Merlin was grinding down marigolds in the physician’s chambers when Lancelot stumbled in with a hand on his chest. He hastily closed the door behind him and leaned against it, panting. His voice was worryingly weak when he said:
“My chest hurts.”
Merlin dropped the mortar and pestle. He hurried to take Lancelot’s arm and lead him to the cot. He unbuckled the armour with magic and quickly took the pauldron off. He was an expert at this kind of thing by now. He just wished he was able to take Lancelot’s armour off in situations that weren’t strictly medical.
Focus, he chided himself, and tried not to wince at Lancelot’s pained groan when he had to raise his arms for Merlin to slide the chainmail off. Then off were the gambeson and the tunic, too wet with blood.
The wound was horrible. He had no other word for it.
“A sorcerer attacked you?” he asked, but it wasn't a question.
Lancelot had been leading a patrol on the outskirts of the city. Merlin had assumed he had gotten hit or slashed by a bandit, not— not this. No sword nor mace nor axe could tear the skin in such long, clean strips.
Lancelot hummed. He was looking down at his wound. Wounds. Many of them. They didn’t stop dripping blood.
“I didn’t tell anyone. That it’s a magical wound. In case you can— you know. If you can, that is.”
They had learned Merlin wasn’t as terrible with healing magic when he was reciting a spell instead of trying to mend the wound by sheer will. Merlin summoned a book from one of Gaius’ unreachably high shelves and started reading it with his magic. Well, not reading it, exactly. The book had pictures.
He found a picture that looked like what happened to Lancelot’s chest, however vaguely pictographic. He settled the book on Lancelot’s lap, and he grabbed it to keep it on that page as Merlin gathered water and cloth to clean the cuts. After an incident not long ago, he had stopped making the water basin fly to him.
Lancelot’s heavy gaze was on him the whole time he cleaned the wounds. It made his hands tremble. Or maybe it was the red gashes of open skin in front of him, moving under his touch that did it. Once they were clean, he read the counter spell, rehearsing it under his breath over and over again until the words blurred together.
He made his hands hover over the wounds as close as possible without touching them. He could feel the heat of Lancelot’s skin. Too hot, certainly. Merlin swallowed and started chanting, Ic durhhæle díc líc-sar mid dam sundorcræft dæru ealdan æ. Wherever his fingers hovered, golden light emerged from the wounds, and they slowly closed.
This, too, hurt. Quite a bit, if the way Lancelot kept twitching and whimpering was of any indication. Merlin just wanted to get this over with, because the more he went on, the more it sank in that he had a very shirtless Lancelot right in front of him.
Merlin’s fingertips hovered over what must have been a deeper gash, because Lancelot’s twitch was violent. By that, he meant Lancelot moved enough that Merlin accidentally touched the raw skin. Lancelot cried out. Merlin pulled his hand away, an apology halfway across his lips, but he froze before he could say anything. The whole area where his fingers had touched was completely healed, with not even red marks like the rest.
“I need to touch you,” Merlin said, glancing down at the book. And then he registered what he had just said. Not a rare thing for him to think, but he never really had the opportunity to externalise it.
“Whatever makes this end quicker.”
Merlin winced sympathetically, then steeled himself and started chanting again. He could feel the wounds close under his palms. Lancelot groaned, head dropping, and his arms shook with how hard he grabbed the cot’s sheets.
Merlin started to move his hands around, and Lancelot almost jumped, making the book fall from his lap to the floor with a thud. But now the wounds were disappearing quickly with no trace behind. Soon enough, they were all gone.
Merlin didn’t lift his hands from Lancelot’s chest, though. Not just yet. He gently caressed the skin, letting his eyes roam over it with the excuse of looking for any more injuries. When he looked up, Lancelot found his eyes immediately. His breathing was heavy, and he stayed silent for what felt like an hour, just looking at him.
“Thank you,” he said. And after another long moment: “I think that was worse than the original spell.”
Merlin made a face but kept rubbing his thumbs over Lancelot’s chest in what he hoped was a soothing motion. Risky, to touch him like this, but he hadn’t been pushed away yet, so he was going to seize the moment.
“Hey, at least now you have a nice shave,” he tried to joke. Tried, because his voice, too, had gone breathy.
Lancelot looked down and snorted. ‘Nice’ was not a word either of them would use. Patches of his skin had been left hairless and slightly pink. ‘Ridiculous’ may have been more appropriate. Maybe even ‘worse than the work of a blind and handless man with a dull shaving knife and no cream.’
Lancelot looked back up at Merlin with a smile and parted his lips to say something, probably along the lines of Merlin’s own thoughts. Merlin tried to keep his eyes on Lancelot’s and not on his bitten-red lips. And then—
And then the door to the physician’s chambers swung open.
“Merlin, do you know where— Oh.” Percival stopped dead in his tracks and stared at them with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. I, uh. We needed Lancelot for the debrief. Um. Sorry.”
And then he left.
Merlin looked at Lancelot, and they lasted a single second before they burst out laughing. They kept laughing, and when they finally calmed down, Merlin had to lend Lancelot one of his shirts and shoo him to the debrief. As soon as Lancelot left, he sighed deeply. He needed a moment alone. The tips of his fingers kept feeling hot— tingling, kind of. And he was certain it had nothing to do with the magic.
Summary: Merlin and Lancelot escape Camelot in the wake of a disastrous magic reveal, and must contend with the difficult aftermath. // Written for Day 6 of @mercelotweek 2025, for the prompts, 'Angst' + 'BAMF!Lancelot'.
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A wind picked up that night, tearing over the tall wild grasses of the Northern Plains. A storm; it had teeth to rip plants out by their roots. Inside the walls of a ruined castle, Lancelot and Merlin sheltered, and heard it howling: picking at the crumbling mortar, scraping against the dilapidated battlements. But here would have to do, for now; it was too dark to ride any farther.
In one of the towers, Merlin cleaned blood off of Lancelot’s face with a wet rag. Lancelot didn’t feel the cold on his skin, but stared straight ahead, treading through his own mind like a man clawing his way out of a house fire. The cloth stung Lancelot’s cut lip, and he flinched.
“Are you back with me?” Merlin said. Lancelot heard him from far away.
The storm—forced through arrow slits and windows built for sieges—whistled in alarm. They felt the gust, too, in Camelot, where Arthur looked out over the lower town, and watched one by one as lights were snuffed and shutters closed. And meanwhile, in the ruined tower, Lancelot saw Merlin as if for the first time: the cloth, Merlin’s hand, his raw-red wrists. He reached up to touch him: quickly, but un-harsh—in no way other than as a lover.
“…Lancelot?” Merlin said.
“Merlin.” He startled. Shook himself. “I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t know what…” The fog over Lancelot started to lift. Merlin’s hand was in his, and he examined the shackle-marks on Merlin’s skin, and winced, then released him.
The glooming tower was indifferent to its guests. It had seen battles and refugees and bandits. Had sheltered travelling innocents and fleeing murderers alike, and it cared little about the two men huddled in it now: on its rotting benches, lit by the bleak cast of a miniature glowing moon. Merlin’s doing.
“I’m sorry,” Lancelot said, shaking his head. “Something was over me. It’s… it’s clearing.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I’m… I’m alright, now.”
“…Yeah,” Merlin said. “You were a bit… I don’t know. You weren’t yourself.”
“I… I know. But I’m fine now.”
Merlin wasn’t convinced. His brow was furrowed, examining Lancelot’s face. He wiped away one last smudge below Lancelot’s ear, then called that finished and lowered the cloth.
“I found somewhere for the horse,” Merlin said. “On the lower levels. And… and here seemed best for us to spend the night. So.”
Lancelot looked around, evaluating the turret room. He did his best to seem discerning, but Merlin knew him too well. He saw walls, and dust, and heavy curtains on tarnished rods, and felt distinctly swallowed by something bigger than himself.
“Are you hurt?” Merlin said.
“No.”
“Let me look.”
He let him, willingly. They didn’t speak as Merlin undressed him; he was practiced at disrobing a knight, especially Lancelot. Removing his belt with sword and scabbard, mail, gambeson. He peeled up Lancelot’s shirt, and found an ink-spill of bruises, so dark he could’ve wet his fingertips. Merlin frowned, prodding at Lancelot’s ribs.
“Can’t you feel any of this?”
“No.”
“You’re not in pain?”
“No.”
“…Shock,” Merlin decided, and pulled the shirt back down to cover him. He got up to fetch Lancelot’s cloak, and drape it around his shoulders. “You need to rest. You’ll feel it soon.”
Lancelot watched him go across the room, and return with the knight’s cloak. He felt like that man again: choking in the dirt of his yard after escaping the burning house. Parched, and begging for a drink.
When Merlin leaned down to adjust the cloak on his shoulders, he couldn’t help surging up to kiss him. Merlin startled, but surrendered as much as he could, and kissed him back.
They clutched at each other with shaking hands, breathing the same air. Finally, they broke apart—staying close, touching foreheads, shuddering. Merlin was taut as a bowstring, and Lancelot traced his shoulders, his chin, his arms. Got soot on his fingers.
“I didn’t sleep all last night,” Lancelot confessed. “I feared I’d fail. That you’d be—”
Merlin shushed him. “No. No, it’s alright.”
“That I’d have to watch…”
“I’m alive.” He held Lancelot’s face and made him see him. “Because of you. I’m still here.”
“Thank God,” Lancelot said, even though he’d given up praying years ago. “Oh, God.”
They embraced. Sometimes, he still offered praise upwards, for lack of any alternative direction, and imagined bits of his faith disappearing across a vast, empty sky.
Clouds moved fast above the castle, silent, and Merlin and Lancelot held each other; Lancelot pressed his face to Merlin’s chest, and Merlin bent over and clutched him. Like a bird on a branch, engineered by nature to hold tightest to its perch while exhausted.
“They won’t come after us,” Merlin said. “Not until Arthur can… can work through what’s happened.”
He knew, because Lancelot had left utter carnage in his wake, and Arthur would be reeling. In Camelot’s courtyard, over a dozen corpses waited for burial under furiously rippling white sheets. Men were already talking of hunting, of justice, of revenge.
“This is wrong,” Merlin said. “It’s all—this wasn’t supposed to happen…”
“Merlin…”
Merlin inhaled sharply, and held his breath to stop tears from coming, but it was a lost cause. He shook, and swallowed hard. Lancelot tried to soothe him, and leaned upwards. Kissed his cheeks, tasted salt.
“This’s my fault,” Merlin said. “I was stupid. I was…”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I should have seen—And Agravaine is back there, still. Arthur doesn’t realize the danger. What if he—what if now that Camelot is vulnerable…? And now I’m… we’re…”
“Arthur will be alright,” Lancelot said, forcing steadiness. “He’s smart and capable, and as soon as we can come up with a plan, we’ll put this right. We will, my love. I swear.”
“You can’t promise that,” Merlin said, miserably.
Lancelot had no response.
“It’s all ruined,” Merlin said. “All of it.”
He put his forehead on Lancelot’s shoulder, and shook and shook. The angle was wrong and his neck ached, but Merlin didn’t care. Lancelot’s hand went to the nape of his neck, stroking carefully. He smelled of steel-polish, and sweat, and rust; Merlin breathed him in in gulps.
“Tell me what happened,” Lancelot said. “No one would speak with me long.”
Instead of answering, Merlin tangled their fingers at the base of his skull. Four days ago—which could well have been a different life—the two of them were close just like this, and Lancelot had made Merlin promise not to get into trouble while he was away. Merlin thought how he was exposed as a solemn liar twice in one wretched week.
“When did you get back?” he said, in a small voice.
“Yesterday.”
“How was your hunt?”
Lancelot laughed, mirthlessly. “I don’t think that matters now.”
“Tell me, anyway.”
Lancelot paused, then indulged him.
“Sir Gareth shot three hares,” he said. “I shot five.”
“Hm. Braggart.” Even though Lancelot was many things—arrogant, dead last.
Lancelot should’ve had some quip to serve in return; at least, he should’ve laughed. When he did neither of these things, Merlin pulled away, bracing himself. He didn’t want to be the one to start.
“They said you’d attacked Gwen,” Lancelot said. He’d known it wasn’t true—and Merlin knew he knew. Still, Merlin’s face crumpled. He sat on the bench next to Lancelot, and gripped it so hard that his fingertips hurt on the peeling wood. Their shoulders touched.
“It was Agravaine,” Merlin said. “I’m sure of it. He—poisoned her. I practically saw him administer the cursed nightshade.”
“Cursed nightshade?” Lancelot was grave. “When was this?”
“The day you left, she collapsed in the corridor. Elyan found her. I saw Agravaine the day after that, by her bed. Arthur had had her moved to Morgana’s tower, and he had no reason to be in there.”
“He was poisoning her?”
“When I caught him, he left in a hurry. A vial fell from his pocket, and I took it to Gaius. The poison—it was this… this enchanted tincture of nightshade. Could only be cured by magic.”
Lancelot nodded, slowly. “So… you did what you had to.”
“I… I thought I was.”
In the hours after this conversation between lovers—once the sky turned black, Agravaine would sneak from the castle, and take a horse galloping out to the thick of the woods. And Morgana would wait, pensive and unsleeping, for news to celebrate to. She would hear of what had happened, and laugh.
“I snuck past the guards after sunset,” Merlin said. “I should’ve realized that there weren’t enough in the corridor—not while Gwen was sick. Arthur cares too much about her. But I was stupid. And I got in there, and everything was so still. I couldn’t even see her breathing, Lancelot. I just—I should’ve checked. I should’ve been more careful. But I didn’t. I went to her bed, and tried to cure her. With—with sage, and…”
“Like you did with Uther?” Lancelot said.
“Yes,” Merlin said, very quietly. “It was like that.”
And while Morgana was laughing, Arthur would bolt awake to the sound of a windstorm, seized with terror and pain, and climb the stairs to where Guinevere waned with grey pallor. He would sit at her bedside all night, until the morning came and nothing wrong in the world was yet different.
Merlin went on, “The sage was smoking in my hands. It was working. And then I felt this—this hand, on my wrist. And somehow, I knew it was Arthur, before I’d turned around. I didn’t want to face him, but there was nothing else I could do. And when I looked around, it was—it was Arthur. The room was so dark. For a moment, I thought he was doing some spell, because the magic in my eyes was so bright it reflected in his. I didn’t realize they were like fires.”
“They are,” Lancelot said. “Every time.”
Merlin curled over, shaking. Undone by the tenderness in Lancelot’s voice.
“It wasn’t just Arthur. Agravaine was behind him. And Leon, and a dozen other men. They’d been hidden behind the damn curtains. The same place I hid the Druid boy, once. I hadn’t even checked—I was such a fool.
“I should’ve fought, but I didn’t. I let—I just let Arthur arrest me. Held out my hands when he told me to. I felt—felt numb. He wouldn’t even look at me. Mostly it was Leon, giving all the commands. And Agravaine, he said something like, there you have it, sire. We’ve found the traitor. And I couldn’t even say anything. I just stood there like a coward. Or—or like a traitor. I suppose. I suppose Arthur thought that’s what I was.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Lancelot struggled to take it in, and Merlin hung his head. It hurt that, even now, Lancelot stayed with him like he was natural to love. It felt like another way he was forced to lie about who he was and what he was worth.
“It was a trap,” Lancelot said, finally.
“Yeah,” Merlin replied. “I only saw that after.”
“You can’t be blamed, Merlin…”
“They were ready—even had special irons. The cuffs, they stopped my magic. I was powerless.” And he’d been terrified, but he didn’t say that part. Lancelot heard it, anyway.
“Agravaine was clever,” Lancelot said, at length. “He must have forced Arthur to assign all those men, so he would have no choice but to arrest you with them watching.” Merlin shifted uncomfortably.
“He arrested me because he saw that I have magic.”
“I know,” Lancelot said, “but if he had been alone. If it had just been up to him, he wouldn’t have—”
“You don’t know that,” Merlin said. Lancelot started to protest. “You don’t know. In case you forgot, I’ve been lying to him for years, for all the time I’ve known him. Every time I’ve told him to trust me; I’ve been betraying him. Men or no—he had plenty of reasons to put me in chains.”
“Merlin—”
“Just stop! There’s no point saying it could’ve been different!”
Then there was silence, and in one of the lower rooms, something fell over and crashed—succumbing to the wind. Lancelot received Merlin’s shouting, and his expression turned stony.
They didn’t get angry with one another—they’d never practiced and didn’t know how.
He stood up—perhaps to go somewhere else until he was wanted. Merlin broke.
“Wait—” He reached for him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry—please.”
In Camelot, Elyan and Percival shouted at each other, perhaps would’ve come to blows if the day hadn’t already seen such violence.
“You’ve been… you’ve been nothing but good to me,” Merlin said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.”
It was easy to stop Lancelot from going. He sighed, and sat back down, near-imperceptibly shaking. Fatigue was setting in; shock was wearing off.
Merlin put his face in his hands. “I’ve been so stupid,” he whispered.
Lancelot bloomed with hurt: the bruises, and Merlin’s despair. It was wrong that Merlin should cry and Lancelot could do nothing for him. He tried anyway, and embraced him.
“I’m with you,” he said. “My love. My lord.”
“My knight,” Merlin answered, hollowly.
Maybe he thought Lancelot was right, but it was too painful to admit: things could have been different, another way. In another life, his magic was presented in a planned, private audience. In another, it spilled out on a whim while Merlin did his chores. In another, he saved Arthur’s life in a frightening show of power, and left bodies on display. In yet another, he confessed weeping over a war-wound he couldn’t prevent or heal.
In this life, none of that.
“What… what was it for you?” Merlin said. “Tell me what happened when you got back.”
Lancelot took a deep breath.
“I heard from Leon that you’d been arrested, for sorcery, and that there would be no trial because it was witnessed. But he wouldn’t say any more. And Arthur wouldn’t speak to any of us. I heard he was shut in his chambers.”
In another life, Lancelot stood behind him while he told Arthur, and his secret was accepted quietly, peacefully, while Arthur mulled over what concessions he could make in the law. In another, they argued and argued until it became clear that no matter how they raged against each other, they were bound like binary stars. In another, Arthur became terrified of him, and in another, the whole ordeal ended at a lake.
In this life, “I was allowed to visit Gwen, but the guards were ordered not to let me see you,” Lancelot said. “Even after I tried to pull rank. Apparently, they had been instructed specifically to keep me out.”
“I was missing you.” Merlin swallowed. “I wondered where you were. If you’d heard.”
“I had,” Lancelot said, grim. “And then, last night, Agravaine came to my chambers. He said he knew that I’d tried to see you. And he threatened me.”
“He threatened you?”
“He said it would be a shame if Arthur had to discover you hadn’t acted alone. I was angry. I wanted to strike him. It was a near thing.”
It scared Merlin, Lancelot’s anger. It was a new shade to him, and made him foreign.
“And…” Merlin said, “what happened this morning?”
“I remember looking into the courtyard, and seeing the pyre,” Lancelot said. “And… I remember thinking to take a horse, and supplies. Thinking… thinking I had to prevent it all. And then… I don’t know. It’s like something possessed me—I don’t remember. I know I fought for you. That’s all I know.”
He reached for those hours in his memory, and it was like staggering through mist towards the edge of an unseen cliff. Shuffling his feet and listening for any signs: scattering pebbles, rocks breaking down bluffs. Anticipating the drop.
“The guards came to fetch me at dawn,” Merlin started. “When they brought me out into the square, I looked for you. But I wasn’t sure you’d come back at all, so… so. I kept imagining you’d return after it was done, and someone would have to tell you what had happened. I’d been thinking that all night.
“I looked for Arthur, and saw him high up, on the king’s balcony. Everyone else was there. Leon, and Elyan, and Percival. But they weren’t right up against the pyre. More… more outside the crowd. I don’t know who stationed them there, or why. And maybe they tried to look at me, but I don’t know. I couldn’t look at them. I didn’t want them to see… to see…”
“See what?”
“That I’d been crying.”
Hours behind them, in the aftermath, Arthur collapsed to his knees in the courtyard, burning his eyes on smoke and staining the knees of his trousers in blood. He almost wept openly, but was aware of his audience of injured knights, and didn’t.
Merlin shuddered. “My ears were ringing. I couldn’t hear anything as the man tied me to the pole. And then, just as he lit the pyre, there was a sort of—commotion. I couldn’t see what. The air was thick from the heat, and it was starting to smoke around me. A horse came bolting into the courtyard.
“People tried to get out of the way, but I think it trampled many of them. The rider was going so fast. And then… then I realized it was you. When you drew your sword, and the fire reflected in it, you looked like an angel in wrath.
“The townsfolk scattered, but the knights—Arthur’s men—they drew their swords to stop you. There was chaos. I thought something was wrong when one of them knocked your helmet off, and you barely flinched at the blow. I’d never seen you fight like that. You must have killed nearly two dozen men, all on your own. Leon led the finest against you.”
“Even Percival?” Lancelot said.
Merlin heard him, and hesitated, then nodded.
“You fought him. And Leon, and Elyan. And—Gwaine. You wounded Gwaine. Badly, I think. Very badly. It was as if you didn’t recognize them. I saw Arthur rush inside, off the balcony, once he realized what was happening. He had his sword drawn, but… I didn’t see him in the courtyard.”
Here was the precipice. Lancelot went over it, plummeting blind.
“I remember pulling you onto my horse,” Lancelot said, stricken. “Your hand, your weight. I remember thinking, I can’t let him fall off the horse. All I remember is you. Everything else is… is…” He trailed off. Merlin touched his shaking hand.
“Sometimes,” Merlin said, “men go to war, and don’t remember the things they do on the battlefield. I’ve seen it, once or twice.”
Lancelot went quiet. “It’s like when I was a boy,” he said. “I don’t remember seeing my parents cut down. I remember seeing one of the raiders approach them with his axe. And then, nothing. I only remember the bodies.”
There was no proper response to that, and Merlin let the words be, holding Lancelot’s hands, which were white in his lap. Neither of them spoke; the wind redoubled, and the massive structure around them heaved in cold breaths.
In Camelot, several knights gathered in the council chambers without Arthur knowing. They were furious, and wanted Lancelot punished. In the morning, they would band together, and pressure the King to declare Sir Lancelot and his sorcerer consort prime enemies of the kingdom, whose capture was the highest priority.
“Gwaine wasn’t with the rest of them,” Merlin said, after a long moment.
Lancelot looked at him, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“Before you arrived,” Merlin said, “I saw him standing aside. He seemed angry, but not at me. I s’ppose I’m being stupid—but when the wood was lit, I saw him reaching for his sword. I think he wanted to do something. Help me, I mean.”
Understanding dawned on Lancelot.
“It was only when you went at Percival, that Gwaine…” Merlin went quiet. “Only to defend him, I think.” Lancelot waited for more, but there wasn’t any.
“…I harmed him,” he said. “And I shouldn’t have. You think I shouldn’t have. That’s what you’re saying.”
Merlin blinked. “That’s—not what I meant.”
“I see how you’re looking at me.”
“I—what? How am I looking at—”
“I don’t know, Merlin. How are you looking at me? After seeing what you say—seeing what I did. What do you think of it? Of me?”
His tone was sharp, and Merlin was taken aback. If Lancelot was angry at him, he couldn’t stand it. He was all Merlin had.
“I… I don’t…”
“I didn’t see—” Lancelot said, “I mean, I didn’t know. If I’d known—”
He needed to move, and stood up from the bench. Every muscle in his body protested, but he forced himself to stand. And he paced like a caged creature. His eyes landed on his sword, sheathed and carefully set on the floor, and it occurred to him that if he’d done everything Merlin had said, the sword would have blood on it. Blood he hadn’t had the presence of mind to wash off. Blood belonging to his friends.
In a burst of panic or anger or fear—he couldn’t say which—Lancelot picked up his sword and threw it across the room, scabbard and all. It hit the wall and clattered loudly. Merlin flinched; his eyes were wide. Lancelot was a dangerous man, and somehow, he was just now realizing it.
“You were tied there!” Lancelot said. His voice broke. “You looked afraid. You looked—looked vulnerable! And—and—and—I remember putting my sword so hard through something, that the blood got on my knuckles. The tip of it broke bone. And someone screamed. Someone… someone… oh, God. Someone—”
“Stop—” Merlin said. He didn’t want to hear this, and he didn’t want to fight. “Just—stop, alright? I wasn’t saying anything. I wasn’t—I didn’t mean anything.”
“I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean…”
All at once, his body gave out, and Lancelot collapsed to his knees, wracked and unsteady. At the same time, leagues away, Camelot’s court physician rinsed out another blood-soaked cloth, and tended his patient. All the while, he prayed to any Old gods who would forgive him: begging them to keep Merlin safe.
“How badly was he wounded?” Lancelot said.
Merlin was silent. “Gaius is a good physician,” he said, hushed.
“Merlin.”
“He’ll save him. I know he—”
“Merlin, please.”
When they met eyes—Lancelot on his knees, Merlin standing at the bench—Merlin’s eyes were wide and manic. He choked on his words:
“Your sword went through him.”
Lancelot blinked as that hit him. He floated for a moment in a cushioned, distanced calm. Then the blow found its mark, and he lurched, clutching his middle because something had gone wrong inside him—it must have, to feel like this. Lancelot folded over, unable to get enough air.
He stayed there for a long time, shaking badly.
Merlin went to him, and knelt, and wrapped his arms around him, desperate to dosomething, anything useful. He cast around.
“Are you cold?” he said. “I’ll find wood somewhere… start a fire.”
“I love you,” Lancelot rasped, but it didn’t sound sweet. It wasn’t affection, but an excuse: pleading not-guilty because he wasn’t in his right mind. He was in love: an affliction as dangerous as any curse.
Merlin felt so, so lost. “I love you, too.”
“I couldn’t stand any harm coming to you.”
“I know.”
“My life would have been worth nothing if—”
“Don’t talk like this.”
“—if you’d burned. If I’d done nothing.”
“Stop, please.”
“I swore I’d be yours. What kind of man would I be?”
Merlin was frustrated. He didn’t care about Lancelot martyring his honour for him. Maybe Lancelot thought it was romantic, or hoped it was. Needed it to be. But for Merlin, it was simply more guilt he didn’t want on him.
“Your life wouldn’t have been worth nothing,” Merlin said. “Don’t say that.”
At last, Lancelot went silent. Crouched on the ground, any heat either of them had bled out to feed the aging stones. Perhaps Merlin should’ve started a fire after all. It was freezing in here.
Lancelot waited for Merlin to give up, and let him go. He thought, eventually, Merlin would see his actions for the horrors they were. He would become disgusted: in an hour, a week, a month. Abandon Lancelot somewhere and flee. When it came to that, Lancelot resolved to leave first and save Merlin the trouble.
The little moon hanging above them began to dim, and Merlin looked up at it: stared until his eyes glowed like kindling. Reluctantly, it grew brighter in another long quiet.
Lancelot breathed raggedly, then too-fast, and finally he settled.
“Do you… remember the Isle of the Blessed?” Lancelot said, soft. He drew himself up better, to sit on his knees, and Merlin frowned. “When you fought the Cailleach, and forced her to close the Veil. And no one had to die? It was a miracle.”
Merlin remembered. “Afterwards, that’s when you kissed me.”
“I did. I realized I’d wanted to, for a long time.”
Lancelot kissed him, tenderly and sweet, to show him what he thought of that. When he pulled away, he smiled the way only dead loved ones do, in memories.
“I was going to die for you,” he admitted. “If you couldn’t prevail… if a sacrifice had to be made. I was going to make sure it was I.”
What could Merlin say to that? He shook his head, lips pressed tight.
“I’d never considered dying for someone before,” Lancelot said, “until you talked about finding something more important than anything. Merlin, you were everything I wanted to be. I was enamoured by it. I knew then, I would die for it.”
“Don’t,” Merlin said.
“I love you.”
Merlin didn’t want to talk about death and dying and sacrifice. He shook his head again, firmer. Touched Lancelot’s chest. He closed his eyes tight, because he couldn’t cry again; he was too exhausted to do this.
“Go back to talking about afterwards. Please,” Merlin said, voice thin. “About why you kissed me.”
Lancelot heard him, and paused. He couldn’t deny him, and sighed—long and deep and worshipful.
“After you vanquished the Cailleach,” he said, obliging, “you seemed like a god. There was a storm above your head, like a black crown. I thought how my mother told me once that the Devil would come in disguise, like something beautiful. And I understood, just then. You seduced me with the dark specks on your cheeks, standing tall like something wild.”
“Poet,” Merlin whispered.
“But later, at the feast, you seemed a different sort of deity. The kind that blesses harvests and puts life in flowers.”
“…Yeah?”
“Setting up for the feast where I was honoured for your deed, I saw you drop a spool of ribbon, and you got this… this look on your face. You watched it roll like it was made of gold, and you were resigned to a fate of ruin: having to ravel it all back up. It was only ribbon, but you looked so grave that I laughed aloud. I don’t think you noticed, but I’d never felt anything so pure for anyone in my life.”
“Because I dropped a spool of ribbon?” Merlin couldn’t feel charmed, or indignant, or incredulous; he couldn’t feel anything but cold.
“I wanted to go over and wrap both our hands in it,” Lancelot said. “I wanted to kiss you right there.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I should have.”
Lancelot fell silent again. Merlin’s chest ached so hard he lost his breath, and he reached for Lancelot. They locked together, like if they could strain fiercely enough, their edges would disappear. The wind wailed.
In Camelot, Arthur and Percival sat around the bed in Merlin’s abandoned room, where Gwaine lay slack-faced and white-skinned, breathing shallow and shallower.
“Do you think he’ll be alright?” Lancelot said.
“Yes.” Merlin sounded faint. “I think he’ll be alright.”
SUMMARY: The king was being an annoying arse, as per usual. Merlin had pulled a prank on said prat, which was more usual than either Gaius or Arthur would've liked. He escaped to the castle's library, hiding away until a cursed fairytale fell on his head, which was not so usual.
Oh, and Lancelot might have been raised by fairies.
“Are you ready?” Merlin asked, ignoring Lancelot’s perfectly good chairs and sitting on his table.
“Yes, ready to set my chambers on fire again.” Merlin rolled his eyes. That had been a long time ago, and Merlin had placed enchantments on the curtains to keep them from burning. They hadn’t tried them out yet, though. “What do I do?”
Merlin opened the book on the marked page, as if he hadn’t dedicated the past few nights to memorising this chapter.
“Come here,” Merlin said. Lancelot stepped in front of him, way closer than necessary. Merlin’s mind went blank at the sight of Lancelot between his thighs. He swallowed before continuing. "Hold your hands like you’re holding water, like this. Yes, keep them like that.”
Merlin took the Amulet of the Dragon from where it lay on the table and placed it in the middle of Lancelot’s hands. He then made the same gesture with his own and held them over Lancelot’s. His skin tingled where it touched Lancelot’s, and he couldn’t blame the ritual yet.
“Repeat after me,” Merlin said. He started chanting in the language of the old religion: “The power harnessed in the Dragonlord’s soul, channel it to he who holds the shield.”
Lancelot repeated it perfectly. Merlin lit a fire in his palms. It made Lancelot’s eyes glow with its flickering light.
“Let the fire run in both veins.” Merlin watched Lancelot’s lips move, forming the words of old as if it were his native tongue. “Let the blaze be born from both hands.”
Merlin’s fire glowed the colour of wine, and he opened his palms, letting it fall to the coin in Lancelot’s.
“Let the channel be created.”
It absorbed the flame, glowing bright with harmless heat until it faded. Merlin stared at it, sitting innocuously in Lancelot’s hands. He didn’t dare breathe. His only thought was, ‘Come on, work.’ But nothing kept happening.
He sighed, resigned to spend more sleepless nights translating the stupid book they stole from the stupid vaults that wasn’t even in stupid English. And then his head exploded in pain.
He screamed— or he thought he did, because even though he could feel it in his throat, he couldn’t hear anything. Only a ringing in his ears. He tried to open his eyes and— no, they weren’t closed. He couldn’t see. Distantly, he felt Lancelot’s hands on him, keeping him upright. An eternity passed until he could hear again, but he didn’t lift his face from where it was buried in the crook of Lancelot’s neck.
“Lancelot?” Merlin breathed when the pain became bearable.
“Merlin?” Lancelot leaned back, grabbing Merlin’s face with one hand to look at him. “What happened? Are you well? Do you want me to—”
“Just…” The movement made him dizzy, and he dropped his head on Lancelot’s shoulder. “Just hold me. For now.”
Lancelot wrapped his arm tighter around him and ran his fingers through his hair. That was great. Once he began feeling normal again (or as close to normal as he was going to get; his body felt… weird), he noticed Lancelot was shivering. Merlin pulled back to look at him.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.” Lancelot didn’t let Merlin go, even though he didn’t look much better than Merlin himself. “It doesn’t hurt. I… I think it’s your power. Coursing through me. It’s so much.”
Merlin’s cheeks burned, and he was both desperate to push Lancelot away and get him to hold him for the rest of the night.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said with a frown. His hand was on Merlin’s neck now, stroking lightly. Then his face lit up with a smile that could put the sun to shame.
…And now he was waxing poetic about Lancelot in his mind, which meant he must be back to normal.
Lancelot whispered through his smile, all excited: “I can do magic now.”
Very specific and potentially dangerous to his well-being magic, yes. But Merlin didn’t try to go over that again. It was Lancelot who had pressed until Merlin had accepted. Granted, it hadn’t taken much pressing because he couldn’t resist Lancelot’s brown, pleading eyes. But he firmly believed this was either going to be one of their best ideas yet or one of the very worst.
Merlin smiled back, unable to be unaffected by Lancelot’s glee. “Try it out.”
Lancelot stepped away from him. He had been very warm, and Merlin was left cold sitting there on the table. Lancelot stared at his hands for a good while before saying:
“I don’t know what to do.”
Merlin looked around the room until he found a candle, which he summoned to his hand.
“Let’s start small,” he said.
“I remember you telling me the first fire you lit was as tall as your house.” He raised an eyebrow at him.
“The more reason to do as I say, not as I do.”
Lancelot snorted and took the candle. He looked at the wick intently, even narrowing his eyes until they were almost closed, but it remained unlit.
“Try to, um…” Merlin started, but he wasn’t sure how to explain it. How do you teach a man to breathe? “Try to imagine the candle burning. And push the magic towards it.”
“Push it… how?” Lancelot didn’t take his eyes off it. Merlin wanted to answer, ‘Just push it,’ but he was aware that would not be helpful at all.
“What about we try with a spell first?” he said instead. Lancelot looked at him and nodded. “Forbearnahn.” The candle lit up instantly, and just as quickly, he extinguished it.
“Forbearnahn,” Lancelot repeated.
Merlin felt it a fraction of a second before it happened: His magic being pulled, as minuscule a spell as it was. And then the candle was lit between them. Lancelot laughed, his eyes seeking Merlin, full of exhilaration. Merlin laughed with him, giddy.
It worked. He almost couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t allowed himself to believe it, to let it sink in until he saw the gold fading from Lancelot’s eyes. Lancelot had magic. His magic.
Lancelot moved to stand in front of the fireplace, he raised his hands and said the spell out loud. It came to life with a roar and a flame so tall that Merlin worried for a moment. Lancelot laughed again and started lighting every single candle in his chambers, one by one.
Merlin stayed at the table, keeping an eye on the fires, but mostly watching Lancelot. With each new candle lit, he felt the pull of magic inside him, deep in his belly and crawling down his body like a shiver.
“When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” Merlin said when Lancelot started looking around the room for more things to light up. “And I guess when you have fire magic, everything looks like kindling.”
Lancelot laughed again and went back to stand in front of Merlin. Not between his legs this time, which he was grateful for since he would like to keep his remaining sanity for today.
“What else can I do?” Lancelot asked. Merlin honestly didn’t know. He wasn’t certain what the binding counted as ‘Dragonlord’ powers and what as Merlin’s own.
“Try making something with the smoke.” He gestured with his head to the fireplace. “Like an animal.”
Lancelot stared at the hearth, his eyes narrowed. When nothing happened for too long, Lancelot raised his hands towards it. Merlin felt his magic shape something amidst the smoke, but it didn’t leave yet. It was terribly intimate, in a way he hadn’t known to prepare for. The feeling of Lancelot using his magic, coaxing it from him. As if Lancelot were inside him. It was as addictive as it was terrifying.
A bird made of smoke flew from the fireplace. At first, the flap of its wings was too slow for its speed, making it look uncanny. Then it was too fast. As Lancelot made it circle the room, his hand guiding it or following it or both, it began to gain a better form. The flaps aligned with the speed, it oscillated up and down rhythmically, and it even got a more defined shape.
“You’re a natural,” Merlin congratulated him, unable to take his eyes off it. “It took me days to get mine to look that good.”
“I think it’s you.” Lancelot dropped his hand and looked at Merlin. The bird dissolved not long after. “I can feel it, I think. How the magic is all yours.” He shifted closer to Merlin and —oh, Goddess— took his hand between his. “I would remain tethered to you for the rest of my life, if you’d let me.”
And Merlin— how was he supposed to answer to that? He swallowed, and as he gripped Lancelot’s hand with his and pulled him closer, he scorned himself for ever doubting this.
Lancelot’s face was rough where his stubble grazed Merlin’s skin, but his lips were soft. As soft as the first time they kissed, but this actually felt real. This was real, not a lie, not an excuse. This wouldn’t go away in the morning.
Merlin wrapped his arms around his neck and drew them closer to each other, trying to get as much of Lancelot’s body on him as physically possible. Lancelot found again his place between Merlin’s legs and dragged Merlin closer to the edge of the table, hips pressing flush. Lancelot swallowed the sound that escaped Merlin’s lips, attacking his mouth as he was.
Merlin unfastened Lancelot’s belt and started tugging at his tunic, and on the third tug, Lancelot got the message and pulled it off.
“Why haven’t we been doing this before?” Merlin asked. He ran a hand down Lancelot’s chest, touch feather light, relishing in the way he shuddered.
“Right now, I cannot think of a single valid reason,” Lancelot answered, which was a prettied-up way of saying, ‘because we’re both stupid and cowardly,’ probably. Merlin dug his fingers into Lancelot’s pectoral, feeling the muscle under them.
Lancelot kissed him again. Then his cheek and his neck, his hands sneaking under Merlin’s tunic. Merlin helped him pull it off. And though Lancelot’s skin was hot against his, it washed him with the same relief of cold water in summer.
Merlin ran his hands through Lancelot’s hair and stressed his bottom lip with his teeth. He wanted to say something, something kind of sappy and romantic like, ‘I don’t want to ever let you go.’ He was going to say it. Really. He pulled away and took a deep breath—
And the door to Lancelot’s chambers banged open.
“Lancelot, do you know where Merlin i— oh. Oh.” Gwen stood right there at the door, gaping at them.
“Gwen.” Lancelot cleared his throat and retrieved Merlin’s tunic from the floor. Merlin hastily put it on, trying to will away the burning of his cheeks. And of the rest of his body.
“I can’t believe it.” Gwen put her hands on her hips and scowled at Merlin. “Everyone kept saying you two were courting, but I insisted that couldn’t be true, since that would be something my best friend would bother to tell me, isn’t it?”
“Um,” Merlin said. Grandiloquently.
“I can’t believe I had to catch you making out to find out you were finally together!”
“Witchcraft,” Gwen deadpanned. Lancelot pinched Merlin’s leg. When Merlin glanced at him, his eyes were wide on him.
“Yes. Sorcery. Magic. We actually lit all these candles with spells. And such.”
“Aha.”
“I’m so, so serious.”
“I’m sure.”
“Because you’re my best friend and I’d tell you if we were, you know. Courting.”
Maybe it was the way the word left his mouth, maybe it was the way he couldn’t keep himself from looking at Lancelot when he said it, but Gwen seemed to understand. He had, after all, talked her ear off about his feelings for Lancelot, time and time again. Keeping some compromising details out, of course. Honestly, if she and Arthur had started courting and either of them hadn’t told him, he would have reacted the same.
“Alright,” she said, offering him a smile. He smiled back. Courting.
“Why were you looking for Merlin?” Lancelot asked after an appropriate amount of silence.
“Oh! Yes, sorry. Gaius needs you, Merlin. People are dying.”
Merlin cursed under his breath and jumped off the table. Before he could get too far, Lancelot grabbed his hand.
“Witchcraft, really?” he whispered. Merlin shrugged with one shoulder. “I’m starting to regret a few things,” he said, but he had trouble hiding the smile from his voice.
“I’ll see you later?” Merlin asked.
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
With that, they had a last (for now!) chaste kiss, and Lancelot let him go. He no longer felt cold where they stopped touching. Lancelot’s warmth remained all the way across the castle, and until he returned to his arms late at night.
