Stranded - Bradley/Colin
It’s been four hours, and all Colin has to be grateful for is the fact that the hottest part of the day is over. He’s thrown up twice, and he doesn’t know why - just that he feels sick with the heat, and exhausted. He’s not sure what he’s going to do. He could call 911, he supposes, but the police will only call a tow truck he can’t afford to pay, and then what will he do? Even if they bill him later, where will he come up with the ninety dollars that it will no doubt take to pay them?
Still, no one has stopped - not a single state trooper, not a single concerned passing driver. He wonders what he would do, if he saw someone stranded on the side of the road: would he stop to help them? He doesn’t know. He thinks he probably wouldn’t. He’s heard too many horror stories about good Samaritans who were hijacked or kidnapped because they stopped to help someone on the side of the interstate. He doesn’t want to be one of them. Still, he hopes that if it did happen, he would at least call the police, do something to let someone know that there was a car out on the road with a driver that needed help.
It occurs to him that he hears gravel crunching, and he lifts his head from where he’s let it rest on his arm, where he’s curled on his side in the trunk. A car has pulled up behind his own and has cut the engine, and he thinks, finally, someone is here to help him, to get him out of this bad situation. He sits up fully, rubbing his hands through his hair, swallowing. His throat is so dry. He doesn’t know how he’s going to talk, and to explain the situation.
But - oh. He stares. That’s all he can do because - “What are you doing here?” he asks quietly, sliding out of the trunk.
Bradley pushes his keys into his pocket, approaching him slowly, like he’s an animal that’s going to bolt. “I’m here to help.” He holds his arms out demonstratively, a nervous smile on his face. “I brought you a gallon of gas.”
Colin can’t help but just look at him. It’s been a year since he last saw him, and the year’s been good to him. He’s as fit as ever, and Colin’s sure he still plays soccer, up with his new friends at law school. His hair is blonder than he remembers, but summertime has just passed, and Bradley has always liked to spend time outdoors. “You drove three hours to help me?”
“Well, two and a half, since you didn’t quite make it to Bloomington.” Bradley grins, and it’s like nothing’s changed. Nothing has happened in the last year to come between them. “Anyway, do you want me to fill your tank for you so you can get going?”
“I - yes, please,” Colin says quietly, sitting back down on the edge of the trunk, a little dazed, while Bradley retrieves the can from the backseat of his Hyundai.
He hands Colin a bottle of water as he passes him to open the tank. “You look like you could use this.”
He thanks him, twists it open and drinks it greedily, not caring about the noisy crackling as the plastic collapses. He doesn’t stop until it’s empty, and he sits panting for a long time, enjoying the sensation of being hydrated. He turns to watch Bradley, frowning. “How did you know I was out here?”
“Well, Katie and Eoin called asking if I would be willing to come down and help you, even though it was so far away. They were busy, apparently.”
Colin wants to be surprised by that. He would really prefer to have not been told that altogether, but he supposes he asked. The only two people in the world he thought he was close enough to that they might come and help him all but abandoned him. And he’s not surprised, because even they are at a distance. Even they find him so unimportant that they can leave him stranded on I-55 without a thought to the fact that he would be waiting for hours.
“Well, that’s that.” Colin makes note of the fact that Bradley puts the can in the back of Colin’s car. He knows it’s so that he will keep extra fuel in his trunk just in case of instances like these in the future. “You’re all done.” He pauses beside Colin, where he remains seated in the trunk, staring at his shoes. Bradley lets out a soft sigh, one that Colin knows very, very well, and then the car dips down when he sits beside him. He isn’t even surprised when he starts to cry.
~*~
Colin didn’t get off to a great start when he reached university. He was homesick and lonely, and too shy to successfully make friends on his own. So he did things alone, or with people he probably wouldn’t hang out with if he wasn’t so lonely. In his first two weeks, he was late for most of his classes because he decided to get stoned before them. Pot helped with most of his anxiety; he felt loose and easy and able to take on the world. A lot of people liked him when he was under its influence, because he smiled a lot and wasn’t as afraid of speaking to someone he didn’t know that well.
He liked to sit out on the quad, smoking with one or two other people out of a hookah bong. Professors walking on their way to class never seemed to notice the smell, or maybe they didn’t know it as being any different from the smell of hookah; it’s a sweet-smelling tobacco after all. One professor - one he had for a creative writing class later on in his college career - gave them a thumbs-up as she passed, as if she knew exactly what they were up to and couldn’t approve more.
He met Bradley officially at the end of his first week of classes. He knew they lived on the same floor in their dorm, but he hadn’t ever talked to him. He wasn’t able to, no matter how much he’d like to. There was something absolutely terrifying about him. He always seemed easygoing enough, blonde and bright, with a constant smile and one of those guffawing laughs that one could hear from half a mile away. Even with his door closed, Colin could hear him laughing. But no matter how much he wanted to be a part of that, to be the person causing that laughter, he couldn’t. He didn’t think there was enough of him, enough to him to make him interesting enough for Bradley to want, even as a friend.
The chemistry course he took that semester had over two hundred students in it. It was a general education course, so almost every student in the university had to take some version of it. The lecture hall was huge, which was one of the reasons Colin liked the class. He never held any particularly vast interest in chemistry, but he appreciated this chance to disappear. He could sneak into the back of the classroom and not be noticed by anyone. It was harder to do in English classes because they were smaller; more was expected of him. There were participation points and faces he recognized on the quad or in the dining hall, and he ended up much more anxious than he really needed to feel.
He found out completely by accident that Bradley was in that same chemistry course with him. It made sense; since so many students had to take the class, it was only bound statistically for one of the people that Colin actually knew to be in his class. Of course, he didn’t really expect for it to be someone he had such an unnerving infatuation with.
Bradley was the kind of person that always had a spare pencil, just in case someone in the class needed one. He tended to also make a point to sit toward the back of the lecture hall, having taken an extra copy of the test, just in case someone dodged into the classroom late and needed it, since asking for one from the professor or the TA when one was late generally meant that one would be in some sort of trouble - usually in the vein of failing the exam automatically. Bradley of course was the kind of person who hated the idea of someone not getting a chance to show they knew the material, just because they were a few minutes late arriving to class. It wasn’t that he was nerdy or even a teacher’s pet; he just seemed to have this instinctive urge to help people, even if he didn’t know them.
This was how he and Colin met - officially, anyway. Colin overslept from a marijuana-induced nap, and had to run from his dorm across the quad in some attempt to get to the class on time. He was only three minutes late, which he was impressed with himself for managing, and when he sagged down in the last row, trying to catch his breath, he didn’t even realize at first that the guy sitting next to him was Bradley - the boy from down the hall who shared a room with Eoin, who was the guy that yelled too much in the middle of the night, for whom Bradley seemed to be constantly apologizing. He didn’t realize it was him until Bradley was pushing a copy of the test onto his desk.
Colin flashed a smile at him, mouthing, “Thank you!” and went about patting his pockets, looking for the pencil he was sure he shoved into one of them along with his ID card on his way out. He was a little too distracted by Bradley’s profile - his strong nose and full, cherry-red lips and dark, curving eyelashes - to sufficiently look, and when Bradley held out a pencil in front of his nose, as if he sensed his scrutiny - which Colin thought he’d managed rather subtly, by the way - he took it with a surprised little huff, touching his shoulder in thanks again.
Colin finished his test first - not really because he knew the material any better than Bradley did; it was more because he had no idea what any of the gibberish on the paper meant. He found that the best way to deal with not knowing the answers was to bluff his way through, show some sort of bravado, like that would somehow steer him in the right direction. Generally speaking, this didn’t work. But it did make him feel better.
He waited outside of the room for Bradley to exit, and when he did, he ran to catch up to him. “Thank you for saving my ass in there.”
Bradley paused, startled, and blinked at him, before flashing him a blinding smile. “Don’t mention it. You looked really flustered; I figured you could use a hand. You’re Colin, right?”
Colin stared at him for a long moment before realizing he had to actually answer that. “Oh! Uh. Yeah. I am. How did you know that?”
“Well, you live down the hall.” Bradley laughed lightly, hitching his backpack up on his shoulder. “You’re not exactly hard on the eyes either; I noticed you right away at our first floor meeting.”
“Oh.” Colin blushed, cleared his throat. “Well, thank you. I’ve noticed you too, around and stuff. You’ve always seemed really cool.”
“You think?” He knocked their shoulders together, playfully, like they’d known each other forever. “Well, why don’t you come out with me tonight? There’s an old movie playing at the Normal Theater that I’d like to see, and it might be fun to go with a date.”
“A date?” Colin practically squeaked it out. “You want to go on a date with me?”
“You can say no, you know.”
“No! I mean - no, I don’t want to say no. That is, yes, I’d really like to go on a date with you.”
“Well, good! I’m glad to hear it. I’m headed to Schroeder for class, so I’ll pick you up at 6:30. I know the address!” Bradley winked, and was off. Colin just stood there, stunned, like a miracle had happened and he’d been there to witness it.
He didn’t give the pencil back, but he always made sure to use it in class after that so Bradley would see.
***
The university hosted a festival every fall. There were booths for each club and student organization on campus, a way to get involved with anything that could possibly interest someone, and all of the local restaurants, banks and businesses set up tables to promote interest in their products. There were free t-shirts, free pens, and free food galore, and Colin loved it.
So far, he had signed up for a Doctor Who fan club, a writing journal and the PRIDE group. He was very uncertain if he would actually make it to the meetings of any of these clubs. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any interest in them or that he didn’t want to go. He just sometimes was so crippled by his own lack of self-confidence that he froze up in those situations. In high school, he once got as far as the door of the scholastic bowl team meeting before he noticed just how many people were inside the room; he then turned tail and ran home. When his mom asked how the meeting went over dinner, he told her that the club was cancelled due to lack of interest.
He was okay with everything though. He had a reusable grocery bag from one of the stands that was giving them out, and he had it stuffed with free t-shirts and highlighters and cups that changed colors when you put a cold drink in them. He’d also collected more chocolate and free food than he actually thought was possible to all exist in one place. His stomach actually felt a bit distended, and he didn’t think he was actually going to be able to eat dinner that night, which was unfortunate since he had plans to go out with Bradley.
But it was okay, because Bradley was with him right now, stuffing himself with an equally large amount of food. Bradley though seemed to be able to eat enough for three, and that was not something he and Colin had in common. Not to mention that Colin was a vegetarian; Bradley made sure to regularly make fun of him for that. (He knew he didn’t really mean it though, especially because when they went out to restaurants, Bradley always asked after the ingredients in the food, to make sure they were vegetarian-friendly for Colin. It was almost ridiculously romantic, and therefore embarrassing. He wished he could reciprocate in some way, but there was little he could think to do.)
They had only been dating for a couple of weeks but, as far as Colin’s limited experience with dating was telling him, it was going rather well. Bradley seemed to think he was funny, though he told him on their first date - the movie and then a walk through the soft-lit streets of Uptown Normal eating frozen yogurt from Chill Out - that he never knew if he should approach him because he seemed like he didn’t want anyone to talk to him. Colin thought maybe that’s what he had been going for but hadn’t liked the result of much.
They were on a much better level now, better at talking about anything, past the getting-to-know-each-other stage but not quite to the groping-each-other-constantly-and-always-wanting-to-make-out stage. Colin wanted very much to get to that stage, but Bradley seemed to be respecting him and the fact that he had never really done this before. He’d gone on one or two dates in high school, but he’d never gotten to this point with anybody, where he was starting to think of someone as his significant other or his boyfriend.
“Do you want to get some cotton candy?” Bradley asked, still eating the half-melted ice cream he’d gotten from a booth a couple aisles back. “I think it might be our last stop and then we’ve been to every single booth here.” He wasn’t exaggerating. Even at the places that neither of them really cared about, they stopped to talk to the people at the table. Colin was sort of proud of them for that; they made at least one person smile at each one. Bradley had that kind of effect on people, it seemed.
“I honestly think I’m going to throw up,” Colin laughed, lacing their fingers together and squeezing his hand. It was the boldest he’d been so far, to be able to hold Bradley’s hand, and he knew how lame that was - to be eighteen years old and unable to find the courage to kiss his prospective boyfriend. He thought sometimes that if he was Bradley, he would have given up and moved on to someone else already.
“Aw, c’me on, Col! Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Alright, alright.” He allowed himself to be pulled over to the cotton candy booth. Once there, Bradley asked for just one cotton candy, and they shared it. Colin popped a small piece into his mouth, letting it melt on his tongue. He hummed happily. “Well, at least cotton candy doesn’t really take up any room in my stomach, so it won’t be any fuller.”
“Positive thinking! One of the many things I like about you!”
Colin almost stopped in his tracks at that. His hand holding Bradley’s pulled him along after him. “You like a lot of things about me?”
“Well, obviously.” Bradley grinned at him, biting directly into the candy so that he didn’t have to let go of Colin’s hand. “You’re pretty much the coolest person I know, and I know a lot of really cool people.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Not in the slightest.” He did let go of his hand then, but only to peel off some of the candy and hold it to Colin’s mouth. He opened up for it, letting him press it in onto his tongue. “Why do you think I’m always hanging out in your room and begging to spend time with you? I have so much fun with you.”
Colin scuffed his shoe on the ground, bashful. “Well, thank you. I agree, you know. I have fun with you too. I’m having fun with you.”
“Hey. Hey, Col, look.” He lifted his head. Bradley had cotton candy stuck to his face around his mouth, in the shape of a goatee. “Cotton candy beard!”
Colin wasn’t sure how to react to that at first, and all he could do was stare at him. A moment later, he was laughing, and the moment after that, he was reeling him in with a hand on the back of his neck to press their mouths together.
He figured there were worse first kisses than ones that tasted like cotton candy.
***
Bradley was a year ahead of Colin in university; when they met, Bradley was a sophomore, and Colin was just starting his freshman year. It never made much of a difference in their relationship. For the most part, Bradley wasn’t taking classes any harder than Colin’s and in some cases, they were sharing courses. That made everything very easy; it didn’t seem as much like they had a large space between them when it came to academia and the things they had to accomplish.
The university offered the option for students in their third and fourth years studying there to live off-campus, out of the dorms. Bradley didn’t take the option, even though Colin urged him to, especially when Eoin needed a roommate and asked Bradley to move with him into the small apartment he’d found close to campus. He said he wasn’t going to leave Colin behind to leave in a single in the dorms all by himself, so he didn’t. For Colin’s sophomore year, they shared a dorm room. Colin had been apprehensive about the idea (What if they broke up?), but Bradley was a perfect roommate, and, even though they only had twin beds, they slept curled up together at night in Bradley’s. (They always left Colin’s bed made though, just in case their RA noticed the suspicious lack of bedclothes and thought maybe they shouldn’t have been sharing a room.)
When Colin began his junior year, they rented a one-bedroom apartment together. It was small but it felt more cozy than cramped. There was an island counter in the kitchen, and that had been the one stipulation of any apartments they looked at, because Bradley wanted to be able to stand at their counter and cook dinner like a TV chef (which rarely happened, but Colin bought him a chef’s hat for when it did). They got lucky, because it was fully-furnished, utilities included in their rent, with a washer and dryer and a dishwasher. Colin loved it. It was their own miniature home. It made him think of life after university, which he, admittedly, tried not to do that much - no need to get his hopes up - and the domesticity made him feel warm on the inside.
His favorite days were Tuesdays. Bradley had a three-hour political science class on Monday afternoons and Colin had a three-hour English literature lecture Monday evenings; they had worked it out so they had Tuesdays free from classes. It meant they had slightly more homework to do those days, but that was part of the reason Colin liked them so much. They sat together on opposite ends of the couch with their books and papers and computers spread out around them. Colin liked to sit with his feet in Bradley’s lap, and his heart always gave a little thrill that Bradley always allowed it. He even seemed to enjoy it, because while he read, the book propped up with his right hand on the armrest, he used his left to rub Colin’s ankles, kneading his thumb against his anklebones.
It usually left Colin feeling loose-limbed and lazy, and his books ended up in a pile on the floor beside him, his head tilted against the back of the couch. He didn’t always finish his homework, but he did get to watch Bradley work, his nose scrunched in concentration as he poured over his books. Bradley, who was so often loud and boisterous, was the most studious person Colin knew, and he felt like he was the only person who got to see that. It made him feel incredibly special, like he was witnessing a genius at work. And maybe he was. Bradley wanted to change the word, to make a difference, and there was nothing that could possibly stop him, not with how devoted he was to it. He would go to law school and hopefully go into politics, and Colin would follow him anywhere; that was the plan for Colin, anyway. He had nothing more that he wanted to do than follow Bradley everywhere.
He waited patiently for him to finish, sitting quietly, their soft silence filling the room. It never felt strained or uncomfortable; Colin wasn’t even bored to be doing nothing, now that he was done with his homework. He thought about going to make dinner so Bradley had something to eat once he was done, but he figured they could order in later instead.
Bradley finally sighed and set aside his book, rubbing his eyes to alleviate some of the discomfort from holding something so close to his face for so long. Colin mentioned from time to time that he would do well to get himself glasses, but Bradley usually ignored the suggestion. Now that he was done though, he tugged on Colin’s ankle, and he went to him easily, shifting to fold himself up against his side and kiss his neck. “Done?” he asked needlessly, since he already knew the answer.
“I am,” he hums and tips his head to press their mouths together, his fingertips sliding along his face to cup his jaw. He slides his tongue against Colin’s lips, and he parts them, his hand curling in Bradley’s shirt as he laps his way into his mouth, a slow, deep kiss that left him feeling like jelly down to his toes. “I love how you watch me work.”
Colin smiled sheepishly. “You’re beautiful. How can anyone do anything but just look at you?”
“You sap.”
“Don’t hate.” He kissed him again, curling his hand around the back of his head so he couldn’t pull away until he was good and ready. “Besides, if I wasn’t a sap, you would never have cupcakes on your birthday and I wouldn’t give you a full-body massage on our week-a-versary.”
“You don’t really keep track of our week-a-versary,” Bradley scoffed. “Seriously.”
“Why else did you think I give you a massage every Thursday night, hm?”
“I figured you were just trying to get me in the mood, since you don’t have class on Fridays and you’re a total horndog.”
“That is only a bonus result of the massage, not my reason for it.”
“Fair enough. Well, since I do appreciate your massages, I retract my accusatory statement about you being a sap.”
“Thank you. What’s say we get dinner, my love?”
“Dinner sounds lovely.”
***
Colin leaned back against Bradley, sinking deeper into the warm water and humming softly. “Why don’t we take baths more often?” The bubbles were up to his neck, and the water was warm, like being coated in hot tea. He didn’t think there was anything quite so wonderful as bath time with his boyfriend, who liked to hold him close against his chest and kiss his neck.
Music played quietly from the iHome they left plugged in on the sink. It was Bradley’s “Quiet Time with Colin” playlist. It was sweet that he made it, but Colin always poked fun at the fact that the songs never changed, and rarely were any added. Every once in a while, he found a new one on the list, a song they recently heard on the radio that Colin had hummed along to, or the theme of some film they saw together that made Colin cry. He was never sure what the criteria was for a song to make it onto the playlist, but he had a feeling that if Colin had any kind of emotional reaction to it, there was a chance he would hear it again later.
“They take up too much time?” Bradley suggested, wetting a washcloth and flattening it over his hand. He placed it against Colin’s stomach, rubbing it in light circles over his skin. The attention made him arch up into his touch, whining softly. “I love when you do that.”
“I gathered that from the fact that you keep doing it,” he complained half-heartedly, tilting his head back to bite at his neck. It was embarrassing, how easily Bradley could turn him on, how very little it took for him to successfully have Colin panting for it. What was worse was how very aware of it Bradley was, the mischief that seemed to appear in his eyes whenever he was causing Colin any especial amount of discomfort. “I really hate that you know how much I like it.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t. It just makes me want to make you feel good, because I know it makes you feel good.”
“It doesn’t just make me feel good, Bradley,” he murmured, his face heating up, especially because Bradley knew that; that was why he did it. To be honest, the touches made him tingle all the way down to his toes, and he couldn’t always contain himself, couldn’t always keep himself from demanding moremoremore, and he hated how desperate and vulnerable it made him for that kind of knowledge to be in Bradley’s hands. It was a far cry from how closed-off and tense physical affection made him feel toward the beginning of their relationship. It was a testament to just how much Bradley had opened him up, made him more comfortable with himself.
Bradley never took advantage of it though, never embarrassed him or made him feel bad. It was one of the infuriating and wonderful things about him; he was kind, without even trying. He only seemed to want to make Colin happy, in whatever situation. Right now, he abandoned the washcloth to rub his hand over Colin’s cock, pressing his mouth against his shoulder. “I know that, baby.” His voice was husky, low and affectionate. “God, I love you.”
“I love you too.” Colin covered his hand, spreading his legs a little in invitation for him to move his hand back. When he did, it was to rub two fingers lightly against his entrance, and he whimpered quietly, mouthing at Bradley’s neck. “Oh. Oh, please, please. I just want you.”
“I know, baby,” Bradley said quietly, tipping his head down to press their mouths together firmly, sliding his fingers inside of him. It helped that they had made love earlier that morning, after Bradley had woken him up with soft kisses against the back of his thighs; he was still open and ready for him. He fucked him slowly, pressing his fingers deep into him and curling them tightly, and Colin couldn’t help the soft, needy noises he made in response. Bradley always knew just how to touch him; there was no one quite so diligent and thorough about learning Colin’s body.
He slid his hand around his cock, pumping slowly in time with Bradley’s movements, kissing him all the while, their tongues sliding lazily together. When he came, it was softly, like a breeze coasting over him in the early morning. When he could force himself to move, he murmured to Bradley that he should drain the water, which he did, and they pulled themselves from the tub.
Colin pushed Bradley up against the sink, dropping to his knees, and slid his mouth over his cock, hollowing out his cheeks and sucking in deep. He loved the way Bradley’s thighs shook and his fingers curled into his hair, like he was completely overwhelmed by the attention, and he let him gently guide his mouth, his hips pumping slowly forward, just as easy and slow as their whole morning had been. They were in no hurry today. Saturdays were their day. They didn’t see anyone else; they spent the whole twenty-four hour period locked inside their apartment, mostly in their bed, and - sometimes - in their bathtub, showing each other just how happy they were to have each other in their lives.
At times like this, with Bradley crying out softly as he came, and the way he gently petted his hair down, apologetically, for pulling it too hard, Colin felt incredibly blessed. When they recovered somewhat, with their bodies pressed close together and soft kisses being exchanged, they retreated back to their bed, curled up under the sheets and slept with their hands curled together.
When Colin woke up a few hours later, Bradley was watching him. “You know, when I see you like this, I think about the fact that someday I’m going to marry you,” he says quietly. “And whatever else is wrong in my life or in the world - it all seems okay then.”
Colin’s throat shut tight at those words, and he smiled sadly, nosing in at Bradley’s neck and saying nothing.
***
Bradley didn’t have the best childhood. He didn’t talk about it very often; it wasn’t something that he wanted to relive. Colin only knew vaguely that Bradley didn’t talk to his father; he didn’t know anything else about the situation at all. He found out all in one day, when they had been living together in their shared apartment for a few months. They had had Bradley’s white sheets on their bed for that entire length of time. Colin had a late Wednesday, and he was lying in bed, having slept in, when he realized how much he disliked the idea of white sheets. They were so plain, so lacking in color, both literally and metaphorically.
So he got up and got dressed and rode his bike the two miles to Target, to see what kinds of linens they had to offer. He found a perfect set - the most striking blue that he had ever seen, and one he knew that Bradley would like. It was the color of Easter eggs or chlorinated water, and he bought it without a second thought, excited to get home and change the sheets.
He was just spreading out the last wrinkles in the fabric when Bradley came home. “Hi, love,” he greeted him at the door with a kiss. “I want your opinion on something; come here.” He took his hand and drew him back to the bedroom. “So I figured we should change up our room. I thought maybe we could have a theme, sort of blues and creams. We could always keep everything for when we live together once we graduate too, maybe find a place we can paint the walls and…” He trails off, catching the expression on Bradley’s face. “Oh. You don’t like them.”
“It’s not that,” Bradley said quietly. “I like the color, and the idea. I would actually really love that color scheme in the living room, so maybe when we get a more permanent place, we could do something like that there. I just really, really prefer to have white sheets on the bed.”
“But white is so boring!” Colin frowned, exasperated. “I mean - there’s no personality. It’s so plain, and it’s so hard to accent it with anything because everything goes with it. It just doesn’t leave much room to work with decorating-wise.”
“I know,” Bradley interrupted gently. He licked his lips, hesitating.”Can I explain something to you, about my dad?”
Colin went still, because no conversation they’d ever had began with that. He perched on the edge of the bed, nodding carefully, studying his face. “Sure. Yeah, of course.” He took his hands, pulling him over to the bed to sit beside him. “You can talk to me about anything.”
Bradley squeezed his hands back, bringing them to his lips to press kisses to his knuckles. “When I was younger, my dad hit my mom. I mean, he hit me too, sometimes, but mostly if I was just in his way. He didn’t tend to notice me otherwise, which was fine, because obviously nobody wants to be hurt by someone, you know?” He smiled a little wanly, looking out toward the window. “He made my mom bleed - a lot. And obviously, she never went to the hospital or anything; she just always had gauze and antiseptic and things like that around the house all the time.” He took a deep breath through his nose. “My dad was very specific about the sheets.”
Colin chewed at his lip, watching his face. He didn’t want to push this conversation, but he wanted to understand too. He needed Bradley to know he could go at his own pace, take as long as he liked, but that he was also listening and absorbing what he was saying; it was such a fine line. “What specifically about the sheets?” he encourages him gently.
“They couldn’t be white,” he says. “I don’t know why; I’ve never known why. My mother had one set of white sheets, and they were her favorites; they were crisp and soft and always smelled good, no matter how long it had been since they were last washed. She just loved them, and so did I. But my dad hated them. When I was fourteen, he finally shredded them. Before that, they were always a point of contention in my house; if he saw them, he flew into these… rages. He broke whatever was in his way - furniture, lamps, my mother, me, anything. It was just one of the reasons that he would get angry, but it was the worst one. Sometimes, now, when I have white sheets on my bed, I feel like I’ve beaten him, in some small way. It might not be significant. He still hurt my mom, and he still hurt me, and it was still incredibly difficult to get over - and sometimes I’m still not over it - but this is my victory.”
The room was quiet for a long while, and Colin waited patiently, unsure what else he could do. He didn’t know if the conversation was over; he’d never had a conversation like this before. He wanted more than anything to make it better for Bradley, to fix all the hurts inside of him (enough that he later went to the Student Services Building to get pamphlets on helping friends deal with physical abuse). After a while, he leaned in to kiss him, quietly. “We can keep the white sheets,” he said softly. “As long as you let me do whatever I’d like to the walls.”
Bradley cupped his chin, drew him in to press their mouths together more firmly, licking his way slowly into his mouth, humming and laying him back, curling up close against his side. “We’ll put the blue sheets in a guest bedroom someday,” he commented after a while, rubbing Colin’s tummy. “With cream walls.”
Colin smiled, running his fingers through Bradley’s hair, scratching a little behind his ears like he knew he liked. He was rewarded with a little purr of pleasure from his throat. “That sounds perfect, love.”
~*~
“I’ve missed you,” Colin says quietly, sniffling and leaning in against Bradley’s shoulder. He hates himself for succumbing to this. He hates how easily he can just collapse into himself whenever Bradley appears in his life again. He’s been crying for fifteen minutes and Bradley - perfect, beautiful, wonderful Bradley - has said nothing, has only sat beside him and held him and rubbed his back while he whimpered against his shoulder.
“You know I’ve missed you,” Bradley says in response, pushing his hair back from his face. “Your hair is getting so long. You need a haircut.”
“You used to like it when it was long,” Colin laughs softly, wiping at his wet cheek with his thumb. “You said you liked the way it curled around my ears.”
“I like your ears too though,” Bradley points out. “I always liked the way they looked when your hair was cropped short, how your ears smiled when the rest of you did.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I probably am. That doesn’t change the fact that I think you’re beautiful - ears and all.” He pauses, petting his hair absently. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Colin. I really hope you know that.”
“I know that,” he echoes quietly, a soft admission that he didn’t ever want to see the light of day; even in his own mind, he pressed that back, pretended it wasn’t true, because as soon as he admitted that he knew Bradley loved him, how was he supposed to move on from him? “Do you know where I was - that I was coming back to school from?”
“No.” There’s a frown in Bradley’s voice. Frowning is so unsuited to Bradley that the very act of doing it changes everything about how he does everything else - speaking, walking, seeing. It’s kind of like it filters the world for him, in the worst possible way. “It didn’t even occur to me to wonder why you weren’t down there. You used to drive up north any time you had a free day and the museums in the city had free day passes. I take it that’s not where you were today?”
Colin considers not telling him. He could be setting himself up for disappointment here. He could break his own heart again by doing this. But it’s not as if it hasn’t occurred to him to tell him before. If he had known how to get a hold of him, he probably would have called already. (That’s a lie, and he knows it in his head but determinedly thinks it anyway.) “I had an interview at DePaul,” he finally confesses. “With the director of the English graduate program. I applied in the fall, and they wanted to meet me before they accepted me, especially since I’m behind a semester with my classes.”
Bradley waits patiently for a moment for him to continue, but the apprehension has wound his muscles tight; Colin can feel it through to his fingertips. When he doesn’t speak, he blurts out an “And?”
“Well, it’s all pending my graduation.” He shrugs it off, unwilling to get his hopes up here, unwilling to be anything more than casual in the face of Bradley’s excitement. “But it looks good, like I might get a position at the school. It’s still a while off, and I know it doesn’t mean anything, really, except that we’ll possibly be going to school together, but that’s something, right? All on its own, that’s something.”
“It really, really is.” If he knows Bradley as well as he thinks he knows Bradley, he’s about ready to leap out of the car and do a jig on the gravel. A small, insecure part of him tells him that he’s really just imagining that excitement, that Bradley really has no reason to be that excited for Colin to come to DePaul. But he knows that he’s just kidding himself, if he thinks that Bradley wouldn’t care about something like that, especially with what he just said. He just told him he still loves him. After all this time, and everything that Colin dragged him through, Bradley still loves him. And that has to make it all worth something. “Colin, that is so great, though. Just - I knew they’d like you at DePaul. You’re perfect for it. You’re going to fit right in. All these little people who live down here in McClean County - you’re too much for them. You’re too bright, you know that?”
“Bright?”
“Bright,” he agrees. “Bright like a star. It’s how I knew that I would never, ever have to be without you, unless you decided to be without me - like you did - because I knew no matter how far apart we were, or how much time we had to spend without each other, I would find my way back to you because you shine, Colin. You shine without even meaning to. You light me up - light my life up - in ways you can’t even imagine.” He huffs out a laugh. “I know I’m being soppy and ridiculous; I’m not trying to be. I just wish I could make you understand how my world has come to center so fully on you. Even this past year, after we broke up, I was working my hardest at everything that came my way at school, because I knew that if I made you proud, it would all be worth it, even if you weren’t really speaking to me, even if I hadn’t been able to talk to you in months. As far away as you’ve been from me, Colin, you have been my lighthouse.”
~*~
“Colin, Colin, Colin!” Bradley burst through the door, dropping his bag by the door and toeing off his shoes almost absently, like he was almost too excited to pause to do this simple task. He had the mail in his hands, one pile held separately from one business-sized envelope. He dropped onto the couch next to him, his smile incredibly wide and unbridled. “I have such good news.”
Colin closed his book and pushed it onto the coffee table, grinning back at him. “You look like you have good news. Does it have something to do with that envelope that you’re practically strangling?”
“It’s from DePaul!” He blurted out, almost before Colin finished speaking. “It’s the big envelope, Colin. I haven’t even opened it yet, but it’s the big envelope.”
“Well, don’t just sit there; open it.” Colin laughed, grabbing it out of his hands and ripping the perforation off the back of it. “We both knew you were going to get in, you know.”
Bradley sat there tensely beside him, more excited than he could possibly contain. He ended up hopping to his feet, pacing back and forth in front of the couch as Colin pulled the papers out.
He cleared his throat to read it out loud: “Dear Mr. James: In light of your application and qualifications, we are pleased to congratulate you on your admission to the Law School of DePaul University.” He grinned up at him. “Well, that sounds promising, doesn’t it!”
“Oh, my god.” Bradley stared at him for a second, then surged in to kiss him firmly, his hands cupped around his face as if he was the one who made this all happen. “Oh, my god. Oh, my god. I’m going to DePaul. I got into DePaul. Colin! I’m going to DePaul!”
“Yes, yes, I get it, I get it!” Colin laughed, placing the envelope and letter with reverence on the coffee table and standing up to embrace him. “In half a year, you will be starting law school and a few years after that, you will be the world’s most brilliant constitutional lawyer, changing the country one law at a time!”
“God, I hope so.” He squeezed him tightly. “I don’t even know what to do with myself right now. God.” He picked Colin up, swung him around. “Thank you so much, Colin. Thank you for supporting me, thank you for being here with me for it all, and thank you for just - god, I love you so much. Things are going to be so amazing.”
The words made something go very still inside of Colin’s chest, and he slid down to rest his feet on the floor, resting his hands on Bradley’s shoulders. “So… what about us? What do we do, now that you’re going to be three hours away at law school?”
Bradley looked at him steadily for a moment, studying his face. “Why do we have to do anything different?” he asked carefully, resting their foreheads together lightly. “We still love each other. Three hours isn’t that much of a distance.”
“It’s far enough.” Colin sounded panicked, even to his own ears. “I mean, we live together. We see each other every day. We spend every waking - and usually sleeping - second together. How are we going to go from that to once or twice a month without falling apart?”
“We’ll just have to work at it,” Bradley suggested gently. “It has never been a part of my plans to go away to law school and lose you, Colin. That would make it completely not worth it for me, and you know that. We’re meant to be together. We always have been, from the day you sat next to me and I gave you a pencil.”
Colin shook his head. “Don’t try to distract me by being sweet,” he murmured, curling his arms tight around him and pressing his nose to his neck. “I don’t know how to be without you. I don’t know who I am without you. When you go, there’ll be nothing left of me.”
“Don’t talk like that, Colin,” he pulled back, cupped his face, drawing him up to press their mouths together. “Do not talk like that. You’ll be fine. You’ll be wonderful. You’re going to have a great senior year, with lots of friends and lots of schoolwork, and when you get into DePaul for the writing masters’ program, we’ll be right there together again, sharing a little studio apartment and driving each other crazy and maybe we’ll have a cat.” He seemed to count it as a victory when Colin let out a tearful, hysterical little laugh. “This is not going to be the end of us, Colin Morgan. I promise you that.”
“How can you promise me that?” He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eye, knowing that this was all just so very ridiculous. Bradley just got the best news of his college career. They should have been out celebrating. Colin should have been dragging him off to dinner and then the bars to ply him with drinks and convince other people to ply him with drinks so that he’d return sated and happy and flush-faced like a child. But not too much like a child because then Colin would drag him back to their apartment, back into their bed for a night of gloriously celebratory love-making. Colin would do whatever Bradley wanted in bed, as long as it made him feel good and let him know that Colin believed in him. No matter what he wanted to do, or ended up doing, or ended up going, Colin believed in him.
“I don’t know,” Bradley admitted quietly, his hands big against Colin’s back. “But I’m not going to give you up, Colin Morgan. You’re my favorite person. You have been since that first week I met you; I told you that then. You’re the coolest person I know.”
“I just want to be with you,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to go away.”
“I won’t go far, I promise. This is not going to be the end of us.”
~*~
It was though - the end of them. Colin broke up with him at the end of the summer. It isn’t that he wanted to; there was nothing he wanted less. But he couldn’t imagine being with Bradley but not being able to have him as much and as often as he wanted. He couldn’t imagine being the distraction that kept Bradley from excelling at law school like they both knew he could and would.
Sometimes, he still has anxious little dreams that are more like nightmares: Bradley off to Washington, D.C. to work as a Supreme Court lawyer, Bradley meeting an intelligent, handsome lawyer that has the same life goals he does, Bradley’s wedding to that same intelligent, handsome lawyer, their life with kids and the cat Bradley promised Colin - and ultimately, Bradley moving on with his life and forgetting all about Colin.
He knows they aren’t fair thoughts. It’s not as if Bradley broke up with him and moved away. Colin sat him down the night before his train was meant to take him to Chicago, and with a hand tight in the fabric of his shirt, told him that when he left the next day, they would officially not be a couple anymore. Bradley - sweet, sensitive Bradley - looked at him like a puppy he’d just left on the side of the road but nodded very solemnly.
They kissed goodbye the next morning on the train platform and that was the end of them.
“You told me you’d keep in touch,” Bradley comments lightly, like he’s still joking. Colin knows that as his favorite defense mechanism. Bradley never knows what to do in these kinds of situations; he doesn’t know how to handle his own feelings, which is strange, since he’s eerily talented at taking care of the feelings of others. “Why didn’t you keep that promise?”
“I thought you’d be better off.” Colin nuzzles at his neck, giving into the feelings that he knows he probably should be pushing away about now. “Studying and doing your work and getting ready to change the world. I didn’t want to be your distraction.”
“You were anyway, you know,” Bradley traces his fingers over his jaw. “You dumped me right as school started. I was a mess. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through my first year. I didn’t know anybody; I didn’t have anyone to lean on in my breakup. I just sat in my apartment and I cried and I missed you and I called you and you never once picked up.”
“I thought if I did that, it would only make things harder. I wanted things to be easy. I wanted it to be easy for both of us. Do you really think us staying together this year would have been easier?”
“No, I don’t think that. But it would have been happier. Because I would have been able to see you. I would have talked to you every day. I would have known you were down here, finishing you degree, so that you could come and join me in the city and we could start living our life together. Do you know how much easier this year would have been if I’d known that?”
Colin laughs, bitterly. “Funnily enough, I couldn’t handle as many classes when you weren’t here, so now I have to take an extra semester to finish my degree. How ironic is that? I wanted you to not be a distraction and you were anyway. I could hate you for that.”
“You could,” Bradley agrees. “But you don’t. I don’t think so anyway. I don’t hate you, even though I really, really wanted to. You broke my heart, you know.”
“I know,” Colin whispers. “I broke my heart too.”
They were quiet for a long while. The sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon, and the cars passing increasingly had their headlights on. Colin was exhausted and sunburned and just wanted to go home, and he hated it because he wanted to take Bradley with him.
“You know,” he starts quietly, taking a deep breath and expelling it through his nose. “Whenever something bad happens, I want to call you, see you. I want you to make everything better, because I know you can. You’ve always made everything better, no matter what the situation was. And when no one came today, when no one even returned my calls, the only person I wanted was you. And here you are - fixing everything again. If I hadn’t deleted your number from my phone so I wouldn’t give in and call you, you would’ve been the first person I would’ve called.”
“I would’ve come.”
“I know. I mean, you did come, but I know you would have anyway, because that’s how you are. That’s how you’ve always been to me, even when I didn’t deserve it.” He smiled with half his mouth. “Remember that time when I was so angry because I got an F on that paper, and I told you I hated you because I was ranting about it and you told me it was no big deal?” Bradley makes an affirming noise in your throat. “I know I made you cry then, even though you didn’t do it in front of me, and I’m sorry. I never said I was sorry for that, even when you came home with cheese fries and milkshakes to make me feel better. So I’m sorry. I love you; I should never, ever tell you I hate you because there is no one I love more than you.”
Bradley squeezes him close, then turns to pick Colin’s phone up from the bottom of the trunk. He dials a number on it, bringing it to his ear. “Hi, I’d like to call a tow truck. Yes. I’m about five miles north of the Pontiac exit on I-55. To Normal. Yes. Yes, that’s fine, thank you.” He gives the address of Colin’s apartment and a description of his car, then slides the phone shut and tosses it back into the trunk. “Alright, come on. Get your things.”
Colin blinks at him, confused, as they wiggle out of the trunk together. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going home, babe.” Bradley’s face twitches in a wink at the easy way he’s fallen back into the pet name. “Come on. I’ll drive; a tow truck will be here soon to pick up your car and bring it back. And I’ll pay for it, so don’t worry about that. You look exhausted; we need to get you some food and to bed, and I’m not letting you drive there; it’d pretty much make it my responsibility if you ended up crashing your car.”
Colin wants to protest. He wants to tell Bradley that he doesn’t have to do this. He wants to save him the trouble of driving all the way to Bloomington-Normal to drop him off. But mostly, he just wants to sleep. He’s so, so tired, and so very far away from anything remotely bed-like. He allows Bradley to drag him to the car and tuck him into the front seat. Almost immediately, once Bradley pulls back out onto the road, he’s asleep, his hand tucked tight into Bradley’s against the armrest, their fingers laced.
***
Colin isn’t sure how he ended up in his bed, but when he wakes up, it’s dark outside the window. The clock on his bedside table says that it’s just after 3:00 in the morning, and from the head of blonde hair peeking out from under the blankets, it’s safe to assume that Bradley has stayed the night and decided to share his bed. He’s groggy and stiff, and his neck hurts from the sunburn. He crawls out of bed and pads into the kitchen, downing a glass of water at the sink. He considers moving to the couch to sleep, for the sake of propriety or something, but he just wants to be in his bed, more than anything - the bed he used to share with Bradley, who is currently sleeping there.
So that’s what he does. He crawls back into bed, presses his lips to Bradley’s neck, and curls up around him, burying his face into his shirt, right between his shoulder blades. He’s asleep again in minutes.
When he wakes, he’s alone, and he tries very hard to not be surprised. He doesn’t want to be surprised. People are fairly good these days at showing him how little he means to them. He curls up into a tight ball, trembling. There is no reason to cry. It’s not as if they were a couple. It’s not as if anyone important is gone.
“Good morning, sunshine!” He lifts his head, and there he is, with a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice. “I didn’t know which kind of morning it was - a coffee morning or an orange juice morning, so I brought both. I’ll drink whichever you don’t want.”
“Coffee,” Colin decides, sitting up and leaning back against the headboard. He takes the warm cup from Bradley, sliding his fingers through the handle and taking a long draught of it, not caring that it’s burning his tongue. He feels gloriously happy - well-rested, drinking hot coffee, and even better, Bradley is sitting next to him, just as beautiful as always. He stares at him for a long time, unsure what to say. “You’re still here,” is what he settles on.
“I couldn’t leave, to be honest.” Bradley smiles sadly at him, sipping his juice. “I woke up and saw you there; it was too much like how it used to be. I didn’t know how I could possibly walk away from this again.” He sighs softly, looking down at his hands. “I want to make this work, Colin. I know you had your reasons for ending things. I understand them, even if I don’t agree with them. But if you’re willing to work with me here, we could - we could really make this work. We could make plans.”
Colin expected this. And he’s somehow much more serene about the conversation than he expected he would be. He doesn’t know how to answer. He knows what he wants and he knows what’s possible, and he’s not sure how to reconcile the two things. He licks his lips, swallows hard. “Will you stay here with me?” he asks quietly.
Bradley smiles sadly, shakes his head, and Colin’s stomach drops out of him. “I really, really wish I could, baby. I have classes tomorrow, so I’m going to have to leave tonight. But - I’ll come back next weekend, okay? It’s Labor Day; we’ll be able to spend three days together. And we’ll work things out. We’ll make it all work.”
Colin looks at him for a long time. Bradley doesn’t lie. Bradley has never lied, as long as he’s known him. He told him the truth when he was a sophomore and he got that really terrible haircut, and when one of the pieces he wanted to submit to a literary magazine wasn’t very good. He isn’t a cruel person, but he is an unyielding believer in honesty. And he’s being honest with him now; that’s all he can ever want or expect from him. “Do you really think we can do that?”
“Well, yes, of course.” Bradley leans in to kiss his cheek, smiles softly. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
And of course that’s the truth. “Are we making plans right now?”
Bradley grins, touches his leg. “I believe we are.”