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King Arthur Fic: Rumors Of War (Resurrection AU), Part 2
Rumors of War continued from here.
. . . make sure that one of us is in the room . . . can't risk telling him . . . .
Shhh! Keep your voice down . . . .
. . . made this awful grinding sound. I've never seen Bruenor get that mad.
. . . think he'll do after he finds out . . .
. . . and well, they were sisters . . .
. . . Arthur hasn't . . .
The familiar voices drifted over him like the rise and fall of the sea against the shore.
Gradually, the sea receded, and the sounds came from close around him. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times against what felt like sand in his eyes. The lights were too bright, and they made his eyes water. He squinted, and saw Bedivere sitting beside the bed reading a newspaper. Bruenor was in the room's other chair. The window was dark. It took Lancelot a moment to realize that the sounds he was hearing were coming from the television hung high in a corner of the room.
He blinked a few more times as he gazed up at it. "What are they doing?" He demanded, his voice annoying him with its weakness.
Bruenor started and glanced at him before returning his gaze to the telly. "They're jousting."
"What?"
"Jousting. They charge at each other with lances. Like a cavalry charge but one on one."
Lancelot eyed the screen. "Why on earth would they want to do that?" It made no sense. And all that ridiculously heavy armor? Those stupid looking little shields? Knocked off their horses these men would be as useful as a turtle on its back. And what had they done to their poor horses? Maybe this was a dream after all, because nothing could be quite this stupid.
"I think it's a sport for them. It's a show about a king who used to rule Britain a long time ago—but not as long ago as Rome. They think they're being knightly." Bruenor sounded somewhat contemptuous, but he kept his gaze locked on the screen. "Bors always watches it. But I think that's maybe just for all the heaving bosoms."
Lancelot watched as two riders charged at each other. (And was that a fence between them?) One got knocked off his horse. From the way he had fallen, his leg should be broken. Served the moron right. Although the other rider was equally as stupid, so . . . .
He found his eyes drifting shut again. When he managed to pry them open, the television screen was dark. He had been watching something strange . . . with horses? The memory seemed surreal. Perhaps it had been a dream. Bruenor was gone, if he had ever been here but Bedivere was—still?—here, now with a laptop. He was frowning that concentrating frown of his.
"How much money have you made?" Lancelot asked, wincing as he shifted. While his head felt stuffed with straw and pain was a remote thing, that did not mean moving his head around was a good idea.
Bedivere continued to frown. "A bit. But with current market volatility and the state of U.S. credit market . . . ."
Lancelot stopped listening. Lancelot had no interest in gambling if he could not see the look in his opponents' eyes when he took all their money. He glanced around the room, and interrupted Bedivere as a thought occurred to him. "Where's Arthur?"
Bedivere was used to no one listening to his explanations. "He's gone to some dinner event, I believe. Dagonet and Kay are with him."
Lancelot frowned. There was something— He was so ridiculously tired. "Only Kay and Dag? Did you—"
"It's fine," Bedivere interrupted before Lancelot could figure out what he was trying to ask. "Arthur came by before he went out, but you were asleep."
Arthur had been here last time he had woken. . . . No, he had not. He had woken several times since then. Hadn't he? The memories were hard to straighten out. Had he seen Arthur since that first time? He was sure he had seen Arthur that time . . . . "What day is it?"
"You woke in the morning day before yesterday. It's now just after midnight."
That long? He shifted again, ignoring the ache in his chest.
"You've been sleeping most of the time," Bedivere supplied. "Odd as it seems, the doctors have said you need yet more sleep to recover. "
From Lancelot's vague recollections of some of his interactions with the doctors, he was not sure that was their only motivation. But the faint surge of smugness barely made itself felt.
"And," Bedivere added with gentle reproof, "you need to stay quietly in bed."
Lancelot wanted to tell him what he thought about that, but he could not quite form the retort. His eyelids felt too heavy to keep open. There had been something he wanted to ask . . . . But . . . .
~
Tor snuck into the kitchen, heart pounding, but the thought of creamy sweetness prodded him on. He craned his head around to check for the enemy's presence. No signs. He charged forward and began to jerk open cabin doors in rapid succession. For once, he ignored the cabinets filled with food and concentrated on the far less well-known territory on the other side of the kitchen.
Bowls. Metal pots. Thing he didn't know. More pots. Big dishes.
There!
Stifling a crow of triumph, Tor stared at the gleaming instrument with reverence. Casting another glance over his shoulder, he was about to pull the blender out of the cabinet when he heard something from the hallway.
Looking around frantically, he leaped toward the pantry. He managed to snap the lights off on his way, but did not get the pantry door to shut in time. He stood in the darkness, listening hard. If Bruenor caught him down here, it would be ugly—for Tor's stomach anyway. It wasn't fair. The first one had been all Percival's fault. The stupid git had put rocks in it. Tor had told him not to do it. (Okay, he had dared him to, but it was Percival who had been stupid enough to try it!) And the second one had not been Tor's fault either. Not really. How was he to know that it would drown in the dishwasher? It had seemed the best way to clean the bottom part after everything had gone flying. (The walls had been a whole different story. Not to mention the ceiling.) Bruenor had finally come home with a new blender today, but, when he had seen Tor eyeing it, he had threatened dire food deprivation if he caught Tor touching it.
Tor peered out through the opened crack of the door as the lights turned on. He did not dare pull the door shut for fear of the sound it would make.
It was not Bruenor who came into sight, nor Percival, Tor's next guess at this time of night (he would have liked it if it were Percival, he could have leaped out the pantry and scared the shit out of that idiot).
Tor sucked in a breath in as realized who it was. After Bruenor, Agravaine was the last person he wanted to run into. Maybe not even after Bruenor. He hoped the man would hurry up and take whatever he had come for and go.
Agravaine had walked out of his line of sight and he heard the sound of the refrigerator opening and closing. Agravaine reappeared with a glass of—milk? Rather than leaving, he settled into one of the chairs at the counter and then gave a look around that made Tor duck. Agravaine pulled something out of a pocket and Tor's ears perked up at the sound of crinkling plastic. That sounded like—! It was. The bloody selfish bastard had been hoarding sweets somewhere. A sound of indignation escaped Tor that had Agravaine looking around again. Tor tried to hold his breath. He was afraid that his heart was pounding loud enough to give him away. Tor kept his lips clamped together as Agravaine turned back to his package. He dumped a handful of something colorful in his hand and popped them in his mouth.
He chewed for a while, took a gulp of milk and then pulled a mobile phone from his pocket. He hit some buttons and then held the phone to his ear.
"Yes, it's me." A pause. Tor wondered whom he could be calling. Tor could not remember who would be at the hospital tonight. "Yes, your incompetent lackey returned it. No, no one here suspects a thing." Agravaine was sneering, though he kept his voice low. "You fucking owe me an explanation, you little—" Agravaine broke off and listened. Who could have made him stop mid-tirade like that? Gareth? Kay? But while he was not sure what a "lackey" was, but Tor was pretty sure that neither Gareth nor Kay would have any. It did not sound like something nice.
"Don't try to blame your own failures on me! That Lancelot was there should hardly have—"
Whomever it was managed to stop him again. Tor could not make any sense of what Agravaine was talking about. His next thought, that it could be Lancelot on the line, was not right either. Besides, Lancelot seemed to sleeping all the time and would not be talking to Agravaine in the middle of the night, anyway.
"Fine," Agravaine snapped after a minute. "And so now what?" Another long silence. Then, "How do you know—? Wait, wait, wait. So you're back to that again. Well, I'm not sure I'm willing to wait any longer. You had your chance, and you buggered it." Agravaine flipped the phone shut.
"Insufferable bloody bastard. Just like his fucking father." Agravaine muttered to himself. "But I know more than he thinks." He crammed another handful of the colorful things in his mouth and finished off his milk. Mobile and plastic package were swept off the counter, and then he stalked out of the kitchen, turning off the lights behind him.
Tor waited for a long a time before he crept out of the pantry and dared to turn on the lights again. Agravaine had left his dirty glass on the counter. He was not supposed to do that. A bit of red on the floor caught Tor's eye and he bent and picked it up. A gummy bear? That's what Agravaine had been eating by the handful? It might have been funny, but Tor's heart was beating a little too fast to allow for any laughter. He did not know who Agravaine had been talking to, but whoever it was, and whatever the conversation had been about, it had sure had made Agravaine furious. And Agravaine would have been even more furious if he had caught Tor listening.
Tor looked at the cabinet where Bruenor had tucked away the blender. His enthusiasm for his illicit milkshake seemed to have faded. Even the important question of banana or cherry flavor had lost its urgency. He sighed and trudged out of the kitchen. Agravaine was such a pain. He ruined everything.
~
Lillian considered her ordered lists as the others continued to talk. The meeting was nearly over. They had addressed all matters requiring immediate action, with only some of the details left to be worked out later.
Or so Lillian had thought.
"It would be better to move up the date of the public announcement," the women seated diagonally from Lillian announced. "The added time for publicity would be beneficial." She had a valid point, but Lillian eyed the woman with carefully concealed loathing.
She had known Ginevra Nesbith-Jones well before the day that her old mentor Robert Scott had told her a fantastic story of dead men coming back to life and the beginning of a new age for Britain. (At the time, she had nearly had him involuntarily committed for a thorough psych evaluation, but instead had come to work for him again.)
She had met Ginevra years ago when they had both attended Cheltenham Ladies' College. Lillian had been some years Ginevra's senior, but she had kept a wary eye on the girl from the day of her arrival, complete with uniformed staff, four-poster bed, more trunks than could fit into her room, and her own horse.
Lillian had been one of the local scholarship students, but by means ruthless and calculating, by the time of Ginevra's arrival she had clawed her way to the top of the school's hierarchy. Most of the other girls had even forgotten she did not have their privileged background—she had enough rich-girl hangers-on who were more than willing to pick up the bills.
Of course, even as she made use of them, she had secretly despised the spoiled girls surrounding her. Ginevra had been among the worst. Her father was old blood aristocracy and her mother was a daughter of the monstrously wealthy D'Augbiny family. But Ginevra had not even had the consideration to be one of the vapid, empty-headed daughters of privilege. Ginevra had proved herself shrewd and manipulative even at a young age, yet she had still been able to dupe those around her with her big eyes and waifish frame. Everyone adored her. Even after Lillian had left school, everywhere she went, it seemed all she heard were praises of the girl—and when people gushed about the girl's latest extraordinary accomplishment, Lillian had been forced to grind her teeth to prevent herself from reminding them that she had done just as well, if not better, at Cheltenham. But since she lacked the halo that surrounded the perfect "Gigi" everyone seemed to forget that. It had only gotten worse once Ginevra had started being featuring prominently in the society pages. The media had uniformly drooled over her, and she seemed to be unable to take a wrong step in their adoring eyes, appearing in glamorous picture after glamorous picture.
Lillian had none of the advantages that money and blood provided, but her own relentless drive, her intelligence, her tenacity and her hard work had made her one of the most powerful women in Britain. Although her name was not well known—she never appeared in the society pictures in which Ginevra featured so often—she managed power from behind the scenes. She got things done. She had connections everywhere, her discretion was absolute, her advice impeccable. Kingmakers, she and Robert had laughingly called themselves after ushering all their candidates into office a few elections ago, and now that appellation had become even more apt. (The opposition, of course, had its own powers behind the scenes. The one in recent ascendancy, the shadowy Mr. Amhar, was little seen, even among the other power players.)
Ginevra, too, had risen even further after leaving school, but all she had ever had to do was hold out her hand to get exactly what she wanted. She now headed the D'Augbiny's enormous charitable foundation, as well as holding an important-sounding title in the D'Augbiny Group. While the press continued to adore her as the fabulous doer of good deeds, in actuality Ginevra, with her uncle's absent-minded support, was poised to sweep control of the Group out from under the crew of dull D'Augbiny cousins who had been steadily, if unimaginatively, running the business for Leighton since his father had died. Still, Lillian had been able to feel the smug satisfaction that, even if Ginevra, with all her advantages, ended up the head of the D'Augbiny empire, she could never match Lillian for sheer power.
That was until the day she was told there was in fact a real Queen Guinevere and that she was already alive in this time. And then just who she was. Lillian had left the meeting, stepped into her office, proceeded to sweep everything off of her desk (the crash of the computer monitor shattering had been particularly gratifying), and hurled a crystal vase at a cowering Pam and a pewter picture frame at a bewildered Michael. She had then gone home and ripped her flat apart while shrieking at the top of her lungs. It had been quite cathartic. She could now smile widely at Ginevra, and she had even exclaimed over how delighted she was that a Cheltenham Old Girl had turned out to be ancient royalty. So, really, it had been worth every pound she had spent getting her apartment redecorated. And the old color scheme had been getting rather dated anyway. Patching the holes in the walls—well, that had given her building's over-paid staff something to do beside sit on their fat arses.
It provided Lillian some small satisfaction that Ginevra's bid to take over the D'Augbiny Group would now have to wait until at least after the election. Ginevra had to continue to be regarded as an elegant, bright, compassionate but essentially unthreatening women—in other words, the perfect partner for a rising politician. Lillian, however, also knew that, by whatever means, Ginevra would undoubtedly eventually get everything she wanted. She always did.
She realized the silence had gone on too long and looked up from her brooding, the gold nib of her fountain pen poised over the item she had been about to tick off.
Ginevra was watching Arthur from across the table, all wide, earnest eyes. Lillian certainly was not fooled by that expression. Arthur merely looked back at his once and future wife. Lillian wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Generally, all men turned into drooling idiots around Ginevra.
"The timetable will stand," Arthur said at last. His tone finished the matter, or at least it should have.
Ginevra's eyes narrowed slightly. "So, you still haven't told him yet." Lillian watched her carefully. The steel was showing. "You're running out of time."
"That is my concern." Arthur's voice was sharp. "Guinevere! Enough."
Ginevra merely raised her eyebrows. Lillian liked to think she would not have quailed at Arthur's tone either, but she was more interested in figuring out what and who they were talking about. This did not sound like a new argument.
She felt a nudge against her foot and Robert caught her eye. He cleared his throat. "Why don't we take a short break? Lillian and I have some calls to make. We'll just step out for a moment." Lillian wanted to roll her eyes. Robert had always been a bit too much of a gentleman. She stood reluctantly and followed, lingering long enough to hear their voices rise again, but she realized they were not speaking English. Frustrated, she was at the door when she caught a name amid the unfamiliar words.
Lancelot? What did Lancelot have to do with—
Her eyes widened in realization as it all seemed to click into place with an almost audible snap. Could it—? It made sense. The way that Arthur had been so specific in his instructions about what not to tell Lancelot or any of the other knights, especially that nothing was to be said about Guinevere. The way he had been putting off making any kind of public announcement and refusing to give any explanation for it. Ginevra's uncharacteristically naked resentment. Arthur's preoccupation since Lancelot had arrived, his complete shut down when Lancelot had been shot, and his insistence on including the clearly less than impressed Lancelot in his campaign efforts.
It all made a ridiculous sort of sense. She could not believe she had missed something so obvious. But it was not exactly the first thing that came to mind when you thought of the names Arthur and Lancelot.
And no wonder that smug bastard had never seemed interested.
~
He sat in the dimly lit back room of the club, playing with the way the sparse lighting reflected off the cut crystal of his glass. Merlin was late, he noted with a mixture of amusement and irritation. Same old tactics. The old man never seemed to realize that he was no longer dealing with the adolescent boy who could be riled by such calculated slights.
Still, he was a busy man, and he did not appreciate being kept waiting. Not when he had so many other interesting things to do. He took a drink and smiled to himself.
When Merlin finally appeared, he did not comment on the man's tardiness. He waited with every appearance of patience while Merlin asked the hovering waiter for tea. It was only when Merlin was sipping from his cup and the waiter had been dismissed with a curt nod that he spoke. "It seems you've lost your touch, Merlin."
Merlin raised his eyebrows. "Oh? Perhaps you failed in carrying out your part."
He restrained the snarl that wanted to curl his lips and let his voice approach the smoothness of silk. "My part was carried out just as you instructed. Yet no one is dead. A pity. Perhaps your magic doesn't work in this time after all. Or perhaps you're just getting old."
Merlin sighed, a long-suffering teacher with a thickheaded pupil. "It's not my 'magic' that is the issue. Nor my age." He added several spoons of sugar to his cup from the dainty pot the waiter had brought with the silver tea tray. "It is merely not yet time."
"Not yet time," he repeated, settling back in his chair and listening to the clinking of the teaspoon as Merlin whisked it around his cup. He wondered if the old man had any inkling of how badly he had exposed himself by seeking him out and asking for his assistance in this. Merlin had to know. The old man was not such a fool; the game he was playing had to be deeper. Merlin had always been like a spider sitting at the center of a web.
It was fortunate that even as a child, he had enjoyed pulling the legs off of spiders.
He decided to needle a bit. "While you were somehow correct about who the bullet would hit, despite who it was aimed at—quite a nice trick that—it becomes less impressive, given that Arthur's favorite . . . knight is currently all too alive. Now, I wouldn't have minded if your parlor trick failed and it was Arthur who was killed." He let himself smile. In fact, he would not have been pleased by such an easy death. "But your little ploy failed to kill anyone at all and has instead merely alerted Arthur to be on guard. If you were attempting to gain my confidence with this, Merlin, you could have hardly performed more poorly." His smile slid into a sneer. "The only thing that has come from this exercise is a useless failure."
The old man merely sipped his sweetened tea. "Do you think so? I disagree. I've learned a great deal."
Learned? Before he could help it, his eyes had narrowed. Had it all been a ploy—? "So then you did not want the knight dead after all." It came out sharper than he had intended.
"No," Merlin said equably, "he has to die. Just, it seems, not quite yet." The tone was mild, but that light that flared in his eyes before he masked it behind the professorial manner again.
He allowed himself a smile once he had raised his drink. Well then. He decided then and there that Lancelot would not be dying after all. At least not before Arthur. It had been such a shameful waste of an opportunity anyway, but worth it to allow Merlin to expose himself. Now, however, he could—how did that expression go?—have his cake and eat it too.
He quite liked cake.
~
Tor fidgeted for a moment before he knocked on the door to the room that Galahad shared with Gaheris and Gawain. He had not seen any sign of Galahad all day, and had only seen him in passing the days before. So, finally, he had dared to come here. He tended to avoid this room.
To his relief, it was Galahad who answered the door and an involuntary glance into the depths of the room suggested that there was no one else there. He heaved a sigh.
"What are you doing in there?" he demanded, but stuttered to a stop as he took a closer look at his friend. Galahad looked kind of haggard. Like he had not been sleeping. Or as if had aged a bunch of years in the last days. Tor felt a surge of panic. Maybe the weird magic that had brought them back to life was not working anymore. Maybe they would all be turning into walking corpses just like in those movies—
Galahad just shrugged. "What do you want?" But he stepped back so Tor could enter the room.
Tor blinked at him. Was it not obvious? "I'm bored." Since the shooting, no one was allowed to leave the house without getting permission, and that, Gaheris had seemed sadistically pleased to inform Tor, meant that Tor need not even ask, because the answer would always be no. It was so unfair.
He directed a wary look at the large, unmade bed, and then circled wide around it to take a ginger seat on one of the room's chairs. Galahad plopped down on the foot of the bed. His hair was sticking out all over the place, and he was dressed in wrinkled, loose clothes that were drab and looked too big to belong to him. Something was not right.
"Sooo . . . ." Tor had not come here intending to propose something so drastic—that was Galahad's job—but desperate measures seemed to be called for. "Do you want to sneak out of the house?"
He was rewarded as Galahad's pallid face lit up. Under other circumstances, Tor might be alarmed at that expression, but now he grinned back, quite pleased with himself. And maybe when they got back they could make milkshakes. Banana and cherry, Tor decided.
To Tor's surprise, after Galahad had groomed himself to his satisfaction—and that had taken long enough for Tor to head down to the kitchen for a snack while he waited—and after they had managed to sneak out of the house through the far side of the grounds with surprising ease—Gaheris was out—Galahad did not head for the shops. Tor had been willing to even put up with clothes shopping to cheer Galahad up, but, instead, Galahad had dragged Tor off the bus in a part of the city that Tor did not know. He took them to a boring looking office building. It was only when they reached the roof that Tor realized where they were.
He shuddered. He did not want to be here, but, feet dragging, he followed Galahad to one corner of the roof. He looked down at the street below, almost expecting to see blood.
This was not at all the fun time that Tor had been hoping for. He cast a sidelong glance at Galahad, who had squatted down, eyes fixed on the street below. "What are we doing here?" he finally asked. He had not even known where the building was, and was surprised that Galahad did.
"I thought I should see it for myself."
"Why?" Tor would be more than happy to have a chance at whomever had hurt Lancelot, but he had no illusions that he would be one of the knights to figure out whom that person was. He did not understand what they were doing here, except making his skin crawl. He wanted to leave.
Galahad gave him a look that Tor did not know how to read. "Could you make this shot?"
Tor stared at him and then sighed. He crouched down beside Galahad. It was afternoon, about the time of the shooting. The sun was behind them and the visibility was good. The shop window that must have been shattered during the shooting was still boarded up. "It doesn't look that hard." Tor had not found marksmanship with the new weapons difficult, once he had gotten used to them. He had even tried a few rounds with the sniper rifles, and had done pretty well, despite Agravaine's jeering. "Why?" he asked again.
Galahad stood up. "Nothing." He surveyed the city below them. He was silent for awhile, but then his posture changed and, when he turned to Tor again, his expression was something Tor could recognize. "Do you have any money?"
Tor had been hoping for that question. He grinned and triumphantly pulled out a thick wad of notes from his pocket. Galahad seized the money and began to count it. "I, um, took it from Bors. He was passed out in the kitchen when I went down there." Galahad glanced up from his counting, looking impressed at Tor's daring. "He owed me for my donuts, anyway," Tor added, both smug and defensive. Revenge would be sweet—he was hoping. Bors would think he had spent the money when he had been drinking. Probably.
"There's enough here for those shoes I want." Tor rolled his eyes. "What? You keep ruining my shoes when you step on my feet with those hideous trainers of yours." Tor only did that to try to keep Galahad from staying stupid things. It rarely worked. Still, Tor did not protest, although he sighed, a little forlorn. "There might be something left over for donuts," Galahad added generously as he headed toward the door.
"But they won't be Krispy Kremes," Tor murmured to himself. For those, you had to go to London.
He cast one uneasy glance over his shoulder at the corner where the shooter must have crouched, for a moment almost seeing a hulking, shadowy figure there. He turned and followed Galahad. "If we can't get Krispy Kremes, I think I want cupcakes instead," he called to Galahad's back.
"If there's enough money left over. Hurry up, the shops will close." Galahad was running down the stairs.
Tor chased after him, complaining all the while that since he had been the one who had stolen the money, he should at least get cupcakes—at least two dozen, make that three—and everything seemed okay again for the moment.
~
Arthur was aware first of Lancelot beneath him. He was sprawled atop the other man's body, his head buried against Lancelot's neck, one hand tangled in his hair, the other arm wrapped around whatever of Lancelot he could reach. He did not need to open his eyes to know this: the feel of the body was unmistakable, as was scent of the skin under his lips.
Lancelot stirred, long legs flexing, but Arthur had them trapped between his own. He could feel Lancelot's breathing change when he moved from sleep to wakefulness. Lancelot squirmed again, but Arthur did not budge. "Get off," Lancelot muttered. "Bastard. Fuckin’ crushing me." Arthur didn't even flinch as what felt like a sharp elbow somehow managed to catch his side. He was used to such things, after all.
After a few more muttered words—Arthur could not catch much of it, and surely Lancelot had not called him fat—Lancelot subsided, sleepiness overcoming temper for the moment. Although, given his canniness, it might be a ruse. Arthur nevertheless took advantage of the stillness to pull himself upward so his cheek rested against Lancelot's hair and his groin aligned with Lancelot's. He pressed down, letting Lancelot feel his arousal, and grinned at the sound Lancelot made, low in his throat.
The smile was still on his lips when they found Lancelot's. Lancelot's lips snarled back at him, but it did not take long before they softened, and a hand tangled demandingly in Arthur's hair. Arthur felt a surge of triumph, headier than anything he ever felt on a battlefield.
Christ, what Lancelot could do with that mouth. He concentrated on kissing as Lancelot's legs drew up to cradle Arthur between his thighs. He wanted to take his time, and but that idea slipped away unnoticed when Lancelot flexed his hips. He tore his mouth from Lancelot's, and caught Lancelot smirking up at him. There was no thought of anything but right now after that.
He opened his eyes to find himself alone in his bed, damp sheets sticking to him.
Groaning, he turned his head into the pillow. Lancelot's scent was long gone from the bedding.
He had not woken in this state in . . . not since Lancelot had returned. He supposed it was not surprising. It had been long days since he had last been with Lancelot—not since the argument after the charity event he had taken Lancelot to. It felt like an eternity ago.
He rolled over on to his back, absently using the sheets to wipe himself off before shoving them aside. He then glanced at the clock before running his hands over his face. It was early yet, but he should just get up. He could go to the hospital before his morning meetings. He could . . . .
He had gone back to the hospital to see Lancelot several times, but he had been relieved to find Lancelot asleep during each visit, and he had not lingered long. It was ironic, since before all he had wanted was for Lancelot to awake. He was busy; he had neglected all of his responsibilities when Lancelot had been unconscious. It was not cowardice. It was not. But he dreaded the conversation that he and Lancelot would have to have the next time they spoke. Lancelot's warning had been clear: he would not suffer being put off any longer. And Arthur himself was running out of time. He had meant to tell Lancelot after they had returned from the meeting at Robert Scott's office, but that plan had been derailed by the shooting. Now there truly was no time left.
The ring of his mobile startled him, and he reached for it, where it lay charging on the bedside table beside the clock. He saw who was calling, and very nearly did not answer. Not with the dream still lingering, the lassitude of it still heavy in his limbs.
He took a deep breath and flipped the mobile open.
"Good morning."
"Did I wake you?" She went on without waiting for an answer. "I hoped to catch you before you went out. I need to set up some appointments and wanted to check with you on your schedule." Before he could stop her, she was taking about color themes and venues.
"Guinevere," he eventually managed to interrupt. "Do you really need me for such things? I leave it to your preferences, and I'm sure Ms. Delaney will have some input for you." There was a silence on the other end of the line. Arthur did not need to see her face to know what her expression looked like. "I trust your judgment," he added.
The silence continued for another moment, and, when she spoke, he knew that tone as well. "I had thought you would want to participate this time." He winced. The last time he had left it all up to her as well. He had been too numbed by other things, too busy throwing himself his new responsibilities, too unwilling to give personal matters any thought. If it had been later, after he had begun to think clearly again, he would not have chosen a pagan ceremony. He had been stupid enough to let that thought slip years later.
He sighed. "Of course I would. Just tell me when."
Continued here.
. . . make sure that one of us is in the room . . . can't risk telling him . . . .
Shhh! Keep your voice down . . . .
. . . made this awful grinding sound. I've never seen Bruenor get that mad.
. . . think he'll do after he finds out . . .
. . . and well, they were sisters . . .
. . . Arthur hasn't . . .
The familiar voices drifted over him like the rise and fall of the sea against the shore.
Gradually, the sea receded, and the sounds came from close around him. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times against what felt like sand in his eyes. The lights were too bright, and they made his eyes water. He squinted, and saw Bedivere sitting beside the bed reading a newspaper. Bruenor was in the room's other chair. The window was dark. It took Lancelot a moment to realize that the sounds he was hearing were coming from the television hung high in a corner of the room.
He blinked a few more times as he gazed up at it. "What are they doing?" He demanded, his voice annoying him with its weakness.
Bruenor started and glanced at him before returning his gaze to the telly. "They're jousting."
"What?"
"Jousting. They charge at each other with lances. Like a cavalry charge but one on one."
Lancelot eyed the screen. "Why on earth would they want to do that?" It made no sense. And all that ridiculously heavy armor? Those stupid looking little shields? Knocked off their horses these men would be as useful as a turtle on its back. And what had they done to their poor horses? Maybe this was a dream after all, because nothing could be quite this stupid.
"I think it's a sport for them. It's a show about a king who used to rule Britain a long time ago—but not as long ago as Rome. They think they're being knightly." Bruenor sounded somewhat contemptuous, but he kept his gaze locked on the screen. "Bors always watches it. But I think that's maybe just for all the heaving bosoms."
Lancelot watched as two riders charged at each other. (And was that a fence between them?) One got knocked off his horse. From the way he had fallen, his leg should be broken. Served the moron right. Although the other rider was equally as stupid, so . . . .
He found his eyes drifting shut again. When he managed to pry them open, the television screen was dark. He had been watching something strange . . . with horses? The memory seemed surreal. Perhaps it had been a dream. Bruenor was gone, if he had ever been here but Bedivere was—still?—here, now with a laptop. He was frowning that concentrating frown of his.
"How much money have you made?" Lancelot asked, wincing as he shifted. While his head felt stuffed with straw and pain was a remote thing, that did not mean moving his head around was a good idea.
Bedivere continued to frown. "A bit. But with current market volatility and the state of U.S. credit market . . . ."
Lancelot stopped listening. Lancelot had no interest in gambling if he could not see the look in his opponents' eyes when he took all their money. He glanced around the room, and interrupted Bedivere as a thought occurred to him. "Where's Arthur?"
Bedivere was used to no one listening to his explanations. "He's gone to some dinner event, I believe. Dagonet and Kay are with him."
Lancelot frowned. There was something— He was so ridiculously tired. "Only Kay and Dag? Did you—"
"It's fine," Bedivere interrupted before Lancelot could figure out what he was trying to ask. "Arthur came by before he went out, but you were asleep."
Arthur had been here last time he had woken. . . . No, he had not. He had woken several times since then. Hadn't he? The memories were hard to straighten out. Had he seen Arthur since that first time? He was sure he had seen Arthur that time . . . . "What day is it?"
"You woke in the morning day before yesterday. It's now just after midnight."
That long? He shifted again, ignoring the ache in his chest.
"You've been sleeping most of the time," Bedivere supplied. "Odd as it seems, the doctors have said you need yet more sleep to recover. "
From Lancelot's vague recollections of some of his interactions with the doctors, he was not sure that was their only motivation. But the faint surge of smugness barely made itself felt.
"And," Bedivere added with gentle reproof, "you need to stay quietly in bed."
Lancelot wanted to tell him what he thought about that, but he could not quite form the retort. His eyelids felt too heavy to keep open. There had been something he wanted to ask . . . . But . . . .
Tor snuck into the kitchen, heart pounding, but the thought of creamy sweetness prodded him on. He craned his head around to check for the enemy's presence. No signs. He charged forward and began to jerk open cabin doors in rapid succession. For once, he ignored the cabinets filled with food and concentrated on the far less well-known territory on the other side of the kitchen.
Bowls. Metal pots. Thing he didn't know. More pots. Big dishes.
There!
Stifling a crow of triumph, Tor stared at the gleaming instrument with reverence. Casting another glance over his shoulder, he was about to pull the blender out of the cabinet when he heard something from the hallway.
Looking around frantically, he leaped toward the pantry. He managed to snap the lights off on his way, but did not get the pantry door to shut in time. He stood in the darkness, listening hard. If Bruenor caught him down here, it would be ugly—for Tor's stomach anyway. It wasn't fair. The first one had been all Percival's fault. The stupid git had put rocks in it. Tor had told him not to do it. (Okay, he had dared him to, but it was Percival who had been stupid enough to try it!) And the second one had not been Tor's fault either. Not really. How was he to know that it would drown in the dishwasher? It had seemed the best way to clean the bottom part after everything had gone flying. (The walls had been a whole different story. Not to mention the ceiling.) Bruenor had finally come home with a new blender today, but, when he had seen Tor eyeing it, he had threatened dire food deprivation if he caught Tor touching it.
Tor peered out through the opened crack of the door as the lights turned on. He did not dare pull the door shut for fear of the sound it would make.
It was not Bruenor who came into sight, nor Percival, Tor's next guess at this time of night (he would have liked it if it were Percival, he could have leaped out the pantry and scared the shit out of that idiot).
Tor sucked in a breath in as realized who it was. After Bruenor, Agravaine was the last person he wanted to run into. Maybe not even after Bruenor. He hoped the man would hurry up and take whatever he had come for and go.
Agravaine had walked out of his line of sight and he heard the sound of the refrigerator opening and closing. Agravaine reappeared with a glass of—milk? Rather than leaving, he settled into one of the chairs at the counter and then gave a look around that made Tor duck. Agravaine pulled something out of a pocket and Tor's ears perked up at the sound of crinkling plastic. That sounded like—! It was. The bloody selfish bastard had been hoarding sweets somewhere. A sound of indignation escaped Tor that had Agravaine looking around again. Tor tried to hold his breath. He was afraid that his heart was pounding loud enough to give him away. Tor kept his lips clamped together as Agravaine turned back to his package. He dumped a handful of something colorful in his hand and popped them in his mouth.
He chewed for a while, took a gulp of milk and then pulled a mobile phone from his pocket. He hit some buttons and then held the phone to his ear.
"Yes, it's me." A pause. Tor wondered whom he could be calling. Tor could not remember who would be at the hospital tonight. "Yes, your incompetent lackey returned it. No, no one here suspects a thing." Agravaine was sneering, though he kept his voice low. "You fucking owe me an explanation, you little—" Agravaine broke off and listened. Who could have made him stop mid-tirade like that? Gareth? Kay? But while he was not sure what a "lackey" was, but Tor was pretty sure that neither Gareth nor Kay would have any. It did not sound like something nice.
"Don't try to blame your own failures on me! That Lancelot was there should hardly have—"
Whomever it was managed to stop him again. Tor could not make any sense of what Agravaine was talking about. His next thought, that it could be Lancelot on the line, was not right either. Besides, Lancelot seemed to sleeping all the time and would not be talking to Agravaine in the middle of the night, anyway.
"Fine," Agravaine snapped after a minute. "And so now what?" Another long silence. Then, "How do you know—? Wait, wait, wait. So you're back to that again. Well, I'm not sure I'm willing to wait any longer. You had your chance, and you buggered it." Agravaine flipped the phone shut.
"Insufferable bloody bastard. Just like his fucking father." Agravaine muttered to himself. "But I know more than he thinks." He crammed another handful of the colorful things in his mouth and finished off his milk. Mobile and plastic package were swept off the counter, and then he stalked out of the kitchen, turning off the lights behind him.
Tor waited for a long a time before he crept out of the pantry and dared to turn on the lights again. Agravaine had left his dirty glass on the counter. He was not supposed to do that. A bit of red on the floor caught Tor's eye and he bent and picked it up. A gummy bear? That's what Agravaine had been eating by the handful? It might have been funny, but Tor's heart was beating a little too fast to allow for any laughter. He did not know who Agravaine had been talking to, but whoever it was, and whatever the conversation had been about, it had sure had made Agravaine furious. And Agravaine would have been even more furious if he had caught Tor listening.
Tor looked at the cabinet where Bruenor had tucked away the blender. His enthusiasm for his illicit milkshake seemed to have faded. Even the important question of banana or cherry flavor had lost its urgency. He sighed and trudged out of the kitchen. Agravaine was such a pain. He ruined everything.
Lillian considered her ordered lists as the others continued to talk. The meeting was nearly over. They had addressed all matters requiring immediate action, with only some of the details left to be worked out later.
Or so Lillian had thought.
"It would be better to move up the date of the public announcement," the women seated diagonally from Lillian announced. "The added time for publicity would be beneficial." She had a valid point, but Lillian eyed the woman with carefully concealed loathing.
She had known Ginevra Nesbith-Jones well before the day that her old mentor Robert Scott had told her a fantastic story of dead men coming back to life and the beginning of a new age for Britain. (At the time, she had nearly had him involuntarily committed for a thorough psych evaluation, but instead had come to work for him again.)
She had met Ginevra years ago when they had both attended Cheltenham Ladies' College. Lillian had been some years Ginevra's senior, but she had kept a wary eye on the girl from the day of her arrival, complete with uniformed staff, four-poster bed, more trunks than could fit into her room, and her own horse.
Lillian had been one of the local scholarship students, but by means ruthless and calculating, by the time of Ginevra's arrival she had clawed her way to the top of the school's hierarchy. Most of the other girls had even forgotten she did not have their privileged background—she had enough rich-girl hangers-on who were more than willing to pick up the bills.
Of course, even as she made use of them, she had secretly despised the spoiled girls surrounding her. Ginevra had been among the worst. Her father was old blood aristocracy and her mother was a daughter of the monstrously wealthy D'Augbiny family. But Ginevra had not even had the consideration to be one of the vapid, empty-headed daughters of privilege. Ginevra had proved herself shrewd and manipulative even at a young age, yet she had still been able to dupe those around her with her big eyes and waifish frame. Everyone adored her. Even after Lillian had left school, everywhere she went, it seemed all she heard were praises of the girl—and when people gushed about the girl's latest extraordinary accomplishment, Lillian had been forced to grind her teeth to prevent herself from reminding them that she had done just as well, if not better, at Cheltenham. But since she lacked the halo that surrounded the perfect "Gigi" everyone seemed to forget that. It had only gotten worse once Ginevra had started being featuring prominently in the society pages. The media had uniformly drooled over her, and she seemed to be unable to take a wrong step in their adoring eyes, appearing in glamorous picture after glamorous picture.
Lillian had none of the advantages that money and blood provided, but her own relentless drive, her intelligence, her tenacity and her hard work had made her one of the most powerful women in Britain. Although her name was not well known—she never appeared in the society pictures in which Ginevra featured so often—she managed power from behind the scenes. She got things done. She had connections everywhere, her discretion was absolute, her advice impeccable. Kingmakers, she and Robert had laughingly called themselves after ushering all their candidates into office a few elections ago, and now that appellation had become even more apt. (The opposition, of course, had its own powers behind the scenes. The one in recent ascendancy, the shadowy Mr. Amhar, was little seen, even among the other power players.)
Ginevra, too, had risen even further after leaving school, but all she had ever had to do was hold out her hand to get exactly what she wanted. She now headed the D'Augbiny's enormous charitable foundation, as well as holding an important-sounding title in the D'Augbiny Group. While the press continued to adore her as the fabulous doer of good deeds, in actuality Ginevra, with her uncle's absent-minded support, was poised to sweep control of the Group out from under the crew of dull D'Augbiny cousins who had been steadily, if unimaginatively, running the business for Leighton since his father had died. Still, Lillian had been able to feel the smug satisfaction that, even if Ginevra, with all her advantages, ended up the head of the D'Augbiny empire, she could never match Lillian for sheer power.
That was until the day she was told there was in fact a real Queen Guinevere and that she was already alive in this time. And then just who she was. Lillian had left the meeting, stepped into her office, proceeded to sweep everything off of her desk (the crash of the computer monitor shattering had been particularly gratifying), and hurled a crystal vase at a cowering Pam and a pewter picture frame at a bewildered Michael. She had then gone home and ripped her flat apart while shrieking at the top of her lungs. It had been quite cathartic. She could now smile widely at Ginevra, and she had even exclaimed over how delighted she was that a Cheltenham Old Girl had turned out to be ancient royalty. So, really, it had been worth every pound she had spent getting her apartment redecorated. And the old color scheme had been getting rather dated anyway. Patching the holes in the walls—well, that had given her building's over-paid staff something to do beside sit on their fat arses.
It provided Lillian some small satisfaction that Ginevra's bid to take over the D'Augbiny Group would now have to wait until at least after the election. Ginevra had to continue to be regarded as an elegant, bright, compassionate but essentially unthreatening women—in other words, the perfect partner for a rising politician. Lillian, however, also knew that, by whatever means, Ginevra would undoubtedly eventually get everything she wanted. She always did.
She realized the silence had gone on too long and looked up from her brooding, the gold nib of her fountain pen poised over the item she had been about to tick off.
Ginevra was watching Arthur from across the table, all wide, earnest eyes. Lillian certainly was not fooled by that expression. Arthur merely looked back at his once and future wife. Lillian wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Generally, all men turned into drooling idiots around Ginevra.
"The timetable will stand," Arthur said at last. His tone finished the matter, or at least it should have.
Ginevra's eyes narrowed slightly. "So, you still haven't told him yet." Lillian watched her carefully. The steel was showing. "You're running out of time."
"That is my concern." Arthur's voice was sharp. "Guinevere! Enough."
Ginevra merely raised her eyebrows. Lillian liked to think she would not have quailed at Arthur's tone either, but she was more interested in figuring out what and who they were talking about. This did not sound like a new argument.
She felt a nudge against her foot and Robert caught her eye. He cleared his throat. "Why don't we take a short break? Lillian and I have some calls to make. We'll just step out for a moment." Lillian wanted to roll her eyes. Robert had always been a bit too much of a gentleman. She stood reluctantly and followed, lingering long enough to hear their voices rise again, but she realized they were not speaking English. Frustrated, she was at the door when she caught a name amid the unfamiliar words.
Lancelot? What did Lancelot have to do with—
Her eyes widened in realization as it all seemed to click into place with an almost audible snap. Could it—? It made sense. The way that Arthur had been so specific in his instructions about what not to tell Lancelot or any of the other knights, especially that nothing was to be said about Guinevere. The way he had been putting off making any kind of public announcement and refusing to give any explanation for it. Ginevra's uncharacteristically naked resentment. Arthur's preoccupation since Lancelot had arrived, his complete shut down when Lancelot had been shot, and his insistence on including the clearly less than impressed Lancelot in his campaign efforts.
It all made a ridiculous sort of sense. She could not believe she had missed something so obvious. But it was not exactly the first thing that came to mind when you thought of the names Arthur and Lancelot.
And no wonder that smug bastard had never seemed interested.
He sat in the dimly lit back room of the club, playing with the way the sparse lighting reflected off the cut crystal of his glass. Merlin was late, he noted with a mixture of amusement and irritation. Same old tactics. The old man never seemed to realize that he was no longer dealing with the adolescent boy who could be riled by such calculated slights.
Still, he was a busy man, and he did not appreciate being kept waiting. Not when he had so many other interesting things to do. He took a drink and smiled to himself.
When Merlin finally appeared, he did not comment on the man's tardiness. He waited with every appearance of patience while Merlin asked the hovering waiter for tea. It was only when Merlin was sipping from his cup and the waiter had been dismissed with a curt nod that he spoke. "It seems you've lost your touch, Merlin."
Merlin raised his eyebrows. "Oh? Perhaps you failed in carrying out your part."
He restrained the snarl that wanted to curl his lips and let his voice approach the smoothness of silk. "My part was carried out just as you instructed. Yet no one is dead. A pity. Perhaps your magic doesn't work in this time after all. Or perhaps you're just getting old."
Merlin sighed, a long-suffering teacher with a thickheaded pupil. "It's not my 'magic' that is the issue. Nor my age." He added several spoons of sugar to his cup from the dainty pot the waiter had brought with the silver tea tray. "It is merely not yet time."
"Not yet time," he repeated, settling back in his chair and listening to the clinking of the teaspoon as Merlin whisked it around his cup. He wondered if the old man had any inkling of how badly he had exposed himself by seeking him out and asking for his assistance in this. Merlin had to know. The old man was not such a fool; the game he was playing had to be deeper. Merlin had always been like a spider sitting at the center of a web.
It was fortunate that even as a child, he had enjoyed pulling the legs off of spiders.
He decided to needle a bit. "While you were somehow correct about who the bullet would hit, despite who it was aimed at—quite a nice trick that—it becomes less impressive, given that Arthur's favorite . . . knight is currently all too alive. Now, I wouldn't have minded if your parlor trick failed and it was Arthur who was killed." He let himself smile. In fact, he would not have been pleased by such an easy death. "But your little ploy failed to kill anyone at all and has instead merely alerted Arthur to be on guard. If you were attempting to gain my confidence with this, Merlin, you could have hardly performed more poorly." His smile slid into a sneer. "The only thing that has come from this exercise is a useless failure."
The old man merely sipped his sweetened tea. "Do you think so? I disagree. I've learned a great deal."
Learned? Before he could help it, his eyes had narrowed. Had it all been a ploy—? "So then you did not want the knight dead after all." It came out sharper than he had intended.
"No," Merlin said equably, "he has to die. Just, it seems, not quite yet." The tone was mild, but that light that flared in his eyes before he masked it behind the professorial manner again.
He allowed himself a smile once he had raised his drink. Well then. He decided then and there that Lancelot would not be dying after all. At least not before Arthur. It had been such a shameful waste of an opportunity anyway, but worth it to allow Merlin to expose himself. Now, however, he could—how did that expression go?—have his cake and eat it too.
He quite liked cake.
Tor fidgeted for a moment before he knocked on the door to the room that Galahad shared with Gaheris and Gawain. He had not seen any sign of Galahad all day, and had only seen him in passing the days before. So, finally, he had dared to come here. He tended to avoid this room.
To his relief, it was Galahad who answered the door and an involuntary glance into the depths of the room suggested that there was no one else there. He heaved a sigh.
"What are you doing in there?" he demanded, but stuttered to a stop as he took a closer look at his friend. Galahad looked kind of haggard. Like he had not been sleeping. Or as if had aged a bunch of years in the last days. Tor felt a surge of panic. Maybe the weird magic that had brought them back to life was not working anymore. Maybe they would all be turning into walking corpses just like in those movies—
Galahad just shrugged. "What do you want?" But he stepped back so Tor could enter the room.
Tor blinked at him. Was it not obvious? "I'm bored." Since the shooting, no one was allowed to leave the house without getting permission, and that, Gaheris had seemed sadistically pleased to inform Tor, meant that Tor need not even ask, because the answer would always be no. It was so unfair.
He directed a wary look at the large, unmade bed, and then circled wide around it to take a ginger seat on one of the room's chairs. Galahad plopped down on the foot of the bed. His hair was sticking out all over the place, and he was dressed in wrinkled, loose clothes that were drab and looked too big to belong to him. Something was not right.
"Sooo . . . ." Tor had not come here intending to propose something so drastic—that was Galahad's job—but desperate measures seemed to be called for. "Do you want to sneak out of the house?"
He was rewarded as Galahad's pallid face lit up. Under other circumstances, Tor might be alarmed at that expression, but now he grinned back, quite pleased with himself. And maybe when they got back they could make milkshakes. Banana and cherry, Tor decided.
To Tor's surprise, after Galahad had groomed himself to his satisfaction—and that had taken long enough for Tor to head down to the kitchen for a snack while he waited—and after they had managed to sneak out of the house through the far side of the grounds with surprising ease—Gaheris was out—Galahad did not head for the shops. Tor had been willing to even put up with clothes shopping to cheer Galahad up, but, instead, Galahad had dragged Tor off the bus in a part of the city that Tor did not know. He took them to a boring looking office building. It was only when they reached the roof that Tor realized where they were.
He shuddered. He did not want to be here, but, feet dragging, he followed Galahad to one corner of the roof. He looked down at the street below, almost expecting to see blood.
This was not at all the fun time that Tor had been hoping for. He cast a sidelong glance at Galahad, who had squatted down, eyes fixed on the street below. "What are we doing here?" he finally asked. He had not even known where the building was, and was surprised that Galahad did.
"I thought I should see it for myself."
"Why?" Tor would be more than happy to have a chance at whomever had hurt Lancelot, but he had no illusions that he would be one of the knights to figure out whom that person was. He did not understand what they were doing here, except making his skin crawl. He wanted to leave.
Galahad gave him a look that Tor did not know how to read. "Could you make this shot?"
Tor stared at him and then sighed. He crouched down beside Galahad. It was afternoon, about the time of the shooting. The sun was behind them and the visibility was good. The shop window that must have been shattered during the shooting was still boarded up. "It doesn't look that hard." Tor had not found marksmanship with the new weapons difficult, once he had gotten used to them. He had even tried a few rounds with the sniper rifles, and had done pretty well, despite Agravaine's jeering. "Why?" he asked again.
Galahad stood up. "Nothing." He surveyed the city below them. He was silent for awhile, but then his posture changed and, when he turned to Tor again, his expression was something Tor could recognize. "Do you have any money?"
Tor had been hoping for that question. He grinned and triumphantly pulled out a thick wad of notes from his pocket. Galahad seized the money and began to count it. "I, um, took it from Bors. He was passed out in the kitchen when I went down there." Galahad glanced up from his counting, looking impressed at Tor's daring. "He owed me for my donuts, anyway," Tor added, both smug and defensive. Revenge would be sweet—he was hoping. Bors would think he had spent the money when he had been drinking. Probably.
"There's enough here for those shoes I want." Tor rolled his eyes. "What? You keep ruining my shoes when you step on my feet with those hideous trainers of yours." Tor only did that to try to keep Galahad from staying stupid things. It rarely worked. Still, Tor did not protest, although he sighed, a little forlorn. "There might be something left over for donuts," Galahad added generously as he headed toward the door.
"But they won't be Krispy Kremes," Tor murmured to himself. For those, you had to go to London.
He cast one uneasy glance over his shoulder at the corner where the shooter must have crouched, for a moment almost seeing a hulking, shadowy figure there. He turned and followed Galahad. "If we can't get Krispy Kremes, I think I want cupcakes instead," he called to Galahad's back.
"If there's enough money left over. Hurry up, the shops will close." Galahad was running down the stairs.
Tor chased after him, complaining all the while that since he had been the one who had stolen the money, he should at least get cupcakes—at least two dozen, make that three—and everything seemed okay again for the moment.
Arthur was aware first of Lancelot beneath him. He was sprawled atop the other man's body, his head buried against Lancelot's neck, one hand tangled in his hair, the other arm wrapped around whatever of Lancelot he could reach. He did not need to open his eyes to know this: the feel of the body was unmistakable, as was scent of the skin under his lips.
Lancelot stirred, long legs flexing, but Arthur had them trapped between his own. He could feel Lancelot's breathing change when he moved from sleep to wakefulness. Lancelot squirmed again, but Arthur did not budge. "Get off," Lancelot muttered. "Bastard. Fuckin’ crushing me." Arthur didn't even flinch as what felt like a sharp elbow somehow managed to catch his side. He was used to such things, after all.
After a few more muttered words—Arthur could not catch much of it, and surely Lancelot had not called him fat—Lancelot subsided, sleepiness overcoming temper for the moment. Although, given his canniness, it might be a ruse. Arthur nevertheless took advantage of the stillness to pull himself upward so his cheek rested against Lancelot's hair and his groin aligned with Lancelot's. He pressed down, letting Lancelot feel his arousal, and grinned at the sound Lancelot made, low in his throat.
The smile was still on his lips when they found Lancelot's. Lancelot's lips snarled back at him, but it did not take long before they softened, and a hand tangled demandingly in Arthur's hair. Arthur felt a surge of triumph, headier than anything he ever felt on a battlefield.
Christ, what Lancelot could do with that mouth. He concentrated on kissing as Lancelot's legs drew up to cradle Arthur between his thighs. He wanted to take his time, and but that idea slipped away unnoticed when Lancelot flexed his hips. He tore his mouth from Lancelot's, and caught Lancelot smirking up at him. There was no thought of anything but right now after that.
He opened his eyes to find himself alone in his bed, damp sheets sticking to him.
Groaning, he turned his head into the pillow. Lancelot's scent was long gone from the bedding.
He had not woken in this state in . . . not since Lancelot had returned. He supposed it was not surprising. It had been long days since he had last been with Lancelot—not since the argument after the charity event he had taken Lancelot to. It felt like an eternity ago.
He rolled over on to his back, absently using the sheets to wipe himself off before shoving them aside. He then glanced at the clock before running his hands over his face. It was early yet, but he should just get up. He could go to the hospital before his morning meetings. He could . . . .
He had gone back to the hospital to see Lancelot several times, but he had been relieved to find Lancelot asleep during each visit, and he had not lingered long. It was ironic, since before all he had wanted was for Lancelot to awake. He was busy; he had neglected all of his responsibilities when Lancelot had been unconscious. It was not cowardice. It was not. But he dreaded the conversation that he and Lancelot would have to have the next time they spoke. Lancelot's warning had been clear: he would not suffer being put off any longer. And Arthur himself was running out of time. He had meant to tell Lancelot after they had returned from the meeting at Robert Scott's office, but that plan had been derailed by the shooting. Now there truly was no time left.
The ring of his mobile startled him, and he reached for it, where it lay charging on the bedside table beside the clock. He saw who was calling, and very nearly did not answer. Not with the dream still lingering, the lassitude of it still heavy in his limbs.
He took a deep breath and flipped the mobile open.
"Good morning."
"Did I wake you?" She went on without waiting for an answer. "I hoped to catch you before you went out. I need to set up some appointments and wanted to check with you on your schedule." Before he could stop her, she was taking about color themes and venues.
"Guinevere," he eventually managed to interrupt. "Do you really need me for such things? I leave it to your preferences, and I'm sure Ms. Delaney will have some input for you." There was a silence on the other end of the line. Arthur did not need to see her face to know what her expression looked like. "I trust your judgment," he added.
The silence continued for another moment, and, when she spoke, he knew that tone as well. "I had thought you would want to participate this time." He winced. The last time he had left it all up to her as well. He had been too numbed by other things, too busy throwing himself his new responsibilities, too unwilling to give personal matters any thought. If it had been later, after he had begun to think clearly again, he would not have chosen a pagan ceremony. He had been stupid enough to let that thought slip years later.
He sighed. "Of course I would. Just tell me when."
Continued here.
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Thanks for the story!!
Shelley
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