot were already taken down by the time you got out. Then he came into the cave. I pretended to be asleep so he wouldn't knock me out too- I was hoping to be useful on the way, but that didn't happen. He gathered up everything, shackled us, then dragged us all, one by one, to a wagon."

"Wait- we are talking about bandits, right?" Arthur interrupted.

Merlin playfully rolled his eyes, a small part of his normal self shining through. "Yes, I thought it was weird, too. Apparently they were working a side job as paid kidnappers, though I'm not sure for whom. You and the rest of the knights may not have been as quiet as you had hoped," he mentioned, a sad gleam in his eye assuring them they weren't being blamed.

In an attempted to lighten the situation, Merlin continued with a joking glare at Arthur, "Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted-" he stopped to smile as the knights chuckled. "I watched where we were going and tried to come up with a way to escape, but as I quickly found out, I could still barely move my leg. So I rode it out and tried to wake you guys up. Gwaine and Lancelot were easy, but you, Arthur... Well, I think the fact that you just woke up speaks for itself. You got hit harder.

When Gwaine and Lance woke up, we were kept under closer watch, seeing as the other bandits recovered just about then. We couldn't escape, so we rode out the rest of the way."

That made sense, Arthur thought, but then...

"So why am I the only one not shackled to the wall?"

Gwaine opted to answer this one. "You were still so kingly passed out, Princess," he smirked. "You couldn't fight back, but we could, so we did. Aaaaaaand," he drew out the word just to be annoying and Arthur glared as Gwaine flashed a very cheeky grin. "By some rare stroke of luck, no one recognized you so didn't know about your 'reputation' as some sort of escape artist."

Neither Gwaine nor Arthur noticed the silent exchange between Lancelot and Merlin as Lancelot gave the warlock a reproachful look and Merlin sheepishly smiled and shrugged his shoulders, wincing minutely as the movement pulled at the wounds on his back.

However, Arthur did notice the wince.

"Are you ok Merlin?" He asked.

"Yep! I'm fine!" He replied, forcefully cheerful, but Arthur wasn't convinced. The prince of Camelot walked over to where his manservant was bound and looked him over for injuries. Thankfully, for both Merlin and their kidnappers, there were no new ones and the old ones, though still painful-looking, didn't appear to be worse.

He then placed the back of his hand on Merlin's forehead and was able to deem the fever broken, to the relief of all involved.

Arthur took a closer look at the peculiar shackles attached to Merlin wrists, seeing if he could pick the lock when the thought hit him that he had seen them before.

As if on cue, they glowed and Merlin bit his lip, trying hard not to yell in pain. To his credit, he didn't let out a single whimper, but the warlock's face paled to a startling contrast with his dark hair and he looked instantly drained. Arthur wondered yet again what those shackles were doing to his friend and why he was the only one with them.

Merlin turned his eyes directly into Arthur's, the piercing blue stare glittering with unshed tears speaking volumes, and Arthur instantly got to work getting them off.

It didn't take him as much time as before, and soon Merlin was rubbing his now-worse-than-before wrists in relief as a bit of his energy returned and he shot a grateful glance at his friend, getting a nod and smile in return. Another glance at the two remaining knights and Merlin and Arthur were instantly working at freeing the other half of the group, Merlin at Lancelot, Arthur at Gwaine; all without a single word uttered, leaving Gwaine to wonder what the heck had just happened between the two and Lancelot with a knowing smile on his face.

However, the smile dropped as Merlin muttered in his ear, "I still can't feel my leg," and Lancelot noticed that Merlin had indeed crawled across the floor. Merlin's eyes were flooded with fear.

"Don't worry Merlin. We'll fix this," he whispered back and Merlin nodded with a tiny smile that spoke a thousand words of gratitude.

The small group of four congregated in the middle of the cell.

"So!" Gwaine broke the ice, clapping his hands together once. "What's the plan?"

"Well, we could-" Merlin broke off his sentence as a yawn surfaced. Failing to stifle it, he blushed as the knights all turned their gazes to him.

"Why don't you get some rest, Merlin?" Lancelot suggested. "Standing physician's orders."

Merlin opened his mouth to protest and, in true Gwaine form, the long-haired knight tried to lighten the mood. "Yeah Merlin. While we were all sleeping like babies, you were staying awake."

Chuckling and rolling his eyes, Merlin relented. "Fine, guys. If you insist."

Promptly, he took off the remains of his jacket and rolled it into a pillow and the three knights helped him lay down. Knowing he would never fall asleep while they were watching, they continued conversing in whispers until they heard their "little brother's" quiet snores and smiled.

A/N Is it short? Yes. However, it was fast. I didn't leave you guys waiting for months this time and for that you should be grateful and bow down to me! *Fails to suppress a giggle.* But in all seriousness, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, as short, fluff-filled and filler-ish as it was. Next time we shall have more action! However, play rehearsals are yet again picking up and I may not have much time to write, though I will try! Since I've put all but three stories on temporary hiatus, this should bring more updates. However, if you feel I'm taking too long, just send a review or PM! I'll appreciate it!

Oh oh oh! I nearly forgot! Halloween isn't for another three months but last time I tried to write a bunch of Halloween specials, I only succeeded in one... and it wasn't very popular.

So! I am opening up for little Halloween oneshot ideas. I would suggest send one in from any fandom, but to be safe let's stick with Merlin, Danny Phantom, BBC Sherlock, TMNT, Harry Potter, Star Trek (TOS, early TNG, 2009 or Into Darkness), Gilligan's Island or Rise of the Guardians for now. (Sorry! First time doing this!) Just send it through a PM or review and remember; the less detailed you make the request, the more freedom I'll have with it and that may not be a good thing... ;)

I only have a few rules/notes;

1. No romance or pairings. I don't have anything against them, I just can't write romance as it always fails and I don't want to disappoint anyone.

2. NOTHING ABOVE T. I'm not kidding, guys. I refuse to write M-rated stories.

3. I will attempt to write first come, first serve. But as I'm likely to be putting this offer on any story I update/publish between now and Halloween, that may be difficult.

4. I'm a slow updater, as you've likely observed. Doing this project will make these updates slower. I apologize for that!

5. As I'll be doing this for a few fandoms, you may want to either follow me as an author so you know when yours goes up or make sure you have PMs on and give me an account to message if you guest review.

6. If the request is uncomfortable for me to write, I'll message you and we can work out a compromise.

7. Try to make it semi-Halloween related.

8. I'll only do one prompt for person unless I run out of new prompts. So if you have multiple, send me a list, give me a preference, and I'll choose one until I run out. Then I may or may not do another one of yours.

9... I think that's it...

So send in a request if you want and I'll give it my best shot! I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can do this!

'Till next time! And let's see if we can crush my Everyone's Scared of Something's review record! Just two more for a tie! *Turns on begging kicked-puppy eyes*

Here's an idea; whoever sends the 31st review gets a oneshot of their choice from any fandom (as long as I recognize it) providing it stays in accordance with rules 1, 2 and 6 above. Oh, and take 4 into account too... Anyway, I'll message you and we can talk there. ;)

Bye!