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Gawain is a menace to work with, and some days, Chris wishes he’d be paired with anyone except for him. Merlin seems to think it’s funny, to pair the Australians together, and while, admittedly, it works in their favor when they have to play foreigner while working assignments, Chris is very tired of Gawain getting them into trouble.
Like, for example, today. Today, when Gawain went ahead and shot the asshole they were using as a hostage because the guy said his tie looked stupid. “Are you kidding me?” Chris mutters under his breath and fixes his glasses on his face, ignoring Merlin’s incredulous laughter through the comms. “Leave him- Leave him, Gawain.”
Gawain, with some reluctance, drops the body and nimbly jumps over the guy’s body. In some ways, Chris has to wonder how they make Gawain’s suits; there’s no way they’re the standard issue shit, with the way Gawain pulls off some of the acrobatics that he does.
Like twenty minutes later, when the stairwell they’re trying to get up is blown up and caved in and Gawain only pauses for a minute before he backs up and gets a running head start. Chris knows of Gawain’s background in parkour- anyone who spends longer than six minutes around him or Lancelot back at HQ knows, given they prefer to take running leaps over the railings than take the stairs, much to Merlin and Arthur’s chagrin- but it’s still something else to watch it properly in action in the field. Gawain is effortless in the way he makes it up the wall, using his own movement to push off the wall and pull himself over the railing of the second floor. “I’ll meet you back around by one of the elevators and get you up the shaft,” Gawain suggests, his voice coming through on both the comms and echoed in the stairwell. Chris looks up and grimaces but turns and takes off in the other direction.
“Merlin, how are we doing on time?” Gawain is somewhat more bearable when they’re separated, Chris realizes, because he says something every few minutes as if to confirm he is not only alive and uninjured, but also not compromised.
“You should have been out twenty minutes ago,” Merlin says dryly from the other end of the line and Gawain laughs, bright and loud.
“Right on schedule then,” he says, and Chris can’t help but grin despite himself. Gawain isn’t wrong - he and Gawain are always behind on their assignments. It’s a miracle they’ve never had to justify their inability to follow Merlin’s timetables yet.
(Then again, Merlin has a soft spot for the both of them, and they both know it. Gawain was one of Merlin’s own suggested, and Chris has been an agent for long enough to develop a somewhat strained relationship with Arthur, and thus, put himself in Merlin’s good books).
“Gawain, I’m over by the west wing,” Chris says and slips into a group of fleeing tourists, blending in to get past the next set of guards. “Where are you?”
“Third floor. I don’t think I can get down easily. Going up,” Gawain answers and then there’s a pause of silence. “Galahad?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“My name’s Felix.”
“Chris,” Chris says after a pause. “We’ll get out of this, mate, alright? None of that shit. We’ve gotten out of worse before.”
“God, I know,” Gawain- Felix- groans on the other end. Merlin is almost suspiciously silent from his end of the comms. “Do you remember that bomb in Kuwait?”
“I try not to think about it,” Chris replies dryly. Felix laughs, though it’s cut off by a grunt.
“Ow, that hurt, motherfucker,” Felix says. The silenced shot he takes is clear, even through the comms, and Chris finds an alcove and ducks into it.
“You good, Gawain?”
“Yeah. Fucking hate the big ones, though. They always tackle me.”
“Well,” Chris says slowly. “When you look like a fairy in a suit waving around a gun, tackling you generally seems to be the way to take you down.”
“You calling me a faggot?” Felix asks, and his tone is oddly light. Chris frowns and gestures rudely into the shadows of the alcove. Merlin lets out a huff of laughter. “Merlin, I need remote access to the computers here. Galahad, I’m in the security office. I can get you up here.”
“Bet,” Chris says and takes off in the direction Felix tells him as Merlin talks Felix through hacking the computers.
Back at HQ following the successful completion of the mission, Chris drops down onto his bed and stares up at the ceiling, nursing a bruised shoulder but otherwise uninjured. Felix would have a black eye, but he, too, was mostly uninjured. He had been swept away by the other agents he was friendly with, Lancelot and Bors, while Chris stuck around to finish giving his own report and then to relax.
Or, at least, that had been the plan. A timid knock draws Chris’s attention and he stands, crossing to the door, where Felix is standing on the other side, his suit jacket shed and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Despite that, Felix still cuts a figure, in the waistcoat tailored to his body and his movements tight and coiled, as if ready to spring at any moment. “Hey,” Felix says.
“Hi?” Chris blinks. “Can- I help you, Gawain?”
“I told you, my name’s Felix,” Felix says and brushes past Chris into the room. “You alright? Morgana said your shoulder was fucked up.”
“Jihyo noona is being dramatic. It’s bruised, I’ll be fine,” Chris brushes him off with a quick shake of his head. Despite that, as Chris closes the door, Felix presses his fingers into the tender spot and Chris lets out a hiss and draws back away from him.
“Mate, you’re hurt-”
“Shocking, how when you press into a bruise, it hurts,” Chris snaps back. Felix draws back, an expression flicking across his face before it’s banished. Not before Chris can place it, though. Hurt . He lets out a sigh and rubs his hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company after assignments. I just sleep, usually.”
“We keep getting paired together for assignments,” Felix says, slipping his hands into the pockets of his pants, as if to prove he wouldn’t poke him again. Chris doesn’t believe the action. “I thought it’s kinda important for me to kinda know the guy I keep working with, y’know? It’s been a while, we’ve been working together.”
“Do you know a lot about Lancelot and Bors?” Chris asks, mostly sarcastically, but Felix blinks at him in surprise.
“Minho and Hyunjin? Yeah?” Chris sighs and drops his head into his hands as a slow grin spreads across Felix's face.