Work Text:
"This one's not gonna be easy, Arthur," Gaius' voice came over the cell phone sounding gruff as usual but barely hiding the concern and even fondness. "There's a ton of lore on this case going back centuries but no one's ever been able to even verify that this thing is real, let alone kill it. What the hell makes you think you'll succeed where hundreds of hunters before you have failed?"
Arthur sighed and shifted the phone to his other hand, rubbing the newly free one over his eyes. How could he explain this to Gaius without sounding like he'd gone completely insane? "I just --" he started and stopped, "I -- I have to try. It's the only lead I've got."
"Lead?" Gaius demanded and Arthur cringed inwardly; this slip was proof of just how close to the end of his rope he was. "Tell me this isn't about Morgana, Arthur." Arthur said nothing and Gaius continued, "You have to let go, boy. She's gone."
Arthur shook his head against Gaius' words although he knew the older man couldn't see him from where he sat on the other side of London. He had to find Morgana, he just had to. He should have known something was up -- she'd been having the nightmares again -- but she'd promised Arthur that it was nothing; then, one morning, Arthur woke up in their motel room in Leeds (they'd just finished up a poltergeist job there) to find his sister gone and in her place a note that said, Gone to find the Oak Man, don't worry about me.
Of course, Arthur couldn't help but go out of his mind with worry. The whole world was losing its head, the end of days was fucking nigh (there were rumours coming in from America about Lucifer himself roaming the Earth, but Arthur couldn't be arsed to deal with that now), and Morgana had to go and run off after some Oak Man guy in the middle of the night and not even leave him any proper leads to follow her by. Well, Arthur thought, wasn't that just perfect.
But now, after sifting through what felt like a thousand library databases searching with every possible variation on oak + man, he'd found something. In fact, considering how well known this case was, Arthur was surprised it had taken him as long as it did.
The Oak Man, it turned out, was a well known figure in Welsh mythology. No one seemed to know how exactly but every full moon this man was said to emerge just for that one night from a certain oak tree in a forest in southern Wales. Legend had it that the man was waiting for his one true love to return. Arthur scoffed at that; he had never been one for true love, he had a sister to protect and monsters to hunt, no time for love or even sex, more often than not. Anyway, that may have been the legend but Arthur had found that legends rarely told the whole story. More likely this Oak Man had been spurned and probably killed by his lover and reappeared every month seeking revenge. Arthur scanned all the reports of him through the centuries; at first glance it didn't look like there had been deaths in connection with this thing, but Arthur was pretty confident that if he dug a little deeper he'd find some.
He didn't have time to do that, though. What the hell had Morgana been doing running off after this thing on her own? Why would her dreams have lead her there?
*
A few hours later, Arthur had loaded his shotgun up with salt, checked out of his motel, packed his car and driven to the Oak Man's forest. He left his car just beyond the trees in a dilapidated car park that looked like it hadn't been used in years and made his way into the dark.
The tree that was supposed to produce the man was about a mile and a half in, so Arthur hiked along the make-shift trail that had been created by the many thrill seekers who had come on various full moons. It was a full moon tonight and Arthur worried that some thrill seeking teenagers might show up later and get in his way (What was it about kids and haunted places? Hadn't they ever see a horror movie?) but for now, it was still early; the sun had barely gone down above the trees when Arthur reached the clearing that housed the famous tree.
And there it was--old and huge, with bark that looked almost like skin and pointed leaves shining in the day's last light shining down on them. It looked ethereal, almost magical.
Arthur took a seat against another tree on the far side of the clearing and settled into a night watch. These kinds of stakeouts were lonely without Morgana to keep him company and being so far away from his car's sound system made it even worse, but this was necessary if he was going to find Morgana. He'd had plenty of coffee and the plan was basically to sit and watch the Oak Man's tree until he came out of it or the sun came up, whichever happened first.
Nothing happened for a long time. At ten thirty, about an two and a half hours into his watch, Arthur felt himself beginning to doze off from sheer boredom and broke out the emergency Red Bull, which he kept in his pack for just these kinds of situations. It was not a fool proof plan, however, and Arthur began to wish even harder that Morgana was there to make sure he stayed awake.
And then, she was there. At 11:34 sharp, Arthur heard a rustling sound behind him. He instinctively grabbed the shotgun and aimed it at the noise; it was only loaded with salt but the intruder didn't need to know it. He could see somebody standing there in the darkness but he couldn't make out any details.
But he didn't need to. "Put the gun down, Arthur, don't be ridiculous."
Arthur froze. He knew that voice. "Morgana!"
"Yes, Arthur," she responded, sounding exasperated, like Arthur hadn't been searching for her for months. "Now would you please lower the weapon, there's no reason to make this unpleasant."
"Unpleasant--" Arthur sputtered, "Where the fuck have you been?"
"Waiting for you." She stepped closer when Arthur lowered the gun and Arthur shown his torch on her to get a better look. It was certainly his sister standing there, wearing her usual jeans and stylish leather jacket, and Arthur felt his heart seize almost painfully with relief. Morgana was standing in front of him, perfectly safe, and it was all Arthur could do to stop himself from rushing to her and squeezing her tightly to his chest. But something stopped him -- this didn't make any sense.
"Why couldn't you have just brought me with you?" he asked.
"You had to find it yourself," Morgana replied enigmatically.
They waited together for a while longer, then, as Arthur's watch struck midnight (and Arthur rolled his eye at the hackneyed timing) the oak tree he'd been staring at for hours began to shift its form. It was a little hard to make out in the near pitch black of the forest, the minuscule amount of moonlight filtering down through the thick canopy being the only source of light, but the tree trunk was clearly changing shape. Arthur knew better than to get too close but he continued to squint at the tree as its bark began to form a doorway, big enough for a man to step out of. It curved into an oval shape at the top, with a pair of dragons, one on each side, carved into it as if to guard the entrance and, impossibly, the bark gleamed golden in the meagre moonlight.
Arthur reached for his shotgun and quickly checked that it was loaded. He got to his feet and trained the gun on the still morphing tree; his finger was ready on the trigger.
A spirit in the form of a man stepped out of the door about ten feet away from him. Immediately, his eyes fell on Arthur and Arthur thought he could feel the spirit's gaze burn into him. He shivered, but brushed it off as quickly as he could.
"Arthur, don't shoot," Morgana said, sounding unnaturally calm, like she was positive he wouldn't. Arthur ignored her. There was something he didn't trust about this new Morgana, who had walked out of their motel room in the middle of the night all those months ago and shown up here like clockwork.
So he pulled the trigger, sending the salt rocketing out towards the spirit.
"Ow!" his mark exclaimed, looking down at chest where the salt had made contact. That wasn't how it was supposed to work, it was supposed to blink out of existence, at least for awhile. It was almost like the spirit was -- solid?
"What the fuck did you do that for, you ass!" the not-spirit demanded and at the sound of his voice, Arthur's brain shot into overdrive.
That was my mistake, I'd never have a friend who could be such an ass.
You can't talk to me like that!
I'm sorry. I'd never have a friend who could be such an ass -- my lord.
Arthur shook his head against the influx of knowledge. Suddenly, he remembered. He remembered Morgana, his sister who dreamt the future; he remembered Gwen, his wife who loved his head knight; and he remembered--
"Merlin?"
"Yeah," Merlin said softly, "it's me." He'd come closer to Arthur now, almost within arm's reach. Arthur reached out and dragged the man to him, wrapping his arms around Merlin's solid waist and burying his nose in Merlin's solid neck. He smelled of the fires that always heated Arthur's chambers and the herbs he'd used to make his medicines and magical concoctions and of the forest. Arthur brought his lips to Merlin's for a chaste kiss, their mouths resting against each other's for a few seconds before Merlin pulled back, laughing.
"What took you so long?" Merlin asked, "I've always been stuck in that damn tree for fifteen hundred years."
"Yeah, well, maybe this time you won't go around pissing off extremely powerful sorceresses just for the hell of it," Arthur shot back. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as they say."
"Oh, shut up." Merlin shoved ineffectively against Arthur's chest before reaching up to pull his head down into another kiss.