A/N: I know the title makes this sound like a crack fic but it was too good to pass up. This is basically a massive sick!fic for the knights and Merlin and Arthur taking care of them. And the angst of a reveal. XD

Chapter 1

Lancelot felt the floaty sensation slowly shift into a solid awareness of his body as consciousness surfaced. He prized his eyelids open groggily and blinked up at a blurry canopy of dark splotches. Turning his head, his cheek brushed against cold, slimy mulch, and as his vision cleared, he got a glimpse of surrounding forest. He rolled onto his hip and propped himself up on his elbow, looking around in confusion. He remembered being on patrol in the woods, but had no idea what had happened or how he'd ended up unconscious.

He spotted a splash of red amongst the muted greens and browns several feet away. Percival, lying face down with his cloak splayed around him. Lancelot pressed his hand to the bed of leaves to push himself up, only to flinch in surprise and pain. He rocked onto his other side and looked at his palm; there was a slice across it, a clean cut as though from a knife. The blood had long since dried and caked, suggesting he'd been out for a while. He didn't remember coming under attack.

Pushing his questions aside, he lurched to his feet and staggered over to his friend, dropping down beside him heavily. Lancelot grunted as he pushed Percival over onto his back and then bent his ear over his mouth. A puff of breath tickled his ear, confirming Percival was alive. When Lancelot straightened, he spotted the others also lying around the area, seemingly unconscious. At least that's what Lancelot hoped. There was no blood splashed across the ground.

Percival moaned, his face scrunching up. Lancelot reached out and squeezed his shoulder. Percival's eyes cracked open and he squinted up at Lancelot, then flung an arm across his face.

"Mmph, what happened?"

"I don't know."

Gwaine made a noise and started to shift.

Lancelot stood and stumbled over to Elyan next, gripping his shoulder and giving him a firm shake to rouse him. He came awake just as groggily as the rest of them.

"What happened?" Leon asked, sitting up and bracing one arm across his raised knee.

"No idea," Lancelot replied. He scanned the area; there was no sign of the their horses.

Gwaine suddenly hissed sharply as he tried to get up and rocked back on his butt, clutching his hand.

"You all right?" Leon asked in concern.

"Fine," he huffed. "Just cut my hand apparently."

"Me too," Elyan put in.

Lancelot held up his palm and looked to Percival and Leon. They also had identical slices across one hand.

"Well, that's no coincidence," Gwaine muttered, shuffling to his feet.

"Who could have done this?" Elyan asked. "Why can't we remember?"

Lancelot staggered around the immediate area, searching for any sign of their horses, but they appeared to have vanished, along with all their recollections of what had befallen them.

"We need to head back to Camelot," Leon said.

And with their horses gone, they had no choice but to make their way on foot.

They took a moment to attempt to orient themselves, then set off.

"Why would someone attack us and then just leave?" Elyan wondered aloud.

"It's strange," Percival agreed. "Maybe they just wanted to steal the horses and supplies?"

"The memory loss makes me suspect magic," Leon put in.

"Sorcerer horse thieves?" Elyan said skeptically.

"They didn't take our weapons," Percival pointed out.

Gwaine snorted. "Is that supposed to make them benevolent horse thieves? Not leaving us defenseless in the Darkling Woods to be eaten by some monster."

Lancelot raised his hand to look at the cut on his palm. It seemed so innocuous compared to more serious wounds they could have received, but he was unnerved that they were all cut the same way. What was the purpose? If it had something to do with magic…well, the only thing Lancelot could think of was some kind of blood spell, and he was deeply unsettled by the notion. He was anxious to get back to Camelot so he could consult with Merlin and Gaius.

Yet as they trudged on, there seemed to be no end to the forest. In fact, the woods were becoming thicker and darker.

Leon finally drew to a stop. "We should have reached the edge by now."

They all shifted nervously, then Gwaine scowled loudly.

"We passed that tree a while ago. We're going in circles!"

Lancelot frowned at the stunted, gnarled tree. They had, indeed, passed it before.

"How is that possible?" Percival said.

"Someone made a wrong turn," Gwaine huffed.

"We didn't," Leon insisted.

Lancelot's stomach began twisting into knots. Something felt wrong, though he couldn't place what exactly. "Let's keep moving," he suggested.

They resumed their trek through the woods, but the trees didn't thin, only continued to become closer together, the air growing heavy and cloying. There was no direct sunlight at all, no way to tell the position of the sun anymore. Lancelot's heart was racing as the forest closed in around them.

Elyan lurched forward and caught himself on a tree trunk, sweating profusely. "I don't feel so good," he moaned.

Lancelot swept his gaze around at the others and noticed they were all looking a bit sickly. A shiver ran down his spine, and Lancelot realized his heart wasn't pattering based on emotion. He wrapped his arms around himself to hold in the shaking that had started. Pain flared in his hand, and he looked at his palm, his blood running cold. The cut was black, and spidery gray veins were branching out from it.

He turned sharply to his friends. "Check your hands."

They all looked at their cut palms, postures stiffening. Realization sank in with heavy dread—they'd been poisoned. So much for their assailants leaving them unharmed.

The urgency to make it back to Camelot increased with the revelation, and they pressed on, but they simply continued to stumble around lost in the woods for who knew how many hours. There was no way to tell.

"This isn't working," Gwaine finally snapped.

Leon slumped against a tree and began to slide down its trunk, but Lancelot seized his arm and hauled him back up.

"We have to keep moving," he insisted. To stop would be to die, and they needed to find help.

"Do you hear that?" Percival asked. His head was tilted to the side, gaze going slightly glazed and distant.

The others frowned and listened. The woods were utterly silent. But then Lancelot felt a susurration brush the edges of his mind, slithering like the breath of death. He gave himself a sharp shake to rid himself of the chill.

"Don't!" he snapped. "We can't give in. We have to make it back to Camelot."

He tugged on Leon, half supporting him as they pushed on. But it was getting harder. They stumbled often now. Percival caught Elyan and the two of them were propping each other up. Gwaine lurched drunkenly behind them, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

They came across a stream and stopped for water. Gwaine plopped on his knees on the bank and hastily splashed his face. Lancelot was shivering too intensely to entertain the thought of dousing himself in the frigid water. He scooped up some in his uninjured palm and sipped tentatively. All of them stayed kneeling in the mud for several long minutes, swaying as they struggled to remain upright.

Percival suddenly furrowed his brow and inched closer to the water, then reached up to grab his collar and tug it down. Lancelot stiffened. The sickly veins had crept up all the way Percival's torso and were peeking out from beneath his tunic. Lancelot grabbed his own shirt and yanked it down to look at his reflection in the stream. Bile churned in his gut at the sight. The poison was spreading quickly. He glanced at the others as they also checked themselves and each other; they were all in a similar state.

Elyan shuddered, hugging himself and rocking in place. He looked up at Lancelot. "What's happening to us?"

Lancelot pressed his mouth into a tight line. He didn't know. All he knew was they couldn't stay here. "Come on," he urged. "On your feet."

Even as he said it, it took a monumental effort just to get himself standing again. A weakness was permeating his muscles and nausea sloshed in his stomach. He reached out to grasp the back of Elyan's cloak and haul him upright, but he didn't have the strength and almost toppled sideways himself. Yet somehow they managed to get each other up, propped against one other as they set off at a hobbling pace again.

The forest was beginning to swirl unpleasantly, making Lancelot's head spin. Something tickled his mind persistently, making him flinch each time and attempt to recoil from the intense feeling of evil. But there was nowhere to go to get away from it; it was inside him, worming its way through his veins.

He tripped and went crashing to the ground. Percival reached down to grab him but ended up face planting right next to him. The others sank to the forest floor as well, curling in on themselves and moaning in misery.

Then that sinister voice became louder, clearer, ringing through Lancelot's mind like an echo. "Come to me."

He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to squirm away, but piercing green eyes flashed behind his eyelids, then flared amber. He snapped his eyes open with a gasp and jerked his gaze around, focusing on the woods. He flailed his hand around and grabbed a rock, clenching it in his injured hand, trying to use the pain to shock him back into lucidity.

Gwaine suddenly pushed himself to his feet and started lumbering away, a vacant look in his eyes, and Lancelot knew he was following that voice.

"No," he grunted, lashing out and snagging Gwaine's trouser leg. Gwaine tripped and went sprawling.

But then Leon was getting to his feet and lurching forward, and he was too far away for Lancelot to reach.

"Leon!" he gasped. "Stop!"

"Don't fight it," the voice hissed in his head sharply. "Come to me."

Lancelot shuddered. "No."

He could feel the poison coursing through him, though, like glacial liquid numbing him from the inside out. All around him, his friends' faces looked ghastly, those gray veins choking their throats and creeping all the way up to their eyes now, filling in the creases with black and leeching the life out of them. Lancelot knew he looked the same, and he couldn't fight it anymore.

And just like that, the poison settled in his mind, anesthetizing it. All feeling finally bled away, all sense of resistance or fear. The world became muted as a gray film descended over his eyes. He pushed himself to his feet numbly and followed the call.

One by one, the other knights rose from the ground and trailed after him, making their way through the gloomy trees until they reached a set of ancient ruins swallowed nearly whole by the forest in a dark and dead part of the wood. They drew to a stop, standing in a row, and waited.

A few moments later, their new mistress stepped out from the crumbling stone, green eyes glittering. Lancelot and the others knelt before her.

Her lips curved upward in a satisfied leer. "Welcome, my Knights of the Round Table."