A/N: Set in an AU where everyone knows about Merlin's magic. Thanks to 29Pieces for beta reading! Labeled as horror for the creepy factor, not for blood and guts.
"The Seedling"
"It is too early for this," Gwaine groused as the five knights of the inner Round Table exited the castle into the crisp morning air, the sky still pale before the sun fully crested the eastern horizon.
"Arthur wanted the training sessions pushed up," Leon replied as though they didn't all already know this. "To discourage drunken nights at the tavern."
"I resent that," Gwaine retorted. "And I don't see the princess out of bed this early."
Lancelot just shook his head. He didn't mind being up with the dawn. There was a peaceful quietness to the early morning hours, before the bustle of daily life picked up in earnest.
"What's this?" Elyan said, stopping on the steps and picking up a small wooden box. He turned it over curiously. "Nice craftsmanship," he commented. "Wonder where it's from."
"Someone dropped it?" Percival asked.
"I don't know. It looks more like it was left on the doorstep."
"You there!" Leon called to the guards at the nearest posting. "Did anyone see who left this?"
The men glanced over and shook their heads.
Gwaine snatched the box out of Elyan's hands to examine it. "Mm, a mystery."
"We should take it to Arthur," Leon said.
Gwaine scoffed. "It doesn't have his name on it."
Leon grabbed the box away from him. "Leaving something on the king's doorstep usually means it's for the king."
He turned to head back inside when Gwaine stole the box back and pranced out of Leon's reach, over near Lancelot.
"It can't hurt to take a peek," Gwaine said, opening the lid.
"Gwaine," Leon huffed in vexation.
Gwaine tossed a cheeky grin back at him, not looking at the box as he finished opening the lid. Lancelot saw what was inside, though—a fleshy, black, sprout-looking thing with tendrils that were squirming up the rims of the box. He instantly shot a hand out, knocking the container out of Gwaine's hands before the shoots could touch him. But the flailing tendrils snagged Lancelot's hand instead and stuck like goo. The box fell to the ground, and the thing that'd been inside it latched itself around the back of Lancelot's hand and wrist with a snap.
Lancelot reeled back and tried to shake it off. When that didn't work, he attempted to prize it off with his other hand, but the thing was suctioned to his skin.
"Now you've done it!" Elyan shouted at Gwaine.
"This isn't my fault!"
"Shut up!" Leon snapped at them both as he strode over to Lancelot, eyes wide with alarm.
Lancelot dug at the fleshy tendrils to no avail. "I can't get it off," he grunted.
Percival stepped in and applied his strength, but he couldn't get the thing to detach from Lancelot's skin either.
"We should get Merlin," Leon said.
Elyan bent down and carefully picked up the box, and then they all headed back into the castle and to Gaius's chambers. Gaius and Merlin were seated around the table with breakfast when the knights barged in.
"Sorry for the early intrusion," Leon apologized. "We've come across a problem."
Lancelot moved forward and extended his hand to show them. Both Merlin and Gaius surged from their seats at the sight of the gleaming black thing attached to Lancelot's hand like a leech.
"We found a box on the steps of the castle," he explained. "This was inside."
"Is it doing anything?" Merlin asked in alarm.
"Not that I can tell," Lancelot replied. "It just won't come off."
"It's obviously sorcery, though, yeah?" Percival put in. "And that's bad?"
Gaius picked up Lancelot's arm and manipulated it, squinting at the thing from multiple angles. "I can't tell if it's a plant or slug species."
"Can you figure it out after you get it off?" Lancelot asked a tad tersely.
"Yeah, stand back," Merlin said.
Everyone backed up a step as Merlin stretched his hand out toward Lancelot's. With an uttered spell, his eyes flashed gold. The thing squealed in response and constricted so tightly that Lancelot cried out as his hand was crushed. The thing then released its grip, but only to slither further up his wrist to hide under the sleeve of his chainmail.
Despite the agony in his mangled hand, Lancelot frantically pushed his sleeve up to reveal the thing, now coiled about his forearm and still suctioned to his skin. There was a beat of horrified silence as everyone stared at it.
"I'm going to get Arthur," Leon said and left.
"I'm sorry," Merlin started.
Lancelot just nodded, unable to speak at the moment; he couldn't have known the creature would react that way.
"Those bones look broken," Gaius said. "Here, sit down."
Lancelot shuffled over to the table and sat on one of the bench seats. Gaius then gently cupped his wrist and began to set the bones. Lancelot clenched his teeth hard enough to crack them as he fought not to cry out. There were so many small bones in the hand, if they didn't heal properly…
"Merlin," Gaius called, holding everything in alignment.
Merlin then cast a healing spell, fusing the bones back together in an instant. Lancelot sucked in a sharp breath at the unnerving sensation. Gaius palpated the bones, humming his approval.
"Thank you," Lancelot said hoarsely. The potentially debilitating injury was one less thing to worry about. He swallowed hard as he shifted his gaze to the thing on his arm.
"What about cutting it off?" Elyan suggested.
Merlin and Gaius exchanged grim looks at that, but Gaius nevertheless went to get a scalpel from his medicine bag. Lancelot rested his arm on the table, rolling his sleeves up further and holding them in place as Gaius took a seat and set the blade to one of the fleshy shoots. As soon as he made a cut, though, the creature squealed and tightened again. Gaius immediately stopped and withdrew his hands before it broke Lancelot's arm in a fit. When no further assault on its appendages came, it loosened its grip and settled again.
No one said anything, but the silence spoke volumes. Gaius and Merlin were stymied, and Lancelot felt dread curdling his stomach. What were they going to do if they couldn't get it off?
"I'm really sorry," Gwaine broke the taut silence. "It should be me; I was the one who insisted on opening the box."
"What's done is done," Lancelot replied. "And better me than Arthur, if that's who this was intended for."
Merlin nudged Gaius's shoulder, prompting him to give up his seat so Merlin could take his place. The warlock then began to very carefully and gently poke and prod at the black creature, and Lancelot tensed in expectation of more pain. But it seemed that as long as Merlin didn't try to injure or take it off, it wasn't going to react violently. Which did not solve their problem.
Leon returned with Arthur, who immediately asked what Gaius had found.
"I've never seen anything like it, Sire."
"I tried to get it off with magic," Merlin added. "But it went badly."
"Leon told me." Arthur turned to Lancelot. "Are you all right?"
Lancelot nodded stiffly. He wasn't hurt—anymore—and the thing didn't seem to be an immediate threat to him, but that didn't exactly make him all right when he was trying not to panic internally.
"Merlin and I will have to consult the books," Gaius said. "So if the rest of you would be so kind as to leave so we can get some work done."
Lancelot, of course, was forced to remain, since he was the unfortunate subject of this current research endeavor. He tried to help, but his concentration was understandably strained. He could feel the squishy sprout-like thing pulsing faintly against his flesh, like it was alive. As if the violent reactions and crawling up his arm weren't already evidence of that.
The sick feeling in Lancelot's stomach grew, and he started wondering if they would have to cut off his arm to be rid of the thing.
The hours wore on with no progress, not even with Gaius and Merlin wholly focused on their books. Elyan came by at lunch with a tray of food.
"Anything?" he asked.
Merlin regretfully shook his head and snatched a sandwich off the tray, proceeding to eat it over the open book in front of him. Gaius didn't chide him about crumbs, which only reinforced how serious they thought this was.
Elyan pushed the tray toward Lancelot and raised his brows in clear invitation.
Lancelot wasn't that hungry, but he made an effort at nibbling on a sandwich. He tugged uncomfortably at the collar of his chainmail. The shirt was heavy and there was no reason to be wearing it indoors like this, so he set the sandwich down and started to shrug out of it, mindful of potentially disturbing the leech attached to his arm.
Elyan reached over to help, pulling the mail shirt over Lancelot's head and down his arms. But just as he sloughed off the right sleeve, the black thing shot out a tendril to snag his hand. Elyan yelped and tried to yank his hand away, but the thing was suctioned on as firmly as it was to Lancelot.
Lancelot didn't think; he grabbed a fork off the tray and stabbed the extended shoot. The creature shrieked, its appendage releasing Elyan, who reeled back so hard he fell off the bench seat. Lancelot dropped the fork and doubled over as the leech constricted around his arm painfully. The flailing tendril shrank back and coiled about his wrist again, the entire thing settling down without having broken Lancelot's arm, thankfully.
"Elyan, are you all right?" Gaius exclaimed. "Did it get you?"
Elyan pushed himself to his feet, looking slightly shaken. "No."
Merlin started toward Lancelot in concern, but Lancelot shook his head sharply.
"Stay back."
Merlin paused. "It didn't try to attack one of us before."
"Well now it has," Lancelot bit out. Whatever this thing was, it was dangerous. "I should go back to my room and away from everyone until you find a way to remove it."
Assuming there was a way that didn't involve amputation…
"Alright," Gaius reluctantly agreed.
"I'll walk with you," Elyan said.
Lancelot shook his head again. "No…"
"You're going to be passing people in the corridors," he pointed out. "I'll make sure no one gets too close."
Lancelot couldn't argue with the foresight of that, so he nodded gruffly and got to his feet. He made sure Elyan walked several feet behind him as he made his way upstairs to the wing with the knights' chambers. At his door, Elyan looked reluctant to leave him.
"Until we know what this thing is capable of, it's better we don't give it any targets," Lancelot reminded his friend.
Elyan nodded. "Merlin and Gaius will find something," he said encouragingly. "They always do."
Lancelot nodded; he was trying to have faith in that.
With one last parting look, he locked himself inside his room. All of a sudden, Lancelot felt immeasurably tired and worn out, probably from the stress. He lifted his arm to look at the black leech, its appendages squirming faintly, and bile rose in the back of his throat.
He went to lie down on his bed and tried not to think about it, but it was impossible to sleep with the sprout pulsating languidly. Somehow he did finally manage to doze, only to startle awake sometime later when something cold and slick slithered up his neck.
Lancelot bolted upright and stared in horror to find that the thing had grown. Masses of tendrils had branched up his arm and down the side of the bed. Lancelot scrambled off the mattress in an attempt to escape, but he couldn't because the thing was growing off of him. Sticky shoots clung to his skin and clothes. He grabbed a fistful and tried to rip them off, but the tendrils shifted and wrapped around his other hand, pinning it in place.
Lancelot recoiled sharply in surprise and tripped, crashing to the floor. The fleshy shoots pulsed and slithered around him. Arms lashed together, Lancelot scooted backwards until he hit the wall, his heart pounding. But just as quickly as the adrenaline had come, it began to fade, as though the entity was sucking it out of him.
Lancelot felt his limbs growing numb, and he slumped against the wall, unable to move or yell. He could only watch through dimming vision as the shoots spread further over his body and across the room, overtaking everything.
Merlin and Gaius spent literally the entire day mired in research, with Leon having come to help them after lunch, before they finally found mention of the curse, which was a nasty piece of work. It was basically a parasitic plant that fed off the life of its host. Lancelot had seemed fine earlier, but that was hours ago, so they were all pretty worried at this point as Merlin studied the spell needed to destroy it, committing the incantation to memory.
"Okay, let's go," he said.
The three of them headed up to Lancelot's room, only to pull up short when they found thin black shoots protruding from beneath the knight's door. Merlin instantly had a very bad feeling, and he threw caution aside as he hurried forward and pushed the door open. His blood ran cold at the sight. Lancelot's entire room from floor to ceiling was covered in thick, treacly black webbing.
"Lancelot!" Merlin shouted urgently, unable to see him in the morass. The grimoire hadn't mentioned anything like this.
"There," Gaius said, pointing to a spot on the floor against the back wall.
"Get the others," Merlin told Leon. "And cordon off this hallway." Taking a breath, he then ventured into the room.
"Be careful, Merlin," Gaius warned.
Merlin didn't respond, too busy stepping over squishy, throbbing branches overlapping each other across the floor. The curse had only reacted when it was threatened before, so Merlin hoped that'd hold true now.
The mass of vines covered in unguent remained dormant, though Merlin could feel them pulsing torpidly. He reached Lancelot, who was slumped against the wall and completely covered in the substance, sticky shoots branched out across his face and in his hair, clinging to him and the wall like a giant, goopy spider's web. Merlin bent down and tentatively reached out to feel the pulse point beneath Lancelot's jaw.
Lancelot's eyes opened to slits at the contact, his gaze bleary. "Merlin," he whispered hoarsely, terror and pleading all wrapped up in one word.
"Hang on, Lancelot," Merlin told him. "I'll get you out of this."
The sound of clomping boots announced the others' arrival, and Merlin glanced over his shoulder as Arthur and the other knights crowded the doorway. He cast a reluctant look at Lancelot, whose eyes had slipped closed again, and then carefully backed out of the room.
"My God," Arthur breathed as he took in the sight. He turned to Merlin. "Can you stop it?"
"The spell I found was for the seedling version. I don't know if it'll have the same effect when it's grown this big," he admitted. "But I don't think there's time to look for another way."
Leon nodded in agreement. "We have to prevent it from spreading throughout the castle."
"I know we didn't try fire earlier for obvious reasons," Gwaine put in, "but what about now?"
Merlin pressed his lips into a tight line. "I don't know. It's all still attached to Lancelot, and the last time we tried to hurt it, it hurt him. And now it's like it's feeding off of him in order to grow. If we hurt it, it could kill him."
"We have to do something," Percival pressed.
Merlin exhaled heavily. "I think I can cast the original counter spell on the seed that initially attached itself to Lancelot, break it off from the rest. Then you can attack it with fire and it shouldn't kill him in the process."
"What about you and Lancelot being in the middle of all that?" Gwaine asked. "Just because it won't be attached to him anymore doesn't mean it won't still attack you."
"I'll deal with that. But I don't see another way, and it's growing too fast." Even as he said it, Merlin had to move away from the threshold as more shoots came slowly creeping out.
"It's the best plan we have," Arthur said, finalizing their course of action.
The knights all nodded and went to get torches.
Arthur turned to Merlin. "I'll be with you inside the room."
Merlin immediately shook his head. "It's too dangerous."
"Once you cast that counter spell, it's going to go to hell in there," Arthur said. "You're going to be busy protecting Lancelot, and someone needs to be protecting you."
Merlin huffed, but it was with fond exasperation. It was nice that Arthur cared, and that he was the kind of king who fought to protect his men. Merlin just hoped he could keep both him and Lancelot safe in there…
The other knights returned with lit torches, and Arthur took one of them for himself, drawing his sword with his other hand. Then with a nod to Merlin, they all braced themselves for what was to come. Merlin made his way back into the room, Arthur close behind, both of them moving slowly so as not to incense the entity. They reached Lancelot without incident, and Merlin crouched beside him to prod him awake again.
"Lancelot, I'm going to try to get the seedling off, okay?"
Lancelot's eyes widened in alarm.
"It won't be like last time," Merlin assured him. "This spell is specifically for this thing. But once it's off, I don't know how the rest of it is going to react, so just…hang in there, okay?"
Lancelot blinked in response, unable to move his head.
Merlin straightened in preparation, only for one of the tendrils to snake around Arthur's boot. Merlin twisted around to help, but Arthur stood his ground.
"Cast the spell, Merlin!" he shouted.
Merlin gritted his teeth and whirled back to Lancelot. The knight's arms were webbed together, but Merlin could make out the bulbous sprout in the center. He thrust a hand out toward it and recited the incantation. The thing squealed, loud and high-pitched, and Lancelot's eyes blew wide. For a split second, Merlin was terrified that he was wrong, that it was too late for the spell to work at all. But then the seedling began to wrinkle, its shoots snapping off as it shriveled up into a husk and fell away from Lancelot's arm. And as predicted, the rest of the vines in the room began to scream and thrash.
"Now!" Merlin yelled.
Arthur swung his sword down to slice through the offending tendril around his foot, then swiped his flaming torch at the writhing creepers above his head. The knights charged through the door, brandishing their torches at everything that moved.
Lancelot screamed as the other vines still wrapped around him began to tighten in response. Merlin leaped to his feet and cast another spell, blasting them off in a splattering of smithereens. He then stood over Lancelot and used his magic to incinerate any other shoots that tried to come near him.
A few feet away, Arthur slashed at the vines with both blade and fire, and they continued to shriek and flail as they fell against the assault. And while they had initially been violently active when threatened, having been cut off from the core seed and Lancelot, they were beginning to lose strength. Some fell limp before a knight's torch even consumed them.
Eventually everything went still, and the treacly tendrils lay in gooey puddles around the room, the acrid odor of tar permeating the air.
Merlin quickly dropped down next to Lancelot to check his breathing. He was alive but unconscious.
"Percival," Arthur called. "Get Lancelot out of here while we figure out how to…clean this up."
Merlin took the moment to peel off the last bits of sticky tendrils still stuck to Lancelot's hair and clothes before Percival came over and hefted him into his arms. He, Merlin, and Gaius then headed down to the physician's chambers where Percival laid Lancelot on the patient cot. Merlin did a more thorough search for straggly pieces and tossed what he found into the fire.
Lancelot's pulse was very slow and weak, so Merlin cast a healing spell, though there wasn't much he could do for having the life magically sucked out of you by a cursed plant.
"I'll tend to him," Gaius said. "You should probably go back upstairs and help with that mess, Merlin."
Merlin nodded. Though he was reluctant to leave his friend, Lancelot was in good hands, and Merlin was probably the most qualified when it came to cleaning up magical messes. Even the disgusting ones.
Lancelot woke feeling utterly exhausted, like he hadn't been asleep at all. But as soon as awareness fully returned, he jolted and frantically clawed at his arm.
"It's gone," a familiar voice pierced his frantic haze. "It's gone."
Hands grabbed his and pulled them away, and Lancelot blinked up at Merlin. He was in Gaius's chambers.
Lancelot sagged back down onto the cot. "I had a horrible dream," he breathed.
Merlin grimaced. "I'm afraid it wasn't a dream. And your chambers won't be inhabitable for a bit, thanks to the goop and smoke and scorch marks. Maybe we should just find you some new ones, though with how draining this whole ordeal has been, you might be Gaius's patient for a while longer."
Lancelot squinted at Merlin, trying to discern whether his rambling was out of worry or relief. "It is gone, though, right?"
Merlin smiled. "It is." His expression sobered. "I had no idea the curse would grow like that. I never should have left you alone."
Lancelot shuddered at the memory of waking up to it taking over. "It was terrifying," he admitted. "But it would have been worse if I'd been around people and it'd trapped them too before you found a way to stop it."
"I suppose."
"Any idea where it came from?"
Merlin shrugged. "I wouldn't put this kind of thing past Morgana. I think it must have been warped from its original state to make it grow like it did, because that was not mentioned in the book about it. And that would explain why it was left on the doorstep, because it wouldn't really matter who opened the box in the end."
Lancelot closed his eyes and muttered, "Gwaine opened it."
"Yeah, he's still really sorry about that."
"At least you stopped it before it could hurt anyone," Lancelot mumbled.
"And before it succeeded in sucking all the life out of you."
"That too."
Merlin patted his arm. "Get some rest. It's over now."
Lancelot hummed, already drifting back to sleep.