D R E A M E R

Now

The crisp morning air circulates around you like a barrier against the tendrils of memories haunting your dreams. It grazes the back of your neck, and the fluttering press of moving air is all you need to ground yourself in the reality of now, away from the then you’ve traveled across the country to escape.

You let the breeze coat the back of your throat with a deep inhale, holding it longer than you know you should before releasing it back into the world around you.

The sidewalk in front of you narrows into a point across your vision, the building it leads to swaying in your mind even as it stands strong as a fortress against the Gotham atmosphere.

A few students mill around the entrance, some on computers and others talking amongst themselves. Fewer still are on the sidewalk itself, or the sidewalks branching off from the one you’ve stilled on, darting across the paths centering the quad of Gotham U.

When you scuttle your feet, the straps of your backpack shift with you and the weight of your future presses against your spine with a reminder of what you’ve lost for this.

One moment more, you decide. Then, swallowing the dryness building in your throat, you start for the building.

You’re almost relieved the ability to recognize the silliness of your hesitation tickles the back of your mind as you make your way inside. Almost. The lingering presence of unwelcome thoughts and glances from everyone you pass solidifies the hesitation as the correct choice.

As if you’d woken this morning and deliberately made it.

Sweat gathers along your fingertips, and it takes you three tries to correctly swipe your phone open to check the room number. It hasn’t changed since you looked this morning. You quickly repeat the number to yourself anyway, blindly stuff your phone back in your pocket, and shuffle down the hallway toward the stairs.

Your shoulders grow taught the closer you get to the room. When you enter, no one looks. You stiffen further for a breath even so before carefully mapping your way to the third desk back in the row closest to the door. The professor briefly glances up from where they’re shuffling a pile of papers, smiles, and then returns to their task.

None of the handful of students lazing about glance at you, much less say hello. You quietly pull out your notebook and a pen.

You’re debating how you should title the first page of notes for this class, if the name of the class itself is sufficient or if you should wait for the professor to name the first topic of lecture, when someone rather rudely drops into the desk next to you.

You blink, swiveling to look at every other open space in the room. The person next to you, dark hair curling over his forehead, grins easily, eyes sparkling.

“This’ll be an exciting class, huh?” he asks.

You look at the desk behind you. Empty. The desk in front of you. Also empty.

You frown. “Have we met?” though it is a question, you do not truly ask it as the literal one it is. Not when you know the answer. Not when distance and time has moved you from all the familiar into the unfamiliar and prep work for today has left you with little socialization outside of the necessary.

The man makes a sound low in his throat, half-chortle, half-indignant cough, you think. “Not that I’m aware of?” When you say nothing to this, he nods slowly, dramatically, poking his cheek with his tongue. “Okay,” he drawls. “Not in the mood for friends?”

You can do little but blink slowly, in the manner a cat does. Though, your blink has nothing to do with affection and everything to do with the unanticipated interaction you’ve found yourself an unwilling participant of.

“Is friendship a requirement for passing this class?” mentally, you scold yourself. There’s no reason to further whatever this is.

The man shrugs. “Guess not, but I imagine it would make the discussions easier.”

Your frown deepens. “The factual discussions based on research?”

The man’s face contorts in a confused manner, his nose scrunching and eyebrows pulling in what you assume is thought. Slowly, he extends a hand. You stare at it but don’t move to shake it. He holds it up for another minute before slowly dropping it back down. “I’m Jason,” he says slowly.

“Okay?”

His head tilts, his eyes darting across your figure.

You raise an eyebrow, glance at the professor, then the clock, and then return your attention to the notebook in front of you. Class will start soon, and you need to title your notes before it does. You lower your pen to the page, tap it once, and start scribbling a headline. You can always rewrite or retype the notes into a more organized fashion later.

“You know,” the man, Jason, starts.

You sigh, your grip on the pen tightening.

The professor, bless them, chooses that moment to clear their throat and start the lecture. Jason shuts his mouth immediately. The rest of the class quiets, and the professor gives the room a small smile.

“Welcome to Social Psych 101. To start, we’re going to do an introductory exercise. If you’d all find the person closest to you, exchange names, majors, and something interesting about yourself? We’ll do five minutes, and then present to the class.” The professor waves their hands in a ‘get to it’ motion and turns back to their desk.

You grit your teeth, shut your eyes for a deep sigh, and turn to formalize your introduction to Jason.

His grin wavers, and he scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “So,” he says, “I’m Jason Todd, I’m an English major, and I just realized this is not British Literature 1. Nice to meet you?”

Silently, you curse.

Then

It wasn’t so much that you chose psychology. Rather, psychology chose you.

The application blinked on the screen in front of you, the page threatening to die with the darkness of a screen that had been abandoned for too long.

You stared unblinking at the dropdown of choices available. The mouse cursor hovered over Computer Science, the decision that had been made for you years ago available to be solidified into truth with a single click.

Your fingers trembled slightly. One click, and your future was determined. One click, and your future was no longer the dreams you’d had but the plans they’d made.

Hesitantly, slowly, you inched the bar down. The list of majors blurred as tears gathered in your eyes. The screen shone too bright in the dark room around you, the blanket pulled taught around your shoulders offering too little comfort for the herculean task before you.

Too much, too much, too much. How were you meant to do this? How were you meant to simply click and let the path you’d once danced to fade into oblivion for the hopes of another?

You blinked, and the cursor had stopped. It traced the option under it, Psychology, and for no reason other than the infuriating desire to rebel one last time before becoming the puppet you’d been born to be, you clicked it.

Your chest tightened, your throat closing even more. The air you breathed thickened into paste. Your hands shook as you filled the rest of the application out, typing and deleting and typing and deleting. One application, you told yourself.

It was a singular application to a university you’d never be accepted into anyhow. What did it matter if you applied for the Psychology program at Gotham University? It wasn’t like you’d actually end up there.

And you had enough saved up. They’d never see the bill for the application fee; they’d never know. It didn’t matter.

You glanced at the door, cracked open, always cracked open, never fully shut. The hall beyond remained empty, silent.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you clicked one last button. The screen swirled for one second, two. And, then, the application had been submitted.

A sob tore through you, and you clamped a hand over your mouth before it could fully release. You rocked back and forth, carefully exiting the website, deleting it from your history.

Only when the laptop was off and out of reach, and still the hall empty and silent, did you wipe your face, take several deep breaths, and start to relax.

Beyond the confines of your room, the hall stood sentinel. Silent, empty.

Even had you wanted to, there was no one to tell of what you’d just done.

Now

The laminated orange leaf practically shines against the cardstock you’d traced random designs into. You lean the handmade bookmark back and forth, examining the way the light hits it from every angle.

You’d found the leaf your third day of class, and though surprised to find such a thing so early in the season you’d kept it all the same.

You found purpose for it only days later when you’d stumbled into fellow Gotham U student Jason Todd who, no longer sitting in classes he was not paying for, had promptly dropped an anthology on the grass, cursed, and spent the next five minutes rambling about his actual professors while trying to find his page again.

At the end of the interaction, he’d somehow reaffirmed his goal of becoming your friend and decided that though you were in different majors and shared a total sum of zero classes together the two of you would make the perfect study partners.

In the weeks following the interaction, you’ve found yourself silently agreeing with his conclusion.

You’re still staring at the bookmark when the chair next to you is pulled back from the table. You don’t even glance at him as Jason groans, plopping next to you. He, thankfully, pulls out his homework without a word.

After a few minutes of him working next to you and you still analyzing the bookmark, you glance at him from the corner of your eye. He’s dutifully filling out a page of what you assume are annotations based on the open book in his lap.

You inhale sharply before nudging his leg with yours.

Other than the pause of his scribbles, he gives no indication he’s noticed your maneuver. You grumble under your breath before shoving your foot into his leg harder.

His lips twitch, and he clears his throat as quietly as he can, an effect you know is due to what happened the last time he laughed in the campus library. “Yes?” he whispers.

With a quick prayer to the universe, you throw the bookmark at his face. He snatches it before it hits him without even turning his head. You huff.

Jason’s hands are surprisingly gentle as he turns the bookmark over, humming quietly and inspecting its details with more thought and time than you think its warranted. “For me?” he asks.

“Don’t read into it too much,” you reply immediately. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Jason visibly bites back a grin. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare to presume otherwise.”

“Good.”

With careful reverence, he traces the outline of the leaf and slowly, oh-so-gently, sets it in the book he’s reading. The cover closes in the same manner, and then Jason’s turning in the seat to face you and you’re turning to stare at the bookcase along the wall across the room with the determination of a cat stalking a laser pointer.

“You made me a gift.” His voice is soft. Each word is enunciated and clear, but none of it enters the space between you as anything other than the warmth of gratitude.

You scratch your hand along your cheek, and then your elbow, and then the back of your neck. Your foot taps a random pattern into the carpet and Jason’s gaze burns into the side of your face every second you still refuse to acknowledge the moment.

The clock in the library ticks as it always does. Tick, tick, tick. The murmur of group projects doesn’t rise any further than what it already is, and the librarians are too busy either reshelving or whatever else it is they’re busy with to save you from Jason’s patience.

“It’s just a bookmark,” you finally hiss.

The smile that spreads across Jason’s face at that is so unlike any of the smiles you’ve grown used to seeing on his face, you instinctually shrink in on yourself and focus on the edge of the table while picking at your nails.

Jason stills in your periphery. You risk a secondary glance at his face, and something you can’t name flashes across his face in a brief furrow of his brow. You blink, and his smile is the same. It doesn’t dim as he slowly tilts his head to meet your eyes.

“Thank you.” The phrase is simple, his tone level.

Your nose twitches, but nothing your ears pick up signify anything but sincerity. So, you risk a small grin. His own widens.

You give a half-shrug before tapping your laptop and gesturing to his open notebook and assigned reading. “Don’t get the wrong idea. The less you’re mumbling about trying to find your page again, the easier time I’ll have getting my own work done.”

The words sound wrong to your own ears: half-jumbled, half-coated in something that pricks your marrow the way embarrassment does.

But Jason doesn’t laugh. His smile still doesn’t change shape, and his eyes don’t narrow or light with anything other than how he’s always looking at you. “We’re friends now,” he croons. “You made me a gift; you can’t deny it.”

You groan but don’t fight when he slowly, carefully, wraps an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into a stiff hug. He doesn’t argue when your arms remain locked in place against the table, and he releases you within seconds to turn back to his work.

You sniff, pull up your assignment, and stare at the words on the screen without reading.

The two of you last thirty minutes before Jason’s humming catches the attention of a librarian and the two of you are politely asked to either book a room or study elsewhere on campus. Longer than last time, you note.

Then

The discussion started as it always did: over a dinner in which not a word had been spoken prior. The scrape of forks and knives remained the background tune of every mealtime, bar the singular, routine discussion.

It started, as it always started, as became routine, with your mother reaching for the empty chair next to her.

Her hand lifted.

Your every nerve froze.

Your father’s cutlery slowly dropped onto his plate.

And your mother’s hand touched, as it had touched for so many months, nothing but air.

Her head moved next. It would’ve been better, you thought, if it was a quick snap. If she turned in surprise that air met her hand, if she gasped.

Instead, her chin slowly tucked into her shoulder as her eyes swept the empty place next to her, her fingers curling sharply into her palm.

“Oh,” she said flatly.

That, too, remained routine.

Your father said your mother’s name: gentle, calm, a whistle back to the meal at hand.

Your mother tsked. “For a moment, I had forgotten.” The words came curt, her gaze scathing as it cut from the empty space to you.

You lowered your hands into your lap, your fingers winding around one another. One ankle curled over the other, your shoulders hunched slightly.

Your mother sighed the disappointed sigh she always sighed. “I had almost forgotten,” she repeated morosely, “that it is you that still lives and not…well.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, kept your eyes on your plate.

“God willing there will be something to be proud of soon enough,” your father filled in. “You have sent in your applications, correct? All the places we’ve talked about?”

Talked about. Mentally, you scoffed.

Visibly, you gave a singular, deep nod.

Your father hummed. Not a pleasant hum, not even a thoughtful hum. No, ‘twas the hum of a man who could not fathom his inquiry could be met with anything other than what he’d suggested and had been told exactly what he’d wanted to hear.

A single laugh tore through the air immediately after, the sound not unsimilar to a wicked stepmother’s from a children’s movie. Not routine. She never laughed, not now.

Your head lifted before you realized you were looking.

Your mother’s lip curled into what reminded you of a dog’s snarl. “And another, too, so I’ve heard.”

The automatic action of breathing eluded you. Your heart stopped and then started racing faster than it’d ever beat before. Your lip trembled, and your eyes grew dry and wet all at the same time with the sudden inability to blink.

Your father stiffened. “Is that so?” his voice grew low.

“My friend Patricia from the ladies’ crochet club, you remember her, her husband worked at that one church for a few years, well she has a friend who does business over at that one diner off East Elm?”

Every thought escaped you except one: shit. Shit, shit, shit. How had you forgotten?

If that was the information your mother knew, it was bad. Not as bad as if she knew about the Gotham University application, you knew, but almost.

It hadn’t even been your idea, really. One of your school friends had suggested it during English. An application to the Computer Science associates program at the local community college would save you money: you’d get two years under your belt for less of the cost before transferring to finish the full four-year degree.

You’d been hesitant, and your classmate had all but kidnapped you and made you fill it out under their hawkish gaze at the diner.

The diner your mother’s friend’s friend apparently saw you at.

“I was just appeasing a classmate,” you blurted.

Your parents both turned to blink at you. Your mother pursed her lips. Your father shifted to rest his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand.

You swallowed, suddenly aware of the fact that you’d just spoken. You hadn’t meant to do that, not really.

Even if it was the truth.

Your mother readjusted in her seat, her back straightening further, her tin tilting ever so slightly as if to let her peer down at you from her almighty throne. A muscle in your father’s jaw visibly ticked and his nostrils flared as he assessed you.

“I don’t remember asking you your version of events just now.” The sentence crawled out like a reprimand and you flinched.

“I thought you’d learned that no college professor will let you speak out of turn.” Your father rolled his eyes, turned his focus to your mother, and waved his hand. “You shouldn’t do things just because a classmate says to. Would you jump off a cliff if they told you to?”

“With all your advanced courses I thought you’d be smarter than that,” your mother agreed.

They continued back and forth, trading remarks over your silence until the food called to them again. You pushed the remains of your portion around on the plate, but didn’t scoop another bite.

When they finally dismissed you, you retreated to your room with the promise that you wouldn’t accept the community college’s offer of attendance should it be offered and that you would apply to no more universities without their express approval.

Now

The moment September made way for October, your roommate took it upon themself to plaster the walls of your dorm with Halloween décor.

Initially, you had questioned the need.

But between coursework, your job at the campus coffee shop, and your job at the closest off campus diner, you didn’t truly have the time, effort, or desire to argue.

Thus, two days before Halloween finds you staring at a mosaic of neon fake webbing, ornamental jack-o-lanterns, a tiny mouse skeleton riding a broomstick for some reason, and a mechanical raven with soulless red eyes.

“It’s going to come alive and peck our flesh off,” you deadpan.

Your roommate snorts. “It runs on remote batteries.”

“That doesn’t negate my previous statement.”

“There are no batteries in it.”

“There aren’t any batteries in the stuffed animals that always turn into killers in the worst horror movies.”

Your roommate groans, a deep guttural sound, flops back on their bed, and dramatically shoves one arm over their eyes.

A pang rings through your chest, and you scuff your foot against the ground as you eye the ruby-eyed raven once more. “It can stay,” you mutter. “It does fit the theme.”

This, you decide, is technically true on account of you’re not sure what the theme is outside of every Halloween and Halloween-adjacent decoration your roommate could find.

Your roommate springs up. “If you really aren’t comfortable with it,” they begin.

You shake your head, quickly holding your hands out to assure them it’s fine. Once they’ve settled back once more, you glance at the time on your phone, smile apologetically, and stuff yourself into a light jacket before hauling your backpack up and leaving the room.

An arch of oranges, reds, and yellows spirals overhead as you make the familiar trek to the campus library. The trees themselves dance with the autumn breeze, and you find yourself watching the swirl of leaves as several flitter from their branches to a tune none but them hear.

The tingle the thought of sleeping in the same room as the mechanical raven had given you dissipates by the time you slink inside the comfort only rows of books and enforced quiet provides.

Jason is already seated at the table the two of you have all but claimed over the semester, notebook open, anthology cracked.

He’s staring, unblinking, at the pages open in front of him when you creep up on him.

Your hands rise, fingers arching like pincers above his shoulder blades. As you start to lower them, ready to attack, he sighs.

“Your footsteps still give you away,” he tells you.

You pout, abandoning your plan immediately. “How do you always know?”

Jason glares at you from the corner of his eye as you plop into the seat next to him. “You still walk louder than most who grew up in Gotham,” is all he says before returning his focus to his work.

You cross your arms, leaning over to read the title of whatever his current assigned reading is. Your head brushes his shoulder as you shift in front of him to block his view. He lightly shoves you back into your seat, laughing, and pulls the anthology up, turning so you no longer have access to the book.

“Do your own work,” he chides.

You grumble, dutifully pulling your laptop out as you do. “But reading Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is so much easier than writing a paper on prosocial and antisocial behaviors.”

“Tough luck.” Jason points an accusatory finger at your computer screen. “It’s due tonight, isn’t it?”

You scowl at the reminder and aggressively pull the document up.

When you next glance away from your assignment, Jason has turned his attention from schoolwork to staring at you. You blink, frowning at the lack of notebook and anthology on the table in front of him.

He shrugs when you point it out. “I finished half an hour ago,” he says.

“And you couldn’t have started another assignment?”

He grimaces. “I’m supposed to have a family dinner tonight,” he says carefully, slowly. “I didn’t want to lose track of time.”

Ah. “You don’t talk about your family much,” you note. In truth, you could probably count on one hand how many times Jason’s mentioned “the family”.

When you’d shyly brought it up to your roommate, curious if it was something you were close enough to you could bring up to him, your roommate, shocked at your lack of apparently common Gotham-lore, had detailed everything they knew of Jason’s upbringing as the adopted son of Gotham Billionaire Bruce Wayne.

You hadn’t believed them until Jason hesitantly confirmed it a week later after noticing your pathetic attempts to google it.

“Well.” You click your tongue absentmindedly. “If you need to escape, just text me and I’ll call with a fake emergency. Surely, they can’t fault you if my roommate and I need your help with a murderous mechanical raven.”

Jason’s face scrunches in confusion. “A murderous mechanical raven?”

“My roommate’s idea, don’t ask. Halloween is apparently sacred. Which reminds me, actually. What are you doing Halloween? I think we’re hosting a séance for some reason.”

Something akin to horrified disgust crosses his face. “No. Definitely not. No.”

“If your dorm’s available we could do a movie night instead?”

Jason hesitates, helplessly lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I’m busy Halloween,” is all he offers, the words an apologetic jumble tumbling forth somehow with both the speed of a crashing airplane and the crawl of a snail’s pace.

A cloud of disappointment envelops you, but you force a smile to your face anyway. “No problem. I’m sure the séance won’t be too bad. Might even be entertaining to watch, who knows.”

Jason opens his mouth, no doubt another apology on the tip of his tongue. You wave him off, hurriedly grasping for another topic to talk of instead.

He lets the conversation flow elsewhere, and neither of you return to Halloween again.

Then

For your last Halloween as a high school student, your class organized a lock-in. You had debated the pros and cons of going, of asking to go, and decided it wasn’t worth it.

You stood by that decision. Up until the week before, when you returned home with the results of your last calculus test in shaking hand.

Your parents took one look at the 89.

“What happened?” they asked. “I’m sure you’ll do much better next time.” They tsked. “Didn’t you study for it?”

Despite their insistence, you didn’t eat that night.

The next morning, you’d informed them of the lock-in. You banked on the fact that teachers would be there, and extra study sessions would be allotted for students who wanted or needed help with homework and preferred that over one of the planned activities.

You’d braced yourself, shoulders stiff, arms locked.

They’d agreed.

And so, Halloween night you grabbed your backpack and joined your classmates and teachers at school.

Several of your friends attempted throughout the night to pull you into one of the planned activities: one room had been set up like a maze, another an escape room, a third was filled with board games.

You declined every time, rotating through homework assignments and study guides under the supervision of a handful of other students and the study hall supervisor.

When gaggles of students passed in the hall, dressed in costumes and imitating animals, you ached. Not to join them, but at the sounds and sights that would never fill your life within your childhood home again.

The following morning, neither of your parents asked if you’d had fun, only if you’d gained help with the material you were struggling with.

You’d nodded, and that had been that.

Now

By mid-November, you had learned three important things about living in Gotham.

One, despite the rest of the country’s opinions on billionaires and rich celebrities, Gothamites are, inexplicably, protective of Bruce Wayne and his children. The everyday person still gossips, of course, and Jason isn’t followed around like some deity by any means, but if an outsider criticizes the Waynes, the outsider is criticized in turn. The result: Bruce Wayne is Gotham’s to love and hate, and only Gotham’s.

Secondly, despite the horror stories of what could happen in the city at night, the area around the Gotham U campus is surprisingly safe. According to a rumor your roommate uncovered, Harley Quinn and Batman have teamed up to make the campus a safe zone and none of the other criminals-regular or costumed-dare cross them.

Third, and arguably most important, no one really cares about your history unless it poses a danger to them. Such, you’ve taken to telling no one other than your therapist and roommate any of it.

Perhaps that’s why Jason raises an eyebrow and shifts uncomfortably when you decline your mother’s call for the fifth time in a row.

The two of you had left the confines of the library, where frazzled group projects had been unleashed, in search of sustenance and found yourselves at a quiet family-owned restaurant a few blocks off-campus.

You’d been having a pleasant, normal conversation when your phone rang the first time. You’d hesitated only a second before declining the call. Naturally, your mother didn’t like that.

A sound escaped your throat; some mix between a groan and a hiss. To Jason, you specified “sorry”.

He attempted a smile of reassurance. It did not reassure you.

You declined the next incoming call, and the next, and the next, and the next, and dear God how many times could one woman call you in the span of a single minute?

Jason clears his throat, his hands lifting and dropping the menu in front of him randomly as he glances around the small restaurant. “You can take that if you need to,” he says. “I don’t mind.”

“She just wants to complain that I’m not coming home for Thanksgiving,” you tell him. It’s technically the truth, or as truthful as you’ve found it can be without making your audience uncomfortable.

You’d texted your parents three days ago to inform them you’d not be returning to your childhood home for Thanksgiving. Your father had asked about your plans for winter break, and then spring break, and then informed you that if you did not come home for the first Thanksgiving they were hosting in two years you could stay gone for all he cared.

Your mother had taken a slightly different approach. She’d emphasized that the family and friends who’d been invited would miss you and wonder where you are if not at home. When you’d stood your ground, she questioned if you’d started dating someone and how you could not tell her such a thing demanded to be introduced.

That, of course, led to you assuring her that you were still single and yes, of course mother, when I date someone, I’ll tell you.

…

Thinking back on it, you know your therapist would berate you for so easily promising her that.

Nevertheless, since your adamant refusal to return (ever, by your father’s law), your mother has taken to calling you as often as she can to demand you see reason and change your mind.

It is far easier to decline her calls than attempt to reason with her.

It would be even easier, you know, to block her number. But every time your finger hovers over the button to do so, you waver. She is your mother, after all.

“Too much homework?” Jason asks, the words tentative and soft despite the probing of a question no other Gothamite would ask.

You blink at him. “Always,” is your solemn reply. Jason simply nods. You sigh, shake your head. “Yes and no.” you say it before you’ve fully committed to saying it, before the thoughts of his response to your explanation can paralyze you into never saying it.

Jason doesn’t utter a single sound. He doesn’t even move drastically. He just carefully, gently, lowers the menu and folds his hand on the table between you.

You swallow the dryness in your throat and avoid his eyes. “It’s not a money thing, either. Not really. It’s just…” you shrug, scratch your nose. “I don’t want to be there. If I go back, I’m not sure I’ll have it in me to come back.”

The words settle into the space between you, and for the next few minutes the white noise of a restaurant is the only sound you hear.

Then, Jason leans back, and the seat groans under his weight. Your eyes dart to him, and he’s crossing his arms, nodding, and looking out the window instead of at you. “I get that,” he says finally. He doesn’t expand further, and neither do you.

Even still, when you reach for your menu, your arms feel lighter than they have in days.

“Anyone else know?” Jason waits to ask until you’ve ordered, the menus no longer a buffer you can use.

You pick at your nails. He doesn’t ask again. When your food arrives and the waiter leaves, you sigh. “I see a therapist.”

He considers. “Do you like them?”

“Somewhat.”

“That’s better than not at all.” He picks up his glass, sets it down without taking a sip. He inhales sharply, and reaches across the table to still your hands. Bashfully, you meet his eyes. “Thank you for telling me that,” he says.

“It’s not all of it,” you protest.

His nose scrunches. “If you want to tell me all of it, I’ll listen,” he promises.

You nod, throat tight. It’s another minute before you tell him you’d do the same. His head cocks to the side, eyebrow raised. You shrug. “You haven’t really told me about your family either. If you want to, I’ll listen. If not, that’s fine.”

He smiles, and you smile back.

“But,” you raise a finger, “don’t go getting a big head or anything just because you’re my best friend.”

His smile grows, a dazzling spectacle truer than the smiles he gave when you first met. “You’re my best friend, too.” He reaches for his glass again before once again pausing, lowering it without taking a sip. “If…if you want someplace to go for Thanksgiving instead of the campus cafeteria,” he starts slowly, “I’m allowed to bring a guest to the manor.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and shift the food on your plate around for a moment, debating what your therapist would say. Gathering yourself, you take a deep breath and square your shoulders. “Do you want me there or are you inviting me out of pity?”

The look Jason gives you is answer enough, and you smile meekly, squeaking a quiet apology. “I just said you’re my best friend.” He shakes his head. “Of course, I want you there if you want to come.”

He kicks your foot under the table. You kick his back. He laughs, and then you laugh, and that’s that.

Then

Your parents rented a cabin for Thanksgiving. To get away from all the noise, they said. A whole week of vacation, how relaxing.

They didn’t tell you if you were invited to any of your extended family’s houses for the holiday. You didn’t ask.

They left the Monday before the holiday. You spent the time not in school ravaging through the fridge for meal ideas. You hadn’t saved for a full week’s worth of groceries; you hadn’t anticipated needing to.

Thanksgiving itself passed without notice to you. You woke, you did the chores you could, you ate what you knew they wouldn’t miss, and you studied ahead.

Black Friday replicated the day prior.

And, then, Saturday tossed you through a window.

The mail came early. That should have been the first sign, really. The mail never came early, especially on a Saturday.

Most of it was expected. Normal mail delivered to your parents. One envelope was too large. Addressed to you.

You could do nothing but stare at it for a solid ten minutes. Your teachers and advisor had joked that half the time students received word from colleges they knew before they even opened the letter if they had been accepted or not. If accepted, there would be an entire packet of information. If rejected, a simple letter.

Your hands shook, and you carefully traced your name on the envelope before tearing it open.

Several sheets of things fell out, and you fell after them. Your knees landed hard on the kitchen floor, your hands scrabbling for a hold on something as the words pierced your eyes.

…Gotham University…pleased to accept you…Psychology…

Your breaths turned ragged.

They weren’t supposed to accept you.

It had been one last act of rebellion.

A joke.

You hurried to gather everything, nodding to yourself.

You’d tear it all up. Shred it.

Throw it away, and then throw the garbage bag away.

They’d still never know.

They’d never have to know.

They could never know.

Something dripped off your chin.

Another drop.

A third.

Only then did you realize your cheeks were coated with tears and sobs had been built and unleashed through your lips.

You curled in on yourself.

The dream of a dream shuttered under your eyelids.

You clutched the papers tighter.

A dream.

It shattered.

Now

You stumble after Jason as he leads you toward the entrance of Wayne Manor. You clutched the fruit platter your roommate and you had scoured the nearby stores for tighter the closer you got to the door.

“You really didn’t have to bring anything,” Jason says for the tenth time.

“It’s rude to show up empty handed,” you argue.

He makes a face, like he’s debating the truth of that statement in general to the truth of it in this situation.

The door opens before either of you can say anything more on the matter.

The man who peers down at you is fitted in a suit, his grey hair styled serenely.

Jason’s shoulders drop in relief and he smiles. “Alfred.”

“Master Jason,” Alfred replies warmly. He steps aside, ushering the two of you in. “Do you not have a warmer jacket?” he tsks.

Jason groans but doesn’t argue as Alfred shoos the two of you further inside and rambles on about a cup of tea he’ll have ready shortly. Then, Alfred is pulling the fruit platter from your arms, marveling at it, and telling you he’ll set it up with the rest of dinner. You don’t have time to respond before he’s gone.

You follow Jason down the hall, emerging in a large space you don’t know the name of. At first glance, you think living room. What with the giant television and luxurious-looking couch and the several chairs perched about the room. But then you see the elegant table off to the side, more akin to the type found in a dining room and you’re blinking too hard and two people you don’t know are standing up from where they’ve been conversing and Jason is tensing and it no longer matters what type of room this is.

The eldest man in the room appraises Jason with a look that sends a shiver down your spine, all too familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. “Jason,” he says. It’s low, but not the lowness of your father’s voice, not the timber of a growl. Just a pitch.

“Bruce.” Jason reaches behind him. Pulls you forward until you’ve stumbled next to him. “This is my friend.” He says your name, and it’s the softest word to come out of his mouth since the two of you have entered this room.

You give a quick wave.

Bruce Wayne, Gotham Billionaire, Gotham’s sweetheart, turns his scrutinizing gaze that doesn’t feel at all like the scrutinization you’re used to but is scrutinization all the same onto you.

“Jason’s talked about you,” you say to be nice. It isn’t the full truth, but it’s not a lie either. Jason has mentioned his family, in that offhand way. He’s even brought them up by name since you agreed to attend Thanksgiving dinner with him.

According to him, it’s so you know what you’re walking into.

You won’t tell him nothing he’s said could have prepared you for this.

Bruce Wayne dips his chin in a single, deep nod, but his eyes don’t leave you. Without thought, your fingers move to pick at your fingernails.

Jason reaches over, sliding his fingers between yours and giving your hand a squeeze before you can commit to the act.

You glance at him, eyes wide.

He’s not looking at you. His eyes are trained on his adoptive father.

When you look back at Bruce Wayne, his attention is back on Jason. His face has softened, you think.

The man next to him, who looks only a few years older than you, grins and waves, bouncing forward. “Hi!” you tilt your head, picturing a dog’s tail wagging with excitement behind him. “I’m Dick Grayson, Jay’s older brother. It’s lovely to meet you.”

He reaches a hand forward for you to shake. You extend your own arm, yelping when Jason pulls your entire body back, out of Dick’s reach, using your clasped hands.

Bruce Wayne sighs a tired sigh. Dick only grins wider, sharper, something sparking in his eyes as he raises his hands and backs away, laughing easily.

You clear your throat, unsure if you should say something or wait for someone else to speak first.

Thankfully, Alfred arrives. He sets a tray with several tea cups and a pot of tea down on a coffee table you hadn’t realized was a coffee table, says dinner will be ready shortly, and excuses himself back out of the room.

Bruce Wayne uses that time to sit, pour a cup of tea, and motion for Dick, Jason, and you to join him.

Jason, still pulling you along with him, sits tersely on the couch. Bruce hands him a cup of tea. Jason doesn’t take it. Bruce holds it out for a moment longer before, once more, sighing and gently setting it in front of your friend.

You smile, carefully accepting the cup he extends your way next with the single hand you have available. Jason’s grip on your other hand tightens, but he says nothing as you take a small sip of tea.

Dick bounces in his seat, his head swiveling from Jason to you to Jason and back to you. You frown over the rim of your cup, but it’s Jason who snaps.

“What?”

“You actually brought your friend.” To your ears, Dick sounds like someone who’s seeing the Northern Lights for the first time.

“I said I was.”

“You did.”

Jason scowls.

Bruce Wayne clears his throat before their banter can escalate into an actual argument. “Jason mentioned you’re majoring in psychology. How did you choose it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh.” You set the cup down in front of you. All three men give you a moment to compose your thoughts. In the end, you shrug. “I guess I’ve just…always been interested in understanding why people act the way they act.”

“Gotham U’s program is prestigious,” Bruce Wayne replies. “And they have wonderful assistance with finding internships should you need it.”

You fidget. Jason shifts next to you, and Bruce Wayne cuts himself off.

The silence only lasts a moment this time.

“How exactly did you and Jason meet?” Dick inquires. “He never did say.”

You glance at Jason. His eyes are shut, his jaw clenched. You squeeze his hand. “If he didn’t say then he didn’t say for a reason.” The words leave with an undertone of confidence you do not feel as you say them. Jason squeezes your hand back nonetheless.

Thanksgiving dinner commences as such. Bruce Wayne and Dick prompt the conversation with questions, mostly aimed at you. You answer as best and willing as you’re able. Jason steps in every now and then.

Two times, it’s Alfred who informs Bruce Wayne that the question he has asked is too personal for the first time you meet one’s child’s friend. Bruce Wayne looks especially bashful after that.

After, Dick offers to help Alfred clean up and Bruce Wayne disappears into another room of the manor with the quiet excuse of needing to finish something for work.

You follow Jason through a door and meander the Manor’s gardens for a while.

It’s there, amid the dying roses and greying stems that seem especially bleak under the lightness of the upcoming frost, that Jason thanks you.

It’s so quiet you almost don’t hear it.

“I should be thanking you,” is all you can think of to say. “I’d have nowhere else to go if you hadn’t offered to let me come with.”

Jason’s nose twitches. “So, it’s pity that made you agree to come?” he asks.

You shake your head. “You’re my friend, Jason. Why would I pity you?”

He opens his mouth, and then closes it without saying anything. He watches you and you watch him, and around you, the lightest sprinkle of snow begins to dust the air.

“What?” you finally ask.

One of Jason’s arms jerks like he started some movement he realized he didn’t intend to start. “You’re my best friend,” he says slowly.

You frown. “As we’ve established. And?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Everything stops.

There’s a faint buzz in your ears.

You can no longer feel your heart, or your legs, or your arms.

You no longer feel your breath, or see it in the air in front of you.

In front of you, just out of reach, where he’d been standing, Jason’s figure blurs in your eyes and then reappears clearly.

He’s watching you with that careful gaze of his. Gently, oh so gently. Sincerely.

And you-

You do the only think you can think of.

The only thing you know to do.

Now

The crisp morning air circulates around you like a barrier against the tendrils of memories haunting your dreams. It grazes the back of your neck, and the fluttering press of moving air is all you need to ground yourself in the reality of now, away from the then you’ve traveled across the country to escape.

You let the breeze coat the back of your throat with a deep inhale, holding it longer than you know you should before releasing it back into the world around you.

The sidewalk in front of you narrows into a point across your vision, the building it leads to swaying in your mind even as it stands strong as a fortress against the Gotham atmosphere.

A few students mill around the entrance, some on computers and others talking amongst themselves. Fewer still are on the sidewalk itself, or the sidewalks branching off from the one you’ve stilled on, darting across the paths centering the quad of Gotham U.

When you scuttle your feet, the straps of your backpack shift with you and the weight of your future presses against your spine with a reminder of what you’ve lost for this.

One moment more, you decide. Then, swallowing the dryness building in your throat, you start for the building.

You’re almost relieved the ability to recognize the silliness of your hesitation tickles the back of your mind as you make your way inside. Almost. The lingering presence of unwelcome thoughts and glances from everyone you pass solidifies the hesitation as the correct choice.

As if you’d woken this morning and deliberately made it.

Sweat gathers along your fingertips, and it takes you three tries to correctly swipe your phone open to check the room number. It hasn’t changed since you looked this morning. You quickly repeat the number to yourself anyway, blindly stuff your phone back in your pocket, and shuffle down the hallway toward the stairs.

Your shoulders grow taught the closer you get to the room. When you enter, no one looks. You stiffen further for a breath even so before carefully mapping your way to the third desk back in the row closest to the door. The professor briefly glances up from where they’re shuffling a pile of papers, smiles, and then returns to their task.

None of the handful of students lazing about glance at you, much less say hello. You quietly pull out your notebook and a pen.

You’re debating how you should title the first page of notes for this class, if the name of the class itself is sufficient or if you should wait for the professor to name the first topic of lecture, when someone rather rudely drops into the desk next to you.

You blink, swiveling to look at every other open space in the room. The person next to you, dark hair curling over his forehead, grins easily, eyes sparkling.

“This’ll be an exciting class, huh?” he asks.

You look at the desk behind you. Empty. The desk in front of you. Also empty.

You frown. “Have we met?” though it is a question, you do not truly ask it as the literal one it is. Not when you know the answer. Not when distance and time has moved you from all the familiar into the unfamiliar and prep work for today has left you with little socialization outside of the necessary.

The man makes a sound low in his throat, half-chortle, half-indignant cough, you think. “Not that I’m aware of?” When you say nothing to this, he nods slowly, dramatically, poking his cheek with his tongue. “Okay,” he drawls. “Not in the mood for friends?”

You can do little but blink slowly, in the manner a cat does. Though, your blink has nothing to do with affection and everything to do with the unanticipated interaction you’ve found yourself an unwilling participant of.

“Is friendship a requirement for passing this class?” mentally, you scold yourself. There’s no reason to further whatever this is.

The man shrugs. “Guess not, but I imagine it would make the discussions easier.”

Your frown deepens. “The factual discussions based on research?”

The man’s face contorts in a confused manner, his nose scrunching and eyebrows pulling in what you assume is thought. Slowly, he extends a hand. You stare at it but don’t move to shake it. He holds it up for another minute before slowly dropping it back down. “I’m Jason,” he says slowly.

“Okay?”

His head tilts, his eyes darting across your figure.

You raise an eyebrow, glance at the professor, then the clock, and then return your attention to the notebook in front of you. Class will start soon, and you need to title your notes before it does. You lower your pen to the page, tap it once, and start scribbling a headline. You can always rewrite or retype the notes into a more organized fashion later.

“You know,” the man, Jason, starts.

You sigh, your grip on the pen tightening.

The professor, bless them, chooses that moment to clear their throat and start the lecture. Jason shuts his mouth immediately. The rest of the class quiets, and the professor gives the room a small smile.

“Welcome to Social Psych 101. To start, we’re going to do an introductory exercise. If you’d all find the person closest to you, exchange names, majors, and something interesting about yourself? We’ll do five minutes, and then present to the class.” The professor waves their hands in a ‘get to it’ motion and turns back to their desk.

You grit your teeth, shut your eyes for a deep sigh, and turn to formalize your introduction to Jason.

His grin wavers, and he scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “So,” he says, “I’m Jason Todd, I’m an English major, and I just realized this is not British Literature 1. Nice to meet you?”

Silently, you curse.

Then

It wasn’t so much that you chose psychology. Rather, psychology chose you.

The application blinked on the screen in front of you, the page threatening to die with the darkness of a screen that had been abandoned for too long.

You stared unblinking at the dropdown of choices available. The mouse cursor hovered over Computer Science, the decision that had been made for you years ago available to be solidified into truth with a single click.

Your fingers trembled slightly. One click, and your future was determined. One click, and your future was no longer the dreams you’d had but the plans they’d made.

Hesitantly, slowly, you inched the bar down. The list of majors blurred as tears gathered in your eyes. The screen shone too bright in the dark room around you, the blanket pulled taught around your shoulders offering too little comfort for the herculean task before you.

Too much, too much, too much. How were you meant to do this? How were you meant to simply click and let the path you’d once danced to fade into oblivion for the hopes of another?

You blinked, and the cursor had stopped. It traced the option under it, Psychology, and for no reason other than the infuriating desire to rebel one last time before becoming the puppet you’d been born to be, you clicked it.

Your chest tightened, your throat closing even more. The air you breathed thickened into paste. Your hands shook as you filled the rest of the application out, typing and deleting and typing and deleting. One application, you told yourself.

It was a singular application to a university you’d never be accepted into anyhow. What did it matter if you applied for the Psychology program at Gotham University? It wasn’t like you’d actually end up there.

And you had enough saved up. They’d never see the bill for the application fee; they’d never know. It didn’t matter.

You glanced at the door, cracked open, always cracked open, never fully shut. The hall beyond remained empty, silent.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you clicked one last button. The screen swirled for one second, two. And, then, the application had been submitted.

A sob tore through you, and you clamped a hand over your mouth before it could fully release. You rocked back and forth, carefully exiting the website, deleting it from your history.

Only when the laptop was off and out of reach, and still the hall empty and silent, did you wipe your face, take several deep breaths, and start to relax.

Beyond the confines of your room, the hall stood sentinel. Silent, empty.

Even had you wanted to, there was no one to tell of what you’d just done.

Now

The laminated orange leaf practically shines against the cardstock you’d traced random designs into. You lean the handmade bookmark back and forth, examining the way the light hits it from every angle.

You’d found the leaf your third day of class, and though surprised to find such a thing so early in the season you’d kept it all the same.

You found purpose for it only days later when you’d stumbled into fellow Gotham U student Jason Todd who, no longer sitting in classes he was not paying for, had promptly dropped an anthology on the grass, cursed, and spent the next five minutes rambling about his actual professors while trying to find his page again.

At the end of the interaction, he’d somehow reaffirmed his goal of becoming your friend and decided that though you were in different majors and shared a total sum of zero classes together the two of you would make the perfect study partners.

In the weeks following the interaction, you’ve found yourself silently agreeing with his conclusion.

You’re still staring at the bookmark when the chair next to you is pulled back from the table. You don’t even glance at him as Jason groans, plopping next to you. He, thankfully, pulls out his homework without a word.

After a few minutes of him working next to you and you still analyzing the bookmark, you glance at him from the corner of your eye. He’s dutifully filling out a page of what you assume are annotations based on the open book in his lap.

You inhale sharply before nudging his leg with yours.

Other than the pause of his scribbles, he gives no indication he’s noticed your maneuver. You grumble under your breath before shoving your foot into his leg harder.

His lips twitch, and he clears his throat as quietly as he can, an effect you know is due to what happened the last time he laughed in the campus library. “Yes?” he whispers.

With a quick prayer to the universe, you throw the bookmark at his face. He snatches it before it hits him without even turning his head. You huff.

Jason’s hands are surprisingly gentle as he turns the bookmark over, humming quietly and inspecting its details with more thought and time than you think its warranted. “For me?” he asks.

“Don’t read into it too much,” you reply immediately. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Jason visibly bites back a grin. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare to presume otherwise.”

“Good.”

With careful reverence, he traces the outline of the leaf and slowly, oh-so-gently, sets it in the book he’s reading. The cover closes in the same manner, and then Jason’s turning in the seat to face you and you’re turning to stare at the bookcase along the wall across the room with the determination of a cat stalking a laser pointer.

“You made me a gift.” His voice is soft. Each word is enunciated and clear, but none of it enters the space between you as anything other than the warmth of gratitude.

You scratch your hand along your cheek, and then your elbow, and then the back of your neck. Your foot taps a random pattern into the carpet and Jason’s gaze burns into the side of your face every second you still refuse to acknowledge the moment.

The clock in the library ticks as it always does. Tick, tick, tick. The murmur of group projects doesn’t rise any further than what it already is, and the librarians are too busy either reshelving or whatever else it is they’re busy with to save you from Jason’s patience.

“It’s just a bookmark,” you finally hiss.

The smile that spreads across Jason’s face at that is so unlike any of the smiles you’ve grown used to seeing on his face, you instinctually shrink in on yourself and focus on the edge of the table while picking at your nails.

Jason stills in your periphery. You risk a secondary glance at his face, and something you can’t name flashes across his face in a brief furrow of his brow. You blink, and his smile is the same. It doesn’t dim as he slowly tilts his head to meet your eyes.

“Thank you.” The phrase is simple, his tone level.

Your nose twitches, but nothing your ears pick up signify anything but sincerity. So, you risk a small grin. His own widens.

You give a half-shrug before tapping your laptop and gesturing to his open notebook and assigned reading. “Don’t get the wrong idea. The less you’re mumbling about trying to find your page again, the easier time I’ll have getting my own work done.”

The words sound wrong to your own ears: half-jumbled, half-coated in something that pricks your marrow the way embarrassment does.

But Jason doesn’t laugh. His smile still doesn’t change shape, and his eyes don’t narrow or light with anything other than how he’s always looking at you. “We’re friends now,” he croons. “You made me a gift; you can’t deny it.”

You groan but don’t fight when he slowly, carefully, wraps an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into a stiff hug. He doesn’t argue when your arms remain locked in place against the table, and he releases you within seconds to turn back to his work.

You sniff, pull up your assignment, and stare at the words on the screen without reading.

The two of you last thirty minutes before Jason’s humming catches the attention of a librarian and the two of you are politely asked to either book a room or study elsewhere on campus. Longer than last time, you note.

Then

The discussion started as it always did: over a dinner in which not a word had been spoken prior. The scrape of forks and knives remained the background tune of every mealtime, bar the singular, routine discussion.

It started, as it always started, as became routine, with your mother reaching for the empty chair next to her.

Her hand lifted.

Your every nerve froze.

Your father’s cutlery slowly dropped onto his plate.

And your mother’s hand touched, as it had touched for so many months, nothing but air.

Her head moved next. It would’ve been better, you thought, if it was a quick snap. If she turned in surprise that air met her hand, if she gasped.

Instead, her chin slowly tucked into her shoulder as her eyes swept the empty place next to her, her fingers curling sharply into her palm.

“Oh,” she said flatly.

That, too, remained routine.

Your father said your mother’s name: gentle, calm, a whistle back to the meal at hand.

Your mother tsked. “For a moment, I had forgotten.” The words came curt, her gaze scathing as it cut from the empty space to you.

You lowered your hands into your lap, your fingers winding around one another. One ankle curled over the other, your shoulders hunched slightly.

Your mother sighed the disappointed sigh she always sighed. “I had almost forgotten,” she repeated morosely, “that it is you that still lives and not…well.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, kept your eyes on your plate.

“God willing there will be something to be proud of soon enough,” your father filled in. “You have sent in your applications, correct? All the places we’ve talked about?”

Talked about. Mentally, you scoffed.

Visibly, you gave a singular, deep nod.

Your father hummed. Not a pleasant hum, not even a thoughtful hum. No, ‘twas the hum of a man who could not fathom his inquiry could be met with anything other than what he’d suggested and had been told exactly what he’d wanted to hear.

A single laugh tore through the air immediately after, the sound not unsimilar to a wicked stepmother’s from a children’s movie. Not routine. She never laughed, not now.

Your head lifted before you realized you were looking.

Your mother’s lip curled into what reminded you of a dog’s snarl. “And another, too, so I’ve heard.”

The automatic action of breathing eluded you. Your heart stopped and then started racing faster than it’d ever beat before. Your lip trembled, and your eyes grew dry and wet all at the same time with the sudden inability to blink.

Your father stiffened. “Is that so?” his voice grew low.

“My friend Patricia from the ladies’ crochet club, you remember her, her husband worked at that one church for a few years, well she has a friend who does business over at that one diner off East Elm?”

Every thought escaped you except one: shit. Shit, shit, shit. How had you forgotten?

If that was the information your mother knew, it was bad. Not as bad as if she knew about the Gotham University application, you knew, but almost.

It hadn’t even been your idea, really. One of your school friends had suggested it during English. An application to the Computer Science associates program at the local community college would save you money: you’d get two years under your belt for less of the cost before transferring to finish the full four-year degree.

You’d been hesitant, and your classmate had all but kidnapped you and made you fill it out under their hawkish gaze at the diner.

The diner your mother’s friend’s friend apparently saw you at.

“I was just appeasing a classmate,” you blurted.

Your parents both turned to blink at you. Your mother pursed her lips. Your father shifted to rest his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand.

You swallowed, suddenly aware of the fact that you’d just spoken. You hadn’t meant to do that, not really.

Even if it was the truth.

Your mother readjusted in her seat, her back straightening further, her tin tilting ever so slightly as if to let her peer down at you from her almighty throne. A muscle in your father’s jaw visibly ticked and his nostrils flared as he assessed you.

“I don’t remember asking you your version of events just now.” The sentence crawled out like a reprimand and you flinched.

“I thought you’d learned that no college professor will let you speak out of turn.” Your father rolled his eyes, turned his focus to your mother, and waved his hand. “You shouldn’t do things just because a classmate says to. Would you jump off a cliff if they told you to?”

“With all your advanced courses I thought you’d be smarter than that,” your mother agreed.

They continued back and forth, trading remarks over your silence until the food called to them again. You pushed the remains of your portion around on the plate, but didn’t scoop another bite.

When they finally dismissed you, you retreated to your room with the promise that you wouldn’t accept the community college’s offer of attendance should it be offered and that you would apply to no more universities without their express approval.

Now

The moment September made way for October, your roommate took it upon themself to plaster the walls of your dorm with Halloween décor.

Initially, you had questioned the need.

But between coursework, your job at the campus coffee shop, and your job at the closest off campus diner, you didn’t truly have the time, effort, or desire to argue.

Thus, two days before Halloween finds you staring at a mosaic of neon fake webbing, ornamental jack-o-lanterns, a tiny mouse skeleton riding a broomstick for some reason, and a mechanical raven with soulless red eyes.

“It’s going to come alive and peck our flesh off,” you deadpan.

Your roommate snorts. “It runs on remote batteries.”

“That doesn’t negate my previous statement.”

“There are no batteries in it.”

“There aren’t any batteries in the stuffed animals that always turn into killers in the worst horror movies.”

Your roommate groans, a deep guttural sound, flops back on their bed, and dramatically shoves one arm over their eyes.

A pang rings through your chest, and you scuff your foot against the ground as you eye the ruby-eyed raven once more. “It can stay,” you mutter. “It does fit the theme.”

This, you decide, is technically true on account of you’re not sure what the theme is outside of every Halloween and Halloween-adjacent decoration your roommate could find.

Your roommate springs up. “If you really aren’t comfortable with it,” they begin.

You shake your head, quickly holding your hands out to assure them it’s fine. Once they’ve settled back once more, you glance at the time on your phone, smile apologetically, and stuff yourself into a light jacket before hauling your backpack up and leaving the room.

An arch of oranges, reds, and yellows spirals overhead as you make the familiar trek to the campus library. The trees themselves dance with the autumn breeze, and you find yourself watching the swirl of leaves as several flitter from their branches to a tune none but them hear.

The tingle the thought of sleeping in the same room as the mechanical raven had given you dissipates by the time you slink inside the comfort only rows of books and enforced quiet provides.

Jason is already seated at the table the two of you have all but claimed over the semester, notebook open, anthology cracked.

He’s staring, unblinking, at the pages open in front of him when you creep up on him.

Your hands rise, fingers arching like pincers above his shoulder blades. As you start to lower them, ready to attack, he sighs.

“Your footsteps still give you away,” he tells you.

You pout, abandoning your plan immediately. “How do you always know?”

Jason glares at you from the corner of his eye as you plop into the seat next to him. “You still walk louder than most who grew up in Gotham,” is all he says before returning his focus to his work.

You cross your arms, leaning over to read the title of whatever his current assigned reading is. Your head brushes his shoulder as you shift in front of him to block his view. He lightly shoves you back into your seat, laughing, and pulls the anthology up, turning so you no longer have access to the book.

“Do your own work,” he chides.

You grumble, dutifully pulling your laptop out as you do. “But reading Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is so much easier than writing a paper on prosocial and antisocial behaviors.”

“Tough luck.” Jason points an accusatory finger at your computer screen. “It’s due tonight, isn’t it?”

You scowl at the reminder and aggressively pull the document up.

When you next glance away from your assignment, Jason has turned his attention from schoolwork to staring at you. You blink, frowning at the lack of notebook and anthology on the table in front of him.

He shrugs when you point it out. “I finished half an hour ago,” he says.

“And you couldn’t have started another assignment?”

He grimaces. “I’m supposed to have a family dinner tonight,” he says carefully, slowly. “I didn’t want to lose track of time.”

Ah. “You don’t talk about your family much,” you note. In truth, you could probably count on one hand how many times Jason’s mentioned “the family”.

When you’d shyly brought it up to your roommate, curious if it was something you were close enough to you could bring up to him, your roommate, shocked at your lack of apparently common Gotham-lore, had detailed everything they knew of Jason’s upbringing as the adopted son of Gotham Billionaire Bruce Wayne.

You hadn’t believed them until Jason hesitantly confirmed it a week later after noticing your pathetic attempts to google it.

“Well.” You click your tongue absentmindedly. “If you need to escape, just text me and I’ll call with a fake emergency. Surely, they can’t fault you if my roommate and I need your help with a murderous mechanical raven.”

Jason’s face scrunches in confusion. “A murderous mechanical raven?”

“My roommate’s idea, don’t ask. Halloween is apparently sacred. Which reminds me, actually. What are you doing Halloween? I think we’re hosting a séance for some reason.”

Something akin to horrified disgust crosses his face. “No. Definitely not. No.”

“If your dorm’s available we could do a movie night instead?”

Jason hesitates, helplessly lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I’m busy Halloween,” is all he offers, the words an apologetic jumble tumbling forth somehow with both the speed of a crashing airplane and the crawl of a snail’s pace.

A cloud of disappointment envelops you, but you force a smile to your face anyway. “No problem. I’m sure the séance won’t be too bad. Might even be entertaining to watch, who knows.”

Jason opens his mouth, no doubt another apology on the tip of his tongue. You wave him off, hurriedly grasping for another topic to talk of instead.

He lets the conversation flow elsewhere, and neither of you return to Halloween again.

Then

For your last Halloween as a high school student, your class organized a lock-in. You had debated the pros and cons of going, of asking to go, and decided it wasn’t worth it.

You stood by that decision. Up until the week before, when you returned home with the results of your last calculus test in shaking hand.

Your parents took one look at the 89.

“What happened?” they asked. “I’m sure you’ll do much better next time.” They tsked. “Didn’t you study for it?”

Despite their insistence, you didn’t eat that night.

The next morning, you’d informed them of the lock-in. You banked on the fact that teachers would be there, and extra study sessions would be allotted for students who wanted or needed help with homework and preferred that over one of the planned activities.

You’d braced yourself, shoulders stiff, arms locked.

They’d agreed.

And so, Halloween night you grabbed your backpack and joined your classmates and teachers at school.

Several of your friends attempted throughout the night to pull you into one of the planned activities: one room had been set up like a maze, another an escape room, a third was filled with board games.

You declined every time, rotating through homework assignments and study guides under the supervision of a handful of other students and the study hall supervisor.

When gaggles of students passed in the hall, dressed in costumes and imitating animals, you ached. Not to join them, but at the sounds and sights that would never fill your life within your childhood home again.

The following morning, neither of your parents asked if you’d had fun, only if you’d gained help with the material you were struggling with.

You’d nodded, and that had been that.

Now

By mid-November, you had learned three important things about living in Gotham.

One, despite the rest of the country’s opinions on billionaires and rich celebrities, Gothamites are, inexplicably, protective of Bruce Wayne and his children. The everyday person still gossips, of course, and Jason isn’t followed around like some deity by any means, but if an outsider criticizes the Waynes, the outsider is criticized in turn. The result: Bruce Wayne is Gotham’s to love and hate, and only Gotham’s.

Secondly, despite the horror stories of what could happen in the city at night, the area around the Gotham U campus is surprisingly safe. According to a rumor your roommate uncovered, Harley Quinn and Batman have teamed up to make the campus a safe zone and none of the other criminals-regular or costumed-dare cross them.

Third, and arguably most important, no one really cares about your history unless it poses a danger to them. Such, you’ve taken to telling no one other than your therapist and roommate any of it.

Perhaps that’s why Jason raises an eyebrow and shifts uncomfortably when you decline your mother’s call for the fifth time in a row.

The two of you had left the confines of the library, where frazzled group projects had been unleashed, in search of sustenance and found yourselves at a quiet family-owned restaurant a few blocks off-campus.

You’d been having a pleasant, normal conversation when your phone rang the first time. You’d hesitated only a second before declining the call. Naturally, your mother didn’t like that.

A sound escaped your throat; some mix between a groan and a hiss. To Jason, you specified “sorry”.

He attempted a smile of reassurance. It did not reassure you.

You declined the next incoming call, and the next, and the next, and the next, and dear God how many times could one woman call you in the span of a single minute?

Jason clears his throat, his hands lifting and dropping the menu in front of him randomly as he glances around the small restaurant. “You can take that if you need to,” he says. “I don’t mind.”

“She just wants to complain that I’m not coming home for Thanksgiving,” you tell him. It’s technically the truth, or as truthful as you’ve found it can be without making your audience uncomfortable.

You’d texted your parents three days ago to inform them you’d not be returning to your childhood home for Thanksgiving. Your father had asked about your plans for winter break, and then spring break, and then informed you that if you did not come home for the first Thanksgiving they were hosting in two years you could stay gone for all he cared.

Your mother had taken a slightly different approach. She’d emphasized that the family and friends who’d been invited would miss you and wonder where you are if not at home. When you’d stood your ground, she questioned if you’d started dating someone and how you could not tell her such a thing demanded to be introduced.

That, of course, led to you assuring her that you were still single and yes, of course mother, when I date someone, I’ll tell you.

…

Thinking back on it, you know your therapist would berate you for so easily promising her that.

Nevertheless, since your adamant refusal to return (ever, by your father’s law), your mother has taken to calling you as often as she can to demand you see reason and change your mind.

It is far easier to decline her calls than attempt to reason with her.

It would be even easier, you know, to block her number. But every time your finger hovers over the button to do so, you waver. She is your mother, after all.

“Too much homework?” Jason asks, the words tentative and soft despite the probing of a question no other Gothamite would ask.

You blink at him. “Always,” is your solemn reply. Jason simply nods. You sigh, shake your head. “Yes and no.” you say it before you’ve fully committed to saying it, before the thoughts of his response to your explanation can paralyze you into never saying it.

Jason doesn’t utter a single sound. He doesn’t even move drastically. He just carefully, gently, lowers the menu and folds his hand on the table between you.

You swallow the dryness in your throat and avoid his eyes. “It’s not a money thing, either. Not really. It’s just…” you shrug, scratch your nose. “I don’t want to be there. If I go back, I’m not sure I’ll have it in me to come back.”

The words settle into the space between you, and for the next few minutes the white noise of a restaurant is the only sound you hear.

Then, Jason leans back, and the seat groans under his weight. Your eyes dart to him, and he’s crossing his arms, nodding, and looking out the window instead of at you. “I get that,” he says finally. He doesn’t expand further, and neither do you.

Even still, when you reach for your menu, your arms feel lighter than they have in days.

“Anyone else know?” Jason waits to ask until you’ve ordered, the menus no longer a buffer you can use.

You pick at your nails. He doesn’t ask again. When your food arrives and the waiter leaves, you sigh. “I see a therapist.”

He considers. “Do you like them?”

“Somewhat.”

“That’s better than not at all.” He picks up his glass, sets it down without taking a sip. He inhales sharply, and reaches across the table to still your hands. Bashfully, you meet his eyes. “Thank you for telling me that,” he says.

“It’s not all of it,” you protest.

His nose scrunches. “If you want to tell me all of it, I’ll listen,” he promises.

You nod, throat tight. It’s another minute before you tell him you’d do the same. His head cocks to the side, eyebrow raised. You shrug. “You haven’t really told me about your family either. If you want to, I’ll listen. If not, that’s fine.”

He smiles, and you smile back.

“But,” you raise a finger, “don’t go getting a big head or anything just because you’re my best friend.”

His smile grows, a dazzling spectacle truer than the smiles he gave when you first met. “You’re my best friend, too.” He reaches for his glass again before once again pausing, lowering it without taking a sip. “If…if you want someplace to go for Thanksgiving instead of the campus cafeteria,” he starts slowly, “I’m allowed to bring a guest to the manor.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and shift the food on your plate around for a moment, debating what your therapist would say. Gathering yourself, you take a deep breath and square your shoulders. “Do you want me there or are you inviting me out of pity?”

The look Jason gives you is answer enough, and you smile meekly, squeaking a quiet apology. “I just said you’re my best friend.” He shakes his head. “Of course, I want you there if you want to come.”

He kicks your foot under the table. You kick his back. He laughs, and then you laugh, and that’s that.

Then

Your parents rented a cabin for Thanksgiving. To get away from all the noise, they said. A whole week of vacation, how relaxing.

They didn’t tell you if you were invited to any of your extended family’s houses for the holiday. You didn’t ask.

They left the Monday before the holiday. You spent the time not in school ravaging through the fridge for meal ideas. You hadn’t saved for a full week’s worth of groceries; you hadn’t anticipated needing to.

Thanksgiving itself passed without notice to you. You woke, you did the chores you could, you ate what you knew they wouldn’t miss, and you studied ahead.

Black Friday replicated the day prior.

And, then, Saturday tossed you through a window.

The mail came early. That should have been the first sign, really. The mail never came early, especially on a Saturday.

Most of it was expected. Normal mail delivered to your parents. One envelope was too large. Addressed to you.

You could do nothing but stare at it for a solid ten minutes. Your teachers and advisor had joked that half the time students received word from colleges they knew before they even opened the letter if they had been accepted or not. If accepted, there would be an entire packet of information. If rejected, a simple letter.

Your hands shook, and you carefully traced your name on the envelope before tearing it open.

Several sheets of things fell out, and you fell after them. Your knees landed hard on the kitchen floor, your hands scrabbling for a hold on something as the words pierced your eyes.

…Gotham University…pleased to accept you…Psychology…

Your breaths turned ragged.

They weren’t supposed to accept you.

It had been one last act of rebellion.

A joke.

You hurried to gather everything, nodding to yourself.

You’d tear it all up. Shred it.

Throw it away, and then throw the garbage bag away.

They’d still never know.

They’d never have to know.

They could never know.

Something dripped off your chin.

Another drop.

A third.

Only then did you realize your cheeks were coated with tears and sobs had been built and unleashed through your lips.

You curled in on yourself.

The dream of a dream shuttered under your eyelids.

You clutched the papers tighter.

A dream.

It shattered.

Now

You stumble after Jason as he leads you toward the entrance of Wayne Manor. You clutched the fruit platter your roommate and you had scoured the nearby stores for tighter the closer you got to the door.

“You really didn’t have to bring anything,” Jason says for the tenth time.

“It’s rude to show up empty handed,” you argue.

He makes a face, like he’s debating the truth of that statement in general to the truth of it in this situation.

The door opens before either of you can say anything more on the matter.

The man who peers down at you is fitted in a suit, his grey hair styled serenely.

Jason’s shoulders drop in relief and he smiles. “Alfred.”

“Master Jason,” Alfred replies warmly. He steps aside, ushering the two of you in. “Do you not have a warmer jacket?” he tsks.

Jason groans but doesn’t argue as Alfred shoos the two of you further inside and rambles on about a cup of tea he’ll have ready shortly. Then, Alfred is pulling the fruit platter from your arms, marveling at it, and telling you he’ll set it up with the rest of dinner. You don’t have time to respond before he’s gone.

You follow Jason down the hall, emerging in a large space you don’t know the name of. At first glance, you think living room. What with the giant television and luxurious-looking couch and the several chairs perched about the room. But then you see the elegant table off to the side, more akin to the type found in a dining room and you’re blinking too hard and two people you don’t know are standing up from where they’ve been conversing and Jason is tensing and it no longer matters what type of room this is.

The eldest man in the room appraises Jason with a look that sends a shiver down your spine, all too familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. “Jason,” he says. It’s low, but not the lowness of your father’s voice, not the timber of a growl. Just a pitch.

“Bruce.” Jason reaches behind him. Pulls you forward until you’ve stumbled next to him. “This is my friend.” He says your name, and it’s the softest word to come out of his mouth since the two of you have entered this room.

You give a quick wave.

Bruce Wayne, Gotham Billionaire, Gotham’s sweetheart, turns his scrutinizing gaze that doesn’t feel at all like the scrutinization you’re used to but is scrutinization all the same onto you.

“Jason’s talked about you,” you say to be nice. It isn’t the full truth, but it’s not a lie either. Jason has mentioned his family, in that offhand way. He’s even brought them up by name since you agreed to attend Thanksgiving dinner with him.

According to him, it’s so you know what you’re walking into.

You won’t tell him nothing he’s said could have prepared you for this.

Bruce Wayne dips his chin in a single, deep nod, but his eyes don’t leave you. Without thought, your fingers move to pick at your fingernails.

Jason reaches over, sliding his fingers between yours and giving your hand a squeeze before you can commit to the act.

You glance at him, eyes wide.

He’s not looking at you. His eyes are trained on his adoptive father.

When you look back at Bruce Wayne, his attention is back on Jason. His face has softened, you think.

The man next to him, who looks only a few years older than you, grins and waves, bouncing forward. “Hi!” you tilt your head, picturing a dog’s tail wagging with excitement behind him. “I’m Dick Grayson, Jay’s older brother. It’s lovely to meet you.”

He reaches a hand forward for you to shake. You extend your own arm, yelping when Jason pulls your entire body back, out of Dick’s reach, using your clasped hands.

Bruce Wayne sighs a tired sigh. Dick only grins wider, sharper, something sparking in his eyes as he raises his hands and backs away, laughing easily.

You clear your throat, unsure if you should say something or wait for someone else to speak first.

Thankfully, Alfred arrives. He sets a tray with several tea cups and a pot of tea down on a coffee table you hadn’t realized was a coffee table, says dinner will be ready shortly, and excuses himself back out of the room.

Bruce Wayne uses that time to sit, pour a cup of tea, and motion for Dick, Jason, and you to join him.

Jason, still pulling you along with him, sits tersely on the couch. Bruce hands him a cup of tea. Jason doesn’t take it. Bruce holds it out for a moment longer before, once more, sighing and gently setting it in front of your friend.

You smile, carefully accepting the cup he extends your way next with the single hand you have available. Jason’s grip on your other hand tightens, but he says nothing as you take a small sip of tea.

Dick bounces in his seat, his head swiveling from Jason to you to Jason and back to you. You frown over the rim of your cup, but it’s Jason who snaps.

“What?”

“You actually brought your friend.” To your ears, Dick sounds like someone who’s seeing the Northern Lights for the first time.

“I said I was.”

“You did.”

Jason scowls.

Bruce Wayne clears his throat before their banter can escalate into an actual argument. “Jason mentioned you’re majoring in psychology. How did you choose it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh.” You set the cup down in front of you. All three men give you a moment to compose your thoughts. In the end, you shrug. “I guess I’ve just…always been interested in understanding why people act the way they act.”

“Gotham U’s program is prestigious,” Bruce Wayne replies. “And they have wonderful assistance with finding internships should you need it.”

You fidget. Jason shifts next to you, and Bruce Wayne cuts himself off.

The silence only lasts a moment this time.

“How exactly did you and Jason meet?” Dick inquires. “He never did say.”

You glance at Jason. His eyes are shut, his jaw clenched. You squeeze his hand. “If he didn’t say then he didn’t say for a reason.” The words leave with an undertone of confidence you do not feel as you say them. Jason squeezes your hand back nonetheless.

Thanksgiving dinner commences as such. Bruce Wayne and Dick prompt the conversation with questions, mostly aimed at you. You answer as best and willing as you’re able. Jason steps in every now and then.

Two times, it’s Alfred who informs Bruce Wayne that the question he has asked is too personal for the first time you meet one’s child’s friend. Bruce Wayne looks especially bashful after that.

After, Dick offers to help Alfred clean up and Bruce Wayne disappears into another room of the manor with the quiet excuse of needing to finish something for work.

You follow Jason through a door and meander the Manor’s gardens for a while.

It’s there, amid the dying roses and greying stems that seem especially bleak under the lightness of the upcoming frost, that Jason thanks you.

It’s so quiet you almost don’t hear it.

“I should be thanking you,” is all you can think of to say. “I’d have nowhere else to go if you hadn’t offered to let me come with.”

Jason’s nose twitches. “So, it’s pity that made you agree to come?” he asks.

You shake your head. “You’re my friend, Jason. Why would I pity you?”

He opens his mouth, and then closes it without saying anything. He watches you and you watch him, and around you, the lightest sprinkle of snow begins to dust the air.

“What?” you finally ask.

One of Jason’s arms jerks like he started some movement he realized he didn’t intend to start. “You’re my best friend,” he says slowly.

You frown. “As we’ve established. And?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Everything stops.

There’s a faint buzz in your ears.

You can no longer feel your heart, or your legs, or your arms.

You no longer feel your breath, or see it in the air in front of you.

In front of you, just out of reach, where he’d been standing, Jason’s figure blurs in your eyes and then reappears clearly.

He’s watching you with that careful gaze of his. Gently, oh so gently. Sincerely.

And you-

You do the only think you can think of.

The only thing you know to do.

Merlin listens to him, offers advice, and rarely pushes. And yet, in the years they’ve known one another, Arthur has never inquired about any of Merlin’s problems. Nor has his manservant willingly verbalized them.

Lancelot was good. He was honorable as a knight should have been. And Arthur had done nothing but wished him well when the King sent the would-be knight away for not having been born to nobles.

He could have been nicer to the entirety of Camelot’s servants, to be sure.

And the blacksmiths. And merchants. And everyone, really, he really hasn’t been the nicest. Especially before Merlin came along. And even more-so since…well.

Rather selfishly, Arthur thinks it would be nice to know more about Merlin and Gaius’ work. The ability to understand their hushed conversations would have made him a better Prince.

And, chiefly,

Apparently, he’d been so convincing in his orders, you had heeded them and disappeared from Camelot in face, name, and rumor. Neither Gaius or Gwen has heard from or of you since he’d sought your escape from death. And Morgana was so furious she refused to even entertain his inquiries.

Morgana, Arthur reckons, had the right idea, if this is where his inquiries would see him.

In the months since you scattered like ash in the wind, Arthur has done his best to maintain his dignity and leave you and whatever’s remained of his feelings for you hidden away in the past, buried in the deepest depths of his marrow.

His father’s outrage and pillage of the realm in search of you had only convinced him doing so was in both his and your best interest.

And yet…

He grunts, snapping his bound arms forward, testing the strength of the rope cutting into his skin. Too tight.

The motion carries him forward, and the visage of the cave’s floor as the ceiling is enough for his eyes to roll and acid to burn the back of his throat.

If only they hadn’t hung him upside down and left him alone with his thoughts. Much better to be a captive when you’re not dangling from the ceiling.

“Oi.” One of the bandits snaps from where the pair have built a small camp just out of reach. “Stop that.”

Arthur bares his teeth. “Or you’ll kill me?”

The bandit lunges for his sword. The other intercepts, murmurs something too quiet for Arthur to catch, and they both settle back on the ground, sneering at him as they do so.

Arthur fights the urge to cluck his tongue. They’d knocked him out to tie him up, and without a clear view of the sun’s position he can only guess how long it’ll be before someone notices he’s gone. And then finds him.

Not that he’d left an abundance of clues. He’d rather thought he’d have been back in his chambers by now. Or, at least, by morning. Whenever that is. Will be? Was? He briefly considers asking if either of the bandits knows the time, but dismisses the idea as quickly as it arrives.

They’d have no reason to tell him. And every reason to assume he’d use the information to escape somehow. As if simply knowing the time would undo the knots keeping him bound.

“My father won’t let you keep whatever ransom you think you can get,” he tries. “Even if you make the exchange, Camelot’s knights will follow you and you won’t survive the week.”

It’s the second bandit that barks at him to shut his mouth this time. Arthur snorts, but acquiesces. He’s nothing more to freely give them anyway. Not until they give something in return.

Surprisingly, they return to their hushed conversation. In the boredom of not being interrogated, Arthur pulls the threads of what led him here to the forefront of his mind.

Firstly, in the absence of all information regarding you Arthur had attempted to throw his father off your invisible trail by bribing people to falsify rumors.

He couldn’t do it himself, obviously. Merlin had been willing to help, but he and Gwen had both been adamant that rumors could not just sprout up in the middle of Camelot. They had to originate elsewhere and circulate back to the castle.

That had been the first obstacle they faced.

In less than a day, you, Arthur’s fiancé, exposed yourself as someone who used magic, and then magically vanished from a prison cell Uther had condemned you to. Thus, Uther’s paranoia spiraled like a forest fire.

He questioned everyone in Arthur’s life. He started overseeing Arthur’s patrol routes and hunting grounds. For the first week, Arthur could not leave the castle without ten knights surrounding him.

Even Merlin and Gaius found themselves unable to leave without an escort for the first month. They’d known you as well, after all. It was for their safety, the King said. What if you tried to intervene while they gathered the herbs they required?

And Gwen could go nowhere without Morgana, and Morgana was under as severe lock and key as Arthur.

Their savior came in Sir Leon. Sir Leon, who had decided that while Uther’s stance on magic was law, and as a knight he served the crown and law, Arthur was not under a spell and if Arthur wanted to help you then Leon would help too.

Unlike every other person Arthur considered a friend within Camelot, Leon was not under Uther’s surveillance. He took ideas Gwen, Merlin, and Arthur compiled, and spread seedlings around various outer villages.

Soon thereafter, rumors ripened of your whereabouts. Every time a courtier voiced one, every time a servant whispered one, Arthur’s heart soared in hopes of knowing where you were and fell at thoughts of Uther finding you and finishing what he’d started.

And then the facts came back to him, and he realized he knew every rumor because he and Gwen and Merlin and Leon had started them.

None of the rumors or fabricated sightings ever led to you because none of them actually started with you. They started with a desperate plan carved by a man who could not stop loving you even when you betrayed him and hid part of yourself from him.

Even when you obeyed him and left him.

A shuttered breath tears through Arthur’s throat, and he blinks back tears. For the first time since waking this way, he’s grateful the bandits aren’t right in front of him. His father would never forgive him if he found out Arthur shed tears while kidnapped.

Even if the tears weren’t related to being kidnapped.

Right. Arthur clears his throat. So, the starting point. You vanished. He created his own network of people he trusts to (hopefully) aid you. Because he would aid you with every choice in every breath, whether or not you wanted it.

You had needed it, when he’d led you out of the dungeon after all. You’d not fought, not sought an explanation, merely succumbed to allow your execution. Either that, or you’d had some plan Arthur still hadn’t dug up.

And months passed. Your presence lingered like an old wound. Never fully gone. Pressure at times. Routine to avoid certain thoughts and movements and think and act otherwise to account for it.

The lack of you disrupted everything, though. Council meetings where he’d come up with how to retell a joke to make you laugh before remembering. No more dinners he’d accidentally forget, too caught up in paperwork or disputes or his father’s tirades.

The lack of conversations about anything wedding-related was most obvious. Everyone avoided words like wedding or nuptials or spouse as if Arthur would strike them. Or Uther would.

The wound lingered. The ache you left pressed through him some nights until he could scarcely breathe. He shoved every garment dyed your favorite color he owned to the back of his wardrobe.

Merlin never pressured him into answers he wasn’t sure he could give. Gwen and Morgana never chided. Uther made offhand comments to be careful who he gave his affections to and left it at that.

And Arthur grew to know and recognize the space you left behind as well as he’d known the space you occupied.

See, the problem is Arthur loves you. Even still, even now, even here. Even when, months ago, you ruined his dreams of the future by revealing your magic in front of not just him, but Merlin and Gaius and Gwen and Morgana and hundreds of nobles and, worst of all, his father.

Two days ago (or yesterday? Really, he can’t be certain of the timing of events without knowing the current time), you ruined the tentative peace he’d convinced himself he’d built in your absence.

Two days ago (or whenever, does it really matter anymore?), Leon brought a rumor none of them had started. The first and only rumor since you’d left that held the possibility of truth within it.

And Arthur, like an idiot, had waited. With all the other rumors that had crept up and led nowhere, he was foolishly certain Uther would think nothing of this one.

And then, yesterday (was it yesterday? Hours ago?) Uther learned of the rumor from his most loyal lapdog of a knight during a meeting Arthur was not privy to.

Leon told him as soon as the meeting was over. Arthur retired early, barricaded his chamber, and climbed out the window like a lovesick fool.

Worse, he hadn’t even told Leon he was going to. Or Merlin. Or anyone.

Not even a couple hours into his journey, and the bandits knocked him out.

He’s angrier, Arthur concludes, at the fact that they knocked him out today of all days than that they knocked him out at all. Really, if they’ve been planning a kidnapping, they couldn’t have planned it for a day that better suited him?

Well, why not ask them that. Arthur nods to himself, and focuses back on the bandits’ campsite. Only, when he does the bandits are on the ground and Lancelot is walking toward him.

“You hit stronger than I realized,” Arthur mutters. That’s unfortunate. Without Merlin, it will be rather difficult to heal the head wound and continue on and get back to his chambers before his father realizes his intent to keep you hidden.

Lancelot’s face does something weird, and metal scrapes a scabbard, and then Arthur blinks and he’s on the ground and his head is woozy and Lancelot is pulling the rope away from his wrists and saying something.

“What?” Arthur manages.

Lancelot pinches his nose and takes a full breath to look at Arthur in what Arthur imagines a disappointed father who even disappointed is kind to you in a way Uther could never manage looks at their son.

Then Lancelot is hauling him to his feet and a dreadful, heavy wave forces its way into Arthur’s chest.

“What are you doing so close to Camelot?” he hisses. “My father will kill you if he finds you here.”

Lancelot grins, and it’s nothing like the wide, joyous grin he wore when they first met that Arthur spends the next minute convinced this isn’t Lancelot, but Lancelot’s grumpier twin brother.

His rescuer doesn’t say anything until they’re out of the cave. When the forest surrounds them again, and Arthur the familiar route back to Camelot pieces itself together in front of Arthur, he turns, and Lancelot is looking at him, waiting.

“What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?” Even to his own ears, Arthur can’t fully decide if he sounds more desperate or more commanding.

Lancelot tilts his head to each side, humming. “I don’t think I can answer that entirely, I’m afraid.”

This time, Arthur knows before the words are formed that they will be coated in outrage.

They haven’t formed on his tongue when Lancelot holds out a hand, something clutched in it for Arthur to take, and continues speaking.

“The answers to your question aren’t all mine to share,” he says. “But I am allowed to share this.”

Arthur brings the object up to study, and-oh. Oh. His hand shakes but his grip doesn’t loosen as he stares at the ring he commissioned for you. He’d hidden it in the saddlebag of the horse he’d gifted you upon your escape. If you couldn’t wear it as his spouse, he’d had it made for you. It was yours, and he’d wanted you to do with it as you would.

Even if he knew you’d probably sell it for the coin it would give you in a time you had little else to sell.

He knows it’s the same ring. The design, the shape. Carved by his mind, forged because of the desire he holds for a future you have now denied him, and now, returned to him through a vessel he cannot comprehend.

Nausea boils in his stomach. “Why do you have this?” he asks lowly.

Lancelot slowly raises his hands, placating. “Words are spoken freely and difficult to trust. I am merely safeguarding it for now as I act as a messenger. Fear not, it will return to its rightful owner henceforth.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

Lancelot’s eyes flick meaningfully, or is Arthur imagining it because he is desperate for meaning in this where he knows none, to the trees and horizon beyond in which Camelot draws breath.

“There are many rumors,” Lancelot says. Arthur closes his fist around the ring, his eyes stinging, and glares at the person in front of him he once thought he could call friend. “You are your father’s heir,” he continues. “You will one day be King of Camelot.”

Refusal rises as it always does in the back of Arthur’s throat. His father is King. His father will be King for years to come.

He doesn’t voice it.

Lancelot smiles grimly. “The laws are what they are,” he reminds him gently. “By your father’s hand. You have helped. You are trying to help. That is known. Do not make yourself a target over this.”

“My father has heard a rumor from his most trusted, most loyal knight,” Arthur manages. He’s almost proud of the way his voice barely shakes.

Lancelot chuckles. “Do you really believe rumor and fact are the same, Your Highness?”

Arthur wants to question it. Everything bleeds together, a storm of want and desire and longing and hurt and anger and Lancelot is in front of him with answers Arthur doesn’t understand how he knows and you’re not here but you could’ve been and Lancelot is talking, even if in riddles.

He sniffs, brings his fist up to his nose as if the ring could possibly have carried your scent all the way here from wherever it is you are, and considers what is in front of him.

 Lancelot is honorable.

Lancelot would have been a good knight.

Lancelot is not a knight because he was not born to nobles.

Arthur lowers his hand, unfurls his fingers, traces the ring with his thumb once, and gently hands it back to Lancelot.

“Thank you for the message,” he whispers. “And for seeing that this is returned safely to its home.”

Lancelot pauses where he’s tucking the ring safely into a pocket. “That’s the thing, isn’t it?” he muses. “Home is what you make of it. Some of us find it in a place, others the people around us, and some of us…we can never go back to it, can we?”

He bids Arthur a silent farewell, and is gone by the time Arthur regains the ability to know that in this light, he should be on his way back to Camelot.

The return journey lacks bandits and kidnappings.

It lacks the certainty of your safety he’d envisioned upon his departure. It lacks the certainty of answers he’d imagined and has only the pieces of what he’s been given.

Uther confines him to his rooms for two days, sends a group of knights out to hunt every bandit they can find, and disappears into his paranoia once more.

Merlin frets but doesn’t push for answers. Gaius just pats him on the shoulder when he delivers the medicine Uther requested Arthur take.

Morgana visits once. She says nothing. Arthur considers telling her she was right, but knows those words are false to him.

Morgana smiles to herself, tells him not to run off on his own again. He has friends and confidantes, and sees herself out.

Arthur is still pondering that when Leon sneaks his way in.

“The rumor,” Leon tells him, “was just a rumor. I still don’t know who started it or why, but there are several testimonies that prove it false. The bird remains free.”

Arthur’s shoulders drop, a breath escaping him. He presses a hand to his chest, nods, and thanks the knight. When Leon leaves him to his thoughts, he turns to the window, and stares out.

(Nanami would be that someone, most likely. His role in the group chat was never to indulge Utahime’s gambling habit, like the rest of them, but one ubiquitous despite, a stoic and watchful eye — something the rest of them would always tongue-in-cheek poke and prod at, a half-baked and ultimately grateful tease.)

After that, it would be a deep stretch of his stiffened neck until his phone was vibrating again: messages from Yaga — one, always a bid for Kusakabe to share some of his edge (Yaga was on the betting end of most of Utahime’s worst impulses, and by virtue of a revolving door of winning and losing, was always trying to tempt luck); the other, a vow that he’d do what he could to preserve some semblance of peace for the weekend trip. Some weeks were more unlucky than others, with Kusakabe catching the final train back to Tokyo on the same day he left, but mostly his luck would keep. At least for a day or two. 

Just enough time for him to board a busy-enough evening train, sacrifice the last of his lollipops to a child with water-dark moons for eyes, and finish the book he’d started months ago as the windows played watercolor impressions of forward motion. Just enough time for him to lethargically shuffle up a comical number of stairs, jiggle a key into a lock, and be with you.

“Waitin’ for me?”

And just like you were every time Utahime made a short-sighted bet on her favorite baseball team, there you’d be: legs folded at all odd angles on a seat at the kitchen table, a poor man’s attempt at smothering a smile, and at least three projects placed before you, all patiently waiting their turn for your divinely particular attention. Strategies for a new method of teaching cursed energy reinforcement to the students at Kyoto Jujutsu High. A letter you were writing to family abroad. The same book Kusakabe had just managed to turn the final page of, already annotated and dog eared many times over, always ten steps ahead of him and meticulously designed.

“Waiting for this.” And you’d tug the bags of take-out from his hands, fingertips kissing, while your familiar pride stoked a feeling in him ever-deep. Kusakabe would shrug off his peacoat and ease out of the responsibilities he’d shouldered before entering your place, and meet you at the freshly organized table that still, at the end of the day, needed to be lacquered (you and Kusakabe would take turns all weekend scolding the other for forgetting a place-mat or coaster — you'd get around to buying the supplies to seal it's admittedly impressive condition... some day).

Quiet music, perhaps jazz, would filter through the orange-tinted room as you’d fill each other in on the life you’d spent apart since you last sat just like this. Missions you’d led and the hijinks that had ensued. Lessons he’d taught that were more flammable than anticipated. Appeals you’d made that were granted after short deliberation (your doggedness gave Gakuganji little and less to push back on and much for Kusakabe to respect). The latest tricks managed by Gojo. The latest airball you were humbled by in the miss. It all slowly arranged itself before the both of you, all side-dishes to pick at and tease and eventually pack up and stow away with the other thousand nuances you’d share between the both of you. Always half-fatigued and good naturedly sighed at — chronicles of too-dry novels meant for only the two of you: similar-souled enough to hold the soft mundanity of the other.

Life — the kind that was sketched into margins of weekends-off-missions, the empty squares on calendars where time warped and, affection-worn at the edges, never quite existed in permanence — always involved you, and inevitably, Kusakabe found, a familiar quiet.

An alarm at 6:00 a.m. that never roused him fully, silenced before making it ten seconds in; late afternoon sun that kiss his eyelids like a previous night's memory, too gentle, it's essence a softer aspect of sweet; a pot of coffee half empty, the rest a reserve for him, a fact murmured, just barely heard over the faint rustling of pages and the steady breathing of his still-tired form. You wouldn't speak above that blanket-thick hum until after you'd finished your meditative miscellaneous tasks in earnest, but you'd look at him whenever he existed in your view, and he’d hold whatever was coldest to his touch, warming it like the pale-worn sun and earth-rich coffee had thawed him.

By afternoon, you’d be circling the room languidly like pleasant little whirlpools and eddies — plants that needed watering, thoughts that would only come to you when fathomed in a round, gentle tip-toeing that had once made Kusakabe wonder slowly and dreadingly if all of this comfortability was just a kindness: some olive branch extended by someone resolved to their best behavior — a concession on your part, mindful, possibly, of his more effort-efficient and energy-conscious temperament. He had long grown used to the run around complaints typical of friends and coworkers, family and romantic partners: he was boring. Life on his terms was cautious to a point of drab.

You wouldn't be the first to slowly edge your way into "bringing excitement into his life," or gear up to more hectic and fervent schedules, and while you had never given him any indication that you preferred such business, most people operated at a baseline decidedly elevated from Kusakabe's leisurely own. It was a fact of life. One he thought you were perhaps just more tentative of introducing.

But the quaint weekends never stopped. The stolen breaths between work and the clandestine moments amidst action turned months into a year and the quiet was all that met him after train rides that brought one of you to the idle sanctuary of the other. Your pacing was just your breathing, his suspicions were just overthinking, and every slow day — each moment with you uneventful and barely measured — was just another way of eroding and filing them down.

Afternoon breakfasts were always the work of his, and Kusakabe hoped softly that the warm-toned comfortability was a feeling shared between the both of you as he eased the bowl into your hands with a comment too-early to be considered wry.

It never took long for Kusakabe to value over all else his time spent ignoring the stove-top clock and just existing, predictably, alongside you. There would always be the disbelieving sputtering of people like Gojo, who couldn’t fathom a fate worse than what the both of you treasured beyond naming, but he’d done his time analyzing your quietly occupied demeanor. He’d searched for any indication of listlessness or annoyance, or perhaps worst of all, defeat, and he’d never managed to find it.

Not during predictable walks to the grocery and the same tayaki from the familiarly manned stall; not when he settled on the cushioned tatami to sharpen his katana like a ritual, always the same time, clockwork made law; not when he joined you, side-by-side, to flip mindlessly through documentaries or daytime viewing, or just to request you read your latest collection of philosophy essays aloud, the sound of your voice low and thoughtful, lulling him into a sort of hypnosis where all he could consciously focus on was the careful shapes your mouth made, but later, when you mentioned Nishitani, he'd be able to indulge you in your ramblings with echoes of what he'd committed to memory and could still recall.

It was just the way you both connected, your mutual contentment in routine habit. Most of the time, you’d do it better than him. Just... exist. Slowly, carefully, softly: like this bubble inside your home, this comfort with him beside you, is all you could ever want for, and later — as you’d bid him goodbye at the station for his other-way bullet train — he’d leave with the lingering touch of your fingertips, and the words you’d spoken in the intimacy of your final moments of proximity, asking and hoping for more.

Merlin listens to him, offers advice, and rarely pushes. And yet, in the years they’ve known one another, Arthur has never inquired about any of Merlin’s problems. Nor has his manservant willingly verbalized them.

Lancelot was good. He was honorable as a knight should have been. And Arthur had done nothing but wished him well when the King sent the would-be knight away for not having been born to nobles.

He could have been nicer to the entirety of Camelot’s servants, to be sure.

And the blacksmiths. And merchants. And everyone, really, he really hasn’t been the nicest. Especially before Merlin came along. And even more-so since…well.

Rather selfishly, Arthur thinks it would be nice to know more about Merlin and Gaius’ work. The ability to understand their hushed conversations would have made him a better Prince.

And, chiefly,

Apparently, he’d been so convincing in his orders, you had heeded them and disappeared from Camelot in face, name, and rumor. Neither Gaius or Gwen has heard from or of you since he’d sought your escape from death. And Morgana was so furious she refused to even entertain his inquiries.

Morgana, Arthur reckons, had the right idea, if this is where his inquiries would see him.

In the months since you scattered like ash in the wind, Arthur has done his best to maintain his dignity and leave you and whatever’s remained of his feelings for you hidden away in the past, buried in the deepest depths of his marrow.

His father’s outrage and pillage of the realm in search of you had only convinced him doing so was in both his and your best interest.

And yet…

He grunts, snapping his bound arms forward, testing the strength of the rope cutting into his skin. Too tight.

The motion carries him forward, and the visage of the cave’s floor as the ceiling is enough for his eyes to roll and acid to burn the back of his throat.

If only they hadn’t hung him upside down and left him alone with his thoughts. Much better to be a captive when you’re not dangling from the ceiling.

“Oi.” One of the bandits snaps from where the pair have built a small camp just out of reach. “Stop that.”

Arthur bares his teeth. “Or you’ll kill me?”

The bandit lunges for his sword. The other intercepts, murmurs something too quiet for Arthur to catch, and they both settle back on the ground, sneering at him as they do so.

Arthur fights the urge to cluck his tongue. They’d knocked him out to tie him up, and without a clear view of the sun’s position he can only guess how long it’ll be before someone notices he’s gone. And then finds him.

Not that he’d left an abundance of clues. He’d rather thought he’d have been back in his chambers by now. Or, at least, by morning. Whenever that is. Will be? Was? He briefly considers asking if either of the bandits knows the time, but dismisses the idea as quickly as it arrives.

They’d have no reason to tell him. And every reason to assume he’d use the information to escape somehow. As if simply knowing the time would undo the knots keeping him bound.

“My father won’t let you keep whatever ransom you think you can get,” he tries. “Even if you make the exchange, Camelot’s knights will follow you and you won’t survive the week.”

It’s the second bandit that barks at him to shut his mouth this time. Arthur snorts, but acquiesces. He’s nothing more to freely give them anyway. Not until they give something in return.

Surprisingly, they return to their hushed conversation. In the boredom of not being interrogated, Arthur pulls the threads of what led him here to the forefront of his mind.

Firstly, in the absence of all information regarding you Arthur had attempted to throw his father off your invisible trail by bribing people to falsify rumors.

He couldn’t do it himself, obviously. Merlin had been willing to help, but he and Gwen had both been adamant that rumors could not just sprout up in the middle of Camelot. They had to originate elsewhere and circulate back to the castle.

That had been the first obstacle they faced.

In less than a day, you, Arthur’s fiancé, exposed yourself as someone who used magic, and then magically vanished from a prison cell Uther had condemned you to. Thus, Uther’s paranoia spiraled like a forest fire.

He questioned everyone in Arthur’s life. He started overseeing Arthur’s patrol routes and hunting grounds. For the first week, Arthur could not leave the castle without ten knights surrounding him.

Even Merlin and Gaius found themselves unable to leave without an escort for the first month. They’d known you as well, after all. It was for their safety, the King said. What if you tried to intervene while they gathered the herbs they required?

And Gwen could go nowhere without Morgana, and Morgana was under as severe lock and key as Arthur.

Their savior came in Sir Leon. Sir Leon, who had decided that while Uther’s stance on magic was law, and as a knight he served the crown and law, Arthur was not under a spell and if Arthur wanted to help you then Leon would help too.

Unlike every other person Arthur considered a friend within Camelot, Leon was not under Uther’s surveillance. He took ideas Gwen, Merlin, and Arthur compiled, and spread seedlings around various outer villages.

Soon thereafter, rumors ripened of your whereabouts. Every time a courtier voiced one, every time a servant whispered one, Arthur’s heart soared in hopes of knowing where you were and fell at thoughts of Uther finding you and finishing what he’d started.

And then the facts came back to him, and he realized he knew every rumor because he and Gwen and Merlin and Leon had started them.

None of the rumors or fabricated sightings ever led to you because none of them actually started with you. They started with a desperate plan carved by a man who could not stop loving you even when you betrayed him and hid part of yourself from him.

Even when you obeyed him and left him.

A shuttered breath tears through Arthur’s throat, and he blinks back tears. For the first time since waking this way, he’s grateful the bandits aren’t right in front of him. His father would never forgive him if he found out Arthur shed tears while kidnapped.

Even if the tears weren’t related to being kidnapped.

Right. Arthur clears his throat. So, the starting point. You vanished. He created his own network of people he trusts to (hopefully) aid you. Because he would aid you with every choice in every breath, whether or not you wanted it.

You had needed it, when he’d led you out of the dungeon after all. You’d not fought, not sought an explanation, merely succumbed to allow your execution. Either that, or you’d had some plan Arthur still hadn’t dug up.

And months passed. Your presence lingered like an old wound. Never fully gone. Pressure at times. Routine to avoid certain thoughts and movements and think and act otherwise to account for it.

The lack of you disrupted everything, though. Council meetings where he’d come up with how to retell a joke to make you laugh before remembering. No more dinners he’d accidentally forget, too caught up in paperwork or disputes or his father’s tirades.

The lack of conversations about anything wedding-related was most obvious. Everyone avoided words like wedding or nuptials or spouse as if Arthur would strike them. Or Uther would.

The wound lingered. The ache you left pressed through him some nights until he could scarcely breathe. He shoved every garment dyed your favorite color he owned to the back of his wardrobe.

Merlin never pressured him into answers he wasn’t sure he could give. Gwen and Morgana never chided. Uther made offhand comments to be careful who he gave his affections to and left it at that.

And Arthur grew to know and recognize the space you left behind as well as he’d known the space you occupied.

See, the problem is Arthur loves you. Even still, even now, even here. Even when, months ago, you ruined his dreams of the future by revealing your magic in front of not just him, but Merlin and Gaius and Gwen and Morgana and hundreds of nobles and, worst of all, his father.

Two days ago (or yesterday? Really, he can’t be certain of the timing of events without knowing the current time), you ruined the tentative peace he’d convinced himself he’d built in your absence.

Two days ago (or whenever, does it really matter anymore?), Leon brought a rumor none of them had started. The first and only rumor since you’d left that held the possibility of truth within it.

And Arthur, like an idiot, had waited. With all the other rumors that had crept up and led nowhere, he was foolishly certain Uther would think nothing of this one.

And then, yesterday (was it yesterday? Hours ago?) Uther learned of the rumor from his most loyal lapdog of a knight during a meeting Arthur was not privy to.

Leon told him as soon as the meeting was over. Arthur retired early, barricaded his chamber, and climbed out the window like a lovesick fool.

Worse, he hadn’t even told Leon he was going to. Or Merlin. Or anyone.

Not even a couple hours into his journey, and the bandits knocked him out.

He’s angrier, Arthur concludes, at the fact that they knocked him out today of all days than that they knocked him out at all. Really, if they’ve been planning a kidnapping, they couldn’t have planned it for a day that better suited him?

Well, why not ask them that. Arthur nods to himself, and focuses back on the bandits’ campsite. Only, when he does the bandits are on the ground and Lancelot is walking toward him.

“You hit stronger than I realized,” Arthur mutters. That’s unfortunate. Without Merlin, it will be rather difficult to heal the head wound and continue on and get back to his chambers before his father realizes his intent to keep you hidden.

Lancelot’s face does something weird, and metal scrapes a scabbard, and then Arthur blinks and he’s on the ground and his head is woozy and Lancelot is pulling the rope away from his wrists and saying something.

“What?” Arthur manages.

Lancelot pinches his nose and takes a full breath to look at Arthur in what Arthur imagines a disappointed father who even disappointed is kind to you in a way Uther could never manage looks at their son.

Then Lancelot is hauling him to his feet and a dreadful, heavy wave forces its way into Arthur’s chest.

“What are you doing so close to Camelot?” he hisses. “My father will kill you if he finds you here.”

Lancelot grins, and it’s nothing like the wide, joyous grin he wore when they first met that Arthur spends the next minute convinced this isn’t Lancelot, but Lancelot’s grumpier twin brother.

His rescuer doesn’t say anything until they’re out of the cave. When the forest surrounds them again, and Arthur the familiar route back to Camelot pieces itself together in front of Arthur, he turns, and Lancelot is looking at him, waiting.

“What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?” Even to his own ears, Arthur can’t fully decide if he sounds more desperate or more commanding.

Lancelot tilts his head to each side, humming. “I don’t think I can answer that entirely, I’m afraid.”

This time, Arthur knows before the words are formed that they will be coated in outrage.

They haven’t formed on his tongue when Lancelot holds out a hand, something clutched in it for Arthur to take, and continues speaking.

“The answers to your question aren’t all mine to share,” he says. “But I am allowed to share this.”

Arthur brings the object up to study, and-oh. Oh. His hand shakes but his grip doesn’t loosen as he stares at the ring he commissioned for you. He’d hidden it in the saddlebag of the horse he’d gifted you upon your escape. If you couldn’t wear it as his spouse, he’d had it made for you. It was yours, and he’d wanted you to do with it as you would.

Even if he knew you’d probably sell it for the coin it would give you in a time you had little else to sell.

He knows it’s the same ring. The design, the shape. Carved by his mind, forged because of the desire he holds for a future you have now denied him, and now, returned to him through a vessel he cannot comprehend.

Nausea boils in his stomach. “Why do you have this?” he asks lowly.

Lancelot slowly raises his hands, placating. “Words are spoken freely and difficult to trust. I am merely safeguarding it for now as I act as a messenger. Fear not, it will return to its rightful owner henceforth.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

Lancelot’s eyes flick meaningfully, or is Arthur imagining it because he is desperate for meaning in this where he knows none, to the trees and horizon beyond in which Camelot draws breath.

“There are many rumors,” Lancelot says. Arthur closes his fist around the ring, his eyes stinging, and glares at the person in front of him he once thought he could call friend. “You are your father’s heir,” he continues. “You will one day be King of Camelot.”

Refusal rises as it always does in the back of Arthur’s throat. His father is King. His father will be King for years to come.

He doesn’t voice it.

Lancelot smiles grimly. “The laws are what they are,” he reminds him gently. “By your father’s hand. You have helped. You are trying to help. That is known. Do not make yourself a target over this.”

“My father has heard a rumor from his most trusted, most loyal knight,” Arthur manages. He’s almost proud of the way his voice barely shakes.

Lancelot chuckles. “Do you really believe rumor and fact are the same, Your Highness?”

Arthur wants to question it. Everything bleeds together, a storm of want and desire and longing and hurt and anger and Lancelot is in front of him with answers Arthur doesn’t understand how he knows and you’re not here but you could’ve been and Lancelot is talking, even if in riddles.

He sniffs, brings his fist up to his nose as if the ring could possibly have carried your scent all the way here from wherever it is you are, and considers what is in front of him.

 Lancelot is honorable.

Lancelot would have been a good knight.

Lancelot is not a knight because he was not born to nobles.

Arthur lowers his hand, unfurls his fingers, traces the ring with his thumb once, and gently hands it back to Lancelot.

“Thank you for the message,” he whispers. “And for seeing that this is returned safely to its home.”

Lancelot pauses where he’s tucking the ring safely into a pocket. “That’s the thing, isn’t it?” he muses. “Home is what you make of it. Some of us find it in a place, others the people around us, and some of us…we can never go back to it, can we?”

He bids Arthur a silent farewell, and is gone by the time Arthur regains the ability to know that in this light, he should be on his way back to Camelot.

The return journey lacks bandits and kidnappings.

It lacks the certainty of your safety he’d envisioned upon his departure. It lacks the certainty of answers he’d imagined and has only the pieces of what he’s been given.

Uther confines him to his rooms for two days, sends a group of knights out to hunt every bandit they can find, and disappears into his paranoia once more.

Merlin frets but doesn’t push for answers. Gaius just pats him on the shoulder when he delivers the medicine Uther requested Arthur take.

Morgana visits once. She says nothing. Arthur considers telling her she was right, but knows those words are false to him.

Morgana smiles to herself, tells him not to run off on his own again. He has friends and confidantes, and sees herself out.

Arthur is still pondering that when Leon sneaks his way in.

“The rumor,” Leon tells him, “was just a rumor. I still don’t know who started it or why, but there are several testimonies that prove it false. The bird remains free.”

Arthur’s shoulders drop, a breath escaping him. He presses a hand to his chest, nods, and thanks the knight. When Leon leaves him to his thoughts, he turns to the window, and stares out.

Merlin listens to him, offers advice, and rarely pushes. And yet, in the years they’ve known one another, Arthur has never inquired about any of Merlin’s problems. Nor has his manservant willingly verbalized them.

Lancelot was good. He was honorable as a knight should have been. And Arthur had done nothing but wished him well when the King sent the would-be knight away for not having been born to nobles.

He could have been nicer to the entirety of Camelot’s servants, to be sure.

And the blacksmiths. And merchants. And everyone, really, he really hasn’t been the nicest. Especially before Merlin came along. And even more-so since…well.

Rather selfishly, Arthur thinks it would be nice to know more about Merlin and Gaius’ work. The ability to understand their hushed conversations would have made him a better Prince.

And, chiefly,

Apparently, he’d been so convincing in his orders, you had heeded them and disappeared from Camelot in face, name, and rumor. Neither Gaius or Gwen has heard from or of you since he’d sought your escape from death. And Morgana was so furious she refused to even entertain his inquiries.

Morgana, Arthur reckons, had the right idea, if this is where his inquiries would see him.

In the months since you scattered like ash in the wind, Arthur has done his best to maintain his dignity and leave you and whatever’s remained of his feelings for you hidden away in the past, buried in the deepest depths of his marrow.

His father’s outrage and pillage of the realm in search of you had only convinced him doing so was in both his and your best interest.

And yet…

He grunts, snapping his bound arms forward, testing the strength of the rope cutting into his skin. Too tight.

The motion carries him forward, and the visage of the cave’s floor as the ceiling is enough for his eyes to roll and acid to burn the back of his throat.

If only they hadn’t hung him upside down and left him alone with his thoughts. Much better to be a captive when you’re not dangling from the ceiling.

“Oi.” One of the bandits snaps from where the pair have built a small camp just out of reach. “Stop that.”

Arthur bares his teeth. “Or you’ll kill me?”

The bandit lunges for his sword. The other intercepts, murmurs something too quiet for Arthur to catch, and they both settle back on the ground, sneering at him as they do so.

Arthur fights the urge to cluck his tongue. They’d knocked him out to tie him up, and without a clear view of the sun’s position he can only guess how long it’ll be before someone notices he’s gone. And then finds him.

Not that he’d left an abundance of clues. He’d rather thought he’d have been back in his chambers by now. Or, at least, by morning. Whenever that is. Will be? Was? He briefly considers asking if either of the bandits knows the time, but dismisses the idea as quickly as it arrives.

They’d have no reason to tell him. And every reason to assume he’d use the information to escape somehow. As if simply knowing the time would undo the knots keeping him bound.

“My father won’t let you keep whatever ransom you think you can get,” he tries. “Even if you make the exchange, Camelot’s knights will follow you and you won’t survive the week.”

It’s the second bandit that barks at him to shut his mouth this time. Arthur snorts, but acquiesces. He’s nothing more to freely give them anyway. Not until they give something in return.

Surprisingly, they return to their hushed conversation. In the boredom of not being interrogated, Arthur pulls the threads of what led him here to the forefront of his mind.

Firstly, in the absence of all information regarding you Arthur had attempted to throw his father off your invisible trail by bribing people to falsify rumors.

He couldn’t do it himself, obviously. Merlin had been willing to help, but he and Gwen had both been adamant that rumors could not just sprout up in the middle of Camelot. They had to originate elsewhere and circulate back to the castle.

That had been the first obstacle they faced.

In less than a day, you, Arthur’s fiancé, exposed yourself as someone who used magic, and then magically vanished from a prison cell Uther had condemned you to. Thus, Uther’s paranoia spiraled like a forest fire.

He questioned everyone in Arthur’s life. He started overseeing Arthur’s patrol routes and hunting grounds. For the first week, Arthur could not leave the castle without ten knights surrounding him.

Even Merlin and Gaius found themselves unable to leave without an escort for the first month. They’d known you as well, after all. It was for their safety, the King said. What if you tried to intervene while they gathered the herbs they required?

And Gwen could go nowhere without Morgana, and Morgana was under as severe lock and key as Arthur.

Their savior came in Sir Leon. Sir Leon, who had decided that while Uther’s stance on magic was law, and as a knight he served the crown and law, Arthur was not under a spell and if Arthur wanted to help you then Leon would help too.

Unlike every other person Arthur considered a friend within Camelot, Leon was not under Uther’s surveillance. He took ideas Gwen, Merlin, and Arthur compiled, and spread seedlings around various outer villages.

Soon thereafter, rumors ripened of your whereabouts. Every time a courtier voiced one, every time a servant whispered one, Arthur’s heart soared in hopes of knowing where you were and fell at thoughts of Uther finding you and finishing what he’d started.

And then the facts came back to him, and he realized he knew every rumor because he and Gwen and Merlin and Leon had started them.

None of the rumors or fabricated sightings ever led to you because none of them actually started with you. They started with a desperate plan carved by a man who could not stop loving you even when you betrayed him and hid part of yourself from him.

Even when you obeyed him and left him.

A shuttered breath tears through Arthur’s throat, and he blinks back tears. For the first time since waking this way, he’s grateful the bandits aren’t right in front of him. His father would never forgive him if he found out Arthur shed tears while kidnapped.

Even if the tears weren’t related to being kidnapped.

Right. Arthur clears his throat. So, the starting point. You vanished. He created his own network of people he trusts to (hopefully) aid you. Because he would aid you with every choice in every breath, whether or not you wanted it.

You had needed it, when he’d led you out of the dungeon after all. You’d not fought, not sought an explanation, merely succumbed to allow your execution. Either that, or you’d had some plan Arthur still hadn’t dug up.

And months passed. Your presence lingered like an old wound. Never fully gone. Pressure at times. Routine to avoid certain thoughts and movements and think and act otherwise to account for it.

The lack of you disrupted everything, though. Council meetings where he’d come up with how to retell a joke to make you laugh before remembering. No more dinners he’d accidentally forget, too caught up in paperwork or disputes or his father’s tirades.

The lack of conversations about anything wedding-related was most obvious. Everyone avoided words like wedding or nuptials or spouse as if Arthur would strike them. Or Uther would.

The wound lingered. The ache you left pressed through him some nights until he could scarcely breathe. He shoved every garment dyed your favorite color he owned to the back of his wardrobe.

Merlin never pressured him into answers he wasn’t sure he could give. Gwen and Morgana never chided. Uther made offhand comments to be careful who he gave his affections to and left it at that.

And Arthur grew to know and recognize the space you left behind as well as he’d known the space you occupied.

See, the problem is Arthur loves you. Even still, even now, even here. Even when, months ago, you ruined his dreams of the future by revealing your magic in front of not just him, but Merlin and Gaius and Gwen and Morgana and hundreds of nobles and, worst of all, his father.

Two days ago (or yesterday? Really, he can’t be certain of the timing of events without knowing the current time), you ruined the tentative peace he’d convinced himself he’d built in your absence.

Two days ago (or whenever, does it really matter anymore?), Leon brought a rumor none of them had started. The first and only rumor since you’d left that held the possibility of truth within it.

And Arthur, like an idiot, had waited. With all the other rumors that had crept up and led nowhere, he was foolishly certain Uther would think nothing of this one.

And then, yesterday (was it yesterday? Hours ago?) Uther learned of the rumor from his most loyal lapdog of a knight during a meeting Arthur was not privy to.

Leon told him as soon as the meeting was over. Arthur retired early, barricaded his chamber, and climbed out the window like a lovesick fool.

Worse, he hadn’t even told Leon he was going to. Or Merlin. Or anyone.

Not even a couple hours into his journey, and the bandits knocked him out.

He’s angrier, Arthur concludes, at the fact that they knocked him out today of all days than that they knocked him out at all. Really, if they’ve been planning a kidnapping, they couldn’t have planned it for a day that better suited him?

Well, why not ask them that. Arthur nods to himself, and focuses back on the bandits’ campsite. Only, when he does the bandits are on the ground and Lancelot is walking toward him.

“You hit stronger than I realized,” Arthur mutters. That’s unfortunate. Without Merlin, it will be rather difficult to heal the head wound and continue on and get back to his chambers before his father realizes his intent to keep you hidden.

Lancelot’s face does something weird, and metal scrapes a scabbard, and then Arthur blinks and he’s on the ground and his head is woozy and Lancelot is pulling the rope away from his wrists and saying something.

“What?” Arthur manages.

Lancelot pinches his nose and takes a full breath to look at Arthur in what Arthur imagines a disappointed father who even disappointed is kind to you in a way Uther could never manage looks at their son.

Then Lancelot is hauling him to his feet and a dreadful, heavy wave forces its way into Arthur’s chest.

“What are you doing so close to Camelot?” he hisses. “My father will kill you if he finds you here.”

Lancelot grins, and it’s nothing like the wide, joyous grin he wore when they first met that Arthur spends the next minute convinced this isn’t Lancelot, but Lancelot’s grumpier twin brother.

His rescuer doesn’t say anything until they’re out of the cave. When the forest surrounds them again, and Arthur the familiar route back to Camelot pieces itself together in front of Arthur, he turns, and Lancelot is looking at him, waiting.

“What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?” Even to his own ears, Arthur can’t fully decide if he sounds more desperate or more commanding.

Lancelot tilts his head to each side, humming. “I don’t think I can answer that entirely, I’m afraid.”

This time, Arthur knows before the words are formed that they will be coated in outrage.

They haven’t formed on his tongue when Lancelot holds out a hand, something clutched in it for Arthur to take, and continues speaking.

“The answers to your question aren’t all mine to share,” he says. “But I am allowed to share this.”

Arthur brings the object up to study, and-oh. Oh. His hand shakes but his grip doesn’t loosen as he stares at the ring he commissioned for you. He’d hidden it in the saddlebag of the horse he’d gifted you upon your escape. If you couldn’t wear it as his spouse, he’d had it made for you. It was yours, and he’d wanted you to do with it as you would.

Even if he knew you’d probably sell it for the coin it would give you in a time you had little else to sell.

He knows it’s the same ring. The design, the shape. Carved by his mind, forged because of the desire he holds for a future you have now denied him, and now, returned to him through a vessel he cannot comprehend.

Nausea boils in his stomach. “Why do you have this?” he asks lowly.

Lancelot slowly raises his hands, placating. “Words are spoken freely and difficult to trust. I am merely safeguarding it for now as I act as a messenger. Fear not, it will return to its rightful owner henceforth.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

Lancelot’s eyes flick meaningfully, or is Arthur imagining it because he is desperate for meaning in this where he knows none, to the trees and horizon beyond in which Camelot draws breath.

“There are many rumors,” Lancelot says. Arthur closes his fist around the ring, his eyes stinging, and glares at the person in front of him he once thought he could call friend. “You are your father’s heir,” he continues. “You will one day be King of Camelot.”

Refusal rises as it always does in the back of Arthur’s throat. His father is King. His father will be King for years to come.

He doesn’t voice it.

Lancelot smiles grimly. “The laws are what they are,” he reminds him gently. “By your father’s hand. You have helped. You are trying to help. That is known. Do not make yourself a target over this.”

“My father has heard a rumor from his most trusted, most loyal knight,” Arthur manages. He’s almost proud of the way his voice barely shakes.

Lancelot chuckles. “Do you really believe rumor and fact are the same, Your Highness?”

Arthur wants to question it. Everything bleeds together, a storm of want and desire and longing and hurt and anger and Lancelot is in front of him with answers Arthur doesn’t understand how he knows and you’re not here but you could’ve been and Lancelot is talking, even if in riddles.

He sniffs, brings his fist up to his nose as if the ring could possibly have carried your scent all the way here from wherever it is you are, and considers what is in front of him.

 Lancelot is honorable.

Lancelot would have been a good knight.

Lancelot is not a knight because he was not born to nobles.

Arthur lowers his hand, unfurls his fingers, traces the ring with his thumb once, and gently hands it back to Lancelot.

“Thank you for the message,” he whispers. “And for seeing that this is returned safely to its home.”

Lancelot pauses where he’s tucking the ring safely into a pocket. “That’s the thing, isn’t it?” he muses. “Home is what you make of it. Some of us find it in a place, others the people around us, and some of us…we can never go back to it, can we?”

He bids Arthur a silent farewell, and is gone by the time Arthur regains the ability to know that in this light, he should be on his way back to Camelot.

The return journey lacks bandits and kidnappings.

It lacks the certainty of your safety he’d envisioned upon his departure. It lacks the certainty of answers he’d imagined and has only the pieces of what he’s been given.

Uther confines him to his rooms for two days, sends a group of knights out to hunt every bandit they can find, and disappears into his paranoia once more.

Merlin frets but doesn’t push for answers. Gaius just pats him on the shoulder when he delivers the medicine Uther requested Arthur take.

Morgana visits once. She says nothing. Arthur considers telling her she was right, but knows those words are false to him.

Morgana smiles to herself, tells him not to run off on his own again. He has friends and confidantes, and sees herself out.

Arthur is still pondering that when Leon sneaks his way in.

“The rumor,” Leon tells him, “was just a rumor. I still don’t know who started it or why, but there are several testimonies that prove it false. The bird remains free.”

Arthur’s shoulders drop, a breath escaping him. He presses a hand to his chest, nods, and thanks the knight. When Leon leaves him to his thoughts, he turns to the window, and stares out.

Merlin listens to him, offers advice, and rarely pushes. And yet, in the years they’ve known one another, Arthur has never inquired about any of Merlin’s problems. Nor has his manservant willingly verbalized them.

Lancelot was good. He was honorable as a knight should have been. And Arthur had done nothing but wished him well when the King sent the would-be knight away for not having been born to nobles.

He could have been nicer to the entirety of Camelot’s servants, to be sure.

And the blacksmiths. And merchants. And everyone, really, he really hasn’t been the nicest. Especially before Merlin came along. And even more-so since…well.

Rather selfishly, Arthur thinks it would be nice to know more about Merlin and Gaius’ work. The ability to understand their hushed conversations would have made him a better Prince.

And, chiefly,

Apparently, he’d been so convincing in his orders, you had heeded them and disappeared from Camelot in face, name, and rumor. Neither Gaius or Gwen has heard from or of you since he’d sought your escape from death. And Morgana was so furious she refused to even entertain his inquiries.

Morgana, Arthur reckons, had the right idea, if this is where his inquiries would see him.

In the months since you scattered like ash in the wind, Arthur has done his best to maintain his dignity and leave you and whatever’s remained of his feelings for you hidden away in the past, buried in the deepest depths of his marrow.

His father’s outrage and pillage of the realm in search of you had only convinced him doing so was in both his and your best interest.

And yet…

He grunts, snapping his bound arms forward, testing the strength of the rope cutting into his skin. Too tight.

The motion carries him forward, and the visage of the cave’s floor as the ceiling is enough for his eyes to roll and acid to burn the back of his throat.

If only they hadn’t hung him upside down and left him alone with his thoughts. Much better to be a captive when you’re not dangling from the ceiling.

“Oi.” One of the bandits snaps from where the pair have built a small camp just out of reach. “Stop that.”

Arthur bares his teeth. “Or you’ll kill me?”

The bandit lunges for his sword. The other intercepts, murmurs something too quiet for Arthur to catch, and they both settle back on the ground, sneering at him as they do so.

Arthur fights the urge to cluck his tongue. They’d knocked him out to tie him up, and without a clear view of the sun’s position he can only guess how long it’ll be before someone notices he’s gone. And then finds him.

Not that he’d left an abundance of clues. He’d rather thought he’d have been back in his chambers by now. Or, at least, by morning. Whenever that is. Will be? Was? He briefly considers asking if either of the bandits knows the time, but dismisses the idea as quickly as it arrives.

They’d have no reason to tell him. And every reason to assume he’d use the information to escape somehow. As if simply knowing the time would undo the knots keeping him bound.

“My father won’t let you keep whatever ransom you think you can get,” he tries. “Even if you make the exchange, Camelot’s knights will follow you and you won’t survive the week.”

It’s the second bandit that barks at him to shut his mouth this time. Arthur snorts, but acquiesces. He’s nothing more to freely give them anyway. Not until they give something in return.

Surprisingly, they return to their hushed conversation. In the boredom of not being interrogated, Arthur pulls the threads of what led him here to the forefront of his mind.

Firstly, in the absence of all information regarding you Arthur had attempted to throw his father off your invisible trail by bribing people to falsify rumors.

He couldn’t do it himself, obviously. Merlin had been willing to help, but he and Gwen had both been adamant that rumors could not just sprout up in the middle of Camelot. They had to originate elsewhere and circulate back to the castle.

That had been the first obstacle they faced.

In less than a day, you, Arthur’s fiancé, exposed yourself as someone who used magic, and then magically vanished from a prison cell Uther had condemned you to. Thus, Uther’s paranoia spiraled like a forest fire.

He questioned everyone in Arthur’s life. He started overseeing Arthur’s patrol routes and hunting grounds. For the first week, Arthur could not leave the castle without ten knights surrounding him.

Even Merlin and Gaius found themselves unable to leave without an escort for the first month. They’d known you as well, after all. It was for their safety, the King said. What if you tried to intervene while they gathered the herbs they required?

And Gwen could go nowhere without Morgana, and Morgana was under as severe lock and key as Arthur.

Their savior came in Sir Leon. Sir Leon, who had decided that while Uther’s stance on magic was law, and as a knight he served the crown and law, Arthur was not under a spell and if Arthur wanted to help you then Leon would help too.

Unlike every other person Arthur considered a friend within Camelot, Leon was not under Uther’s surveillance. He took ideas Gwen, Merlin, and Arthur compiled, and spread seedlings around various outer villages.

Soon thereafter, rumors ripened of your whereabouts. Every time a courtier voiced one, every time a servant whispered one, Arthur’s heart soared in hopes of knowing where you were and fell at thoughts of Uther finding you and finishing what he’d started.

And then the facts came back to him, and he realized he knew every rumor because he and Gwen and Merlin and Leon had started them.

None of the rumors or fabricated sightings ever led to you because none of them actually started with you. They started with a desperate plan carved by a man who could not stop loving you even when you betrayed him and hid part of yourself from him.

Even when you obeyed him and left him.

A shuttered breath tears through Arthur’s throat, and he blinks back tears. For the first time since waking this way, he’s grateful the bandits aren’t right in front of him. His father would never forgive him if he found out Arthur shed tears while kidnapped.

Even if the tears weren’t related to being kidnapped.

Right. Arthur clears his throat. So, the starting point. You vanished. He created his own network of people he trusts to (hopefully) aid you. Because he would aid you with every choice in every breath, whether or not you wanted it.

You had needed it, when he’d led you out of the dungeon after all. You’d not fought, not sought an explanation, merely succumbed to allow your execution. Either that, or you’d had some plan Arthur still hadn’t dug up.

And months passed. Your presence lingered like an old wound. Never fully gone. Pressure at times. Routine to avoid certain thoughts and movements and think and act otherwise to account for it.

The lack of you disrupted everything, though. Council meetings where he’d come up with how to retell a joke to make you laugh before remembering. No more dinners he’d accidentally forget, too caught up in paperwork or disputes or his father’s tirades.

The lack of conversations about anything wedding-related was most obvious. Everyone avoided words like wedding or nuptials or spouse as if Arthur would strike them. Or Uther would.

The wound lingered. The ache you left pressed through him some nights until he could scarcely breathe. He shoved every garment dyed your favorite color he owned to the back of his wardrobe.

Merlin never pressured him into answers he wasn’t sure he could give. Gwen and Morgana never chided. Uther made offhand comments to be careful who he gave his affections to and left it at that.

And Arthur grew to know and recognize the space you left behind as well as he’d known the space you occupied.

See, the problem is Arthur loves you. Even still, even now, even here. Even when, months ago, you ruined his dreams of the future by revealing your magic in front of not just him, but Merlin and Gaius and Gwen and Morgana and hundreds of nobles and, worst of all, his father.

Two days ago (or yesterday? Really, he can’t be certain of the timing of events without knowing the current time), you ruined the tentative peace he’d convinced himself he’d built in your absence.

Two days ago (or whenever, does it really matter anymore?), Leon brought a rumor none of them had started. The first and only rumor since you’d left that held the possibility of truth within it.

And Arthur, like an idiot, had waited. With all the other rumors that had crept up and led nowhere, he was foolishly certain Uther would think nothing of this one.

And then, yesterday (was it yesterday? Hours ago?) Uther learned of the rumor from his most loyal lapdog of a knight during a meeting Arthur was not privy to.

Leon told him as soon as the meeting was over. Arthur retired early, barricaded his chamber, and climbed out the window like a lovesick fool.

Worse, he hadn’t even told Leon he was going to. Or Merlin. Or anyone.

Not even a couple hours into his journey, and the bandits knocked him out.

He’s angrier, Arthur concludes, at the fact that they knocked him out today of all days than that they knocked him out at all. Really, if they’ve been planning a kidnapping, they couldn’t have planned it for a day that better suited him?

Well, why not ask them that. Arthur nods to himself, and focuses back on the bandits’ campsite. Only, when he does the bandits are on the ground and Lancelot is walking toward him.

“You hit stronger than I realized,” Arthur mutters. That’s unfortunate. Without Merlin, it will be rather difficult to heal the head wound and continue on and get back to his chambers before his father realizes his intent to keep you hidden.

Lancelot’s face does something weird, and metal scrapes a scabbard, and then Arthur blinks and he’s on the ground and his head is woozy and Lancelot is pulling the rope away from his wrists and saying something.

“What?” Arthur manages.

Lancelot pinches his nose and takes a full breath to look at Arthur in what Arthur imagines a disappointed father who even disappointed is kind to you in a way Uther could never manage looks at their son.

Then Lancelot is hauling him to his feet and a dreadful, heavy wave forces its way into Arthur’s chest.

“What are you doing so close to Camelot?” he hisses. “My father will kill you if he finds you here.”

Lancelot grins, and it’s nothing like the wide, joyous grin he wore when they first met that Arthur spends the next minute convinced this isn’t Lancelot, but Lancelot’s grumpier twin brother.

His rescuer doesn’t say anything until they’re out of the cave. When the forest surrounds them again, and Arthur the familiar route back to Camelot pieces itself together in front of Arthur, he turns, and Lancelot is looking at him, waiting.

“What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?” Even to his own ears, Arthur can’t fully decide if he sounds more desperate or more commanding.

Lancelot tilts his head to each side, humming. “I don’t think I can answer that entirely, I’m afraid.”

This time, Arthur knows before the words are formed that they will be coated in outrage.

They haven’t formed on his tongue when Lancelot holds out a hand, something clutched in it for Arthur to take, and continues speaking.

“The answers to your question aren’t all mine to share,” he says. “But I am allowed to share this.”

Arthur brings the object up to study, and-oh. Oh. His hand shakes but his grip doesn’t loosen as he stares at the ring he commissioned for you. He’d hidden it in the saddlebag of the horse he’d gifted you upon your escape. If you couldn’t wear it as his spouse, he’d had it made for you. It was yours, and he’d wanted you to do with it as you would.

Even if he knew you’d probably sell it for the coin it would give you in a time you had little else to sell.

He knows it’s the same ring. The design, the shape. Carved by his mind, forged because of the desire he holds for a future you have now denied him, and now, returned to him through a vessel he cannot comprehend.

Nausea boils in his stomach. “Why do you have this?” he asks lowly.

Lancelot slowly raises his hands, placating. “Words are spoken freely and difficult to trust. I am merely safeguarding it for now as I act as a messenger. Fear not, it will return to its rightful owner henceforth.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

Lancelot’s eyes flick meaningfully, or is Arthur imagining it because he is desperate for meaning in this where he knows none, to the trees and horizon beyond in which Camelot draws breath.

“There are many rumors,” Lancelot says. Arthur closes his fist around the ring, his eyes stinging, and glares at the person in front of him he once thought he could call friend. “You are your father’s heir,” he continues. “You will one day be King of Camelot.”

Refusal rises as it always does in the back of Arthur’s throat. His father is King. His father will be King for years to come.

He doesn’t voice it.

Lancelot smiles grimly. “The laws are what they are,” he reminds him gently. “By your father’s hand. You have helped. You are trying to help. That is known. Do not make yourself a target over this.”

“My father has heard a rumor from his most trusted, most loyal knight,” Arthur manages. He’s almost proud of the way his voice barely shakes.

Lancelot chuckles. “Do you really believe rumor and fact are the same, Your Highness?”

Arthur wants to question it. Everything bleeds together, a storm of want and desire and longing and hurt and anger and Lancelot is in front of him with answers Arthur doesn’t understand how he knows and you’re not here but you could’ve been and Lancelot is talking, even if in riddles.

He sniffs, brings his fist up to his nose as if the ring could possibly have carried your scent all the way here from wherever it is you are, and considers what is in front of him.

 Lancelot is honorable.

Lancelot would have been a good knight.

Lancelot is not a knight because he was not born to nobles.

Arthur lowers his hand, unfurls his fingers, traces the ring with his thumb once, and gently hands it back to Lancelot.

“Thank you for the message,” he whispers. “And for seeing that this is returned safely to its home.”

Lancelot pauses where he’s tucking the ring safely into a pocket. “That’s the thing, isn’t it?” he muses. “Home is what you make of it. Some of us find it in a place, others the people around us, and some of us…we can never go back to it, can we?”

He bids Arthur a silent farewell, and is gone by the time Arthur regains the ability to know that in this light, he should be on his way back to Camelot.

The return journey lacks bandits and kidnappings.

It lacks the certainty of your safety he’d envisioned upon his departure. It lacks the certainty of answers he’d imagined and has only the pieces of what he’s been given.

Uther confines him to his rooms for two days, sends a group of knights out to hunt every bandit they can find, and disappears into his paranoia once more.

Merlin frets but doesn’t push for answers. Gaius just pats him on the shoulder when he delivers the medicine Uther requested Arthur take.

Morgana visits once. She says nothing. Arthur considers telling her she was right, but knows those words are false to him.

Morgana smiles to herself, tells him not to run off on his own again. He has friends and confidantes, and sees herself out.

Arthur is still pondering that when Leon sneaks his way in.

“The rumor,” Leon tells him, “was just a rumor. I still don’t know who started it or why, but there are several testimonies that prove it false. The bird remains free.”

Arthur’s shoulders drop, a breath escaping him. He presses a hand to his chest, nods, and thanks the knight. When Leon leaves him to his thoughts, he turns to the window, and stares out.