I made the mistake of reading this story through so far and I was sat there cringing because it's so awful and oh God, why do you guys read this?
Thank you for the lovely reviews! I think I say that everytime... Anywho. I hope you like this chapter - I tried to make it fairly funny, but going by my sense of humor, you'll probably be sat there like "WHAT." Sorry for any spelling mistakes - if you spot any please tell me and I can correct it!
Disclaimer: I do (not) own Merlin.
"Why do I feel like I'm on one of those American 'CSI' TV shows?" She turns to look at Merlin, who is sat in the driver's seat and wearing a thick, black, stick-on moustache. She bursts out laughing and he puts down the newspaper he was pretending to be reading.
"I have no idea," Merlin says. "Oh, I moust-ache you a question. Do we have guns?"
"No," she giggles.
"Well, then we're not on an American crime TV show. Are there any updates on Alvarr?" He asks.
Morgana looks at the reflection in the wing mirror to see that the door is still shut and the curtains still drawn.
"No updates," she sighs.
"Great work, Agent M!" Merlin praises her over-enthusiasticly and she grins at his childish behaviour. She checks the mirror again, just for a double check, and then catches a glimpse of herself, too. They do look ridiculous. She has her hair tied back and tucked away on top of her head by a baseball cap and is wearing one of Merlin's old, black hoodies that comes up over the cap.
"Merlin, do you really think the disguises were necessary?"
"Absolutely!" Merlin says, pretending to be shocked, whilst wiggling his dark eyebrows and his nose, so that the moustache and eyebrows move at the same time. "Shhh, Agent M!" Merin orders as she starts giggling uncontrollably. "This is a serious mission!"
"I think you're taking this a bit too seriously, Merlin," she laughs as the moustache continues to wiggle around like a caterpillar.
"Oh please, don't tell me you never wanted to be a spy when you were younger!"
"True," she agrees. "But that was when I was about 10. And anyway, if I'm Agent M, then who are you? We can't both be Agent M."
"Yes we can."
"No, we can't! It's too confusing!"
"Can."
"Can't!"
"Yes, we can! Look, I think I should be the one who makes the important decisions. I mean, I've practically seen you naked," Merlin argues.
"Ha! That doesn't count for anything!" She retorts.
"Doesn't it?" He teases her. "Because it should. I think you've blinded me."
"Pffft. You say it like it's a bad thing." She says airily, but blushes all the same.
They sit in the car for another 5 minutes, until Morgana watched the door open and Avarr walk out.
"Bingo!" She cheers and they wait until Alvarr has disappeared around the corner before they get out of the car. They try to walk nonchalantly up to the house, but due to the hoody and the moustache, it isn't long before passers by start giving them strange looks. "Well, that was embarrassing," Morgana admits as she slots the key into the door.
"Don't be so self-conscious, Agent M."
"Stop calling me that!"
"Stop calling you what, Agent M?"
She gives him a sly pinch on the arm and opens the door. The stench of alcohol comes out to greet them as they peer down the hallway at the empty bottles and cans that are scattered all over the floor.
"Nice place," Merlin mutters, as they step in and he shuts the door behind them.
They wander upstairs, carefully dodging pieces of litter and the occassional bit of laundry. They enter the bedroom to find the duvet crumpled on the floor, along with a few pillows. She'd seen enough of Alvarr's temper to know that he'd probably flipped out when she left. Good.
She flings open the chest of drawers and begins digging out piles of clothes, before realising she has nothing to put them in. Merlin seems to notice the situation and she hears his footsteps as they descend downstairs. She stands up once finished emptying her belongings from the drawers and goes to start rummaging through the wardrobe, when she spots a photo on the floor.
She bends down and scoops it up, recognising it immediately. Her and Alvarr, on holiday in France. Before Uther's business had sunk. Before her step-father had become dependent on her relationship with this man. They were stood at the base of the Eiffel Tower and had been about to go up it, when the man they'd ask to take the photo for them had tried to run off with their camera. Alvarr had just about managed to catch up with the thief and grab the camera back before he could run too far. She smiles at the memory, at their happy faces. She wonders if he was involved with the drugs even then.
She tears the photo into two, the hands that were joined in the image are now ripped apart. The two pieces of paper flutter quietly to the floor and she jumps when she sees Merlin standing silently in the doorway, empty carrier bags tucked under his arm. She is embarrassed that he has probably seen her destroy the photo and opens her mouth to ask him how long he has been standing there, but he signals to her not to. He puts a finger to his lips, puts the carrier bag down on the bed and then walks towards her.
"There's someone downstairs," he whispers into her ear and his breath tickles at the base of her spine, somehow.
"Who?" She whispers back.
"I don't know. Some bloke, asleep on the sofa. Obviously pissed. Gingery sort of hair. Ring any bells?"
She decides that she likes Merlin when he swears.
"Nope, no idea," she leans her head against his shoulder for comfort, considerably worried now and feels him stiffen. Why does he always do that? Be so kind and willing to help and then when she goes to touch him, it's like she carries some disease he is afraid of catching. Maybe this was ony the first time. Maybe this was because of the shower incident yesterday. Maybe she's imagining it.
He pulls away from her and in the time she had been thinking about Merlin barely touching her, he had tentatively wrapped his arms around her waist for support and she hadn't even noticed.
"We should start packing," Merlin suggests and motions to the piles of clothes strewn across the carpet.
"Yes," she agrees, sad that their 'hug', if you could call it that was over before she could even acknowledge it. However, the task of shovelling clothes into plastic carrier bags was never going to be a quiet one. She winces every time something rustles and looks cautiously towards the bedroom door, expecting to see this ginger man, as Merlin had described him, to be standing there any second.
Eventually, they finish putting the clothes into the noisy bags and tiptoe downstairs. The front door creaks incredibly loudly as they open it and there is a snort from the living room. The two of them freeze at the sound and then Morgana reaches out to the bannister for her phone which lies on the stairs. She is so focussed on looking at the iving room door, that her fingers slips and her phone falls to the floor with a loud thump. A startled grunt comes from the room next door, the sound of footsteps and then the man appears, his face fearful as it peeps around the door. Merlin and Morgana both stare at eachother as the man becomes braver and squares up to them.
"Who are you?" He asks gruffly as his eyes take in the moustache, the hoody and the cap, mistaking them both as men. There is a long, silent pause.
"We is robbers, innit?" Morgana attempts a rough, gangster voice that most men seemed to talk in nowadays.
The man raises the TV remote he had been holding in case he needed a weapon. "Robbers?"
"Yeah, mate! We come and steal things from your house, innit?" She decides to play the gangster card for all it's worth.
"Why are you stealing women's clothes?" He frowns as he notices the contents of the bags.
Oh. She goes to make some witty remark about how he was really focussing on the wrong thing here, but Merlin speaks first.
"We're transvestites!" Merlin blurts out suddenly and her jaw drops. The man takes a step back and motions towards the door with the remote.
"Go." He orders and she casually picks up her phone and the bags and the both turn and wak purposefully out of the door.
"Transvestites!?" Morgana yells at Merlin in disbelief as soon as they step back into his house. He dumps the bags he was carrying onto the floor, as does she, and they continue to stare at eachother before exploding into laughter.
"Did you see his face?" Merlin grins. "Oh my God, he looked..."
"Absolutely terrified!" She finishes for him and they go into fits of laughter again.
"I loved your accent, by the way," Merlin commends her. "It was brilliant!"
"Thank you! It was quite fun actually," she admits.
"I think if we ever have to disguise ourselves as spies or gangsters again, we should make sure we wear our trousers down by our knees. Isn't that the trend nowadays? Having your jeans halfway down your backside?"
"Oh God, I know! It looks so awful! I see men going round like it in town and I just want to run up to them and pull their trousers up! No-one wants to see your pants, thank you very much!" She stops and realises how much they sound like an old, married couple, complaining about the youths of today.
"What are you smiling at?" Merlin questions her and she notices the grin she has plastered on her face.
"Just the transvestite thing again," she lies, not wanting Merlin to know she was imagining them as 80 year olds and married, hobbling around the streets and waving their walking sticks at teenagers.
"It was the first thing that came into my head, okay?" He tries to defend himself. "I couldn't help it! And you didn't look like you had much of an excuse, either!"
"I was going to say "none of your business" and then knee him in the groin, or something," Morgana tells him.
"Cruel," Merlin says. "Do you know how much that actually hurts?"
"No, but it's incredibly funny to watch."
"Oh really? Well, when it's your time of the month, or whatever the feminine kind call it, I shall remind you of this situation!" Merlin retorts and then turns red as he says it.
"Don't even go there!" Morgana warns him. "And besides, you wouldn't even know when that time was!"
"You think so? You'd either be punching me or kissing me. And if it's down to my choice, then please go with the second option," he advises and she raises an eyebrow, smirking. "Because I really don't want to be on the recieving end of one of your fists," he adds quickly. "I've already been punched this week."
"Oh, I forgot," She goes up on tiptoe and takes his chin in her hands, tilting it slightly. "It looks better," she comments as she runs her thumb over the cut on his bottom lip.
"Feels better, too. Perfect for kissing," he adds and sends her such an obvious wink, Morgana could probably see it from a mile away. She giggles and goes back down to her normal height. When had Merin gotten so flirty?
"You've been spending far too much time with Gwaine," she scolds and follows him into the living room. They sit down on the sofa and suddenly she remembers her phone and digs it out of her pocket. 11 Missed Calls - Gwen. 5 Missed Calls - Arthur. Oops.
"You should ring them," Merlin says, as he looks at the screen. "Who's Gwen? If you don't mind me asking?"
"My best friend," she replies and begins dialling in her number.
"And Arthur?"
"Brother. Well, step-brother," she explains.
"What's he like?"
"Annoying," she mutters and then Gwen picks up the phone.
"MORGANA, WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN? I'VE BEEN TRYING TO CALL YOU FOR AGES! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, WOMAN? DON'T YOU CHECK YOUR PHONE? YOU NEARLY GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK!" The woman screeches into the phone and Morgana holds the mobile as far away from her as possible.
"Nice to talk to you, too, Gwen." She replies and cautiously brings the phone closer to her ear.
"WHERE ARE YOU?"
"With a friend."
"What friend?"
"Merlin."
Gwen sniffs. "Merlin? I've never heard of him."
"I met him a few days ago," she explains.
"A few days ago?"
"Yes."
"And now you're staying at his place?"
"Uh-huh."
"MORGANA,IS THAT REALLY WISE?" Gwen bellows down the phone and Merlin blushes beside her.
"Yes, but Gwen I trust-"
"TRUST HIM? MORGANA, HE COULD BE A FLIPPING AXE-MURDERER OR SOMETHING, HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?"
"Gwen, he can hear you!" Morgana hisses down the phone and rolls her eyes as Merlin starts to laugh silenty.
"I DON'T CARE IF THE WHOLE OF BLOODY CHINA CAN HEAR ME! DON'T TRUST HIM!"
"Look, Gwen, why don't you speak to him? I'm sure he'd love to talk to you," she says and shoves the phone as Merlin who clears his throat.
"Hello. Gwen, isn't it?" He says slowly.
"Guinevere, actually," she snaps and Morgana raises her eyebrows.
"Okay, um, Guinevere, Morgana's fine, if that's what you're worried abou-"
"Yes, of course that's what I'm worried about," she interrupts.
"Well, she's okay." He says, then it goes silent and he wonders if she's hung up.
"Are you feeding her properly?"
Morgana groans and covers her face with her hands.
"Y-yes. We had pizza yesterday."
"Not very healthy."
"Well, no but it was-"
"Where is she sleeping at the moment?"
"On the sofa," Merlin says awkwardly.
"She could put her back out, sleeping on that!"
Morgana holds out her hand for the phoe and Merlin practically throws it back to her.
"Please, Gwen. I'm absolutely fine. Perhaps the person you should be having a go at is Alvarr," she sighs.
"Alvarr? Why what's he-" then Morgana ends the call and Gwen's voice disappears.
"Ready to call Arthur?" Merlin smiles and she slumps back against the sofa.
"Do you know? I really can't be bothered."
A longer chapter than I had drafted and I hope you like it! Gwen was out of character, I know, but she was very fun to write! This is up a bit later than I wanted, but I was trying to survive the first week back at school.
Anyway, please please please review! What you liked, what you didn't like and how I can improve.
Thank you so much for reading! :)
