Merlin tries to be a good man.
This is probably a waste of his time.
Good men are honest, for a start – good men don't lie to their best friends, good men wouldn't spend every second of every damn day since they met those friends spinning deception after deception, weaving the falsehoods together like a web and hiding behind them like a mask.
Good men don't stand, silent and impassive, while others like them are condemned and despised, feared and oppressed, sentenced to burn for being who they are – good men don't watch with shaking hands and tear-filled eyes as others like them scream and struggle against the flames, knowing that next time, it might be them on that pyre.
Good men don't cast magic and condemn it in the same breath; good men don't even have magic in the first place, now that he thinks about it, not like his – the explosive, uncontrollable bursts of power always longing to erupt from his fingertips, an awful and destructive force that could raze his king's castle to the ground in moments if he so wished; good men have magic, but nothing like the devastating energy running gold in his veins.
Good men don't hurt people the way he has – they don't try to poison a frightened young woman who doesn't even know what she's doing, they don't watch as the hemlock slides smoothly down her pretty throat and the last of the light leaves her once-radiant gaze; and good men don't let another good man, especially one whom they love dearly, one who has guided them and cared for them, be taken prisoner and tortured beyond endurance because of their own rotten cowardice – good men don't keep dark secrets that endanger everyone around them.
Good men don't leave other men to die, never mind what destiny has decreed; good men don't kill the way he has, in vicious and senseless slaughter; good men don't lead those they love to their end, don't bring about the death of the girl they loved or the father they never knew, good men don't let their best friends bleed out from wounds he should have sustained, or make sacrifices he should have had to suffer, good men don't lay limp and weeping while others fall for him, good men don't.
But Merlin isn't a good man.
And maybe that's for the best – should he have proven himself a good man, too kind to kill, too gentle to harm, Camelot would have fallen, and Arthur with it, many years ago.
And Arthur is a good man.
So Merlin will do whatever it takes – he will lie to Arthur, spinning deception after deception, weaving the falsehoods together like a web; he will watch others burn beside Arthur, close his ears to their anguished cries and pretend he feels no pity; he will cast and condemn magic for Arthur, he will push on, persist through the pain for Arthur, he will hurt for Arthur, he will kill for Arthur, he will sell away his soul and auction his integrity off to the highest bidder for Arthur, and he will destroy anyone who tries to get in his way.
He'll be a bad man if only it means he can serve a better one.
notes: i apparently have a lot of merlin fics collecting dust in my documents. i'm trying to clear them all off now. stuff like this is the result.