marigolds

by litinthyheart

Summary:

After taking a shortcut back to Camelot, Gwaine, Lancelot and Merlin are captured by some familiar faces from Gwaine's past. Caught between nightmares and memories that bloom in the place he grew up, Gwaine struggles to convince himself that they'll all be able to get out alive.

 

Or

 

Gwaine's past catches up with him and he's determined to put himself in harm's way in order to protect Merlin and Lancelot. They are not having any of it.

In hindsight, it had not been a good idea to travel through the Valley of the Fallen Kings. But, seeing as Merlin had elected to not mention to either Gwaine or Lancelot that he’d broken several of his ribs until two days after leaving Gawant, both knights had wanted to get Merlin back to Camelot as quickly as possible. And Gwaine knew the Valley of the Fallen Kings like the back of his hand.

    In hindsight, Gwaine should have also known that there would always be bandits lurking in the valley. But, being so focused on Merlin and so frustrated with himself for not noticing the pain Merlin had been in after falling off his horse when racing Elena, he hadn’t spared a thought about potential attacks. Which, lying on the ground with an arrow protruding from his side, he realised he should have done.

    Gwaine had lost sight of Lancelot and Merlin, having cantered as far and as loudly through the valley as possible in the attempt to draw the bandits away from his partners, and his surroundings were eerily quiet. The bandits he’d managed to cut down were scattered around him in various states of injury but his horse, catching one glimpse of fire being waved in their direction, had bolted, throwing Gwaine off in the process. That had been when Gwaine had realised he’d been shot.

    Pushing himself up against the mossy rocks, he flicked the hair from his face and moved to snap the arrow in half before hesitating. It would be easier to be mobile if the arrow was half the length, but it would also make it much harder to remove when the time came. Taking a deep breath, Gwaine removed his gloves and tucked them in his belt, contorting the chainmail between his fingers to assess the damage. The arrow shifted and he threw his head back, breathing heavily through gritted teeth. Lancelot and Merlin, if they weren’t already dead, were going to kill him. The scar from Ebba had only been a part of him for a fortnight and there he was with yet another arrow sticking out of him. Gwaine closed his eyes with a groan. He knew for a fact that Merlin would now owe Elyan several drinks at the Rising Sun and Merlin would not be pleased to learn that.

    Familiar tones drifted towards him like rich scents carried by the wind and Gwaine opened his eyes, struggling to stand. If Merlin and Lancelot were making noise, then they were alive – but also putting themselves in danger. Clinging to the lilt of their voices like they formed ropes hanging over a cliffside, Gwaine pushed himself up and wrestled the crossbow from the hands of a bandit for good measure. As he did so, the rag around their hand fell away and revealed a single letter branded into the skin beneath and Gwaine staggered backwards, his gaze stumbling to the identical mark concealed by a rough scar on his right hand.

    He followed the calls of his name and, ignoring the waves of pain shuddering across his body, stumbled into a clearing. Merlin was being supported by Lancelot, who either hadn’t noticed that he was bleeding from a gash on his head or hadn’t thought it was worth his attention, and when they caught sight of Gwaine they flew to him immediately, hands outstretched.

    It took all of thirty seconds for Lancelot to spot the arrow. ‘You’ve been shot—’

    Gwaine impatiently waved his hand. ‘We don’t have time for that now. Do either of you still have your horses? We need to get out—’

    ‘You’ve been shot,’ Lancelot reiterated. ‘We’re not going anywhere until that’s been dealt with.’

    ‘We don’t have time—’

    ‘Gwaine, you can’t ride around with an arrow sticking out of you,’ Merlin cut in, his movements stiff and controlled as he slowly dropped down to the ground to examine the wound.

    ‘Yet you can ride around with broken ribs?’ Gwaine fired back. ‘I’ll be fine, we just need to get out of here as quickly as possible—’

    Lancelot pushed the hair out of his eyes tenderly. ‘Gwaine,’ he softly said, ‘we killed half of them and the other half bolted. We can stay here for a few more minutes to sort you out.’ His hand grazed Gwaine’s face just as Merlin prodded the wound. ‘It’s okay.’

    Merlin looked up. ‘Lancelot, can you get some moss?’

    ‘Yeah, of c—’

    Struck by a sudden thought, Gwaine interrupted. ‘Merlin, you didn’t—You didn’t use magic to fend them off, did you?’

    ‘Well, yeah.’

    ‘Did you do it subtly?’

    ‘If you count fireballs as subtle then yeah.’

    Gwaine pushed their hands away and suppressed a yelp as the arrow moved. ‘We need to go,’ he said firmly. ‘Now.’

    ‘What’s going on?’ asked Lancelot, carefully helping Merlin stand. ‘Why are you so desperate to leave?’

    ‘Because if the surviving bandits saw Merlin using magic then they will be back with reinforcements.’

    Merlin frowned, momentarily closing his eyes as his ribs screamed. ‘You were telling us to go before you asked about me using magic, though.’ He reached out to tuck Gwaine’s hair behind his ear. ‘Why are you so worried? We’ve faced bandits numerous times before.’

    ‘They’re branded with Anselm’s mark.’

    Merlin’s jaw set in unison with Lancelot’s mouth transforming into a thin line. ‘Lance, get some moss. Make sure you get enough for yourself as well because don’t think I haven’t noticed that head wound.’ Merlin lowered himself to the ground again so he was resting on one knee, fingers fumbling beneath the fading foliage as he closed his eyes. After several moments, he opened his eyes. ‘One of the horses is by the brambles we passed near the entrance—’ Straightening, Merlin looked towards Gwaine, biting his lips. ‘I think, between us, we can probably get it here and make a quick exit.’

    ‘Considering that a horse is what caused you to be incapacitated, I don’t think it’s a good idea to be tackling one alone—’

    ‘Gwaine will be there, Lancelot, and I thought I told you to get moss?’

    As Lancelot gave a defiant sigh and darted towards a cluster of rocks covered in moss just out of sight, Gwaine caught Merlin’s hand. ‘Thank you.’

    Merlin turned towards him with a faint frown. ‘What for?’

    ‘For taking me seriously.’

    The faint frown turned into a faint smile and Merlin pressed his lips to Gwaine’s cheek. ‘You’d better savour the tenderness; as soon as we get to safety you are not going to get a moment’s peace for getting shot with an arrow for the second time in a fortnight.’

    ‘Then you are not going to get a moment’s peace for hiding broken ribs from us. I swear, if you get a punctured lung on the way back—’

    ‘I am not going to get a punctured lung on the way back,’ Merlin insisted, being careful to avoid the arrow as he tugged Gwaine in the direction of the entrance. ‘We should get that horse before Lance gets back.’

    ‘Lance is back,’ came a breathless voice, ‘and bandits are on the way.’

    Swearing, Gwaine pulled away from Merlin and sprinted towards the location of the horse, tears springing in his eyes from the flurried movement. He could distantly hear Merlin and Lancelot stumbling after him and, casting a brief glance behind him to check they were following, launched himself down onto the path and through the entrance. In his haste, he caught his side on the jutting rocks supporting the statues and crashed to the ground as the shaft of the arrow snapped. Breathing heavily through his mouth, Gwaine moved his eyes to his abdomen and swiftly looked away again, instead turning his head to the side. The reins of the horse nearby were trailing along the ground and Gwaine stretched out his hand to grasp them. As if chasing feathers in the wind, his fingers grazed the reins before they were snatched away by hands that did not belong to Lancelot or Merlin.

    Instinctively covering the disfigured brand on his hand, Gwaine surrendered to the bandits’ grip. He should have known that his past would eventually catch up with him: he just wished that it hadn’t come at the expense of the two people he loved most in the world. When he was dragged into the clearing he’d left behind, Merlin was lying on the ground, eyes closed, and Gwaine lunged forwards, forgetting all thoughts of surrender as he struggled against the bandits. One of them tugged on the arrow shaft and Gwaine collapsed to his knees, being held down beside Lancelot, who broke his resolute stare at Merlin to glance at Gwaine.

    ‘Are you alright?’ he lowly asked, fighting against the hands tying his own together to shuffle closer to Gwaine.

    Gwaine, looking up to spit at the bandit who kicked Lancelot in the back for moving, hesitated as he recognised the bandit. Pelleas had only been a few years younger than he had, as well as one of the biggest regrets of Gwaine’s past, and Gwaine dropped his head with his voice. ‘’M’fine. What did they do to Merlin?’

    ‘He had it under control until another group of them arrived and one of them knocked him in the chest.’ Lancelot’s expression was carved from stone. ‘He passed out.’

    Gwaine’s jaw clenched, flicking his wrists as they were bound together. ‘Are you alright?’

    When Lancelot turned his head, Gwaine caught sight of a crossbow bolt buried in his shoulder. ‘I’m fine.’

    ‘You’ve been shot.’

    Lancelot’s mouth flickered. ‘We don’t have time for that now.’

    Fighting the urge to cry as he laughed gently, Gwaine nudged Lancelot’s leg. ‘What happened?’

    ‘I was going towards Merlin and not paying much attention. I thought you might stand a chance of getting away, though.’

    ‘You think I’d leave you both to suffer for my mistake?’

    ‘It’s not your mis—’

    Lancelot broke off as the point of a sword was pushed to his throat. A bandit that Gwaine didn’t recognise opened his mouth slowly, waiting for Merlin to be dragged into an upright position by a smaller group of bandits. ‘So. You’re both knights of Camelot. I think Anselm might be able to fetch a pretty price for the pair of you, particularly since Prince Arthur holds his knights closer to his heart than he should do.’

    In the absence of Gwaine’s usual sharp remark, Lancelot defiantly raised his head. His eyes darted towards the second knight and, noting the bowed head and averted eyes, Lancelot pressed his leg against Gwaine’s. Since Gwaine had told both him and Merlin about his past he had been quieter and more withdrawn, as if scared that they would abandon him if he noisily reminded them of his existence. Still, both Lancelot and Merlin had woven promises into his hair alongside flowers, having slipped away with a bundle of food at mealtimes, and had been sure to reaffirm their love for him at every given opportunity. And Lancelot recognised the expression being shaped by the breeze on Gwaine’s face and pressed his leg harder against Gwaine’s to tether him to that moment. He retracted the contact as the point of the sword dug deeper into his skin.

    ‘As for your servant, he won’t fetch a handsome price and will only slow us down.’

    As one of the bandits holding Merlin drew a sword, Gwaine snapped into action and threw his head back and knocked the bandit on his right, breaking free from the loose grip of the second as he staggered towards Merlin. Gwaine managed to advance by two steps before he was tackled to the ground, the arrow’s shaft sinking deeper into his skin.

    Gasping for breath, he opened his eyes and spat in the direction of the leader as he was hauled to his feet. ‘You won’t touch him.’

    ‘Why, what’s so special about him?’ asked the leader, moving his sword away from Lancelot.

    Everything. ‘He’s the prince’s manservant.’

    ‘Prince Arthur values him above all else,’ Lancelot said, though neglecting to add that the only people who valued him more than Arthur were him and Gwaine. Expressing their love for him would not help them in the current situation.

    ‘He’s the one with magic, Reli,’ Pelleas stated, tightening his grip on Lancelot to prevent him from following Gwaine’s suit.

    The leader – Reli – lowered his sword and walked towards Merlin. ‘Is he, now? And does the prince know about this?’

    Lancelot and Gwaine remained silent.

    Reli grinned. ‘I think that if Prince Arthur knew that his manservant had magic, he would no longer value him above all else.’ He sheathed his sword. ‘Bind him as well. We’ll bring all three of them to Anselm.’

    As if he were underwater, the movements Gwaine was forced into were clumsy and slow and the only thing he was aware of was the faint sensation of water running across his skin and Lancelot’s eyes on him as they were dragged onto separate horses. Merlin’s hands were bound and he was draped over the back of another horse and Gwaine had to look somewhere, anywhere, other than at Merlin’s blank expression or the underlying panic in the twitch of Lancelot’s mouth. Wedged between two bandits on a horse, Gwaine doubled over as the one in front shifted and pressed against the arrow, feeling the bile rise in his throat.

    He opened his eyes and could distantly distinguish the shape of leaves on the ground through blurred vision. As the horse broke into a trot, Gwaine focused on the movement of its muscles beneath his legs, on the scuffing of its hooves along the loose ground, on the metallic scent of his own blood—

    Taking a sledgehammer to that train of thought, Gwaine gritted his teeth and raised his head. Lancelot was in a similar situation on another horse, his face contorted as Pelleas, the one guiding the animal, leaned back and jarred the bolt in his shoulder. Behind Reli, Merlin was still unconscious. The panic in Lancelot’s face had ebbed away like the tide and his cheeks were instead striped with a cold determination that Gwaine knew was the only thing distracting him from the presumable pain in his shoulder. Gwaine had tended to enough shoulder wounds in his time to know that Lancelot’s movement would be severely restricted for at least a month – and that he’d have to sleep on Gwaine’s side of the bed as a result, which Gwaine was more than willing to sacrifice, but he also knew how particular Lancelot was about his sleeping position.

    Shifting his body in an attempt to diminish the discomfort in his side, Gwaine kept his gaze trained on Lancelot, not daring to look towards Merlin. Watching Merlin in a vulnerable state was like watching Artemis undress: forbidden and resulting in grievous consequences for intruding on such a private thing. He’d seen Merlin vulnerable only a handful of times in the past year or so and, each time he had, Merlin had channelled his vulnerability into anger and the destruction had not always been minimal. Gwaine and Lancelot had both tried to draw out Merlin’s belief of being a burden or being weak from the depths of his soul like picking grass out of his hair, time and time again, but there was always an apology beading his lips like a leaf heavy with dew when he was unable to shoulder the weight of destiny alone. Gwaine blinked and Lancelot slowly swam back into focus. He was now looking towards Gwaine and Gwaine tried not to look at the thin line of blood marking out a path on the map of his face that followed the same trail Gwaine’s fingers had taken each night before sleep had claimed them. Flashing a smile that hopefully didn’t come across as threatening with his gritted teeth, Gwaine lost himself momentarily in the way that the sunlight, streaming through the trees, dappled Lancelot’s face like a cracked mosaic, before his attention was caught by the curvature of his name in the air and he instinctively turned towards the source.

    ‘—remember what happened with that Gwaine, right? I don’t think Anselm wants a repeat of that situation,’ one of the bandits, leading unoccupied horses alongside them, was saying to another.

    ‘Yet, but Anselm isn’t going to make the same mistake twice.’

    ‘I don’t think one guy going off on a murder spree is Anselm’s mistake. And you know how dangerous magic can be, you think that Anselm is going to accept this guy into the fold just like that?’

    Closing his eyes, Gwaine turned his head away and swallowed in the attempt to quell the movement in his stomach that had nothing to do with the arrow. He was significantly healthier than he had been at eighteen and his hair had grown as a veil drawn over his past, but he also knew that it wouldn’t take much to picture him with cropped hair, or to recognise the scars on his body. A puff of breath escaped him. Not to mention that his necklace would give him away to Anselm instantly. And there would be no mercy for him after slaughtering half the group.

    Finally, Gwaine gave into the pain that had been gnawing away at him since first encountering the bandits as his torso crashed into the bandit in front of him. His last coherent thought before severing himself from his surroundings was that the soft cadence of Lancelot’s voice calling his name was the sweetest death sentence he had ever heard. 

---

Gwaine woke to a bucket of cold water being thrown over him. He instinctively reached for the weapon he always slept beside to fend off the attack, eyes still in the process of opening, only to discover that his hands were still bound when his movement was significantly restricted. Slowly he raised his head, jaw setting as his gaze fell on a figure he had seen only in his nightmares for the past four years.

    ‘Hello, Anselm.’

    ‘Hello, runt.’ Stepping forward from the shadows, Anselm grinned as Gwaine reflexively flinched. He drew his sword, still as rusty as it had always been. ‘You know, I never thought to look for you in the knights of Camelot. I knew you were a traitor, but I didn’t think you’d stoop that low.’

    ‘Expect the unexpected with me,’ Gwaine stiffly said, trying to distinguish shapes in his peripheral vision. He caught a snatch of bright blue and returned to Anselm. ‘You can do what you want with me, but let the other two go. They’re not involved in this.’

    Anselm dropped down to one knee and gripped the arrow in Gwaine’s side. As he tugged on it, Gwaine’s lips whitened with the effort to not scream and he closed his eyes, lowering his head as Anselm spoke. ‘Come on, Gwainey, you’re not stupid. There’s no way I’m going to release a sorcerer and a knight of Camelot because a traitor asked me to. This isn’t piracy; you don’t get one final request before you walk the plank.’

    A shy flame was ignited deep within him, kindled by the presence of Lancelot and Merlin, and Gwaine opened his eyes. ‘Maybe Ettard should have sold me to pirates instead.’

    Anselm wrenched the arrow from Gwaine’s flesh, tearing with it the guttural cry that Gwaine had been trying to keep at bay, and let it hang ominously from the chainmail it was caught in. As Gwaine doubled over, Anselm stood and looked directly at Merlin and Lancelot, who had both called out in response to Gwaine’s pain, voice cold. ‘You can heal him if you like, but put one toe out of line and he will be disposed of slowly.’ A smirk flickered on his face. ‘And it will not be pretty to watch. Take them to the cells.’

    Gwaine was roughly dragged to his feet and, had he not been so preoccupied by trying to remain conscious, he might have remembered the route better. The minutes seemed to drag and, when he was finally thrown to the floor again, he curled in on himself, taking deep breaths to distract himself from the consuming sensation of bleeding out. There was an incantation murmured, which was then repeated twice, and Gwaine’s hands separated from each other. He instinctively moved them beneath his chainmail, the skin getting caught by the head of the arrow, and pressed them to the wound.

    A hand pushed the wet hair away from his face, the fingers lingering on his temples, and a soft voice pierced through his silent screams. ‘Gwaine, love, can you hear me?’

    Jerking his head as an affirmative response, Gwaine parted his lips. ‘Lance...your shoulder…’

    Lancelot’s fingers traced the cartilage in Gwaine’s ear. ‘I’m not bleeding out. My shoulder can wait.’

    Even in the state he was in, Gwaine could hear the agonised bite that caught the sharp syllables of Lancelot’s sentence. ‘Is Merlin…?’

    ‘I’m here,’ Merlin quietly responded, his hands fumbling across Gwaine’s abdomen. ‘We’re going to have to stem the bleeding, so we’re going to need to remove your chainmail, okay?’

    ‘Just leave me, get out while you’ve got the chance.’

    ‘Not happening,’ Merlin firmly said.

    ‘Absolutely not,’ agreed Lancelot, pulling his hand away. ‘I managed to collect some moss before they attacked.’ There was a pause and then a  muffled thud. ‘It’s been in my boot, though…’

    ‘It’s better than nothing.’ Merlin inhaled sharply, then swore quietly, one hand withdrawing from Gwaine’s abdomen. Gwaine opened his eyes slowly to see him with a contorted expression and one hand on his chest. Noticing Gwaine looking up at him, Merlin forced a smile. ‘I’ll be okay, don’t worry. I haven’t been shot. Lance, keep hold of the moss for the moment. Gwaine, you’re going to need to take your hands away so I can get to the wound.’

    Nodding slightly, Gwaine removed his hands and allowed Lancelot to slowly push him upright with one hand, anchoring himself to the fingers that burrowed beneath his layers and settled over his spine. Merlin cast aside the cloak and carefully lifted the chainmail over Gwaine’s head, pushing the arrow as far away from Gwaine’s skin as possible, and tossed it to the other side of the cell, nimbly unlacing the front of his gambeson. As it was eased from his frame and the shirt beneath lifted, Gwaine made the mistake of looking down and dug his teeth into his lip so he didn’t force Lancelot to support his unconscious body with a single hand alone.

    ‘This,’ Gwaine began through gritted teeth as Merlin motioned for the moss, ‘is the last time that Arthur sends us on a diplomatic visit. He can go himself next time. And we’re kidnapping Merlin so he doesn’t have to go, either,’ he added in Lancelot’s direction.

    Gwaine gasped as Merlin pushed a mass of moss into his wound, throwing his head back. In an instant, Lancelot had slid Gwaine’s body across onto his knees and placed a trembling hand on his forehead, thumb sweeping over the skin like a paintbrush on a canvas. ‘It’s okay,’ Lancelot whispered, ‘it’s okay. Just focus on me.’

    Breathing heavily, Gwaine raised his eyes to study Lancelot’s face. Aside from the gash he’d attained fighting the first group of bandits, his head was unharmed and Gwaine’s gaze trailed down to the right arm held limply by his side. The words that were on the tip of his tongue jolted back into his throat as Merlin dug into his wound and he closed his eyes tightly. Then came the gentle touch of Lancelot’s lips on his own and Gwaine responded reflexively, tugging at his mouth to distract himself from what Merlin was doing.

    Lancelot tasted as he always did, with the skin on his lips seemingly lined with mint, and Gwaine clung to the familiarity pressing against him. He lifted a bloodstained hand to grip Lancelot’s face, ignoring the spasm in his abdomen at the movement. There had only been one time when Lancelot had kissed him this desperately, and that had been after Gwaine had accidentally fallen into a pit with Sir Gareth on patrol and had been missing for two days. Merlin had been pretty liberal with his mouth then, too. Gripping Lancelot like he was a rock amidst crashing waves, Gwaine inhaled every part of him until he felt the pressure on his abdomen falter.

    ‘Yeah, we’re not quite done here,’ Merlin said as Gwaine looked hopefully towards him. He reached out for the cloak and tore off a substantial strip, indicating that Lancelot should elevate Gwaine. As Lancelot did so, Merlin gently slid his hands beneath Gwaine and wrapped the cloak around the wound, tying the ends in a fierce knot. Then he leaned down to delicately kiss Gwaine. ‘Now we’re done,’ announced Merlin, eyes flickering towards Lancelot. ‘Right, your turn.’

    ‘You need seeing to: if one rib punctures a lung—’

    ‘You’ve been shot in the shoulder, don’t you dare say that I’m in a worse condition than you.’

    Lancelot held Merlin’s gaze for several moments. ‘I don’t have any more moss.’

    ‘Luckily for you, I didn’t use all of it on Gwaine,’ Merlin replied, opening his hand to reveal a small mountain of it wobbling on his palm. ‘We’re going to have to be fast. So I’m going to pull out the arrow, get everything off as quickly as possible, then pack and bind the wound.’

    Grimacing, Gwaine pushed himself back against the wall and Merlin and Lancelot followed him, the latter taking Gwaine’s hand as it was offered to him. Crossing his legs as he settled himself in front of Lancelot, Merlin masked a wince as he raised his arms to discard the cloak and gripped the arrow in Lancelot’s shoulder. Counting silently with his gaze, he wrenched the bolt free from the flesh and Gwaine dropped Lancelot’s hand to allow the chainmail to be stripped away. As Merlin undressed Lancelot with an impressive speed, Gwaine fumbled for Lancelot’s fingers again and glanced around, trying to place the room. The only light was falling delicately through an elevated barred window and the cell door was significantly more substantial than the ones back in Camelot, crafted from a definite panel of metal.

    The old sensation of claustrophobia crawled up Gwaine’s skin and he gripped Lancelot’s hand tighter as Merlin began to pack the wound with moss. Lancelot and Merlin didn’t need to see him crumble on top of everything else that they had to deal with. So, instead of succumbing to the memories of the thick darkness of the night, Gwaine lost himself in the flickering features of Lancelot’s and Merlin’s faces as Merlin tore another two strips from Gwaine’s cloak, wrapping one around the wound and forming a sling with the other. Gwaine forced himself to align his breaths with the calming pulse skittering through Lancelot’s veins beneath his fingers. He was no longer a child; Anselm didn’t have complete control over him. Exhaling quietly, Gwaine closed his eyes. He’d either escape with Merlin and Lancelot, or die in the place that had nearly killed him once before. As long as Lancelot and Merlin were able to escape, then nothing else mattered. Their names were the only oath he would ever keep, their hearts the only weapons he could truly master, their words the only breath capable of resurrecting him.

    Merlin, having finished treating Lancelot to the best of his ability, given the circumstances, slowly pushed himself up from the ground and began to tentatively pace the cell. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and thick, as if muffled by honey to fight the infection that Gwaine’s past had caused. ‘I think...I think we’re in the Castle of Fyrien.’

    Gwaine, having opened his eyes at Merlin’s movement, looked up. ‘How do you know that? I’d remember if you’d been working for Anselm as well.’

    ‘I was locked up here a year or so ago,’ Merlin flippantly responded. ‘Wait, if this is Anselm’s base, why would he let Cenred move in for several days?’

    Tracing the veins in Lancelot’s hand, Gwaine gave a small shrug. ‘I’d abandoned Anselm by then. But give a bandit leader enough money and they’ll do anything for you.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Or give them a sorcerer and they’ll become unstoppable.’

    ‘You haven’t given me to them, Gwaine. I’m not going to join them.’

    ‘I know. Because you and Lance are going to get out of here.’

    ‘Not without you,’ Lancelot quietly said.

    Gwaine’s eyes snapped open. ‘Yes, without me.’ He pulled his hand away from Lancelot to push it through his hair, ignoring the spasm that came from his side at the action. ‘You really think that Anselm is going to let me live? After I murdered half of his minions?’ The smile that flashed across his face was a stranger to both Lancelot and Merlin. ‘No, no. He might keep me alive for a few weeks – long enough to make you think that he’ll keep his word – and then dispose of me. He assumes that watching me die would destroy you and will then piece you back together himself to fit his mould.’

    ‘It would destroy me to have to watch you die. Either of you,’ whispered Merlin. ‘How could you—You really think that we care that little for you? If anything happened to you and I just stood by—’

    As Merlin broke off, trying to swallow back tears, Lancelot softly called him over and turned his body to directly face Gwaine. His hand trembled as it touched Gwaine’s face like a kiss before taking Merlin’s, who had sat down in front of Gwaine and was taking slow breaths. Gwaine’s eyes slid from Lancelot and Merlin to the walls that bore familiar whispers in the foundations, words that had threaded his veins for years. If he turned his gaze to the door, the ghostly outline of Anselm’s face was lingering behind the viewing panel and Gwaine could feel himself reaching out for the statements that had shaped his adolescence. His sister had abandoned him. Nobody else cared for him. Anselm was the only family he had. He couldn’t disappoint Anselm. If he disappointed Anselm, then he’d be chained to a rock and forced to wait for the tide to come in.

    Gwaine was distantly aware of Lancelot and Merlin talking but the shape of their sentences was drowned out by the crashing waves on the shoreline through the barred window. He’d tried to escape once, when he had been about fifteen, but had been caught. It hadn’t been with chains that he’d been secured to a rock the following evening, but with rope. At first, when the sun had still been up and the waves had still been a way off, Gwaine had been relatively calm. Then dusk had started to settle and, as beautifully as the sunset had been reflected on the water, Gwaine had started to panic. The rock that the rope had been pinned beneath had been too heavy for a slight boy of fifteen to upturn, so Gwaine had instead elected to pull at the rope around his wrists in the attempt to wriggle free. He’d done that throughout the entire ordeal and still bore the scars from the wounds left by the deep friction burns. Moonlight had settled and commanded the waves towards him and all had been silent except for the discordant passing bells formed by the water against the rocks, the distant cries of birds like anticipated mourners, and Gwaine’s own ragged breaths. All sense of time had been lost, the hours measured by the amount of saltwater burrowing its way into the wounds beneath the rope, and the waves had tightly gripped Gwaine’s waist before he had been able to make out torches bobbing through the tunnels behind him and the rock securing him had been pushed aside by six bandits. Even if two hadn’t been holding him tightly to prevent another attempted escape, Gwaine would have been unable to seize the opportunity; his legs had promptly given way and he’d passed out.

    When he’d woken with the dawn in a cold cell, his clothes had still been slightly damp but the rope had been removed, revealing his bloodied and blistered wrists. For the next month Gwaine had been completely silent, never speaking unless threatened with a bucket of water, and it had been a further two months until he had finally bathed. And even then it was only because Anselm had forced him into a metal tub because apparently washing himself with a wet cloth had not been doing a thorough enough job. Each night, when the chatter had dwindled and the snores had been nothing more than breaths, the passing bells of the waves on the shoreline had called out to Gwaine like ghosts and he had buried his head in his arms to try and block out the sound.

    In the six months or so that they’d been together, Merlin and Lancelot had suggested going to the coast more than once and had finally settled on a date two months before. Gwaine had convinced Elyan to bow out of running a training session and had taken his place, insisting that Merlin and Lancelot go to the coast anyway. He’d tried to push away the taste of salt when he’d kissed them both upon their return.

    The waves were still whispering to him and Gwaine could feel their freezing touch following the muscles in his arms, threatening to crawl up his hands and slide down his hair as his body was consumed by the water—

    Gwaine threw off the touch and scrambled to his feet, breathing heavily and pulling his shirt over his head as a dampness began to spread across his abdomen, backing as far away from the sound of the sea as possible. His hands fumbled against a wall and he closed his eyes, trembling lips shaping a song that his sister had used to sing to him before the world fell apart. He tried to focus on the soaring melody, rather than the dissonant accompaniment of the waves, and struggled to take even and regular breaths.

    Another touch came, but the fingers were gentle and unsure and warmer than a breezeless day in June, despite a cool circlet brushing against Gwaine’s skin, the voice that arrived with it cascading through Gwaine’s thoughts like the steady trickle of a tentative brook. ‘Gwaine, love, please look at me.’

    Lancelot’s face swam into view when Gwaine opened his eyes and, after following the creases on Lancelot’s forehead, Gwaine fell against him, sobs rising in the back of his throat. If Lancelot did wince at the sudden impact, it was inaudible, and, unable to support Gwaine’s body weight with just the one hand, Lancelot sank down to the floor, running circles over Gwaine’s ribs with his hand. Gwaine tightly closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, concentrating on the sharp scent of mint ensnared by Lancelot’s pores, rather than the overwhelming taste of salt encapsulated in his own tears. There was a moment’s pause before Gwaine was enveloped by a sheet of cinnamon that could, he supposed, equally become his shroud. If it would save them, Gwaine would gladly unpick the stitches he’d made when sewing their souls together and sever himself from them. If it would save them, he’d return to the life he abandoned. If it would save them, he’d forfeit his life so that the air in Camelot would still carry mint and cinnamon like Gwaine’s breath had done so many times. Gwaine would die for both of them without a moment’s hesitation, would return every scrap of his soul that he’d refined over the years away from Anselm, would go through anything if it meant they would live.

    As his breathing gradually evened out, Gwaine became aware of the hands running across his back. One was even, if rough, and the other bore a raised element to one of the fingers that Gwaine recognised as being Lancelot’s ring from Merlin. He just hoped that, when Merlin and Lancelot got back to Camelot, Lancelot wouldn’t neglect to give Merlin the ring he and Gwaine had crafted together under Elyan’s supervision.

    ‘What happened?’ Merlin whispered. He wasn’t as close as Lancelot was, understandably still wary to constrict his ribs, but Gwaine could feel his strength transmitting from his body and into Gwaine’s. ‘What was it?’

    Gwaine shook his head. ‘It was just a flashback. It’s okay. I’m okay.’

    ‘You don’t look okay,’ Merlin quietly said, hand moving to smooth down the hair that Gwaine had clutched at.

    Lancelot was still rubbing his back and Gwaine buried his face a little further into Lancelot’s uninjured shoulder. ‘It’s just—I haven’t been near the sea in a long while and being back here – especially here – has just stirred things I thought I could ignore.’ He hesitated. After everything he’d put them through, Gwaine owed them an explanation. ‘When I was fifteen, I tried to escape. I got caught and, as punishment, Anselm tied me to a rock at low tide and left me there until the early hours of the morning, just before the waves got too high. There was nobody else there and I could just watch as the water edged closer and closer—’ Gwaine broke off as his heartbeat began to climb with a flurried pace and he shook his head violently, feeling Merlin’s hand be manipulated by the movement. ‘No, I can’t—I can’t go back there. I—I can’t.’

    ‘It’s alright, it’s alright,’ Merlin assured him, breath tickling Gwaine’s neck as he moved closer to him. ‘You don’t have to go back there; you can stay here with us. We’ve got you.’ He planted his lips to Gwaine’s temple, glancing at Lancelot out of the corner of his eye. ‘We’ve always got you.’

    The hand on Gwaine’s back had frozen and Gwaine raised his head, withdrawing the hand that had been circling Lancelot’s waist to seek out Merlin’s fingers. ‘Lancelot?’ As he spoke, the breath hitched in his throat. Lancelot’s features were colder than the sea had been on that night and Gwaine remained rooted to the spot, pushing back the tears that threatened to fall. He knew he was weak for being afraid of water, for letting such a fear completely consume him, but to have such thoughts reaffirmed in Lancelot— ‘Lance?’

    ‘I will kill him,’ Lancelot finally said, struggling to keep his voice even. His gaze darted over to Gwaine, the taut muscles loosening like broken strings as his eyes swept across the rich tapestry of Gwaine’s face, and he lifted his hand to brush away the threads of pain hanging loose in Gwaine’s expression. ‘I will kill him,’ Lancelot lowly promised, ‘for what he did to you. Nobody should be that afraid. Nobody. Especially not a child.’

    ‘I’m not a child now, though,’ Gwaine murmured. ‘I shouldn’t still be afraid.’ He retracted his hands from them both, running them through his hair as he closed his eyes. ‘It makes me weak.’

    There was a reflexive noise of disagreement from Merlin. ‘It does not make you weak.’

    Lancelot teased his hands away from his head. ‘Merlin’s right. That must have been a horrific ordeal and it’s perfectly understandable that you still carry it with you. Did you think I was weak for breaking down over the anniversary of the attack on my village the other week?’

    ‘Of course not,’ Gwaine replied, opening his eyes. Silent tears were rolling down Merlin’s face and Gwaine reached out to him. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset.’

    ‘No, it’s not your fault,’ Merlin hastily said, wiping the tears away and taking Gwaine’s hand, tracing the folds in his skin. ‘None of this is your fault.’

    ‘It is my fault, if I hadn’t been so stupid as to take us through the Valley of the Fallen Kings—’

    ‘You know that just because we left the self-deprecation chart in one of the saddlebags doesn’t mean that I haven’t been mentally recording the marks to add on?’ Lancelot interrupted, the corner of his mouth twitching as he tucked Gwaine’s hair behind his ear again.

    Gwaine leaned into his touch. ‘I don’t think we’ll be able to get it back.’

    ‘Lucky that it was only a travel edition, then,’ whispered Lancelot. ‘The full one is still in Camelot.’ Lancelot’s hand trailed down the side of Gwaine’s face. ‘We’ll get out of here, my love, I promise.’

    Gwaine didn’t have the energy to argue with him, instead leaning against the side of Lancelot’s body that was uninjured. The steadiness of his heartbeat, calling out to Gwaine’s through the thin shield of Lancelot’s shirt, steadied Gwaine’s breaths as Merlin’s touch migrated up his arm and wound around him like a gentle rope. Through the window, the waves had subsided and the whispers of death fizzling in the foam on the water’s surface were eclipsed by the breath stirring Gwaine’s hair as a gentle breeze. As long as Merlin and Lancelot were close by, everything would be fine. As long as he could see them both, then he knew that they were still alive. As long as they could ignite the pores of his skin with their touch, then he wouldn’t slip back into the past.

    In the process of moving his fingers up Gwaine’s arm, Merlin had drawn closer to both him and Lancelot and Gwaine leaned forward to catch his lips between his own, Lancelot’s hand planted firmly between his shoulder blades to support him. He was careful not to apply too much pressure to Merlin’s chest and to pull away quickly before Merlin struggled too much for breath. Merlin, however, was not yet satisfied and put a hand over Gwaine’s wound to anchor himself, leaning in once again. A gentle weight on the top of his head alerted Gwaine to Lancelot’s intimate presence and, when Merlin had drawn back, Gwaine tilted his head to meet Lancelot’s mouth halfway.

    He kissed them desperately but it was like trying to catch sand with his fingers and, each time he felt them slipping from him, he followed the trail they left in the atmosphere, seeking out their warmth. They returned to him like stars at sunset, chasing the trails of bloodied clouds his mouth left across the skies of their faces, and Gwaine lost track of whose hands were supporting him and whose mouth was injecting him with life. The oath’s ritual was shattered by the crashing of the cell door as the noise reverberated through the room and all three of them turned around.

    Anselm was standing in the doorway, the smile on his face blending with the large scar at the corner of his mouth. ‘I have a proposition for you, Gwainey. One that might mean your little knight friend can go free.’

    Gwaine pushed himself from the ground, one hand hovering by his wound, and hoped that the swaying sensation in his head wasn’t traced out in his actions. ‘What’s the proposition?’

    ‘The usual dinner time entertainment. You fight one of my men. If you win – and by that I mean kill him, but you shouldn’t have a problem with that, given your history – then the knight is released.’

    Gwaine kept his eyes trained on Anselm, ignoring the tugs at the cuffs of his trousers. ‘And if I lose?’

    ‘We keep him.’

    ‘But he’ll be let go alive? This isn’t some loophole where he’s only released through death?’

    Anselm laughed. ‘It’s nice to see that some lessons have still stuck with you. No, no loopholes. If you kill your opponent, the knight can go free alive.’

    Turning his head, Gwaine saw Lancelot furiously shaking his head and looked back to Anselm, lifting his chin. ‘And Mer—’

    ‘The sorcerer will not be going free,’ Anselm stated. ‘Come on, Gwainey, you think I’m going to let something as valuable as that slip through my fingers?’ He smirked. ‘If he does as he’s told, he might yet live. What’s your name, boy?’ he added, looking towards Merlin.

    ‘Will,’ replied Merlin without hesitation.

    Anselm’s eyes narrowed. ‘Gwainey called you “mer”. That doesn’t sound much like “Will”.’

    ‘He likes to call me “marigold”, sometimes,’ Merlin stiffly said. ‘Says that Will is too common.’

    Choosing not to pass any further comment, Anselm shifted his gaze to Gwaine. ‘So. Do you accept the proposition?’

    Gwaine gave a curt nod and didn’t fight against the bandits who were beckoned into the cell to escort him – unlike Lancelot. As several bandits approached and gripped both his injured and uninjured arms, Lancelot thrashed against them, jaw set. In the kerfuffle created, Gwaine caught sight of Merlin raising his hand towards Anselm and muttering a spell. The sword at the bandit leader’s side was unsheathed by an invisible grip and began to float behind Anselm’s back. Gwaine wasn’t the only one who had noticed; Lancelot’s resistance quelled momentarily before increasing tenfold, only stopping with a cry when a blow was planted on his wounded shoulder. Gwaine instinctively stepped forward and there was a metallic clatter as the levitating sword dropped to the floor, Merlin’s focus having been compromised by Lancelot’s pain.

    Slowly, Anselm turned around and picked up his sword, striding over to Merlin. He settled the point of the sword beneath Merlin’s neckerchief. ‘Was that you?’

    Merlin’s reply was barely a breath. ‘No.’

    Anselm dug the sword in further. ‘Don’t lie to me. Was it you?’

    Holding his gaze for several moments, Merlin’s lips shaped the truth. ‘Yes.’

    Lowering the sword, Anselm heavily exhaled, running a hand through his hair as the weapon was returned to its scabbard. ‘Okay, okay, well done on the not lying front.’ His next movement was so swift that Gwaine wasn’t aware of the impending danger until it had already passed. ‘Pull a trick like that again, though,’ Anselm snarled, sparing a glance at Gwaine, whose knees had buckled under the concentrated impact of the pocketknife, ‘and you will become very familiar with Gwainey’s screams.’

    There were tears in Gwaine’s eyes as he was dragged from the cell, Lancelot close behind, with Merlin desperately shouting their names like a dwindling war cry. He knew he shouldn’t look down, knew that he shouldn’t connect the pain with a tangible object, but his gaze stumbled towards his abdomen and Gwaine didn’t have the will strong enough to check the movement. As his eyes fell on a carved wooden handle embedded in the makeshift bandage of his cloak, Gwaine felt his legs give way and he sank to the floor, the world around him becoming blurred and slow. A muffled shouting crashed over his head in waves and he raised a heavy arm to quell it, instead feeling strong fingers grip around him. Gradually, as Gwaine blinked, the surroundings adjusted into clearer focus and he saw Lancelot kneeling beside him. The hand that had been clutching his had moved to his hairline and Lancelot stroked back the roots of Gwaine’s hair, his thumb grazing Gwaine’s forehead. Quite what he had done to be released, Gwaine wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t complaining about the intimacy it afforded.

    Lancelot tore his eyes away to glower at Anselm. ‘You can’t expect him to fight like this.’

    ‘Some of my men have been in a worse condition than this and won a fight before now,’ Anselm replied. ‘And Gwainey here was one of the best.’

    ‘Not when he’s just been stabbed in a fresh wound,’ Lancelot fired back, the motion across Gwaine’s forehead ceasing. ‘Take us back to the cell; he’s not fighting.’

    Anselm dropped down to Lancelot’s level. ‘As far as I recall, Gwaine was the one to whom the proposition was addressed, not you. If he still wants to fight, then he fights. Gwainey?’

    Lancelot’s thumb was sweeping across Gwaine’s forehead again. ‘You don’t have to do this, my love, it’s alright,’ he whispered, desperation shaping the pauses for breath. ‘We can just go back to Mer—Marigold. He can sort you out.’

    Inhaling each time Lancelot’s thumb moved upwards and exhaling each time it returned to its starting point, Gwaine was silent for several moments before replying. ‘I want to fight.’

    ‘Gwaine, please, you’re in no fit state—’ Lancelot was broken off as Anselm signalled for the bandits to take hold of him again, dragging him from Gwaine.

    Gwaine was then hauled to his feet and, supported by the bandits, he stumbled behind Anselm, trying to keep his focus diverted from the knife sticking out of him. Lancelot’s breaths powered him along like the wind transporting sand across the dunes and Gwaine let the warmth sink into his skin like he was absorbing sunlight. He tried not to think of Merlin, alone in the cell, the hollow syllables of his and Lancelot’s names seeping into the stones as they were shaped by Merlin’s lips. Luckily Gwaine didn’t have to reflect on regrets when it came to Merlin and Lancelot and the past few days; they rounded a corner and passed through a familiar corridor before he was thrown to the floor in the throne room. Unluckily that meant Gwaine was expected to support his body by himself, which was proving to be somewhat of a challenge.

    The doors were closed and a plank of wood placed across them, punctuating the sounds of Lancelot struggling against the bandits holding him as Anselm leaned over to kick Gwaine into movement. Grimacing at the brutal contact of Anselm’s boot with his ribs, Gwaine sharply inhaled and lowered the hand hovering by his side to push himself off the floor. He rested a hand on a nearby pillar and turned his head towards Lancelot, who was still trying to make as much noise as possible – despite his mouth being covered by a bandit’s hand – in the attempt to draw the attention away from Gwaine and delay the fight.

    Eyes flickering towards Anselm, who had since seated himself in the modest throne, Gwaine tore at the tail of the knot Merlin had made in the makeshift bandage and wound the rag around his hair to keep it out of his face. His wounds were still throbbing violently but Gwaine instead looked towards Lancelot. One bandit had decided to apply pressure to Lancelot’s injured shoulder yet the knight was still thrashing against them, despite the tears being flung onto the ground. Slowly, Gwaine shook his head, gaze communicating all the words his tongue was too heavy to communicate. He didn’t want anyone to get injured further because of him. Not when he’d already caused enough damage.

    Satisfied by Lancelot ceasing to struggle, Gwaine took a deep breath and stepped further into the room, glancing first at Anselm then at the group of bandits lining the far wall. ‘So, who’s the lucky man who gets to face me?’

    Anselm’s head rotated towards the group, mouth remaining closed. There was a brief pause before a figure stepped out from the ranks and Gwaine’s stomach lurched. Of course Anselm wanted him to kill the only bandit he’d had a true connection with.

    Pelleas had shaped Gwaine in ways that nobody else before Merlin and Lancelot had been able to. He’d been taken by Anselm, following a raid on a village, just over a month after Gwaine’s attempted escape. The idea, Gwaine imagined, had been that Pelleas would act as both reserve and rival to Gwaine’s unique position of decoy, and the constant threat of replacement would drive Gwaine to mindless obedience and terror, as well as isolating him further. That hadn’t exactly worked. Anselm had made the grave error of taking Pelleas at the precise age Gwaine had been when Ettard had sold him and Gwaine had instantly done everything in his power to ensure that Pelleas did not end up tied to a rock as the tide came in.

    Gwaine had been the one to sneak beneath the rag Pelleas had been given to sleep under on that first night, giving him a gentle poke and introducing himself. Gwaine had been the one to use his body to muffle Pelleas’s sobs so he wouldn’t receive punishment for the weakness of giving into the pain of the freshly-branded letter on his hand. Gwaine had been the one to put himself in harm’s way time and time again just so Pelleas could eat. He hadn’t become mindlessly obedient, as Anselm had wanted; Gwaine had taken every tear that had scarred Pelleas’s face and forged armour out of it, the iridescence of it expressing the pain the boy had felt and reminding Gwaine of his cause like a royal standard in battle. It had been because of Pelleas that Gwaine had spoken again. And Gwaine had done more than speak.

    It was the way of the bandits to terrorise the younger ones as method of strengthening their resolve and stirring their anger at the world’s injustices and Gwaine, having experienced the fatal injustice of Caerleon refusing to give his mother aid, had easily succumbed to the anger bubbling just below the surface. His recognition of that sensation and the power it wielded over him had been what had driven him to try and escape the environment he had been left to fester in, but he’d be damned again before allowing Pelleas to be so corrupted. So Gwaine had slowly started to challenge the other bandits when they had moved towards Pelleas, to deliberately draw them into minor conflicts, to be as loud and as obnoxious as possible in the attempt to keep the attention away from Pelleas. Each scar he’d earned for his defiance he’d worn like a medal in recognition for keeping Pelleas safe for one day more.

    He’d refined his attitude over the years, making the sharp comments and winning smile his brand, had taken a cloth to it and rubbed away the elements that darkened his demeanour – tears being one such element, and vulnerability, and fear – to make the new version of himself shine like polished brass. In the years to come, Gwaine had realised such an act didn’t only protect Pelleas. Even after leaving Anselm, after being too cowardly to wait any longer for Pelleas at their meeting place when he had seen torches, Gwaine had retained a careless attitude, had convinced the world that he could take any hardship on the chin and with a laugh. There would always be people like Pelleas who were unable to protect themselves so easily and Gwaine had to make sure that he could take the blows for them instead.

    Now it seemed that the blows he would be taking would be dealt by Pelleas, rather than being intended for Pelleas. Swallowing as Pelleas withdrew the sword that had once belonged to Gwaine’s father, Gwaine backed away slightly, glancing towards Anselm. ‘Do I not get a weapon?’

    Anselm smirked. ‘You already have one,’ he said, flicking his fingers in the direction of Gwaine’s abdomen. ‘It’s up to you if you use it or not.’

    Gwaine followed the movement with his eyes, hand resting on the handle of the pocketknife.

    ‘Gwaine, no. Don’t take it out, please.’ The bandit that had been covering Lancelot’s mouth had either decided Lancelot had calmed enough or had been bitten and taken his hand away, because the knight’s voice carried clearly from the corner of the room. ‘You don’t know the damage—’

    Gwaine, never one to heed advice, took a deep breath and pulled out the knife, stumbling backwards as the cloak was steadily dyed a darker shade of red. There wasn’t as much blood as Gwaine had been expecting – clearly the moss had been somewhat useful – and he shakily wiped the blade of the knife on the material, ignoring Lancelot’s strangled cry. The chances of Gwaine making it out of Fyrien alive were slimmer than the chances of the sea drying up, so he could at least make sure that Lancelot and Merlin would somehow profit from his death.

    The handle of the knife slotted perfectly in his palm and he pushed back his shoulders, bending his knees slightly. This was a position he’d been forced into many times before, but Pelleas had always been hovering behind him, rather than sneering in his face with the point of his sword only mere inches from Gwaine’s heart.

    ‘May the best man win,’ Anselm softly said.

    The sword just grazed Gwaine’s arm as he darted to the side, ducking under Pelleas’s outstretched arm to examine a weak spot in the loose armour he was wearing. In his distracted state, Gwaine hadn’t noticed that Pelleas was wearing chainmail beneath the leather garments and swore quietly, aiming his knife at the relatively unprotected area of Pelleas’s left armpit. As Gwaine pulled it out, he turned his face away. It had been a long time since he had stabbed someone in such close quarters and he’d forgotten just how sickening the sensation was. Pelleas let out the quietest of cries, his right hand reflexively moving. The blade that had been angled towards Gwaine’s throat glided across the soft skin of his neck and, gasping, he lurched backwards, only to catch his back on the weapon as it curved around his body.

    Fire licking at the trails of blood, the knife slipped through his fingers and clattered to the floor. Judging by the warmth trickling across his skin, there was more blood than there should have been. Gwaine’s jaw set and he scrambled for the knife. Anselm had always possessed a number of enchanted swords, most of them like the ones Merlin had injured himself with when they’d first met, but for his father’s sword to be taken and altered in such a manner, and after he’d left it for Pelleas to defend himself with too…

    With gritted teeth, Gwaine secured his grip on the knife and drove it towards Pelleas’s jugular notch as he rose again. Pelleas swept the sword beneath Gwaine’s arm and Gwaine dropped the knife as the opposing weapon made contact with his skin, clutching the fresh wound. As Gwaine blinked, trying to clear his vision and find the knife, Pelleas took the opportunity to throw down his sword and lock his fingers around Gwaine’s throat, pushing him to the floor. When Gwaine raised his eyes, there was an unrecognisable maelstrom brewing in Pelleas’s gaze that threatened to drag them both down to the depths of the frothing ocean. Gwaine had heard tales of merfolk from Ettard growing up and Pelleas, with his long hair cascading down his face like a waterfall, the shimmering of his chainmail in the candlelight, and the vengeance shaping his eyes, looked the very picture of violent beauty.

    If Gwaine squinted, then perhaps he could still see the small boy shivering beside him in the night, latching onto the security that Gwaine’s scrawny body emitted, but the memory faded as his eyes opened wider again. There had been no vengeance in Pelleas’s look then, only fear. And the strength in his fingertips had always been warm, not like he was trying to drive shards of ice into Gwaine’s skin. As Pelleas removed his hand to reach back for the sword, Gwaine summoned the last of his strength and landed a messy blow to Pelleas’s throat. Extracting himself from between the bandit’s legs as Pelleas gasped for breath, Gwaine seized the pocketknife and launched himself at Pelleas, aiming the weapon towards his jugular notch once again.

    Meanwhile, Pelleas had found the sword with his fumbling fingers and, flailing, swung it around to deter Gwaine from stabbing him. The blade nicked Gwaine’s cheek before juddering across the top of his chest and coming to a rather secure halt on his upper right arm. As Pelleas held the point of the sword there, blood began to blossom and Gwaine pulled his arm away, falling down to the ground as Pelleas transferred the point to Gwaine’s chest and slowly applied pressure.

    ‘If you’re going to kill me,’ Gwaine hoarsely whispered, ‘then please don’t do it in front of Lancelot. I’d rather die alone than have him witness it.’

    His mind was screaming to get up, to move, to fight back, but his body was motionless. He wasn’t sure how much fight he had left in him. He should have known that his bliss could only ever be temporary; people like him didn’t get a chance at permanent happiness. Gwaine turned his head to distract himself from the weapon digging deeper and deeper into his skin and looked towards Lancelot. People like Lancelot and Merlin deserved a chance at permanent happiness, and perhaps they’d receive it with him no longer dragging them down.

    Lancelot was rooted to the spot, his arms limp in the bandits’ grip. His lips were parted as if he were trying to summon a spell that would allow him to rewind time itself. Beneath the flimsy shirt, his chest was frantically rising and falling, his eyes darting between Gwaine and Anselm, who was watching on with a smirk Gwaine recognised as the one worn right before Yvain, after stealing a substantial quantity of bread, had been mauled to death by a bear.

    As the point of the sword was driven deeper into his skin, Gwaine closed his eyes. He only wished he could have said goodbye to Merlin and Lancelot on his own terms, rather than have their lasting memories of him be stained with his own blood.

    ‘Wait.’ Gwaine opened his eyes. Anselm was now towering over him, one foot pressing down on the wound from the Valley of the Fallen Kings to keep him down. ‘You escaped the waves once, but I think it’s only fitting that it’s there that you meet your end, don’t you?’

    In the effort not to cry out, Gwaine dug his nails into his palms and twisted his head towards Lancelot, who was looking on in horror and seemed like he could collapse to the ground at any given moment. Gwaine glanced away again. He’d thought that Anselm would draw out the punishment for longer, but clearly he didn’t have as much use for a traitor as Gwaine had first thought. He wasn’t going to pretend that having his nightmares made a reality wasn’t something that made his chest tight and his head spin, but it wasn’t very creative. Not when it came from the same man who had subjected several bandits to a slow death after instructing them to remove all the thorns from a cutting of a blackthorn with their bare hands.

    Hauled to his feet by Pelleas and Anselm, Gwaine swayed slightly and raised his head so as not to witness the beads of blood dripping onto the stone floor. In the end, it had all been rather anticlimactic. But Gwaine was tired: tired of constantly having to prove to himself that he was better than the life he’d left behind, tired of having play the fool to protect himself, tired of knowing that Merlin and Lancelot would one day cut him loose. He knew death was the coward’s way out, but if Gwaine had an accolade in anything then it was running away.

    As Gwaine staggered past Lancelot, he took one last look at the knight and tried to flash him a smile. ‘I’ll always love you, Lance, and tell Mer—Merigold that I’ll always love him too,’ he softly said. ‘But—Forget me,’ he added over his shoulder, committing Lancelot’s face to memory in the hopes that the veins leading to his heart would assemble themselves in that shape.

    With a yelp, Lancelot tore himself free from both the bandits and his sling and rushed to Gwaine, gripping his face tightly with both his hands. ‘Not happening,’ he fiercely said.

    ‘Your shoulder…’

    ‘I don’t care,’ rasped Lancelot. ‘I don’t care.’ When he kissed him, it was as if he was marking Gwaine with a branding iron of his own. ‘It’ll be okay,’ he promised as he was dragged away from Gwaine, his fingers sliding through Gwaine’s hair and pulling out the cloth. ‘It’ll be okay.’

    As Lancelot slipped away from Gwaine, Gwaine slipped away from his surroundings.

 

The spitting whisper of the waves recalled Gwaine back to his senses and, when he opened his eyes, Pelleas was shackling him to a large rock, frowning in the weak illumination provided by a lantern balanced behind Gwaine’s head. Water was already grazing Gwaine’s lower ribs and he seethed at the sharp bite of salt as it crept into the wound above his hip like an infection. He didn’t want to think about the agony that would be afforded by the blows Pelleas had inflicted upon him when the tide rose further.

    Taking ragged breaths, Gwaine glanced over his shoulder to assess the situation he was being bound to. There was no rope this time, but chains that were attached to an iron eye driven deep into the stone and also were attached to Gwaine. The water around him surged and he quietly gasped, fighting to keep his heartbeat tame. Perhaps if he pretended it was bathwater and the sudden movement had been nothing but Lancelot trying to kick him beneath the water without Merlin noticing. With that logic, though, Gwaine should have been able to feel Lancelot’s skin against him, hear his laugh, yet the only touch he was aware of was a rough one over his wrists and the clammy one clawing at his legs, the only sound being the clinking of the chains and the ominous harmony of the waves and the wind.

    ‘Pelleas, please.’ Gwaine’s voice was as weightless as the foam on the water’s surface. ‘Please don’t do this.’

    The hands covering Gwaine’s wrists froze. ‘I have no say in the matter,’ was the curt reply, the words borne by a fin that cut through the noise. ‘Besides, if I let you go, they’ll just kill me in your place. And you always swore you’d do whatever it took to protect me, so.’

    Gwaine’s skin was caught momentarily in the manacle as Pelleas closed it around Gwaine’s wrist and turned the key and Gwaine inhaled sharply through gritted teeth. ‘I waited for you, I swear, but when I saw the torches I thought it was Anselm and—’

    ‘You failed me,’ Pelleas broke in, checking the bonds before snatching the lantern and stepping away. ‘I would never betray you. The torches belonged to a group of villagers who had set out traps for animals. I was caught behind them on my way to you and, when I got there, you were gone.’

    ‘Pelleas, I—’

    ‘A couple of the others saw me leave and followed me. Of course, by the time I left, news of your escapade hadn’t reached them, so they thought I was just trying to escape like you’d once attempted. But by the time they’d dragged me back to Anselm, a scouting group had already been sent out.’ Casting the lantern back on the rock, Pelleas removed his right glove with a wince and pushed the chainmail up the corresponding arm. ‘Anselm put two and two together and then put my arm in flames to get me to talk.’

    In the dim light, Gwaine could just about discern the leathery quality to Pelleas’s skin. ‘I—I’m sorry, I should have been there—’

    ‘Yeah, you should have,’ Pelleas savagely said, picking up the lantern again. ‘No need to lose sleep over it, though; I’m sure that you’ve slept peacefully for the past four years, considering you never once came back for me. But, by all means, feel free to spend your final hours regretting your decisions.’ His mouth was set in a thin line. ‘Goodbye, Gwaine.’

    Gwaine struggled against the chains, hissing as the gash on his back grazed the stone. ‘No, Pelleas, please, you can’t leave me here, please, I’m sorry—’

    ‘You left me to face Anselm’s wrath alone,’ Pelleas quietly said and, had Gwaine not spent countless nights by his side as he had struggled to piece himself back together, the growing fissure in his voice would have been imperceptible. ‘Fate seems to have a strange way of driving us to face what we fear most.’ He took a breath. ‘Had it been up to me, I would have run you through in that throne room and made it as quick and as painless and possible.’

    Gwaine stilled, closing his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

    When Pelleas spoke, his voice was as soft as the sand that was concealed beneath the water. ‘I know.’ The faintest trace of humour flickered in his next words. ‘You’ve said it enough for me to believe you, especially when I know how much you hate apologising.’

    ‘And you can’t...stay near?’

    ‘Given our history, Anselm doesn’t want me guarding you. And if I stay too long here—I have to go, I’m sorry. And I can’t—I can’t watch you die. I’m not that hardened.’

    Through the wind, Gwaine could just distinguish the sloshing from Pelleas’s boots as he made his way back to the shore and called out one final time. ‘Pelleas?’

    The response was distant, nothing more than a gull’s scream out at sea. ‘Yeah?’

    ‘Get out if you can.’

    ‘I’ll try.’

    When Gwaine opened his eyes, the lantern had bobbed away like a stray spark from a bonfire. Perhaps it was best that he died before he had the opportunity to fail another person he’d sworn to protect. Of course, he’d already failed Merlin and Lancelot in leaving them to Anselm and, feebly, he tugged against the chains. It had been weak of him to surrender to the fight against Pelleas, to allow his wounds to be treated when Merlin and Lancelot could have escaped, to have not killed every last bandit when he’d had the opportunity years ago.

    The water was encircling him like Ettard’s arms had done before lifting him from the ground as a child but its touch drew out the blood from his wounds, sending a metallic coolness straight towards his core. Gasping, Gwaine closed his eyes and threw his head back against the rock to draw his mind away from the ice stiffening his muscles. He was going to be drowned by the waves he’d escaped as a child. Lancelot would either make it back to Camelot with a ransom, be rescued, or die. And Merlin… Merlin would either be forced to work for Anselm, escape, or also be rescued and have his magic revealed to all. Whichever way Gwaine looked at things, the odds of survival and happiness were not in their favour.

    His thumb brushed against the ring Merlin had given him, tracing the shape of it, and Gwaine fought to remember the warmth of Merlin’s hands as it had been presented to him. He had been sculpted by those hands – Lancelot’s, too – into a more defined shape over the past few months. The desire to protect, to distract the attention from his loved ones, had still fashioned the base of his form, but Merlin and Lancelot had drawn out the features that had been hidden in the shadows of Anselm’s flames. It was a poor method of repayment, to hand them over to the individual who was capable of reducing them to crumbled rubble. If Gwaine could, then he’d gather the pieces of them that matched the shrapnel they’d left embedded in his heart and assemble them carefully, painting over their cracks in gold leaf. But that would be impossible and, besides, Gwaine was the one who had caused everything to collapse with his weakness. So much for being a bold and honourable knight of Camelot.

    Gwaine allowed his muscles to slacken slightly, his body becoming limper, and his head rolled to the side on the rock. Despite his mind screaming at him to find a way out, Gwaine couldn’t bring himself to pull against his bonds. Hearing reverberating footsteps along the dry stone, Gwaine blearily opened his eyes again and looked around as best he could. Shaped by shadows was a bulky frame – a frame that definitely did not belong to Pelleas – and Gwaine’s mouth moved before stilling. The waves were burrowing their way behind Gwaine’s body and he choked out a sob as they inched towards the slim cuts on his forearms and began to prise apart the skin. He hadn’t been bleeding when he’d been tied to the rock as a teenager and the experience was, to say the least, agonising.

    Tears stinging his eyes, Gwaine began to tremble as his legs, exhausted, slowly started to bend. His body crumpled – nothing more than a piece of parchment tearing itself apart at the contact with water – and his knees rested on the flat stone that lay naked during low tide. The sea’s surface rocked just below his mouth, trying to drag his chin into its hypnotic movement, and Gwaine could feel the waterlogged ends of his hair threatening to pull his head down. His wounds were cradled by the waves and the pain was borne away only to return within seconds on the back of the same thing that had taken it from him.

    In all Gwaine’s nightmares, it had been light when he had been about to drown. Clouds had formed a shield around him, preventing any rescue, and he had been helpless as the tide had gradually crept forward like a legion, struggling against bonds that he could see but not untie. This, somehow, was worse. The moonlight ricocheted off the water’s surface and refracted in numerous directions, illuminating patches of the sea that left Gwaine completely at a loss as to the vastness of it. Even though he knew dry land was close, the rock – now at a higher level than his head – obscured his view and, wherever he looked, it was all darkness and glimmering scales where the moonlight dipped its fingers into the sea. Wherever he looked, he was alone.

    The cold was digging its nails into him and trying to draw blood but instead injecting fatigue and Gwaine, knowing nothing but the certainty of his fate, closed his eyes once more. He relaxed his muscles as his mouth became submerged in the water, diluted salt trickling into his parted lips, his nose only millimetres from joining it. At least Anselm wouldn’t be able to use him to control Merlin. At least he wouldn’t be able to fail Merlin and Lancelot again. At least it would all be over.

    ‘Gwaine! Gwaine!’

    Apparently hearing the voices of the people you loved in your final moments wasn’t just a comforting myth, because Lancelot’s voice was piercing the rolling fog in Gwaine’s head quite successfully. It was odd that he could also hear Merlin roaring spells in the distance, too, because Gwaine didn’t really associate Merlin with violence. Merlin and his voice belonged to the tentative dawn and amongst the chorus of birds that came with it, belonged with the rustling leaves in a gentle breeze and the jewelled grass, not to the furious fire that could take apart whole armies. Just like Lancelot and his voice belonged to the stark sunset and the whispers of tendrils of clouds, belonged with the constellations that covered the heavens in a thin layer of protective dust and the bleeding colours of day, not to the agonised desperation that could cause the sky itself to fissure.

    Still, any last thoughts of them brought Gwaine comfort.

    There was a blunt shout from behind but Gwaine didn’t react, wanting nothing more than to sleep. His nose ducked below the surface and everything around him became muffled as his ears were cushioned by the water.

    It might have been for minutes or years that Gwaine was suspended there, tethered to the rock, before he was hauled from the water with someone calling his name in a strangled voice between obscene swearing.

    An arm was wrapped around Gwaine’s waist to support him as he instinctively tried to inhale and began coughing, his whole body convulsing in the attempt to dispel the water. After the threat had seemingly been combated, his legs gave way but he was caught before he could fall and drawn close to a hammering heart.

    Gwaine could feel the next words stir within him, transmitted by the vibrations of his rescuer’s vocal cords, as he drifted to the fringes of consciousness. ‘Merlin! Merlin, I’ve got him!’ Something angular dropped onto the top of Gwaine’s head, movement grating against his scalp. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ve got you, you’re safe.’

    ‘Lance…’M’sorry…’

    Lancelot, feeling Gwaine’s body go limp, rested him against the rock, hand fumbling for a pulse in panic. Glancing towards the shore, he could see that Merlin was gradually advancing, his face contorted with rage in the flashes of it Lancelot could catch as flares embedded themselves in bandits. Lancelot had seen Merlin use magic before, of course, but never so violently; from the moment they had broken from the cell, Merlin had been ruthless in the damage he had dealt. The streaks of fire penetrating the atmosphere provided Lancelot with a little visual aid and, satisfied that Gwaine was still breathing, he used his own body to prop up his partner, hands groping for the shackles.

    Merlin was going to kill him for discarding his sling – if the pain in his shoulder didn’t kill him first – but Lancelot gritted his teeth and focused instead on trying to free Gwaine. Which, apparently, was going to be harder than he’d first thought. The waves were slapping against higher and higher points of Lancelot’s back and he pushed one leg between both of Gwaine’s to steady him further. His fingers clawed at the iron uselessly, trying to pull apart the cuffs around Gwaine’s wrists, but it was futile. Frantically, Lancelot turned his gaze back towards the shore and latched onto Merlin’s formidable figure, who was in the middle of throwing back the bandit posted to guard Gwaine, whom Lancelot had darted past in the darkness.

    ‘They’re chains,’ Lancelot cried out when Merlin was close enough, voice cracking, ‘chains, not rope. I can’t get them off.’

    Merlin splashed through the water as quickly as he could, fingers grazing Lancelot’s as he examined the chains. There was an explosion of light as Merlin muttered an incantation and winced, his hand going to his chest. He brushed off the twinge and checked that the tether had been severed, glancing towards Lancelot. ‘We have to get him out of the water and get him warm.’

    Lancelot was already in the process of doing so; he had laid Gwaine out on the rock once more and was angling his body to drape Gwaine over his uninjured shoulder.

    ‘Lance, no, your shoulder—’

    ‘I’ll be careful,’ Lancelot replied, straightening his posture and hooking his left arm around the backs of Gwaine’s knees. ‘Unless you have a better solution?’

    ‘I’ll take him.’

    ‘Over my dead body,’ was the sharp response. ‘You’re not meant to be lifting heavy objects and I’m pretty sure a human body comes under the category of “heavy objects”. Do you still have the cloak?’ Lancelot added as he began to wade back to shore, nervously keeping an eye on the castle’s silhouette.

    Following the knight, Merlin untied the cloak from his waist. ‘I can do a drying spell,’ he offered. ‘I don’t know how much it will help, but anything is better than nothing, right?’

    With a nod, Lancelot spun around when his boots made contact with dry land and watched Merlin place a hand on Gwaine’s exposed back. His eyes shone and, as they faded, he arranged the cloak over Gwaine’s form. Lancelot trapped the material between his hand and Gwaine’s legs, looking towards the castle again. ‘It’s not going to take them long to figure out where we’ve gone. And Gwaine took more blows than he can probably handle back in the throne room…’

    Lancelot broke off before he added to his panic by recalling the images that had shot by only moments before – of Gwaine seemingly lifeless in the water, his slurred speech, his helplessness. This was the second time in just over a fortnight that Lancelot had felt his heart contract with terror at the sight of Gwaine’s lifeless form, but he was no less used to it. Stilling for a moment, Lancelot registered the faint sound of Gwaine breathing and relaxed slightly. They had to get him to Camelot.

    Merlin’s hand was resting on his uninjured shoulder. ‘It’s alright. I’ve got an idea. We need to start moving towards the mainland.’

    ‘It’s not something stupid or dangerous, is it?’

    ‘Not for us,’ Merlin assured him, giving Lancelot’s shoulder a small squeeze. He kissed him gently before dropping a kiss in the midst of Gwaine’s now-dry hair. ‘We’re going to be okay. Start moving. I’ll catch up.’

    Lights – pinpricks of bronze blood against the night sky – were eddying towards them from the direction of the castle. ‘Merlin—’

    Merlin pushed his shoulder. ‘I’ll be fine. Go. Get Gwaine to safety.’

    Hesitating momentarily, Lancelot started forwards as the lights behind them expanded. With his right arm hanging limply by his side, he contracted the muscles in his left arm to more firmly support Gwaine and glanced over his shoulder. Merlin had turned away and stood with his legs slightly apart, his head tilted towards the sky. The words that emerged from his mouth reached Lancelot clearly, but that didn’t help him decipher their meaning.

    ‘O drakon, e male so ftengometta tesd'hup'anankes!’

    Although, picking up on the word ‘drakon’, Lancelot could hazard a guess as to what would be involved. Merlin repeated the phrase, more insistently this time, and the guttural quality to the syllables that stretched over Merlin’s tongue sent Lancelot’s skin erupting into goosebumps.

    He turned his mouth towards Gwaine’s motionless body, the faint smile grazing the muscles concealed by the cloak. ‘Gwaine,’ he whispered, ‘you are going to kick yourself later for missing this.’ It might have been his imagination, but Gwaine seemed to shift slightly against him. ‘But don’t worry, my love, I’ll tell you all about it when you’re better.’ He paused before pressing a kiss to the cloak. ‘Rest well, now, my love, it’s all going to be fine, I promise you.’

    Raising his head, Lancelot looked back at Merlin, who was still standing stubbornly in the place that he’d been left. He was also still shouting and didn’t notice a figure streak past until they were halfway towards Lancelot. Breaking off his call, Merlin fired a ball of flames at the figure but they swerved to the side and stumbled to a halt beside Lancelot, who had ceased all movement.

    Reflexively, Lancelot reached down and removed the knife Gwaine had given him from his boot, biting down on his lip to avoid crying out, and held it out. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he threatened.

    ‘Put the knife down, I’m here to help you.’

    Still holding the knife, Lancelot squinted at the tangled hair. ‘You’re the one Gwaine had to fight. You were going to kill him.’

    ‘Anselm would have killed me.’ The bandit let out an impatient noise. ‘Look, I don’t know what batshit thing your friend is doing over there, but whatever it is, it’s only going to hold the others off for so long. And you can’t carry Gwaine by yourself.’

    Desperately, Lancelot looked between the bandit and Merlin. Finally, he shoved the knife back in his boot. ‘Fine. But if you hand us over to Anselm, I will haunt you so hard—’

    ‘I’m not going to hand you over to Anselm. Gwaine told me to get out if I could, so I thought I’d take advantage of the chaos you caused. Give him here.’

    With a grunt, Lancelot lowered Gwaine and draped one of his arms over his shoulder, motioning for the bandit to support the other side. ‘What’s your name?’

    ‘Pelleas.’

    Lancelot took a step forward. ‘Right, Pelleas, we’re heading in the direction called as-far-the-fuck-away-from-here-as-possible. Merlin said he’d catch up with us, and I trust him—’

    ‘Merlin?’

    Lancelot silently swore. ‘Did I say Merlin? I meant Will. Will said he’d catch up with us—’

    ‘Is that a dragon?’

    Lifting his head, Lancelot watched as the stars were obscured by a large mass before a creature landed beside Merlin and was unable to conceal a smile. ‘A fucking massive dragon, I think.’

    Pelleas frowned at him. ‘There’s a difference?’

    ‘Oh, yes.’ The smile on Lancelot’s face faded as a strong stream of fire issued from the dragon’s jaw, directed at the bandits approaching Merlin. ‘Thank you for your assistance, but we’ll be able to take it from here. And, if you want my advice, run as far away from here as fast as possible and don’t look back. And breathe a word about Mer—Will to anyone—’

    ‘I won’t,’ Pelleas hurriedly said. ‘I won’t.’ He ducked out from beneath Gwaine’s arm. ‘If—If Gwaine wakes, tell him I forgive him.’

    With that, Pelleas melted into the darkness.

    Lancelot tried not to think too hard about the ‘if’. Merlin was running towards them and Lancelot hoisted Gwaine up, their cheeks brushing together. ‘No pressure, my love, but it would be really helpful if you could wake up right about now. I’ve never had to mount a dragon before—’ Lancelot waited for an interjection in the form of a dick joke, but it didn’t come. ‘Well, not a real dragon, because Merlin’s magnificence doesn’t count.’ He paused again. ‘I can’t believe that I’m making dick jokes and you’re too unconscious to make note of it. Anyway, I’ve never had to mount a dragon before, let alone with an unconscious knight relying on me. So, if you could wake up…’

    As he moved his ear to Gwaine’s mouth to check that breath was still hitting his cheek, weak words were shaped by the breeze. ‘’S’my method. Humour‘s a d’fense mech’nism.’

    Lancelot drew his face away. ‘Yeah, well, you weren’t around to use it.’

    ‘Right here, ‘n’t I?’ Gwaine struggled to open his eyes: the lids flickered but remained steadfastly closed. ‘Right though. Mer’in does have a dr’gon dick.’

    Laughing as tears collected in the corners of his eyes, Lancelot shook his head. ‘I can’t believe all it took was a dick joke to revive you.’ He pressed his lips to Gwaine’s forehead. ‘I fucking love you, you know that? And it’s all going to be okay. We’re going to get you back home and patched up and everything is going to be fine and no harm is ever going to come to you again and—’

    ‘Lance…’

    Whatever Gwaine was about to say, though, was interrupted by Merlin’s arrival as he skidded to a halt in front of them, one hand on his chest with the other holding an orb of light. In the fragmented illumination, the corners of his mouth were twisted in pain and his breathless words were ragged. ‘Kil—Kilgharrah can take us to the woods just outside the citadel,’ he gasped out. ‘And he’s also helpfully offered to torch the place.’

    ‘Pelleas…’ murmured Gwaine.

    Lancelot buried his mouth in Gwaine’s hairline. ‘Pelleas got out, my love, it’s alright. Save your strength.’ Catching the start of Pelleas’s name in Merlin’s tone, Lancelot cut him off softly. ‘Later, Merlin. There will be time then. What do we need to do?’

    Sparing a moment to give Gwaine a tearful kiss, whose mouth flickered minutely in response, Merlin turned back towards Kilgharrah. ‘We just need to get on his back. We can—We can sort Gwaine out when we’re settled and secure.’

    At the sound of his name, Gwaine finally managed to open his eyes. He was confronted with blazing fires and a very large shape a little way off and, blinking drowsily, he leaned closer into Lancelot. ‘’S’at the fuckin’ massive drag’n?’

    ‘Perhaps don’t call him that,’ Merlin fondly said, voice just carrying over Lancelot’s reminder of what he had just said to Gwaine. ‘His name is Kilgharrah and he is the last dragon.’

    As if summoned by the sound of his name alone, Kilgharrah appeared beside Merlin, who turned and bowed in his direction. Gwaine could feel Lancelot doing the same and would have mimicked the movement himself but, considering that he was bleeding from multiple wounds and had almost drowned, he thought he could be excused. Perhaps it was a result of the water, but the words exchanged between Merlin and Lancelot were lost to him, with Gwaine only able to interpret meaning by the varying pressure from their hands. There was a soft murmur in his ear before Gwaine was draped over Lancelot’s shoulder, fingertips grazing the back of Lancelot’s damp shirt. He knew that the reduction of one of his senses should have instilled fear in him but, held close to Lancelot’s body and with Merlin illuminated by a strange silvery substance nearby, Gwaine felt safer than he had done for the whole day.

    After several minutes, Lancelot carefully lowered him and Gwaine found himself staring up at the stars, which oddly became closer, with something bony digging into his spine. Lancelot’s hand was resting gently on his chest, as if to keep him steady, and the corners of the cloak around him were drawn together and he was dragged towards Merlin. As he moved, the unfamiliar texture beneath him raked across his back, catching on the wound through the cloak, and Gwaine feebly yelped. Within seconds, fingers were pushing the hair away from his face and there was a lurch that Gwaine was sure wasn’t his body moving.

    Then, quite suddenly, he could hear properly again.

    ‘—how deep they go,’ Lancelot was saying.

    ‘Hold this,’ requested Merlin, holding out the hand with the ball of light.

    When Gwaine turned his head, he could see that they were in the sky, and that a jet of flames was heading straight for the Castle of Fyrien through the tunnels. Destruction had never been so beautiful.

    Lancelot made an uncertain sound. ‘Merlin, it’s magic, I can’t just hold—’ He broke off as Merlin deposited the orb into the hand that was not stroking Gwaine’s forehead. ‘Okay, apparently I can.’

    Gwaine’s eyes flickered towards it, enthralled by the twisting patterns crafted by silver threads, and he tried to lift his hand. Lancelot’s mouth was moving, his head turned towards Merlin, and it was only when he felt Gwaine’s fingertips stammer against his skin that he glanced down. In the ethereal light, the wound on his head stood stark like the bonfire below as Fyrien burned. Gwaine wanted nothing more than to wipe away the blood, but he knew that he would not be able to keep his arm elevated that high for that long.

    Gaze following the direction of Gwaine’s fingertips, Lancelot smiled softly. ‘You want to hold it?’

    Gwaine, too weary for any other form of communication, pushed the corners of his mouth into a smile. As if he was handling freshly-blown glass, Lancelot slid the orb into Gwaine’s open palm. The weight, when it had settled over the palm lines, was comforting and bore the same imprint that Merlin’s hand always left on Gwaine’s skin. Slowly, Gwaine lowered his hand so it was once again resting by his side and began to close his eyes.

    ‘Gwaine,’ Merlin whispered, words penetrating his skin, ‘I know you’re exhausted and you’ve been through an unimaginable ordeal, but do you think you could just keep your eyes on Lance? I’m just going to dry us both off, then I want to sit you up to check your wounds, is that alright?’

    ‘’M’kay,’ Gwaine rasped, opening his eyes again.

    Merlin, having just directed a spell at Lancelot, blinked back tears. ‘You’re not okay, Gwaine.’ He paused to dry himself off. ‘Don’t pull a Lancelot.’

    ‘Hey!’

    ‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ Merlin fired back. He winced, hand reflexively hovering by his chest, and brushed off Lancelot’s look of concern. ‘It’s fine, it’s just that summoning dragons all comes from the chest.’

    ‘You didn’t have to—’

    ‘I did have to, Lance; we wouldn’t have made it out of there otherwise.’ Merlin closed his eyes and took several slow breaths. ‘Alright,’ he murmured, opening his eyes again. ‘Alright. We’ll check the back first.’

    When Merlin’s fingers skimmed over Gwaine’s shoulders to remove the cloak wrapped around him, the touch was more delicate than blossom that had fallen to the ground in spring breezes. Lancelot inched closer and wrapped his arm around Gwaine’s shoulders to take some of his weight and Gwaine let his head drop into the knight’s chest to seek out any residue of mint that had not been washed away by the sea. There was a gentle curse and Merlin’s hands were now wet when they brushed against Gwaine’s back.

    A landscape was being painted into the blank canvas of Gwaine’s shoulder by Lancelot’s fingers and, when the movement ceased and Lancelot spoke, Gwaine raised his head. ‘What is it?’

    Merlin didn’t respond immediately. ‘I think… I don’t think the blood had a chance to properly clot before the water.’

    Urgency caught Lancelot’s next words in a net. ‘Which means?’

    ‘Which means we need to stem the bleeding.’ Merlin slowly exhaled. ‘How—How bad is the front?’

    Lancelot ducked his head to study Gwaine’s torso, eyes darting over his body. ‘It could… It could be worse,’ he finally said.

    ‘Right.’ The breath Merlin let out was shaky. ‘So, we—We—’ He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. ‘I can’t do this. I don’t know what to do.’

    ‘Kiss me,’ Gwaine hoarsely whispered, as if he gained strength in the face of Merlin’s pain to combat it.

    ‘I don’t think kissing you is going to help.’

    ‘It might, Merlin,’ Lancelot said. ‘If I let go,’ he added, addressing Gwaine, ‘are you going to be able to hold yourself upright?’

    ‘Think so.’

    Like Gwaine was a stack of cards that Lancelot was trying to balance, he slowly moved his arm away and shifted so Merlin could shuffle closer to Gwaine. The salt that clung to Merlin’s lips when Gwaine kissed him was warmer than the sea’s salt, but just as infinite, threatening to engulf every part of Gwaine. Not that Gwaine minded. There was the faint sound of ripping fabric and Gwaine violently started as a hand, covered in a thick material, pressed against the wound against his back, pulling away from Merlin.

    ‘It’s okay,’ Lancelot soothed him, adjusting the pressure. ‘It’s just me, you’re okay. Merlin, are you alright?’

    Merlin, who was now sitting cross-legged in front of Gwaine, nodded. ‘Yeah. I’m sorry for freaking out—’

    Stretching out the hand that wasn’t holding the orb of light, Gwaine focused on Merlin’s face as he fumbled for his fingers. ‘’S’kay.’

    ‘Gwaine’s right,’ Lancelot said, carefully extending his legs either side of Gwaine’s body. As he spoke, his breath curled along the back of Gwaine’s exposed neck. ‘It is okay. Everyone has their limits and it’s not fair to always rely on you for medical assistance—’

    ‘That’s my job, though.’

    Lancelot waved his free hand and grimaced. ‘Doesn’t matter. You don’t always rely on us for combat, usually because you are fantastic at taking care of yourself, but you shouldn’t have that kind of pressure on you. Especially when you’ve been through a lot today, too.’

    ‘Not as much as Gwaine,’ Merlin quietly said.

    ‘’M’fine.’ Gwaine squeezed Merlin’s hand and forced the words out. ‘But it’s not a competition.’

    Merlin paused, then rested his forehead against Gwaine’s. ‘I love you both.’

    ‘Love you too,’ Gwaine breathed, hearing Lancelot reiterate the same sentiment behind him.

    ‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do,’ declared Lancelot. ‘This one is the deepest, I think, so we’re going to keep this here and tie a strip to secure it and we’re just going to have to make sure that pressure is kept on it—’

    ‘I could cauterise it.’

    ‘I don’t want you to strain yourself, my light,’ Lancelot softly replied. ‘Besides, I think Gwaine has been through enough today without throwing cauterisation into the mix.’

    ‘Much appreciated,’ murmured Gwaine.

    He closed his eyes and the sheet of light staining the inside of his eyelids faded as the hand that had been holding the orb closed in on itself. Half-aware that he was leaning on Merlin, Gwaine gave himself a little nudge and began to fall slowly backwards instead. Lancelot’s second hand jumped up to catch him before there was a shuddering impact. He wanted to keep talking, to ask Lancelot about Pelleas, to see the stars in a way he was sure he’d never see them in again, but the heaviness he’d been trying to keep at bay was now too much to subdue.

    Pressing his face into Lancelot’s waist, Gwaine felt Merlin’s fingers retracted and let out a quiet moan. Merlin quickly reassumed the position, sketching shapes across the disfigured brand. Lancelot’s voice vibrated through him, weaving words of binding the wounds on Gwaine’s front and covering him up, and there was a soft touch on his forehead before a whisper infiltrated the pores of his skin.

    ‘Sleep well, my love, we’ll be home soon.’

    Had every word spoken not been like trying to upturn headstones, Gwaine would have replied that he was home already.

---

It took Gwaine all of several seconds to realise that the overwhelming scent filling his nostrils was salt.

    Before his eyes had even opened, he began thrashing around to push himself up, away from the water, his feet becoming tangled in weeds as they folded around him. A brief stabbing sensation rippled across his abdomen but the salt stench had returned and Gwaine called out for Merlin and Lancelot, if only to take the memory of them into the immortality that death brought, his eyes still closed against the terror he would be confronted with if he opened them. He kicked out, trying to desperately push away the weeds threatening to drag him down to the depths, and drove his head into the rock he was leaning against.

    There was a rumble of thunder – or perhaps a crash of lightning, Gwaine wasn’t entirely sure – and the ferocious wind seemed to shape voices, but it was all an illusion. Gwaine knew that he was all alone, that he was still just beyond the shoreline at Fyrien, that death was approaching him and apparently he could do nothing about it but fantasise about being rescued and watching the place be torched by a fucking massive dragon.

    The hands that brushed against his body were merfolk coming to herald his demise, or selkies checking his pulse in anticipation for him becoming one of them, and Gwaine fought against them, calling out for Merlin and Lancelot.

    ‘We’re here, Gwaine, we’re here.’

    Gwaine knew it wasn’t Merlin talking and it was simply the merfolk mimicking his soft voice. He fiercely shook his head and instantly regretted it as he felt like he was spinning in tight circles. ‘No, no. Leave me alone, I don’t—I don’t want to be like you.’

    ‘Gwaine, love, open your eyes. It’s alright, you’re safe, I promise you.’

    ‘We’re back in Camelot. We’re far away from Fyrien. You’re in my bed – me, Merlin – in the physician’s quarters. Gaius’s chambers. Lance is here, too, looking ruggedly handsome after having a bath – his hair is curling against the back of his neck in just the way you like – and I have since remembered that Gaius is also still in the room, but we’re all here. You’re safe.’

    Heart hammering, Gwaine stilled and slowly opened his eyes. Beside the bed, Lancelot was kneeling down, the hand not supported in a sling resting tentatively on the mattress next to Gwaine’s thigh. His eyes were flooded with concern and his hair, still slightly damp, was slightly peaked at the top as if it was standing to attention until Gwaine could flatten it down like he always did, and Gwaine’s necklace was hanging around his throat. Gwaine’s hand instantly went to the naked spot where it usually settled and flinched as his fingers caught on a ragged cut across his throat, smothered in a thick paste. He’d forgotten about that. Merlin was still leaning over him, fingers loosely clasped around his wrist, but he didn’t seem to be struggling for breath like he had been in Fyrien and there was a healthier colour in his cheeks.

    It hadn’t been weeds that his legs had been caught in, but sheets and blankets, many of which had slid from the bed in his struggle. Exhaling, Gwaine closed his eyes again. ‘Sorry. I could smell salt and—I panicked.’

    ‘You don’t need to apologise,’ whispered Lancelot, resting his hand on Gwaine’s thigh. ‘Especially not to us.’

    When Gwaine opened his eyes again, Merlin had settled himself at the end of the bed, crossing his legs, and was taking a cup from Gaius. His face was turned away and he was too far away to be heard over the blood still rushing in Gwaine’s ears, but he looked towards Gwaine with a faint smile as Gaius quietly left. ‘It’s a potion to help prevent an infection,’ he explained. ‘Lance had to drink one, too, it’s just an additional precaution.’

    Hesitantly, Gwaine took the cup in his hand. He raised the rim to his mouth and, as the salt drifted up to him, he pulled it away, already able to feel the seawater sliding down his throat—

    ‘I can’t. I can’t drink it.’ Tilting his head back, he blinked away tears. ‘I’m so sorry. I just can’t.’

    Lancelot’s hand was now running up and down Gwaine’s thigh. ‘Would it help if we added honey to it to take away the smell?’

    ‘I don’t—I don’t know.’

    ‘Do you want us to try it?’ asked Merlin.

    ‘Gwaine, look at us,’ Lancelot softly implored. After Gwaine lowered his head, Lancelot gave him a warm smile. ‘You can get through this, alright? I’ll add some honey and you can try it. If you still can’t drink it, we can try something else. Okay?’

    ‘Okay.’

    Nodding, Lancelot rose and kissed the centre of Gwaine’s hairline, gently taking the cup from him. Gwaine’s and Merlin’s eyes followed him out of the room like they were watching a butterfly dance through the air on a warm summer’s day. A comfortable silence settled as Merlin reached for Gwaine’s hand to reassure him and Gwaine caught his breath.

    ‘What happened?’ he eventually muttered, looking towards Merlin. ‘The last thing I remember is Lancelot telling me to sleep and that we’d be home soon.’

    ‘Kilgharrah dropped us in the Darkling Woods,’ Merlin answered, keeping his voice low. ‘Lancelot carried you – even though I said I could help, but he threatened to discontinue my knife lessons with the knowledge that you would back him up if I did so – and we ran into Leon and Percival on patrol. They took you here as quickly as possible and Lance and I followed. By the time we arrived, Gaius was already patching you up.’

    ‘Are you both alright though?’

    ‘Significantly more so now that you are awake,’ Merlin said, kissing him delicately between his eyebrows.

    ‘Your chest…’

    ‘My chest is fine. I just need to take it easy for a few days.’

    ‘Lance’s shoulder…’

    ‘Lance’s shoulder is fine,’ Lancelot warmly cut in, entering the room.

    Merlin shot him a look. ‘It is not fine, you’re going to be unable to move it freely for a couple of months—’

    ‘We’re meant to be reassuring Gwaine.’ Lancelot perched on the bed, his leg knocking against Gwaine’s. ‘I’m not dying, so I’m fine.’ He pushed the cup into Gwaine’s hand. ‘I put honey in it for you. Not that it needs sweetening when it touches your lips.’

    Appreciating the mild flirtation, Gwaine leaned over to kiss him softly. Lancelot’s fingers caught his jaw and, soon, Merlin was there on Gwaine’s other side, pressing his lips to Gwaine’s cheek. After being left in the midst of the vast ocean with nothing but a rock for company, Gwaine was grateful to be contained within four walls – particularly the same four walls that had been his introduction to Camelot – and tucked tightly between the two people he would do anything to protect. As his mind began to drift into the dangerous territory of what could have happened in Fyrien, Gwaine pulled away from Lancelot, quickly captured Merlin’s mouth with his lips, and then took a deep breath before raising the cup.

    It seemed like honey wasn’t the only thing Lancelot had added; perhaps it was because he’d just kissed both of them, but Gwiane could have sworn that the comforting taste of cinnamon and mint latched onto the skin of his lips like limpets as he downed the potion. The smell of salt was imperceptible. Resting his head against the wall, Gwaine stretched to set the cup down on the table beside him. His eyes flickered between his two partners, who were still watching him with a very obvious concern, and he tried to flash them a smile of reassurance – but he could tell from their unmoving expressions that it hadn’t convinced them.

    So, instead, he tried words. ‘Thank you.’

    ‘What for?’ Merlin asked.

    ‘For saving me.’

    Lancelot frowned. ‘You don’t need to thank us. Of course we’d save you.’

    ‘Yeah,’ Gwaine dropped his gaze, tugging his hand away from Merlin’s to pull at loose threads in his trousers, ‘but I caused you both so much pain.’

    ‘It’s not your fault I fell off my horse, Gwaine.’

    Gwaine raised his head. ‘I know not all the pain I caused was physical.’ He knew all too well how much damage could be inflicted without a single visible wound. ‘It would have saved you so much pain if you’d just left me, in either the Valley of the Fallen Kings or in the cell at Fyrien.’

    ‘Yeah, but it would have cost us a part of our souls,’ Lancelot quietly argued, trying to draw one corner of a stack of blankets around Gwaine. ‘You have to keep warm, Gwaine.’

    Succumbing to the blankets, Gwaine swallowed. ‘And now—Now you know what I could have turned into.’

    Merlin tucked his hair behind his ear, leaning closer. ‘But you didn’t, Gwaine. You didn’t turn out like them. You’re so much more than what they had planned for you.’

    ‘But what if… What if they’ve shaped me more than I thought? What if one day I start to become like them?’

    ‘We won’t let that happen,’ Lancelot fiercely said, finding Gwaine’s fingers amidst the blankets. ‘And we know your heart, Gwaine. It would take a lot for you to find joy in other people’s pain.’ He squeezed his hand. ‘Look at yesterday. You were so desperate to prevent any further harm from coming to us that you agreed to fight someone when you could barely stand and a knife sticking out of you. No bandit would do that.’

    ‘Unfortunately,’ Merlin continued, ‘you’re just going to have to get used to the fact that we love you too much to let you go. You chose us. You’re stuck with us now.’

    ‘Yep,’ Lancelot said cheerfully. ‘No more nights alone in bed for you ever again.’

    A weak smile tugged at Gwaine’s lips. ‘Not even this one?’

    ‘You think we won’t find a way to nestle in?’ The smile on Merlin’s face became slightly more diluted. ‘Unless, of course, we’d be crowding you.’

    ‘No, no.’ Gwaine cleared his throat and lowered his eyes. He’d never excelled in communicating his needs, but he could feel himself drifting off again and didn’t want to wake up alone. ‘I’d like it if you stayed. Only if you want to, of course.’

    ‘Of course we want to.’ Lancelot disentangled his fingers from Gwaine’s to stand and settle himself on the other side of the bed so that his injured arm was not pressing against Gwaine. ‘You’ll be lucky if we let you out of our sight again.’

    Unable to conceal a warm smile, Gwaine slid down – wincing as the wound on his back snagged on the blankets – and settled his head on the pillow, moving over to make space for Lancelot. One day Gwaine would confront Merlin about enchanting the bed: there was no way that two people could comfortably fit on such a narrow mattress. Merlin, however, was busy arranging a nest of blankets – stolen from his chair – below the bedside table. Noticing Gwaine’s inquisitive look, he murmured something about needing to sleep slightly upright and leaned against the table, hand stretching up to rest on the edge of the mattress.

    Gwaine closed his eyes, allowing his mind to wander. It wasn’t the first night that he had thought Lancelot’s body, slotted in against his, had been Pelleas’s, but hopefully it would be the last with guilt gnawing away at his gut. Lancelot and Merlin were both safe – as was Pelleas – and Anselm was, presumably, dead. Those pages of Gwaine’s life had been charred to nothing but cinders, though Gwaine knew that the fire that was dormant within them still had the power to sculpt him – just hopefully for the better. His hands, shielded by blankets, knocked against Lancelot’s and Merlin’s, and they reflexively inched closer towards him, as if they were ribbons and rags in a handfasting ceremony, tethering themselves to Gwaine.

    Perhaps he wouldn’t dream of the sea that night. Perhaps he would instead dream of a soundless sky and long grass, of scattered flowers and mislaid paintings, of billowing iridescent smoke and smiles that could stain the stars. Perhaps, the following morning, he’d wake up without the bitter taste of salt in his mouth and instead be able to absorb the two aromas he was always greeted with – the aromas he’d come to associate with smothered laughter and soft touches and an overwhelming love.

    Perhaps there was the faintest possibility that everything was going to be alright.

    Or perhaps he’d wake up in a cold sweat with the sound of the waves still ringing in his ears like a banshee’s scream.

Notes:

I have, once again, written more Merwaincelot than intended... Thank you for taking the time to read this fic and I'm sorry for going so heavy on Gwaine (it just comes so easily).

Playlist for this fic:
- 'Dreams' (Gabrielle Aplin and BASTILLE)
- 'Died In Your Arms' (BASTILLE)
- 'How Do You Feel Today?' (Gabrielle Aplin)
- 'How Not To Drown' (CHVRCHES, Robert Smith)
- 'Meltdown' (Ponette)
- 'Half-Awake' (Concrete Castles)
- 'TIME 2' (half•alive)
- 'Never Say Die' (CHVRCHES)
- 'The Water' (Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling)
- 'Willow' (Rain Paris)
- 'Parting' (ONEWE)
- 'still feel.' (half•alive)
- 'Miracle' (CHVRCHES)
- 'Comes And Goes (In Waves)' (Greg Laswell)
- 'The Waves' (BASTILLE)
- 'spoiled' (flor)
- 'ocean' (flor)
- 'And Then You' (Greg Laswell)
- 'Let It Be' (James Bay)
- 'weapon (acoustic)' (Against The Current)
- 'TRAUMA (Aquarium)' (ONEWE)
- 'The Stigma (Boys Don't Cry)' (As It Is)
- 'peace' (Taylor Swift)
- 'again&again' (Against The Current)

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of we are bound together by delicate stems