It Must Be Thursday, for akire_yta (Merlin, multiple crossovers, PG)
Title: It Must Be Thursday
Author: suaine
Recipient: akire_yta
Fandom: Merlin (/Chuck, multiple other crossovers)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: general for Merlin, general for Chuck
Warnings: The crack level of this is proportional to how many references one recognizes.
Summary: No one won the bet about how the world would end. Climate change is still on the table though.
It Must Be Thursday
A boy walks along a path beside a field of flowers. The boy wears a red cap against the sun. His trainers trail their laces, frayed at the ends. His clothes are worn; not torn but faded. He kicks stones away from him as he walks, kicks them nowhere in particular. Maybe he whistles, maybe he doesn't; there is no one around to hear.
He spies a bird high above the field, circling lazily over some dead prey or a shiny treasure. Slowly he bends down to grab a smooth stone the size of a small chicken egg, cool against his skin. He tests the weight, throws it up two, three times. It makes a small sound - smack! - when he catches it in his palm.
Smack!
The bird angles its body downward, dives out of view, only to come back seconds later with great flaps of its wings. The boy raises his hand to his ear, then beyond. He throws the stone hard; it sails true toward its target.
Tumbling, the bird falls to earth, landing with a thump in a world far away on sweating, hot concrete.
Monday, London
Merlin drops his keys on the small table next to the old-fashioned coat-rack and toes off his trainers. His feet are glad of their freedom and he sighs a little. His day has been a useless string of small failures and dead-end research; he's tired and only wants some blissful quiet. It's not in his cards, not here, maybe not ever.
"Oy," says a voice - Arthur's - from the kitchen, "got any dinner with you? We're out of bread."
Merlin closes his eyes, breathes, tries to remember why he hasn't gone into a homicidal rage whenever Arthur is being obnoxious. It's love, he reminds himself, has to be, because no one would put up with Arthur's special brand of insanity otherwise. On the other hand-
Morgana smirks at him from the door to the living room, full glass of something red and most likely potent in one elegant hand. She mock whispers: "He's been insufferable all day. I think it's hormones."
"I am not pregnant," Arthur yells, accompanied by a couple of loud bangs from the kitchen. "You're not going to win because," he peeks around the divider to smile at Merlin, "I am not carrying the Antichrist." Merlin laughs; Arthur laughs back - and easy as all that Merlin remembers why he puts up with any of this.
"Arthur Pendragon," Gwen calls, "I am not cleaning this up." Arthur winces and looks sheepish, more like a boy than Merlin has ever had the chance to see him in their old life. It hasn't lost any of its novelty.
They have had bets going on why they were all reborn in such proximity to each other this time (there have been other lives, but most of them were unremarkable - like a call put on hold). Merlin is still sore over the fact that the Hadron Collider hasn't actually destroyed the universe, because now Gwen is the most likely to win their imaginary pot of gold with her bet on climate change, of all things. It's not like Arthur is supposed to cool down a whole planet - not like he could - although his ego is certainly the size of one.
"I've looked at weather patterns today," he says, because it's true, and because Morgana smiles at him for indulging Gwen's pet theory. Smiles are a rare commodity in the business of researching the end of the world. He walks to their ratty, red sofa and lets himself drop into it like a sack.
"Did you find anything interesting?" Arthur is banging pots and pans together, but Merlin knows more than half of his attention is on their conversation, which probably explains why Gwen chases him out of the kitchen ten seconds later. His grin is marvellous, and Merlin is ready to forget all the horrible things he's spent his day reading about.
"We are, in fact, destroying the planet with climate change," Merlin says, his head resting on the back of the sofa.
"I told you," Gwen says. "Didn't I tell you?" She peeks into the living room. There is flour in her hair. "It's the ice caps melting, that never leads to anything good."
Merlin grins at her, but shakes his head. "It's just not soon enough. We'll all be dead three times over before it gets really bad."
Gwen sighs and brings out a tray with four bowls of something steaming hot. Merlin thinks of rat stew and is immediately wary when he sees Arthur's expression of glee. He takes a bowl and eyes the contents with suspicion.
Arthur snorts and digs in, making slurping sounds and noises of pleasure. It doesn't reassure Merlin in the least. "What is this?"
Glaring, Gwen slaps the back of his head. "Are you insinuating I would let that one," she points to Arthur, "do something terrible to our food for a prank? Really, Merlin, how long have we known each other?" Morgana snickers into her own bowl, and Merlin is tempted to say long enough to know you're just as devious as the rest of them but he's not suicidal and Gwen is a lot scarier than Arthur when she wants to be.
Before he can raise the spoon to his lips, a sound like thunder breaks him out of his lightening mood. He's immediately alert and has the newly appeared figure in a spell-lock before the echo fades away.
There is a naked man in their living room and he looks half-dead.
Tuesday
The girls are sleeping. Arthur doesn't know if he can, if he should. He's known this kind of thing was going to happen eventually, even as he had always thought of it as something in the distant future. Sure, the world would end, but not right now, yeah?
It's ending right this minute, and proof is lying shivering on his sofa, mumbling about people Arthur doesn't know. The man has been shot recently, the dressing on the wound has bled through and the puckered tissue is red and angry.
"Who are you?" Merlin says, the third time, and it's a quiet sound, not interrogative but genuinely puzzled. Arthur can sense the otherness about the man, knows instinctively that he isn't from anywhere close, anywhere on this planet. It must be worse for Merlin, who breathes magic, feeds on it. Of course, in the last couple of weeks, Merlin had been weary and short-tempered, like something had been feeding off of him.
"How are you feeling?" Arthur asks Merlin and touches his hand. His favorite sorcerer is deathly cold and pale as a sheet. Well, damn.
"I'm fine," Merlin snaps, eyes on their strange visitor, and Arthur knows it as the lie it is. Merlin can't even look at him. He's always been a horrible liar.
"Merlin," he growls. "Talk to me." They've never done that particularly well, not when it counted in Camelot and not any time after.
Merlin sighs and leans into Arthur, their shoulders touching as they sit on the small coffee table. "My head hurts, but not really, not like migraine or anything. It's more like my blood is being pulled apart, like my magic is screaming." A beat, Merlin's silence heavy in the room, when all they can hear is the stranger. Then: "That sounds so ridiculous."
Arthur snorts, because the alternative is acknowledging that their existence finally has meaning, and that also means the time for just being people is over. The thousand years were just not enough. "You always sound ridiculous."
Merlin laughs. Arthur wants to remember that.
+
The stranger wakes in the early hours of the morning, looking bereft but clear of fever. He talks at length about the people he left behind without ever using names or any other identifying information. A slip-up early on reveals that he is some kind of government agent - American - and that his best friend is in love with his ex-girlfriend who may also be an agent. It's unclear, but Arthur thinks the best friend has some kind of weird power like Merlin, only to do with computers.
Their flat doesn't get any more visitors from the great beyond, but things do keep appearing. Merlin is sifting through a pile of items that are unfamiliar and feel off in the same way the stranger feels off. There is nothing to find, really, the items are random and other than the persistent nagging that these things don't belong, they are perfectly mundane.
Arthur kicks a rubber chicken out of his way.
"What do you think is happening here?"
Merlin looks up, a frown lodged on his face. "I really couldn't say. But have you noticed the walls?"
Arthur's gaze lands on their familiar white-washed walls. They're still white, except not, they're a patchwork of different whites, washed out or greying with the hint of nicotine when none of them have ever smoked, brick painted over in one place, pulpy wallpaper in another.
"What in the world-"
Morgana leans against the wall outside her room, a mug of something steaming hot in her hands. Arthur's eyes drift with the curling steam. "I think," she says, "we're about to be invaded." Her dreams aren't always accurate, but they are never wrong. He swallows.
"Tell me this isn't what I think it is."
Merlin comes to stand behind him, a solid presence that has grounded Arthur for more than a millennium. Their hands find each other.
Morgana looks at the shifting mess of their flat, eyes clouded with the knowledge of what's to come. "Of course it is, Arthur. We've all been waiting for something to happen."
Arthur rolls his eyes. "I know it's an apocalyptic crisis. I was rather hoping you'd be a little more helpful as to what exactly is going on and how we can stop it."
Morgana laughs, sending chills down Arthur's spine. She sounds broken and jagged. "I don't think we can, Arthur. This is so much bigger than we are."
+
Arthur calls up every favour he is owed. Lois in the Home Office tells him that the appearances are happening all over Britain, that there is word from other countries as well. She sounds like she's been talking on the phone all day, harried and washed out.
"Be careful," she says, "no one knows exactly what's going on but a lot of people are turning their phones off like it's 1999."
Arthur assures her that he won't do anything stupid and she snorts as she hangs up on him. Perhaps when this is all over, he'll have time to be properly outraged. Contacts in the US are giving him even more disturbing news - apparently a secret government lab that no one but the CIA was supposed to know about has left nothing but a crater the size of a small town. It's possible that it's a symptom and not the core problem; the one thing it's not is a coincidence.
"I think we need to go to America," he says over a cold and disgusting lunch of leftovers. Merlin just nods like he's been expecting it. The agent guy just looks blank, until Arthur rounds on him.
"What do you know about a laboratory in Mountain Springs, Colorado?"
His eyes widen and he says, "Nothing!" so fast it gives Arthur whiplash. Before he can ask Morgana slams her hand on the table.
"Cut the bullshit, Bryce, we know that you know. You're one of the best agents the Americans have even if they don't always know what to do with you. You've died twice in the service and you are in pathetic unrequited love with at least two of the friends you're constantly worrying about."
Bryce blinks, his face going completely blank, until a superficial smile replaces any hint of emotion. "What are you?" His voice is honey sweet and seductive - he reminds Arthur of Lancelot. "Some kind of mind reader?" He says it like it's a joke.
Morgana glares. "I've already seen you helping us so you might as well just give it up now and spare us all the drama."
Gwen, sweet Gwen who's changed the most over the years and is still the best of them, lays a hand on Morgana's arm. She speaks softly but there is no mistaking the steel in her voice. "Morgana," she says, "we're not quite there yet. Let him figure it out on his own."
Arthur keeps quiet, seeking the warmth and comfort of Merlin at his side. Morgana's powers have never been quite right; they never did a damn to help them figure out their problems - not back in Camelot and certainly not here - and no one hates them more than she does.
Trembling with the kind of impotent rage only those who know the future (and can't stop it from ruining their lives) experience, Morgana stares down the man whose name is Bryce. Secret agent, highly sensitive information in his head - what a coincidence.
"You'll help us, but no matter, by then it will likely be too late." She pushes her chair back with a jarring noise and touches Gwen's shoulder, the signal obvious and the reaction instantaneous. They're both gone before Bryce can so much as breathe a word.
+
Arthur has them on the next flight out and that's a miracle all on its own. The commercial airlines are grounded and he has to call in a life-debt just to get the five of them out of the country. Over the Atlantic, air pressure humming in their ears, everything seems a little further away, a little less scary. Merlin leans against him, eyes on the small window. There are too many planes outside, planes that don't belong. Arthur tries not to think about how many of them have already gone down.
"If we can't stop it - whatever it is-" Merlin says, a dreamy quality to his voice, "the world is going to burst like a water balloon."
Arthur doesn't say anything. There is nothing to say. He lets his fingers run through Merlin's hair in a motion to soothe them both, hoping that they might at least get a bit of sleep.
Wednesday, Colorado
The woman, Sophie, waits for them at the small private airfield. She's organised transportation, maps, a lot of tech that Gwen wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of, and she's brought guns. Gwen takes the Glock and breathes once with panic before she puts the emotions away in that place in her mind marked "later, if we're still alive" - it's getting pretty crowded in there. She wonders for a moment what kind of debt Arthur, who is only twenty-four this time around, accumulated to earn support on this scale, but then Sophie smiles at him and it all becomes clear.
Arthur Pendragon's charm is still more forceful than any army.
Gwen takes Morgana's hand when they are rushed through security and doesn't let go until they are on the road. The car smells stale. She stares out the window at the dark sky and wonders what time it is. Her watch got lost somewhere and maybe it's taken its place in some other universe, dimensional clutter like the rubber duck and the broken skateboard at her feet, the potted plant stuffed comically between the seat and the rear window.
Bryce sits on the other side, with Morgana between them, and Gwen can sense the strain they're both under to be as far way from each other as possible. It's not hard to see why they've taken such an instant dislike to each other: Morgana holds all his future actions against him and Bryce is a man who thrives on secrets. They're like water and oil.
"You seem remarkably unfazed by all this," Merlin says without turning around. His eyes are locked on the changing road. The hit a spot of cobblestones and for a moment Gwen worries that Arthur might lose control over the car, killing them all in a blaze of ironic pointlessness.
"I watch TV," Bryce says toward the window. "Star Trek, that sort of thing - parallel universes are not much of a leap to make when you wake up in some strangers' living room and feel like every cell in your body has been torn apart."
Gwen frowns, trying to place the reference. Bryce is American, so it's probably some obscure science fiction show, a Space Patrol knock-off. "Do they have a lot of dimensional crises in that Star Trek of yours?"
Bryce turns to her and for once he looks utterly shaken, younger than he appeared before - maybe just about Arthur's age. "Are you telling me this is a world without Star Trek?" His voice takes on a nostalgic, melancholic quality. Gwen nods. Looking at his quickly masked expression of loss, she wants to say she's sorry, but it seems silly in the circumstances. He's left behind a lot more than just some TV show.
"Oh," he says, quiet and lost.
+
They stay at a motel in town. There used to be a military base not far away - now it's just rubble and dust. An enormous crater has taken the place where a mountain used to be not two days ago. Gwen tries to imagine what the area had looked like before and fails when faced with the stunned populace. She remembers what it was like the first time her world turned upside down, the first time she had to organize two sets of memories in her head. This feels a little like that moment: sheer confusion and nothing is quite real enough.
"It's getting worse," Morgana says when Gwen closes the door to their room. The floor is covered in useless things and a small squirrel runs in frantic circles in its cage. It's strange to think that somewhere out there is a world where squirrels are kept in cages.
"We'll stop it," Gwen says, leaving the bags on the second bed. Morgana shoots her a withering glare.
"Your faith in Arthur is admirable, but as much as I like to tease him about his messianic tendencies, he is not a god - and neither is Merlin."
Gwen sighs and picks up a small shoe. It's pink and atrocious, in its own way utterly charming, and the child that used to wear it could be fine or could be fighting for its life. They don't really have a choice. "We'll stop it," Gwen says.
As if taking her words as a challenge, their carpet crackles and sparks and turns into something moist and squelching and alive.
+
"I think there are two different kinds of apparitions," Merlin says over dinner.
They've found a small restaurant owned by a kindly old woman. Gwen likes it; the place feels a little like her dad's kitchen another lifetime ago. Pictures on the walls - but not of anyone Gwen knows - watch as the five of them argue the nature of this apocalypse.
"Bryce here," Arthur says, "is the more obvious kind. There has never been a version of him in this world so he just shows up. Poof!"
Gwen giggles at Arthur doing the magic hands - that never stops being funny. Merlin scowls and pokes at his cheeseburger. Morgana is very quiet beside her.
"The other kind is more insidious," says Bryce, who seems to be torn between annoyed and amused. "What happens when there's already something in the place of whatever presses through into this dimension?"
He points at the picture of some off-pretty, kind of plastic girl on the wall. "That's Paris Hilton. She's somewhat famous for being famous in my world."
They all stare at the picture. It doesn't ring any bells for Gwen, except maybe the name. Hotels, some kind of scandal in the seventies, they were bought up by BW. "So what happens to the things that are already here?" Gwen has a feeling that she won't like the answer, whatever it is.
Morgana gasps and points at their waitress.
The woman is not precisely who she used to be a few minutes ago. Her hair is darker, a little dull. She's got a scar above her left eye marring her otherwise even-featured face. Her eyes are cold and confused. Then she draws a gun.
Thursday
Gwen is fine. That's all that matters for now.
Of all people it was Bryce who jumped in front of the bullet, saving Gwen's life in the same flurry of movement that disarmed and immobilised their attacker before Merlin could so much as say a word. Morgana doesn't know what to do with that so she concentrates on making sure he doesn't bleed to death again.
"I know her," he mumbles as Morgana cuts away his shirt with her pocket knife. She misses the old days where she could conceal several daggers in the folds of her robes and dresses. The 18th century was good for that sort of thing, and she still remembers the thigh-strap crossbow with fondness.
"Shut up," she says, not nearly as harsh as she feels. "It would be a waste if you died because you absolutely had to have the last word."
Bryce grins at that, but his eyes are focused on something behind her and a whole universe away. "Chuck," he says and passes out cold.
Morgana sees the image of a boy, tall with dark eyes and incredible lashes; she knows that it's a memory of something that was never quite real. Her powers as a seer have, on occasion, included the knowledge of other minds, but this is the sort of thing that makes her want to be normal more than anything. She can't block the intrusion and it feels like tearing into something utterly private.
Merlin snaps her out of this foreign emotion with a quick spell they normally use for hangovers. It helps, and Morgana uses both her hands and her power to ascertain that Bryce Larkin, secret agent, isn't going to die from this and the future still has him in it. Not that there is much of a discernible future any more - maybe three or four hours, tops. Disconcerting, that whole situation makes her itch inside her skin.
Then Gwen is at her side. "Something is happening outside. We need to go."
+
Something is happening just about everywhere. Creatures, people and inanimate objects pop into existence like land mines as they cross the street and head for their car. Merlin levitates the unconscious Bryce and no one cares - what's one floating guy when the world is coming apart around you?
They drive. The road is burning somewhere just on the other side of a thinning membrane. Transparent, insubstantial cars run through them and Morgana can feel each passenger, see their whole lives spin out of control, and their despair makes her sick.
Morgana has no idea where they're going or why, but she directs them anyway. Something is at the end of this road, and they have to reach it for the sake of their world.
+
The air shifts, time stops.
A hill appears before them. The hill is everywhere and nowhere, a forest on a dimensional pox scar. Morgana feels the cold, slick darkness of it like a weight on her mind. This is where they need to go.
+
They are at the top of the hill. They are not alone.
+
Flickering, the walls of the world are silk-thin up here, and clouds take the mirror-shape of all the others standing in this spot, waiting for the end. They've been drawn to this place: people who look like them, people who barely look like people, and this is where it all comes together. This is where it unravels.
Morgana reaches out with one trembling finger and touches the void.
Any Other Thursday, A Brave New World
Bryce knows he'll find them, even though the world is much larger now. It's not easy to navigate, but it's stable enough. A lot of people were displaced into nothingness, estimates range in the trillions. Everyone, everywhere, has lost people, places and things, and the world they inhabit is a lot less kind - although the magic and the sheer brilliance of it make up for a lot.
This used to be a world without Star Trek. Now it is a world that has everything anyone ever dreamed of and a few other things besides. It's a cruel, crowded world and it bears the scars of the Joining with an utter lack of grace.
He picks up a copy of Being Famous in a World That Doesn't Know Your Name - the infamous self-help memoir by some guy called Castle - and heads toward the part of this town that has real Klingons and a lot of fake names.
Chuck and Sarah are alive. They have to be.
Morgana said they were there when it all shattered, at the Joining. He believes it. Chuck is the kind of guy who stumbles into destiny, and he's more than capable of getting out of trouble after the fact. Maybe it's luck, maybe it's just the kind of guy Chuck is, and Bryce intends to find them.
In the mean time, he has an interview with a vampire who might know someone who knows something. The rules of the game haven't changed and Bryce is still the best at playing with loaded dice.
Author: suaine
Recipient: akire_yta
Fandom: Merlin (/Chuck, multiple other crossovers)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: general for Merlin, general for Chuck
Warnings: The crack level of this is proportional to how many references one recognizes.
Summary: No one won the bet about how the world would end. Climate change is still on the table though.
It Must Be Thursday
A boy walks along a path beside a field of flowers. The boy wears a red cap against the sun. His trainers trail their laces, frayed at the ends. His clothes are worn; not torn but faded. He kicks stones away from him as he walks, kicks them nowhere in particular. Maybe he whistles, maybe he doesn't; there is no one around to hear.
He spies a bird high above the field, circling lazily over some dead prey or a shiny treasure. Slowly he bends down to grab a smooth stone the size of a small chicken egg, cool against his skin. He tests the weight, throws it up two, three times. It makes a small sound - smack! - when he catches it in his palm.
Smack!
The bird angles its body downward, dives out of view, only to come back seconds later with great flaps of its wings. The boy raises his hand to his ear, then beyond. He throws the stone hard; it sails true toward its target.
Tumbling, the bird falls to earth, landing with a thump in a world far away on sweating, hot concrete.
Monday, London
Merlin drops his keys on the small table next to the old-fashioned coat-rack and toes off his trainers. His feet are glad of their freedom and he sighs a little. His day has been a useless string of small failures and dead-end research; he's tired and only wants some blissful quiet. It's not in his cards, not here, maybe not ever.
"Oy," says a voice - Arthur's - from the kitchen, "got any dinner with you? We're out of bread."
Merlin closes his eyes, breathes, tries to remember why he hasn't gone into a homicidal rage whenever Arthur is being obnoxious. It's love, he reminds himself, has to be, because no one would put up with Arthur's special brand of insanity otherwise. On the other hand-
Morgana smirks at him from the door to the living room, full glass of something red and most likely potent in one elegant hand. She mock whispers: "He's been insufferable all day. I think it's hormones."
"I am not pregnant," Arthur yells, accompanied by a couple of loud bangs from the kitchen. "You're not going to win because," he peeks around the divider to smile at Merlin, "I am not carrying the Antichrist." Merlin laughs; Arthur laughs back - and easy as all that Merlin remembers why he puts up with any of this.
"Arthur Pendragon," Gwen calls, "I am not cleaning this up." Arthur winces and looks sheepish, more like a boy than Merlin has ever had the chance to see him in their old life. It hasn't lost any of its novelty.
They have had bets going on why they were all reborn in such proximity to each other this time (there have been other lives, but most of them were unremarkable - like a call put on hold). Merlin is still sore over the fact that the Hadron Collider hasn't actually destroyed the universe, because now Gwen is the most likely to win their imaginary pot of gold with her bet on climate change, of all things. It's not like Arthur is supposed to cool down a whole planet - not like he could - although his ego is certainly the size of one.
"I've looked at weather patterns today," he says, because it's true, and because Morgana smiles at him for indulging Gwen's pet theory. Smiles are a rare commodity in the business of researching the end of the world. He walks to their ratty, red sofa and lets himself drop into it like a sack.
"Did you find anything interesting?" Arthur is banging pots and pans together, but Merlin knows more than half of his attention is on their conversation, which probably explains why Gwen chases him out of the kitchen ten seconds later. His grin is marvellous, and Merlin is ready to forget all the horrible things he's spent his day reading about.
"We are, in fact, destroying the planet with climate change," Merlin says, his head resting on the back of the sofa.
"I told you," Gwen says. "Didn't I tell you?" She peeks into the living room. There is flour in her hair. "It's the ice caps melting, that never leads to anything good."
Merlin grins at her, but shakes his head. "It's just not soon enough. We'll all be dead three times over before it gets really bad."
Gwen sighs and brings out a tray with four bowls of something steaming hot. Merlin thinks of rat stew and is immediately wary when he sees Arthur's expression of glee. He takes a bowl and eyes the contents with suspicion.
Arthur snorts and digs in, making slurping sounds and noises of pleasure. It doesn't reassure Merlin in the least. "What is this?"
Glaring, Gwen slaps the back of his head. "Are you insinuating I would let that one," she points to Arthur, "do something terrible to our food for a prank? Really, Merlin, how long have we known each other?" Morgana snickers into her own bowl, and Merlin is tempted to say long enough to know you're just as devious as the rest of them but he's not suicidal and Gwen is a lot scarier than Arthur when she wants to be.
Before he can raise the spoon to his lips, a sound like thunder breaks him out of his lightening mood. He's immediately alert and has the newly appeared figure in a spell-lock before the echo fades away.
There is a naked man in their living room and he looks half-dead.
Tuesday
The girls are sleeping. Arthur doesn't know if he can, if he should. He's known this kind of thing was going to happen eventually, even as he had always thought of it as something in the distant future. Sure, the world would end, but not right now, yeah?
It's ending right this minute, and proof is lying shivering on his sofa, mumbling about people Arthur doesn't know. The man has been shot recently, the dressing on the wound has bled through and the puckered tissue is red and angry.
"Who are you?" Merlin says, the third time, and it's a quiet sound, not interrogative but genuinely puzzled. Arthur can sense the otherness about the man, knows instinctively that he isn't from anywhere close, anywhere on this planet. It must be worse for Merlin, who breathes magic, feeds on it. Of course, in the last couple of weeks, Merlin had been weary and short-tempered, like something had been feeding off of him.
"How are you feeling?" Arthur asks Merlin and touches his hand. His favorite sorcerer is deathly cold and pale as a sheet. Well, damn.
"I'm fine," Merlin snaps, eyes on their strange visitor, and Arthur knows it as the lie it is. Merlin can't even look at him. He's always been a horrible liar.
"Merlin," he growls. "Talk to me." They've never done that particularly well, not when it counted in Camelot and not any time after.
Merlin sighs and leans into Arthur, their shoulders touching as they sit on the small coffee table. "My head hurts, but not really, not like migraine or anything. It's more like my blood is being pulled apart, like my magic is screaming." A beat, Merlin's silence heavy in the room, when all they can hear is the stranger. Then: "That sounds so ridiculous."
Arthur snorts, because the alternative is acknowledging that their existence finally has meaning, and that also means the time for just being people is over. The thousand years were just not enough. "You always sound ridiculous."
Merlin laughs. Arthur wants to remember that.
+
The stranger wakes in the early hours of the morning, looking bereft but clear of fever. He talks at length about the people he left behind without ever using names or any other identifying information. A slip-up early on reveals that he is some kind of government agent - American - and that his best friend is in love with his ex-girlfriend who may also be an agent. It's unclear, but Arthur thinks the best friend has some kind of weird power like Merlin, only to do with computers.
Their flat doesn't get any more visitors from the great beyond, but things do keep appearing. Merlin is sifting through a pile of items that are unfamiliar and feel off in the same way the stranger feels off. There is nothing to find, really, the items are random and other than the persistent nagging that these things don't belong, they are perfectly mundane.
Arthur kicks a rubber chicken out of his way.
"What do you think is happening here?"
Merlin looks up, a frown lodged on his face. "I really couldn't say. But have you noticed the walls?"
Arthur's gaze lands on their familiar white-washed walls. They're still white, except not, they're a patchwork of different whites, washed out or greying with the hint of nicotine when none of them have ever smoked, brick painted over in one place, pulpy wallpaper in another.
"What in the world-"
Morgana leans against the wall outside her room, a mug of something steaming hot in her hands. Arthur's eyes drift with the curling steam. "I think," she says, "we're about to be invaded." Her dreams aren't always accurate, but they are never wrong. He swallows.
"Tell me this isn't what I think it is."
Merlin comes to stand behind him, a solid presence that has grounded Arthur for more than a millennium. Their hands find each other.
Morgana looks at the shifting mess of their flat, eyes clouded with the knowledge of what's to come. "Of course it is, Arthur. We've all been waiting for something to happen."
Arthur rolls his eyes. "I know it's an apocalyptic crisis. I was rather hoping you'd be a little more helpful as to what exactly is going on and how we can stop it."
Morgana laughs, sending chills down Arthur's spine. She sounds broken and jagged. "I don't think we can, Arthur. This is so much bigger than we are."
+
Arthur calls up every favour he is owed. Lois in the Home Office tells him that the appearances are happening all over Britain, that there is word from other countries as well. She sounds like she's been talking on the phone all day, harried and washed out.
"Be careful," she says, "no one knows exactly what's going on but a lot of people are turning their phones off like it's 1999."
Arthur assures her that he won't do anything stupid and she snorts as she hangs up on him. Perhaps when this is all over, he'll have time to be properly outraged. Contacts in the US are giving him even more disturbing news - apparently a secret government lab that no one but the CIA was supposed to know about has left nothing but a crater the size of a small town. It's possible that it's a symptom and not the core problem; the one thing it's not is a coincidence.
"I think we need to go to America," he says over a cold and disgusting lunch of leftovers. Merlin just nods like he's been expecting it. The agent guy just looks blank, until Arthur rounds on him.
"What do you know about a laboratory in Mountain Springs, Colorado?"
His eyes widen and he says, "Nothing!" so fast it gives Arthur whiplash. Before he can ask Morgana slams her hand on the table.
"Cut the bullshit, Bryce, we know that you know. You're one of the best agents the Americans have even if they don't always know what to do with you. You've died twice in the service and you are in pathetic unrequited love with at least two of the friends you're constantly worrying about."
Bryce blinks, his face going completely blank, until a superficial smile replaces any hint of emotion. "What are you?" His voice is honey sweet and seductive - he reminds Arthur of Lancelot. "Some kind of mind reader?" He says it like it's a joke.
Morgana glares. "I've already seen you helping us so you might as well just give it up now and spare us all the drama."
Gwen, sweet Gwen who's changed the most over the years and is still the best of them, lays a hand on Morgana's arm. She speaks softly but there is no mistaking the steel in her voice. "Morgana," she says, "we're not quite there yet. Let him figure it out on his own."
Arthur keeps quiet, seeking the warmth and comfort of Merlin at his side. Morgana's powers have never been quite right; they never did a damn to help them figure out their problems - not back in Camelot and certainly not here - and no one hates them more than she does.
Trembling with the kind of impotent rage only those who know the future (and can't stop it from ruining their lives) experience, Morgana stares down the man whose name is Bryce. Secret agent, highly sensitive information in his head - what a coincidence.
"You'll help us, but no matter, by then it will likely be too late." She pushes her chair back with a jarring noise and touches Gwen's shoulder, the signal obvious and the reaction instantaneous. They're both gone before Bryce can so much as breathe a word.
+
Arthur has them on the next flight out and that's a miracle all on its own. The commercial airlines are grounded and he has to call in a life-debt just to get the five of them out of the country. Over the Atlantic, air pressure humming in their ears, everything seems a little further away, a little less scary. Merlin leans against him, eyes on the small window. There are too many planes outside, planes that don't belong. Arthur tries not to think about how many of them have already gone down.
"If we can't stop it - whatever it is-" Merlin says, a dreamy quality to his voice, "the world is going to burst like a water balloon."
Arthur doesn't say anything. There is nothing to say. He lets his fingers run through Merlin's hair in a motion to soothe them both, hoping that they might at least get a bit of sleep.
Wednesday, Colorado
The woman, Sophie, waits for them at the small private airfield. She's organised transportation, maps, a lot of tech that Gwen wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of, and she's brought guns. Gwen takes the Glock and breathes once with panic before she puts the emotions away in that place in her mind marked "later, if we're still alive" - it's getting pretty crowded in there. She wonders for a moment what kind of debt Arthur, who is only twenty-four this time around, accumulated to earn support on this scale, but then Sophie smiles at him and it all becomes clear.
Arthur Pendragon's charm is still more forceful than any army.
Gwen takes Morgana's hand when they are rushed through security and doesn't let go until they are on the road. The car smells stale. She stares out the window at the dark sky and wonders what time it is. Her watch got lost somewhere and maybe it's taken its place in some other universe, dimensional clutter like the rubber duck and the broken skateboard at her feet, the potted plant stuffed comically between the seat and the rear window.
Bryce sits on the other side, with Morgana between them, and Gwen can sense the strain they're both under to be as far way from each other as possible. It's not hard to see why they've taken such an instant dislike to each other: Morgana holds all his future actions against him and Bryce is a man who thrives on secrets. They're like water and oil.
"You seem remarkably unfazed by all this," Merlin says without turning around. His eyes are locked on the changing road. The hit a spot of cobblestones and for a moment Gwen worries that Arthur might lose control over the car, killing them all in a blaze of ironic pointlessness.
"I watch TV," Bryce says toward the window. "Star Trek, that sort of thing - parallel universes are not much of a leap to make when you wake up in some strangers' living room and feel like every cell in your body has been torn apart."
Gwen frowns, trying to place the reference. Bryce is American, so it's probably some obscure science fiction show, a Space Patrol knock-off. "Do they have a lot of dimensional crises in that Star Trek of yours?"
Bryce turns to her and for once he looks utterly shaken, younger than he appeared before - maybe just about Arthur's age. "Are you telling me this is a world without Star Trek?" His voice takes on a nostalgic, melancholic quality. Gwen nods. Looking at his quickly masked expression of loss, she wants to say she's sorry, but it seems silly in the circumstances. He's left behind a lot more than just some TV show.
"Oh," he says, quiet and lost.
+
They stay at a motel in town. There used to be a military base not far away - now it's just rubble and dust. An enormous crater has taken the place where a mountain used to be not two days ago. Gwen tries to imagine what the area had looked like before and fails when faced with the stunned populace. She remembers what it was like the first time her world turned upside down, the first time she had to organize two sets of memories in her head. This feels a little like that moment: sheer confusion and nothing is quite real enough.
"It's getting worse," Morgana says when Gwen closes the door to their room. The floor is covered in useless things and a small squirrel runs in frantic circles in its cage. It's strange to think that somewhere out there is a world where squirrels are kept in cages.
"We'll stop it," Gwen says, leaving the bags on the second bed. Morgana shoots her a withering glare.
"Your faith in Arthur is admirable, but as much as I like to tease him about his messianic tendencies, he is not a god - and neither is Merlin."
Gwen sighs and picks up a small shoe. It's pink and atrocious, in its own way utterly charming, and the child that used to wear it could be fine or could be fighting for its life. They don't really have a choice. "We'll stop it," Gwen says.
As if taking her words as a challenge, their carpet crackles and sparks and turns into something moist and squelching and alive.
+
"I think there are two different kinds of apparitions," Merlin says over dinner.
They've found a small restaurant owned by a kindly old woman. Gwen likes it; the place feels a little like her dad's kitchen another lifetime ago. Pictures on the walls - but not of anyone Gwen knows - watch as the five of them argue the nature of this apocalypse.
"Bryce here," Arthur says, "is the more obvious kind. There has never been a version of him in this world so he just shows up. Poof!"
Gwen giggles at Arthur doing the magic hands - that never stops being funny. Merlin scowls and pokes at his cheeseburger. Morgana is very quiet beside her.
"The other kind is more insidious," says Bryce, who seems to be torn between annoyed and amused. "What happens when there's already something in the place of whatever presses through into this dimension?"
He points at the picture of some off-pretty, kind of plastic girl on the wall. "That's Paris Hilton. She's somewhat famous for being famous in my world."
They all stare at the picture. It doesn't ring any bells for Gwen, except maybe the name. Hotels, some kind of scandal in the seventies, they were bought up by BW. "So what happens to the things that are already here?" Gwen has a feeling that she won't like the answer, whatever it is.
Morgana gasps and points at their waitress.
The woman is not precisely who she used to be a few minutes ago. Her hair is darker, a little dull. She's got a scar above her left eye marring her otherwise even-featured face. Her eyes are cold and confused. Then she draws a gun.
Thursday
Gwen is fine. That's all that matters for now.
Of all people it was Bryce who jumped in front of the bullet, saving Gwen's life in the same flurry of movement that disarmed and immobilised their attacker before Merlin could so much as say a word. Morgana doesn't know what to do with that so she concentrates on making sure he doesn't bleed to death again.
"I know her," he mumbles as Morgana cuts away his shirt with her pocket knife. She misses the old days where she could conceal several daggers in the folds of her robes and dresses. The 18th century was good for that sort of thing, and she still remembers the thigh-strap crossbow with fondness.
"Shut up," she says, not nearly as harsh as she feels. "It would be a waste if you died because you absolutely had to have the last word."
Bryce grins at that, but his eyes are focused on something behind her and a whole universe away. "Chuck," he says and passes out cold.
Morgana sees the image of a boy, tall with dark eyes and incredible lashes; she knows that it's a memory of something that was never quite real. Her powers as a seer have, on occasion, included the knowledge of other minds, but this is the sort of thing that makes her want to be normal more than anything. She can't block the intrusion and it feels like tearing into something utterly private.
Merlin snaps her out of this foreign emotion with a quick spell they normally use for hangovers. It helps, and Morgana uses both her hands and her power to ascertain that Bryce Larkin, secret agent, isn't going to die from this and the future still has him in it. Not that there is much of a discernible future any more - maybe three or four hours, tops. Disconcerting, that whole situation makes her itch inside her skin.
Then Gwen is at her side. "Something is happening outside. We need to go."
+
Something is happening just about everywhere. Creatures, people and inanimate objects pop into existence like land mines as they cross the street and head for their car. Merlin levitates the unconscious Bryce and no one cares - what's one floating guy when the world is coming apart around you?
They drive. The road is burning somewhere just on the other side of a thinning membrane. Transparent, insubstantial cars run through them and Morgana can feel each passenger, see their whole lives spin out of control, and their despair makes her sick.
Morgana has no idea where they're going or why, but she directs them anyway. Something is at the end of this road, and they have to reach it for the sake of their world.
+
The air shifts, time stops.
A hill appears before them. The hill is everywhere and nowhere, a forest on a dimensional pox scar. Morgana feels the cold, slick darkness of it like a weight on her mind. This is where they need to go.
+
They are at the top of the hill. They are not alone.
+
Flickering, the walls of the world are silk-thin up here, and clouds take the mirror-shape of all the others standing in this spot, waiting for the end. They've been drawn to this place: people who look like them, people who barely look like people, and this is where it all comes together. This is where it unravels.
Morgana reaches out with one trembling finger and touches the void.
Any Other Thursday, A Brave New World
Bryce knows he'll find them, even though the world is much larger now. It's not easy to navigate, but it's stable enough. A lot of people were displaced into nothingness, estimates range in the trillions. Everyone, everywhere, has lost people, places and things, and the world they inhabit is a lot less kind - although the magic and the sheer brilliance of it make up for a lot.
This used to be a world without Star Trek. Now it is a world that has everything anyone ever dreamed of and a few other things besides. It's a cruel, crowded world and it bears the scars of the Joining with an utter lack of grace.
He picks up a copy of Being Famous in a World That Doesn't Know Your Name - the infamous self-help memoir by some guy called Castle - and heads toward the part of this town that has real Klingons and a lot of fake names.
Chuck and Sarah are alive. They have to be.
Morgana said they were there when it all shattered, at the Joining. He believes it. Chuck is the kind of guy who stumbles into destiny, and he's more than capable of getting out of trouble after the fact. Maybe it's luck, maybe it's just the kind of guy Chuck is, and Bryce intends to find them.
In the mean time, he has an interview with a vampire who might know someone who knows something. The rules of the game haven't changed and Bryce is still the best at playing with loaded dice.