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Arthur was certain that the damp maze was getting warmer. They'd been wandering around blindly – literally, in his case – for hours, Yorick and John constantly bickering and neither being right, hand on the mouldy, overgrown wall to try and keep a direction and still the shifting walls of the Hag's den refused to let them pass. He tried not to pay attention to how slippery some parts of it were, or how quickly John dismissed certain paths and didn't care to divulge details. Every messy stitch ached and burned as it rubbed against his clothes, and that talisman may have helped, but it certainly didn't fix his wounds with a snap like Kayne had once. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and neck, and he regretted lugging their bag around, filled to the brim as it was. The risk of losing it had been too great, but now the damn thing felt like it was getting heavier with each step. Arthur leaned on the wall, and nearly tripped as it suddenly vanished beneath his fingers.
"Careful! We've come to a crossroads." John chided him like an unruly child, and Arthur bit back a retort about how he could have warned him about it minutes ago.
"Take a left, my Master." Yorick helpfully chirped. Arthur forced a breath into his tired lungs, exhausted both by dying – and shit, he really had died, at least to some extent – and the long walk.
"Yorick, are you certain you're not leading us to a furnace?" he could have sworn that it felt warmer than it did minutes ago. A headache was beginning to form, whether from exhaustion or the warmth or listening to two eldritch beings argue for well over an hour, he wasn't sure. Millenia old, both of them, and they behaved like children who didn't like group work.
"The Hag did not have any, Master. She liked the cold and the dark."
"It's cold, Arthur. Are you alright?" John's constant hovering wasn't helping either. Ever since the Waylay, he'd been acting like Arthur was made of glass, and it made him want to punch something just to prove that he wasn't. He couldn't take that smothering sense of care so many seemed to dole out on him – Daniel, Parker, John. He didn't deserve any of it, and frankly, he was fucking fine without it.
Of course, that'd have been a more convincing statement to make if he hadn't felt his way back to the wall and slid down into the muck they'd been treading through.
"Arthur?" unmistakeable alarm entered his friend's voice.
"I'm hot, and I'm tired. I just need a moment." he didn't mean to snap, but the headache seemed to be increasing with each word he spoke. For fuck's sake. He really, really, didn't want to get a migraine stuck in some underground den pre-aspirin era.
"Does it... hurt?" it. The wounds. Arthur was getting the feeling that John was more scared about that whole ordeal than he was. Though, of course, he'd spent it in some weird soul dimension while John fought for his life.
"You mean, getting stabbed to death and stuffed full of maggots like a shitty children's toy?" it got a chuckle out of John at least.
"Yes. But it's nothing compared to my head. It's killing me." he leaned his head back against the wall, then regretted it as it sank into something soft.
"Your head is not the thing killing you, Master."
"Yorick, it's just a sa-"
"The illness is." Yorick proclaimed, completely unphased. Arthur's stomach dropped, and John seemed to be following a similar line of thought:
"What do you mean?"
"He's sick?" John honestly sounded like he was about to crush the skull, and Arthur couldn't blame him.
"It is easy to tell, my King. He has a fever."
"Fuck's- we, we're going back to the bedroom." Arthur tried to spring to his feet, and the hallway swayed. His stomach churned, acid burning, as he stumbled, shoulder meeting the wall. It jolted him, head aching even more with sudden movements.
"Arthur? Arthur, can you-"
"Which way back?" he cut John off. Medieval maggot infested bed was slightly better than medieval maggot infested floor, and he wasn't certain he'd manage to move again any time soon.
"Same way we came, Master."
"Straight ahead. I'll keep a hand on the wall." John spared him having to ask clarifications, and he willed his legs to move.
Instructions mixed as the path swerved, and each twist of the underground passages, each double checking of a crossing made Arthur's stomach roll with nausea. He hadn't felt this sick since the Pits, and before that... since before he'd met Parker, he supposed. But even those thoughts were difficult to grab onto, bile pushing past his tongue, and he stopped in his tracks.
"Arthur? Arthur, it's just a bit more." he was vaguely aware of John trying to pull him along, but all it did was make the roiling even worse.
"John, I - I am going to-"
"We're near. Only a- fuck!" John's gentle efforts turned to a panicked shout as Arthur threw up. The horrible, bitter taste of bile and whatever food they'd managed to scrounge in the den blistered as it made its way in chunks and mucus out of his mouth, and that alone was enough to keep him retching. He did not think the maze of decay could smell even worse, but now his own vomit added to the mix, and he was fairly certain he got it across his shoes, if the warm wetness was anything to go by.
"He was about to say he was going to be sick, my King." the clatter of Yorick's teeth filled the air as Arthur's gasps and attempts to keep anything down subsided.
"Useful as always, Yorick."
Arthur wasn't certain how he'd managed to drag himself to the bed. Corridors and doors blurred until he was laying on the hay that the witch had stuffed into the tiny wooden frame.
"Are you sure you're just sick?" John cautiously asked. They'd dropped Yorick onto a desk – or, more accurately, John nearly slammed the skull down onto it – earning themselves a bit of peace.
"I don't know, John. A – a wound could have gotten infected, my skin's been itching all over for the last day or two." he hadn't paid it much mind, honestly. Between getting dragged from death and squirming around in the dark with maggots and fuck knew what else, he'd ignored how irritated his skin had become.
"Let me take a look." Arthur nodded, groaning with the effort it took to raise himself into a half sitting position. John tugged his shirt upwards, analysing the dozen or so wounds he'd received.
"It all seems fine. They're healing better than most, actually. The skin is still neatly pulled together, if a bit red. Though, you may have popped a stitch or two earlier while you were throwing up."
"Maybe something I ate then. Fuck knows how she prepared her food."
"Probably. Nothing seems out of ordinary – oh. Wait. Arthur, can you pull your arm out of your shirt?"
"Why?" even so, Arthur did as asked.
"There is something under the skin of your armpits. Like... lumps, of sorts? Not noticeable, but certainly not regular either." John began, and Arthur tried to imagine it.
"Let me check if there's anywhere else." John gently began, but his fingers brushed against a bump that had certainly not been there that morning when he went to help with unsticking the collar of Arthur's shirt from his sweat-soaked skin. It drew an involuntary hiss of pain from him, but that was quickly drowned out with panic.
"Sorry, Arthur. There's some on your neck as well, they seem to just be forming. I – I think it may be pus or... something of the sorts? There seems to be liquid in them." fright grew in John's voice the more he spoke, but it was nothing compared to the racing tempo Arthur's heart had begun. Itching skin. Fleas, likely, given the state of the den. A fever. Vomiting. Lumps along the lymphatic system as his body tried to fight the infection, one he'd never had to worry about an immunity for. Because it had faded away after it had killed half of Europe.
"John, are – are there any dark marks on my skin? Deep purple, or, or black?" he had to know, maybe there was something that behaved similarly, maybe this was an allergic reaction, maybe-
"Why? What is this? Arthur, what's wrong with you?" John sounded terrified, and Arthur was in no better state. Only Yorick remained unphased, his ever-cheerful demeanour shining through:
"It is the plague, my King."
The words hung in the air for a moment, like bells about to toll. The plague. The actual, literal, fucking plague, the Black Death, the-
"What the fuck is that?"
"It's – it's an illness, John. A really, really-" his throat constricted to the point of pain.
"It killed millions, my King! Or it will, in the next century."
"Fucking – you're certain? It, it could be something else." John gripped his shoulder so tightly the wooden pinky dug deep into his overheated, feverish skin.
"Bubonic plague. These, the lumps are called buboes, John. They called it the Black Death, because of the black splotches on the victim's skin." Arthur tried to keep his voice even, to not scare John any further, but it cracked with fear and fever. He didn't want to die, not if John would still be here and Faroe wouldn't be there, and certainly not if he died of the plague. John's silence only confirmed what he suspected – he showed the signs of infection.
"You should find help." John quietly said, after a moment or two.
"What? John, are you insane? Didn't you hear Yorick? This disease will kill millions in a century, I'm not looking to be the fucking patient zero!"
"So it's better that you die?"
"Yes!" the word echoed against the honed dirt walls. Of course, the plague had killed before. Had existed at least since Ancient Greece, but he didn't want to cause it to happen a hundred years too soon. Or at all. He still remembered the flu.
"John..." he sighed, trying to articulate his thoughts.
"After the war, back... back home. A disease spread. And, and it was... it was awful. I don't – I can't. I can't spread this to innocent people." he couldn't talk about it. He didn't even want to think about it. He still remembered coughing in a cramped hall, too little medical staff and too much focus on the war to really help.
"What's the plan, then? Sit and wait?" yes, actually.
"We'll get food. Water. Barricade ourselves in. Um, we could even get red paint." he nervously chuckled, trying to find some dark humour in it all. Or maybe it was the fever.
"What for?"
"During the plague epidemics, people would paint red crosses on the doors of the infected households. As a warning sign." he swung his legs over the side of the bed as he explained.
"And after the war?"
"It wouldn't have helped." on that cheerful note, he struggled into a half-upright position.
Thankfully, the Hag had needed access to clean water, and they drew as many buckets and pitchers as they could have before Arthur's knees buckled again. He fell mere inches away from the bed, having just put a bucket down onto the nearby desk. Sweat beaded on his brow, rolling down the already tender flesh on his neck, and every drop felt like a prick of pain against the lumps. He didn't need John to know they had swollen.
"Have I ever told you how much I hate when your vision swims?" there was no real anger in that, and Arthur chuckled. Anything was better than thinking about the fact he had the fucking plague, and was getting worse.
"I didn't know you could see that."
"Arthur, you're dizzy more than not. Watching through your eyes is like being on a fucking carousel ride."
"Spoken like you've ever been on one. When – when we're back home, I could take you. A nice day out at a fair!" a bout of feverish energy was hitting him, which he was pretty sure was bad. But some energy was better than none.
"Besides, I don't get dizzy that often."
"You do, Master. From loss of blood, starvation, pain, dehydration, strangulation, getting thrown-"
"And you've seen all this from the Dark World?" Arthur interrupted Yorick's list before he could get to the – ah yes, literal plague.
"I did not need to, Master. I was with you."
"The tooth." John supplied the answer Arthur's exhausted brain couldn't put together. Right. Shit. Yorick had been with them the whole time. Addison included. He could have just asked for a way out of that fucking place!
"I... am sorry we didn't give you an opportunity to talk sooner-"
"Sorry? Really, Arthur?"
"But I am glad you were there too. For – for all of that. That someone else was with us, in a way."
"I was not with you in the Pits, Master." no. And he was glad for that too, even if Yorick had to have found out somehow. The skull didn't seem too interested in matters of morality anyway.
"Speaking of – Arthur, we need to get food too. If you get too sick..." John added the world's worst segue, but he was right. Even if the mention of the Pits next to food made Arthur want to hurl the remaining contents of his stomach.
He did not make it to the kitchen.
Arthur found himself on the floor yet again, upchucking bile. The throbbing in his head had turned to splinters of pain burning just beneath his skin and yet he felt so, so cold. He knew he wasn't, he knew he shouldn't be, as the bile felt bubbling hot against his lips and a metallic taste mingled with its bitter acidity, as sweat still stuck his shirt to his skin like glue, but he was so cold. Every retch, every flex of his stomach hurt, and he wasn't certain whether he began to shake from the creeping cold or from the pained exhaustion.
"Arthur, you need to move." John awarded him no sympathy.
"I, I can't, John, just – just give me a-"
"Arthur, if you spend a moment longer here, you are not going to get up again soon. Please, friend." his stern voice flickered to a softer note, and Arthur gathered the strength to stagger upwards. His knees buckled immediately, displeased pain spreading through his joints and muscles. It was barely more than a whisper, a dull ache if anything, but it made the situation feel all the more miserable.
"Any food?"
"Bread. And... something that may be meat, although its origins are... questionable."
"We're taking both. Any fruit, or – fuck, did oranges even exist in England back then? Er, back now?" it came out as more of a distracted ramble than a concrete question.
"There's some honey and cheese, tucked away into a corner. I – I've got it, Arthur. Just get back to bed." items pressed against Arthur's chest as John scrambled to balance them all with one hand. Loosely, he wrapped his own hand around John's for support, and stumbled back, trying not to think about how the food was definitely becoming sweat-soaked.
He was well and fully shaking by the time he collapsed in bed. Chills rocked his body, as though someone was shaking him with all their might. The headache felt more like a searing crown of molten metal had been pressed against his skull, and the lumps under his skin stung with the slightest move.
"Your fever is rising, master." Yorick helpfully chimed in, teeth clicking almost as much as Arthur's as he shook.
"How do we lower it?"
"With medication, my King." the skull replied as though it was a grand revelation. John sighed in frustration, and even that felt like too much, too loud.
"Now. How do we fix it here, right now?"
"We must cool down his body before it overheats. Cold water would be best, but he is unable to get to the lake with the Hag's body now."
"He's not going swimming in a fucking corpse pond!" Arthur flinched, the shout like iron grating against his eardrums. Suddenly, a weight on him disappeared, and cold air swept him, drawing a whimper out.
"Sorry, Arthur. I removed the blanket."
"It's fucking cold." he mumbled, curling in on himself. There was a faint clicking in the background that he could only assume was Yorick correcting him, but he felt too miserable to care.
Arthur awoke to yet another argument:
"- he is not losing any more blood!"
"You asked how they would treat it here, my King."
"You fucker, you know that's not what I-" John's voice echoed in his head, pushing at the confined, painful walls of his head. Arthur attempted to cry out, but the air got stuck in the mucus glue trap that had formed in his lungs, so he wheezed out a cough instead.
"Arthur!" relief shot through John's voice, but all Arthur could do was cough. The dull ache in his muscles had turned flaming knives that cut and sliced and carved through his flesh, his tendons, his bones, while his throat burned and burned and burned like he'd swallowed vinegar and razors. He attempted to draw a breath in, but found his nose entirely blocked. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't answer. He could just cough, cough, cough.
John and Yorick stayed blissfully quiet until he managed to catch a breath, until his lungs stung with exhaustion.
"How... how much worse is it?" a heavy silence fell for a moment. Yorick clearly opted to not interpret this question as a command, so John took lead instead:
"Can... can I check?" Arthur did not find it in him to give an answer. John had seen him in just about every miserable state imaginable. One more made no difference.
After a moment's hesitation, Arthur felt John lift the hem of his shirt. He laid there, still and sweat-soaked, and still so, so cold, as John tried to gauge how quickly the plague had ravaged his body. But he wasn't shaking anymore. That... was good, wasn't it?
"There are dark splotches on your skin. They shine in a bluish-purple, nearly black, in irregular patches, as though bruised from within. And the buboes..." John trailed off, like he was trying to find a gentle way to phrase it.
"They have bloated and grown in size, almost like an egg. They too, have turned dark, but I can see... something within, drawing them taut." pus, most likely. Arthur tried to shift to give him a better look, but it felt like moving through silt, like his body was weighed down by tar and lead.
"I... survived one epidemic. I can-" his delirious attempt at bravado was cut short by yet another coughing fit.
"You've survived many things, friend. It doesn't mean you can withstand everything." John's cautious attempt was cut short by Yorick:
"They are not the same, Master! The plague is bacterial." John swiftly ignored the interruption:
"What was it like, after the war?"
"It started in the war, actually. Soldiers caught it and... brought it home. I, I didn't fight, I was... I mean, Noel probably had it worse – fuck, Noel!" the deal, the warning, the stick flashed in Arthur's mind. They didn't have the time for him to wallow in a fever. He attempted to bolt upright, but his own hand pushed him back onto the pillows.
"I'm not asking about Noel. I'm asking about you."
"I... caught it eventually." Arthur sank back onto the pillow, defeated.
"It was awful. I... I'm not sure it compares, but..." he remembered sitting in a crowded waiting room, having wound up on the floor at some point, as his lungs laboured in the stuffy air. Sickness and death lingered, and he remembered casting a feverish look through half-lidded eyes. Some were there with their children, and some with their elderly parents, but most were like him – young men and women. People that should have walked this off in the prime of their strength.
They did not.
He was lucky enough to have even made it to a hospital. Most suffered at home, or in makeshift halls. All for the war effort, of course. Think how proud you'd make your country.
He supposed they made for some very proud fertiliser.
"We ran out of coffins. Carts would drive and... and pits would fill with bodies." the horse-drawn cart on cobblestones still sounded loud and clear in his mind. And the pits... the pits... where had he heard that before...
"They, they would become these piles of... bones? And they'd shout bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!" he nearly sang, snickering. Chuckles turned to coughs, until he nearly choked on his own breath.
"Drink some water, Arthur." John commanded, with a voice he hadn't heard since they became bound. Was there someone else in the room? Someone who could hear John? There was Yorick, but he wasn't a threat – he maybe wasn't a threat? Or what, was this it, would John... no. He wouldn't. Not ever. But with the tide of the fever, Arthur's memories flowed freely, one terrible event after the other.
"For fuck's sake, Arthur! Drink!"
"You will not survive without water, Master." he'd been commanded by an entity to drink before. It hadn't gone well. But apparently, John had had it with his lack of cooperation, as a pitcher butted up against his lips.
"Drink. You stopped sweating hours ago." too weak to argue, Arthur obeyed. Cool water slid down his aching throat, prompting more coughs. It centred itself in the middle of his aching stomach, like ice pressing against his corpse-cold body.
"I'm freezing, John." he truly pathetically mumbled, tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Burning up is what you are. Go back to sleep, friend. I'll look after you." unfathomable softness lined John's words.
"You can't do anything else." Arthur muttered, curling up as best as he could.
He awoke in a haze. Warmth enveloped him, grasping at his skin, then dipping under, under, curling around his chest, tethering him to the bed. Something was ringing in his ears, a murmur, like a half-forgotten melody. His friends faded into background chatter as he contently shut his eyes again. The early ache had dissipated, hovering at the edges of his numbed senses. He could barely feel it. In fact, he could barely feel anything at all, and it was a relief. No more taut stitches, no more painful scars. It was as though John had overtaken his entire body. And maybe he should have let him, back when he awoke blind and confused on the floor. John would have taken good care of it. John always took good care of him.
He tried to hum the melody. He'd heard it before, hadn't he? A soft tune. A promising tune. But his broken voice and half-drowned lungs warped the melody. It rose and fell, unsteadily jumping through keys, losing shape and tune until it morphed into a children's rhyme Faroe never got to be old enough to play.
"Ring-o-ring-o roses..." he quietly began, as unsure in the melody as he was on his own two feet when Parker had met him.
"Arthur?"
"A pocket full of posies-" his breath betrayed him, gasping before he even made it to the end of the line. His throat was dry, so dry and struck with mucus, but he did not think to drink again. Drinking and music were a bad combination for him, worse than madness streaking through body, his blood, and wrapping around his heart, squeezing and squeezing until he embraced him back.
"Arthur!" he didn't register it. John liked poems, didn't he? Surely, he'd like this one too.
"Ashes, ashes-" a coughing fit interrupted him, loud and tearing and strangling, suffocating sound and words and mind. He winced, his body arching into a more upright position as cough after cough after cough wrecked him.
"We all fall down." he whispered, and did so.
He did not wake soon again. But he did wake.