Disclaimer: I don't own Eragon or anything associated with the Inheritance Cycle.

Claimer: I, SussieKitten, own this plot and the story. Borrow or steal my plot, my original characters (when used) or story and I will report you. I also own my version of Saphira/Thorn's human appearances.

Warnings: Male homosexuality. Female homosexuality. Heterosexuality. Mild hints at incest - as in, they are brothers in this story. Swearing or strong language. Fluff - seriously, beware the fluff! Attempt at humour - read: attempt. If any of this disturbs you, click on the "back" button. I won't tolerate any flames.

A/N Another story that I wanted to get out during the holidays. A bit late, but oh well. Hehe.

A huge thanks to everyone who reviewed and to those that still reads this story. Your support means a lot. So even if I don't get back to your reviews/messages right away doesn't mean that I don't treasure them. I will get to them in due time.

Additional warnings: this chapter contains the colour pink and mentions of the Ultimate Evils on Earth (aka, dustbunnies and food that promises to EAT YOU) *shudders* Also, a brief mention of Lady GaGa. Feel free to run if one (or all) of the things mentioned scares the bejesus out of you.

Also, this is terribly unbeta'ed. Mrr.

Just Another Ordinary Day

Chapter Three

The Cleaning Incident

Surprisingly enough, Eragon found himself alive and well after the laundry incident. Murtagh hadn't bit his head off or threatened to castrate him. That alone had almost been enough to give Eragon a heart-attack.

Something was very wrong with his brother. Murtagh had never not scolded him before. That meant that the worst was yet to come. Eragon seriously wondered whether or not he was supposed to fear for his life.

His punishment came two weeks later. Eragon had finally finished his exams and was more than ready to just crawl into bed and sleep for forty-eight hours. But apparently Murtagh had other plans.

"You can wait forty-eight hours with killing me. Right now I'm going to sleep," Eragon said upon arrival.

Murtagh's smirk didn't wane. His hands were behind his back and he looked oddly pleased. "That's just fine. You can start your punishment tomorrow."

Eragon narrowed his eyes at him. Murtagh was letting him rest? Before a punishment? Oh yes, something was seriously wrong.

But he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He just nodded at his brother and walked into his bedroom, making sure to step well over the threshold as he did so. The damn thing had nearly killed him that morning when he had dragged his sleep-deprived self out of bed.

He barely managed to get out of his shoes before falling onto the bed and falling asleep.

-:-

When Eragon woke up, he had almost forgotten all about Murtagh's punishment. But then the anxiety that had haunted him for the past two weeks came back, so did his brother's insane grin from the day before. Murtagh definitely had something planned, and it could not be good.

Well, it was probably damn hilarious for Murtagh, but for poor Eragon it did not bode well.

Eragon got dressed and gingerly opened the door. He peeked outside. Murtagh was nowhere in sight. He let out a sigh of relief and walked out.

"Good morning, baby brother."

And promptly tripped and fell into Murtagh's arms. The blush lit up so quickly Eragon wouldn't be surprised if there was a switch inside of him labelled 'Murtagh alert – cue blush!'.

Eragon peeked up at his brother's face. Murtagh was wearing that insane grin again. He moved out of his brother's embrace and dusted off his clothes. "What do you want?"

"It's time for your punishment."

It was very wrong that his mind gave him alternative situations where those words would be used, and it was even more wrong that most of those were sexual. Sometimes Eragon wondered if his mind hated him.

"What is the punishment, oh great brother of mine?" Eragon drawled.

The grin just widened. It was really starting to freak Eragon out. Murtagh then held out something that Eragon swore they had killed, burned and buried a good few years ago.

"Is that -?"

"The apron mom gave us?" Murtagh interrupted. "Why yes, it is. Well, a copy of it, anyway. She has been asking about it, so I went ahead and bought a replacement. And now you get to wear it."

Eragon stared at the frilly pink thing in horror. Their mother had originally given it to them to use for cooking, hence why there was a script on it that read 'Kiss The Cook', written in loopy, girly writing and with a kiss mark in the bottom right corner. Oh, and he couldn't forget about the hearts. The fucking hearts.

"...I'm not touching that thing," Eragon promptly declared.

Murtagh chuckled. "You haven't seen all of it yet." He then held out a pair of rubber gloves. Pink rubber gloves. "I made sure they matched the apron."

His right eye was twitching madly. Murtagh couldn't be serious!

"And now you get the pleasure of cleaning the apartment."

...That was it? That was his big punishment? Cleaning the apartment in a frilly pink apron with matching pink rubber gloves? ...Alright, so maybe that was punishment.

"Have fun," Murtagh grinned and left the apartment.

Eragon stared after him in horror. His gaze shifted to the table, where Murtagh had put the pink items of doom.

Murtagh was gone. He wouldn't know if Eragon didn't wear them. Eragon grinned. Sucker!

The phone rang so loudly that Eragon jumped in the air. He walked over gingerly and picked it up. "Yeah?"

"You're wearing them," Murtagh said, completely forgoing the social etiquette that was called 'greeting'. "I will know if you haven't."

Eragon gaped. "How?" he spluttered.

"I have my ways," the other said smugly.

Eragon continued to gape.

"Oh, and that's only the first part of your punishment. I'll tell you the rest when the time comes. Bye, baby bro."

He was hanging onto the phone long after Murtagh had hung up. That-that smug bastard!

Eragon put the phone down gently. He'd get a real smacking if he broke the phone. He glared at the wall, refusing to believe this humiliating so-called punishment that his brother had cooked up for him.

A few minutes later, he concluded that this was so insane and humiliating that it had to be true. He silently swore revenge as he changed into the clothes he always wore when he washed. He walked out of his room and glared daggers at the pink items. Pink of all things!

Knowing that his brother most likely had some insane way of finding out whether or not he had actually worn the dreaded frilly items, Eragon reluctantly put them on. He scowled and went to get the cleaning supplies from the closet.

Murtagh was so going down for this!

-:-

A couple of hours later, Eragon was still trying to remember when the last time he had cleaned the place. There were far too many dust bunnies lurking everywhere, yet he could have sworn he gave the place a thorough once-over no more than a week ago!

Then again, dust bunnies were evil. They multiplied until they were everywhere, threatening to swallow anything and anyone that came close.

Eragon wasn't sure what he feared more; dust bunnies or the fuzzy things that started to grow on food that had been lying around for far too long. They were both far too scary for Eragon's liking. Dust bunnies choked you and ate up your socks, and the fuzzy things threatened to eat you if you came too close.

Eragon really hoped that cleaning the fridge was not on the agenda, because if he remembered correctly, there was a banana in there that should have been thrown out at least a week ago. He did not want to know what that looked like now.

But he could breathe a sigh of relief. He was almost finished. He had already taken out the trash, dusted, tidied up a bit, done the dishes, scrubbed the kitchen so clean it gleamed, scrubbed the bathroom likewise, done both bedrooms and now he only had one thing left to do. The living room.

Eragon pulled at the gloves to make sure they were still in place and glared at the couch. He just knew there were plenty of dust bunnies lurking under there. God knows the ones under Murtagh's bed had nearly eaten him up.

Eragon tried and failed to kill a blush that had threatened to rise. He was very glad that Murtagh had found a new hiding place for his porn. He had stumbled upon them once when he had been cleaning a few weeks after they had moved in. Needless to say, Eragon hadn't doubted Murtagh's attraction towards males ever since.

Eragon refilled the bucket with water in the kitchen. He had plugged his iPod into the stereo upon starting the cleaning adventure, and he was very relieved that he hadn't had to interfere with the music flow just yet. Thank God for shuffle.

He also had to thank Saphira, Aksel and Murtagh a bit, as he tended to raid -borrow- their music collection. Eragon had a pathetically small music collection, and he had no idea why. His CDs kept mysteriously disappearing.

Currently it sounded like some of Aksel's music was shining through. Saphira wasn't big on techno, but Eragon knew Aksel was. And Murtagh would sooner hang himself than admit he listened to anything in the techno genre. But it was good music to work to, Eragon would give Aksel that.

The brunet carried the bucket into the living room. The mop was leaned against the wall and Eragon was pleasantly surprised to see that it hadn't fallen while he had been out of the room. The mop tended to do that.

But before he could mop, Eragon needed to vacuum.

Eragon walked back to his room where the dreaded vacuumer had last been seen and pulled it out. It was a clunky and very unattractive old thing. It worked well enough, but both brothers knew that one day it was going to say goodnight and most likely blow up as it did so. Eragon concluded once again that they really needed to invest in a newer model, and that soon.

Vacuuming the floor was easy enough, until he got to the furniture. Some was easy to get under, but as Eragon had predicted, the couch was going to get tricky. He glared at it and crouched down, pushing the staff as far under the couch as he could.

It didn't get far. Eragon was tempted to growl. He lay down so his upper torso was lying on the floor. His knees were still planted on the ground, slightly parted to steady himself. He let out a cry of triumph when the staff got further under the couch.

Now that things were finally going his way, Eragon relaxed a bit and started to hum along to whatever song was currently playing.

Eragon pushed himself a little bit further under the couch to get to a particularly large assembly of dust bunnies. They mocked him. They clearly didn't think he'd be able to reach them. Well, hah, he'd show them!

"I didn't know you liked Lady GaGa."

Three things happened at once. Eragon yelped and slammed his head against the bottom of the couch at the same time as he slid forward and slammed the back of his neck into the lip of the couch. And then, somehow, in the midst of all this pain Eragon cursed loudly and thought Murtagh's back already?

Eragon then landed gracefully on his stomach and felt the air rush out of his lungs. The dust-bunny assembly he had been trying to nail was pushed away from him. Eragon could hear it laughing at him. He groaned.

Murtagh chuckled. "Are you ok, baby bro?"

"Fuck off," Eragon muttered sulkily. That had hurt, damnit!

Eragon sighed and crawled out slowly. He sat up and looked down his front. Somehow his t-shirt had become dusty and gross. He cringed.

"Need help?"

Eragon glared at his older brother over his shoulder. "No thank you," he huffed. He got to his feet and barely caught himself before he dusted himself off. He sighed.

His mood didn't improve when he saw the amused smirk on Murtagh's lips.

Eragon crossed his arms and glared at Murtagh, though he was sure he wasn't very intimidating dressed in pink and with dust all over his upper body. He stuck his tongue out at his brother and turned to stalk into his room.

He had exactly taken four steps before he found himself tripping over the bucket of water he had put out. He tripped over it ever-so-gracefully and found himself landing in a puddle of water.

And then Murtagh started to laugh.

Eragon didn't care that he had ruined Murtagh's t-shirt. He had fucking replaced it, after all. Oh no. Murtagh was going down for this!

And thus Murtagh found himself being tackled by his dusty and wet younger brother.

-:-

Murtagh left the apartment complex with a smug smirk on his lips. He slipped his phone back into his pocket. He knew Eragon would defy him and not wear the apron and rubber gloves, thus why he had waited and called Eragon before even leaving the building.

Confident that his brother was now wearing the dreadful pink items, he could carry on with his business.

Murtagh didn't have a lot of things to take care of, but he would stall his return a bit. If he stayed in the apartment, he might give in and help his brother, and the whole point of leaving was so he wouldn't have to help.

Murtagh therefore spent the next couple of hours making a list of groceries and looking around for Christmas gifts. It was just October, but Murtagh liked to get the shopping done early. He wrote down some possible items, but didn't buy anything.

After a nice lunch and picking up some groceries, Murtagh finally headed home.

Upon entering, he wasn't entirely surprised that he couldn't see his brother. Eragon was probably cleaning one of the other rooms. He went into the kitchen and put away the groceries.

As he did so, he couldn't help but to notice the music coming from their speakers. It sounded horribly pop/techno-ish. Murtagh cringed. That definitely was not his favourite music genre. As he listened a bit more closely, he realised he had heard that particular song before. Not by choice, of course, but radios were terrible things. Sometimes he was forced to listen to something that made him want to curl up and die.

Murtagh closed the fridge and moved into the living room area. It was then he spotted Eragon. Murtagh bit his bottom lip to keep from laughing.

Eragon was crouched down on the floor with his ass in the air. Said ass was wiggling in time with the song. If Murtagh listened hard enough, he could actually hear Eragon humming along to the blasted tune.

Murtagh couldn't help himself. "I didn't know you liked Lady GaGa," he said amusedly. And the only reason he knew the name of that woman was because Arya liked to bash her because she was forced to listen to her whenever she visited her brother.

Several things happened at once. Eragon yelped and uttered a loud "FUCK!"

He had to wince. Judging by the smack that had come before the curse, Eragon had without a doubt smacked his head against the bottom of the couch. Murtagh knew that hurt like a motherfucker. But that wasn't everything. Of course it wasn't.

Eragon then proceeded to somehow slam his shoulders into the couch, and hurt the back of his neck by the looks of things. The brunet then fell to the floor and released a loud "woosh" like sound as the air was knocked out of him. He then let out a soft groan

Murtagh had to feel a little guilty. He hadn't meant for Eragon to get that hurt. Then again, Eragon managed to get hurt doing the simplest of things, so it really wasn't his fault.

He covered the guilt up with a chuckle. "Are you ok, baby bro?"

"Fuck off," Eragon muttered sulkily.

He watched as Eragon slowly crawled out from beneath the furniture. Murtagh's lips twitched when he saw all the dust that had gathered in Eragon's usually light brown hair. Now it looked almost grey. Murtagh didn't doubt that Eragon's shirt was also dusty as hell.

"Need help?" he offered.

Eragon looked over his shoulder and glared at Murtagh. "No thank you," he huffed.

Murtagh couldn't stop the smirk from making its way onto his lips. Eragon looked far too cute for his own damn good. How anyone could look cute when they were as dirty as Eragon was right now was anyone's guess.

Murtagh caught a soft sigh before Eragon turned to face him. Eragon quickly zeroed in on his face.

Obviously this seemed to anger Eragon as he crossed his arms and glared at Murtagh. Murtagh's smirk just widened. Eragon really had no idea how very unintimidating he looked right then. His hair was messed up and was full of grey streaks. His t-shirt was dusty and gross, and while the pink apron and gloves were dusty too, they both stood out like a sore thumb.

Eragon looked really pissed now. Sadly, it was the kind of pissed that made Eragon pout, and a pouting Eragon was just cute. Murtagh watched amusedly as his younger brother stuck his tongue out at him and turned to stalk out of the room.

Murtagh watched as Eragon headed straight for the bucket of water standing in the middle of the room. He didn't have the time to call out before Eragon tripped. The bucket fell over and the brunet fell into a puddle of water.

Murtagh really couldn't help it. Eragon laid spread on the floor with one of his legs popped up on the side-turned bucket. His entire front was most likely soaked. His forelock was drenched and dripping onto his face, leaving streaks through the dust. Then the pout came out.

Something inside of Murtagh broke. He started to laugh.

Ten seconds later, Murtagh let out a surprised grunt as he was tackled by his dusty and wet little brother.

-:-

Eragon wasn't quite sure what he had tried to accomplish. His tackle had started a good old-fashioned brotherly scuffle which, about a minute or so after the tackling, had led to Eragon lying on his back with Murtagh straddling him.

Murtagh smirked down at him. "Eragon, Eragon, Eragon," he tutted. "Did you really think you could pin me?"

Eragon scowled up at his brother. Hey, he was allowed to hope!

Murtagh chuckled and got off of him. It was only then that Eragon realised what a compromising position they had been in. He hoped that his earlier anger flush cancelled out the blush that rose happily. He hated it when he blushed around Murtagh.

He accepted Murtagh's hand and was pulled to his feet. The now slippery floor made him loose his footing and trip right into Murtagh's chest. Murtagh's arm curled around Eragon to steady him.

Eragon's heart was thundering in his chest. He was sure Murtagh was able to hear it, if not feel it.

"You should probably go and take a shower before finishing up here."

Eragon felt his blush deepen. Was it just him or had Murtagh's voice sounded...husky?

This was Murtagh. Eragon had definitely imagined it.

He sighed and pushed himself away from his brother's chest. "I think I will," he said and took off the apron and the gloves. He grimaced and held them at an arm's length away. "But I get first dibs. You can hang around here in your dusty glory," he smirked at Murtagh.

Murtagh crossed his arms and smirked back. "I guess I will have to do that. I do wonder where I'll go and mess things up."

Eragon spluttered. "You wouldn't dare! You dirty anything and you're it cleaning up!"

The other chuckled. "But it's your punishment to clean this place."

"And I will! But if you dirty anything after I've cleaned it, then you clean it up," Eragon said and glared at him. Eragon then remembered that Murtagh had promised a second punishment. "Hey, what's the other half of the punishment?"

Murtagh's smirk widened. "That's a surprise."

Eragon glared at him. He righted the bucket and hung the apron and gloves over the lip. He stalked towards the bathroom.

"Though, if you're worried about me dirtying anything up, we could always shower together," Murtagh suggested teasingly.

The brunet nearly tripped over their mother's rug. He caught himself by grabbing onto the doorway.

Eragon was sure his face was on fire. It certainly felt hot enough. He tried desperately not to look scandalously over his shoulder, as he knew Murtagh would figure out something was up if he did.

So instead of possibly giving away his very inappropriate crush on his bastardly handsome brother, Eragon threw a hasty, "In your dreams!" over his shoulder and rushed for the bathroom.

Now he just had to convince himself not to wank in the shower. Stupid Murtagh and his stupid unintentional innuendos!

A/N I know, I know. This chapter is long overdue. But I hit a major writer's block and my funny juice completely ran out, so I put this on the shelf for a while. I can only hope that I managed to live up to the two previous chapters – humour wise. It is shorter than the other two chapters, but I hope that it's still at least a little amusing.

Sadly, I haven't typed up anything on chapter four, but I hope to do so soon. I just need to find a new batch of funny juice – as my batch was consumed while writing this – and just start typing. This is the story I go to when all my other stories are being hideously uncooperative. If this starts being uncooperative too...mlargh.

As for how long this story is going be – if anyone is wondering – then I will either end it at chapter four or five. I haven't decided yet. I plan to go with the flow.

And that's all for now, I think. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. See you again soon!