Chapter Eight.

When it really came down to it, a spoon was just a mini-shovel.

That's what Arthur had originally thought when he managed to hide a spoon under his shirt and sneak it out of the canteen one afternoon. However, that was two weeks ago, and the mild September days turned into an early-October chill. The dirt on the ground became harder and more difficult to sift through. But, if Arthur was one thing, he was tenacious.

There was no way to get into the prison from inside Eleazar. The south gate was too heavily guarded. But he had to get inside. He had to know if protestors were being kept amongst the inmates. They must have been as eager to take Eleazar down as he was.

Only, he had no way of getting to them. Getting off the base would give him a better vantage point on how to slip into the prison, and walking through the monitored gates wasn't an option.

The hole beneath the western fence was almost big enough for him to fit through. He worked on it carefully over the last few weeks, ensuring that he didn't stay missing for too long. He kept his trips sporadic and without pattern, and he only dug for fifteen minutes each time—sometimes less. The process was dreadfully slow.

It would have gone quicker if he had Merlin's help. He'd mentioned his plan one day in hushed tones, keeping it hypothetical, but Merlin seemed less than thrilled about it.

"I don't see you coming up with a plan. If you have one, please, I'm all ears," Arthur complained, a little offended.

"I'm working on it," Merlin replied vaguely. Arthur really wished Merlin would go into detail, but they so rarely got the chance to speak anymore. Many nights, Merlin would get back after Arthur had fallen asleep, claiming Woo had kept him. Arthur was inclined to believe him because of Merlin's exhausted disposition most mornings, in which he would wince into every movement.

He never told Arthur what was paining him, and he never spoke of his escape plan. Until then, Arthur would find a way into the prison, as strange as that may have been. People usually wanted to break out of jail, not into it.

Arthur scattered the loose dirt across the grass with his hand and rolled the rock he'd placed next to the fence into the hole. It wobbled when he tried to set it into place, and he realized soon enough he'd have to find a bigger one—or more rocks. He wasn't sure if multiple would be too noticeable.

After wiping his palm on his sweatpants and tucking the spoon into his pocket, he stood up. Something spiked in the back of his head, making him rub at his neck and roll his shoulders. A tension headache was blooming upwards from his sore muscles.

Checking to make sure no one was watching him, he about-faced and headed towards the community center. He put his hands in his pockets and ducked his head every time he passed a building with a CCTV monitoring the area. His escape route was in their blind spot (or so he prayed every day), but some of the cameras were too close for comfort and he didn't want them seeing his face.

A flatbed lorry was driving down the dirt path en route to one of the outer buildings. Arthur had seen it a few times, and wondered what it was carrying. It's back was always closed off, and it drove into a garage door in one of the buildings instead of unloading its cargo outside. With no windows in the building for Arthur to peer into, he was left with his imagination. He was beginning to think that particular building wasn't for storage or maintenance at all.

It was after lunch by the time he reached the field, so he kept on walking towards the main building. He had an appointment with Scott for his daily injection.


That evening, Arthur stood underneath the shower in the communal toilets. They were referred to as communal, but normal patients never came to the main building, so he was the only one present. The room consisted of two toilet stalls, two sinks, and two showers. Scott told him the showers had been installed for two reasons: one was for emergencies, if chemicals were spilled and one sought reassurance beyond the initial laboratory showers; and the other was for when employees would work late into the night in the office, sometimes for days at a time, instead of returning to the staff's temporary living quarters near the north gate.

Arthur didn't ask too many questions about it. He was just glad there was a shower he could use at his leisure.

He turned the water hotter and let it run onto the tension in his neck and shoulders. His headache hadn't subsided. The steam rose up from the tiles around the drain and made his cheeks turn rosy. It actually made him a little lightheaded.

He felt his right hand go numb and leveled it for inspection. It was trembling beyond Arthur's control. He furrowed his brows curiously at it and shook his hand out. It stopped quaking, and he realized he really should turn the water temperature down before he passed out.

Before he got the chance, the bathroom door whined as it opened, and Arthur jerked his attention towards the shower curtain as though he could see through it, wondering who had entered.

Everything remained quiet.

Just as he convinced himself that he'd imagined the door opening, the shower curtain was ripped halfway across the pole, and someone jumped inside with him.

"Merlin!" Arthur shouted in agitation.

Merlin was still fully dressed. He stood just out of the reach of the showerhead, so the sprays bouncing off Arthur and the walls were the only things that spotted his clothes. He leaned his back against the tiled wall and rested his head there, too, closing his eyes and seeming to catch his breath.

"Shh," he whispered. Arthur barely heard him over the water. "I just needed a break."

Arthur noticed how exhausted Merlin looked. "A break from what?" he demanded.

Merlin only hushed him again.

Arthur heard the door open once more, and the familiar tapping of heels echoed through the room.

"Who's in there?" Woo's voice demanded.

Arthur gave Merlin an annoyed glare, realizing he'd run away from Woo; but Merlin silently pleaded for Arthur not to give away his hiding spot.

Arthur stuck his head out of the curtain. Acting like he had no idea what was going on, he said in an agitated tone, "Me?"

Woo blinked at him, seeming taken aback. "Oh," she said. "Have you seen Merlin?"

He shook his head. "Isn't he supposed to be with you?" It wasn't too difficult for Arthur to pretend to be aggravated with Woo. He hated her.

Woo narrowed her eyes, like she was trying to see into Arthur's brain, and Arthur kept his expression fixed.

"Fine," she said, placated. "Goodnight, Arthur." She turned away and exited the room. Arthur waited a few second to make sure she wasn't coming back before he straightened out and fixed the shower curtain.

Merlin was still resting against the wall, taking deep breaths. He looked pale, and dark circles were rimming his eyes.

"What has she done to you, Merlin?" Arthur asked, more worried than demanding now.

Merlin shook his head. "Nothing. I'm fine," he lied. "I just needed to relax."

Arthur decided getting Merlin to tell the truth wasn't worth the argument just then. "So, you interrupt my bath?" he said instead.

Merlin hummed out a teasing laugh and opened his eyes. "I knew she wouldn't pull back the curtain."

Arthur shook his head and smirked. "You're lucky she didn't. Acting out like this is never going to get us to the dormitories." A thought occurred to him: "She'll notice you're wet when you go back."

"What?" Merlin asked, confused. He realized when he looked down at himself. "Oh. I'll dry myself when I get out."

He picked himself up from the wall, and Arthur thought he might leave, but instead he encroached closer into the stream. His sweatpants turned a darker shade of gray and his white shirt became nearly transparent as it clung to his skin.

He smiled in some memory and lazily scanned Arthur up and down. He reached for the bar of soap behind Arthur and began stroking it across Arthur's bare shoulders. It caused suds to spill down Arthur's back and chest.

"What are you doing?" Arthur wondered, even though it felt good to have Merlin's fingertips brushing against him.

"I used to wash you, didn't I?" Merlin said, like he didn't quite remember. Arthur thought back to the tin tub in his chambers that Merlin would roll out every day. He always made the water either boiling or too cold.

"You weren't very good at it," Arthur snipped.

Merlin didn't seem to hear him. He picked up the shampoo bottle and squirted some into his palms. He lathered it into Arthur's hair, and it smelled like lilacs mixed with fruit. Arthur watched the concentrated look on Merlin's face as he massaged it into his scalp. It was making his headache disappear.

Merlin started smoothing Arthur's hair up, molding it with his palms into a Mohawk. He chortled at it happily when he was finished, and the laughter was infectious.

"That's a good look for you," Merlin lowered his hands and joked.

Arthur grinned and shook his head wildly until the hairstyle flattened back out. It caused globs of soap to fly onto the curtain and walls—and onto Merlin, but Merlin didn't seem to mind it very much.

He pecked a quick kiss to Arthur's lips, which turned into several pecks, which turned into Arthur crowding Merlin against the wall with their bodies slammed together. Arthur ran his hands up and under Merlin's shirt, which was weighed and soaked, and he wished the fabric between them was gone. It wasn't very fair that he was exposed and Merlin was still dressed.

The water raining down was almost sizzling to Arthur's skin now. It seeped through their lips and into their mouths.

Arthur was quickly hardening against Merlin's waist, and Merlin took advantage of that by fitting his leg between Arthur's thighs and rubbing up and down. Arthur nearly slipped on the wet tiles as his knees faltered. He had a moment of panic and pressed his palms on the wall on either side of Merlin's head; but his palms were slippery, too, and they squeaked along the porcelain to unbalance Arthur. He lost his footing and stumbled into the shower control knobs, and the spiking pain caused him to swear.

Merlin laughed all the while like it was a circus act.

"This is unsafe," Arthur complained, rubbing the sore spot on his side and swearing off shower sex for good. It always gave him bruises.

"Yeah, it is," Merlin agreed lightheartedly, and Arthur would like to see how he'd feel after being injured. Merlin's face fell and he extracted himself from the wall again. "I should be getting back anyway," he said dreadfully.

Arthur pouted. "You're sure you don't want to keep washing me?"

"I think I'd rather torture."

Arthur's expression changed in a blink. A look of horror and concern passed over him, and Merlin seemed to have realized what he said, because he corrected with a blithe, "I'm being dramatic."

"Then be un-dramatic," Arthur commanded. He searched Merlin for any signs of harm, but it was so hard to tell with those damn clothes on.

"It's a joke, Arthur. She knows I could stop her from doing anything I don't want her to with my magic," Merlin assured him, but it was still too vague for Arthur's liking.

"Merlin—"

"Hey," Merlin interrupted, stepping in close again. "Don't worry so much. That's my job, remember?"

"Then what's my job?"

It was preposterous that Merlin thought Arthur wasn't allowed to worry about him.

"Same as it's always been: to look handsome while I do all the work," Merlin said, punctuating it by brushing Arthur's wet fringe out of his eyes.

"You don't do all the work," Arthur defended matter-of-factly.

"Yes, I do."

"That's not true!"

"Yes, it is."

"Merlin?"

"Hmm?"

"Get out!"

Merlin pouted his lips to the side, trying to look unamused. Then, he disappeared to the other side of the curtain. By the time Arthur peered out of it, Merlin was miraculously dry.

"Merlin?" Arthur called, trying not to sound too concerned. "Don't do anything stupid."

"Never," Merlin answered sarcastically and tossed a grin over his shoulder.

Arthur watched him open the bathroom door a few inches, check up and down the corridor to make sure no one was around, and sneak out of the room. When the door had swung fully closed, Arthur stood back under the water and readjusted the curtain again.

He could still feel Merlin's hands ghosting over his skin, nails digging into his back and fingers combing his hair. The stream of water was stifling. Arthur whole body tingled and his heart raced his chest. If he closed his eyes, Merlin's body was still pressed against his. Arthur let out a breath from deep within his lungs, and he swiftly turned the shower temperature to cold.


Lunchtime was Dr. Scott's favorite part of the day. He and Arthur would usually walk to the canteen together after their morning sessions, sometimes in contented silence and sometimes telling each other stories of who they were outside Eleazar. Arthur learned that Scott had two brothers, one who lived in France and the other of which lived in Islington; and that he attended medical school at Cambridge "when dinosaurs still walked the earth," which must have been a joke. He didn't have any children of his own, but he was very close to his wife's niece. He would tell Arthur about her sometimes, speaking of her with pride.

Scott would also talk about his wife from time to time, mostly reminiscing about when they were young and she was healthy. Those stories would come in solemn times, after Scott had gotten off the phone with her and she didn't remember who he was.

However, that afternoon, Scott was in good spirits. He had his lunchtime spring in his step as he led Arthur down a corridor in a part of the building Arthur had never been in before. Scott told him it was where the offices were, and they could go to the canteen as soon as Scott dropped off his tablet and picked up his coat in his office.

This area of the building looked the same as the others: white walls, buzzing overhead lights, CCTV cameras on the ceiling, uniform doors. However, most of these doors were open, inviting others in, and had name plaques on them. As they walked by, Arthur peaked in to some of the rooms and saw doctors at their desks. Scott would sometimes give them friendly hellos. Every now and again, a phone would ring softly from down the corridor.

There was one door that was different than the rest. It was painted a deep red and it was shut tight. Arthur didn't have to wiggle the handle to know it was locked. It simply gave off that keep out air.

Arthur didn't know why, but he'd stopped in front of the door. He tried to imagine what was beyond it, and saw in his mind's eye dusty bookshelves and a rich mahogany desk with a leather chair behind it. There were hardwood floors that were expertly polished, and the soles of one's shoes would echo with every step. It was probably an image he'd see in a movie at some point, but he couldn't shake it from his head. The door was much too red to guard anything else.

"Arthur?" said Scott's voice. It found its way into Arthur's subconscious and roused him from his daydream. When Arthur looked up, Scott was already halfway down the hall, but he was returning to Arthur's side.

"That's Dr. Wilt's office," Scott explained. Arthur had guessed that already.

"Is he in there?" Arthur wondered. He eyed the door with distrust.

"No, no—never," Scott told him. "Unless he's been sneaking into it when no one's been looking." He chuckled at his own joke.

"Has anyone else gone inside?" Arthur wondered. There had to have been something in there that gave away Wilt's whereabouts. Woo would want it just as much as Arthur.

Arthur had a morbid thought that Wilt was, in fact, inside, only he was dead and his rotting corpse had been sitting at his desk without anyone knowing. Arthur even went as far as to take a deep sniff, but he didn't smell anything, unless the door was sealing it in.

"No one has access. Not even Dr. Woo," said Scott with a shrug. "Now, let's get going. I'm sure you must be hungry."

Scott continued down the corridor, and Arthur cast another look at the door, like he'd hoped it would miraculously open, before following after him. He wondered how many staff members had walked by that door each day without giving it a second glance. Perhaps they'd even forgotten it was there.

Arthur waited in the hall as Scott put down his things and collected his coat in the cluttered office. He wondered how Scott found anything on his desk, or if it was an organized mess.

"I'll try to get home this weekend, sweetheart, I promise," Arthur heard someone say from the next office. The voice was familiar, but somehow foreign, too. He swore he'd know it, if only it was harsher. "Have you done your homework or are you giving Daddy a hard time?"

Scott came back into the hallway and locked his office behind him. He strode to the next door, where the voice was coming from, and stuck his head inside. Arthur trailed behind him and looked over his shoulder. Woo was sitting at her desk with her laptop open and a forgotten, half-eaten carton of salad beside it. She had her mobile pressed to her ear.

"Oh, hang on, sweetheart. Mummy's got visitors," she said sweetly into the receiver before holding the phone to her chest and giving Scott her attention. It struck Arthur. He scanned the walls of the office, wondering if this was some kind of joke. Apparently it wasn't, because framed photographs littered the walls, depicting a young black haired, porcelain skinned girl in most of them, from infancy to what must have been eight years old. There were also pictures of Woo, her hair down and flowing instead of in its usual tight ponytail, with a man, probably her husband.

Arthur never saw Woo as a mother. She was too rigid. Her eyes weren't soft enough or pained enough. All he saw in them were ferocity.

He never even considered she could be a wife, a sister, or a daughter, either. Then he remembered Merlin saying Woo's mother had died of something, and the revelation that she had a mother of her own sent Arthur for another loop.

"What is it?" Woo asked Scott with a touch of the frigidness back in her tone.

"We're popping over to the canteen. Wondered if you wanted to come along?" he offered. Usually, something like that would raise Arthur's pulse. He'd get angry if she said yes, but now he wasn't so sure. He found himself wanting to know more about who Woo was in her personal life. It wouldn't make him trust her; it was more of a startling curiosity.

And, perhaps, in the back of his mind, he heard his father's voice saying, "Know your enemy. Know their weaknesses." Arthur would tell his knights the same thing during training: they had to know exactly where to land the blow during combat.

But Arthur didn't know if he could use a child to get to Woo. But perhaps family wasn't completely off limits in everyone's case . . .

"I've eaten already, thank you," Woo told him, and Scott seemed to accept it. Apparently, he was used to the rejection from her.

He was just about to walk away, and Woo moved to put her mobile back to her ear, but Arthur quickly asked, "Wait, where's Merlin?"

She shrugged in apathy. "Lunch?" she guessed.

Arthur was glad to hear it, and he nearly raced Scott to the community center. He was eager to tell Merlin that he found out where Wilt's office was, and what he learned of Woo. He wondered if Merlin knew she had a family and didn't bother to mention it.

However, Arthur didn't spot Merlin in the canteen. It shouldn't have been hard to find him there, because its density had dwindled over the last few weeks. There were still scattered groups around the tables, but it wasn't what it used to be. At first Arthur thought it was the food. As good as it was, there were only so many canteen meals one could stomach. Arthur was sick of the stuff himself. But the rest of the community center was empty of patients, too, and no one sat on the field or the played on the pitch anymore.

Someone coughed loudly, and it echoed over the murmured conversations. Arthur took another look around for Merlin before giving up and deciding to sit with Scott instead.


"'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.'
'Not to mention to right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.' There was a long silence.
'I claim them all,' said the Savage at last . . ."

Arthur made sure to wait up for Merlin that night. He kept awake by reading, but the clock told him that it would be lights out in less than fifteen minutes. His mind tumbled as his eyes ran laps up and down the pages, and his thought turned exclusively to Wilt's office. If he could just get inside, he was certain he'd find something that would lead him to Wilt—a scribbled note in a desk drawer, a marked date on a calendar, a journal, something.

Every man left traces. Wilt was no exception. He wasn't a ghost.

Eventually, even Arthur's thoughts of Wilt exhausted themselves and faded away. He tried to reach them again, to build a plan, but they eluded him like water through his fingers.

Distantly, he heard the slamming of a door, but he didn't react to it. He heard his name echo from somewhere. It got louder with repetition. He realized at once that he couldn't remember what he'd read for three pages.

Arthur looked up at to the side to find Merlin crouched down and grinning at him from the opposite side of the glass.

"Away with the fairies?" Merlin teased before folding his legs in front of him on his bed.

Arthur rattled his head to get the cobwebs out. "Must be," he admitted. "You're back early."

"Earlier," Merlin corrected. He looked towards the clock across the room, and so did Arthur. It was five minutes to eleven. "Still late."

Arthur closed his book without dog earring it first and set it next to him. "Do you know Woo has a daughter and husband?"

Merlin looked a little taken aback by the sudden shift in topic, but he shrugged once he recovered. "Does she?" he asked like he really didn't care.

"You knew about her mother," Arthur pointed out.

"So?"

"So I just thought maybe you knew she had more family."

Merlin gave an overwrought chuckle. "We don't actually chat, Arthur."

"No, I don't know what she does to you," Arthur reminded him, not without spite.

Merlin chose to overlook it. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"Nothing," besides the fact that Dr. Eliza Woo was actually a human being. Scott was a real person off campus, too. It reminded Arthur that all the staff had lives and families. Wilt must have, too. Arthur hadn't even considered that possibility before that afternoon.

"It just got me thinking about our mysterious Dr. Wilt," Arthur went on.

Merlin let out a deep breath, dropped his shoulders, and settled in by stretching out flat on his mattress. "What about him?"

"There must be some way of getting in touch with him."

Merlin shrugged his hands out over his stomach before dropping them back into position. "Why do you care?"

Arthur scoffed. How could Merlin take this so lightly?

"He's the reason we're here. Don't you find it odd that he has no interest in seeing us?" Arthur stressed, trying to convince him. When Merlin didn't answer with anything more than an indifferent raise of his eyebrow, Arthur went on, "I saw his office today. It was locked. I don't think he's been here for a long time. Months—maybe even years. No one seems to know where he is."

"You think he's dead?" Merlin asked.

Arthur considered the question. It would be almost poetic for a man so obsessed with immorality to die right before finding it. But Arthur cared very little for poetry.

"I hope not," he answered. "Because I would quite like a word with him."

They both knew that Arthur wasn't interested in words, at all. A man like Wilt should be held responsible for his crimes. He should answer for the loss and suffering he caused.

"What would you do to him?" Merlin asked, sounding like he was fulfilling a morbid fantasy. Finally, it sounded like Arthur was getting through to him. Even though Merlin never shared his experiences at Eleazar, Arthur was sure he was having a harder time than anyone else on base. Arthur wondered what Merlin would do if he ever got his hands on Wilt. Arthur probably couldn't even imagine something so creative.

"If this were the old days, I'd have him hanged," Arthur snipped. He'd thought about it more than once. He considered, if this were Camelot, putting Wilt in the dungeons for the rest of his life. But that was too good for him. He was chasing life, so Arthur would make damn sure he found death. It couldn't be prolonged; it would have to be quick. Like blowing out a candle.

Now that would be poetic.

"Sounds a bit harsh," Merlin muttered. It made Arthur glare at him.

"You don't think he deserves it?"

Merlin fell silent. His expression was very far away as he stared up at the ceiling. He couldn't determine what Merlin was thinking, but it worried him. Whatever they were doing to Merlin, it was weakening him. Arthur had to keep him in high spirits. Merlin couldn't give up. He wasn't allowed.

"I think he deserves it," Merlin whispered finally, just loud enough for Arthur to hear it through the glass. Arthur was relieved by the knowledge of there still being some fight left in Merlin.

To strengthen Merlin's resolve, Arthur said, "Good. Because, once we get out of here, we're going after him."

Merlin's let out another deep breath and shifted his jaw thoughtfully.

"We'll find him, Merlin, and we'll make him pay for all of this."

Against his pillow, Merlin's head bobbed up and down a few times in a feeble nod.

Arthur kicked out his legs in front of him and cast a look to the clock. The lights would go out any moment now, like they always did. He laid down beside Merlin.

"I would have told you all this before, but I couldn't find you in the canteen," he said casually. "Where were you, anyway?"

"With Woo," Merlin said into a yawn.

Arthur furrowed his brow up at the ceiling. He must have heard Merlin wrong. "What?"

"Woo," Merlin said again.

Arthur's heart skipped a beat. He turned his head quickly towards Merlin, whose eyes were already shut as he said, "She kept me through lunch."

Arthur stared at him for what felt like decades. He didn't know what he was looking for written on Merlin's face, but he felt a weight pressing down on his chest, gaining in mass, with each moment he didn't find it. Merlin didn't appear to know he was being watched.

The lights gave one last buzz before shutting off, and Arthur could no longer see Merlin in the darkness.