Given how much time Merlin had devoted to not getting his head chopped off, it felt counterintuitive to be doing this now.
Although, in hindsight, handing the exhausted Arthur his breakfast before announcing, "I need you to cut my head off," was possibly not the best way to introduce the subject.
Arthur stared at him for a long moment before apparently deciding he wasn't awake enough for this and indulging in an even longer drink.
"Merlin," he said with deceptive calm, "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're currently under siege from the undead. Again."
"I've noticed," Merlin assured him. "Gaius has been keeping me up nights to help him to try to fix the knights that have gotten infected." With magic, not medicine, but Arthur didn't know that quite yet.
Arthur pushed onward. "So my ability to deal with your nonsense is even lower than usual."
Merlin was a bit offended to hear his attempted martyrdom classified as his 'usual nonsense.' "It's not nonsense," he said with wounded dignity. "I got bitten when I was helping Gaius last night." The wound on his wrist still ached, and the ache was slowly spreading, though not as fast as it would have if his magic wasn't fighting it with everything he had.
Apparently the spell to make Cenred's army undead had given Morgana ideas. Except now she wasn't just turning the living into the undead, she had devised a way for the undead to spread the curse. Biting wasn't a particularly elegant way, but it worked.
Arthur groaned. "Of course you did. Well, we can lock you up in the dungeons as easily as we have the others. There's no need to be dramatic about it. Gaius will find something." His knuckles had gone white in their grip on his goblet, slightly undermining his impression of relative calm. "He always does."
Right. But therein lay the problem. "The dungeons won't hold me."
Arthur's brow furrowed. "Don't be ridiculous, Merlin. Percival got bitten, and the cells are holding him just fine. If they can contain him, they can certainly contain you."
This was it. The moment he'd been imagining for years.
Except he'd never once imagined he'd be the one arguing for immediate execution.
He took a deep breath. "Percival can't do this," he said as he pointed at Arthur's wardrobe door.
His eyes flashed gold. The door slammed open.
The goblet fell from Arthur's hand.
"Gaius is afraid zombie me might still have magic," Merlin said nervously to fill the silence. "Which would be - bad. Really bad. I'd probably end up biting everyone in Camelot because it turns out you're wrong, and I'm not an idiot at everything after all, I'm actually quite good at magic - Really good, the Druids think I'm Emrys, which means - " Merlin took another deep breath and in the process deflated. "Actually, it doesn't matter what it means. Because in a few hours, I might be Merlin the Magical Zombie, and Camelot's got enough to deal with without that."
He looked hopefully at Arthur. Arthur's expression was not encouraging, except possibly on the head chopping front.
"You have magic."
" . . . Yes. Always have, and, worryingly, possibly always will."
"You've been lying to me."
"Up until approximately four hours ago, I was trying to avoid getting my head chopped off."
"And you've changed your mind about that because you don't want to destroy Camelot."
"I've put a ridiculous amount of work into keeping you alive so far. I don't want to mess it up now."
Arthur had that look he got when he had a massive he ache brewing. "Why? Why - any of it?"
Merlin knew that feeling well, but he wasn't looking forward to explaining it. "Does it matter?" he hedged. "I mean, given the circumstances."
Arthur looked ready to furiously say that yes, it very much mattered, but they were interrupted by an urgent knocking on the door. "Your highness!" a guard called. "The physician says he's found a cure!"
Arthur smiled. Merlin gulped.
It seemed explanations were back on the table after all.
