Author's Notes:

So, it has been a good, sweet while since I last posted anything to an audience outside of my family and friends. This here is my attempt to shake off the rust and be active again, and hopefully get back into the habit of writing on a more regular basis once more. We'll see how that goes, and maybe I'll finish some of those requests/projects that have been on the backburner for far too long.

A couple of free warnings before you start reading:

1. There is angst. This is me, there will always be angst, which will be peppered with comfort and friendship and all those great things this show brought to the table. I am a believer in happy endings, so provided we make it that far I will not leave you wallowing with a tissue box.

2. I'm not being super canon compliant here. The last time I wrote something for a fandom I spent hours researching, rewatching, and analyzing. Not this time. This time we are ad-libbing, and hopefully not completely self-destructing the canon whilst we are at it.

3. I have a buffer of chapters at present and will be spacing posting out to try and keep that. That being said, posting schedules and me have a complex relationship. I make no promises.

4. Douxie does not deserve any of this, but I'm putting him through it anyway, because that's what we do to the best bois.

5. It's been a rough year, guys. Take care, be kind, and stay safe.

Chapter 1

Top Ten Reasons to Avoid Temporal Accidents

It started as a dream.

He knew he was dreaming because just a moment before he had been pouring over a new spellbook, enduring Archie's indulgent amusement as the fatigue of the day's activities warred with the excitement thrumming through his veins. He must have been tireder than he realised, he reasoned, to have drifted off in the middle of studying every last detail contained within those precious pages. He was probably drooling on said pages now, and Archie was probably laughing at him. The traitor.

So he was dreaming, even if tonight's nocturnal adventure seemed to be a departure from the usual fare. He was sitting in the midst of nothingness. Not dark, not light, just absence. Emptiness, yawning and deep, that swallowed all sound when he opened his mouth to speak. He could see clearly enough, despite the lack of light, except there was nothing to see. He didn't know how he had come to be there, but he knew he was waiting, sitting still with a sense of quiet patience that would have had his master's eyebrows climbing right off his head in disbelief.

The cold crept in slowly, brushing over his skin like a frigid breeze from an open window, closing about his wrists like icy fingers with a death grip. An uncomfortable sensation of heat sparked beneath his ribs at the same time, drawing his eyes downwards as he blinked in surprise. There were dozens of threads attached to his torso, red and blue lines trailing off into the nothingness. Morbidly curious, he tried to touch them. His hands passed through the mingled colours as easily as they seemed to have passed through him, not ending where they touched his skin, but stretching beyond what his eyes could see.

The first tug took him wholly by surprise, a flash of terrible pain making his sight white out as he threw a hand down to catch himself. The pressure eased in the next moment, though the threads remained taut. He had barely had a chance to regain his breath before they started pulling again, viciously hauling on something beyond the physical, as if they were trying to pry his spirit out of his body.

He toppled forward on hands and knees, submitting to the pressure in an effort to relieve the awful tearing sensation inside his chest, but it made no difference. He grappled to hold the bindings, to tear them away. His hand passed right through the threads again, as insubstantial as the part of him they seemed determined to claw free, deaf to his pleas to stop, immune to the magic he slammed against them in a frantic effort to halt their steady pull.

"Please." He was sobbing now, the pain overtaking all else. He needed it to stop. It had to stop. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. "Please, don't..."

Pale green washed over him in a gentle wave, a bubble of safety that encased both him and the instruments of his agony. He drew in a wheezing breath, fighting to get upright as the soft touch of kind magic slowly enveloped him, the scent of old wood and ancient greenery as familiar as it was strange. There were flowering vines wrapping around his limbs, twining around his arms and curling in repeated circles about his waist. Their grip was careful but unyielding. He had only a moment of dawning horror to realise what was coming and try to prevent it.

"Wait! Stop!"

The vines wrenched him backwards, painfully fast. Perhaps it was meant to be kindness, salvation, but the threads still caught. He was torn to ribbons, pieces peeling away in strips like he was made of parchment. He felt the fracture of something that was never meant to break, a pain that went far deeper than any physical wound could. His magic flared in panic; A wild, desperate attempt to save himself from certain death.

Too late. Too late. He had already lost too much, and still they tore at him, taking more and more and there would be nothing left...

He came to shrieking.

This was a vast improvement on not awakening at all, a miracle he was not in any position to appreciate as he opened his eyes to find himself floating amidst a maelstrom of miscellaneous objects. The moment he came awake the magic gave out beneath him, dropping him like a stone to crash against the floor. He hit his head on the descent, a minor complaint drowned out beneath far more immediate concerns.

Everything hurt; A terrible, all consuming agony that bloomed outwards from his chest and set all his nerves alight. He knew he was screaming, knew the sound grating against his ears was his own piercing voice mingled with the shouts of others. The world was awash with vibrant blue and that was his fault too. He just didn't have the presence of mind to stop it. He wanted to crawl out of his own body, except he was fairly certain that had already happened. Ice in his chest and fire in his veins and a broken voice screaming his name.

He could still hear the echoes. The voice was different now. Less of devastation and more of brimming alarm. Magic crashed against his own in a tidal wave of calm that made the colours swimming before his eyes flash from blue to gold. He was being smothered, crushed beneath a weight that was meant as kindness, arms wrapping around him and pulling him upright. He cut his own screams off in a breathless gasp when the motion tipped excruciating pain back towards inescapable agony, a hand — his own — trying to burrow into his chest to find and destroy the source of his torment.

There was nothing there.

There was nothing.

He had failed.

He had failed and there was no fixing this.

The arm curled about his spine tightened, the hand to which it was attached gripping his waist firmly as he was pulled closer and tucked gently against the source of the voice now peppering his name through nonsense sentences that would have meant something at any other time. He could feel the vibrations of speech, hear a heartbeat thudding slightly too fast that was not his own, and belatedly realised that someone was gently running their fingers through his hair.

"It's alright." Clarity of thought was returning as the pain eased to a manageable level. Enough for hysteria to try to creep in in its place. "It was just a nightmare. You're alright. You're safe."

He wanted to laugh; He wasn't safe, none of them were. It came out as a sob instead. The soothing words continued above him as the arcane light in the room faded away, his own magic wilting beneath the determined presence of another's. He turned his head on instinct, hiding his tears in fabric and distantly hoping whoever's shirt he was ruining right now wouldn't mind too much.

His companion started rocking gently, humming a soft tune that was as familiar as it was wrong. He hadn't heard that song in centuries; Not since the last occasion he'd spent time with Morgana, right before things started going horribly awry. It shouldn't be possible to hear it again now, and certainly not from her.

"Breathe." Oblivious to the fact she shouldn't exist, Morgana continued to cradle him gently as they both knelt on the uncomfortably hard floor. He could feel her magic still drifting lazily over them, the calming enchantment she was weaving into her voice. "Just breathe, Douxie."

It was easier to do as she said than question what was happening. He was absolutely exhausted, still aching, and suffering the fleeting remnants of a terror whose source he couldn't quite remember. Focussing on his breathing, on counting each inhale and exhale, was far safer then prodding the sleeping beast lurking at the back of his mind.

"You're bleeding." Untroubled by his lack of response, Morgana moved to brush his hair aside, her fingers treading carefully around the edges of his self-inflicted injury. "Archie, do you have anything to wrap this with?"

"Uh, oh, yes. Yes, of course."

There was a clatter, the sounds of someone rummaging, a quiet 'thank you' from Morgana as she accepted whatever offering had been brought. Fingers again, this time unwinding fabric about his head, pressing against the source of sticky dampness. It stung, he recognised that much, but the ability to react, to do anything other than maintain his stuttering breaths was absent. He felt like an observer in his own body; An observer who couldn't see a thing.

"There you go." Morgana finished her ministrations, settling beside him as she moved a hand to his back, rubbing soothing circles through the thin fabric of his shirt. His shoulders were still hitching on every second inhale, but her spell had done its work, and the sense of wild panic had been muted by a fragile veneer of calm. "Why don't we—"

The door swung open with enough force it crashed against the stone wall. The noise startled his companion, her arms closing about him protectively once again. His own nerves were too numb to respond to the intrusion in any way beyond slumping further against the source of his support, letting her shield him from the coming storm.

"What in the name of—"

"Don't you dare!" Softness gave way to sharpness in an instant. "Close that door."

There was an awkward silence, broken only by his ragged breathing and a rumbling that had settled against his folded legs in the interim. Then the door closed with far more care than it had opened, green light expanding slowly to fill the small space as the intruder spoke in softer tones.

"Hisirdoux?"

That was his name, wasn't it? Though there was really only one person who used it like that. The thought hurt, he didn't answer, and the next words were sharp again.

"What happened?"

"I don't know." Footsteps drew nearer, steel striking against stone, pausing a short distance away. He didn't lift his head. "I found him like this."

"And that?"

"Archie said he fell." She paused, awaiting another question. When none was forthcoming she asked her own, "Where is Arthur?"

"Handled, for the moment, though who knows how long that will last."

"I could hear the shouting from here."

"The entire castle just got turned inside out." He knew that dry tone, all too well. "You're lucky he wasn't the one kicking in the door."

This... this was wrong. Impossible. Neither of these people should be here, though he was struggling to remember why. Everyone had been dying, hadn't they? He had been dying, he was sure of it. Not with the blissful unawareness of his first go around, either. This had been vengeful, painful. 'The Order will surely rip your soul to pieces' Nari had said, and of course she was right. So how? How was he still alive, still breathing when he shouldn't even exist anymore?

"Douxie?" The voices above him were still arguing; This quiet inquiry came from below. He blinked, bringing some focus back into his world of blurred colours, and chanced a glance down into worried eyes. "Are you alright?"

The last time he had seen those eyes they had been wide open and blank. That had been his fault as well. So many mistakes. Except a wizard didn't make mistakes, so what did that make him? What did that make this?

It wasn't real. That was the only explanation he could think of. This was an... an illusion, a refuge he had created for himself in order to escape the pure horror of his last moments. But there was something else. A lingering memory of golden eyes, filled with grief but equal parts determination, and powerful, ancient magic wrapping itself protectively about him, binding him together as other hands tried to tear him apart.

'You can't have him!'

Nari. Nari had been there, and she had done something. To save him? He couldn't remember. Couldn't make sense of any of it. Couldn't comprehend how this could be happening. They'd already done this, hadn't they? It had to be an illusion, a—a mirage, a refuge his mind had created. A falsity that felt real.

"Douxie?"

Archie's soft bunting against his hand prompted him to respond, illusion or no. His body didn't feel like it belonged to him, moving parts that no longer worked together as they were meant to, and it took more effort than it should have to make his hand drag its way along his familiar's spine. He doubted it was comfortable for Archie either, despite his obnoxiously loud purring.

The gesture, clumsy though it was, was enough to quiet the conversation happening overhead, and coax an effort at softness out of his most certainly dead master.

"Hisirdoux?"

He swallowed, acutely aware of how raw his throat felt. He had been screaming, hadn't he? Because he had been dying. He hadn't imagined that. It wasn't the type of experience one forgot in a hurry, and the second time hadn't been any more pleasant than the first. Worse, actually. He'd kind of slept through the first.

"Hisirdoux."

Fingers closed about the hand not currently locked in Archie's fur, the hold gentle yet firm. That was oddly patient of his master. Merlin had never shied away from being hands on when he thought his apprentice was moving too slowly. A tug here, a shove there. Maybe that's why he'd been too slow to dodge that last blow. He was still waiting for Merlin to push him out of the way.

Bodily.

With his staff.

"I don't think he's all the way back yet."

That's right, Morgana was here too. It was probably her shirt he'd ruined. Or nightwear, at this hour.

"You don't say." It was nice, having that droll sarcasm pointed at someone else for once. "Hisirdoux, look at me."

He could do that. Probably. Even with the strange disconnect between his body and his thoughts right now. If he had been brought back from the dead he had a feeling they'd done it wrong. Put his soul in upside down or something. That would be just his luck.

The hand on his cheek was more demanding than gentle, drawing his gaze up and away from Archie's mournful stare to the judgemental blue of his master's usual scowl. He hadn't seen Merlin this angry in centuries. Oddly enough, the elder wizard didn't seem to be glaring at him. He was still holding Douxie's hand, gaze intent, staring at something other. He didn't realise what until a magic that was not his own probed against the brittle edges of his soul. What had been holding together through dumb luck and desperate hope just splintered, and his magic flared to life of its own accord.

He didn't blast the entire castle this time. The wave of energy was more contained, weaker, sending Morgana and Merlin back no more than a few steps as Douxie fell onto his side, hands tearing at his own clothes in an effort to rip out the burning brand that had impaled his breastbone.

Fuzzbuckets, but that bloody hurt.

"—told you to be careful! Douxie? Douxie! Can you hear me?"

"Arch..." he croaked the word, reaching out blindly until he felt his feline companion slip beneath his fingers, instinctively drawing the familiar's warmth close.

"I'm here. We're here." Archie's cool confidence was missing from those shaking words. "Can you tell me what's wrong, Douxie? It's important."

"I think..." Speaking was painful. So was everything else right now. He persevered. "I think I messed up, Arch."

"Messed up? How?" The familiar was being awfully pushy, wriggling his way closer so he could stare pointedly into Douxie's blurring eyes. "Doux?"

"I let you all down." He couldn't tell if his fading eyesight was due to the fresh tears or the slow darkness creeping in. This all had to end soon, surely. How much longer could he really expect to avoid the truth? "I'm sorry. Tell Nari... I'm sorry."

"Nari? Wait, who is Nari? Douxie? Douxie!"

He closed his eyes, and the pain finally ended.