A/N: "Arthurs and Alternate Realities" prequel. Dark!Merlin. Very, very, dark story as a whole actually.

. . . . .

"You're not him."

"Merlin - "

"You're not HIM!" It is jagged, fractured, a howl of denial and pain and grief stricken rage. "Don't lie to me. You made a mistake. I know. You're good, though, I'll give you that. You almost had me believing for a minute."

He has lived hundreds of lives. Now that he is playing out their futures, he cannot always keep track of which reality each story belonged to. That it was Merlin made it harder. It was so easy to forget that he didn't remember his other selves.

He had forgotten. He will pay the price.

He can't move. The vines have wrapped around him like steel manacles.

"You made me hope. And then you took it away. You're a fake."

The broken man, the broken words, the lie that is a truth, hurt more than what comes next.

Which is quite an accomplishment because what comes next feels like ground glass is throbbing through his veins and bursting through his skin before cascading molten over him.

. . . . .

There was a prophecy. There always was. It was Destiny's version of mission instructions.

That was what he used to think. Before.

Before the mission where she had forced him to kill Merlin. Before the mission where he had saved the world but failed his friends, where they had been infected and gone mad, and he'd had to shoot them all.

It had gone against her plans, but she had been pleased. She said the new version was even better.

That's when he realized it wasn't a mission. It was a script, one Destiny cooed over in twisted delight.

. . . . .

He isn't sure how long it's been since he's seen the sun.

He's even less sure how he will fight with only one hand.

He doesn't hate Merlin. He hates someone he cannot remember but knows he will see when this life is done. He hates them for doing this to both of them.

Arthur is bound, and only Merlin has the key.

Merlin is imprisoned, and he's beginning to wonder if anyone will ever be able to free him.

The darkness torments them both, but Arthur refuses to let Merlin go. In a throat hoarse from screams, he picks up where he left off.

" . . . I've never seen you so happy as you were at the coronation. You placed the crown on me yourself, and you whispered jokes in my head whenever the ceremony got too tedious."

"Shut up! Shut up! You're not real, you're not him, you can't be him - "

For the first time it occurs to Arthur that even if he could convince Merlin now, the knowing would break him.

. . . . .

Arthur screamed himself hoarse at Destiny. They are not toys for her amusement.

She punished him, of course. She locked him away and made him wait.

"You'll be later than he was expecting," she told him, and he didn't have to ask who she meant. "He'll have gone mad. Dark. He'll have conquered the world to draw you in, but by the time you're there, he'll have faced too many impostors to believe you. You'll have to kill him again. I think I'll make the prophecy rhyme this time."

"He's just another problem for me to take care of?" he spat. "One that you created?"

"I always created them," she said in honest confusion. "It'd be no fun otherwise. Now, go. Take care of the problem. I adore the angst."

He clung to a single thought as he went to the new world.

He would not kill Merlin again.

. . . . .

He calls on the weight of thousands of years to distance himself from the pain, and he finds himself singing an old lullaby.

Merlin, in a soft voice that would have moved even Uther to tears, finishes it.

"My mother sang that to me." His eyes are stricken. "I sang it when - when - "

"When I was dying. Or every other week, in other words. You have a habit of pulling off miracles." The words are hard to force out through parched lips, but he manages.

Arthur. The word is soundless. Broken. Arthur. He stumbles forward.

The world goes a bit mad as Merlin's magic in some weird equivalent of babbling tries to fix everything at once. Somehow Arthur is free to catch Merlin when he nearly falls, and he desperately tries to hold him tight enough that he will not shatter.

How much can magic heal, especially so quickly?

He has two hands once more.

He has no qualms about hugging Merlin. He got over that phobia more lifetimes ago than he count. That he can shrug past the pain would surprise most but -

But he has felt worse, before.

But it feels less as if Merlin had done it and more as if it were something unavoidable. A disease. A spell.

But it is not as if Merlin had hurt Guinevere or one of the others, despite having had chances to. But he knows what he has suffered from Merlin is far worse than what Merlin, over many lifetimes, has suffered from him.

He knows his friend now, whatever form he wears, whatever scars obscure his gentle heart. He knows why his friend acted as he did, and he knows what his friend will be assuming now.

Merlin will expect, at best, a quick knife in the back, as if he were a mad dog to put down.

He will fear, at worst, that Arthur will walk away and tell him that he is not welcome in the future he waited so long for.

And Merlin will believe, whatever Arthur does, that the punishment is more merciful than just.

So when Arthur reluctantly, knowing what Merlin will think, begins to pull away, Merlin clings for a desperate second before forcing himself to step away. Merlin waits, destroyed, for his penance.

So Arthur says the first thing he can think of. "It's Thursday, isn't it?" He's not sure how he knows. It's been a while.

Merlin doesn't even question. "Yes." But there is a flicker of curiosity in his eyes.

Arthur interprets it as hope. "Excellent. Guinevere always makes pies on Thursdays. I hope she hasn't given up the habit." He grins. "She'll be so happy to see us, she may even make pecan ones."

Merlin's mouth drops. "What?"

Before I remembered who I was, I had you tortured for information in my twenty-third life. I killed the woman you loved at least three times. I killed your son. I killed you. I have dismissed you, forgotten you, and doubted you. You have endured so very, very much for me.

You forgive me everything. How can I do any less?

No number of lives has taught him how to say that though. So instead he says, "Assuming a certain idiot warlock can get us back in time for supper, that is."

Merlin grabs his arm to teleport them, and Arthur pretends not to notice that the hand shakes.

. . . . .

"You defied me."

"You said to take care of the problem. Merlin was the problem. I took very good care of him."

"You were supposed to kill him!"

"I . . . killed the old, vengeful him. I rehabilitated the real him."

"Yes," she hissed. "And I think that you'll find that that was a mistake."

. . . . .

Arthur deals with the pain.

For a given value of "deals".

He deals less well with the visions she sends him of all the horrible things she could do to Guinevere. To Gwaine. To Lancelot. To his parents.

The last vision is not a could. It is what she has twisted a reality into becoming.

Arthur thinks it's a wonder he hasn't gone mad.

She shoves him out to meet the new world. Rebirth, this time.

. . . . .

"In conclusion, this new collar will allow us to regulate the Soulless much more - "

Soulless?

Something twists inside of him.

Arthur Pendragon remembers. He excuses himself, runs into the hall, falls to his knees, and throws up.

Then he remembers one other thing. He remembers his previous life.

And he remembers that he regrets something. He had made a mistake.

There was someone - he couldn't remember the name, only that it started with a D - that he bitterly regrets not punching in the face.