Chapter Three

The Attack

Arthur was blonde. And rude. He seemed content to say absolutely nothing to Myrddin, though whenever he looked up, he caught Arthur staring at him. He swallowed imperceptibly, then looked down at the hot cup of tea that had been placed before him, self-conscious.

"I see you've picked up a stray," the blonde man commented as he sat opposite Myrddin at the round, wooden table. He leant back in his chair as though he owned the building, shooting a smile in Alice's direction when she gave him a plate of cake, but then he turned his gaze back to Myrddin again, his expression impassive once more. As though Myrddin were nothing to him. Though that couldn't have been the case, really, given how his gaze was boring into him with every passing moment.

"Myrddin is the young man I was speaking with you about, Arthur," Gaius said, his voice kind and patient.

"Coma boy?" the blonde asked, arrogance written all over his face. Myrddin tried his best not to bristle.

"That's him," Alice said brightly before Gaius could respond, before Myrddin could protest such a title from someone he'd never met. Unless, of course, he did know him.

"Do I know you?" Myrddin had to ask, voicing his confusion for the first time. After all, he could see no reason why he should be all but glared at unless Arthur recognised him from somewhere.

"I've never met you before in my life."

"Oh." He frowned, looking carefully at the blonde man, wondering if he were telling the truth, for he could see no other point in the glares being sent his way unless Arthur really did know him. Perhaps he had done something to wrong him before.

"Arthur is the one who leant you the clothes, Myrddin," Gaius said before the awkward exchange could go any further.

"Yes, I came 'round to ask for them back," said Arthur, his gaze focused on the man opposite him.

Myrddin looked down at himself, at the red jumper and black jeans that were just a bit too big. Well, that explained the sense of familiarity he had felt. The sharp, fresh scent of soap that had cut through when the blonde had walked in was the same as the one attached to the clothes he'd been leant.

"Well, I can't give you them now," he said, frowning slightly and gesturing at the fact that he was still wearing the things.

"Can't you?" Arthur asked, and there was a smirk on his face as he looked at the man in his clothes, and there was something unnerving about it, something that had Myrddin's cheeks grow red.

"No," he said emphatically. His face felt hot, and he scowled at the feeling of embarrassment he had been reduced to. "I don't have any other clothes."

"So?"

Before Myrddin's face could turn any more crimson than it was already, Alice swooped in and saved him.

"Arthur, I was just saying to Myrddin that he really ought to sort out that interesting… thing on his face," she said, being as tactful as she could while miming stroking an imaginary beard on her own chin, "Would you take him out for me? It will give me enough time to sort dinner. You can even see if you can't find him some clothes of his own if you're so desperate to have yours back."

Actually, Alice swooped in and made it worse.

"Alright," Arthur agreed with ease, his smirk still in place when he looked at Myrddin, but the moment he glanced at Alice, his expression was all sweetness and light, as though he hadn't just been behaving strangely. "I'll take him off your hands for an hour or two," he said. "Who knows, maybe he'll even scrub up better."

Myrddin frowned, wondering just what that had to do with anything and why it was that Arthur sounded as though he liked the idea.

"It's not my fault your clothes don't fit me," he said quietly, ignoring it when Arthur laughed at him.

"Well, off with you!" the doctor's wife said, somehow managing to whisk them away to the front door before they had done so much as blink. Myrddin, to his eternal sorrow, hadn't even managed to have a bite of cake yet.

Before Alice shut the door on them, she reached for a purse that sat atop the telephone table. From it, she took a few notes and folded them into Myrddin's protesting hands. "Get yourself a razor and some clothes, please," she instructed. Then the yellow door was slammed shut and Myrddin was left standing on the gravel drive with a man who'd barely taken his eyes off him since they'd met. Unnerving wasn't the word. But Gaius hadn't discouraged this. He obviously knew Arthur well, or he'd not have asked him for his clothes. He'd not have trusted him to be out with Myrddin. So really, he wasn't in any real danger, even if the blonde did seem a little bit odd. He must have been safe, or he'd not have been sent away. He looked down at the notes in his hands. He couldn't help but feel guilty.

Hadn't he seen a bank card in his wallet, when he'd looked through it for some clues as to who he had been before? He opened the wallet as Arthur stood beside him, not so subtly sighing with his irritation at the fact that they weren't leaving yet. He put the notes away first in the front, so he'd know not to use them if he could, then pushed a few cards aside until he found the one he was looking for. A folded square of paper fluttered out at the same time, and before he'd noticed it, Arthur had caught it from the air, reflexes quicker than anyone Myrddin had ever known, but then, he'd not technically known many people really, had he? Trying not to be impressed, he turned over the card in his hands. It was his. Just like his licence, it bore his name and the bank from which it had come.

"Why did you write your pin down?" asked the blonde at his side as he looked down at the paper that he had taken the liberty of unfolding. He held it up so that Myrddin could see it. Scrawled there was the word 'pin' and a number; '1234'. Obvious, really. Still, Myrddin frowned. Why would he have done that?

"Maybe I used to be forgetful," he said, quiet as he took the number from him. "Can I access my account with this?" he wanted to know, looking up to see Arthur's face.

"Anyone could access your bank account with that," he told him.

He decided not to dwell on it for long. Even if there wasn't much money in his account, it would surely be better than nothing, and he'd not feel quite so guilty as he had done. He wouldn't have to take the money Alice had given him. He didn't want to leach off them. They were already giving him free use of their home.

"Well, I'd like to go to this place first. Please," he said, looking to the blonde with hope in his eyes. "If I have any money, I'd like to be able to use it. I can't just take from them, not if I can help it. I know you don't like me much, but they've done so much for me already. If I took money, even if she gave it to me, I'd feel like I was taking advantage. It's the last thing I want to do."

"Alright," Arthur said at length, and there was something new in his eyes, a kind of appreciation, it could have been. "We'll go to your bank first."

Myrddin stared at his bank balance. That couldn't be right.

Arthur was stood off to one side, waiting impatiently for him to be finished. He had stood there and helped to start with, explained that it was as easy as following the directions on the screen, and then, he'd stood aside, saying the contents of the other man's account were none of his business.

"Is there anything?" the blonde asked.

Clearing his throat, Myrddin wondered just how to answer that question.

"There's something," he finally settled on as he stared at the figure on the ATM's screen. The number was, and he dearly wished he could think of a better word for it, but the only one that he could come up with was that it was frankly enormous. To have so much money it made his jaw drop, he had to have had a job, didn't he? It wouldn't have been inheritance, given that he had apparently grown up in an orphanage. To have money like this, he must have been saving it for a long time. He so wished he could remember. Perhaps this money had something to do with the reason behind the fire. Perhaps it had something to do with the old man. He let out a breath and pressed the button for £100, thinking that would be enough. It seemed like a nice, well rounded number, and it ought to make sure that he didn't have to touch the money Alice had given him. Thankfully, he could be self-sufficient on this front, at least.

"Are you done?"

Tucking the notes that most definitely belonged to him away into his wallet and sliding his card in after them, Myrddin pocketed the lot, then moved to join the other man.

"I took out £100," he confided in him, not yet noticing the pair of great, hulking figures a few feet away from the ATM. To be fair to him, Arthur hadn't noticed them either.

"…why?"

"I thought it would just be enough."

"Myrddin, is there actually something wrong with you?"

"Aside from the amnesia? I don't know, because I don't remember," he said, and perhaps he was a little bit short with Arthur, but the other man seemed to have no sense of compassion. Really, Myrddin had been spoilt by what had been shown to him by Gaius and Guinevere, but that was beside the point. He began walking. He didn't know the way, didn't know where he was, but the feeling of not knowing was one that he had begun to get used to now.

Footsteps were fast behind him, and then the blonde was at his side again.

"There's no need for you to get in a little huff, you know. I was only joking."

"A joke is only funny if someone laughs. Even I know that."

They walked in silence for a while. He had stomped off in a huff, it was true, but he wasn't about to admit to it. He didn't understand Arthur, and that was his problem. He was strange and bullying yet wouldn't leave Myrddin alone, as though he cared what happened to him.

They'd ended up down an alleyway after he'd stamped off, and there had been a woman walking with her hood pulled up ahead, but when Myrddin looked again, he saw that she'd vanished. Still, he thought nothing of it as they made their way through now, their steps bouncing off the close walls and back to them.

Except there seemed to be too many footsteps.

"It's not my fault you've no sense of humour, Myrddin," said Arthur, pronouncing his name effortlessly enough that it made Myrddin's eyes narrow at him. It was almost as though he'd known that he'd been unable to say his own name to start with, like he was rubbing that in his face along with everything else.

He'd been about to respond, to say that he was sure he did have a sense of humour because Guinevere had spent an awful lot of time laughing with and at him in the hospital, so that couldn't have been right. Instead, he found himself crinkling his nose as they were assaulted by a stench that very nearly had him retching, it was so bad. He covered his mouth with his hands, frowning, supposing they were just walking through a particularly bad patch of the alleyway.

"Can you smell that?" Arthur asked at his side, and his face, which had been handsome enough so far, was now contorted in something like disgust.

"Something's wrong," Myrddin said. He didn't know how he knew it, nor how he had even known what to do, but he shoved at Arthur, sending the blonde colliding with the brick wall opposite even as his own back hit the other, and in that instant, something wooden with metal spikes emerging at odd angles from it was thrown between them.

It fell to the ground a few feet away, and immediately, Myrddin was struck by the sheer size of it. It looked like it had once been the leg of a table that had been torn off, for the ends of it were splintered and ragged. And then he realised that someone must have thrown it. He turned a panicked gaze in the direction it had come from and saw them.

Myrddin was still against the wall he'd thrown himself at, all but frozen to the spot, but Arthur was up and hurling abuse at the would-be attackers, asking what they thought they were doing, that they could have hurt someone. And maybe that was just what they'd wanted. Someone had already tried to kill Myrddin. And the police had said that the old man hadn't been working alone.

They were advancing. Hulking figures, the pair of them, one carrying a second weapon that he didn't want to look at, they towered over the two men, enough so that Myrddin had to crane his head back just to be able to see them. He immediately wished that he hadn't tried. For these things, whatever they were, can't have been human. They were dressed in red, in clothes that looked as though they'd been strung together out of anything that had been to hand, and their skin was grey and cracked in places, almost as though made of stone. Their eyes, what he could see of them, glowed a sickly, dull green.

He went cold, watching mutely as one approached slowly, its steps rocking the ground beneath them as it hefted the weapon in its clumsy hands, lifting it slowly, as though to strike, and Arthur, the absolute idiot, was still there, cursing at them, telling them to back off before someone got hurt.

He didn't think Arthur could see them. At least, not properly, or surely, he'd be running by now, because there was no doubt in his mind that they were the ones who would be hurt here.

He scrambled into action, and for just a moment, it was as though time were slowing, as though he could move faster than he ever had before. The thing that was lifting its club to harm them had slowed, but Myrddin could pay it no mind. He wrapped a hand about Arthur's wrist, intending to pull him out of the way before he could be struck, and in that moment, as time seemed to return to normal, he saw fear on the blonde's face for the first time.

"Oh, shit—" he gasped, eyes wide. "Myrddin, they're—"

"Run," Myrddin breathed, for it was their only option. Whoever, whatever these things were, they were here to cause harm. They couldn't fight back. They had to get away now, or they'd be as dead as whoever had sent them clearly wanted them to be.

"What?" the blonde looked at him, almost in a daze, not seeming to comprehend the fact that they were in very real danger when just a few moments ago, he'd been having a laugh at Myrddin's expense.

He didn't bother to repeat himself. Instead, he tightened his grip on the other man's wrist and pulled at the same time as he took off running. He was fast, as it turned out, and once he'd stopped stumbling and realised what they were doing, Arthur matched his pace effortlessly.

The only problem was that Myrddin, up until a week ago, had been unconscious for a month in hospital. His muscles weren't quite back to themselves, and within a minute, his lungs began to burn with the effort of breathing as they ran. His legs ached, and the incessantly heavy, echoing steps behind them were showing no signs of stopping. He let go of Arthur's hand. He was only slowing him down. If only he could have been faster, they would be able to escape together, but there was no reason the blonde, however infuriating he had tried to be, should get caught up in this and hurt. Whatever this was. He cast a glance over his shoulder. They were some distance away now, for they did not move quickly, but still, they advanced, steadily approaching.

Arthur was still running, had pulled ahead of Myrddin when the dark haired man stumbled and fell. And Arthur, the stupid idiot, turned around and came back for him. The alleyway was long, but it wasn't far to the main road. He could even see people.

But that didn't matter. Because now, they weren't going to make it. Even as Arthur dragged him to his feet and pulled him along after him, he knew they weren't going to make it. He felt dizzy, and there was a haze of darkness at the edges of his vision that had him near pitching forwards as they tried to escape.

He glanced back, knowing with fear and utter certainty that they would not make it.

They were already upon them.