Rated K plus because. Just because.
Summary: Tell me every terrible thing you ever did and let me love you anyway.
Author's Note: Mergana, baby. I swear I'm obsessed with this ship. And also because I have a writing list open in my phone and apparently this story is next in line so here we are
Soulmates – Reincarnation AU because I need something to tide me over with the series. And don't let me start on the characterization of Morgana, I swear to fucking god –
I consider this an overall angsty piece, but then again my judgment has never been that great so who knows.
Warning: May be triggering, take that into consideration, kay :3
Disclaimer: I once asked for Mergana and look where that got me.
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we're just two ghosts swimming in a glass half empty
trying to remember how it feels to have a heartbeat.
.
i
He found her on the edge of the world, an old crone with wrinkled skin and a sinister laughter that belonged in a fairytale and not real life. (And doesn't magic too?)
He found her too late – condemned guilty of witchcraft Morgana herself hadn't known existed (oh, the irony), her face burnt beyond recognition and neck snapped cleanly, the only indication left was his name scrawled messily on her collarbone; and Merlin honestly wished he had known her enough in this lifetime to mourn properly.
He found her in a bar, red dress and fuck–me pumps and youth overflowing, tiding him over, inhaling white powder and exhaling blood.
He found her every time, too soon, too late, over before they even got a chance to begin again.
Breathe in, breathe out.
ii
She is young in this life, nineteen and innocent; sharp edges not quite defined yet. Morgana moves with hundreds Greek tragedies on her shoulders and an indefinable past blurry but never forgotten.
That is how he found her, sitting on a stool like her throne, ink curling and pooling on sleek shadows. She commanded attention and directed it on nimble fingers like puppeteer's strings, once a queen, always a queen. Red lips curled into a practiced smile and she looked almost like the girl he once knew, the one made from adultery and fear and love gone wrong.
(It's another chance, and he has lost count how many times he wasn't there.)
Eyes followed her as she tapped her mic. Her smile stretched into something wider, endless strings tugging and Merlin felt something shifted in the air. Morgana fixed her neck as she started. Painted lips parted, releasing slow, sultry sparks like firework shooting. It was something more than mere songs, something more than terribly cliché words as she crooned on about doomed love.
He also swore that Morgana glanced at him. But that's just a tingling thought.
The audience hummed along – approval radiating, slow and constant but definitely there. Here, in this dimly lit bar, in her stage: she was truly in her elements. Her voice blended into red velvet curtains, reverberating in waves; enchanting everyone in melodies closer to spells than songs. Piano notes folded seamlessly into her performance. For a moment, he wondered, if this was how she would have eventually grown into if given the chance. Beautiful and at peace, somewhere Morgana belonged. Sing, little songbird.
(In this half-light, perhaps. She is younger, free from burdens centuries ago. He wondered if she could have sung like this still, with weight and ideals led astray and death pulling her down like gravity. He wondered if she would go mad with all the blood in her hands once she knew. He wondered if he would regret it all; the siren with sparkles in her eyes and pearls in her hair turned murderess, goodbye sweetheart.)
She bowed her head, hair falling on oval frame of porcelain complexion. Applause roared. She spun, a little ballerina in her timeless music box. Her body dipped and bent, swan–like, her wings spread and ready to fly away. The crowd ate up her every move and Merlin had a sudden impulse to throttle all the lustful men undressing her with their eyes. (They didn't know her, didn't know her, didn't know her –)
She threw back a wink and smirked.
When he finally pulled himself out of the past, Morgana was already gone.
iii
He is drawn to her again and again and again, unconsciously but always tracing back to her, all roads leads to hell. It's picturesque, in a way: him absently stirring something and her smiling an almost soft smile. It looks strange on her face, like her muscles have forgotten how to stretch that way, all marble and haughtiness pressed tightly; electricity crackling and rumbling, a thunderstorm waiting to explode; a comfortable habit to slide into.
She sings terribly cliché songs, love unrequited and forbidden feelings – who, exactly, prohibit you from eloping? Isn't this just melodrama – all the while staring into his eyes, weirdly intense gaze that makes him shiver and goose bumps raise, the calm before the storm.
She twists and twirls, a hurricane on knifepoint heels and kilometric legs; and is never idle. Morgana wanders, randomly falling into someone's arms. Tilts his chin up and moans, "I can be your china doll if you want to see me fall," how he imagines afterglow sounds like, breathy and ragged; her leg resting softly on his chair. Her neck bare to him, the tiniest edge of word and letters peeking out. Stiletto heel softly strokes up and down the length of his calf and she is mere hair's breadth from him; and the audience promptly throws catcalls. He can kiss her, if he wants to.
(He wonders if this is how she makes people fall in love with her, delicate and seductive and exotic, another time, another place; eyes like smoke and voice like heartbreak and empires falling)
Morgana laughs – a rare sound – and jumps down, circle skirt flaring and waving. Smiles her not-quite smile and smoothes her dress prettily, doll, do you really want to fall and break?
a footnote in ancient paper scrolls:
She is art with a different name, a wild spirit, an adventuress: strange and beautiful and soul deep, something not everyone can love. She chases freedom; she craves the thrill of danger, a girl with a sweet tooth for mysteries and what comes out in the dead of the night. People whisper and glance as she glides past them, chanting her name, Carmen, Carmen, killed by the hands of your lover, always always always.
iv
The funny thing is, he doesn't know her in this life. Every reincarnation is different, nurture playing a hand just as important as nature in this case.
He finds her in the twilight, on the crossroad to the unknown; her silhouette cut sharp against clouds and stars. Hers is not something special, it's ingrained in him, how you always gravitate towards effortlessly towards warmth and familiarity. She sits on someone's fences, legs dangling loosely, barefoot and innocuous. Waiting for something. Anything.
"Hello," Morgana breathed.
v
"You… I think I've seen you somewhere before?"
Merlin offers a shrug.
"At the bar." – A shy smile (something never changes): "I love your performances."
"Thank you."
He is awfully conscious of his big ears, Merlin finds. He scratches them awkwardly. Good job, Merlin. Like that won't draw her attention to them. You are the master of subtlety, really.
It's normal, the way she smiles tentatively. And for a while, they both are.
vi
Unsurprisingly, Morgana isn't really Morgana in this life but Rose, he finds. It's expected but Merlin is disappointed nonetheless.
"Sorry for not having an exotic name," she snorts into her coffee cup. "I will be sure to tell my parents that it isn't up to your standards."
"Excuse me, my name is Merlin. I have every right to hate all the other names."
"Oh, I didn't know," Morgana – Rose, he reminds himself – makes that strange sound, exhaling and smiling, a ghost of laughter. "Forgive me, O Great Sorcerer."
He waves his hand, the little brat that he is.
"It's alright. I am a forgiving person, you are pardoned."
"I know. I also know it's all because I'm cute." She pats his arms. "If it's any consolation, I hate my name too."
You used to hate a lot of things, hatred bright and strong and destructive and wet crimson. You hated everything and anything with a fierce passion like how you loved, and it had destroyed us all.
He drops a sugar cube into his cup, stirs. The circular motion doesn't really do anything but make his head dizzier, a time sickness, he doesn't belong here. Merlin shakes his head and laughs, dropping sugar into her cup as well.
She flinches away, only a little. It's instinctive. It's not Rose, something ancient and ugly rearing up in green eyes like rippling water, ingrained in her like the writing on her collarbone, bone deep and fine spun. The dragon's saying comes to his mind, despite himself. Hush.
She tsk-s. Her voice is strangely strained, he notes. Also unsurprising, really.
"… I don't like sweet things."
He laughs. Exhales heavily.
"It's okay. I'm sorry."
"Just… don't go around dropping things in my cup like that, okay?"
"I understand."
I do.
interlude:
The first Morgana died without a mourner to cry for but he couldn't leave her on earth's face, rotting flesh and bones and vultures' food; in death he didn't see Morgana the witch, only Morgana, bright and vulnerable and always trying to bear the weight on the world under her shoulders, silly girl, it's not yours to take, (and on her grave written the saddest words: she tried.) He wept for them both, brother and sister and then enemies; for something so short-lived and beautiful, for the world may never know how majestic and right they would be again and because everyone would celebrate a foe's death and none would remember the red rose with genteel hair and a fiery temper. He cried for them until his eye sockets burnt and there was nothing left but ashes and blood and then some.
vii
Before he knows what is happening, she is sobbing into his shoulders, dampening his shirt with tears. Merlin trembles, his hands brush her hair, trying to comfort.
"You do have awful timing, just so you know." She hiccups. It's without bite. He doesn't know her, but he has met her before, another lifetime, another place. When he breathes, he smells apple and musk, staggeringly clear.
"Is it a bad dream?"
She nods, the memories still fresh and tearing at her throat. Rose sinks deeper into him, trusting. (Don't you know it's the first step toward betrayal?)
"I don't… know what is happening… They are just so maddening, and I, I've never gotten them this often." He notes the angry crescents bubbling like hot lava on her wrists. I'm sorry, he screams but his mouth never makes a sound. It's me, it's me, it's the trigger, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry –
And the choice is in your palms. Hieroglyphs and constellation trail on their joined skin, a mismatched puzzle all jaded egdes, a writing older than magic itself. Trying to remember how it feels to have a heartbeat.
He counts his breath, her hands on his ribcages, fitting against the place between his bones; dares to say what has been locked inside for centuries, and the world falls perfectly into pieces.
viii
(He watches her warily. He watches as her expression turn from disbelief to apprehensive and finally settle on angry. He watches her straighten her back and life drain out like rainwater. He watches history unravel and thinks, finally.)
ix
Her smile cracks as the edges, eyelashes burgundy thick. She shakes her head and laughs her not-laughter, "So you have been playing me like a fool again, Merlin," hissing his name like poison in her veins. "And me, trusting you, falling for you again," – her eyes are abyss, bottomless and coldcoldcold, she is damnation and hell and bones marrow dried into dust, blood spurting like fine wine, "isn't it all amusing to you?"
Rose – Morgana – choked. Her hands brace on his chest and push, putting as much distance between them as possible; chartreuse eyes shining dimly, gold swirling and bursting like firework. Her bedside lamp explodes, and he thinks distantly, déjà vu.
She is here and nowhere, she is the diamond dust in his hourglass, the pain and bruise and colors blooming on his skin. She is the poison in his blood and the magic on his tongue, the pathological lies on the roof of his mouth and ripe strawberries on the corner of his lips, white teeth glinting in a snarl and a smile alike, a curious stir in the backstage, incandescence. She is proud and regal and then some, untamable but she looks at him like she is his. If he asked.
If he asked.
And history has been running on its course too long. History has torn them apart, has pushed them against each other. History is her name from long forgotten poems and tales, history is the lies pushed in his mouth his eyes his soul and her desperation, history is her hatred and history is the death of his golden haired king, his best friend, I can't lose him, he's my friend
This, Merlin snarls uncharacteristically, this, is why he can't never find happiness. Because his happiness is half gone and half history repeated, twisting and twirling and again again again one more time but expecting different results.
(No, Merlin. That's not history.
That's insanity.)
a distant conversation in history yet to come:
"'When you can write your autobiography on the back of a stamp and still have room to spare, I wish to meet you.' What would your story be, I wonder."
Morgana whispers words like incantation, silence louder and clashing than shouting can ever do.
"'You betrayed me.'"
x
He certainly thinks something time will never be able to wash off, like the red on his hands and the red in her eyes. She stares at him with hatred remembered and centuries worth of regret, asking the silent question. What do you do when you don't even know yourself, she pleads.
Whatever you want to, he almost says but bites on his tongue instead.
Her lips curl upward, and magic roars.
(Your determination to see goodness in people will be your own undoing.)
xi
He is guiltily vindicated about her being broken. That means he is not the only one.
She presses a knife at the hollow between his collarbones and twists. She has always preferred to leave scars; ugly deaths to match her tattered soul.
(This is pure Morgana and no Rose, no feathery eyelashes, no melancholy, no soft sweet singer to dance and chipper and make him believe in second chance.)
His skin is too tight and his bones too hollowed, like there is nothing inside. She is the chip in his soul and the tear in his lungs until it's filled with flower petals, clogging his airway, soft beautiful tragic dead –
She can kill him like this, Merlin thinks.
xii
Slowly, oh so slowly slowly, Morgana drops it on the tiled floor. The knife falls with a resounding 'clang'. Wide eyes stare at him, tired, horribly confused; painting blue on his skin.
(This is Rose and no Morgana, no boiling poison inside until she bursts, no sharp, tantalizing beauty that blurs everything around it, no airy laughter and grace and passionate love hatred loathing.)
It would be easy to be in love with this version of her - Rose and Rose alone. To fall seamlessly in love with the girl that doesn't belong, born in the wrong era. It would be simple to press a kiss in her temple and waves magic in her pearls, to place garland rose in her hair and sew pearls on her skin. But he is Merlin, and Merlin never does simple.
(I know you are dead inside but you make me feel alive.)
xiii
She claws at him, all teeth and nails, and says; this is what you have done to me, Emrys, and it's repetition cycle destiny; it's not about magic anymore but personal, vengeance, torn neck and rasped voice screaming screaming screaming, I want him dead!
Her breath ghosts over his skin, warm. Fingers press on the writing messily scrawled on his skin, hard enough to bruise.
He has been carrying the weight of her soul forever. Broken bird, take your wings and learn to fly.
"It doesn't have to be like this." He breathes softly, defeated. Ever the optimist. "We can find another way."
Morgana thinks if she looks hard enough, she can find the cracks in his heart. She can find the fragile glue holding him up, she is holding him up from centuries of regret and self-deprecation. The vines crawling up his bones, thriving off him until he fall apart. She thinks maybe they both deserve each other. Maybe they are both broken beyond repair.
(His demons play well with hers.)
Her nails pluck at his soulmate tattoo, trying to pull the skin off, and says, "let's find out."
an obituary:
They could have been so much more.
xv
"Someone once said you have to look back five hundred times in your past life to meet again in the next one," in rare whimsical moments, Morgana traces the contours of his body, breathing spells and ancient religion on his skin, soaking him to the bones, "did you actually look back at me that much?"
Merlin answers without missing a beat.
"I did."
I did.
I do.
unsaid words:
In dreams, in life, I have been waiting for you. You are not a missing part of me, you are one with me, ripped at the seams and dripping ink. Yellow sunflowers and hydrangea bloom on your path but there is blood under your nails and faded bruises where the rope bit into your neck. I have been waiting for you, for your stardust soul, for the familiar ache in my heart and the darkness in deep crevices of my soul and the sting in my eyes like acid burning, cobwebs and the darkest of secrets and pages upon pages of yellowed paper and golden threads of magic binding us together. I have been waiting for you, my mistakes, my fault, my favorite nightmare. My moonchild.
I have been waiting for you, waiting for the world to slide of its axis, waiting for the stars to realign and the universe to let me fix my wrong doing; for you to come back.
Because you are my favorite unfinished story. Because you deserve a proper epilogue. Because I love you, and despite everything, we can be so much more.
curtain call:
Once upon a time, a girl meets a boy again, and destiny finally smiles.
Somehow I really find it hard to write for the Merlin fandom. My characterization is always... so awkward and off? And it takes so long to write this, like I have to practically force the words out. If anyone can tell me what is wrong, please please please say it. Thank you.