Always Be With You - Merthur

Chapter 14

Arthur pov

'Am I dead? Did I die?' was the first thing Arthur thought of. His throat was burning. Arthur opened his eyes and gasped for air. The air thankfully cooperated and filled his lungs. You really don't appreciate breathing enough until you can't anymore.

His eyes flicked around the room and fell on a figure next to the bed whose hand laid on top of Arthur's chest. Merlin. Arthur didn't know how fast to get away. His breathing hitched and he tried to carefully move away. His body didn't really work with him, so he slumped back down helplessly. He still didn't understand why Merlin had poisoned him. He thought he could trust him with his life.

A feeling of dread filled him. Was this his fate? Being betrayed by his best friend? At that moment Gaius came downstairs. Upon seeing Arthur's distressed face he quickly walked up to him with an expression that could be described as, 'I can explain this, but will you let me?'

"How-" "Shh, before you say anything, sire. I know what happened and that wasn't Merlin." Gaius interupted with a hushed voice in order not to wake Merlin. Arthur breathed out a sigh of relief, but held his gaze. "Well, technically, it was him" He continued, not helping the situation at all, "but, it wasn't him." Arthur didn't answer for a while and just waited for Gaius to elaborate, because this explanation was beyond confusing.

"What?" He brought out eventually, when it became clear that Gaius was waiting for him to give him some sort of reaction. He didn't know how else to phrase it, so being about as vague as Gaius could maybe get him to understand that he didn't understand him. That thought almost gave him a headache.

"Do you remember Morgause? The sorceress who showed you the vision of your mother?" Arthur nodded, not getting why Gaius just completely switched subjects. Arthur took the moment of silence to glance at Merlin, who was still asleep on the bedside with his arm underneath his head. He instantly felt a tender warm feeling at the pit of his stomach when he shifted his head to a more comfortable position. Why was that affecting him so much?

"She was the one who took Merlin. She used an ancient method of magic to take over a person's mind on Merlin. Nothing he did came from himself." "What?!" His gaze shot back to Merlin once more. Gaius smirked for a brief moment, (at which Arthur frowned) before putting his serious face on again. "It was all Morgause." He paused for a moment, making a face of mild frustration. "Here, it's better if I show you." Arthur suddenly felt cold as Gaius picked up a large brown book from the table. Merlin had been under mind control? Was he okay now? He seemed okay. Arthur still looked at him with worry. Mind control. How must that feel? He shuddered and turned his attention to the book again.

It had a hard cover with black raised bands and... A lot of bookmarks. Probably to make it easier. for Gaius to find things. But, how did that even work? If you put hundreds of bookmarks in a book, how can you find the right page? It defeats the whole purpose of having a bookmark. There was no logical explanation that that should even work!

Gaius let his finger trail over several similair looking bookmarks that stuck out of the pages, stopped at one that looked exactly the same as the rest and opened it. Arthur didn't even try to ask how he knew which one to choose, Gaius had his own methods. He turned the book around so Arthur could read it - or rather see the pictures, there was some ancient language used that he presumed Gaius could read.

There was a snake with multiple heads? Arthur listened to every word Gaius said, his expression turning more and more horrified by every sentence. It was weird that they - Morgause had to cut off the head - one of the seven heads off the snake and plant it in Merlin's neck.

Arthur, of course, checked the back of Merlin's neck as careful as possible and caught a glimpse of the dark outline of the snake and turned back to Gaius with a questioning look. "Well, why didn't you get it out already?" He whispered with a cautious look in his eyes. Gaius cringed a bit and tilted his head to the side as if considering what he was about to say.