According to the Great and Powerful Wikipedia, the words "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" weren't coined until around the 20th century – this is important to know!
Green light clouded Arthur's vision. As it slowly dispersed, other senses began picking up anomalies. Like the gods-awful smell. It was akin to rotten fruit and…something Arthur's never encountered before. Something strangely…metal-like. The air was different as well; it was too putrid on his tongue. Where were the trees? However, the sounds were what confused Arthur the most. Something… honked? He heard people gasping and the sound of feet.
"Arthur," Merlin murmured.
The green light cleared and Arthur saw Merlin –no, no, the sorcerer; Merlin was a sorcerer, he was a traitor– hanging onto him feebly. Then Arthur realized that he was actually still holding Merlin up. And they were sitting. When had Arthur sat? When had Arthur pulled Mer—the sorcerer into his lap like a child?
"I'm sorry," Merlin whispered, tears streaking down his cheeks. He was burning up. Arthur could feel blood still spilling around the arrow. Merlin's trembling hand went to Arthur's temple; Arthur did nothing to stop him. Blue flashed gold. As Merlin's eyes rolled into the back of his head, he chocked out, "I'm so sorry."
The strange gibberish that Arthur had heard in the background suddenly became clear. It was words. Voices.
"–999! Somebody call a 999! Quick!"
"–phone?! Who has a phone!?"
"–called them!"
A person knelt down beside Arthur.
"It's okay, honey," a female voice said soothingly. "I'm a nurse. The medics will be here soon. Your boyfriend will be fine."
"My…?" Feeling dazed, Arthur looked up to ask the woman what she meant by boyfriend because he had never heard that term before (nor had he ever heard of someone being a nurse), but what Arthur saw was most certainly not a woman.
"By the gods!" he shouted, pulling away, unconsciously taking Merlin with him, to get away from the…the…the cat. She was a cat. A…cat.
The cat creature glared at him, "Sir, I'm trying to help your boyfriend; please, do not slight me." Then the cat creature gently pulled Merlin away from Arthur's clutching fingers and laid him on the ground.
"Oh, dear," she said, mostly to herself. Itself. Something. "So much blood loss. And this infection… I've never seen it before."
"And you've seen many infections, have you?" Arthur asked, clutching his trousers in an attempt to conceal his shaking hands. He didn't have his sword or his dagger… All Arthur had was his amour, but that wasn't going to stop claws from tearing his face off.
The cat creature looked up at him, a sad, humorless expression on its face. "Yes, actually. Unfortunately."
"They're here!" someone shouted.
People dressed in all white pushed their way through the crowd. Wait, crowd? Arthur looked around at the aggregate that had formed. There were human-looking people dressed in ridiculous clothing and then there were…not human-looking people. Arthur gulped.
"Name: Merlin Balinor Emrys–" At the sound of Merlin's name, Arthur snapped his attention back to the ordeal before him. Some, thankfully human-looking, young man had Merlin's index finger pressed against some small box-thing, and was reading off of it. "–occupation: Time Agent, years of age: twenty – er, no twenty-four, blood type: O negative," the young man in white said. He turned to Arthur, "This your boyfriend?"
"Uh," Arthur blinked. "Your hair is green. And there's…things on your nose."
The young man glared at Arthur. "Sir," he said forcefully. "Is this your boyfriend?"
What the bloody hell is a 'boyfriend'? Arthur thought, certain the meaning was something other than a friend who was male. "Yes?" he answered gingerly.
"Then we have some questions for you. Follow us."
Arthur stood when the man did, realizing then that Merlin was nowhere to be seen. Fear squeezed Arthur's heart. Merlin might be a sorcerer and a traitor, but at least he was familiar.
"Where is–" Arthur stopped short as he saw a raven haired man being lifted into another box thing. A much bigger box thing. It looked similar to a carriage except for a few alternations. One of them being that it hovered over the ground.
"Hurry up," the green-haired young man said over his shoulder, walking through the part the crowd had made.
Arthur was not keen to follow the young man into that box, but he was even less keen to being in this strange, mad world alone without some sort of sense to ground him – even if that sense was only marginal at best. Merlin? A sorcerer? It was impossible! And yet…Arthur had seen it with his own eyes.
He sat down in the chair the young man directed him to, wondering if he was dreaming.
The box thing lurched forward, causing Arthur to grip the chair. Wherever they were heading to, Arthur hoped it would hold some familiarity of any sort. (And he hoped it could help heal Merlin, but Arthur was hesitant to acknowledge that aloud because… Because sorcerer. Years of being taught something was wrong and evil doesn't go away just because your friend is dying… Right?)
Loud beeping diverted Arthur's attention from his conflicting emotions.
The box was much roomier than the outside suggested. Merlin was on a bed in the middle of the box with tube-things sticking out of his arms. Something was covering part of his face. His grey, sweaty face.
Oh gods. Arthur was going to be sick. Merlin didn't look good. He was a sorcerer and he was dying and dammit Arthur just wanted Merlin to be safe and healthy and alive!
"We're losing him!" one of the white-clothed people exclaimed.
"Dammit! Klog, what the fuck kind of infection is this?" someone else shouted.
A red thing was clicking away on a smaller, more complicated-looking box. It was using tentacles. Arthur fought down the urge to vomit again; he had to look away from the…the thing.
"I'm trying!" it (he?) said. "But whatever-the-fuck it is, it's old!"
The beeping stopped, transforming to one long eeeep sound.
"Shit, shit, shit! We're losing him!"
The words hit Arthur like a punch in the gut, and he watched the chaos unfold with a near blind eye.
"We're almost to the hospital! Just hold on, Emrys!"
This world was bewildering and strange and somewhat frightening, but Arthur knew what those words meant.
"Klog!"
He's heard them before, in all sorts of variations: she's gone; he didn't make it; they're lost to us now.
"One more second…!"
Dead.
"KLOG! The antidote! NOW!"
That's what it meant.
"Fuck, I found it! I found it!"
Merlin was dead.
"Inject him already then!"
"God! Done, done! I did it!"
Except…wait, no. No, he wasn't. He wasn't! Merlin was still alive!
Merlin gasped, his eyes flying open as the red thing injected a pale orange liquid into one of the tube-things. His eyes closed almost immediately once the liquid had disappeared from the tube.
"The poison's been neutralized," the green-haired young man said, sounding relieved. "Not contagious either, but he's still got an arrow embedded in him."
"Gotcha," a different voice answered.
They were taking Merlin out of the box carriage thing! Arthur stood up quickly, hitting his head on the ceiling of the strange contraption, but he paid the dull ache no heed. He needed to go with them! He needed to be with Merlin!
Arthur scrambled out of the box, and into an entirely different environment. It appeared to be some building. A castle? The smell was even different from the first one – it was cleaner, but…a fake clean? The odor was sharp and hurt Arthur's nose.
People dressed in blue clothing joined the people in white. Everyone was shouting. They carted Merlin through strange looking doors that swung like a tavern's did. Arthur went to follow them.
"Not you," a surly woman said, appearing in front of Arthur and putting a hand on his chest. She looked human enough. Tall, straight ebony hair and dark brown eyes; no tentacles, no weird skin color, no fur… Her lips were unusually red though. "We've got questions for you."
"But…Merlin," Arthur protested, looking towards the doors that Merlin had been pushed through mere minutes prior.
The woman sighed. With her finger, she beckoned two men forward, who grabbed Arthur by his arms and dragged him after the woman, who was walking in spiked shoes that looked very uncomfortable and click-clacked with every step. Arthur had a bad feeling about this.