Under the Wild Oak [3/4]
Part Two
Prepping for surgery -- scrubbing his hands and scrubbing in and scrubbing his mind clean of any thoughts not incision one this deep from here to here and go -- doesn’t take long, so Merlin finds himself stepping into the operating room about twenty minutes after he got Will’s page and bolted from Arthur’s room, ten minutes after he reached the door to his team’s lab deep in the research wing. He would feel bad about taking off like that, but Morgana’s there now in case Arthur wakes up, armed with coffee and a crossword to keep her awake. And he can’t afford to feel bad, not when he’s entering the OR and Gawain is lying sedated on the table, instruments and a vial of some variation or other on the Lancelot Treatment (as they’ve taken to calling it) spread out on a neat little tray next to him.
So for the next few hours, this is Merlin’s world: the balance of pressure involved in wielding the scalpel, the brush of light-green scrubs against his skin, the heated gusts of his breath and voice bouncing off the surgical mask and back against his face. Sterile, repetitive, known; and that’s exactly what Merlin needs now. He sews Gawain up and moves on to Bedivere, to Percival, and he can feel the disapproving tension from his team rising with each new subject they bring out, each new treatment administration he performs to keep himself busy and not overwhelmed by what’s facing him.
It’s when he calls for Vivian that everything snaps. He’s been down here for close to three hours now, and his shoulders are aching, his gloves -- his third pair by now -- stained slick and red with blood. Three members of his team are slowly moving Percival out of the OR and off to a habitat for recovery and further monitoring, and Merlin is considering giving in to the throb in his back and the dull pain in his head that comes hand-in-hand with long surgery sessions.
He’s not sure, though, doesn’t want to go back to the ICU without good news and some faint hope to get him through the night, so he asks, “Any developments from the latest tumour scans?”
Will answers him, voice tired and short. “No, status is the same as the last time you asked. No impact either way on tumour size.”
“Damn it,” Merlin whispers. That’s not what he’d wanted to hear, and it’s not news that makes him comfortable with calling it a night so early. He sighs and speaks up. “All right, then. I want you to prep Vivian for me and get the OR set up for another surgery.”
“Fuck! Fuck it, Merlin, no.”
Will’s outburst is unexpected, and it makes the tension in the room rise to near-palpable levels. Merlin stiffens against it. The insubordination is a bit expected of Will after so many years of friendship, but never this blatantly, and never in front of a team that relies on Merlin’s judgment and decisions. Merlin can feel his hackles rise at having his authority so publicly, openly questioned.
His voice is quiet, carefully even, when he says, “No?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said: no,” Will responds heatedly, stepping forward so that he and Merlin are facing each other in the centre of the OR. “We’ve been down here for three hours already, and this isn’t doing anyone any good, least of all you.”
“We’re making progress, Will. We’re administering treatments to gain later results, and that’s doing some --”
Will talks over him, voice echoing off the tiled walls. “Bullshit, it isn’t doing anything right now. Now, it’s just stalling, and you know it, everybody here knows it. You shouldn’t be here, Merlin, not now. You’re too caught up in everything, and you’re too tired for any more right now.”
“I’m not tired, Will. I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. Again. Your hands are starting to shake, and your stitches are getting sloppy. Call it a night, Merlin. We’re all exhausted, so let us go home, and tomorrow --”
“You can’t honestly expect me to wait until tomorrow, not when --”
“I do expect that, yes. We’ll come back and look over the results we’ll have tomorrow morning, and we’ll go --”
“Arthur will be fucking dead by tomorrow morning, Will, or good as!”
Merlin’s shaking now, hands clenched into sticky, bloody fists that make the latex squeal when his fingers flex. His gaze is angry and focussed on Will, who is staring back with exasperation, frustration, and a bit of shock. Merlin never yells, so he can see why Will would be shocked by his shouting. He doesn’t care, though.
“He had a seizure this morning, or did you not hear about that? A fucking seizure, right in our kitchen, and Ewan’s talking about making him comfortable, and fuck that! Fuck that when I could be doing something, when we’re finally so close to something that could help. I’m not going to just sit around and watch him die, Will, and fuck you for trying to make me.”
“Merlin, I wasn’t --”
“You were. You may not have meant to, but you were. Get the fuck out of here, Will. We’ll talk about this later.” Merlin whirls around before he can see Will’s reaction, before Will can make him lose it any further. After a few long seconds, he hears the shuffle of steps, the groan and click of the operating room door swinging open and shut, and he knows Will has gone.
The room is silent except for Merlin’s breaths, loud and gasping with anger. He works to get them level again, forces himself to count and hold each inhale and exhale to regularity. After a few minutes, he’s back to being under control, if not totally calm. He turns and finds the rest of his team staring at him, expressions of anger, surprise, and what looks almost like pity mixed across their faces.
“Prep Vivian for surgery,” he barks at one of them, then leaves to rewash his hands and splash water on his face. He’ll have to scrub in again, but at this point, he doesn’t much care.
Vivian’s surgery lasts forty-five minutes and goes as expected. Will doesn’t return, and Merlin figures that’s a good thing. He tries not to notice his hand trembling slightly as he pulls the thread through to sew Vivian closed again; if any of his staff see, they don’t mention it, and Merlin is grateful.
***
Arthur is, as Merlin expected, not alone in his room. Unexpectedly, however, he’s being kept company not by Morgana, but by his father.
Uther Pendragon has always sort of intimidated Merlin, and rightfully so: he’s a large man, in more ways than one. Physically, he’s tall and broad-shouldered, his arms and legs visibly muscular and only the smallest rounded hint of a middle-aged paunch showing on his abdomen. He’s a corporate giant as well, the founder and current CEO of Draconis Enterprises, one of the largest architectural firms in Europe. Accordingly, he’s also highly intelligent and disgustingly rich, massive in every sense of the word and having greater impact in one day than Merlin could really hope to in his lifetime.
And yeah, Merlin thinks those are adequate reasons to be intimidated by someone.
He guesses that’s a fairly typical response that Uther gets, intimidation. The man has no small temper, and he’s quick to anger on top of that. Arthur has told Merlin stories of growing up with Uther, of hearing him rage over the phone to a corporate peon; over the desk to one of the manor’s employees at his or her less-than-impressive performance for the month; over the dinner table to Arthur or Morgana because of imperfect grades, breaking curfew, any number of minute teenaged rebellions.
This isn’t to say that Uther’s a bad father or a bad man; Merlin knows him to be the opposite, knows that his son and company have grown intelligent, honourable, confident, and prosperous under his guidance. Merlin just wishes that sometimes, Uther could better differentiate between a cutthroat business negotiation and a luncheon with his son and his son’s partner, and adjust his attitude and temperament to match.
From where Merlin’s standing, though, looking into Arthur’s room through the etched glass wall, Uther’s having no problems dropping the intimidation front today. He’s sat in a chair next to Arthur’s bed -- Merlin’s chair from earlier -- and he’s leaning forward so that his arms are folded and resting on Arthur’s bed. They’re deep in conversation, probably about the file-folder Uther has spread out on Arthur’s lap and is pointing to now. They look content, at ease in their conversation and each other, enough that Merlin catches a smile drifting across Arthur’s face at least twice.
Merlin watches them for another five minutes, almost wishing he could know what they were saying that was so calming to them both. But after a few minutes, Arthur looks up and catches Merlin’s eye. He says something to Uther, the inclination of his head indicating Merlin’s presence outside the room. It’s not a direct order or request to leave -- despite their differences, Arthur loves his father too much to be so glaringly rude. But Uther’s always been one to respect others’ time and varied obligations (years in business have taught him that if nothing else, he once shared with Merlin during one of the few conversations they’ve ever had that didn’t make Merlin want to wet himself, and which was memorable for that alone), so he packs up the folder and places it at the foot of Arthur’s bed, still within reach but not in the way. He takes Arthur’s hand and squeezes it with a firm grip Merlin can see even from here, and that’s one of the most blatant displays of paternal affection Merlin’s ever seen from him. Then he stands, picks up his coat from where it had been draped over the chair’s back, and exits the room.
Merlin turns to enter just as Uther comes out, and their gazes meet in what should be, but isn’t, an awkward way for two people who have never got on well. Instead, Uther simply looks at Merlin, eyes bright and considering, before sticking out his hand. Confused, Merlin takes it, and he’s both amused and surprised when Uther shakes it formally, with an air of almost regal dignity and importance.
“We’ve had our issues, I know,” Uther says, and Merlin is definitely well-past surprised at the fact that Uther is actually admitting to having problems in his carefully-constructed life.
Uther continues, “But, reluctant as I am to admit it, you’ve been good to Arthur, and I can respect that. Thank you.”
He drops Merlin’s hand and looks at him expectantly, but Merlin is still caught on not only the fact that Uther Pendragon is acknowledging his value as a person, but also on the more unsettling way that Uther had said “have been.” “Have been” like Arthur isn’t still here, alive and in the bed just beyond the door, and that’s what’s really making Merlin’s brain stick, what’s really reducing him to the stuttering idiot he was when he and Uther first met.
“Er, well. Thanks,” he chokes out, because Uther is still staring at him, and he clearly wants something before he’ll leave. “You, too.”
This is apparently acceptable, and Uther nods once before stepping around Merlin and out of the doorway, leaving it clear. Merlin shakes his head to clear it, and he already knows he won’t be sharing this with Arthur, much as it might make him laugh, the sadist.
Merlin pulls open the door and steps into Arthur’s room. The door clicks shut behind him, always surprisingly quiet for so heavy an object. Arthur looks up at the noise, a small smile still stretched across his face.
“Hey,” Arthur says as Merlin walks over to his bedside. “I almost wondered if you were coming back.”
“Always,” Merlin says, reaching to bed. He bends down and kisses Arthur’s mouth, soft and probably longer than it really needs to be, but neither of them is complaining. “Just had some things to take care of at the lab.”
He pulls off the shoulder bag he’d grabbed after running home to change post-op and takes his seat in the chair. “When did Morgana leave?”
“About an hour ago, I think. She was supposed to go for dinner with Gwen tonight, and Father dropped by, so she didn’t have to cancel.”
“Yeah, I saw. Did that go all right? It looked like it did, but you can never be too sure with your dad.”
“He’s really not that bad, Merlin. I don’t know why you’re so afraid of him. And no, I don’t care to hear why,” Arthur cuts him off, laughing. “He dropped that off for me.”
Arthur shifts his foot under the covers in the direction of the file-folder, and Merlin reaches out to grab it. It’s heavy when he picks it up, fat and fuller than he’d expected with papers. He hands it to Arthur, who spreads it open on his lap.
Inside the folder is not what Merlin was expecting. He’d been picturing business reports for Draconis, the sort of thing Uther likes to share with Arthur as a way of keeping him connected to the company that was supposed to be his, back before Arthur got sick and Morgana forced both of them into giving Arthur leave from work that had never really ended. What he finds is a stack of pages paper-clipped in random intervals, some in old-style typewriter print and some in loopy script. Some are straight and crisp, obviously well-preserved, but most are crinkled, folded and worn like they had been shoved hurriedly in too many bags, or written on whatever was handy at the time. It’s the sort of mix Merlin expects he’d have were he to collect all the pages Arthur’s jotted ideas on, whole sentences or paragraphs or plot outlines, anything that came to mind while pen was pressed to paper.
He looks up at Arthur questioningly. Arthur smiles a bit wider, traces a finger over a line of faded ballpoint cursive, and says, “They were my mother’s. All the stuff she wrote before she died that Father could find. He always said he’d show me one day, and I guess he felt it was time.”
Merlin can’t help but smile a bit, too. He’s never known Uther to be exactly sentimental, but the few times the man ever came close was when he talked of Arthur’s mother. It figures, then, that he’d save these, and that he’d keep his last real connection to her private.
Arthur continues, “He said that he’s reread them a lot, but especially right after she died. He almost burned them from grief, but stopped himself at the last minute.”
Glancing up, Merlin can see the wistful expression on Arthur’s face as he reads over his mother’s words. Arthur’s always missed her, the mother he’s never known, and Merlin is suddenly, indescribably grateful that Uther exercised judgment in this, in saving and finally deciding to share this connection.
“I’m glad he did,” Merlin says, and Arthur turns his head to look at him.
“Me, too.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes, flipping through Igraine’s stories and notes, before Arthur closes the folder and sits back. He looks tired again, and a bit like his headache is back. Merlin grabs his hand where it rests on the bed, strokes over it soothingly.
“My father also brought something else with him,” Arthur says, shaking off Merlin’s hand to point at the small table by the window. Merlin turns his head and sees something he had missed before in his eagerness to get to Arthur’s bedside: a small package wrapped in red paper. He stands and walks over to it, picks it up and moves to hand it to Arthur.
Arthur shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s for you.”
Merlin smiles a bit, surprised. “Your father got me a gift?”
“No,” Arthur says again. “No, it’s from me. I just needed him to pick it up for me this morning. Open it.”
So Merlin does. The red paper is thin, some sort of tissue paper, and it tears easily under his fingers to reveal a rectangular wooden box. Merlin flips open the lid of the box, feels it spring back on tiny, well-oiled hinges under the pressure of his fingers.
Inside the box, lying on soft red velvet, is the fountain pen Uther had purchased for Arthur the first Christmas after they learned about the tumour. It’s a beautiful pen, the barrel and cap made of smooth, gleaming black resin and ringed at the base with gold. The clip, though, is what makes it special: a small, intricately-carved golden dragon that rests on the cap as if crouched, poised to spring. Its eyes are rubies, and in its mouth is clutched a single, flawless white pearl. It looks alive in the right light, and Merlin has seen scarcely a day go by since Arthur first received the gift that he has not walked in to find Arthur writing frantically, dragon seemingly in flight as his pen leaves inky trails over the page.
“Your pen?” he asks Arthur, question colouring his voice.
Arthur nods. “Well, yours now. I want you to have it.”
Merlin shakes his head, snaps the lid closed so that the dragon will stop winking at him enticingly, teasingly. “Arthur, I can’t accept this. It’s a gift from your father, he --”
“He already knows it’s going to you, Merlin, and he’s approved of it. So you’re getting the pen, no arguments.”
Merlin sets the box down on the foot of Arthur’s bed, out of the way for now. “Arthur, are you sure? It’s your favourite, I can’t take that from you, and --”
“Merlin, I think we both know I’m not going to be able to use it much longer.”
For the second time that day, Merlin goes stiff. He doesn’t know what to say, what he can say, in the face of Arthur treating his death so casually, so he stays silent. Arthur keeps talking, each word hitting Merlin like a slap to the face.
“And Merlin, I. After, I want you to finish it for me.”
Merlin’s voice is barely more than a whisper, although from anger or sorrow, he’s not quite sure, when he says, “Finish what?”
“My book. It’s all done, all but the last chapter -- or chapters, if you decide to take it that way. And as worried as I am that you’ll revert to your college days and find some way to screw it up, I trust you with it. I want you to finish it.”
And now, Merlin knows that it’s definitely anger, because something in him burns at Arthur trying to joke about this.
“Stop it,” he says forcefully, cutting off anything else Arthur may have wanted to say. “Stop it, just. I’m not going to take your pen, and I’m not going to finish your book, because you’re going to do those things, you.”
Arthur looks up at him from the bed, and Merlin realises that he still hasn’t sat down, that there’s even more of a distance between them now than there needs to be. He’s unsure as to whether he should correct that. Arthur’s eyes look sad, frustrated and almost disappointed, and oh, fuck that. If anyone should be disappointed here, it’s Merlin; Merlin, who is learning that Arthur has seemingly given up.
“Merlin,” Arthur says, and he reaches out for Merlin’s hand. Merlin takes a step back, bumping awkwardly into a chair but still moving away, getting the distance he needs right now. Something in Arthur’s face twitches as though he’s hurt, and Merlin feels his chest clench at how wrong that is, but he keeps his ground.
“No,” Merlin says, cutting Arthur off. “No, don’t ‘Merlin’ me. I know what you’re saying, I get it, and you’re wrong, Arthur. You’re wrong. You’re not going to -- I can’t lose you, I won’t.”
“Merlin, you’ll never lose me!”
“You can’t promise that, damn it, not after what you just said!”
Arthur shakes his head, sighs heavily like he does when Merlin is missing something so obvious, right in front of him and just out of reach. Merlin finds that he’s shaking again, and shit. He doesn’t want to be mad at Arthur, but he doesn’t know how else to feel, and just. He takes a few of those calming breaths from earlier, and he can hear Arthur doing the same, and the reminder of how in sync they are with each other, a harmony that’s taken years to build -- it hurts, a sharp ache deep in his chest and eternal, already-fading.
There’s silence between them again, but it’s tension-filled this time, and Merlin hates it. He feels a wave of relief, crashing and immense, when Arthur raises his head to look at him and says, tentative if Arthur ever could be, “Stay with me tonight?”
Despite everything, or maybe because of it, Merlin can’t possibly tell him no.
The traveller is growing weary of lots of things.
First, and most of all, he is tired of these constant, too-frequent visits. None make more sense than the last; in fact, it seems as though each new one is more puzzling than the one before, if only because they’re repetitive as if they should mean something, and he can’t figure out what. He is so tired of seeing this man in his coat, his scarf that is inappropriate and outlandish for the heat of summer (or whatever season this is; they’ve blurred together for a while now, all becoming one long run of sun and heat). And he is so tired of hearing those words, finish it, a context-less anaphora that he has heard so many times in the same tone, the same voice, the same way, that they have become as meaningless as the beat of his footfalls against the earth.
And even though it contradicts his nature, he is weary of that, too, of walking. His legs ache with every step now, and the soles of his shoes have worn so much that they are holey, shredded. He has all but lost his purpose for walking, his drive, and he is beginning to doubt he ever had one because he can’t remember, has no idea where he is going or why he is on this road to begin with.
He is tired of one direction to walk in, tired of one direction to follow, tired of not understanding why either makes sense. He is tired of seeing dark clouds gather like a smudge, a growing ink blot against the sky and road, even though they are the one new thing within his cyclical existence.
He still can’t bring himself to be excited about them, though; rather, he is wary of what they may hold, and he has felt as such for so long now that he is beginning to suspect he is weary of that, too.
A hospital room is a very small space for pacing. At least at this hospital, the room is roughly twelve feet by thirteen feet, a rectangular box with sides of glass and papered-over drywall. When the bed and chairs are factored in, plus the IV and monitoring equipment and the small table for magazines and whatever worried visitors may bring with them to occupy their time, roughly twelve feet by thirteen feet is not much room at all, at least not for productive, thoughtful pacing.
Merlin knows this because pacing, or trying to, is what he’s been doing for about the last hour. Arthur had drifted back asleep somewhere near an hour after he asked Merlin to stay, and Merlin had only been able to sit next to him, quiet and still on the bed, for around thirty minutes before getting restless. So he’d started walking, just around the room because he promised Arthur he’d stay, and he’ll keep that promise, even if staring at the same four walls of etched glass and pale blue paper is close to driving him insane.
It’s about five minutes more of this before Merlin throws himself back into the chair next to Arthur, tired of pacing and already tired of sitting again and not really knowing what to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his shoulder bag, which had fallen to the ground at some point earlier this evening. He reaches for it eagerly, hoping he’s right in thinking he remembered to grab a book from home. His search proves triumphant, and he pulls Arthur’s book, black leather cover cold from the hospital air-conditioning and slippery-smooth in his grasp, from his bag.
Merlin’s been reading it off and on throughout the day, a few pages here and there, a chapter or two when he’d stopped at home to change. It’s good, and it’s Arthur’s, so he’s been enjoying it. He will admit that when Arthur had first told him about the concept -- a world where King Arthur and Myrddin the Wizard met as teenagers, where Uther lived and magic was banned and the two of them, Arthur and Myrddin, fought for and protected each other in every way -- he’d laughed. He’s never fully understood Arthur’s fascination with his namesake (probably because the teasing he endured for his own name completely turned him off of the legends), and this seemed like just another crazy excuse for Arthur to buy as many books as possible on Britain’s greatest king. Arthur had surprised him, though, and he has the product of Arthur’s hard work and research open on his lap before him, and it’s good, good enough that Merlin is hurriedly flipping through it to find his page marker from earlier for reasons more than just it’s Arthur’s, and how could he not.
He finally find his page, Chapter Ten written across the top in large, spiky script, and he reads.
The village that Myrddin comes to tonight is on the edge of a great forest . . .
The village that Myrddin comes to tonight is on the edge of a great forest, one of the largest and oldest in Albion. He can see the dark shapes of the trees, twisted and gnarled and massive, beyond the fire-lit paths of the town, and he shivers a bit in anticipation of what he’s sure is hiding in there, covered by the Old Religion and waiting for him to find.
For now, though, it’s night-time, and the moon is but a sliver in the sky. The path is visible only because of the glow coming from the village, enough for him and his horse to see by but little more. No, he knows, there will be no exploring of those woods tonight.
The first building he reaches is, unsurprisingly, an inn. He pulls his horse to a stop and clambers down, legs stiff after so long in the saddle and so many days on the trail. He hitches his horse to the wooden post out front, then makes his way slowly inside.
The interior of the inn is loud, hot, and smoky. It smells of some sort of roasted meat -- pork, Myrddin would venture a guess -- and the sour-sweet aroma of wine. His ears ring slightly with the commotion around him: calls for more of anything, raucous laughter, the clanking of steins knocked loudly against each other in a toast. Myrddin picks his way slowly through the mess of tables, littered satchels, and sprawled limbs toward what he hopes is the owner’s counter, or at least some place where he’ll be able to purchase a room and a meal for the night.
When he finally finds him, the owner of the inn proves to be just like every other Myrddin has met on his trip. He is a large, round man, as loud and obnoxious as his guests, and probably more drunk than many of them. His hair and beard are long and curly, and his breath smells of sour ale when he leans forward to talk to Myrddin.
It takes five minutes to rent a room, which Myrddin is sure will reek of piss and sweat and other things he’d rather not contemplate, but is still shelter over his head. It takes another five minutes to get a stable boy sent out to tend to his horse for the night, but Myrddin actually counts himself lucky on that one -- the last few inns he’d stayed at had no such service. And it takes him another ten minutes to pick his way back through the mess that is the dining room and over to a small, vacant table in the corner.
Shortly after he’s sat at his table, a girl, no older than teenaged, walks over. Her red hair is frizzed where it’s coming loose from the kerchief she’s tied it back with, and her cheeks are flushed pink from the heat of the room and the work of moving constantly through it. She’s already carrying two empty flagons in her hand, and the table nearest Myrddin has three more for her to pick up.
“What can I get for you?” She sounds breathless and harried when she speaks, and Myrddin can’t help but feel sorry for her, this child who has known nothing but this her whole life.
“Just some wine, please, and some of whatever you have roasting back there.”
The girl nods and moves on, somehow hefting the heavy, metal steins into her arms before making her way back to the kitchens.
His wine comes fairly quickly in a simple wooden cup, and as Myrddin expected, it’s pretty awful. He sips it slowly, trying to will it into tasting better, but the wine is having none of it. Shame.
It takes his food a while longer to come -- by the time it does, most of the other guests have cleared out for the night, and the girl looks much less frazzled when she stops at his table. The meat, when he cuts into it, is tender and pink, juicy, and the flavour is smoked in just right. It’s far better than the wine, and well worth the wait, and Myrddin tells the girl so when she comes by with another cup of drink for him.
She laughs. “Well, Mother was always known for her pork, so that’s nothing new.”
“Understandably so,” Myrddin says. “This is likely the best I’ve had since leaving Camelot.”
At this, the girl’s eyes widen. “You’re from Camelot?” she asks, voice tinged with excitement. She sits down in the chair opposite Myrddin, apparently free for the time being now that the dining hall has cleared out, and props her chin up on her hands in a way that makes her look exceptionally young. “What’s it like there?”
Myrddin smiles because he can remember what it was to be so young, so enchanted by the idea of city life that the slightest bit of it drifting into and through his village was cause for celebration. He’d loved Ealdor growing up, but the very thought of Camelot was like undistilled excitement, and he expects that’s how it is for this girl here.
So he indulges her, tells her stories of Arthur’s court before Morgan returned, of life in and around the castle, of hustling markets and busy feasts and everything that comprises city living. She’s enraptured by it, entranced, and her smile grows wider with every tournament he recounts, every ball he describes, every small detail he lets slip.
When he’s run out of stories, or when his head is spinning too much with wine and smoke to speak any longer, she asks him, “Why did you leave, though? If it’s so wonderful there?”
Myrddin laughs, but even he can hear how bitter it rings. “Because it’s not so anymore. The city has been surrounded, cut off. The people are starving, so there haven’t been feasts in some while, and everyone is on edge. The air is dark with ashes now, and it chokes you when you breathe too much of it in, so it’s rare to see the streets anywhere near as busy as they once were.”
“But that’s awful!” the girl cries, and Myrddin must agree with her; it is, after all, why he left, what he’s here to fix. “Can’t anyone stop it?”
“That’s why I’m here, actually. I think there’s something in this village that can help. I’m here to search for it, and that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow,” he says, and he’s not really sure why he’s sharing this with her, as he hadn’t originally meant to. He must have had too much to drink, he figures, but it’s all right; she’s only young, and while she’s very inquisitive, she doesn’t seem that bright, so Myrddin thinks he’s fine.
The girl looks confused. “This village? But it’s so small.”
Myrddin laughs. “It’s more the forest, I think. And oh, but that will take days to search.”
Her eyes light up and she leans forward, an eager smile on her face. “Not if you have a guide, it won’t. I know that forest, sir. I could help you through it, with the paths and everything, ’cause they’re not the best, and you should find whatever it is in no time!”
She looks pleased with herself and excited beyond measure at the idea of traipsing through the forest with him, and Myrddin doesn’t have the heart to tell her no. She’s right, actually; having a guide would make things easier, at least for when he’s just starting out, and she’ll probably grow bored and disenchanted with the search long before he actually finds it.
“All right,” he says. “If you want to come searching with me, I’d be glad of the help.”
She grins, laughing a bit in her anticipation, and it is only from this wave of energy that Myrddin is reminded of how tired he really is. He yawns hugely, stretches his arms out over his head before shoving his chair back and standing.
“You’ll have to excuse me for now, though. It’s been a long travel for me, and I need to rest before I even think about going into the forest tomorrow.”
The girl stands as well, picking up his plate and goblet as she does. Her voice sounds almost satisfied as she says, “I shall see you in the morning, then, sir, bright and early outside this inn. Have a good night.”
She starts walking away, and Myrddin remembers suddenly that he has no way of checking up on or getting a message to her should plans change. “What’s your name?” he calls after her, hoping she’s heard him.
She has. Her red hair flashes like fire as she tosses her head back and looks over her shoulder to shout, “Vivienne.”
Myrddin nods, then grabs his coat and heads upstairs to a straw bed that does smell of piss and sweat, but that lets him sleep easy just the same.
***
The next morning finds him and Vivienne in the woods bright and early. It’s barely midday, but they are already deep into the forest, where the tree trunks are big enough for four men to wrap around and the air stays perpetually cool from the shade.
Vivienne was right yesterday; she does know these paths, and very well at that. Her steps are sure and quick, nimbly avoiding the rocks and tree roots that Myrddin stumbles on often enough that Arthur would die of laughter could he see. Still, despite his fumbling, they are making extremely good time, and Myrddin can feel his excitement mounting with every step.
Lunch is a shared flask of wine and a hunk of bread and cheese apiece, devoured while perched on a small cluster of large rocks near the base of a cedar tree. It’s refreshing and filling, and finished quickly enough that, with the pace they’ve been setting, Myrddin feels comfortable taking a few extra minutes to relax.
“How do you know which tree you’re looking for?” Vivienne asks, jolting him awake from the light doze he’d slipped into.
“I can feel it,” he says, and again, he’s not sure why he’s telling her this, only knows that it feels right, easy like only his conversations with Arthur and Gwen have ever been. “It’s instinctual, almost. I’m looking for something magic, and I’ve magic in me, and it’s like they’re pulling each other in. I can feel it now, actually, tingling a bit, and getting stronger when I look that way.”
He points in the direction of two trees, giant ones that tower over the others nearby.
Vivienne laughs. “Are you sure? That’s off the path, you know.”
Myrddin looks in that direction again, feels his magic buzz golden as he does, and knows. “Yes, I’m sure. Do you still know how to get through that way? Because if not, I can go alone from --”
“No, no!” she blurts out, words rushed. “No, I still know the way. I can take you.”
Myrddin nods and stands, ready and eager to find this and get back to Camelot, to Arthur. “Then let’s be off.”
***
The clearing, when they come to it, is silent in a way that’s different from the rest of the forest. In the other parts, Myrddin could hear the faint crunch of leaves under his feet, the whisper of wind through the branches, the normal sounds of day that fade into a sense of quiet in the background.
But this clearing, it’s different. There is no noise here, not even that typical, ignored type. It’s as though Myrddin has stepped into an absence of sound, a place so holy that any form of noise would desecrate it. The grass, bright green and tender young, does not squeal under and against the leather of his boots, and there is not even the faint swish of his moving clothing to mark his steps toward the centre of the field.
At the centre, the place he’s moving toward so excitedly now, is an oak tree, gargantuan in size. Its trunk is a deep brown, and it is lined and scored, gnarled and weathered and visibly ancient. Its branches twist upward almost grotesquely, crooked like broken fingers, fingers that are trying to hold too much, and they are heavy with plump acorns and thick, broad leaves. Its roots weave in and out of the earth around it, a tangled net of wood and life that looks both sinister and welcoming at once.
Myrddin looks at the tree, and he can tell that this is right, this is correct. His magic is humming in his veins, more alive than it has ever felt, and he walks faster at the near-tickling sensation of it. It’s almost as though the tree is pulling him in, power radiating from it and looping around his ankles and wrists, tugging him happily forward.
When he finally reaches the middle, Myrddin is in awe. The tree is even more beautiful up close, inexplicably so, and he wants almost to fall to his knees in deference to the knowledge, the power and overwhelming natural connection that is etched into every fibre of this great oak, displayed in every crack and groove in its bark.
He tears his eyes away and looks behind him, and he sees Vivienne just outside the circle of the root structure. She is smiling at him, encouraging and slightly wicked, and he feels like he should be afraid, but he can’t bring himself to be. He turns his head back to face the tree, and as he does, he spots it.
There, tangled in a massive knot of roots, is the Cup of Life. Unlike in the Christian tales, which emphasize the simplicity of their king, his predilection for carpentry and roughly-hewn wooden products, the actual Cup gleams golden, even when no sunlight shines on it. Myrddin can see from here, where he stands a few steps away, that the bowl itself is unembellished, just plain, elegant gold. He can’t see all of the stem and base, but he knows from past experience how they will look: smooth gold joining with a wide, three-footed circle of filigreed and etched metal. It’s lavish, a symbol of wealth and power and the beauty of magic, of life itself; but it is still humble in its own way, quiet and confident in its worth.
Myrddin takes the few steps forward before dropping to his knees in front of it, this small cup that he has searched so long to find and that promises to be Camelot’s, Arthur’s salvation. It shines up at him, a lightless glow that makes no natural sense but calls to him just the same. He stretches his fingers out, and oh, it is so close, and his magic is practically bubbling in him now.
When he touches it (finally finally), it is unsurprisingly cool. He grips the smooth line of the bowl and brings up his other hand to pry at the tangled roots that ensnare its stem, and he is so close, so close, the cup flashing golden and brilliant and there under his fingers.
The instant Myrddin’s fingers brush the wood, though, something goes wrong. It shifts under his hand, stretches and unfurls up from the ground with a horrible groaning sound -- the first thing Myrddin has heard since entering the clearing, and ear-splitting for that reason. All around him, the roots are unveiling themselves, rising and writhing like snakes, and Myrddin feels instantly, terribly afraid.
He tugs on the Cup desperately because damn it, he did not come all this way, did not find it at last, only to return to Arthur in failure. But as he is pulling, trying to pry it free, the roots wrap themselves around him. They encircle his wrists and ankles, coil around his midsection and biceps and thighs, and Myrddin feels them tugging at him, dragging him away from the Cup and closer to the core of the tree. He digs his heels into the earth, feels his fingers slipping from the Cup and digs those in, too, but it is no use.
Myrddin screams, throaty and pleading, and he is struggling with all his might, and still the tree is pulling him closer. He can see that the largest groove in its trunk has opened now, a dark, gaping hole that the roots seem to be shoving him toward, and he thrashes in his bonds again. He tosses his head back -- the only motion he can still fully control, really -- and he can see Vivienne standing just outside the shuddering, jerking mass of roots. Her smile is something cruel, unforgiving and timeless, and her hair gleams like spilled blood, the same unnatural shine the Cup had. She’s laughing again, and Myrddin can just barely hear her over the creaking of the tree and the rising pitch of his sobs (frantic now, overwhelmed with thoughts of failure and Arthur and no).
He is fighting for all he is worth, and it is no use. The crack in the trunk is so close, so close, and Myrddin can feel his magic flowing out of him and back in, but changed, bonded and inextricably linked with this indescribable force, and he knows that this is it.
“I’m sorry, Arthur,” he whispers, knowing that Arthur cannot and will never hear him, and then he is plunged face-first into the tree, and he hears the trunk meld shut around him, and he knows no more.
Merlin jerks awake startled, frantic for a reason he can’t explain. He’s in the hospital in the chair in Arthur’s room, and, apart from Arthur’s book having fallen from his lap to the floor, everything’s fine. Arthur is asleep on the bed, and Merlin can hear the standard hospital-at-night noises: the soft whispers of the nurses, the steady beep of Arthur’s heart monitor --
Except for how it’s not a beep at all, it’s a long, drawn-out pitch that turns all of Merlin’s insides to ice and has him springing out of his chair and over to Arthur in a split-second.
“Fuck,” Merlin says, “Arthur, Arthur! Damn it, come on!” Merlin balls up his fist, pounds the end of it into the left centre of Arthur’s chest, just over his heart.
Arthur doesn’t respond.
“Fuck, fuck, Arthur, no,” Merlin shouts, and it’s this as much as the call button he doesn’t remember pressing that has the nurses rushing in. They find him pounding at Arthur’s chest again, again, again, trying desperately to jolt his heart back into action, to keep him here, and they waste little time.
“Sir,” one of them says, “sir, we need you to step out and let us try.” They pull him away from the bed, from Arthur, and it takes two of them, their hands gripping his arms and all but dragging him from the room.
Merlin’s heart is pounding in his ears, and he can hear it, feel it reverberating through his body in all the ways he couldn’t feel Arthur’s, and fuck, but this isn’t helping anything. One of the nurses in the room has pulled the blinds on the glass walls closed, and Merlin can’t see what’s happening, doesn’t know and desperately wants to almost as much as he fears it.
His fingers are raking through his hair, grabbing at his scalp almost painfully and then scrubbing roughly over his face in a poor attempt to stay calm. All around him, it’s cold, the hospital at night, and silent in all the ways a hospital never should be, the rush of his blood in his ears making him oblivious to every noise.
Merlin turns away from Arthur’s room, trying to put a little distance between himself and Arthur in there so that he won’t be such an awful mess when Arthur wakes up and they let him back in. He’s trying for calming breaths, sucking down air and letting it out uncontrollably, and nothing’s helping, damn it, nothing, his mind too focussed on the non-rhythm of Arthur’s heart monitor to have any semblance of counting and beat.
He turns around again, and he’s surprised to see Will there, striding towards him through the hall. Merlin half-runs to him, not sure what he’s expecting -- sympathy, maybe, or someone to sit with him, to reassure him until he’s allowed in to see Arthur again. Definitely not the broad smile that’s stretched out on Will’s lips, his teeth flashing white and brilliant, happy, in the dimmed fluorescent lighting.
“Merlin,” he says, and his voice is practically dripping with an excitement that Merlin can’t feel. “Merlin, the Lancelot Treatment -- it’s amazing. The tumour, it’s gone, it’s almost all gone, and,” Will stops, cuts himself off as he takes in what Merlin is sure must be an absolutely wrecked expression on his face. He opens his mouth to say something, probably Merlin’s name, but Merlin is already turning away to run back to Arthur’s room, and he’s so close, they’ve made it, they’ve --
They’re exiting, the nurses, looking subdued and disappointed, and no. Merlin shoves past them, stumbles through the doorway to see one of them pulling a sheet over Arthur’s (blank quiet expressionless) face, and Merlin feels something break inside him.
“No,” he chokes out, pushing his way over to Arthur’s bedside. “No, no, please, no,” like it’s a mantra, something that will bring Arthur back. He pulls the sheet away and Arthur’s there, still and pale and fragile, already broken, and Merlin can’t let him do this, can’t let Arthur just slip away.
He bends over Arthur and starts pressing rhythmically down and in on Arthur’s chest, over his heart like before, one two three four five. And then he’s pinching Arthur’s nose closed and prying his mouth open, gulping down air only to press his mouth to Arthur’s and force it down Arthur’s throat, and it doesn’t work, so Merlin does it again. He’s crying now, can feel the tears running hot down his cheeks, can hear them clogging his voice as he counts. He can taste them where they’ve fallen on Arthur’s lips, salty and bitter and wrong, as wrong as the fact that Arthur isn’t moving beneath him.
The nurses are droning around him, and Merlin can hear them saying that he needs to leave, to let go, but he can’t, he can’t, not when he’s so close, Arthur right in front of him and just beyond his reach. He keeps up his rhythm, chest compressions and messy, sloppy breath delivery, and he feels himself flying further apart for every time it doesn’t work, going to even tinier pieces for every second this becomes more final.
He’s jerked out of it by hands closing rough around his arms, pulling him away, and he’s screaming and gasping and flailing, but it’s no use. Will’s bigger than he is (and he knows it’s Will, can hear him whispering Merlin and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry into Merlin’s ear), always has been. And Will’s more than able to manhandle Merlin out into the corridor, to keep him there while a nurse pulls the sheet up over Arthur’s head again, to hold him in a futile gesture of comfort when Merlin collapses against his chest, sobbing Arthur’s name like a lifeline, the only thing he has left.
Part Four
Prepping for surgery -- scrubbing his hands and scrubbing in and scrubbing his mind clean of any thoughts not incision one this deep from here to here and go -- doesn’t take long, so Merlin finds himself stepping into the operating room about twenty minutes after he got Will’s page and bolted from Arthur’s room, ten minutes after he reached the door to his team’s lab deep in the research wing. He would feel bad about taking off like that, but Morgana’s there now in case Arthur wakes up, armed with coffee and a crossword to keep her awake. And he can’t afford to feel bad, not when he’s entering the OR and Gawain is lying sedated on the table, instruments and a vial of some variation or other on the Lancelot Treatment (as they’ve taken to calling it) spread out on a neat little tray next to him.
So for the next few hours, this is Merlin’s world: the balance of pressure involved in wielding the scalpel, the brush of light-green scrubs against his skin, the heated gusts of his breath and voice bouncing off the surgical mask and back against his face. Sterile, repetitive, known; and that’s exactly what Merlin needs now. He sews Gawain up and moves on to Bedivere, to Percival, and he can feel the disapproving tension from his team rising with each new subject they bring out, each new treatment administration he performs to keep himself busy and not overwhelmed by what’s facing him.
It’s when he calls for Vivian that everything snaps. He’s been down here for close to three hours now, and his shoulders are aching, his gloves -- his third pair by now -- stained slick and red with blood. Three members of his team are slowly moving Percival out of the OR and off to a habitat for recovery and further monitoring, and Merlin is considering giving in to the throb in his back and the dull pain in his head that comes hand-in-hand with long surgery sessions.
He’s not sure, though, doesn’t want to go back to the ICU without good news and some faint hope to get him through the night, so he asks, “Any developments from the latest tumour scans?”
Will answers him, voice tired and short. “No, status is the same as the last time you asked. No impact either way on tumour size.”
“Damn it,” Merlin whispers. That’s not what he’d wanted to hear, and it’s not news that makes him comfortable with calling it a night so early. He sighs and speaks up. “All right, then. I want you to prep Vivian for me and get the OR set up for another surgery.”
“Fuck! Fuck it, Merlin, no.”
Will’s outburst is unexpected, and it makes the tension in the room rise to near-palpable levels. Merlin stiffens against it. The insubordination is a bit expected of Will after so many years of friendship, but never this blatantly, and never in front of a team that relies on Merlin’s judgment and decisions. Merlin can feel his hackles rise at having his authority so publicly, openly questioned.
His voice is quiet, carefully even, when he says, “No?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said: no,” Will responds heatedly, stepping forward so that he and Merlin are facing each other in the centre of the OR. “We’ve been down here for three hours already, and this isn’t doing anyone any good, least of all you.”
“We’re making progress, Will. We’re administering treatments to gain later results, and that’s doing some --”
Will talks over him, voice echoing off the tiled walls. “Bullshit, it isn’t doing anything right now. Now, it’s just stalling, and you know it, everybody here knows it. You shouldn’t be here, Merlin, not now. You’re too caught up in everything, and you’re too tired for any more right now.”
“I’m not tired, Will. I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. Again. Your hands are starting to shake, and your stitches are getting sloppy. Call it a night, Merlin. We’re all exhausted, so let us go home, and tomorrow --”
“You can’t honestly expect me to wait until tomorrow, not when --”
“I do expect that, yes. We’ll come back and look over the results we’ll have tomorrow morning, and we’ll go --”
“Arthur will be fucking dead by tomorrow morning, Will, or good as!”
Merlin’s shaking now, hands clenched into sticky, bloody fists that make the latex squeal when his fingers flex. His gaze is angry and focussed on Will, who is staring back with exasperation, frustration, and a bit of shock. Merlin never yells, so he can see why Will would be shocked by his shouting. He doesn’t care, though.
“He had a seizure this morning, or did you not hear about that? A fucking seizure, right in our kitchen, and Ewan’s talking about making him comfortable, and fuck that! Fuck that when I could be doing something, when we’re finally so close to something that could help. I’m not going to just sit around and watch him die, Will, and fuck you for trying to make me.”
“Merlin, I wasn’t --”
“You were. You may not have meant to, but you were. Get the fuck out of here, Will. We’ll talk about this later.” Merlin whirls around before he can see Will’s reaction, before Will can make him lose it any further. After a few long seconds, he hears the shuffle of steps, the groan and click of the operating room door swinging open and shut, and he knows Will has gone.
The room is silent except for Merlin’s breaths, loud and gasping with anger. He works to get them level again, forces himself to count and hold each inhale and exhale to regularity. After a few minutes, he’s back to being under control, if not totally calm. He turns and finds the rest of his team staring at him, expressions of anger, surprise, and what looks almost like pity mixed across their faces.
“Prep Vivian for surgery,” he barks at one of them, then leaves to rewash his hands and splash water on his face. He’ll have to scrub in again, but at this point, he doesn’t much care.
Vivian’s surgery lasts forty-five minutes and goes as expected. Will doesn’t return, and Merlin figures that’s a good thing. He tries not to notice his hand trembling slightly as he pulls the thread through to sew Vivian closed again; if any of his staff see, they don’t mention it, and Merlin is grateful.
***
Arthur is, as Merlin expected, not alone in his room. Unexpectedly, however, he’s being kept company not by Morgana, but by his father.
Uther Pendragon has always sort of intimidated Merlin, and rightfully so: he’s a large man, in more ways than one. Physically, he’s tall and broad-shouldered, his arms and legs visibly muscular and only the smallest rounded hint of a middle-aged paunch showing on his abdomen. He’s a corporate giant as well, the founder and current CEO of Draconis Enterprises, one of the largest architectural firms in Europe. Accordingly, he’s also highly intelligent and disgustingly rich, massive in every sense of the word and having greater impact in one day than Merlin could really hope to in his lifetime.
And yeah, Merlin thinks those are adequate reasons to be intimidated by someone.
He guesses that’s a fairly typical response that Uther gets, intimidation. The man has no small temper, and he’s quick to anger on top of that. Arthur has told Merlin stories of growing up with Uther, of hearing him rage over the phone to a corporate peon; over the desk to one of the manor’s employees at his or her less-than-impressive performance for the month; over the dinner table to Arthur or Morgana because of imperfect grades, breaking curfew, any number of minute teenaged rebellions.
This isn’t to say that Uther’s a bad father or a bad man; Merlin knows him to be the opposite, knows that his son and company have grown intelligent, honourable, confident, and prosperous under his guidance. Merlin just wishes that sometimes, Uther could better differentiate between a cutthroat business negotiation and a luncheon with his son and his son’s partner, and adjust his attitude and temperament to match.
From where Merlin’s standing, though, looking into Arthur’s room through the etched glass wall, Uther’s having no problems dropping the intimidation front today. He’s sat in a chair next to Arthur’s bed -- Merlin’s chair from earlier -- and he’s leaning forward so that his arms are folded and resting on Arthur’s bed. They’re deep in conversation, probably about the file-folder Uther has spread out on Arthur’s lap and is pointing to now. They look content, at ease in their conversation and each other, enough that Merlin catches a smile drifting across Arthur’s face at least twice.
Merlin watches them for another five minutes, almost wishing he could know what they were saying that was so calming to them both. But after a few minutes, Arthur looks up and catches Merlin’s eye. He says something to Uther, the inclination of his head indicating Merlin’s presence outside the room. It’s not a direct order or request to leave -- despite their differences, Arthur loves his father too much to be so glaringly rude. But Uther’s always been one to respect others’ time and varied obligations (years in business have taught him that if nothing else, he once shared with Merlin during one of the few conversations they’ve ever had that didn’t make Merlin want to wet himself, and which was memorable for that alone), so he packs up the folder and places it at the foot of Arthur’s bed, still within reach but not in the way. He takes Arthur’s hand and squeezes it with a firm grip Merlin can see even from here, and that’s one of the most blatant displays of paternal affection Merlin’s ever seen from him. Then he stands, picks up his coat from where it had been draped over the chair’s back, and exits the room.
Merlin turns to enter just as Uther comes out, and their gazes meet in what should be, but isn’t, an awkward way for two people who have never got on well. Instead, Uther simply looks at Merlin, eyes bright and considering, before sticking out his hand. Confused, Merlin takes it, and he’s both amused and surprised when Uther shakes it formally, with an air of almost regal dignity and importance.
“We’ve had our issues, I know,” Uther says, and Merlin is definitely well-past surprised at the fact that Uther is actually admitting to having problems in his carefully-constructed life.
Uther continues, “But, reluctant as I am to admit it, you’ve been good to Arthur, and I can respect that. Thank you.”
He drops Merlin’s hand and looks at him expectantly, but Merlin is still caught on not only the fact that Uther Pendragon is acknowledging his value as a person, but also on the more unsettling way that Uther had said “have been.” “Have been” like Arthur isn’t still here, alive and in the bed just beyond the door, and that’s what’s really making Merlin’s brain stick, what’s really reducing him to the stuttering idiot he was when he and Uther first met.
“Er, well. Thanks,” he chokes out, because Uther is still staring at him, and he clearly wants something before he’ll leave. “You, too.”
This is apparently acceptable, and Uther nods once before stepping around Merlin and out of the doorway, leaving it clear. Merlin shakes his head to clear it, and he already knows he won’t be sharing this with Arthur, much as it might make him laugh, the sadist.
Merlin pulls open the door and steps into Arthur’s room. The door clicks shut behind him, always surprisingly quiet for so heavy an object. Arthur looks up at the noise, a small smile still stretched across his face.
“Hey,” Arthur says as Merlin walks over to his bedside. “I almost wondered if you were coming back.”
“Always,” Merlin says, reaching to bed. He bends down and kisses Arthur’s mouth, soft and probably longer than it really needs to be, but neither of them is complaining. “Just had some things to take care of at the lab.”
He pulls off the shoulder bag he’d grabbed after running home to change post-op and takes his seat in the chair. “When did Morgana leave?”
“About an hour ago, I think. She was supposed to go for dinner with Gwen tonight, and Father dropped by, so she didn’t have to cancel.”
“Yeah, I saw. Did that go all right? It looked like it did, but you can never be too sure with your dad.”
“He’s really not that bad, Merlin. I don’t know why you’re so afraid of him. And no, I don’t care to hear why,” Arthur cuts him off, laughing. “He dropped that off for me.”
Arthur shifts his foot under the covers in the direction of the file-folder, and Merlin reaches out to grab it. It’s heavy when he picks it up, fat and fuller than he’d expected with papers. He hands it to Arthur, who spreads it open on his lap.
Inside the folder is not what Merlin was expecting. He’d been picturing business reports for Draconis, the sort of thing Uther likes to share with Arthur as a way of keeping him connected to the company that was supposed to be his, back before Arthur got sick and Morgana forced both of them into giving Arthur leave from work that had never really ended. What he finds is a stack of pages paper-clipped in random intervals, some in old-style typewriter print and some in loopy script. Some are straight and crisp, obviously well-preserved, but most are crinkled, folded and worn like they had been shoved hurriedly in too many bags, or written on whatever was handy at the time. It’s the sort of mix Merlin expects he’d have were he to collect all the pages Arthur’s jotted ideas on, whole sentences or paragraphs or plot outlines, anything that came to mind while pen was pressed to paper.
He looks up at Arthur questioningly. Arthur smiles a bit wider, traces a finger over a line of faded ballpoint cursive, and says, “They were my mother’s. All the stuff she wrote before she died that Father could find. He always said he’d show me one day, and I guess he felt it was time.”
Merlin can’t help but smile a bit, too. He’s never known Uther to be exactly sentimental, but the few times the man ever came close was when he talked of Arthur’s mother. It figures, then, that he’d save these, and that he’d keep his last real connection to her private.
Arthur continues, “He said that he’s reread them a lot, but especially right after she died. He almost burned them from grief, but stopped himself at the last minute.”
Glancing up, Merlin can see the wistful expression on Arthur’s face as he reads over his mother’s words. Arthur’s always missed her, the mother he’s never known, and Merlin is suddenly, indescribably grateful that Uther exercised judgment in this, in saving and finally deciding to share this connection.
“I’m glad he did,” Merlin says, and Arthur turns his head to look at him.
“Me, too.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes, flipping through Igraine’s stories and notes, before Arthur closes the folder and sits back. He looks tired again, and a bit like his headache is back. Merlin grabs his hand where it rests on the bed, strokes over it soothingly.
“My father also brought something else with him,” Arthur says, shaking off Merlin’s hand to point at the small table by the window. Merlin turns his head and sees something he had missed before in his eagerness to get to Arthur’s bedside: a small package wrapped in red paper. He stands and walks over to it, picks it up and moves to hand it to Arthur.
Arthur shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s for you.”
Merlin smiles a bit, surprised. “Your father got me a gift?”
“No,” Arthur says again. “No, it’s from me. I just needed him to pick it up for me this morning. Open it.”
So Merlin does. The red paper is thin, some sort of tissue paper, and it tears easily under his fingers to reveal a rectangular wooden box. Merlin flips open the lid of the box, feels it spring back on tiny, well-oiled hinges under the pressure of his fingers.
Inside the box, lying on soft red velvet, is the fountain pen Uther had purchased for Arthur the first Christmas after they learned about the tumour. It’s a beautiful pen, the barrel and cap made of smooth, gleaming black resin and ringed at the base with gold. The clip, though, is what makes it special: a small, intricately-carved golden dragon that rests on the cap as if crouched, poised to spring. Its eyes are rubies, and in its mouth is clutched a single, flawless white pearl. It looks alive in the right light, and Merlin has seen scarcely a day go by since Arthur first received the gift that he has not walked in to find Arthur writing frantically, dragon seemingly in flight as his pen leaves inky trails over the page.
“Your pen?” he asks Arthur, question colouring his voice.
Arthur nods. “Well, yours now. I want you to have it.”
Merlin shakes his head, snaps the lid closed so that the dragon will stop winking at him enticingly, teasingly. “Arthur, I can’t accept this. It’s a gift from your father, he --”
“He already knows it’s going to you, Merlin, and he’s approved of it. So you’re getting the pen, no arguments.”
Merlin sets the box down on the foot of Arthur’s bed, out of the way for now. “Arthur, are you sure? It’s your favourite, I can’t take that from you, and --”
“Merlin, I think we both know I’m not going to be able to use it much longer.”
For the second time that day, Merlin goes stiff. He doesn’t know what to say, what he can say, in the face of Arthur treating his death so casually, so he stays silent. Arthur keeps talking, each word hitting Merlin like a slap to the face.
“And Merlin, I. After, I want you to finish it for me.”
Merlin’s voice is barely more than a whisper, although from anger or sorrow, he’s not quite sure, when he says, “Finish what?”
“My book. It’s all done, all but the last chapter -- or chapters, if you decide to take it that way. And as worried as I am that you’ll revert to your college days and find some way to screw it up, I trust you with it. I want you to finish it.”
And now, Merlin knows that it’s definitely anger, because something in him burns at Arthur trying to joke about this.
“Stop it,” he says forcefully, cutting off anything else Arthur may have wanted to say. “Stop it, just. I’m not going to take your pen, and I’m not going to finish your book, because you’re going to do those things, you.”
Arthur looks up at him from the bed, and Merlin realises that he still hasn’t sat down, that there’s even more of a distance between them now than there needs to be. He’s unsure as to whether he should correct that. Arthur’s eyes look sad, frustrated and almost disappointed, and oh, fuck that. If anyone should be disappointed here, it’s Merlin; Merlin, who is learning that Arthur has seemingly given up.
“Merlin,” Arthur says, and he reaches out for Merlin’s hand. Merlin takes a step back, bumping awkwardly into a chair but still moving away, getting the distance he needs right now. Something in Arthur’s face twitches as though he’s hurt, and Merlin feels his chest clench at how wrong that is, but he keeps his ground.
“No,” Merlin says, cutting Arthur off. “No, don’t ‘Merlin’ me. I know what you’re saying, I get it, and you’re wrong, Arthur. You’re wrong. You’re not going to -- I can’t lose you, I won’t.”
“Merlin, you’ll never lose me!”
“You can’t promise that, damn it, not after what you just said!”
Arthur shakes his head, sighs heavily like he does when Merlin is missing something so obvious, right in front of him and just out of reach. Merlin finds that he’s shaking again, and shit. He doesn’t want to be mad at Arthur, but he doesn’t know how else to feel, and just. He takes a few of those calming breaths from earlier, and he can hear Arthur doing the same, and the reminder of how in sync they are with each other, a harmony that’s taken years to build -- it hurts, a sharp ache deep in his chest and eternal, already-fading.
There’s silence between them again, but it’s tension-filled this time, and Merlin hates it. He feels a wave of relief, crashing and immense, when Arthur raises his head to look at him and says, tentative if Arthur ever could be, “Stay with me tonight?”
Despite everything, or maybe because of it, Merlin can’t possibly tell him no.
The traveller is growing weary of lots of things.
First, and most of all, he is tired of these constant, too-frequent visits. None make more sense than the last; in fact, it seems as though each new one is more puzzling than the one before, if only because they’re repetitive as if they should mean something, and he can’t figure out what. He is so tired of seeing this man in his coat, his scarf that is inappropriate and outlandish for the heat of summer (or whatever season this is; they’ve blurred together for a while now, all becoming one long run of sun and heat). And he is so tired of hearing those words, finish it, a context-less anaphora that he has heard so many times in the same tone, the same voice, the same way, that they have become as meaningless as the beat of his footfalls against the earth.
And even though it contradicts his nature, he is weary of that, too, of walking. His legs ache with every step now, and the soles of his shoes have worn so much that they are holey, shredded. He has all but lost his purpose for walking, his drive, and he is beginning to doubt he ever had one because he can’t remember, has no idea where he is going or why he is on this road to begin with.
He is tired of one direction to walk in, tired of one direction to follow, tired of not understanding why either makes sense. He is tired of seeing dark clouds gather like a smudge, a growing ink blot against the sky and road, even though they are the one new thing within his cyclical existence.
He still can’t bring himself to be excited about them, though; rather, he is wary of what they may hold, and he has felt as such for so long now that he is beginning to suspect he is weary of that, too.
A hospital room is a very small space for pacing. At least at this hospital, the room is roughly twelve feet by thirteen feet, a rectangular box with sides of glass and papered-over drywall. When the bed and chairs are factored in, plus the IV and monitoring equipment and the small table for magazines and whatever worried visitors may bring with them to occupy their time, roughly twelve feet by thirteen feet is not much room at all, at least not for productive, thoughtful pacing.
Merlin knows this because pacing, or trying to, is what he’s been doing for about the last hour. Arthur had drifted back asleep somewhere near an hour after he asked Merlin to stay, and Merlin had only been able to sit next to him, quiet and still on the bed, for around thirty minutes before getting restless. So he’d started walking, just around the room because he promised Arthur he’d stay, and he’ll keep that promise, even if staring at the same four walls of etched glass and pale blue paper is close to driving him insane.
It’s about five minutes more of this before Merlin throws himself back into the chair next to Arthur, tired of pacing and already tired of sitting again and not really knowing what to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his shoulder bag, which had fallen to the ground at some point earlier this evening. He reaches for it eagerly, hoping he’s right in thinking he remembered to grab a book from home. His search proves triumphant, and he pulls Arthur’s book, black leather cover cold from the hospital air-conditioning and slippery-smooth in his grasp, from his bag.
Merlin’s been reading it off and on throughout the day, a few pages here and there, a chapter or two when he’d stopped at home to change. It’s good, and it’s Arthur’s, so he’s been enjoying it. He will admit that when Arthur had first told him about the concept -- a world where King Arthur and Myrddin the Wizard met as teenagers, where Uther lived and magic was banned and the two of them, Arthur and Myrddin, fought for and protected each other in every way -- he’d laughed. He’s never fully understood Arthur’s fascination with his namesake (probably because the teasing he endured for his own name completely turned him off of the legends), and this seemed like just another crazy excuse for Arthur to buy as many books as possible on Britain’s greatest king. Arthur had surprised him, though, and he has the product of Arthur’s hard work and research open on his lap before him, and it’s good, good enough that Merlin is hurriedly flipping through it to find his page marker from earlier for reasons more than just it’s Arthur’s, and how could he not.
He finally find his page, Chapter Ten written across the top in large, spiky script, and he reads.
The village that Myrddin comes to tonight is on the edge of a great forest . . .
The village that Myrddin comes to tonight is on the edge of a great forest, one of the largest and oldest in Albion. He can see the dark shapes of the trees, twisted and gnarled and massive, beyond the fire-lit paths of the town, and he shivers a bit in anticipation of what he’s sure is hiding in there, covered by the Old Religion and waiting for him to find.
For now, though, it’s night-time, and the moon is but a sliver in the sky. The path is visible only because of the glow coming from the village, enough for him and his horse to see by but little more. No, he knows, there will be no exploring of those woods tonight.
The first building he reaches is, unsurprisingly, an inn. He pulls his horse to a stop and clambers down, legs stiff after so long in the saddle and so many days on the trail. He hitches his horse to the wooden post out front, then makes his way slowly inside.
The interior of the inn is loud, hot, and smoky. It smells of some sort of roasted meat -- pork, Myrddin would venture a guess -- and the sour-sweet aroma of wine. His ears ring slightly with the commotion around him: calls for more of anything, raucous laughter, the clanking of steins knocked loudly against each other in a toast. Myrddin picks his way slowly through the mess of tables, littered satchels, and sprawled limbs toward what he hopes is the owner’s counter, or at least some place where he’ll be able to purchase a room and a meal for the night.
When he finally finds him, the owner of the inn proves to be just like every other Myrddin has met on his trip. He is a large, round man, as loud and obnoxious as his guests, and probably more drunk than many of them. His hair and beard are long and curly, and his breath smells of sour ale when he leans forward to talk to Myrddin.
It takes five minutes to rent a room, which Myrddin is sure will reek of piss and sweat and other things he’d rather not contemplate, but is still shelter over his head. It takes another five minutes to get a stable boy sent out to tend to his horse for the night, but Myrddin actually counts himself lucky on that one -- the last few inns he’d stayed at had no such service. And it takes him another ten minutes to pick his way back through the mess that is the dining room and over to a small, vacant table in the corner.
Shortly after he’s sat at his table, a girl, no older than teenaged, walks over. Her red hair is frizzed where it’s coming loose from the kerchief she’s tied it back with, and her cheeks are flushed pink from the heat of the room and the work of moving constantly through it. She’s already carrying two empty flagons in her hand, and the table nearest Myrddin has three more for her to pick up.
“What can I get for you?” She sounds breathless and harried when she speaks, and Myrddin can’t help but feel sorry for her, this child who has known nothing but this her whole life.
“Just some wine, please, and some of whatever you have roasting back there.”
The girl nods and moves on, somehow hefting the heavy, metal steins into her arms before making her way back to the kitchens.
His wine comes fairly quickly in a simple wooden cup, and as Myrddin expected, it’s pretty awful. He sips it slowly, trying to will it into tasting better, but the wine is having none of it. Shame.
It takes his food a while longer to come -- by the time it does, most of the other guests have cleared out for the night, and the girl looks much less frazzled when she stops at his table. The meat, when he cuts into it, is tender and pink, juicy, and the flavour is smoked in just right. It’s far better than the wine, and well worth the wait, and Myrddin tells the girl so when she comes by with another cup of drink for him.
She laughs. “Well, Mother was always known for her pork, so that’s nothing new.”
“Understandably so,” Myrddin says. “This is likely the best I’ve had since leaving Camelot.”
At this, the girl’s eyes widen. “You’re from Camelot?” she asks, voice tinged with excitement. She sits down in the chair opposite Myrddin, apparently free for the time being now that the dining hall has cleared out, and props her chin up on her hands in a way that makes her look exceptionally young. “What’s it like there?”
Myrddin smiles because he can remember what it was to be so young, so enchanted by the idea of city life that the slightest bit of it drifting into and through his village was cause for celebration. He’d loved Ealdor growing up, but the very thought of Camelot was like undistilled excitement, and he expects that’s how it is for this girl here.
So he indulges her, tells her stories of Arthur’s court before Morgan returned, of life in and around the castle, of hustling markets and busy feasts and everything that comprises city living. She’s enraptured by it, entranced, and her smile grows wider with every tournament he recounts, every ball he describes, every small detail he lets slip.
When he’s run out of stories, or when his head is spinning too much with wine and smoke to speak any longer, she asks him, “Why did you leave, though? If it’s so wonderful there?”
Myrddin laughs, but even he can hear how bitter it rings. “Because it’s not so anymore. The city has been surrounded, cut off. The people are starving, so there haven’t been feasts in some while, and everyone is on edge. The air is dark with ashes now, and it chokes you when you breathe too much of it in, so it’s rare to see the streets anywhere near as busy as they once were.”
“But that’s awful!” the girl cries, and Myrddin must agree with her; it is, after all, why he left, what he’s here to fix. “Can’t anyone stop it?”
“That’s why I’m here, actually. I think there’s something in this village that can help. I’m here to search for it, and that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow,” he says, and he’s not really sure why he’s sharing this with her, as he hadn’t originally meant to. He must have had too much to drink, he figures, but it’s all right; she’s only young, and while she’s very inquisitive, she doesn’t seem that bright, so Myrddin thinks he’s fine.
The girl looks confused. “This village? But it’s so small.”
Myrddin laughs. “It’s more the forest, I think. And oh, but that will take days to search.”
Her eyes light up and she leans forward, an eager smile on her face. “Not if you have a guide, it won’t. I know that forest, sir. I could help you through it, with the paths and everything, ’cause they’re not the best, and you should find whatever it is in no time!”
She looks pleased with herself and excited beyond measure at the idea of traipsing through the forest with him, and Myrddin doesn’t have the heart to tell her no. She’s right, actually; having a guide would make things easier, at least for when he’s just starting out, and she’ll probably grow bored and disenchanted with the search long before he actually finds it.
“All right,” he says. “If you want to come searching with me, I’d be glad of the help.”
She grins, laughing a bit in her anticipation, and it is only from this wave of energy that Myrddin is reminded of how tired he really is. He yawns hugely, stretches his arms out over his head before shoving his chair back and standing.
“You’ll have to excuse me for now, though. It’s been a long travel for me, and I need to rest before I even think about going into the forest tomorrow.”
The girl stands as well, picking up his plate and goblet as she does. Her voice sounds almost satisfied as she says, “I shall see you in the morning, then, sir, bright and early outside this inn. Have a good night.”
She starts walking away, and Myrddin remembers suddenly that he has no way of checking up on or getting a message to her should plans change. “What’s your name?” he calls after her, hoping she’s heard him.
She has. Her red hair flashes like fire as she tosses her head back and looks over her shoulder to shout, “Vivienne.”
Myrddin nods, then grabs his coat and heads upstairs to a straw bed that does smell of piss and sweat, but that lets him sleep easy just the same.
***
The next morning finds him and Vivienne in the woods bright and early. It’s barely midday, but they are already deep into the forest, where the tree trunks are big enough for four men to wrap around and the air stays perpetually cool from the shade.
Vivienne was right yesterday; she does know these paths, and very well at that. Her steps are sure and quick, nimbly avoiding the rocks and tree roots that Myrddin stumbles on often enough that Arthur would die of laughter could he see. Still, despite his fumbling, they are making extremely good time, and Myrddin can feel his excitement mounting with every step.
Lunch is a shared flask of wine and a hunk of bread and cheese apiece, devoured while perched on a small cluster of large rocks near the base of a cedar tree. It’s refreshing and filling, and finished quickly enough that, with the pace they’ve been setting, Myrddin feels comfortable taking a few extra minutes to relax.
“How do you know which tree you’re looking for?” Vivienne asks, jolting him awake from the light doze he’d slipped into.
“I can feel it,” he says, and again, he’s not sure why he’s telling her this, only knows that it feels right, easy like only his conversations with Arthur and Gwen have ever been. “It’s instinctual, almost. I’m looking for something magic, and I’ve magic in me, and it’s like they’re pulling each other in. I can feel it now, actually, tingling a bit, and getting stronger when I look that way.”
He points in the direction of two trees, giant ones that tower over the others nearby.
Vivienne laughs. “Are you sure? That’s off the path, you know.”
Myrddin looks in that direction again, feels his magic buzz golden as he does, and knows. “Yes, I’m sure. Do you still know how to get through that way? Because if not, I can go alone from --”
“No, no!” she blurts out, words rushed. “No, I still know the way. I can take you.”
Myrddin nods and stands, ready and eager to find this and get back to Camelot, to Arthur. “Then let’s be off.”
***
The clearing, when they come to it, is silent in a way that’s different from the rest of the forest. In the other parts, Myrddin could hear the faint crunch of leaves under his feet, the whisper of wind through the branches, the normal sounds of day that fade into a sense of quiet in the background.
But this clearing, it’s different. There is no noise here, not even that typical, ignored type. It’s as though Myrddin has stepped into an absence of sound, a place so holy that any form of noise would desecrate it. The grass, bright green and tender young, does not squeal under and against the leather of his boots, and there is not even the faint swish of his moving clothing to mark his steps toward the centre of the field.
At the centre, the place he’s moving toward so excitedly now, is an oak tree, gargantuan in size. Its trunk is a deep brown, and it is lined and scored, gnarled and weathered and visibly ancient. Its branches twist upward almost grotesquely, crooked like broken fingers, fingers that are trying to hold too much, and they are heavy with plump acorns and thick, broad leaves. Its roots weave in and out of the earth around it, a tangled net of wood and life that looks both sinister and welcoming at once.
Myrddin looks at the tree, and he can tell that this is right, this is correct. His magic is humming in his veins, more alive than it has ever felt, and he walks faster at the near-tickling sensation of it. It’s almost as though the tree is pulling him in, power radiating from it and looping around his ankles and wrists, tugging him happily forward.
When he finally reaches the middle, Myrddin is in awe. The tree is even more beautiful up close, inexplicably so, and he wants almost to fall to his knees in deference to the knowledge, the power and overwhelming natural connection that is etched into every fibre of this great oak, displayed in every crack and groove in its bark.
He tears his eyes away and looks behind him, and he sees Vivienne just outside the circle of the root structure. She is smiling at him, encouraging and slightly wicked, and he feels like he should be afraid, but he can’t bring himself to be. He turns his head back to face the tree, and as he does, he spots it.
There, tangled in a massive knot of roots, is the Cup of Life. Unlike in the Christian tales, which emphasize the simplicity of their king, his predilection for carpentry and roughly-hewn wooden products, the actual Cup gleams golden, even when no sunlight shines on it. Myrddin can see from here, where he stands a few steps away, that the bowl itself is unembellished, just plain, elegant gold. He can’t see all of the stem and base, but he knows from past experience how they will look: smooth gold joining with a wide, three-footed circle of filigreed and etched metal. It’s lavish, a symbol of wealth and power and the beauty of magic, of life itself; but it is still humble in its own way, quiet and confident in its worth.
Myrddin takes the few steps forward before dropping to his knees in front of it, this small cup that he has searched so long to find and that promises to be Camelot’s, Arthur’s salvation. It shines up at him, a lightless glow that makes no natural sense but calls to him just the same. He stretches his fingers out, and oh, it is so close, and his magic is practically bubbling in him now.
When he touches it (finally finally), it is unsurprisingly cool. He grips the smooth line of the bowl and brings up his other hand to pry at the tangled roots that ensnare its stem, and he is so close, so close, the cup flashing golden and brilliant and there under his fingers.
The instant Myrddin’s fingers brush the wood, though, something goes wrong. It shifts under his hand, stretches and unfurls up from the ground with a horrible groaning sound -- the first thing Myrddin has heard since entering the clearing, and ear-splitting for that reason. All around him, the roots are unveiling themselves, rising and writhing like snakes, and Myrddin feels instantly, terribly afraid.
He tugs on the Cup desperately because damn it, he did not come all this way, did not find it at last, only to return to Arthur in failure. But as he is pulling, trying to pry it free, the roots wrap themselves around him. They encircle his wrists and ankles, coil around his midsection and biceps and thighs, and Myrddin feels them tugging at him, dragging him away from the Cup and closer to the core of the tree. He digs his heels into the earth, feels his fingers slipping from the Cup and digs those in, too, but it is no use.
Myrddin screams, throaty and pleading, and he is struggling with all his might, and still the tree is pulling him closer. He can see that the largest groove in its trunk has opened now, a dark, gaping hole that the roots seem to be shoving him toward, and he thrashes in his bonds again. He tosses his head back -- the only motion he can still fully control, really -- and he can see Vivienne standing just outside the shuddering, jerking mass of roots. Her smile is something cruel, unforgiving and timeless, and her hair gleams like spilled blood, the same unnatural shine the Cup had. She’s laughing again, and Myrddin can just barely hear her over the creaking of the tree and the rising pitch of his sobs (frantic now, overwhelmed with thoughts of failure and Arthur and no).
He is fighting for all he is worth, and it is no use. The crack in the trunk is so close, so close, and Myrddin can feel his magic flowing out of him and back in, but changed, bonded and inextricably linked with this indescribable force, and he knows that this is it.
“I’m sorry, Arthur,” he whispers, knowing that Arthur cannot and will never hear him, and then he is plunged face-first into the tree, and he hears the trunk meld shut around him, and he knows no more.
Merlin jerks awake startled, frantic for a reason he can’t explain. He’s in the hospital in the chair in Arthur’s room, and, apart from Arthur’s book having fallen from his lap to the floor, everything’s fine. Arthur is asleep on the bed, and Merlin can hear the standard hospital-at-night noises: the soft whispers of the nurses, the steady beep of Arthur’s heart monitor --
Except for how it’s not a beep at all, it’s a long, drawn-out pitch that turns all of Merlin’s insides to ice and has him springing out of his chair and over to Arthur in a split-second.
“Fuck,” Merlin says, “Arthur, Arthur! Damn it, come on!” Merlin balls up his fist, pounds the end of it into the left centre of Arthur’s chest, just over his heart.
Arthur doesn’t respond.
“Fuck, fuck, Arthur, no,” Merlin shouts, and it’s this as much as the call button he doesn’t remember pressing that has the nurses rushing in. They find him pounding at Arthur’s chest again, again, again, trying desperately to jolt his heart back into action, to keep him here, and they waste little time.
“Sir,” one of them says, “sir, we need you to step out and let us try.” They pull him away from the bed, from Arthur, and it takes two of them, their hands gripping his arms and all but dragging him from the room.
Merlin’s heart is pounding in his ears, and he can hear it, feel it reverberating through his body in all the ways he couldn’t feel Arthur’s, and fuck, but this isn’t helping anything. One of the nurses in the room has pulled the blinds on the glass walls closed, and Merlin can’t see what’s happening, doesn’t know and desperately wants to almost as much as he fears it.
His fingers are raking through his hair, grabbing at his scalp almost painfully and then scrubbing roughly over his face in a poor attempt to stay calm. All around him, it’s cold, the hospital at night, and silent in all the ways a hospital never should be, the rush of his blood in his ears making him oblivious to every noise.
Merlin turns away from Arthur’s room, trying to put a little distance between himself and Arthur in there so that he won’t be such an awful mess when Arthur wakes up and they let him back in. He’s trying for calming breaths, sucking down air and letting it out uncontrollably, and nothing’s helping, damn it, nothing, his mind too focussed on the non-rhythm of Arthur’s heart monitor to have any semblance of counting and beat.
He turns around again, and he’s surprised to see Will there, striding towards him through the hall. Merlin half-runs to him, not sure what he’s expecting -- sympathy, maybe, or someone to sit with him, to reassure him until he’s allowed in to see Arthur again. Definitely not the broad smile that’s stretched out on Will’s lips, his teeth flashing white and brilliant, happy, in the dimmed fluorescent lighting.
“Merlin,” he says, and his voice is practically dripping with an excitement that Merlin can’t feel. “Merlin, the Lancelot Treatment -- it’s amazing. The tumour, it’s gone, it’s almost all gone, and,” Will stops, cuts himself off as he takes in what Merlin is sure must be an absolutely wrecked expression on his face. He opens his mouth to say something, probably Merlin’s name, but Merlin is already turning away to run back to Arthur’s room, and he’s so close, they’ve made it, they’ve --
They’re exiting, the nurses, looking subdued and disappointed, and no. Merlin shoves past them, stumbles through the doorway to see one of them pulling a sheet over Arthur’s (blank quiet expressionless) face, and Merlin feels something break inside him.
“No,” he chokes out, pushing his way over to Arthur’s bedside. “No, no, please, no,” like it’s a mantra, something that will bring Arthur back. He pulls the sheet away and Arthur’s there, still and pale and fragile, already broken, and Merlin can’t let him do this, can’t let Arthur just slip away.
He bends over Arthur and starts pressing rhythmically down and in on Arthur’s chest, over his heart like before, one two three four five. And then he’s pinching Arthur’s nose closed and prying his mouth open, gulping down air only to press his mouth to Arthur’s and force it down Arthur’s throat, and it doesn’t work, so Merlin does it again. He’s crying now, can feel the tears running hot down his cheeks, can hear them clogging his voice as he counts. He can taste them where they’ve fallen on Arthur’s lips, salty and bitter and wrong, as wrong as the fact that Arthur isn’t moving beneath him.
The nurses are droning around him, and Merlin can hear them saying that he needs to leave, to let go, but he can’t, he can’t, not when he’s so close, Arthur right in front of him and just beyond his reach. He keeps up his rhythm, chest compressions and messy, sloppy breath delivery, and he feels himself flying further apart for every time it doesn’t work, going to even tinier pieces for every second this becomes more final.
He’s jerked out of it by hands closing rough around his arms, pulling him away, and he’s screaming and gasping and flailing, but it’s no use. Will’s bigger than he is (and he knows it’s Will, can hear him whispering Merlin and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry into Merlin’s ear), always has been. And Will’s more than able to manhandle Merlin out into the corridor, to keep him there while a nurse pulls the sheet up over Arthur’s head again, to hold him in a futile gesture of comfort when Merlin collapses against his chest, sobbing Arthur’s name like a lifeline, the only thing he has left.
Part Four