Merlin RPF; Every Inch Of Stone 1/6 (Bradley/Colin, eventual NC-17)
Title: Every Inch Of Stone (1/6)
Author: significantowl
Pairing: Bradley/Colin
Rating: NC-17 eventually (PG this part)
Word Count: ~4000 in this chapter
Disclaimer: Not true. Fictional characterizations and situations. No invasion of privacy intended.
Summary: Heavily inspired by the first series' video diaries. Pierrefonds is full of history, and history is full of very strange things. Trust the very strange Colin Morgan to get thoroughly mixed up in them - and bring Bradley right along with him.
Content Notes (entire fic): mysterious happenings, first times, historical references, mentions of religion/faith, hurt/comfort, sex
Author's Notes: I started writing this a long, long time ago, and so many wonderful people have helped me along the way! Many many thanks to alba17, avidbeader, capricornucopia, cynthia_black, jacketpotato, tempestsarekind, tourdefierce, and zeldaophelia for their feedback and encouragement with various parts of this fic.
Every Inch Of Stone
by significantowl
“Talking to yourself, Morgan?”
Colin blinks. Bradley finds it deeply unsatisfying: Colin should jump, he should look startled, he should have the grace to turn red. Bradley would have done all three of those things, if someone had come upon him in the crypts holding an animated conversation with himself. But Colin just blinks, one more time, and says, ">looked an awful lot like talking to yourself." Bradley doesn't stop walking while he talks, and doesn't stop talking long enough to ponder the wisdom of this course of action. It's momentum, really; he's spent the better part of the lunch break looking high and low for Colin, and now that Bradley's found him, leaving him in peace isn't an option. "Sounded like it as well. In fact, the only way I think it would be possible for you to look or sound more like you were talking to yourself would be for you to -" he considers, decides - "look and sound like you were doing it for longer."
"Sorry, I wasn't." Colin's voice is as blank and expressionless as his face. It's maddening.
They're surrounded by statues, literally at every turn: some standing, some kneeling, some lounging on top of tombs as if chatting with their neighbours, others laid out as if in death. It's the juxtaposition that gets Bradley, as if some of the dead have decided to get up for a nice look around, and the rest might join in any second. Just to give things that extra zing, the people in charge at Pierrefonds have kept the room dark, tossed in some lovely crypty lighting effects, plus - apparently they were feeling really inspired on crypt-planning day - a looped track of whispery French voices.
This could be, should be, the punch-line to an excellent Colin-joke; the set-up's bang on. Colin the Vampire, perhaps, or Colin Sees Dead People. But the thing is that Bradley's not feeling it, and he always does now. Those moments when once he would've just got bewildered or put off he feels the laugh coming, bubbling deep.
Colin's brushing past Bradley, the shadows sliding over his face as he goes, and it's either follow or stay there with the dead and the voices.
+
They go to work. Bradley filmed in the courtyard with the second unit all morning, but now he joins Colin on the interior shoot, down in the castle cellars. It's time to move things up a gear - namely, from Merlin striding through dim corridors with a torch to Merlin and Arthur striding through dim corridors with a torch. Which, Bradley quickly realises, has the potential to take a disturbing turn into Arthur's hair catching dramatically on fire if Bradley doesn't pay particular attention to the angle at which Colin's holding the torch.
It's cold down here, so much so that he's feeling it even through all of Arthur's layers, but Bradley could do without that sort of warming up.
Something else Bradley realises: Colin is not well. Massively not well. This must be clear to everyone in the room, but for some reason, everyone is pretending to ignore it.
It's not that Colin's doing bad work; say "Action," and he's on like a light. But in between takes, he sinks down into himself, his eyes go flat and his expression turns even farther inward than usual. And he moves so carefully, all these slow conserved movements, as he heads back to his mark.
If Bradley flubs a line, he feels guilty, like he's a bastard prolonging Colin's pain.
Pretending to ignore it means no-one's saying anything sensible like, "Colin, mate, have some paracetamol and a lie-down, we can do with just Bradley and your double for now, yeah?" Although perhaps they tried something along those lines earlier and got turned down, Bradley doesn't know. Instead, people are dancing attendance with an offhand air, as if trying to make it appear that they're doing nothing of the sort. There's herbal tea being offered, and water, and granola-yoghurt-bar things, because whether anyone else knows Colin skipped lunch to lurk about in the crypts or not, Colin always has the look of someone who needs a little protein.
Bradley wonders how much of what he witnessed there among the statues had to do with Colin being ill, and how much was down to his being Colin (which, in Bradley's head, is rapidly becoming shorthand for incomprehensibly weird). Sixty-forty, perhaps, with the balance swinging towards weird.
As time passes and the corridor they're traipsing about in begins to steadily warm up, the issue of the day becomes whether Colin's too hot, too cold, or just right - at one point an A.D. actually helps Colin on with his puffy coat, slipping his arms in like he's five years old.
And Colin - Colin is either really good at pretending not to notice that everyone's treating him like an eggshell, a precious souffle, a delicately-balanced tiered cake (Bradley is hungry, considering he spent his lunch hour running around looking for Colin, and he's not interested in cardboard yoghurt bars), or he's actually not noticed.
All told, it's giving Bradley a headache.
Later on, Bradley says something to Angel about Colin being a bloody martyr, with his ridiculous commitment to suffering in silence; Angel says something about people suffering around Bradley all the time, and then quite a few more things about the virtues of silence. Which is, of course, fairly absurd of her, praising silence with words. Bradley tells her so for a while, and the upshot of it all is, by the time he gets back to the hotel and to their floor, Colin's light is out.
Bradley presses his palm to the door for a minute, thinks that, perhaps, there may have been a tiny bit of rightness in one or two of the things Angel had said, and lets him be.
+
Things are bloody weird the next day, and not even due to Colin.
They're filming on the lower stairwell, Bradley climbing slightly ahead of Colin, with Colin a little closer to camera. It's an over-the-shoulder shot that's meant to catch both of their faces in profile, offer a little glimpse at both of their expressions.
Except.
They've climbed these stairs Bradley doesn't know how many times now, and it's not working. Not through any fault of his and Colin's brilliant stair-climbing - they are, by this point, true masters of the art. It's to do with the lighting, Bradley doesn't know in what way, exactly, and that's the problem, neither does anyone else.
Someone swears. Not imaginatively, but forcefully, and it's as if they're speaking for the room as a whole. Jeremy looks up from the screen and says, "Still too dark. Places -"
And they do it again. And very soon after that, they do it again.
It's not the camera, and it's not the film. All that's been switched out, trial-and-errored. It's not something to do with one particular spot on the staircase, either, because they've tried several. So now they're just bumping up the lights. More and more and more wattage, until the big challenge for Bradley becomes not so much looking purposeful and princely as not screwing up his face in a massive squint, and he's seriously considering donning his sunglasses between takes.
"This is ridiculous," Bradley says to Colin, as they trudge back down the stairs yet again.
"Mm," Colin says, which Bradley takes for considered agreement.
Bradley's had one eye on Colin all morning. So has everyone else, or at least, they did until things got so mad with the lights. Colin probably hates it, being so damn private, but if he weren't so private people wouldn't feel the need to conduct careful observations of the rare and reclusive Colin-species to try and work out what the hell's going on with it.
He's seemed well enough thus far (Bradley's not going to use the word normal). His face is flushed, but Bradley has a feeling his own is as well, thanks to all the stairs. And anyway, that's a big change from yesterday, when Colin was so pale as to be almost insubstantial. His breathing's a little ragged here and there, but again, stairs.
Another big difference from yesterday: Colin's noticed Bradley watching, today. Hasn't said a word about it, no, but Bradley likes to think he knows when Colin's actively ignoring him. It's there for the reading - maybe in some tiny print, but it's there - in the corner of Colin's eye.
"Just because a turtle's inside his shell doesn't mean you can't see him," Bradley informs Colin. Basic biology.
"Bradley James, Turtle Hunter?" Colin's on the step below him; they're waiting for the off. His eyes crinkle, and yeah, Bradley thinks, he knows.
"Well," Bradley says, intending to counter with something both witty and intelligent, but then Colin says, "Stay out of oceans," around the same moment that the director says, "Action," and a take is ruined because Bradley's busting up.
He doesn't bother trying to explain that it's not his fault, because what's the point?
There isn't such a thing as a proper break, but during some of the bouts of light-fiddling Bradley and Colin sit in folding chairs at the bottom of the stairwell. The batteries to Bradley's DS drain early on, in about two minutes flat, very annoying, and Colin keeps dipping in and out of a book, also annoy- well, it has to be very annoying for him, because he can't be getting more than a couple of paragraphs read at a time.
"Is it me or is this shot not all that important, in the grand scheme of things? I mean, murderous sorcerer, people dying, and we see Arthur and Merlin go up some stairs. Gripping stuff."
"Not just you." Colin doesn't look up from his book. Can't be good on the eyes, the way one minute it's as bright as blazes, and the next it's every bit as dim as you'd expect a staircase in a cellar to be.
"You would think - or I would think, I wouldn't presume to think for you, dear Colin - that someone would put a stop to all this," Bradley waves a hand at the mess of people and equipment, "before it eats our entire day."
Colin looks up then, tilting his head, observing. "Aye."
"It's a collective loss of perspective and it's collectively mad."
Colin gives a quick, tight nod. And Bradley wonders if the book thing was an act before, because he's got his lips pressed together in a way that suggests he's taking this all more seriously than Bradley is. Bradley's bored and tired of stairs, but Colin is, Colin is....
"We should -" Bradley begins. See if they'll give us a break, he's about to say. You should be the one to ask, he's about to say.
But he doesn't get to, because that's when the glass goes flying.
It's like being a passenger in a car crash. Bradley sees the blue-white flash and knows it's wrong just an instant before the shattering, before the noise, and then there's not much to do but close his eyes and hope.
The shards are vivid behind his lids, fast, gleaming and dangerous. His brain stops short before picturing the blood.
There's a short, awful silence. Then come French voices and English voices, all loud, Jeremy's the loudest, but the thing Bradley's stuck on is Colin's cold, strong fingers withdrawing from the back of his neck. He'd been pushing Bradley's head down.
"You're all right." Colin says it more than asks, like he's got no room for the alternative.
"Yeah. You?"
Colin nods. He's already on his feet, heading toward Jeremy. And Colin does look all right, and there's a massive amount of relief in that, mixed up with some sick guilt because Bradley hadn't been thinking, Bradley hadn't reached out, Bradley hadn't done anything at all.... But it's hard to focus on that, because in all this madness, the thing that's blowing Bradley's mind, the thing that he just can't believe, is what he's seeing on Colin's face.
Anger. Hard-eyed, fixed-jawed, it's very like the expression he's seen over and over again on Colin's character, but never on Colin himself. Very like, but not entirely like, and Bradley finds himself trying to catalogue the differences - there are some, there are, maybe in his eyes? Or no. Maybe that flush staining his cheeks, maybe it's a darker red?
Or. Maybe it's all in Bradley's head. Maybe it's in the strange funny fluttering of his pulse - it still hasn't slowed down, since the flash. Maybe it's just that Bradley still doesn't know what's going to happen next.
Every step Bradley takes is on glass. People are shaking it off their clothes, brushing it from their hair. Looking around, there doesn't seem to be a single bulb left intact - the camera wouldn't be telling a lie now, everything really is in shadow - but it also doesn't seem as if anyone's badly hurt. No-one's shouting for a doctor, not in English, anyway. And Bradley's getting the feeling that what's going on in French is a whole lot of blaming. It's very loud, for a start, and involves a great deal of aggressive pointing.
Colin's slipping sideways through the knot of people, murmuring 'sorry' like a particularly polite snake. Bradley is not good at being a snake. Bradley's got too much in the way of shoulders. So he's not close enough to hear what's being said, when Colin gets to Jeremy, but he is close enough to see the equation working itself out on the director's face: glass-filled explosion + Colin Morgan = glass-filled Colin Morgan = dear God, ambulance, ambulance right now.
Bradley could script this, he's just lived it himself. Look, there's the relief, right on cue.
It's a short conversation, and Bradley can only see the back of Colin's head for most of it. Then Colin's slipping back out of the crowd, and Bradley tries in his non-snaky way to follow. He catches Colin up near the dark corridor that leads to the crypts.
"Are we getting a break? How long?"
"Forty-five minutes." Colin's expression is smoothed out now, controlled. Bradley wonders if it's because he let the anger out - hard to imagine that, though, Colin letting go on the director - or he's just remembered how to bury it.
"Because an hour would be just too much? Chop-chop then Colin, let's be off," Bradley says. He's not having a fully-formed thought, more like half of one, but it's got something to do with the strangeness of yesterday, and something else to do with -
"You go on."
- the thing Colin isn't quite managing to hide because he's busy hiding the anger. Resignation, quiet and strong. Colin doesn't want to stay down here, but for some unfathomable reason he thinks he has to.
Bradley can't help looking at Colin and picturing him as he was the day before, ghost-pale and expressionless, and even though there's no logic to it - Colin's not ill today, and he's not going to get ill just because he goes into the crypts - it's hard to shake the feeling that they're headed down a familiar road. No. Bradley has no intention of leaving Colin alone in this cellar. Maybe not any cellar. Maybe not ever again.
Bradley throws an arm around Colin's shoulders. He may not be good at being a snake, but a force of nature, that he can do. "Not without you, my shining co-star. There's a flight of stairs between me and my forty-five minutes of freedom and I've been thoroughly conditioned now. I can only climb stairs with you at my side."
Normally, Colin would go along with it. 99% chance. (There's a reason Bradley can identify "quiet resignation" from a three-word sample, and that reason is familiarity.) But normality has apparently left the building - castle - and Bradley's half-holding his breath because it's just possible Colin may be about to be rude.
He's got a morbid fascination with seeing what that might look like, and zero desire to be on the receiving end. Kind of the car crash thing all over again.
Colin hasn't said anything, nor made any move. Just closed his eyes very briefly, and opened them again.
"In fact, do you know how I feel?" Bradley doesn't go so far as to start walking, just shifts his foot forward some and lets the drag of his arm on Colin's shoulders provide a little gentle encouragement. "I'm feeling frustrated. Step-ually frustrated. We've climbed and climbed and climbed and we haven't reached the top of anything."
Bradley realises that while he's trying to catch Colin's eye, Colin's being careful not to let him. This is not actually a bad sign. More like an indication that Colin is also being careful not to laugh.
"Step-ually frustrated," Bradley repeats.
A little eye-dart from Colin, and then, straight-faced: "Yearning for completion, are you?"
And, all right, Bradley loses it first, but Colin definitely loses it after, and if there's a little bit of hysteria in their laughter, if the way they lean together is more like holding each other up, nobody mentions it.
+
In delivering his inspirational climbing speech, Bradley had only been thinking as far as flight of stairs in front of them, the one that would take them away from the crypts. He hadn't actually thought as far as roof. But he should have known: Colin Morgan never did anything by halves. If Colin decided to climb, then by God, he climbed.
Bradley has a bit of a thing for rooftops. And for views. Which Colin maybe knows and maybe had taken into consideration, so Bradley's not going to mention that his calves are close to going on strike after their morning's exertion, or how handy it is that this parapet is here to hold him up. Instead, belatedly, Bradley says, "Sorry, what?"
"Just saying I see why you like it up here." Colin's squinting against the sun, elbows propped on stone.
"Yeah," Bradley says. "Not too bad, is it." He truly does love it: getting a birds-eye view of the courtyard, taking in the old stone, mullioned windows, weird, wonderful gargoyles. Or looking out farther, out over the castle walls, to the lake and the village and the forest beyond. Definitely a sight for sore eyes today, out here in the open air under real, natural, non-exploding light.
But not so much for sore, complaining legs. Bradley's already given them a good mental talking-to, but do they ever listen?
He props his elbows up beside Colin's. "What did Jeremy say?" That's almost but not quite the question he wants answered, but for some reason it's easier to ask than, What did you say to Jeremy when you were looking all Wrath of Colin?
"No serious injuries, far as he knew. Doesn't sound like anyone's needing stitches or anything."
"Are we meant to pick up where we left off, or has sanity come calling?"
Colin grimaces. "I don't know. Last I heard they were trying to decide between filming some more in the castle, or going out to the courtyard. Debating, like."
"Oh, God, let it be the courtyard," Bradley says. He looks straight down over the edge - it's a dizzying view - checking for signs of a film crew setting up shop. Nothing yet.
Colin says something, quiet and sincere, in a voice that probably isn't meant for Bradley's ears. Hard to tell, but it might be please. For the first time, it crosses Bradley's mind that Colin might have been praying when he'd found him yesterday, that Colin might do that sort of thing; Bradley knows what scripted prayer looks like, from funerals and weddings and Easter Sundays, but as far as the spontaneous kind goes, he can't say he has a great deal of experience. But maybe that had been it: Colin had felt terrible, and could have been asking for strength to get through the day, when here Bradley had come along accusing him of talking to himself. Which, if Bradley thinks too hard about it, may be what he imagines praying is, but he certainly hadn't been trying to belittle Colin's faith, and he can't think of any way of working out if he had without making it worse.
They're silent for a long while, looking out across the battlements. Bradley tracks a bird through the blue sky, wonders what it is. A crow? A vulture? Something more interestingly French? A few more minutes go by before he realises: he's being watched. The weight of someone's gaze is settling into his skin, a little bit warm, a little bit itchy. And since there's just the two of them up here, it has to be Colin's.
Bradley sneaks a look sideways, but Colin's staring out over the battlements as if he'd never even thought of looking anywhere else.
"They captured Joan of Arc the other side of the forest," Colin says, because that's the kind of thing Colin knows and would use as a diversion. "Near where we're staying. At Compéigne."
"Somebody's been reading his guidebook."
Colin doesn't quite smile. "Some people say Merlin did a prophecy about her. But, you know. People say he did prophecies about absolutely everything."
"Bradley James' bathwater will be disappointingly cool on the twenty-second of April in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight," Bradley intones. It's a good prophecy voice, he thinks. Ringing and all. Shame Arthur probably won't be giving any.
That does get him a smile, one that makes Colin's cheeks squinch up. "Exactly, yeah."
They drift back into silence. Bradley's listening for sounds of equipment being moved, crashes and bangs, anything that might herald outdoor filming. He hears some distant shouting, raised voices, but that could just as easily be tourists. It's a little hard to focus, though, because Bradley's also dealing with the fact that the weight is back, that feeling of being watched. And Colin is apparently a stealth master, because no matter how subtly Bradley moves his head, he can't catch any glimpse of Colin looking his way. Bradley can't decide what to do. Acknowledge it, say something? Ignore it, pretend it's not happening? That's what Colin would do.
And it hits him: this is probably how Colin's felt all day. It's even possible that what's going on here is a get-back-at-Bradley manueovre; the more Bradley thinks about it, the more he supposes it probably is, because what other reason would Colin, polite Colin, have for staring? So he turns, abruptly, pivoting on the balls of his feet. Catches Colin in the act.
The silence takes on a horrible, embarrassed quality. A flush floods Colin's face, remarkably fast, and his eyes skitter away. Colin swallows, and Bradley tracks the movement, watching as he readies himself to speak. "Ehm. So. You're definitely all right then?"
"Not a scratch on me." Bradley holds out his hands to demonstrate, palms up, palms down. It's an invitation for Colin to look his fill, but Colin's too busy poking and prodding the stone wall to take Bradley up on it.
Typical. Colin Morgan: twitchy in the face of people's concern, up to and including his own.
"What about headache?" Colin asks. Prod, prod. "From - from the flash? Your head feel normal?"
"More than yours ever will," Bradley drawls. Because all right, maybe that's what he does in the face of concern; makes jokes, tries to make people forget. He's sorry this time, though, when Colin doesn't rise to the bait.
"I - they're not coming outside, are they. I need to go."
Bradley's been expecting at least one escape attempt, and he's on top of it at once. "They are, I saw them," Bradley lies. "Heard them as well," he continues. Which could actually be true - he'd heard something, after all. "Bet we can see them if we go round the tower," is a massive gamble, but it pays off.
It's a huge relief, catching sight of the cameramen down in the courtyard; Bradley really hadn't wanted to go back to that lighting hell. For Colin, it seems even more than that. He sags a little, literally weak-kneed.
Why?, Bradley wants to say, and You confuse me, Colin Morgan - it's funny, how he can say that last to anyone, anyplace, any time, except when it seems to matter.
Author: significantowl
Pairing: Bradley/Colin
Rating: NC-17 eventually (PG this part)
Word Count: ~4000 in this chapter
Disclaimer: Not true. Fictional characterizations and situations. No invasion of privacy intended.
Summary: Heavily inspired by the first series' video diaries. Pierrefonds is full of history, and history is full of very strange things. Trust the very strange Colin Morgan to get thoroughly mixed up in them - and bring Bradley right along with him.
Content Notes (entire fic): mysterious happenings, first times, historical references, mentions of religion/faith, hurt/comfort, sex
Author's Notes: I started writing this a long, long time ago, and so many wonderful people have helped me along the way! Many many thanks to alba17, avidbeader, capricornucopia, cynthia_black, jacketpotato, tempestsarekind, tourdefierce, and zeldaophelia for their feedback and encouragement with various parts of this fic.
Every Inch Of Stone
by significantowl
“Talking to yourself, Morgan?”
Colin blinks. Bradley finds it deeply unsatisfying: Colin should jump, he should look startled, he should have the grace to turn red. Bradley would have done all three of those things, if someone had come upon him in the crypts holding an animated conversation with himself. But Colin just blinks, one more time, and says, ">looked an awful lot like talking to yourself." Bradley doesn't stop walking while he talks, and doesn't stop talking long enough to ponder the wisdom of this course of action. It's momentum, really; he's spent the better part of the lunch break looking high and low for Colin, and now that Bradley's found him, leaving him in peace isn't an option. "Sounded like it as well. In fact, the only way I think it would be possible for you to look or sound more like you were talking to yourself would be for you to -" he considers, decides - "look and sound like you were doing it for longer."
"Sorry, I wasn't." Colin's voice is as blank and expressionless as his face. It's maddening.
They're surrounded by statues, literally at every turn: some standing, some kneeling, some lounging on top of tombs as if chatting with their neighbours, others laid out as if in death. It's the juxtaposition that gets Bradley, as if some of the dead have decided to get up for a nice look around, and the rest might join in any second. Just to give things that extra zing, the people in charge at Pierrefonds have kept the room dark, tossed in some lovely crypty lighting effects, plus - apparently they were feeling really inspired on crypt-planning day - a looped track of whispery French voices.
This could be, should be, the punch-line to an excellent Colin-joke; the set-up's bang on. Colin the Vampire, perhaps, or Colin Sees Dead People. But the thing is that Bradley's not feeling it, and he always does now. Those moments when once he would've just got bewildered or put off he feels the laugh coming, bubbling deep.
Colin's brushing past Bradley, the shadows sliding over his face as he goes, and it's either follow or stay there with the dead and the voices.
+
They go to work. Bradley filmed in the courtyard with the second unit all morning, but now he joins Colin on the interior shoot, down in the castle cellars. It's time to move things up a gear - namely, from Merlin striding through dim corridors with a torch to Merlin and Arthur striding through dim corridors with a torch. Which, Bradley quickly realises, has the potential to take a disturbing turn into Arthur's hair catching dramatically on fire if Bradley doesn't pay particular attention to the angle at which Colin's holding the torch.
It's cold down here, so much so that he's feeling it even through all of Arthur's layers, but Bradley could do without that sort of warming up.
Something else Bradley realises: Colin is not well. Massively not well. This must be clear to everyone in the room, but for some reason, everyone is pretending to ignore it.
It's not that Colin's doing bad work; say "Action," and he's on like a light. But in between takes, he sinks down into himself, his eyes go flat and his expression turns even farther inward than usual. And he moves so carefully, all these slow conserved movements, as he heads back to his mark.
If Bradley flubs a line, he feels guilty, like he's a bastard prolonging Colin's pain.
Pretending to ignore it means no-one's saying anything sensible like, "Colin, mate, have some paracetamol and a lie-down, we can do with just Bradley and your double for now, yeah?" Although perhaps they tried something along those lines earlier and got turned down, Bradley doesn't know. Instead, people are dancing attendance with an offhand air, as if trying to make it appear that they're doing nothing of the sort. There's herbal tea being offered, and water, and granola-yoghurt-bar things, because whether anyone else knows Colin skipped lunch to lurk about in the crypts or not, Colin always has the look of someone who needs a little protein.
Bradley wonders how much of what he witnessed there among the statues had to do with Colin being ill, and how much was down to his being Colin (which, in Bradley's head, is rapidly becoming shorthand for incomprehensibly weird). Sixty-forty, perhaps, with the balance swinging towards weird.
As time passes and the corridor they're traipsing about in begins to steadily warm up, the issue of the day becomes whether Colin's too hot, too cold, or just right - at one point an A.D. actually helps Colin on with his puffy coat, slipping his arms in like he's five years old.
And Colin - Colin is either really good at pretending not to notice that everyone's treating him like an eggshell, a precious souffle, a delicately-balanced tiered cake (Bradley is hungry, considering he spent his lunch hour running around looking for Colin, and he's not interested in cardboard yoghurt bars), or he's actually not noticed.
All told, it's giving Bradley a headache.
Later on, Bradley says something to Angel about Colin being a bloody martyr, with his ridiculous commitment to suffering in silence; Angel says something about people suffering around Bradley all the time, and then quite a few more things about the virtues of silence. Which is, of course, fairly absurd of her, praising silence with words. Bradley tells her so for a while, and the upshot of it all is, by the time he gets back to the hotel and to their floor, Colin's light is out.
Bradley presses his palm to the door for a minute, thinks that, perhaps, there may have been a tiny bit of rightness in one or two of the things Angel had said, and lets him be.
+
Things are bloody weird the next day, and not even due to Colin.
They're filming on the lower stairwell, Bradley climbing slightly ahead of Colin, with Colin a little closer to camera. It's an over-the-shoulder shot that's meant to catch both of their faces in profile, offer a little glimpse at both of their expressions.
Except.
They've climbed these stairs Bradley doesn't know how many times now, and it's not working. Not through any fault of his and Colin's brilliant stair-climbing - they are, by this point, true masters of the art. It's to do with the lighting, Bradley doesn't know in what way, exactly, and that's the problem, neither does anyone else.
Someone swears. Not imaginatively, but forcefully, and it's as if they're speaking for the room as a whole. Jeremy looks up from the screen and says, "Still too dark. Places -"
And they do it again. And very soon after that, they do it again.
It's not the camera, and it's not the film. All that's been switched out, trial-and-errored. It's not something to do with one particular spot on the staircase, either, because they've tried several. So now they're just bumping up the lights. More and more and more wattage, until the big challenge for Bradley becomes not so much looking purposeful and princely as not screwing up his face in a massive squint, and he's seriously considering donning his sunglasses between takes.
"This is ridiculous," Bradley says to Colin, as they trudge back down the stairs yet again.
"Mm," Colin says, which Bradley takes for considered agreement.
Bradley's had one eye on Colin all morning. So has everyone else, or at least, they did until things got so mad with the lights. Colin probably hates it, being so damn private, but if he weren't so private people wouldn't feel the need to conduct careful observations of the rare and reclusive Colin-species to try and work out what the hell's going on with it.
He's seemed well enough thus far (Bradley's not going to use the word normal). His face is flushed, but Bradley has a feeling his own is as well, thanks to all the stairs. And anyway, that's a big change from yesterday, when Colin was so pale as to be almost insubstantial. His breathing's a little ragged here and there, but again, stairs.
Another big difference from yesterday: Colin's noticed Bradley watching, today. Hasn't said a word about it, no, but Bradley likes to think he knows when Colin's actively ignoring him. It's there for the reading - maybe in some tiny print, but it's there - in the corner of Colin's eye.
"Just because a turtle's inside his shell doesn't mean you can't see him," Bradley informs Colin. Basic biology.
"Bradley James, Turtle Hunter?" Colin's on the step below him; they're waiting for the off. His eyes crinkle, and yeah, Bradley thinks, he knows.
"Well," Bradley says, intending to counter with something both witty and intelligent, but then Colin says, "Stay out of oceans," around the same moment that the director says, "Action," and a take is ruined because Bradley's busting up.
He doesn't bother trying to explain that it's not his fault, because what's the point?
There isn't such a thing as a proper break, but during some of the bouts of light-fiddling Bradley and Colin sit in folding chairs at the bottom of the stairwell. The batteries to Bradley's DS drain early on, in about two minutes flat, very annoying, and Colin keeps dipping in and out of a book, also annoy- well, it has to be very annoying for him, because he can't be getting more than a couple of paragraphs read at a time.
"Is it me or is this shot not all that important, in the grand scheme of things? I mean, murderous sorcerer, people dying, and we see Arthur and Merlin go up some stairs. Gripping stuff."
"Not just you." Colin doesn't look up from his book. Can't be good on the eyes, the way one minute it's as bright as blazes, and the next it's every bit as dim as you'd expect a staircase in a cellar to be.
"You would think - or I would think, I wouldn't presume to think for you, dear Colin - that someone would put a stop to all this," Bradley waves a hand at the mess of people and equipment, "before it eats our entire day."
Colin looks up then, tilting his head, observing. "Aye."
"It's a collective loss of perspective and it's collectively mad."
Colin gives a quick, tight nod. And Bradley wonders if the book thing was an act before, because he's got his lips pressed together in a way that suggests he's taking this all more seriously than Bradley is. Bradley's bored and tired of stairs, but Colin is, Colin is....
"We should -" Bradley begins. See if they'll give us a break, he's about to say. You should be the one to ask, he's about to say.
But he doesn't get to, because that's when the glass goes flying.
It's like being a passenger in a car crash. Bradley sees the blue-white flash and knows it's wrong just an instant before the shattering, before the noise, and then there's not much to do but close his eyes and hope.
The shards are vivid behind his lids, fast, gleaming and dangerous. His brain stops short before picturing the blood.
There's a short, awful silence. Then come French voices and English voices, all loud, Jeremy's the loudest, but the thing Bradley's stuck on is Colin's cold, strong fingers withdrawing from the back of his neck. He'd been pushing Bradley's head down.
"You're all right." Colin says it more than asks, like he's got no room for the alternative.
"Yeah. You?"
Colin nods. He's already on his feet, heading toward Jeremy. And Colin does look all right, and there's a massive amount of relief in that, mixed up with some sick guilt because Bradley hadn't been thinking, Bradley hadn't reached out, Bradley hadn't done anything at all.... But it's hard to focus on that, because in all this madness, the thing that's blowing Bradley's mind, the thing that he just can't believe, is what he's seeing on Colin's face.
Anger. Hard-eyed, fixed-jawed, it's very like the expression he's seen over and over again on Colin's character, but never on Colin himself. Very like, but not entirely like, and Bradley finds himself trying to catalogue the differences - there are some, there are, maybe in his eyes? Or no. Maybe that flush staining his cheeks, maybe it's a darker red?
Or. Maybe it's all in Bradley's head. Maybe it's in the strange funny fluttering of his pulse - it still hasn't slowed down, since the flash. Maybe it's just that Bradley still doesn't know what's going to happen next.
Every step Bradley takes is on glass. People are shaking it off their clothes, brushing it from their hair. Looking around, there doesn't seem to be a single bulb left intact - the camera wouldn't be telling a lie now, everything really is in shadow - but it also doesn't seem as if anyone's badly hurt. No-one's shouting for a doctor, not in English, anyway. And Bradley's getting the feeling that what's going on in French is a whole lot of blaming. It's very loud, for a start, and involves a great deal of aggressive pointing.
Colin's slipping sideways through the knot of people, murmuring 'sorry' like a particularly polite snake. Bradley is not good at being a snake. Bradley's got too much in the way of shoulders. So he's not close enough to hear what's being said, when Colin gets to Jeremy, but he is close enough to see the equation working itself out on the director's face: glass-filled explosion + Colin Morgan = glass-filled Colin Morgan = dear God, ambulance, ambulance right now.
Bradley could script this, he's just lived it himself. Look, there's the relief, right on cue.
It's a short conversation, and Bradley can only see the back of Colin's head for most of it. Then Colin's slipping back out of the crowd, and Bradley tries in his non-snaky way to follow. He catches Colin up near the dark corridor that leads to the crypts.
"Are we getting a break? How long?"
"Forty-five minutes." Colin's expression is smoothed out now, controlled. Bradley wonders if it's because he let the anger out - hard to imagine that, though, Colin letting go on the director - or he's just remembered how to bury it.
"Because an hour would be just too much? Chop-chop then Colin, let's be off," Bradley says. He's not having a fully-formed thought, more like half of one, but it's got something to do with the strangeness of yesterday, and something else to do with -
"You go on."
- the thing Colin isn't quite managing to hide because he's busy hiding the anger. Resignation, quiet and strong. Colin doesn't want to stay down here, but for some unfathomable reason he thinks he has to.
Bradley can't help looking at Colin and picturing him as he was the day before, ghost-pale and expressionless, and even though there's no logic to it - Colin's not ill today, and he's not going to get ill just because he goes into the crypts - it's hard to shake the feeling that they're headed down a familiar road. No. Bradley has no intention of leaving Colin alone in this cellar. Maybe not any cellar. Maybe not ever again.
Bradley throws an arm around Colin's shoulders. He may not be good at being a snake, but a force of nature, that he can do. "Not without you, my shining co-star. There's a flight of stairs between me and my forty-five minutes of freedom and I've been thoroughly conditioned now. I can only climb stairs with you at my side."
Normally, Colin would go along with it. 99% chance. (There's a reason Bradley can identify "quiet resignation" from a three-word sample, and that reason is familiarity.) But normality has apparently left the building - castle - and Bradley's half-holding his breath because it's just possible Colin may be about to be rude.
He's got a morbid fascination with seeing what that might look like, and zero desire to be on the receiving end. Kind of the car crash thing all over again.
Colin hasn't said anything, nor made any move. Just closed his eyes very briefly, and opened them again.
"In fact, do you know how I feel?" Bradley doesn't go so far as to start walking, just shifts his foot forward some and lets the drag of his arm on Colin's shoulders provide a little gentle encouragement. "I'm feeling frustrated. Step-ually frustrated. We've climbed and climbed and climbed and we haven't reached the top of anything."
Bradley realises that while he's trying to catch Colin's eye, Colin's being careful not to let him. This is not actually a bad sign. More like an indication that Colin is also being careful not to laugh.
"Step-ually frustrated," Bradley repeats.
A little eye-dart from Colin, and then, straight-faced: "Yearning for completion, are you?"
And, all right, Bradley loses it first, but Colin definitely loses it after, and if there's a little bit of hysteria in their laughter, if the way they lean together is more like holding each other up, nobody mentions it.
+
In delivering his inspirational climbing speech, Bradley had only been thinking as far as flight of stairs in front of them, the one that would take them away from the crypts. He hadn't actually thought as far as roof. But he should have known: Colin Morgan never did anything by halves. If Colin decided to climb, then by God, he climbed.
Bradley has a bit of a thing for rooftops. And for views. Which Colin maybe knows and maybe had taken into consideration, so Bradley's not going to mention that his calves are close to going on strike after their morning's exertion, or how handy it is that this parapet is here to hold him up. Instead, belatedly, Bradley says, "Sorry, what?"
"Just saying I see why you like it up here." Colin's squinting against the sun, elbows propped on stone.
"Yeah," Bradley says. "Not too bad, is it." He truly does love it: getting a birds-eye view of the courtyard, taking in the old stone, mullioned windows, weird, wonderful gargoyles. Or looking out farther, out over the castle walls, to the lake and the village and the forest beyond. Definitely a sight for sore eyes today, out here in the open air under real, natural, non-exploding light.
But not so much for sore, complaining legs. Bradley's already given them a good mental talking-to, but do they ever listen?
He props his elbows up beside Colin's. "What did Jeremy say?" That's almost but not quite the question he wants answered, but for some reason it's easier to ask than, What did you say to Jeremy when you were looking all Wrath of Colin?
"No serious injuries, far as he knew. Doesn't sound like anyone's needing stitches or anything."
"Are we meant to pick up where we left off, or has sanity come calling?"
Colin grimaces. "I don't know. Last I heard they were trying to decide between filming some more in the castle, or going out to the courtyard. Debating, like."
"Oh, God, let it be the courtyard," Bradley says. He looks straight down over the edge - it's a dizzying view - checking for signs of a film crew setting up shop. Nothing yet.
Colin says something, quiet and sincere, in a voice that probably isn't meant for Bradley's ears. Hard to tell, but it might be please. For the first time, it crosses Bradley's mind that Colin might have been praying when he'd found him yesterday, that Colin might do that sort of thing; Bradley knows what scripted prayer looks like, from funerals and weddings and Easter Sundays, but as far as the spontaneous kind goes, he can't say he has a great deal of experience. But maybe that had been it: Colin had felt terrible, and could have been asking for strength to get through the day, when here Bradley had come along accusing him of talking to himself. Which, if Bradley thinks too hard about it, may be what he imagines praying is, but he certainly hadn't been trying to belittle Colin's faith, and he can't think of any way of working out if he had without making it worse.
They're silent for a long while, looking out across the battlements. Bradley tracks a bird through the blue sky, wonders what it is. A crow? A vulture? Something more interestingly French? A few more minutes go by before he realises: he's being watched. The weight of someone's gaze is settling into his skin, a little bit warm, a little bit itchy. And since there's just the two of them up here, it has to be Colin's.
Bradley sneaks a look sideways, but Colin's staring out over the battlements as if he'd never even thought of looking anywhere else.
"They captured Joan of Arc the other side of the forest," Colin says, because that's the kind of thing Colin knows and would use as a diversion. "Near where we're staying. At Compéigne."
"Somebody's been reading his guidebook."
Colin doesn't quite smile. "Some people say Merlin did a prophecy about her. But, you know. People say he did prophecies about absolutely everything."
"Bradley James' bathwater will be disappointingly cool on the twenty-second of April in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight," Bradley intones. It's a good prophecy voice, he thinks. Ringing and all. Shame Arthur probably won't be giving any.
That does get him a smile, one that makes Colin's cheeks squinch up. "Exactly, yeah."
They drift back into silence. Bradley's listening for sounds of equipment being moved, crashes and bangs, anything that might herald outdoor filming. He hears some distant shouting, raised voices, but that could just as easily be tourists. It's a little hard to focus, though, because Bradley's also dealing with the fact that the weight is back, that feeling of being watched. And Colin is apparently a stealth master, because no matter how subtly Bradley moves his head, he can't catch any glimpse of Colin looking his way. Bradley can't decide what to do. Acknowledge it, say something? Ignore it, pretend it's not happening? That's what Colin would do.
And it hits him: this is probably how Colin's felt all day. It's even possible that what's going on here is a get-back-at-Bradley manueovre; the more Bradley thinks about it, the more he supposes it probably is, because what other reason would Colin, polite Colin, have for staring? So he turns, abruptly, pivoting on the balls of his feet. Catches Colin in the act.
The silence takes on a horrible, embarrassed quality. A flush floods Colin's face, remarkably fast, and his eyes skitter away. Colin swallows, and Bradley tracks the movement, watching as he readies himself to speak. "Ehm. So. You're definitely all right then?"
"Not a scratch on me." Bradley holds out his hands to demonstrate, palms up, palms down. It's an invitation for Colin to look his fill, but Colin's too busy poking and prodding the stone wall to take Bradley up on it.
Typical. Colin Morgan: twitchy in the face of people's concern, up to and including his own.
"What about headache?" Colin asks. Prod, prod. "From - from the flash? Your head feel normal?"
"More than yours ever will," Bradley drawls. Because all right, maybe that's what he does in the face of concern; makes jokes, tries to make people forget. He's sorry this time, though, when Colin doesn't rise to the bait.
"I - they're not coming outside, are they. I need to go."
Bradley's been expecting at least one escape attempt, and he's on top of it at once. "They are, I saw them," Bradley lies. "Heard them as well," he continues. Which could actually be true - he'd heard something, after all. "Bet we can see them if we go round the tower," is a massive gamble, but it pays off.
It's a huge relief, catching sight of the cameramen down in the courtyard; Bradley really hadn't wanted to go back to that lighting hell. For Colin, it seems even more than that. He sags a little, literally weak-kneed.
Why?, Bradley wants to say, and You confuse me, Colin Morgan - it's funny, how he can say that last to anyone, anyplace, any time, except when it seems to matter.