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“A… brain sickness?” Arthur asked, bemused. “Like a fever?”
Merlin nodded, tilting his head back against the cracked plaster wall behind them with a sigh. Between their legs, the dimmed light of the camping lantern they’d unearthed from the basement cast deep shadows into the gaunt hollows of his cheekbones, the bruised skin beneath his eyes.
“That was Gaius’ theory,” Merlin answered eventually, voice rasping like sandpaper, “before -”
He cut himself off, throat clicking as he swallowed. For a moment, his eyes slid shut.
Arthur glanced away to give him some semblance of privacy, gaze sweeping over the room instead. All the furniture had been pushed aside, repurposed for other uses. Across from them, a tower of ottomans and end tables barricaded the front door, leaving the living room's open floor plan bare except for a large circular rug spread before an electric fireplace. At the rug’s center, a dark pile of bodies huddled together under mounds of pilfered blankets and pillows. The steady undulations of their collective breathing fortified Arthur, and he drank in the sight of all of them there, safe and alive - not the monstrous in-between creatures that had been claiming the identities of people all over the city for days on end now.
Including, most recently, Gaius.
Including his father.
Arthur looked to where Morgana was barely visible at the heart of the tight knot of people encircling her. It had been she who’d killed Uther in the end, when Arthur’s strength had failed during the crucial moments after this supposed brain sickness seized their father. Now she slept fitfully, her brow creased with a frown and mouth twitching, one arm clutching Gwen close. On either side of them, Elyan and Lance’s dozing forms curled inward like parentheses, forming a protective barrier.
A lump swelled in Arthur’s throat, painful. He turned his head toward Merlin, who was already watching him, eyes rimmed with red. Merlin, who less than twenty-four hours prior had honored Gaius’ final wishes of ending his life before the sickness could consume him.
The immense weight of their losses filled the space between them, and Arthur’s bones grew heavy with a deep weariness.
“What else?”
Arthur cleared his throat, blinking against the pinpricks watering his own eyes. He gestured toward the overstuffed notebook resting in Merlin’s lap, within which were the notes Gaius had been taking over the days they’d been fending for their lives; his attempts to figure out what was happening, and maybe -
“Did he believe there was a cure?”
Merlin, whose nose had been buried in the chicken scratch of Gaius' handwriting since they’d agreed as a group that morning to find another abandoned home in which to squat and recover, only shrugged. He ran slender fingers over the worn blue cover, thumbing at the ragged edges of the pages.
“Deciphering Gaius’ notes is almost like trying to crack a code, but…” He bit his lip, glancing up from beneath his lashes. A tear threatened to slip down his cheek. “I’m sorry, Arthur, but no. I don’t think he knew if there’s a way to reverse this.”
Disappointed but attempting to hide it, Arthur nodded. He squeezed Merlin’s forearm, the most he could seem to do even now. It figured that, of all times, his courage would falter so spectacularly during the end of the bloody world. Arthur swallowed.
“It’s okay, Merlin, really,” Arthur said, heart lifting to see the tension draining from Merlin’s shoulders at his reassurance. “Just tell me what else he figured out. Perhaps when the others wake, we can continue building on his discoveries.”
Blowing out a breath, Merlin flipped through the pages.
“Well, a lot of it is science jargon and working through hypotheses.” With the ghost of a smile haunting his features, Merlin stopped on one such example, tracing the abbreviations and symbols scribbled amongst the shaky lines of a diagram of the human form. He said, “In basic terms, he believed it was some kind of… rage virus. Something that burns up the brain and internal organs until all that’s left is a violent husk with a taste for human flesh.”
“Sounds fun,” Arthur, who’d had ample evidence to the contrary over the past week, responded. His head thumped back against the wall. After another few moments of hopeless wallowing, he dragged himself back to the present. “If it is a virus, then that suggests there must be some sort of treatment, right? Some sort of… antibiotic antidote.”
Merlin shot him a look.
“Oh, sure, let’s just pop over to the nearest pharmacy and see if they have a round of pills we can give the cannibal half-corpses of our former loved ones.”
“At least I’m trying to come up with solutions,” Arthur hissed back, stung. Irritation rose in his throat like bile, the burn of it easier to tolerate than the bitterness of their increasingly bleak reality. “Feel free to offer any of your own instead of snivelling like a girl over things we can’t change.”
Leaning away as though struck, Merlin blinked. His eyebrows pulled down, mouth opening before he very obviously bit back a retort. His chest rose and fell with a deep breath.
“When Morgana wakes up I’m telling her you were being a sexist prat again.”
Arthur deflated, the will to fight rushing from his body at Merlin’s refusal to fan the flames of his temper. The hollow ache its absence left behind pulsed, sharp and painful. Shoulders slumped, Arthur eyed Merlin’s understanding expression. Merlin said, “Got that off your chest?”
Arthur ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I just -”
In Arthur’s periphery, Gwaine shifted closer to Percy in his sleep. Arthur licked his dry lips and lifted his gaze to Merlin’s, holding it. With intent, he said, “I can’t lose anyone else. I won’t lose anyone else.”
Eyes burning bright in the dim room, Merlin watched him for a long moment, before swooping forward to close the gap between them.
At first, Arthur was taken aback by the kiss. Instinctively, he jerked away, unprepared to be on the sudden receiving end of a secret desire he’d been so careful to guard over their years of friendship. But Merlin lifted a hand, threading long fingers through the hair at the base of Arthur’s skull and holding him in place until Arthur relaxed into him.
After that, he returned the kiss in earnest.
Thankfully, they’d been fortunate enough to find toothpaste in this home, if not much unexpired food, and Merlin tasted faintly of mint. Arthur melted closer, gripping the collar of Merlin’s shirt in one hand. With the other, he pulled Merlin nearer, fingertips digging into his bony hip as Merlin swung a leg over Arthur’s lap and scrambled into it.
Of course, he also managed to tip over the lantern in the process. It crashed against the hardwood floor, clattering terribly, light and shadows casting about the room for a wild moment. They froze, and Merlin winced, his arms still wound around Arthur’s shoulders.
“Whoops,” he whispered at the same time a groggy sounding Leon muttered, “I counted three functional bedrooms in this house, lads.”
Arthur’s eyes met Merlin’s and widened in horror. He cleared his throat, easing Merlin from his lap and whispering an embarrassed apology to the room at large. From within the tangle of bodies, someone else snorted.
By the time Arthur’s breathing returned to normal, it seemed the ones they’d disturbed had fallen back into slumber. An unnatural hush descended over the room, with none of the usual late night ambient sounds of the city to break it.
“You alright?” Merlin asked into the eerie silence, causing Arthur to startle. Pressing a hand to his chest, Arthur turned to Merlin with an incredulous expression. Merlin rolled his eyes, fondness evident despite the deep shadows surrounding them. He smoothed Arthur's ruffled hair, sending a spark of warmth down Arthur’s spine, and said, quiet, “We could, you know. Find a bedroom to stay in tonight.”
The warmth spread, creeping into Arthur’s cheeks. “Um,” he said.
“To sleep, you clotpole. You look ready to drop, and your dull wits are barely any use even when you’re fully rested.”
Arthur pursed his lips, a font of gratitude flowing up from the depths of him. Jumping into bed with Merlin during the midst of everything happening felt… overwhelming to consider, even if Arthur would never admit it. Thankfully, with Merlin, he never had to.
Leveraging himself to his feet, Arthur bent to retrieve Gaius’ notebook, which had been kicked aside in their earlier frenzy. A beam of light from the overturned lantern shone onto the ripped sheaf of paper that fluttered down from between its pages. Arthur scooped it up as well, then paused. Squinted.
At Merlin’s questioning noise, Arthur motioned him closer, tilting the paper into the light to show him the address Gaius had written down, the location it pointed to circled multiple times for emphasis:
Camelot Pharmaceutical
Merlin plucked it from Arthur’s hand. On a surprised exhale, he said, “Well. Perhaps you aren’t a total dollophead after all.”