A/N: I wrote this so it could be read two ways. If you don't like songfics (and I know a lot of people don't), then you can just ignore the smattering of song lyrics. They don't affect the flow of the story at all. If you, like me, actually like songfics, than read with lyrics. I love this song, it's so… soft, but sad.
This is sort of AU. Pretend the last half of 3.13 never happened.
DISCLAIMER. I stole Merlin last night, but he used his blasted magic powers to escape. So I don't own him. And if you are a songfic reader, I don't own the lyrics to the song "Cold Hearted" by the Zac Brown Band.
Title: Cold Hearted
Author: Kitty O
Rating: T
Warnings: Dark!Merlin. Character death. Some (twisted) Mergana. And implied torture.
Someone should just mark their relationship with the word "REVENGE" and file it away with the rest of the paperwork Arthur used to wade through at his desk, Merlin reflected. At least then it could be over.
In real life, it was never over. They took turns tearing at each other like hungry predators, letting the other fall painfully while they had the upper hand. And the worst part was that he just kept coming back. Well… he had. Not anymore. Now he wanted it to end, and he wanted to win. No more coming back.
At least before he could always say that his attacks on her were for the greater good, for Camelot, for destiny. Not anymore.
It was all about revenge.
An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
I want someone to hurt you, make you die the way I do
Merlin shifted in his bed roll, feeling the hard, rocky ground digging into his skin. Like manacles, biting into his flesh.
Chains. He woke up in chains that day, all the grand plans he had in pieces on the floor. He woke up to her… She'd kissed him into awareness.
The kiss of death, he'd thought as he looked around the dungeon.
Shaking off the memory, he stood up and stretched until his sore muscles shrieked, letting the soft light of the moon pry his eyes open from his sleep. Today was the day; he'd waited long enough.
It was cold out here. He wrapped his arms around himself.
It had been cold in the dungeon, too. Cold, cold, like stone, like ice. His shaking just couldn't seem to stop. Failure was cold. She was the coldest of all, freezing, an ice queen frosted onto her throne. She had to have been. Because no amount of resistance from warlocks and one-time princes could seem to remove her from it.
She never thawed a degree, his ice queen, as she tore it all to pieces. She tore him apart, because that was what she really wanted. She hated him the most.
Fell to my knees with a knife in my back
Never thought you'd be the kind to do something like that…
The dark haired warlock wished he could make a campfire to warm the fire he seemed to be lacking inside. It had been a long time since he felt truly warm… She'd made him feel her hatred. And he got to keep the knowledge the entire time that he, Merlin, had helped create the ice queen.
…but you did.
Cold hearted
She hated him the most, so she kept him for last. Arthur. Gwen. Gaius. Lancelot…
He dragged himself away from that train of thought as he began to pack up his small camp, shuddering as some malicious ghost walked over his grave. It had been a while since his thoughts affected his outward expression – 'a while' being since her presence began to freeze him, too – but still that day made his heart drop into his ragged shoes and skip a few beats.
He walked through the forest slowly, his eyes flickering upward to meet the impressive sight of the Pendragon castle looming over him.
He hadn't been gone long. But just long enough. Just long enough so they stopped worrying about his whereabouts. Maybe they thought he was gone for good, that the memories had killed him. Hah, he thought with a small smirk. He couldn't die, as far as he was concerned. If a frozen and broken heart couldn't beat, it couldn't be destroyed either. Broken into smaller pieces, but never destroyed, and that was the good thing about it.
The trees here were so familiar to him. He passed by them slowly, not afraid that the sun would rise too soon, touching them. They felt like home with their rough bark and branches pointed towards the sky like a brown and backwards lightning bolt. The silence felt wonderful against his ears.
Blessed silence. He didn't like noise anymore, in case his ears began bleeding. He heard enough noise in his nightmares.
He heard screams in his nightmares. She'd killed them all for his benefit, as if the fault was all his because she was his. He didn't want it to be his fault, but he did know that she was his ice queen and no one else's. Even if she was crushing him, she was doing it to acknowledge that he could control her actions and emotions, if only negatively.
Pretty little words covered your dark and crooked heart
With a forked tongue, I fell in love,
Then I fell apart
He remembered all the noise and the yelling and the breaking and the hurt. He remembered begging her.
But when had mercy ever come into their relationship? Never from her side. She'd left him for last; it didn't get more merciless than that. He may have started the war when he poisoned her, but at least he let her be saved. If it had been up to her, he would never have been saved.
Maybe he never was?
As he left the forest and tramped his way into the town, his head down so as to avoid recognition, he wondered if she ever heard screams in her sleep. He doubted it.
You are so
Cold hearted
Despite his inconspicuous clothes and bowed head, he was recognized once. A guard who had switched allegiances, not an immortal, saw him and his dark eyes widened with fear. Merlin had kept to the back streets, so there was no one around to see them, but the man turned to call out to a friend in the night, hoping for help.
Merlin put a stop to that with a single word.
"Lladd."
The guard fell, arms and legs stretched out gracelessly around him. He could have been sleeping.
Death was so easy when there was no hate fueling it.
Hate was a little like love that way.
He didn't know how long he hollered himself hoarse, watching the world turn red and begin to burn around him. And she stood there, cool as a statue, slowly freezing him with her aura. Because he was hers, too. The ice queen's warlock could be controlled by her actions and feelings. Death was hard because she hated them, and it was hard because he loved them.
The ice queen and the warlock both loved and hated each other. There didn't seem to be much difference in that relationship; it was all tainted with revenge anyway.
An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
Merlin crept down the back alley, spotting the guard that the dead one had been about to warn. In a second, that guard was dead too.
The guards had both gone without a sound, giving him free access to the castle. The military men hadn't improved any since he was here last.
It only took one minute of the potion wearing off, of the guards not putting on the manacles to restrain his newly discovered magic. Just that one, and he was free. The explosions weren't just in his mind anymore, and he lit the dungeon up like a pyre burning as bright as the entire Purge. But he was too late.
Most of them were dead already. Arthur, Gwen, Gaius, Lancelot.
The rest fled.
But Merlin came back, alone. Gwaine, who had survived, tried to talk him into getting help, but he wanted to work alone this time… and forever afterward. Because he thought he was just too frozen to even care if he heard screams again.
And not caring would almost be worse than the way he'd slowly died as he watched and listened last time.
The warlock slowly crept into the castle.
Home.
But a home that had been invaded and completely overrun by pests. He was here to take care of that.
It took him only minutes to make it to her room without being spotted. It took him only seconds to unlock her door and slip into the chambers he remembered so well. Her shadowy form was sleeping on the bed, face turned towards the ceiling and hands out as though to embrace the world.
No unpleasant memories there.
I fell so fast that I never thought to ask
If you were
Cold hearted
He slowly made his way to the bed, sitting on her covers next to her and watching her calm face. His ice queen.
His for the loving, or his for the hating. Why was it always about revenge with them?
Dead screams, or maybe the perpetuated living screams of the dead, drove him on.
I want someone to hurt you, make you die the way I do
She'd woken him with a kiss…
He leaned over, hearing the bed creak beneath him, until his face hovered above hers. He could feel her breath on his face. Not as cold as he expected. Gently, he pressed his lips to hers, and felt her start beneath him.
He pulled back so his blue, chilled eyes could look into her green, colder ones. Their eyes were the only light things in the moonlit room. Her forehead was creased; she was surprised to see him.
She shouldn't have been. He wanted his revenge just as she always had. She couldn't blame him for winning.
"Merlin!"
"Morgana."
They stared at each other.
Dead screams, the rattle of chains, and his voice cracking as he begged seemed to fill the space between them.
"Miss me?"
He whispered dark words into the air, his power overcoming any protection from magic she may have had surrounding her.
And her scream shattered the air like her nightmare-induced magic blowing out a window into the courtyard, or like his heart shattering as he lost his friends. She fell back on the bed, convulsing, displacing the sheets. But he didn't move from his position.
He regarded her blankly. You're just lucky I don't have all day like you thought that you did.
And I don't think…
He knew by now a veritable army, more men than he could fight off, were rushing towards the queen's chambers, so he had to hurry. But he hesitated.
He wanted revenge, yes. But he couldn't help recalling that not too long ago, he never would have done this. It wasn't him. This was all his frozen self, none of the fiery, passionate, idealistic Merlin he used to be.
Could he really kill her? Even after everything she'd done… She was still, after all, his.
…that I could be…
No, he'd decided long ago. If destiny couldn't win, if she was so intent of ripping it apart, then he wasn't going to bother trying to keep it alive. He would just help destroy it.
If you can't beat them, join them.
Destiny was beyond repair. He might as well do whatever he liked. He might as well be the magic that overshadowed her darkness. The light had been extinguished in blood.
And more than anything, he just wanted her to pay for freezing him and killing them.
He wanted her to pay.
More revenge. It wasn't about the greater good anymore. Just revenge.
She screamed two more times, scrabbling for her magic, and then the rush he was in forced him to end it.
"Lladd."
…so
Cold hearted.
He watched as the flicker of life left her eyes. He had to see it. If he would live forever with his frozen heart, he wanted it to be with that memory.
Something told him that he should regret that. Maybe one day he would. For now he felt nothing.
By the time Morgause and the other immortal guards – the ones who could not be defeated by a mere spell – came into the room, wanting to help their queen, Merlin was long gone. The ice queen was his. He had just taken what belonged to him and left the rest to rot, or go to the dogs, or perhaps even pull themselves together and rebuild Camelot. He didn't care.
Merlin knew he wasn't dying anytime soon. Wasn't caring anytime soon, wasn't thawing anytime soon. That was the terrible thing about a heart of ice, the horrible thing. If a frozen and broken heart couldn't beat, it couldn't be destroyed either. Broken into smaller pieces, but never destroyed.
He would be around for a while. He wondered if, in that time, he would come to regret it.
He kept thinking of the look on her face as she died.
And he smiled.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
I want someone to hurt you, make you die the way I do
I don't think that I could be so
Cold hearted
A/N: Well, there you go. I've been wanting some Dark!Merlin, and that's what I came up with. If you enjoyed it (or if you didn't), you may go ahead and review. Remember, reviews=love and love makes the world go around!