Sorry for being so late with this one! Hope you guys enjoy the chapter!
CHAPTER - 36
The door slammed shut on his face as soon as Morgana saw him, and Merlin winced before he started loudly pleading "Morgana! Morgana! Please, just hear me out!"
There was no reply from Morgana. Merlin huffed and pulled out the small paper that he'd written in, "Alright, if you don't want to see me anymore at least welcome Kilgarrah, he's really pathetic and needs a shelter, right Killy?"
Inside, Morgana frowned, she was leaning on the walls, close to the door wondering what on earth Merlin was spouting about. She was in no mood to entertain him today.
He slid the paper in through the space beneath the door, on which he'd attempted to draw a sufficiently pathetic dragon crying and pouting, it looked more like a cross breed between a squirrel and a donkey but it was the best he could do. He'd colored the pathetic cross breed in bright green and a crocodile tear shaded in electric blue dripped from one of its rather ominous eyes.
Written in bold above the drawing was, "I am sorry" with a sad face emoticon to finish the message.
Morgana saw the paper and snorted before she stooped low and picked it up, she bit her lip hard to keep from smiling, but despite her resolve her lips quirked up in a small grin anyway. Killy's charms was getting to her way too easily.
Suffice to say Merlin was not a very good artist. Which just endeared him even more to Morgana, most of her boyfriends, after cheating on her, just came begging back spouting all sorts of excuses while never saying the word 'sorry', or worse they turned the blame on her for being much too arrogant, much too cold, much too bitchy, and in one case she'd even been accused of being a consumerist psycho who polluted the world with her sorry presence.
Of course she'd shown him what sorry presence actually meant, and after she'd gone through him no man had ever been brave enough to accuse her of being a 'sorry' being. The psycho comment, she could take with pride, however no one and she meant no one was allowed to call her 'sorry presence' or anything similar to that.
"I'm leaving now, take good care of Killy! Your anger is at me, not him."
Morgana rolled her eyes and opened the door.
Merlin stood there, looking endearingly unsure of himself as always and Morgana sighed internally.
"Killy is pathetic Merlin" she informed him with no further ado.
Merlin nodded his head frantically and said "Yes he is, which is why he needs you."
"You should never try to draw anything" she said casually, not missing that they were not talking about the shoddy caricature at all, "I should throw Killy out just because he is hideous."
"Mhmm" Merlin agreed.
"And because he's made me incredibly angry" Morgana said narrowing her eyes at Merlin, who very visibly gulped.
"Indeed"
"So why do you want me to take care of him instead?" Morgana asked crossing her arms in front of her chest and raising her eyebrow.
"Because he's a poor misunderstood creature"
"Poor? Misunderstood? I think not Merlin" Morgana waved her hands airily and said "I think he's anything but misunderstood, I understand his actions perfectly now."
"No you don't" Merlin said meeting Morgana's eyes and holding her gaze unflinchingly, Merlin knew any sort of doubt from him would be seen as confirmation of all the horrid rumors to Morgana.
Up to that point, Merlin who had been cowering and looking pouty and disconsolate drew himself up tall instead, he stepped past Morgana into her apartment and turned around to face her.
Morgana still had an incredulous untrustworthy look trained on Merlin and he asked exasperatedly, "Come on Morgana, do you really believe I am a cross dresser of all things?"
Morgana curled her lip in a sneer, "Funnily enough Merlin, that part wasn't what I found to be most disturbing."
"Really?" Merlin asked with a frown and Morgana huffed and said "You'd make a very pretty girl" with an entirely straight face which made Merlin nervous for the future, his future.
"I was not on a date with Arthur" Merlin said shaking his head emphatically, "He was upset, we hung out as friends, and somebody got the wrong idea and wrote a shoddy gossip column about it…"
"Funny Arthur looked anything but upset, and you looked positively swooning" Morgana bit out, her sneer still fixed on her face as her temper came to the fore front of her mind again, making her forget all about the pathetic caricature Merlin had drawn to draw her out.
Merlin threw his head back in frustration, "It was for you" he said finally looking at Morgana.
"For me?" Morgana raised her brows again, her tone sharp as she glared at Merlin.
Merlin nodded his head and sighed, "Yeah, I wanted to buy a gift for your birthday and I had no idea what you'd like so I asked Arthur to help me, and we ended up…"
"Getting cosy and finding out that you do have some very not so closeted gay feelings for Arthur!" Morgana pronounced for him and Merlin groaned.
"NO! I do not have gay feelings or any feelings otherwise for Arthur!"
Morgana snorted, "You expect me to believe that? After seeing you look at him like he hung the fucking moon for you? After everyone thinks you two are getting married? After you…you always put him above everything else!"
"I do not put him above everything else."
"Well I don't know about everything else Merlin, but you certainly seem to put him above me, your supposed girlfriend. Fool that I am, I thought you actually cared about me!" Morgana stopped herself there, shocked that she'd revealed so much, she was hurting, but she'd never lost her guard so easy around anyone else to let them see she was hurting.
"I do…I do care about you Morgana.." Merlin said but Morgana wasn't listening. If she'd just listen he could explain that this was all just a huge misunderstanding and he was most certainly not closeted or gay.
"Please just go Merlin…" Morgana said turning away from him.
"Morgana, you aren't listening to me…"
Morgana turned back at that, her expression thunderous as she shouted "Maybe I don't want to listen anymore! I told you to go Merlin."
She looked expectant, like she was just waiting for Merlin to turn tail and run in the face of her anger.
But Merlin just crossed his arms in front of his chest echoing her earlier posture and said resolutely, "I won't. Not until you hear me out."
Morgana growled low in her throat and a lesser man would have cowered and run for his life, but Merlin stayed where he was letting her get angrier and angrier, and when she came at him with her hands extended to push him out forcibly, he grabbed her hands in his and grunting and cursing he pushed her back against the wall, holding both her hands above her head with both of his.
"MERLIN! I'm not kidding, there's a limit to my tolerance and you've just reached the end of my tether."
Merlin instead of relenting like the good little innocent boy Morgana thought him to be just laughed derisively at her, making Morgana's eyes widen in stunned surprise at the anger she saw in Merlin's eyes that were no doubt reflected in her own. What right did he have to be angry at her?
"HA! Tolerance? You? Having tolerance? That would be the day wouldn't it Morgana?"
She renewed her struggle to get herself free of his grip, and managed to shake one hand loose only for him to grab on to it and return it back, now tightening his grip and holding both her hands captive with just one hand. Morgana struggled but Merlin was deceptively strong for all his meager built and she couldn't break his grip and cursed at him instead.
"LET ME GO MERLIN! I'll have you fired! I'll have you backlisted from the fucking United Kingdom!"
"Oh ho ho, the spoilt brat resorting to threats when she doesn't get her way! You and Arthur are not very different after all, are you?"
Morgana look daggers at Merlin then, and if her eyes had the capability to burn him Merlin would be nothing but a pile of ash on the ground now.
"Let me go Merlin, if you value your life" Morgana said her voice cold and soft and a hundred times scarier than when she was shouting.
But Merlin couldn't let her go, even if it was for the best, she'd enraged him, arose a passion in him that he'd hardly ever felt for anyone else and he'd be damned if he let it end because of this, because of a lie.
He leaned closer to her, making sure to keep himself away from the reach of her teeth, when he was closer to her ear he stopped "I'm not going to let go, not until you agree to listen to what I have to say, and then if you decide to chuck me out all the same, I'll go."
"You really have a death wish don't you?" asked Morgana.
"You really haven't had any man stand up to you, have you?"
Morgana growled and tried to shake her hands out of Merlin's tight vice again and Merlin just chuckled low, easily keeping her trapped right where he wanted her.
Morgana felt the vibrations of his laughter against her skin where his chest was touching her breast at the front right down to her toes, she'd never felt so cornered and so turned on in her life. She told herself to stop being an idiot, she needed to be angry, angry at Merlin for lying to her and going away with Arthur, angry at him for having convinced her to open the door in the first place, angry at him for daring to be angry at her, angry at him for trapping her here in her own house like she was a simpering simpleton!
Instead, she felt liquid heat pulse out and wet her pants between her legs and a flip in her belly as Merlin said "I'm sorry I'm not one your corporate puppets who gets scared away by that honestly adorable growl, I'm an untamed country boy through and through."
Merlin, the bastard, actually winked at her when he said it and Morgana got righteously indignant again, ignoring her arousal she snapped.
"You sound like one of those dumb fuck assholes in a Mills and Boons story Merlin, no wonder your closeted gay self reads such bubblegum fodder."
Merlin narrowed his eyes but otherwise said nothing except, "I suppose you'd know all about the Mills and Boons assholes wouldn't you? You must have been dating such spineless dumb fucks all your life."
"Oh aren't we presumptuous today?"
Merlin tsked, "I'm not wrong…you've had every man bend over backwards to please your whims."
"Oh and are we pretending that you were not in fact, one of those men who had no problem bending over backwards for me?"
Merlin looked ticked at that, and once Morgana saw that she had hit the mark at last she couldn't wait to balance the scales again in her favor.
"For heaven's sake Merlin, Arthur isn't wrong, you run scampering every time I so much as breathe harshly, so why don't you just run back to Arthur and I…..mmphh!"
Merlin's mouth closed over hers, and her sentence got lost in muffles and hushed protests as Merlin kept her there, holding her head with his free hand and not allowing her any escape as he licked and bit at the seam of her lips, to which Morgana stubbornly kept her lips closed.
Merlin released her hands, only to force her legs apart and raise her up and onto his hip, drawing away from the wall he kept kissing her mouth even as he took them both back, Morgana forced to keep her hands closed over his neck or lose her balance and fall on her arse, her mouth was open now and Merlin took full advantage of that fact. He finally reached her sofa and turned and pushed her into it, climbing on top of her, his hands running all over her sides making the place between her legs burn that much more as he inflamed her with his touches.
Where only a minute ago she'd been intent on finding a way to throttle him alive, now Morgana found herself in a heady and gripping lust making her forget why she ever protested to this anyway, she moaned aloud when his tongue traced the roof of her mouth and then retreated ever so slowly.
And then the touches stopped, as Merlin retreated entirely from her mouth and sat back slowly.
Morgana's first reaction was utter confusion and frustration over Merlin stopping right at that moment.
"If I'd known that would make you shut up and listen I'd have done it first" Merlin said and Morgana remembered that she was enraged with him! Furious! Absolutely furious!
Before she could get a word in edgewise however Merlin started talking, "I am not dating Arthur, I am not his boyfriend" and with a pointed look at his pants which were very obviously tented Merlin continued, "Most definitely not gay, neither a cross dresser and no I won't be cross dressing for anyone, even you, ever!"
"That's the truth, this…" Merlin said indicating with his hands between them, "Is the truth…I'm sick and tired of Arthur, you and everyone else thinking I'm gay or that I'm going to give up my ass cherry to Arthur because I have epic closeted gay feels for him."
Morgana just stared at him impassively and Merlin got up and off her entirely.
"I can't think of anything more to say that would convince you."
"Then don't say anything…" Morgana said once enough time had passed that Merlin resigned himself to turn and leave.
Morgana extended one of her hands, the very hand Merlin had to forcibly hold in his grip that day.
Merlin smirked and dropped a kiss on her hands, before dropping her hand and taking a step back, Morgana as he expected was immediately irate.
"Mer-lin!" she said warningly.
But Merlin only backed away a step further and said "Not today my lady, I know better than to get near your claws now."
Morgana looked pleased as punch when he said that and Merlin rolled his eyes.
"I'm not going to stop being a spoilt brat just for you!" she said her tone cautious and resolute at once.
"I wouldn't expect you to, after all how many men can say they are living in a Taming of the Shrew story?"
Merlin dodged the cushion she threw at her head at that, "I'm not a shrew MERLIN!"
Morgana got up but Merlin was too swift for her to catch as he left her house throwing a "Take care of Killy for me" on the way out which left Morgana smiling like a goofball all day long.
R&R, love as always!