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Chapter Three
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The hardest part is realizing that they can't go back to Camelot.
It's not a choice he makes, as he's stuck making choices for both of them. They stay in the woods, Merlin shoving at the Sidhe's magic with everything he can think of. The problem is that the curse is not a blunt wall to be crumbled with brute force and sheer power; Merlin's always had an easier time with that sort of instinctive magic. But this is a labyrinth, constantly shifting, moving, changing shape. Even with the finesse he's gained over years of practice, Merlin can't pin down a weak spot to exploit. It's seamless.
And it's smothering them both.
Still, he tries. Days and then weeks. He doesn't sleep and he barely eats and he casts spells until he can't keep his eyes open any longer, completely drained from the effort. Incantations and wordless prods of magic, it all amounts to the same thing. But he keeps trying. He tries not to wonder what Gaius and Gwen and the others must be thinking, whether they've given up by now; tries not to listen to the horrifically loud silence.
Once, he would've happily cast a spell on Arthur to keep him quiet for a few hours. Now Merlin thinks an obnoxious remark about his incompetence might be the nicest thing he's ever heard.
The raven says nothing of the kind. It says nothing at all. It doesn't even try to fly away. Merlin wonders helplessly if Arthur is still in there, watching impatiently or maybe trying to communicate, or if the Sidhe have robbed him of his friend completely.
But no, he reminds himself over and over, they promised his life. And so they go.
Trying is hard; he knows this. Turns out giving up is so much harder.
The storm breaks with the last of his last-ditch efforts. Merlin gathers all of his strength, all of his magic and flings it at the curse out of sheer frustration and fury, a wordless, strangled yell tearing its way out of his throat.
Something in the wall of magic wavers. His vision whites out and for a second, one endless, frozen second, he wonders if he's done it.
Then the raven begins to shriek.
It flaps its wings wildly, haphazardly, like it has no idea how to use them but it's desperate enough to try anyway. Like it wants to get away. All the while letting out those piercing, pained shrieks.
Merlin's still woozy from the failed attempt and has no idea what he's done, can only hold his hands out in a gesture of surrender, of peace.
"I'm sorry," he says, and tries not to sound like he's panicking. "Arthur? I'm sorry. Are you all right?"
The raven clearly doesn't relax, but at least it stops making those horrible noises.
"I'm sorry," he says again. "I won't—I won't do it again."
Slowly, cautiously, the raven stops trying to leave the ground. Merlin imagines it's giving him a suspicious look.
It occurs to him that he's going to have nothing else to go on, now. He's going to be forever interpreting birdlike gestures and hoping they mean something, anything that hints his friend is still in there somewhere. Somewhere Merlin might be able to reach.
Tears spring to his eyes and he turns away, rubs them away before the raven can see. He's exhausted, he tells himself, sniffing angrily. He'll get some sleep tonight, and then tomorrow…
Tomorrow doesn't bear thinking about. Even as he tries to make himself comfortable on the forest floor Merlin is acutely aware that what he needs isn't sleep. It's a fucking miracle.
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That night, he dreams.
It's odd. He knows he's sleeping deeply, stress finally overwhelmed by not getting more than an hour or two every other night. Normally he only dreams when sleep is fitful. But this barely even makes the list of strange things that have happened lately, so dream-Merlin decides to just go along with it.
Everything is dark at first, and then all of a sudden he's dreaming of a beach. The sand is warm under his hands, turquoise waves brushing against the shoreline, and a breeze ruffles through his hair. It reminds him of the beach at Gedref where Anhora had set two goblets between him and Arthur and told them to choose.
Arthur had been willing to sacrifice his life without a second thought, to save his people and right a wrong, and Merlin thinks that might have been when he realized he no longer stayed by the prince's side out of obligation.
He wanted to be there. He still wants to.
"What are you doing here?"
The voice is Arthur's, which is how Merlin knows he's dreaming.
Not that the knowledge keeps him from looking up so fast he nearly cracks his neck, like he's afraid Arthur might vanish again before he manages to set eyes on him.
But he hasn't disappeared. He's standing there, armor-clad, hale and healthy as Merlin's ever seen him.
"What am I doing here?" he repeats, forcing his tongue to work. Even if it is imaginary, it's the only conversation he's had in weeks. "It's my dream, you prat, shouldn't I be asking you that? Not everything is about you, you know."
Arthur looks unimpressed with his argument. It's so familiar that Merlin sort of wants to cry. "Well, I am the one who's somehow been magicked into a bird, so you'll forgive me if I'm a little preoccupied right now."
The levity of the moment seeps out as if through a sieve. Merlin turns away, fixes his gaze on the sea.
"I'm sorry," he croaks.
Arthur sits down next to him. "For what?"
"For not getting there in time. For not—" It's hard to speak around the lump in his throat. "For not being by your side like I should have been. I should've been there. I should've stopped Mordred."
To his credit, Arthur doesn't say anything inane like 'there was nothing you could have done', because he knows better now. Merlin's abysmal skill with a sword would have been a negligible detail against a trained knight, even Mordred with his magic. Merlin had always been the more powerful of the two and both of them had known it.
And yet here they are. Mordred is dead, and Arthur lives, and Merlin doesn't feel the slightest bit victorious.
"You never trusted him, did you?" Arthur asks at last. Merlin shakes his head. "Why?"
"It's a long story."
Arthur glances meaningfully at their surroundings. "I have nowhere else to be."
Merlin huffs a laugh that doesn't sound much like one even to his own ears, but he complies. He tells Arthur everything—the prophecy, the druid boy, and everything afterward. Aside from the occasional outburst as more lies are untangled ("Wait, dragon? What dragon? You're friends with a dragon?"), Arthur listens in silence.
Merlin's throat feels ragged by the time he finishes. "Maybe it was all my fault. Maybe if I hadn't pushed him away…"
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe if he'd accepted Mordred instead of mistrusting him. Maybe if he'd offered his hand to Morgana instead of using it to poison her. Maybe if he'd told Arthur the truth that first year, when they'd already saved each other's lives a dozen times over. If, and if, and if.
Maybe if he'd let Mordred die when he was still a child and no threat, as Kilgharrah had wanted him to, then none of this would have happened.
"As long as we're casting blame," Arthur says after a moment, "I could mention that my executing the woman he loved didn't exactly endear Mordred to me."
Bitterness edges his tone. Belatedly Merlin remembers that while he had turned against Mordred from the outset, Arthur had embraced him, knighted him, loved him as a brother. Another betrayal from someone he'd considered as close to him as kin.
"It wasn't your fault," he insists. "He knew Kara forced your hand and he blamed you anyway. That wasn't anything you could control. Mordred was a—a bad seed."
"Maybe," Arthur acknowledges, quiet. "But then if that's the case—if Mordred really was going to turn against me no matter what I did—then there's no point in you blaming yourself either."
"That's—" Completely different, he wants to say, but Arthur's pointed look stops him.
He lets the sentence lapse into silence instead, and knows Arthur takes it for acceptance.
Time goes by as it does in dreams. At some point Arthur speaks again.
"There's no fixing it, is there?"
Merlin answers immediately, with more confidence than he feels. "Of course there is. There's no such thing as a spell that can't be undone."
"I suppose you would know more about that than I would. But…" Arthur hesitates. "I've had spells put on me before. They changed the way I saw things. Everything felt…fuzzy. Like I was behind a sheet of glass that'd got fogged up, or something, and if I could just break the glass then everything would go back to normal.
"This feels different. It feels solid. As if nothing exists outside of it. I barely even know who I am while I'm awake, and there's nothing to…" Arthur makes a frustrated gesture. "There's nothing to hold onto. There's nothing to break because it's not an illusion, it's—"
"Reality," Merlin finishes, and feels sick. From the stricken look on Arthur's face, he's not doing much better.
Fortunately Merlin's long since grown used to forcing worry down. "It doesn't matter. Whatever it is they've done to you, I'll fix it. I swear."
"I believe you," Arthur says. It's stupid that such a simple thing can make Merlin feel ten stone lighter, but it does.
Then, the other shoe: "But how long could that take? I'm not doubting your skills, assuming you're better with magic than you are with anything else—" He looks at Merlin out of the corner of his eye, gauging how well the joke goes over, and seeing it fall flat goes completely serious. "But I'm not a fool. You've thrown everything you have at this, haven't you?"
Merlin wishes he could lie, but he can't. Not anymore. So he nods, tight-lipped, and hates himself for it.
Arthur lets out a breath. "That's what I thought. So say you're right, say there is some other way out there—how long will it be before we find it? How do we know it even exists? What if I really am stuck like this?"
Merlin opens his mouth again to protest, but Arthur holds up a hand and he bites it back. "I can't just think about myself. Camelot can't have a king who's unable to rule, certainly not now. Things are unstable as it is."
"Better than no king at all," Merlin says fiercely, but Arthur gives him a wry smile.
"But far worse than a competent queen. I gave Gaius my signet ring. I told him to give it to Gwen; I imagine she's been officially crowned by now."
Merlin feels like he's just been kicked in the stomach. By a horse. He tries to picture Gwen, sweet, down-to-earth Gwen, sitting on a throne by herself. Competent, certainly—more like brilliant; she's always ruled like she was born to it, and Merlin has no doubt that she will make an incredible queen in her own right.
But for her to have been crowned, that means that they believe Arthur to be dead. They have already begun to move on.
As if reading his thoughts, Arthur's mouth twists. "The king is dead. Long live the queen."
"Don't say that," Merlin snaps. "You're alive. You're here, right now."
"And useless," Arthur retorts. "I can't ask the kingdom to be put on hold while we search for some cure that may or may not exist, and I can't—I can't do that to Gwen either. She deserves better than that."
His voice cracks. Merlin looks away.
"What are you saying?"
When Arthur looks up again, there is no evidence that his resolve had ever wavered. Merlin meets his eyes and they are utterly, horribly resigned.
"I'm saying that they all believe me dead," Arthur says. "I'm saying…so be it."
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All things considered, it's one of the weirder nights Mordred's had in his life.
Ancient as the bookshop's central heating probably is, it's been unseasonably warm lately, so he's in no danger of freezing to death in the night. Probably. And, well, he may have nicked a bit more than a chocolate bar from the old man's shop, so he'll be all right for food for awhile. A few days of empty calories won't kill him.
The same can't be said for lung infections or something, no matter what Arthur'd said, because Mordred's pretty sure the dust is piled an inch thick on everything back here. He figures he's been relegated to some kind of half-arsed storage room, old books piled haphazardly on the floor and a few beaten down shelves. And then there's the hideous armchairs themselves.
Mordred, after eyeing them both with the appropriate levels of suspicion, decides on the one that doesn't have half its stuffing coming out and curls up in it. It's not exactly comfortable, and the Mordred of a week ago would've complained, but after the last few nights…well. He can now say with perfect honesty that he's slept in worse places.
Guess I should probably be thanking you for this one, he thinks at Providence or whatever might be listening. The whole not-getting-murdered-by-the-crazy-shopkeeper thing was definitely a plus.
Of course, there's still the question of what the crazy shopkeeper did try to do to him.
Mordred's still trying to edge his way around that, because he really hates looking gift horses in the mouth and this room-and-board thing, even if it's only for the night, seems like the biggest horse he's ever going to see in his life.
But more than that, he hates lying to himself. It's the reason he's here in the first place, scrunched up on a stranger's dusty chair instead of in bed at home, and it's the reason he can't forget the way Big Ears' eyes had glowed in his panic.
Just remembering it starts up a flurry in Mordred's stomach. Uncomfortable but sort of thrilled all at once. Like jumping off the high dive for the first time. He knows something big and inevitable is going to happen, and he's walking right into it with eyes wide open. It's exciting. It's also terrifying.
And it's a damn sight better than the alternative, he reminds himself, suppressing a shiver at the memory of what that alternative looked like.
You got lucky. You won't be that lucky twice.
Glass shards embedded deep in plaster, when they so easily could have ended up embedded someplace else. How is he supposed to live with himself knowing he can do that?
Sleep first, figure the rest of it out later, says the reasonable little voice in the back of his mind. Mordred has long been under the impression that he'd strangled it at some point, probably in those nasty eleven-to-thirteen years, but seeing where that's landed him, he's trying to do a better job of listening to it.
Besides, he can't remember the last time he got a decent night's sleep. His magic hasn't felt so pissed at him since the world blew up in his bedroom, so maybe he actually stands a chance tonight.
Thanks to Arthur letting you stay here, the voice reminds him pointedly. Mordred groans. Another thing he's going to have to work out tomorrow. For now, though…
He sort of half-remembers reading someplace that falling asleep in under five minutes is a sign of sleep deprivation.
Mordred wonders what it says that he blacks out the second his eyes are closed.
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Merlin sleeps like shit, which in some ways is worse than not sleeping at all. He actually lets out a piteous groan when the transformation gets a hold of his insides and starts twisting, because it means the sun's come up and he's probably gotten ten minutes of uninterrupted sleep.
He drags himself into a sitting position when it's over, groaning again as he works the kinks out of his back. Honestly, they have a bed. If Merlin had known he'd end up sleeping on the sofa five nights out of seven, he'd've bought one that wasn't so lumpy.
The raven is perched on the arm of the sofa. It croaks irritably at the noise.
Merlin snorts as he wraps himself in a blanket. "Am I interrupting your beauty sleep, Your Highness?" Some things never change.
The bird makes a disgruntled noise before closing its eyes again. Merlin strokes down its feathers, a good-morning for the modern bird, before getting up to brew some tea. He has a feeling he's going to need the caffeine. Especially since he hadn't gotten around to those order forms last night, which is going to mean hours of frantic digging through the back room and shit, why does he do this to himself?
He's sipping the tea before he notices the two red Post-Its stuck to the mug, one informing him dryly that the forms have been filled, and the other reminding him why he'd been too distracted to do them himself:
He wants to talk to you.
Merlin subsequently inhales half his mug, scalding his mouth and throat all the way down.
"Fuck," he says with feeling. Arthur peers at him in alarm.
Merlin cringes. His eyes are watering. "I'm fine, it's fine, go back to sleep."
Sleep. No wonder he hadn't managed to get any; he'd been worrying about the traitor sleeping under their roof.
And, oh, right.
He rounds on Arthur. "What is wrong with you? Honestly, I ask you to avoid one person on the bloody planet and you make that the one person you've willingly interacted with in years!"
His tirade is thoroughly and infuriatingly ignored. As usual, Arthur is showing less concern for his own life than he would if they happened on a kitten stuck in a tree. Somehow Merlin had imagined that would change after Arthur realized just how much work certain people (ahem) put into keeping him alive, but no. Of course not. He'd been a fool to even consider it.
Merlin lets out a long breath. He doesn't have enough caffeine in his system to deal with shouting into the void right now.
When he does speak again it's calmer, and while he'd like to think that's because he's an Adult and therefore capable of remaining composed under very trying circumstances, he has the sinking feeling he just sounds defeated. "Could you at least warn me the next time you're about to do something unbelievably stupid? I realize that will hardly leave time for you to do anything else, but still."
The raven abruptly lifts its wings and crosses the short distance to land on Merlin's shoulder. He decides to take it as an apology.
And then it dips its beak into Merlin's tea. Because, as Merlin reluctantly reflects, time may erase everything from shacks to civilizations, but it's never managed to make a dent in the fact that Arthur is a monumental prat.
There are some other details scribbled on the note in Arthur's hilariously awful scrawl, something about Mordred sleeping in the back room and not being able to go home. None of which sheds any real light on the bizarre situation they've found themselves in.
Merlin downs the rest of his tea. As usual, it looks like he's going to be the one stuck cleaning up this mess.
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He has to talk himself into entering the shop.
Logically Merlin is aware of the reasons he needs to enter the shop. Opening hours began five minutes ago, for one. And while they might have a substantial (some might say ridiculous) amount of money stashed away that's been accumulating interest for a very, very long time, Merlin still rather likes having a job, something to keep his hands and his mind busy. Which he won't have if he loses his clientele by being too jittery to open the damn door.
Like ripping off a plaster, he tells himself, and subsequently opens the door with enough force that it slams into the wall behind it.
Somewhere in the shop, something crashes spectacularly to the floor. Merlin closes his eyes and hopes it isn't something Arthur recently repaired, else he's likely to wake up with a nest built on his head.
Right, let's get this over with. No point in trying to ignore the Mordred in the room.
He squares his shoulders and walks right past the door he ought to be unlocking, making his way to the back room entrance.
And then he stands there like an idiot.
It shouldn't be this hard, he tells himself furiously as the seconds tick by; it should not be this hard to walk through a doorway and have a conversation with a teenage boy. Particularly when one is (technically) several thousand years old and (ostensibly) the Most Powerful Sorcerer Ever to Walk the Earth.
It shouldn't be this hard to face ages' worth of ghosts and nightmares. Not when he's finally got a chance to dispel them once and for all.
He steps over the threshold.
At first he doesn't see anything but dust motes drifting in the beams of sunlight, making him wonder if Mordred climbed through a window in the night. Wouldn't that make everything easier.
But then a lump of jacket stirs on one of the armchairs. Mordred is sleeping, then. It feels rather anticlimactic.
Merlin's not really feeling the urge to get any closer to the boy than he already is (that is, as far away as the small room will allow), so after squinting to make sure Mordred's eyes are really closed, he magicks the jacket away with a jerk of his chin. It slumps on the floor and has absolutely no effect on the sleeping individual.
The desire to give up, open shop and pretend nothing unusual is happening is getting more insistent by the second. Merlin shoves the instinct away, takes a few steps forward and steels himself—he's only a boy, he can't hurt either of you this time—before shaking Mordred's shoulder.
Mordred wakes up so abruptly he nearly flings himself out of the chair. The sight would probably be hilarious at any other time.
"You," he croaks. Then, with a visible attempt to pull himself together, "You sure you didn't kidnap me? Because you have a real axe-murderer face on right now. Not sure if you knew."
"I gather you wanted to talk to me," Merlin says stiffly.
"That's it? I'm not going to get an explanation for any of this?"
In another situation Merlin would grant that this is a reasonable concern to have, but seeing as it's Mordred he's speaking to, he thinks he can make an exception where reason is concerned. "I'm already late to open, so if you aren't going to tell me what you want then I'd appreciate you getting the hell out of my shop."
Mordred's eyes widen. "You knocked me out! It's not like I suddenly decided to take a nap on your floor!"
Which…is true, and also neither here nor there. "Fine. We can talk after closing, but you need to stay where you are until then."
"Wait," Mordred blurts as he starts to leave. "I did—I do want to talk to you, yeah."
And so they come to the crux of it. Trying to ignore the knot of dread twisting in his stomach, the dryness of his mouth, Merlin says, "And?"
"I need something from you," Mordred says, every word sounding like it's being dragged out of him with iron hooks. "Only I'm pretty sure you won't want to give it to me."
Well, this just keeps getting more and more bizarre.
"You don't even know who I am. What could you possibly want from me?" Merlin demands.
Mordred visibly swallows. "Your help."
Merlin stares at him.
"My—what exactly do you think I can help you with?"
Mordred hasn't moved, but he's breathing hard, eyes almost feverishly bright.
"I guess it's probably easier if I show you, yeah? Where do you want those?" he asks, nodding toward a massive stack of books propped up in a corner.
It's such a non sequitur that Merlin has to parse it over a few times to figure out what the hell he's talking about. And then to be annoyed over it.
"What's that got to do with anything?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "Look, some of us actually need to work for a living."
"You didn't answer me," Mordred says. His voice has taken on an odd edge. "Where do you want them?"
Merlin gives in. "I was going to keep them in that box over there, all right? Are you finished?"
Mordred lets out an absolutely humorless laugh. "Yeah."
The books leave the ground so quickly Merlin barely has time to register it, whizzing by one by one and slamming into the box he'd pointed out. In the time it takes to follow the objects' path, the time it takes for Merlin to separate this from every other odd thing he's seen floating in his lifetime and go wait, shit, that wasn't me, the gold is bleeding from Mordred's eyes.
Distantly he notes that a pin, if dropped at this very moment, would be deafening.
"That," says Mordred, "is what I need your help with."
Merlin knocks him out with magic again.
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