Chapter Nineteen: A Wake-Up Call

                                    

                                          
Arthur looked Merlin in the eyes, and skeptically took the chalice that had been thrust at him. "What do you mean, again? What's in this cup?" Arthur peered into the water in the Cup of Life, sniffing it with a slight frown on his face.
                          
"Please," Merlin said softly, "this is the last thing I ask of you, the last time I ask you to trust me. After this, you can make your own judgment of whether I am worthy of your confidence but for now, as the man that has saved your life countless times, as your friend–I am begging you to drink. Let me fulfill my prophecy. Let me save your life. Please."
                          
After a brief hesitation and then a nod, Arthur took a quick swig from the cup, and Merlin did the same as soon as his King had swallowed. Then, Merlin spoke the first incantation he had remembered Nimueh using to activate the Cup of Life, "Ic, séo héahsácerd, þe ácwele strengþe ealdan æwfæstnesse!"
                          
The others, whom Merlin had already instructed, chanted together, intoning the second incantation the druids had used to save Leon, "Butan þæt cwalu. Hrðe þon aidlian. Hrðe þon eðian. Bot ond tile."
                          
After a few moments of silence, Gwaine asked, "So...did it work? Do you feel any different? Or did we butcher those words and make fools of ourselves for no reason?" He grinned, glancing between Arthur and Merlin, who realized they were sitting very close together on Merlin's sofa.
                          
After hastily moving to check Arthur's torso, Merlin let out a sigh of relief. "I think we did it! His wound is gone—there's not even a scar to prove it happened." Merlin sank to his knees on the ground and barked out a laugh that turned into a sob. 
                          
The knights gave Arthur a look that said he's your servant, so you get to do something about that, before leaving the pair alone. "Merlin? What is it?" Arthur asked, but the magician couldn't respond over his own hiccuping sobs.
                          
So instead of pushing his friend, Arthur slid off the sofa and sat beside Merlin, letting the smaller man cry into his shoulder. They sat like that until an exhausted Merlin fell asleep, and Arthur laid him on the couch, wrapping him in a blanket. Arthur, who didn't think he would be able to sleep again for a long time, kept watch at Merlin's side, too wary to explore this new world.
                          
***
                          
When Merlin awoke the following morning, it was to the scent of something burning and the incessant screech of a fire alarm. "What in the bloody hell is going on?" he screeched, falling off the couch he didn't remember falling asleep on as he attempted to disentangle himself from the blanket he didn't remember covering himself with.
                          
"Er, sorry, Merlin, but you didn't exactly teach us how to use this thing," came the sheepish reply from a flushed looking Gwaine. "We were hungry, and, well, Perce thought he could figure out the thing you called an 'oven', but he severely over-judged his competency."


                          
Merlin stifled a groan as he rushed into the kitchen and found a frantic Percival and a bleary-eyed Leon in front of the open oven, an unrecognizably blackened mass inside. After pulling on a pair of heat-resistant mittens, Merlin extracted whatever his friends had tried to cook from the oven and promptly doused it in the sink. 
                          
While he had Percival wave a dish towel near the fire alarm in the hopes that it would stop its beeping, Merlin turned the oven off and examined the damage. Luckily, whatever the knights had tried to bake hadn't made too much of a mess, but he was sure that he'd get complaints from his neighbors for the cacophony caused this morning.
                          
Chuckling softly to himself, Merlin ran a hand through his hair and then suddenly realized that someone was missing. He turned, and, sure enough, found Arthur peeking around the doorframe into the kitchen. 
                          
"Is it safe to come in now?" Arthur asked timidly as the beeping finally stopped. Merlin assured his King that things were back to normal, and Arthur ambled in, acting as though he hadn't just been scared for his life only moments ago. "I'm starving. What's for breakfast? Oh, and there's also the tiny question regarding where the absolute hell I am and what's going on?!?"
                          
The knights exchanged looks before slinking away from the pair to sit at the eating nook in the far corner. "Well, uh, we'll just wait here for breakfast, then, and let you talk," Leon said to Merlin and Arthur, and then quickly tried to engage Percival and Gwaine in small talk, diffusing some of the awkwardness and giving Merlin and Arthur some measure of privacy.
                          
With a sigh, Merlin glanced at Arthur before turning to the fridge. He wasn't looking forward to the conversation that was soon to follow, but he knew that it was a necessary one. Finding what he was looking for, he called over his shoulder, "How does everyone want their eggs?"