Chapter Text
Morgana was trembling. Arthur hadn’t known Morgana could tremble, except for right after she woke up from one of those awful nightmares she was always having.
Visions. After she woke up from her awful prophetic visions where she saw people’s deaths. Those made her tremble.
Arthur had never wanted alcohol so badly in his life.
The last few weeks had been a nightmare that made Arthur want to tremble. Finding out Morgana was his half-sister. Finding out Morgana was a sorceress. Finding out Uther’s hatred of magic ran deeper than his love for his daughter. Who he, of course, had always known was his daughter, a fact he had just decided to hide from them both. Finding out that he, Arthur, loved his adoptive-but-apparently-actual sister more than he loved or feared his father. Finding out that Uther’s hatred of magic ran deeper than his love for his son and heir.
And that had just been day one. Now, Arthur and Morgana, along with the world’s most loyal couple of servants, a knight who deserved the highest rank a noble could ever bestow on him, and a handful of honorary knights who were more loyal than Arthur could have ever dreamed, were stumbling through the woods, avoiding hunting parties, and trying not to think too hard about the fact that they were fugitives.
And Morgana was trembling.
Arthur unfastened his cloak and put it over her shoulders, despite being perfectly aware that she wasn’t trembling because of the cold. It was better than doing nothing at all. She clutched it, not looking at him, face even paler than normal.
“We, um. Haven’t had much chance to talk,” Arthur managed lamely, taking a seat beside her on her log. They’d stopped for the night, though Arthur couldn’t think of it even as making camp. They’d scraped together some basic supplies here and there, but it was hardly what he was used to, and they’d be in for a miserable time if it rained.
Morgana managed a weak, manic breath of a laugh. “Between fleeing for our lives and finding your and Merlin’s friends in odd taverns across the land? No, we haven’t.”
“I just wanted - That is, I - Well, this doesn’t-“ Arthur blew out a long breath and tried again. “How long have you known?”
It had been two weeks, and he felt like he should have asked all these questions by now, but there hadn’t been time. They’d been riding, or running, or split up the whole time. Arthur had barely even had time to bicker with Merlin, and the absence of their little rituals was wearing on him.
As was the lack of a bed, but he was trying to not complain about that too loudly.
Morgana swept her hair back from her face and sniffled a little. She’d been crying plenty over the last two weeks - Arthur couldn’t blame her and could privately admit to a few shed tears himself - but her eyes were dry now. “The dreams… Well, you know I’ve had them most of my life. Maybe all of my life. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid to sleep. They weren’t as frequent when I was younger, or as vivid, but…”
Arthur swallowed, exercising all the self-restraint he could find to not interrupt before she sounded like she was done. But still… Her whole life? This had been happening under his nose - and his father’s - his whole life and he just hadn’t-
“I didn’t realize they weren’t just dreams until…” Morgana sniffled again. “Well, I started to suspect, but everyone said I was imagining things. Seeing patterns that weren’t there. That I just put that noble girl into a dream and I was crazy for thinking she would-“
“Sophia,” Arthur said, remembering Morgana’s panic over the young woman he’d been briefly besotted by - though the shine had come off so quick, and with so little warning, he could barely believe it had ever been there to begin with.
Morgana nodded. “I - I still think she intended to hurt you. Maybe - Maybe Merlin stopped you from doing something stupid before it came to that. But I - I’m getting used to the dreams now. That one was real, I know it.”
Arthur shrugged. “After the last few weeks, I’m not sure there’s much left that can surprise me. Maybe you’re right. We haven’t heard from her or her father since. Maybe I owe Merlin my thanks for more than stopping me from a stupid elopement.”
Morgana smiled. “I’m certain you do. He puts up with you, doesn’t he?”
That was more like the sister he knew. He shoved her shoulder, grinning back.
“Anyway, more and more of them started coming true. And I mean completely true. Too many details to be a coincidence. I couldn’t decide if I was more terrified that Uther would kill me, or relieved to know I wasn’t completely mad.” She looked down at her boots. Merlin and Gwaine had scrounged up some decent, practical outfits for her and Gwen after Merlin had found Gwaine in some seedy tavern. Arthur was pretty sure that meant they’d stolen them, but he could worry about paying back the original owners later, if they found some way through this.
“You’ve been dealing with it alone?”
Morgana stared at her feet for a long, long while. Arthur wanted to shake her. Not because he was impatient with her, even - he was just irritated at being on the run. At not having a plan. And yes, he could admit it, Merlin, at not having any of the finer things he was used to having in the castle.
“Not completely,” she finally said, quietly. “Do you remember when I was kidnapped by the druids?”
It hadn’t been so long ago, though after the last few weeks everything felt a lifetime away. Arthur nodded.
“I wasn’t kidnapped. I’d lit my bedroom on fire after one of my dreams. Or during it. I was terrified. Merlin suggested the druids could help me understand what was happening, so I went to them.”
“Merlin did?”
“Yes. He…” She sighed deeply. “Don’t be angry with him for not telling you. I begged him not to tell anyone. He was the only one who believed me, who didn’t tell me it was all in my head.”
“I… See.”
That did explain a few things. Namely why Merlin had been so secretive and evasive about Morgana, spurring Arthur to stupid levels of jealousy he hadn’t been able to put a name to for another month. He never had offered up a real explanation, Arthur realized now. Just dodged around it until Arthur had forgotten about it in the wake of Camelot’s latest crisis. So Merlin could keep a secret when he needed to, apparently. Not well, he’d been unbearably cagey for a while, but he had succeeded in not telling Arthur what was going on.
Morgana and Arthur sat there in silence for a while longer. Arthur could hear their friends not far off; arguing over dinner. “You’re still my sister,” Arthur blurted out at last. “And not just because -“ God, that was a tough one to think about. That Morgana was actually his sister. He moved on from the thought as quickly as he could. “In case my siding against my - or our - father didn’t make that clear.”
She gave him a watery smile. “It did. But thank you for saying it. All of this is… It’s a mess, isn’t it?”
Arthur laughed. “Oh, I think we passed ‘mess’ before we made it out of Camelot.”
“Are you going to fight him?”
Arthur winced. He was trying not to think about that either. “I think it’s either that or take up farming and hope he stops sending people looking for us.”
“You’d be a terrible farmer.” Morgana tugged the borrowed cloak closer over her shoulders. “I’d still hoped - I hadn’t really thought he’d make an exception for me. But I’d hoped. I barely remember my father. And I’d loved Uther. I used to… It was not pleasant to learn he was my father and that that wouldn’t save me at the same time.”
Arthur nodded. It had been plenty upsetting for him to learn, and he’d only been a bystander to it.
Morgana squeezed his arm. “But at least I kept my brother through it.”
He squeezed hers back. “We’ll figure this out.” His mind skidded past the thought that there was probably no ‘figuring it out’ without fighting his father or fleeing past the edge of the continent.
He wanted alcohol. He wanted a decent meal. He wanted a simple hunt to get his energy out. He wanted some privacy to talk to Merlin, who was shockingly perceptive about messy emotional nightmares like this.
“Morgana?” Gwen came into view, her face brightening a little when she saw that Morgana and Arthur were sitting together. She was still calling Arthur ‘my lord’ most of the time, despite his insistence that there wasn’t much point at the moment, but she’d dropped the ‘my lady’ for Morgana pretty quickly. “I think the boys have about managed dinner,” she told them. “I tried to help, but they were all so busy getting in each other’s way they barely noticed me.”
Arthur stood and stretched, grateful for the reprieve from the conversation. From having to make a plan for what came next. Morgana stood as well, handing Arthur back his cloak, and leaning over to kiss Gwen’s cheek.
Ah. That explained a few things then. Arthur added another entry to the ever-growing list of ‘things Arthur didn’t notice but definitely should have’. He was starting to think Merlin wasn’t the only one who regularly missed the obvious.
“If dinner isn’t burnt to a crisp, I’ll be shocked,” Arthur said rather than ask any stupid questions that would move Morgana from grateful to judgmental. He knew at least most of their traveling companions could manage the basics of cooking, when Merlin wasn’t daydreaming and letting the fire burn out, but there was nothing like a little competition to make a man into an idiot.
Merlin’s ever loyal hound - and to this day Arthur didn’t know how Merlin had managed to train such an intelligent beast as Archimedes - had helped them catch some rabbits, and they’d made a decent stew out of them and some wild vegetables Elyan had scavenged. It was a bit bland without the spice racks of the palace kitchens, but not the worst thing Arthur had ever eaten. And if he admitted to being dissatisfied with the food while they were running for their lives, Merlin would be insufferable about it.
So instead, Arthur allowed himself to think about his servant to keep his mind off his dinner.
Several months ago, someone had put Arthur under a love spell to a visiting young lady who he would be grateful to not be married to every day for the rest of his life. Merlin had kissed him to break it, and several things had suddenly come to make frightening amounts of sense. Like why he got unreasonably irritated whenever Merlin got friendly with someone else, or why he couldn’t think straight when Merlin vanished for a day, usually reappearing with a shoddy excuse - when he bothered to say anything at all, and didn’t just tell Arthur it wasn’t his business, and didn’t Arthur prefer having more competent servants waiting on him anyway? (The answer to that was no, he liked it being Merlin, no matter how rude and clumsy and chaotic he was.)
But that spell-shattering kiss had been as far as things had gotten, Merlin pointing out that he wasn’t much of a secret keeper and that the king would have his head if they were caught. Arthur had insisted he wouldn’t let that happen, but had mostly relented, figuring Merlin would give in sooner or later - why resist something they both wanted so much?
And then Gwen’s father had been executed and none of them had been able to do a damn thing about it.
So Arthur had been forced to admit - out loud, even - that Merlin had been right. If Uther ordered Merlin’s head on the chopping block, Arthur would ultimately have been helpless to stop it. He’d have tried, of course, but his father had proven more than once that he had no qualms about imprisoning Arthur ‘for his own good’. The fact they’d been able to escape with Morgana was nothing short of a miracle. They’d had more strokes of good luck along the way than Arthur could count, and they’d still barely managed.
But now they were on the run. Arthur had probably been disowned - a fact he was not thinking about, thank you - and if Uther caught up they were all looking at the executioner’s blade regardless of what else they were doing.
So maybe there was an upside to all this mess after all. And things were calming down a little - they had enough supplies to manage, enough people to take turns keeping watch at night without anyone being exhausted, and they were a long way from the castle.
Arthur nudged a knee against Merlin’s leg. They other man jerked, nearly spilling his soup, and Archimedes jumped up from where he’d been laying at Merlin’s feet with a huff before trotting away to beg Gwaine to share his dinner.
“Deep in thought, were you?” Arthur asked, grinning.
Merlin rolled his eyes. “There’s certainly enough to be worried about.”
That was true enough. But night had fallen, and Arthur was ready to let those be tomorrow’s worries. “I wanted to have a word with you.”
Merlin looked at him warily. “About what?”
Arthur pressed his thigh against Merlin’s. “Us.”
He heard Merlin’s breath catch. Merlin stared at where they were touching like such a thing should have been impossible.
They hadn’t touched much since the kiss, that was true. The casual contact that had existed between the two of them almost since they’d met had vanished in the wake of the simultaneous acknowledgment of their feelings and the refusal to act on them. Arthur could feel the chasm between them rushing closed at last though, and to hell with what anyone else thought about it. What, was Leon going to protest his prince flirting with a servant after following him into treason? Hardly.
“Arthur…”
But, of course, their luck had to run out sooner or later, because that was when the bandits appeared.
Merlin’s understanding of magic had changed significantly since Gaius had died, nearly two years ago now. It was a rough thing to think about - regardless of anything else, Gaius had at least been someone Merlin didn’t have to hide from, and he sorely missed that - but there it was. Gaius had always done things the Right Way. The right way to practice medicine, to play politics, to perform magic. Without him as a guide, Merlin had been left to figure out any way to work his magic, to deal with whatever new threat had reared its head and bared its teeth.
It had turned out that Gaius’s Right Way hadn’t been working well for Merlin, once he’d gotten the basics down. Gaius had insisted Merlin learn the old language, learn to focus and visualize the magic, the way Gaius himself had learned. Maybe that had been valuable. Maybe it had given Merlin a framework to go off of, sharpened his understanding of what kind of forces he was pushing around. Maybe it had helped with his control.
But that wasn’t how Merlin’s magic worked, not when he was at his best. When he was at his best, it was elemental, instinctual. He was special, unique, or so people kept telling him. So why hadn’t he realized sooner that his way of doing magic would be the same, all the way down to the core? Gaius had seen Archimedes and warned that familiars could be dangerous, unpredictable, but without Gaius there cautioning him to slow down, to find other ways, safer ways, Merlin had discovered he and Archimedes worked together like Arthur and his sword. Not quite two separate beings, not quite one singular entity, but two things meant to work together. Two things made more than the sum of their parts by their individual excellences combined.
And, well, having Archimedes, usually in the guise of a hound, close by made Merlin feel a little less lonely. That was nice too.
Archimedes was stretched out by his feet in front of the fire, watching their friends settle down with bowls of stew, everyone trying not to look too nervous. They’d had a few goals to work towards, but now they’d found Gwaine and Lancelot - and found a new ally in Lancelot’s friend, Percival - gotten more practical clothes for Gwen and Morgana, and scraped together enough supplies to last them a few days, and everyone was carefully avoiding asking what was next.
Merlin needed both hands to eat, so he pushed one foot under Archimedes’s chin, feeling their magic thrum back and forth. It had become a comforting ritual, one that let Merlin scratch the itch to do something with his magic without actually having to do anything with his magic. The thrum helped Merlin fight back when the loneliness of the lying and the secrets and the thankless work to keep Arthur alive and Camelot functioning threatened to swallow Merlin whole. It reminded him of how beautiful magic really was, how beautiful all of Albion could be, once Uther and his tight fist of arrogance and fear were gone.
How beautiful Arthur could make it.
<Are we going to kill Uther now?> Archimedes asked.
Archimedes wasn’t one for subtlety, in any area. In Camelot, the knights would sometimes wrestle with him, or let him terrorize the recruits. When Arthur dragged Merlin out hunting, Archimedes would push the limits of how smart a dog could believably be to show off what a remarkable hunter he was. He may have been a creature of pure magic, a being created to take the excess of Merlin’s powers, formed out of a piece of his soul - that was what lore Gaius had been able to dig up had said on the subject, anyway - but he was also very much an animal, and Merlin had learned that the animal he spent the most time disguised as was the animal he acted most like. When Merlin had been young, Archimedes had often been a bird - free, easily distracted, and prone to wander. Since coming to Camelot, they’d agreed on a dog, so he could protect Merlin and not draw too many questions.
So, generally speaking, he was a big, energetic dog who wanted the quickest answer to his problems, and also something to eat.
A lot like Arthur, really.
<That’s up to Arthur,> Merlin replied down their bond. <I’ve told you. I’m not killing Uther and giving Arthur a new reason to hate magic.>
<But Arthur’s fighting with Uther!> Archimedes protested. <We’d be helping!>
<It’s Arthur’s decision. If he’s ready to kill Uther, we’ll help. We’ll finish it, if we need to. But not until then.>
Archimedes gave a long, dramatic sigh. He’d been questioning why they didn’t simply kill Uther and deal with their biggest problem since the day they’d walked into Camelot. Merlin had explained the bigger issues, and Archimedes had conceded to his judgment, but he was still a big, loyal dog, and Uther was still someone Merlin was afraid of. Now that they were actively running from Uther, the questions had started up again.
The real question, Merlin thought, was if Arthur could truly commit that fully to standing against his father. Running from your father was one thing. Saving your sister from execution was one thing. Leading a coup against your father and putting his head on the chopping block was something else altogether.
But he wasn’t going to press Arthur about it tonight. Arthur had finally gone to speak with Morgana and was looking a little less tense, and Merlin wasn’t going to immediately undo that. They could have one night to catch their breaths before diving back into the problem.
<Well, what about us?> Archimedes asked, moving on to another difficult question he thought should be simple. <Is it time to tell Arthur we’re magic?>
Merlin’s stomach did a flip and his mouth went dry. It had always been difficult to keep the truth from Arthur, but it had been a constant spectre of his day since he’d broken that stupid love spell and Arthur had, despite Merlin’s certainty that he wouldn’t reciprocate, asked for more.
Uther had at least been useful for once, giving Merlin an excuse to hide behind that wasn’t I’m hiding something from you and if I let this thing between us grow without confessing it I’ll never forgive myself, and you’ll probably never forgive me either.
Now their act of treason had taken that thin defense away.
<Not yet.>
<When?>
Merlin didn’t know. Never. Right now. Find a spell to go back in time and tell him years ago.
Archimedes huffed. <He’s okay with Morgana.>
By Archimedes’s understanding of ‘okay’ that was true, but Merlin knew it was a little more complicated than that. He’d seen the warring emotions on Arthur’s face, the day Uther had discovered the truth and every day since. And Morgana was his sister. What if that was different? What if it was different, when Merlin had spent so much time so close to him, had had so many conversations about magic and morality and trust with him?
<You’re overthinking.>
<You don’t know that.>
<Do so. You’re doing that thing where you->
Arthur’s knee pressed against Merlin’s thigh and Merlin nearly jumped out of his skin. He’d all but forgotten anyone else was nearby, much less that Arthur was sitting right next to him. He felt the toe of his boot collide with the bottom of Archimedes’s jaw and winced.
<Sorry.>
Archimedes stood with a disdainful snort. <Told you.> He trotted off to give them some privacy - they could see through each other’s senses from a distance, but they could choose not to - and also to pester Gwaine out of his dinner.
When Merlin looked over at Arthur, the other man was grinning. There was still tiredness and stress in his face, but he seemed to have shaken off the worst of it. “Deep in thought, were you?” he asked, because nothing seemed to pull Arthur out of his bad moods quite like teasing Merlin.
Merlin rolled his eyes. “There’s certainly enough to be worried about.” And the things he’d been worrying about weren’t even the things Arthur knew to be worrying about. Wasn’t that fun. Wasn’t it a delight to always know about so many more problems than Arthur did.
Maybe he could steal a minute with Lancelot to talk some of it out.
Maybe he could finally admit to Morgana that his knowledge of magic wasn’t just because he’d read books he wasn’t supposed to out of idle curiosity and a critical lack of self-preservation.
<Maybe you could talk to Arthur,> Archimedes leapt into his consciousness to say, then promptly leapt out again.
“I wanted to have a word with you,” Arthur went on, oblivious to Merlin’s inner crisis. As usual.
Merlin restrained a sigh. It wasn’t Arthur’s fault that Merlin was successfully keeping secrets. “About what?” There was no telling with Arthur. Sometimes that meant ‘I need to talk out something that’s worrying me’. Sometimes it meant ‘I’m dragging you out on another hunting expedition, and no, you don’t get a say in this.’
Arthur pressed their legs together and Merlin’s brain stopped working. “Us.”
Fuck. Of course. Of course Arthur had thought the same thing Merlin had, that Uther was no longer a threat to their relationship - or, at least, that he was already so much of a threat that it didn’t matter.
Merlin’s heart started to race. What was he supposed to say now? What other excuse did he have to hide behind, to put it off? He didn’t think he could force himself to say he wasn’t interested anymore. He definitely didn’t think he could say it convincingly. And Arthur wasn’t the sort to take no for an answer without an explanation, not when he knew Merlin wanted this too.
And gods did Merlin want it. He wanted to feel like Arthur’s equal for once. He wanted to fall asleep next to him, instead of having to retreat to another room every night. He wanted to talk to him, really talk, without having to monitor every word.
But he wasn’t ready for the conversation that would have to preface that. He wasn’t ready to admit that he’d been hiding something so massive for every second of their relationship. Wasn’t ready to admit to all the scars hidden under his clothes, marks of times he’d saved Arthur’s life and limped back to his room to pretend he’d gotten drunk and was now nursing a hangover.
Wasn’t ready to risk Arthur pulling away. He’d take these scraps over nothing any day.
“Arthur…” He didn’t know how we was going to finish it. If the truth would come tumbling out of his mouth or another lie.
The bandits were almost a relief.