Flicker.

They'd barely driven ten minutes before Gwaine pulled out his phone to answer a call in the backseat. Kilgharrah hadn't answered their calls which made Arthur drive that much faster.

'Tell me it's Kilgharrah,' Percy said but Gwaine shook his head and put his phone up to his ear. Arthur pulled up to red traffic lights, in spite of the total lack of any other cars at the junction, and waited to take the turn heading towards Shepherd's Bush. His stare was caught by the ring Merlin had given him. It was warm around his finger as it shone dully with the dark light.

'Leon?' Gwaine asked. 'Merlin's fine? You've got to be kidding—'

Gwaine stopped. Arthur was listening intently and missed the signal change, waiting just long enough to see them.

Percy leaned forward in the passenger seat. 'Arthur.'

The rain had turned to snow when Merlin collapsed, a coincidence he'd found eerie, and visibility was terrible. It fell heavily, gently, continuously as if the sky was falling apart snowflake by snowflake. Now ahead of them the road was obscured by a coiling white fog. It spread towards them in wisps, coalesced and built into something thicker and darker. An impenetrable and endless white wall.

'It's just fog,' he said meekly and shifted gear.

Percy put a hand on the gear stick. 'Wait.'

'We've got a situation here, mate. We'll get back there in a few minutes. Make sure Merlin doesn't leave,' Gwaine said into his mobile before hanging up and scooting towards them both to stick his head between their seats. The fog spread and welled up against the edges of the closed shops and spilled across the black bonnet in thin threads that coiled and rolled back at the contact. 'Is this magic?'

'Worse,' Arthur breathed and changed gear again. 'It's the dead.'

He knew Percy was giving him the biggest what-the-actual-fuck look he was capable of but ignored it as he twisted the wheel around and made a U-turn away from the approaching wall. The windscreen wipers pushed snow out of the way as best they could but it was piling on too quickly. The right hand side of his BMW brushed into the fog when he did and their breaths came out visible as if Arthur hadn't blasted the heating the whole drive so far.

'Back at Leon's you said this had happened before. Time to explain,' Gwaine said as the car lurched a little and headed down the road, his head craned back to look out the rearview window. Hail mixed with the snow started up again in little pitters and patters against the car.

'This is too complicated,' Arthur huffed and put his foot down on the pedal harder and the car engine roared. He was hitting close to 40mph, on the edge of his comfort in the bad conditions. He could feel the wheels lose their grip on the icy road. 'Right, you two are going to have to trust me for now, okay? We don't have the time for you to process the whole truth. The Dorocha are spirits, the souls of the dead. They were released into this world before, centuries ago, and were sent back to the spirit world before things got really bad. They're back.'

'How do you know that?' Gwaine asked, sat forward again.

They were two streets away from Leon's now. 'Trust me.'

The windscreen cracked, splintered, and caved inwards.

Arthur slammed the brakes, ducked his head down, but the inertia and force was too wild when something else rammed into Percy's side of the car. Another window cracked and glass blew out against him, scattering towards Arthur as the BMW spun and skidded along the road. Freezing winds and wet snow battered into them. The world was blurred, and he kept his foot on the brakes, arms straining to control the wheel. Locked tires screeched painfully until they hit the side of another parked car with a metallic bang and it all blew out. The air bags deployed at all sides and his vision flared white.

Seconds passed before the ringing in his ears, pounding in his head, and tensed brick-wall of a shield softened in front of him. Arthur sat up straight, felt the heat trickle down from his nose, the metallic taste in his mouth, and groggily pushed the rough air bag fabric out of the way. Glass clinked down around him with each motion.

'Shit,' Percy croaked and unbuckled, squinting and shaking the glass off his clothes with slow lethargic movements. Half his face was cut up and Gwaine, also dazed, started picking out pieces form his hair. The snow was gentle as it gathered on the car and fell through the broken windows. The street was too empty after the noise they'd made. Arthur's side of the car was wedged up against an obnoxiously coloured lime green mini, now battered and broken with the force of the impact. It was a miracle they hadn't flipped over.

'Just keep going,' Gwaine urged.

'What did we even hit?'

'Something hit us, Percival,' Arthur corrected and undid his seatbelt, body aching.

'Dorocha?'

'You two stay here. Let me out,' Arthur started and scrambled over Percy who groaned at the sudden weight. He climbed across his lap and tripped out of the car door onto the road, head spinning.

'You okay?' Gwaine asked from the back of the car.

'Bloody great. One of you take the driver's seat and keep the engine running,' he said and got back to his feet, trying not to groan at the pain. Small pieces of glass fell from the folds in his coat when he slammed Percy's door shut and looked up and down the barren street, blinking against snow and hail. Something had hit them. There wasn't anything in the road though. The hairs on the back of his head stood on end and his teeth chattered against the cold.

He walked about ten feet down the middle of the road with slow weighted steps, houses rising high on either side abnormally silent, before he saw them. Off the edge of the pavement, there was a pair of shoes that stuck out from behind a parked Aston Martin. Arthur headed towards them until he stood over a woman's body, brown eyes open and frozen over, frost crusting her eyelashes, hair, and lips. The door to the car was open, the keys still in her frozen hand.

His heart thumped heavily. Kneeling down beside her he checked for a pulse, hissing at the biting cold of her skin. Nothing. A red drop splattered down onto the concrete and he put a hand up to his bleeding nose. He stood up in time to see the air grow cloudy again as it cooled well below freezing. They had to get away. His impulse to take her body with them kept him stuck in place too long and the distant inhuman wails chased the sound of the soft snowfall, the harsher rainfall beyond that. He had to go. Moving as quickly as he could with waves of nausea and dizziness Arthur climbed into his BMW's backseat and told Gwaine, 'Drive.'

While the engine still rumbled they didn't move, the harsh repeated revving doing nothing at all.

'Mate, it's not budging,' Gwaine told him and tried the accelerator again three more times. The wind cut through to them inside the car, glass pieces shifting and rolling against the dashboard and metal bonnet as snow melted. Arthur steeled himself and pulled out his phone. Merlin answered on the first ring.

'Hey, Merlin, need some advice.'

His voice was faint and croaky as it came over the line. 'What's wrong?'

'The car won't move and I'm pretty sure Dorocha are heading our way. A woman's dead on the street and I was hoping you'd have some suggestions,' he said, eyeing the approaching fog as Gwaine kept trying to move the car. 'I thought they could only move at night time-'

'It's my fault,' Merlin said, this time even fainter.

'How?' Arthur asked, confused. The next rev gave way to a promising growl but then a painful clink and scratch of metal cut out any noise altogether. Adrenaline pumped through his body faster. 'Merlin, what can we do so we don't get killed in the next five minutes?'

'Run.'

Arthur's head spun with the injury and adrenaline. Running was obvious. 'You can't get here and start the car?'

'I wish I could but my magic,' Merlin stopped and Arthur heard him breath rapidly. 'Arthur, I'm so sorry, I can't, I'll try but you need to run. Please, you have to go.'

'Fuck it,' Arthur said and opened his door. 'Percival, Gwaine, we're going on foot. Now.'

'We could knock on-'

'Wait. It's leaving,' Gwaine interrupted. Arthur stared as the fog spread out thinner until the air was clear again. It was still cold, wet, and darkly overcast, and the sound of rustling evergreens and branches started up in the previous silence. Arthur let out a sigh of relief, nerves raw with the crash. Percy spotted the woman's body, pointed it out to Gwaine and they headed over when people started opening front doors.

'We've got to call this in,' he said and put the phone back to his ear. 'Merlin, they're gone. I've got to get forensics down here and sort this mess out. I have no idea how long it will take-'

'*I'll come, I think I can-*'

'No, I'm sorry, I was freaking out. You need to rest.'

'*Too bad,*' Merlin said before a strange crackle pop sounded over their connection. 'I'm already here.'

Arthur spun around at the sound of his voice, gritted his teeth against the nausea, and reached out when Merlin started to tip down. Merlin braced against him, pale and eyes sunken.

'Merlin,' Arthur hissed. 'What if someone just saw you appear out of nowhere?'

'You're honestly more concerned about that right now?'

Arthur glared at him. 'Shouldn't I be? If someone saw you they-'

'What? They'd freak out? It's snowing heavily enough. They'd just think their eyes were playing tricks on them.'

'They might try to hurt or kill you,' he snapped and realised. The fear was back, if it had ever really left. The fear of magic he'd grown up with. The sticky, burning feeling he'd had when Merlin had told him the truth after the battle. How it made complete sense and none at all. He licked his lips at the wet hot sensation as the blood dripped down from his nose. He put his sleeve up and wiped it away, sniffing pointlessly.

'This isn't Camelot, Arthur,' Merlin reminded him, eyes wide as he kept looking over his face, his temple, his bleeding nose, with those wide yes. 'Plus they'd have to try pretty hard to do either of those things.'

'Just, for me, could you keep it subtle in public?'

He watched as Merlin's eyes narrowed slightly, pulled away. 'Old habits die hard I guess.'

Arthur reached out to him with a hand but Merlin moved a step back.

'You're probably sick to death with doing exactly that, aren't you?'

'Not really. I'm more sick of hiding it from you,' Merlin said, the distance in his stare disappearing for the moment. Dark, blue, tired, but closer and open to him. The sirens floated up with sharp disjointed wails.

'Are you fine now?' Arthur asked.

'Sort of. What about you? You're hurt.'

'It's a bit of blood that's all,' he lied. It hurt a lot. A lot. Merlin didn't have to know that, though. 'It's definitely the Dorocha? The things we saw take Phoebe and whatever just attacked?'

Merlin's eyes shifted over his shoulder, emptily staring, then found the wreckage of the car and frowned. 'Yeah.'

'They're not behaving like they did before,' Arthur added.

'No. They're not.'

'Arthur!'

He turned to see Percy wave him over as a patrol car pulled up to pavement. The motion made his world shift a little strangely. Everything was shoved a few feet too far to the left before it faded back into its proper place.

'Wait for me?' Arthur asked and looked back to Merlin who stared blankly, frowning. What he'd give to just crawl into bed with a hot drink and Merlin next to him with painkillers and a first aid kit. Instead he had to tear his eyes away from Merlin, cross the street, and avoid the broken pieces of his car. Merlin nodded and the softest flicker of a smile blew across his face and Arthur took his hand. For a second they stood, connected, in the snowy cold. Then Arthur pulled away, turned his back on him, and concentrated on walking in a straight line while his vision tilted and ice crunched under his shoes.

.

.

.

Merlin quickly made it over to a lamp post and rested back against it. His legs had started to shake while talking to Arthur and his body was weighed down. Exhaustion, magic, his own health, whatever it was it left him tired. He wanted to Vanish back out of the street but it had taken too much, risked too much, to even get to Arthur. Even then, if the Dorocha hadn't left, he doubted he'd have been able to do more than act as a body shield.

Deal.

He tipped his head back to stare into the clouded sky. Snow slowly fell down over him and grew heavier as the sirens arrived, flicked off, and he heard Arthur's voice sending the emerged civilians away. There was a frozen stillness in the air, the same kind he'd felt lying paralysed in Leon's bed. Merlin pressed his lips together as the urge to cry surged up. Taking in a deep breath he closed his eyes against the white sky and begged that heat under his skin to come back for a moment. Just a tea spoon's worth, something, that could take him away.

Air surged against him and his body jerked with the shock. Merlin's heel caught on something when the quiet and warmth solidified around him and he landed on his bum in the middle of his bedroom at Gwaine's. His running heartbeat slowed as he realised, as the exhaustion dragged his head back down to rest on the wood.

He stayed there until he could feel bodiless, still and melting into the floor and air, then he got up. Blinking against the head rush and blinding splotches Merlin pulled out his phone and pulled out the card.

He began to type out the number and paused when his phone rang. Arthur's name filled the screen. He hesitated, then his thumb tapped the reject button and he continued, putting the phone up to his ear. Nerves squeezed his chest with unpleasant strength and his hand grew cold before a calm, 'Hello?' drifted into his right ear.

'Hi,' Merlin said.

'Merlin,' he said. 'Merry Christmas. I didn't expect a call so soon.'

'I didn't think I would call at all.'

'You've decided?'

'No.'

'No?'

Merlin fought not to hang up. It was stupid to call him. He was the new leader of Old Religion, who could be and should be arrested for possession and intent to supply at least. He was creating new magically infused drugs. His business cards were the connecting factor of several brutal murders. He could be stepping into the territory of perverting the course of justice.

He took in a shaky breath. 'I'm scared.'

'Are you in danger?'

'It's complicated. Yes and no,' he said, caught off guard at the genuine concern in Alvarr's voice. Nix's voice. 'Are you busy?'

'I'm with friends.'

'Oh.'

'I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I left,' he continued. 'Unless, of course, you'd like to join us?'

'I shouldn't have called, it's Christmas, I didn't—'

'Nonsense, darling. If I give you an address would you be able to come over?'

'Uh,' Merlin ran the options through his head once he'd moved past the darling. 'My magic isn't trustworthy right now and with no public transport—'

'I'll fetch you. Where are you?'

Merlin's skin tingled. This wouldn't end well. He knew it wouldn't. 'Sorry, I shouldn't have called.'

He hung up, heart up in his throat. His phone buzzed and a new message popped up.

If you change your mind just text and I'll come. — Nix.

His phone rang and Arthur's name came up across the screen again. Fuck. Merlin ran a hand through his hair, massaged his fingers into the back of his head, felt the warmth of his skin, the rain dampened curls, and answered.

'Where did you go?'

'Back to Gwaine's.'

'Why?' Arthur asked. Voices and pouring rain hitting something with tinny splatters crinkled through the connection. He was still at the car crash. Merlin paced around his bed, the mental whiplash of the day draining him further.

'This is a lot to deal with. You're safe. That's all that matters.'

'Merlin, we need to talk with the others about this. We need to tell them the truth about us, all of us.'

He frowned. Him and Gwaine in the same day? 'No. We can't.'

'Why not?'

'They're happy,' he said.

'And telling them will make them unhappy?'

Merlin stared at the door in the dark room. Curtains drawn, light turned off, he felt hazy, grainy, in the shadows.

'Knowing made you incapable of being happy?' Arthur asked.

'It made some things harder. A lot harder,' he answered, the memory of his own breakdown at the beginning of the year pressing down on him like a fog. The hell he'd gone through in the summer, how he'd come so close to losing himself, his mind, his life, Arthur. It had screwed him up. Lying practically dead in a hospital bed for three months gave him an adjusted sober perspective. 'It made some things make sense and feelings stronger, but it also made them hurt. I know I sound like an insufferable teenager—'

'No, it doesn't. You're right.'

'I don't want that for them. Knowing wouldn't help them. Knowing the way we do. I mean, I have—' he paused.

'What?'

'I told Gwaine about it. A few months ago when I was drunk. I told him, but I didn't show him the way I showed you. I didn't make him remember,' he continued, groaned, and let out a long breath. 'You want the truth?'

'I kind of hope you tell me the truth most of the time, Merlin,' Arthur said with a small breathy laugh at the end. Merlin smiled softly.

'I'm terrified. Not just about the past life, about how this is happening, or even about us. I'm scared that the Dorocha can't be stopped. I'm scared that it's my fault they are even here. I'm scared that we can't stop the magic people are using. I'm scared that maybe we shouldn't try to. I mean, what if— What if this is why we came back, Arthur?'

'What is? The resurgence of magic?'

'Yeah. What if this is why we came back? Why you came back? The once and future king, who will rise again when Albion needs him most. Destined to unite the kingdoms,' Merlin rambled through it as thoughts raced by. He was buzzed on something, adrenaline or fear, probably both. 'What if you're meant to be here to unite the magic users with the normal people?'

'I suppose that could explain it, but even if that's the case, the Dorocha are a more immediate threat to everyone. Like the whole-world-everyone. We need to figure something out, for that and for how to deal with magic. We can figure this out together. We'll—'

A soft shift in the air and an odd thunk was the only warning Merlin had before a man stepped out of his wardrobe. Arthur's voice drifted away as he watched Nix clear his throat, straighten his dark button-up shirt, and offer a smile in the gloomy room.

(Playlist for Flicker:

Banquo's Death - From "Macbeth" Soundtrack by Jed Kurzal

What The Water Gave Me by Florence + The Machine

Feel Real by Deptford Goth

Punching in a Dream - Stripped by The Naked and Famous

Dream by Mountain Bird

Basic Instinct by The Acid)