Lancelot burned the clothes Morgana gave him after he had been resurrected in the fireplace of Gaius’s quarters. The black clothing fell to ashes in the flames, and he felt lighter for it. Despite being perfectly clean, it had felt as tainted and stained as his soul, and even though he didn’t own anything else, he wanted to be rid of it. All of his old belongings had been redistributed to his friends or given to the poor after his death, which they thought he would have liked, so he borrowed clothing from Merlin and his other friends to wear in the meantime as he went about acquiring a wardrobe of his own again. One thing he couldn’t burn, though, at least not without more serious equipment, was the sword Morgana had given him. He recognized that it was a perfectly well-made blade and that there wasn’t actually anything cursed or broken about it, but it didn’t feel that way. Wanting it gone, he took it down to Gwen and Elyan’s forge.

“Can you destroy this for me?” he asked, presenting it to the blacksmith who was down there working today. Elyan took it and swung it around briefly to check its balance and tested the edge and point with his thumb, seemingly satisfied by what he found.

“Why? It’s a good sword, sharp and well-weighted. Where did you get it?”

“Morgana.”

Oh. Okay, yeah, I get it now.” He didn’t hesitate to toss it into the fire. “I’ll melt it down and use the steel for like. Door hinges, fire pokers, and jewelry for nobles I don’t like.”

“Thank you,” Lancelot said with a sigh of relief. He felt like he could finally breathe as he saw the sword begin to glow red in the fire’s heat. The last of Morgana’s influence, melting.

“Happy to help.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder before turning to pull the sword from the flames with a tool now that it was hot enough to mold. “I’ll see you later. At dinner tonight, I mean.” Arthur hadn’t planned a whole feast, since Lancelot had said he didn’t want that, but he had organized a small gathering to celebrate his return. It was not unlike the dinner they’d had the first night after the tournament when the resurrected knight came back, but this time it would be real.

It was everything he wanted. The smaller dining room was much less overwhelming than a large banquet hall, and Lancelot was happiest around the few people who knew him best. His friends caught him up on everything that had happened while he was gone, though the glances Merlin sent his way said that they didn’t know quite everything. Especially when they were telling him about Dragoon. The undercover warlock looked about ready to burst with laughter, and Lancelot couldn’t wait to ask him about it later when they were alone.

Not that he wanted to rush away from this. The room was warm, unlike the chilling cold he had felt when going through the veil and as a Shade, and the clear love from his friends warmed his heart just as surely. Elyan beside him, especially. The small knight reached out to pat his knee or arm whenever he felt out of place, and after the food was gone and they all retired for the night, he walked Lancelot home to his door.

“I have a gift,” he said, instead of just wishing him a good night and leaving as expected, though Lancelot couldn’t say he was disappointed. “I started working on it as soon as you returned, as a welcome home present. It seems even more appropriate now.”

The resurrected knight wondered where Elyan was keeping said gift, as his gambeson didn’t have any pockets, before the younger man pulled his sword from his scabbard where it hung on his belt. For an instant the question was driven from his mind as his breath stuttered in fear. Did Elyan think he was still a shade? Or perhaps he sought retribution for the wrong done against his sister.

But the knight had not fallen into a fighting stance as he drew the blade, and a second later he shifted it in his hand to offer it forward by hand the grip instead of thrust it forward by the point. As he took it, Lancelot realized that this, the sword, was the gift. And what a gift it was. Like Excalibur, runes were engraved down the center of the blade, although they were set onto brass instead of gold. He could tell it was not the same markings, but he could not read it. The weapon was well-weighted and the hilt conformed perfectly to his hand as he gave it a practice swing.

“Elyan, I don’t know what to say,” Lancelot whispered. “It’s wonderful. Thank you.”

“It seems like you do know what to say,” Elyan teased him, absolutely beaming. “I’m glad you like it. And the inscription on the blade says ‘Welcome Home,’ by the way.”

Lancelot smiled. “Speaking of that, then, would you like to come in?” He had loved the quiet intimacy of the evening seated beside him, and he wasn’t quite ready for that to end.

[ID: Low saturation coloured sketch of Elyan and Lancelot, both dressed in dark red gambesons. Elyan is smiling towards the screen, while Lancelot is looking slightly down towards Elyan with a small smile. End ID]

---

Elyan: This is Sir Lancelot, second best swordsman in Camelot. He's very protective of his friends. Try to hurt them and he will destroy you.

Lancelot: ...thank you...?

Elyan kicked off his shoes and wandered in, promptly closing the window. 'I got bored.'

It wasn't exactly a lie: he had whizzed around half of the town on his own beforehand anyway and spending much longer with Gwaine after being forced to spend one and a half thousand years with him and then house share would be a sure way to commit murder. But Elyan had also seen that Merlin was fretting about Lancelot -- and even Gwaine had been in his own way -- and had thought it would look less like Lancelot was being checked up on if Elyan were the one to return home.

'How's it going?' Elyan asked, peering across the table to scrutinise the watercolour.

Lancelot raked his hands through his hair -- there must have been some kind of enchantment in Avalon because it really was growing thick and fast -- and sighed. 'I don't know. There's something on the paper, but I don't know if I like it. And it feels different to the work they said they liked--'

Elyan walked out of the room and returned with a coffee cup. 'I brought you this. I thought it might help. You just need to try and not overthink it, or put too much pressure on yourself.'

Nodding, Lancelot gently accepted the drink. 'I thought we were banned from Costa.'

'We're not banned from every Costa in Bath. Not yet, at least.'

Lancelot had been about to take a sip. 'That was not a suggestion.' As Elyan grinned, he tilted back the drink and pulled it away soon after, eyes dancing. 'It's the gingerbread and cream latte!'

'Yeah, it is,' replied Elyan, trying to suppress his smile as he threw himself down on the sofa. 'Because it's now Christmas, not hot girl summer.'

'It's November.'

'Closer to Christmas than to hot girl summer.' Rummaging around in his pocket, Elyan pulled out something wrapped in a branded napkin. 'But I guess if it's too early to be Christmas, then you won't be wanting this...'

When he unwrapped a mini gingerbread man and lifted his head, Lancelot looked like he was about to cry. 'Elyan, if Gwaine ever does anything to upset you ever again I will help you steal his kneecaps.'

Elyan held the napkin out to him. 'Greatly appreciated.'

This is from. Ages ago, but I finally wrote something for it. More neurodivergent knights featuring my own anxiety about getting an MRI in an hour

“Do I have to go?” Lancelot whined, but the tremor in his otherwise petulant voice belied that he was truly worried, not just complaining for the hell of it.

    “It won’t be so bad,” Elyan tried to reassure him. “You just need to get it over with.”

    “What if I tic in the middle and mess it all up?” the soon-to-be-patient grumbled, but he did get up from the couch and started putting on his shoes.

    “I’m sure they have ways of dealing with that. When I had to get my MRI, they put a thick foam pad thing under my head so I couldn’t really move even if I wanted to,” Elyan explained. “And you can remember that I was just as freaked out then as you are now. But it was fine. Your doctor said that this is just a precaution anyway, right? Nothing to worry about.”

    “I know. I just. I don’t want to go to the hospital and I hate doctors,” Lancelot said. He did, in fact, remember Elyan’s first seizure and all the aftermath of it with the trip to the ER and the half dozen other appointments that came afterwards and honestly the memory of it was not helpful right now. That hadn’t been a good time for either of them, as Elyan had barely let himself out of someone’s eyesight for months for fear of having another seizure while he was alone and the stress of that had eaten away at both of them. Lancelot, lately, was prone to the opposite, isolating himself whenever his tics were bad so that no one saw him shudder or jerk. He did desperately want to know what was going on in his body, but he had a feeling that the MRI wouldn’t illuminate that much, so mostly he was just worried about the procedure without much hope of it being helpful.

    “Lance,” Elyan sighed, holding out a hand. Lancelot took it reluctantly, even though he immediately felt better. “It’s going to be okay. Even if it’s not fun, it’ll only take an hour and then it will be over and I guarantee you that the peace of mind is worth it, okay?”

-

Lancelot had never thought he'd be one for settling down outside of Camelot. He'd woven his entire future from the slender threads of the clouds that skimmed the great kingdom, drawing them down with bleeding fingers that he'd used to scale the walls of his dreams. Then a knife had been taken to that particular tapestry and everything, including him, had come tumbling down. But now, leaning against a table of weapons as he restlessly watched Elyan glow like a blade in the flames he worked with, Lancelot thought that perhaps he could be happy there.

The morning had been passed away with Lancelot endeavouring to capture Elyan's form in scrawled charcoal, trying to replicate the way that the blacksmith never seemed to be still, but merging with the very fabric of the earth. He was everywhere: in the sunlight dappling the forest floor outside, in the smoke from the forge, in Lancelot's mouth, in his hands, in his heart. And Lancelot had caught Elyan's expression when he had been sketching him and had had to duck his head to stop himself from being drawn to him like a moth to a destructive flame.

Elyan was forging a design that Lancelot had idly produced, something that had been weighing on his mind for years. It was another dream, but it was separate from the Camelot dream. This one had belonged to the family that had been left behind.

And now, like all good things, it belonged to Elyan.

When Elyan lifted his head, his cheeks were smeared with the blood of exploding planets and, this time, Lancelot didn't stop himself from drawing close. Destructive flames be damned: Lancelot had spent his life learning how to handle dangerous weapons, but there was no lethal edge to Elyan. Not when Lancelot held him, at least.

It was rattling the windowpanes, now, and Elyan looked towards the empty bed. He had lost count of the number of bitter nights he and Lancelot had fallen asleep entwined in one another on top of the sheets, shielding each other from the ferocious howling outside. Lancelot, tired but not wanting to force Elyan to get into bed too, would usually curl up on his side, limbs drawn close to his body, and allow his breaths to even out. Elyan, usually absorbed in a book, would absent-mindedly reach out and bury his fingers in Lancelot’s hair, stroking it back from his forehead, and would gradually inch further towards him as the wind threatened to slink in through the subtle cracks in the wall. The repetitive movement would lull Elyan towards unconsciousness and he would abandon his book to turn the pages of Lancelot’s pulse with his fingers and then, together, they would drift off into sleep with their dreams scattered by the candlelight.

Lancelot lifted his hand to cup Elyan’s cheek, leaving his fingerprints etched in blood along Elyan’s bone structure like blots on parchment. Elyan was about to ask why nobody had cleaned the blood from his partner’s hands before realising that Merlin and Gwaine had slipped away, Percival was standing guard over Lancelot at a respectful distance and Leon and Arthur were in a fraught discussion on the other side of the clearing. And Elyan had been preoccupied with trying to work out how to ensure Lancelot escaped the flames that had haunted his own nightmares as a child in Camelot.

‘I’m in no fit state to run, love. And we’ve both been running for long enough.’

‘You can’t leave me.’ Lancelot closed his eyes and Elyan’s grip on his body tightened. He knew there was the possibility that all he would soon have left of Lancelot would be the blood smeared across his cheek, but he wasn’t ready for it to be just yet. ‘Lance.’

‘You deserve a good life,’ Lancelot murmured, opening his eyes.

‘I have one. With you.’

‘You deserve to be free from fear, love.’ Lancelot was roaming Elyan’s face with his gaze, as if he was trying to commit it to memory like a gravestone. ‘You deserve that, at least.’

‘And you think sacrificing yourself for me is going to make my life free from fear?’ Elyan whispered sharply. ‘You think that I won’t be in a constant state of panic because I can’t see you and haven’t remembered that you’re not, that you’re not—’ He broke off, swallowing. ‘We could run,’ he said again. ‘Percival is easily persuaded, especially when it comes to you—’

‘Where would we go, Elyan? There’s no place for two disgraced knights of Camelot.’

‘Nemeth. You know Princess Mithian, we could go there.’

‘I wouldn’t want to drag her into this.’ Lancelot draped his arm around Elyan’s back. ‘Please, love, stop. It’ll be okay.’

Elyan closed his eyes. ‘Easy for you to say. You won’t be the one left behind. Please, love. Tell them the truth. It’s not your burden to bear.’

Lancelot’s fingertips were rubbing the bone behind Elyan’s ear. ‘You gave your heart to me, a little while back, and I wanted to give you something in return.’

‘Your life isn’t worth my heart, Lance.’