Merlin RPS/ Unexplored
“On the walls of the day
In the shade of the sun
We wrote down
Another vision of us
We were the challengers of
The unknown”
(The New Pornographers-Challengers)
The sky is clear over the castle, a couple of swallows cut through the huge mass of azure, Bradley shields his eyes with a hand in order to follow their flight. He wouldn’t have done this only a year ago, he hadn’t been the type of guy to look at the sky and wonder about things too much. Then Colin appeared in his life, and he definitely couldn’t go back to who he used to be.
It hasn’t been something which Bradley expected, for him and Colin to become somehow so close to each other. It just happened, between filming and excursions to amusement parks, between a prank and a movie night, they slipped into the new habits that they had created and slowly they became comfortable around each other. Slowly they learnt to love each other.
Bradley passes a hand through his hair and focuses his attention on the ground again, leaving the swallows to their dance high in the clear air. At the moment Colin is filming a couple of scenes, and Bradley is just standing on the sidelines, near the cameramen. He wishes he had his camera with him, to take photos of Colin as he sinks into the part, as he transforms into Merlin. Colin has something within him which makes his acting almost shiny, Bradley had to admit it from the start, from that first day on set when Colin became Merlin for the first time. Bradley remembers that he shivered contemplating Colin’s ability, he felt so little and stupid. Probably it was for this reason that it was hard for him to get closer to Colin at the beginning.
There was like a layer between them, or at least Bradley felt like that, a layer between the way they acted, between the way they were. He didn’t seem to be able to get a grip over Colin’s sense of humor, nor over his accent, which made so many words slur and disappear at the edges.
Then, when they still were in Wales, something shifted in their relationship, almost inadvertently.
It happened on a rainy night, every one was tired from filming and they all were in their own rooms, Bradley was actually falling asleep, the script still open on his chest, when a knock on his door woke him up. He groaned and got up, he tilted his head to the side as he opened the door and found one Colin Morgan standing bare feet in the corridor. Colin smiled one of those lopsided smiles of his, with which Bradley was not totally accustomed yet, so he just quirked a blond eyebrow .
“Well I was bored…Can I come in?”
There was shyness in Colin’s voice mixed with that ironic tone which his voice always had, Bradley didn’t think twice about it, he moved to the side and let Colin slip into the room.
“So…we can watch something, yeah?”
Bradley said, and then turned on the television and they both sat on the bed. It was the first time from when they had begun filming that they were alone with neither Angel or Katie around, and it was slightly awkward. For minutes which scarily resembled to hours Bradley stared at the screen without saying a word, chewing at his nails now and then, far too aware of the placid warmth radiating from Colin and of the uncomfortable silence hovering over their heads. Then Colin shifted on the mattress and commented the scene which was unfolding on the screen and for the very first time Bradley caught up with his humor and felt laughter blossoming inside him. Colin grinned at the sound of Bradley’s laugh. And from then on Bradley had to cope with so many more laughs and so many more brushes of his arms against Colin’s. That night he started to explore that non mapped territory which Colin was, and even now that they are together he feels as if there are kilometres of Colin waiting to be explored.
It was somehow disarming, to touch Colin, to look at him, to talk to him, feeling that there was more under the surface, wanting to discover what it was, wanting to own it. Bradley didn’t know exactly when he had started to feel like that, when from wanting to be friends with Colin he had started to want more, it was as if between filming and moving to France and thinking about silly pranks, his feelings had blurred and transformed and he had started to ache from being around the other man, from wishing that he could feel Colin’s skin and sink in Colin’s smell. And it had been all too easy to break the walls of habit, of the stereotypes of love between people of different genders. But accepting what had grown inside of him, accepting that it was thinking about Colin that he touched himself, that it was about a future with Colin that he daydreamed, didn’t mean that he knew what to do. Colin was just too stunning and too close for Bradley to be brave and just tell him about his feelings.
Then a windy spring day came, the two of them had a break and had climbed on one of the towers of the castle, they were still wearing their costumes, Colin’s tunic was snapping in the wind.
Colin was looking at the landscape and Bradley was leaning against a wall, the armour heavy on his shoulders. Then Colin had turned gesturing for him to come closer and Bradley, trying not to think about the hope trembling inside his chest every time that Colin talked to him, moved closer. Colin pointed something in the direction of the hills.
“Can you see that?”
Collin voice was calm over the wind. Bradley shifted a bit closer, till his shoulder was brushing against Colin’s and squeezed his eyes in the afternoon light trying to see what Colin was pointing at.
“Where?”
Colin pressed against his side a bit more,
“There, right in front of you.”
Bradley actually saw the hot air balloon which Colin was pointing, but all he could do was try to remember how to breath, the sensation of Colin’s hair brushing against his cheek and the pressure of Colin’s body against his own making it impossible for him to stop the furious rush of the blood into his ears, and the loud thud of his heart hitting his ribcage. He stupidly wondered if by chance the armour wouldn’t amplify it.
“So do you see it now?”
Colin’s voice seemed to drill into his mind, Bradley turned and the only thing he could see were Colin’s deep blue eyes staring at him, the irises slightly trembling under the gentle sunlight. Colin quirked an eyebrow, worried.
“Hey are you alri…”.
The rest of the word got lost between their touching lips, as Bradley just leant forward and pressed his lips to Colin’s. Bradley squeezed his eyes shut and tried to concentrate on the soft feeling of Colin’s lips, on the warmth of the sun around them, too afraid to think about anything else. He was about to pull away, when he felt the shy touch of Colin’s tongue over his lower lip. And all of sudden there was no space left for thoughts and worries, there were just Colin’s hands latched behind his neck and the dance of their tongues. It was like that that Bradley discovered another small, precious fragment of Colin.
Bradley touches his lips as the memory of that day makes him smile. He keeps following Colin’s movements as the other man walks through the courtyard, the cameramen following him. Bradley shifts his weight from one leg to the other, wishing that the day could be over already and they could be in his room, his hands tracing the curves and hollows of Colin’s body, his fingertips impressing the feeling of Colin’s skin in his mind as light impresses images on a photography film.
Colin turns and flashes him a quick smile which is not in the script, Bradley smiles back, feeling something warm expanding in his chest and feeling something tingle in his fingertips.
He once more imagines his hands sliding over the smooth surface of Colin’s chest, and tights, and cheeks, tracing all the lines and the curves and the twists, as the pen of a cartographer would trace the lines and curves of lakes, mountains and rivers.