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An Unsuspected Old Friend

Summary:

Lowell has felt crazy since the day of the boating accident back in whales, but is that what really happened? Through all this, he built a life for himself. He had a music career, and a beautiful girlfriend, never mind the fact they were both zombies. He had completely resigned himself to the fact he had horrible delusions and moved on when an old friend enters the picture and he finds out he isn’t all that crazy.

(I will add more tags and such as the story continues)

Notes:

In this, Patriot Brains never happened, also, Lowell hasn’t told Liv he loves her. Also, in this piece to help the story progress, Lowell is no longer on Blaine’s brain plan. Other than that everything is the same

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The dark haired zombie, Lowell, looked at the dead body sitting on the bench of his girlfriend’s work place. No, this wasn’t out of the ordinary, since she worked at morgue. What was unusual was recognizing the body that sat cold and dead on the counter.

“Is everything alright?” Liv, Lowell’s girlfriend, asked, clearly seeing the distress on his face.

Lowell shook his head, “I know this person.”

“Oh my god….” Liv walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, “I wouldn’t have asked you to come if I had known….”

“I didn’t even know he was alive. Well, I guess now I know he isn’t.”

Laying on the table was a young man, 20 at best, with bright green eyes and curly dark hair. In another life Lowell knew him as Mordred, but that was centuries ago, quite literally. There was a reason people tended to call Lowell an old soul.

The boy had suffered blunt force trauma to the head, but that hadn’t kill him. What had killed him was the stab wound in his stomach. It looked as though he had tried to get away. There was dirt under his nails, most likely from crawling away from the scene. The wound itself looked as though it was from a long object, Ravi suggested a pipe of some sort, but the wound seemed less circular than a pipe. He had been found in a park by a poor teen couple.

Liv pulled out the bone saw, she did need to find out how this had happened to the boy, but with the way Lowell was acting, she figures he might need to leave the room first. “Do you want to.” she pointed toward the door.

“Actually, do you think I could help with this one? You did say I could grab a bite while here.”

Looking at her boss, Liv nodded. She understood wanting to help find out what killed his friend. That’s actually was how the two met.

The pair drowned the brains in hot sauce, making sure that if this was going to be unpleasant, at least they would taste good.

Almost immediately after taking in the brains of the boy, both zombies got very different visions.

Lowell saw himself, playing his guitar. The boy must have been standing behind a bush because there were leaves blocking his view of who he assumed was Liv. He then looked down at a notebook, with notes about Lowell written down, mostly about his similarities to the King Arthur legends. So he did know, or at least suspected. The boy then flipped to a different page, full of phone numbers and addresses, but the vision ended to quickly for Lowell to see any name other than Merlin.

Liv on the other hand had a very strange vision of a sword fight against a man who looked oddly like a blonde version of Lowell (He was very wrong about looking freaky as a blonde). The vision came to a close when the boy’s eyes whom Liv was watching this from stabbed the man that he was fighting.

“That was weird.” The two commented simultaneously.

“You first,” Liv prodded.

“Well it seems I had a stalker,” Lowell stated, “he was watching me from behind a bush, taking notes on things I did. It looked like he was doing it to a few people.”

Ravi looked at Lowell nervously, “You might want to keep that to yourself during the investigation….”

“What do you mean?” Liv asked.

“Well, you just admitted that he knew the boy and that he was stalked by him that might seem like motive….”

Lowell pulled back, offended by the accusation, “I didn’t even know he was alive!”

“I believe you, but Ravi’s right, let’s play it safe for now,” Liv added, trying to help with the tension building in the room.

“Well what did you see?” Ravi asked looking at Liv.

Liv scowled, “it was really weird, he was sword fighting with someone, and they were all dressed in like renaissance clothes. He stabbed the guy. You think he was a Ren fair actor or something?”

Lowell whipped around, “what did he look like, the guy he stabbed?”

“Honestly, You, but he had blonde hair, but you said you would look freaky as a blonde….” Liv trailed off thinking about how wrong Lowell was, the doppelganger looked exactly like him and the hair looked rather nice to Liv…

Looking down at the boy on the table, Lowell knew the vision she had seen. It often haunted him at night. That face had been one that he had trusted, but still, he was betrayed. He wanted to pretend he hated him, but he felt responsible. Could he have done something differently?

Lowell physically had to shake his head to pull himself out of the thought, but it always stood in the back of his mind.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Liv asked, “You really aren’t acting, right.”

Lowell looked at the floor, his head starting to spin, “Your right, I’m going to go.” He started to head out the door when he ran into a man walking in. He was wearing familiar boots and brown jeans. Lowell started to lift his head, noticing a blue shirt and a red scarf. When he reached the head he saw a familiar goofy grin and ears too large for the boy’s head. “Merlin?”

“Hello Lowell, I’ve been looking for you.”

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Lowell was dumbfounded, how could Merlin be here? He knew him thousands of years ago, how could he even be alive? But then again, how could Lowell be alive? If Lowell was honest with himself, he thought he was crazy for the past several years with the whole coming back from the dead thing, and he didn’t mean as a zombie. It had to be one nasty boating accident. But he wasn’t crazy. There was Mordred sitting on the table behind him and Merlin standing in front of him.

Liv had repositioned herself, standing in front of the brains so that Merlin wouldn’t see them, and scrambled to put a lid on them.

As she was doing so Ravi cleared his throat, “and you are?”

“Sorry!” Merlin jumped up to shake Ravi’s hand, “Merlin, Lowell and I go way back.”

“Your parents must have liked the Arthurian legends, huh?” Ravi smiled back.

Merlin laughed a bit, “No they just thought the name sounded nice.”

Ravi and Merlin shared a laugh together, then Merlin spoke up again. “Mind if I steal Lowell away for a bit? We really need to talk. Lots to catch up on and such. I caught wind of what happened to Michael, and wanted to see how Lowell was holding up.”

“So, you knew Michael Drew as well?” Liv asked, holding up the clip board with all the information about the victim on it.

Merlin’s face fell, “Yes, I did. He and I were business partners…and close friends.”

Lowell gave Merlin a confused look, Mordred and Merlin were always at odds when Lowell knew them, now Merlin regarded him as a close friend.

Merlin gave Lowell that knowing look, one which Lowell remembered from all those years ago. Somehow, Merlin would let him know all that had happened between himself and Mordred.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Liv looked at the young man sitting on the table. “He was only 20, how long were you two in business together?”

Laughing, Merlin answered, “Much longer than you would think.” He paused for a moment, looking very pleased with himself, and then looked at Lowell again, “So, Lunch?”

Lowell, who hadn’t said a word other than Merlin’s name when he first walked in, was still dumbstruck. He just sat there, staring at the man he could have sworn he invented in a dream, but here he was.

“Hey,” Liv put a hand on Lowell’s shoulder, “You don’t have to go with him, if you don’t want to.”

Merlin’s face scrunched up, “what do you mean by that?”

Liv rolled her eyes, “He’s obviously uncomfortable, why else hasn’t he spoken?”

Sighing Merlin looked to Lowell, “I’ll be outside, come find me when you decide to get lunch with me.”

“If,” Liv corrected, “If he decides to have lunch with you.”

Merlin just smiled, “Trust me, he will. He has too many questions not to.”

With that, Merlin sauntered out of the morgue, leaving Lowell standing there, still speechless.

“Well that was interesting,” Ravi noted

“I don’t like him.” Liv stated, She never was one to keep her feelings silent.

Lowell, finally coming out of his silent stupor, looked between Ravi and Liv, “I have to go get lunch with him…”

Liv looked at Lowell, very protective, “No! What if you get hurt?” she called.

“I’m fine, I can handle him if need be, I am a zombie after all.” Lowell sighed. “He was right. I have too many questions.”

Liv stalked over to him. It seemed as though the trait she picked up from Michael was being extremely protective, particularly of Lowell. Since Michael had been a knight long, long ago, Liv’s presence started to mimic that of a knight, she stood straighter and looked to Lowell as if awaiting orders. “You can’t, I don’t trust him.”

Lowell laughed a bit, remembering Merlin saying the same thing about Michael, ages ago. “I know, but I have to. He was a friend a long time ago, and as crazy as it sounds, I still trust him.”

“Your right, that sounds crazy,” Liv sighed, “I’ll go with you then,”

Most people would have protested when they had as much to hide as Lowell did, but he had worked with the knights before, he knew there was nothing he could say to keep her from coming with him. “Alright, let me go to the loo and we can find him together.” He smiled and walked out of the room.

Liv smiled, pleased with herself, “Well I guess I should wash my hands.” Liv pulled off her gloves and walked to the sink.

As she turned the water on, Ravi looked at her in amazement, “You do realize the bathroom is in the back, and he just walked out the front!”

Liv looked up. How could she have missed that? She just trusted Lowell blindly, not even noticing him leaving the room when he didn’t need to. She threw off her lab coat, snagged her jacket and headed for the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I find him.”

Ravi smiled, “don’t be too hard on him, he never really talks about his past, this must be weird for him.”

Liv gave an impish grin to her boss, “It’s a good thing he’s already dead, or I would kill him.” And she darted out of the room.

By the time she reached the outside, Merlin and Lowell were nowhere to be seen. Liv pulled out her phone and called her boyfriend.

To her surprise, Lowell picked up, and started speaking rather fast. “Before you start I know you’re mad at me but this is something I have to do on my own. I don’t want to involve you. I’ll tell you anything I find out about Michael. Can you forgive me?”

Liv sighed, “I guess so, but be careful, if anything happens, call immediately.”

Lowell’s sigh of relief could be heard over the phone, “Alright Liv, I’ll call you soon. Go help Ravi with that autopsy. We need to know what happened to Michael.”

“Yes sir,” Liv almost shouted, like she was in the army. She looked at the ground confused, “Bye,” and she hung up the phone. Had Michael been in the army? Is that where this was coming from? She had to get down to Ravi to try and figure things out, they were just getting weirder and weirder.

Notes:

This chapter is still a little confusing, but I hope you all are ready for three! It starts to explain a little bit more. If you have any comments or suggestions please let me know! Also, who are you hopping to see next? (Hint, its a families Merlin face)

Also special thanks to my beta and editor, your the best! I love you!

Notes:

Thank you for reading, I'm not sure how often I will be able to update, but I will do so as much as I can! I actually have chapter two written, I just need to edit it and have my beta read it. Please leave me any feedback you have, id love to hear it.