Insert something witty here.
Title: I Can't Remember When.
Pairing(s): Bradley/Colin.
Warnings: Angst, fluff, jealousy, fluff, fluff, jealousy, fluff, random bits of humour that aren't really all that humourous, truly terrible nicknames. And fluff.
Spoiler(s): None - it is set in the future.
Word count: 1614.
Rating: PG.
Summary: Colin can't remember the last time he saw Bradley laugh.
Author's Notes: This is what happens when I listen to music while working. I get ideas and then I have to write said ideas rather than doing my work, which means my coursework got done much later in the night than I originally intended. With thanks as always to the lovely, tireless, long suffering Muffin - aka woodsgal - for soothing my fears and poking and prodding me and just for being her. ILY, Muffin, and you are an awesome beta. This fic is based entirely on the line, "I can't remember when I last saw you laughing" from the song True Colours. The song has nothing to do with the fic at all, I just heard that line and then it kind if just morphed into this fic.
I don’t really know who you are anymore, Bradley James.
We are filming season five now. Five seasons! The best part is that we don’t even know if this will be the last one. There can’t be many more after this, and we all know it, but we are more than happy just to be here now, together.
Well, most of us are. The problem is, Bradley, that I can’t honestly remember the last time I saw you laughing.
You, Bradley, and not Arthur. You are different, the pair of you, similar in many ways but different in many more. Arthur laughs, but you do not. And you haven’t for a long time.
I don’t know what has changed. As far as I can see, nothing has. I haven’t changed, and outwardly, neither have you. But something has changed in you, Bradley. The others see it, too. I know that they do, because they keep asking me what is wrong. The only trouble is, I can’t tell them.
You look troubled and sad all the time, and you’ve been acting off with me. Not the Bradley I know, not the Bradley I knew. You are cold with me, not joking and laughing. You had another bath spider but got rid of it without me. You did it on your own. The previous ease of our relationship, the bond that we shared, seems to have disintegrated, but I am not sure how or when or why. I’m not really sure of anything at the moment, Bradley.
----
Bradley watched as Colin talked to Rupert, getting all animated in that way he did, throwing his hands about and grinning and laughing and lighting up the space around him in the way that only Colin could.
Bradley hated Rupert Young right now with a passion.
He narrowed his bright blue eyes at the taller man, wishing he was Cyclops from X-Men so that he could shoot lasers from his eyes and lop Rupert in half.
He watched them for a long time, hanging back on the other side of the courtyard. He watched them avidly, watched Colin’s hands as they popped in and out of the too long sleeves on that ridiculous coat he was wearing. He looked like a cross between a marshmallow and the Michelin man, and he was wearing his neckerchief beneath it, and it should have looked ridiculous but somehow it didn’t, because it was Colin, and Colin always looked adorable.
Bradley loved Colin’s hands. They were long and pale and when they popped out of his coat sleeves like that they reminded Bradley of…well, they reminded Bradley foremost of Colin’s hands, since that is what they were. He groaned quietly and mentally cursed himself. Why couldn’t he have more romantic thoughts? Why couldn’t he compare Colin’s hands to a sunrise or something poetic like that?
Oh, yeah. That would be because he was an idiot. He was going to try again.
When Colin’s hands popped out of his coat sleeves like that, they reminded Bradley of a sunrise - bright and ethereal and beautiful, rising up and warming everything they came into contact with. They wafted away the clouds that hung around him, much the same way as the sun burnt them away…
Bradley decided he should stick to unromantic, unpoetic thoughts. It was much safer.
Colin said something to Rupert and started coming over to him. Bradley started and looked at his watch, then slapped a hand to his forehead in the manner of someone who had forgotten an important meeting. As he hurried off, Colin looked bemused.
Bradley wasn’t surprised, because he was too - he never even wore a watch.
He wasn’t filming with Colin that day, and so he managed to avoid the Irish man quite well. Every time Colin came towards him, Bradley either pretended someone had called him away or hid, since often he saw Colin before Colin saw him. It worked very well, and at the end of the day he was sat in his room feeling rather smug with himself.
That is, until there was a knock at the door.
“Bradley? Can I come in?” Colin called.
Bradley was silent.
“I know you are in there, Bradley.”
Silence.
“Bradley?”
Silence.
“Bradders?”
Oh no, he didn’t.
“Bradders, please let me in? If you don’t, I’ll post it all over the internet that you let me call you Bradders…”
“I’ll just post that you let me called you Colly.”
Now it was Colin’s turn to be silent. This was why no one should give their friends nicknames while drunk.
“Touché. Please let me in?”
“Why should I?”
Bradley’s voice was petulant, and Colin could tell he was pouting. This was going to be harder than he thought.
“Because I haven’t seen you laughing since the last time I saw you.”
“I’ve laughed lots,” Bradley immediately disagreed.
“No. Arthur has laughed lots. Bradley, on the other hand, hasn’t laughed at all.”
Bradley knew that Colin was right. Colin was always right, because Colin was unusually observant. It was a very annoying skill, and Bradley folded his arms across his chest.
“Will you go away?”
“Not until we have talked.”
Bradley heaved a great sigh.
“Fine. Come in.”
Colin opened the door and poked his head around, and then the rest of his body followed. Bradley marvelled in how much like a praying mantis with anorexia Colin looked like, but he made it work for him. He was stronger than he looked, too - Bradley knew that from experience.
“Bradley, can you please tell me what is wrong?”
Bradley looked at Colin. His friend looked worried, his brows furrowed, his front teeth chewing at his lower lip. Bradley shrugged.
“Nothing is wrong,” he insisted. Colin sighed.
“I know something is wrong, Bradley, I just can’t figure out what.”
Bradley stared at him.
“Please?” Colin asked, and his expression was so pleading that Bradley could resist no longer.
“You should know - you are the one having a secret relationship and not telling me about it,” Bradley huffed. Colin frowned.
“Secret relationship? Bradley, what are you on about?” Colin asked, sounding so genuinely confused that Bradley almost believed him. Would have done, too, if it weren’t for the fact that he knew what a good actor Colin was.
“Your relationship with Rupert!” Bradley cried. Colin blinked, looking at him oddly.
“My relationship with Rupert,” he repeated slowly.
“Yes!! During the break, you said you couldn’t see me because you were with Rupert!” Bradley said passionately. Colin blinked, then slowly smiled. It was like the sun had come out and was in Bradley’s room, close enough to touch.
“Bradley…I went to Rupert’s place to see him. We got snowed in, and I got stuck there for a few days. There was no power, so I couldn’t charge my phone and had to conserve the battery. That’s why I only texted you that I was with him and didn't explain it better - I didn’t have all that much power left,” Colin explained. Bradley looked at him, his expression absurdly hopeful.
“Really?”
“Really. Why would that make you so upset?”
Bradley blushed and hung his head, mumbling something.
“I didn’t catch that,” Colin said, leaning in a little closer.
“Thought it meant you liked him more than me. Thought it meant you didn’t like me enough to be with me,” Bradley said, a little louder. Colin blinked, startled, then grinned.
“You thought it meant that I didn’t want to date you?” he asked, just to clarify. Bradley nodded, still not looking at him.
“Yes,” he mumbled.
“Oh, Bradley. You are such an idiot,” Colin said, and then their lips were pressed together.
----
I hadn’t smiled in so long it was almost as if I had forgotten how to do it. Laughing was even stranger.
But you made me smile, Colin Morgan. And you made me laugh for the first time in too long. And you love me. Or at least are very fond of me.
You are lying naked in my bed now, Colin. And you are beautiful. I don’t think I ever told you before, but I will have to. Because you are so impossibly beautiful it makes my heart ache. With your ears and your cheekbones and your eyes and your smile it should just look weird, but it doesn’t, it looks beautiful, and your insanely long eyelashes cast shadows over your cheekbones, sharper than ever in the dim lighting, and I can’t help but marvel at your beauty, and at how lucky I am. I am very lucky, Colin, to have you.
You make a little snuffly kitten noise and shift closer to me, mumbling my name in your sleep. I smile and drop a kiss into your hair, your dark midnight hair that smells so perfect, like pines, and I wonder what shampoo you use. I don’t want to use it myself, I’d just like a bottle so that I can smell your hair whenever I want. I won’t tell you, of course, I’ll just find out and get a bottle and hide it. I’m not as stupid as you think.
But it is late now, and I am tired. You’ve been sleeping a while, but I wanted to take the time to admire you, Colin, to see you look so sweet and fragile and vulnerable. I’ll protect you, though. You don’t need it, because everyone all but worships the ground upon which you walk, but if anyone ever hurts you, I’ll hurt them much more, because right now you look like you are made of porcelain, so fragile, so breakable.
Goodnight, Colin. I love you.