BBC Merlin rpf: "Cutting Room"; NC17; part 1 of 5

Apr 12, 2010 23:33

Title: Cutting Room
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Colin/Bradley
Warnings: A little bit of sex; a lot of angst; they get there
Spoilers: None (near future fic)
Disclaimer: I wish 'Merlin' was mine, but it isn't. And though any resemblance to persons living is entirely intentional, what I have them doing is entirely fictional. Unless it comes to pass, in which case I am psychic.
Author's Note: Just in case you're wondering, from the look of the first few lines, this isn't a script.
Summary: It's 2013 and the cameras are about to roll on the Merlin Movie - but can its two stars put aside the pain of their past and recapture the magic?

"CUTTING ROOM"  (Part 1)

1 EXT.  BROADWAY, NEW YORK.  JANUARY 2013. NIGHT

Traffic and crowd noise. A yellow cab passes. The sidewalk is crowded, people hurrying in both directions. Neon light from a theatre frontage spills over the crowd, illuminating the face of a YOUNG MAN (COLIN MORGAN) whose steps falter as he glances up above the building across the street. CAM tracks his line of vision and we see the same face plastered across a billboard.

COLIN’s steps slow, then stop. Pedestrians flow agitatedly around him, jostling him as he frowns up at the billboard. Our perspective cuts between the two faces - one pinched with cold, the other air-brushed to perfection - seeking out their similarities: a full mouth, prominent ears, razor sharp cheekbones. It is only when we reach the eyes that the difference becomes apparent.

COLIN’s eyes are dull even in the harsh strip light. In contrast the eyes on the billboard dance with mischief - they are the eyes of a man who is happy. COLIN ducks his head, pulls his beanie further down and his collar up, and hurries off down the street.

It was unnerving to encounter, every evening on your way to work, a 30 foot high image that even vaguely looked like you. It had been weeks but Colin still couldn’t get used to it.

By the time he got to his dressing room he was flushed and edgy. He ran the same gauntlet every night: the billboard, then the posters and lights outside the theatre -all screaming his name and declaring him ‘the definitive Puck’ in ‘a tour de force performance in the finest Midsummer Night’s Dream since Peter Hall’s groundbreaking 1971 production’ - and finally the fans at the stage door. They’d got wise to his discrete exits after the show, when he felt too wired to stop, and now they waited for his arrival instead.

He couldn’t ignore them - didn’t want to - but even after five years of recognition the attention still made him uncomfortable. He chatted and signed his name, amazed at how happy they were with so little, and all the while wondering whether this was the night they’d find him out, realise that there was nothing interesting enough about him to warrant hanging around in the cold for a couple of hours, that the only piece of him worth having was delivered up there, on stage. The best of Colin Morgan could be bought for $35 plus tax.

He made herbal tea and switched on his laptop, mundane rituals that calmed him before the show. His inbox was crowded with compliments about ‘Dream’, PR requests from his US publicist, and half a dozen messages from Ruth all on the same theme and pressing for a response. There was nothing that couldn’t wait, nothing that he’d been waiting for - until he reached the last message. His heart beat faster when he recognised the sender’s address.

The first email had arrived two days ago, landing out of nowhere like a punch in the gut.  Do you want me to do this movie or not?

He’d responded instantly. What sort of question is that after two years?

When nothing came back that day or the one after, he’d wondered whether his knee-jerk reply had screwed the chance he’d waited for all this time - but maybe it hadn’t. He clicked on the latest message.

An honest one. You don’t want me there = I turn it down. Simple as that.

He lost all track of time as he sat staring at the words, guessing and second-guessing at what lay behind them, composing a hundred different replies and playing out their possible consequences. The arrival of his dresser shocked him back into action. With barely fifteen minutes until curtain-up, she bristled with impatience while he slapped on the make-up that was normally done before she arrived, and then wrestled him into his costume just as the first bell sounded. His throat was tight, protesting the vocal exercises he rushed through as he paced the dressing room floor, trying and failing to ignore the open laptop and concentrate on the performance ahead. In the end, the ASM was holding open his door and calling him to the wings before he swooped on the keyboard and typed:

Do it. Whatever else you were or weren’t, you were always my Arthur.

2  INT.  A LARGE FUNCTION ROOM.  LONDON. MAY 2013. EVENING.

The chic, modern space is full of smartly dressed men and women, chattering noisily. Waiters pass among them with trays of champagne and canapés. A shortish round-faced MAN (JOHNNY CAPPS) weaves his way through several groups, smiling and greeting people as he goes, until he reaches a dimly lit corner at the edge of the crowd, where COLIN loiters in the shadows, sipping at an almost empty glass of champagne.

JOHNNY smiles and takes COLIN by the elbow, extricating him from the corner.

JOHNNY

Colin, come and meet Frank LaSalle from the distributors. He’s a big admirer of your work.

Colin was led across to another knot of people whose presence and good humour he knew were vital but whose roles he didn’t fully comprehend.  He conversed dutifully, only occasionally allowing himself to scan the room. On the third pass, Katie caught his eye and beckoned him over.

Excusing himself, he snagged another glass and headed over to where Katie stood chatting with Angel and a bunch of unfamiliar faces. The girls brushed off the rest of their group with practised charm and drew him apart.

“So where is he?” Katie asked with her usual directness.

Colin swallowed. “How should I know?”

She raised a sceptical eyebrow. “C’mon, Colin - you two must have been in touch about this.”

Colin shook his head. “A couple of emails back in the New Year, when the contracts were being sorted - nothing since.”

“But we know he signed, right?” Angel put in.

“Yeah,” Colin said quietly, “Ruth told me.”

He’d thought about changing agents back then, after he’d enquired about Bradley and Ruth had told him straight out that Bradley had asked her not to discuss him or what he was doing with Colin. She’d been completely up front but fair, said she’d understand if he felt he had to move on but hoped that he wouldn’t, that it needn’t be a problem. And it hadn’t been, not after he’d swallowed his pride and accepted that she’d taken Bradley’s part personally, but would never do so professionally. He supposed Bradley had given her permission to tell him he’d signed for the movie, because he’d never received a reply to his second email.

Angel’s hand closed carefully around his, where it hung at his side, and squeezed. “Then he’ll be here -and we’ll be here, too.”

He nodded, tried to smile but ended up dropping his gaze. He knew what they thought and it wasn’t right. He should have set things straight a long time ago but it had all been too raw, too personal. It had been easier to let the misconceptions stand, to get on with his life and, on the rare occasions they saw each other, to encourage their avoidance of the subject to spare his feelings. ‘Merlin’ was over, done. What was the point of a post mortem?

But now the corpse had been revived and all its secrets with it.

“Colin? Colin are you hearing-” Katie halted mid sentence and her sharp intake of breath was enough to make him whip around so fast his head spun.

Bradley stood just inside the door, scanning the room. He hadn’t spotted them yet so Colin was free to observe him for a few precious seconds. He seemed to have grown - not in height but in stature. His shoulders were even broader, the muscular definition in his arms straining lasciviously against the short sleeves of his fitted white t-shirt. And the Californian sun had left its mark. His skin was kissed a honey brown and the hair that still flopped into those luminous eyes was blonder than ever.

Colin’s mouth went dry, his head pounded and he wished to hell he hadn’t had that second glass of champagne. Because this was the first time in almost two years that he’d set eyes on Bradley James and now he was going to be sick.

He must have looked as bad as he felt because he was suddenly aware of Katie on one side and Angel on the other, bracing him as Bradley clocked them and began to move their way. Ignoring anyone who tried to say hello, Bradley fixed his eyes on Colin and advanced across the floor.

“Hello Colin,” the voice was different, stripped of its usual warmth and as carefully neutral as his expression - all but the eyes. Bradley’s eyes were full of everything he’d never said and Colin wanted to shrivel up and die, right there.

“Bradley...” he could barely get the name out.

“You look even pastier than normal,” Bradley said dismissively, looking Colin up and down, “and skinnier. You ought to take better care of yourself. You’re a film investor’s nightmare.”

“Well hello to you, too, Bradley,” Katie interjected, “it’s so nice to see you after all this time.  Where have you been hiding?”

Bradley’s gaze darted across to the woman beside Colin. He paused to appraise her openly before replying, “Katie, as charming and beautiful as ever, I see. I’ve been hiding on primetime US network television every week - how about you?”

“Bradley,” Angel stepped forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek, “I’m so glad you’re here.  This wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

Bradley blinked and looked down at her and the smile that nudged at the corners of his mouth touched his eyes for an instant, lifting their stormy grey to blue. He closed his arms around Angel and returned the kiss and Colin’s chest ached.

“Thanks Angel,” Bradley separated himself gently from her, “it’s nice to know someone’s happy to see me.”

“What did you expect?” Katie snapped. “You walked away without as much as the courtesy of an explanation to your friends-”

“Katie,” Angel’s voice cut across the other woman’s, and her arm slid around her waist, “I’m sure Bradley had his reasons but this isn’t the time or the place to discuss them, is it? And you wanted to corner the costume designer. She’s over there, see?”

Colin watched Angel steer Katie firmly away, their heads together, before slowly turning back to face Bradley. “I’m sorry.” Brilliant, Colin thought, what a brilliant fucking effort after two years of waiting.

Bradley’s eyes narrowed. “And what exactly are you apologising for, Colin? Screwing me over, or letting them believe it was my fault?”

“Both,” he forced the word past the lump in his throat. “Please, Bradley, I just want a chance to explain-”

“No,” Bradley shook his head, “it’s history. And there’s no point in looking back. I’m here to do a job and that’s it.”

The tension rolled off Bradley - from the grim line of his mouth and the set of his shoulders, to the anger that crackled across his skin like lightning waiting to ground itself if anyone was foolish enough to reach out to him.  Colin’s scalp pricked. “But everyone thinks...I have to tell them-”

“Nothing,” Bradley barked, and then quieted when a couple of heads turned in their direction. “Just leave it alone. It’s dead and buried and I don’t want it dragged up just to soothe your guilty conscience. I don’t need their understanding and I certainly don’t want their sympathy. I knew how it would be if I came back.”

“So why did you come back?”

Bradley glared at him. “It’s a smart career move - why else?”

Colin forced himself to keep meeting that look. “Then why did you ask if it was okay with me?”

The other man drew a deep breath. “Because contrary to popular opinion,” he gestured across the room to where Katie and Angel now stood talking to Richard and Tony, all four casting surreptitious glances in their direction, “I’m not the one who makes decisions based solely on what’s good for me. I knew I could cope with this but I didn’t know if you could. And right now, Colin, it doesn’t look as if you can. So you’d better pull yourself together or this isn’t going to work.”

“I’m trying, ok?” Colin snapped, shaken by Bradley’s coldness and angry with himself for feeling so close to losing it in front of him, in front of everyone. He grabbed another champagne glass, and raised it shakily to his lips. “I just thought...”

“What?” Bradley jibed. “That you could apologise and we’d all fall right back into playing happy families? Grow up. If you kick someone in the teeth, they remember it even after they get the teeth fixed. I’m here to do a job. I’ll be your Arthur, but that’s all I’ll be.”

He strode angrily away to where Julian and Johnny were talking to the head of the studio and Colin watched Bradley's shoulders drop, his chin lift, and a smile splash across that picture-perfect face as he extended his hand. Slipping his glass onto a passing tray, Colin inched his way towards the door.

3  INT. CORRIDOR. PINEWOOD STUDIOS, BUCKS.  JUNE 2013. DAY.

We follow as a YOUNG WOMAN leads COLIN down the corridor. Ahead, a door lies ajar and the sound of conversation filters from the room beyond. Our viewpoint switches to the faces of the pair in the corridor as BRADLEY’s voice becomes distinguishable.

BRADLEY (V/O)

OK, OK, the interviews I can live with - although no-one’s buying that crap story about why there was never a series five - but this is too much, Johnny. Why can’t you schedule me in with Angel, or Tony - anyone but him? For god’s sake, we’re not Arthur and Merlin, joined at the bloody hip!

COLIN’s stride falters. The YOUNG WOMAN casts a worried glance in his direction.

“That’s precisely the point, Bradley,” Johnny’s voice had a familiar edge to it that Colin recalled from long, difficult days of shooting towards the end of a series, when their Exec Producer had frequently been on the brink of losing it. “You have a lot of scenes with him, we need to see your costumes side by side...and we need publicity shots of you together.

“I thought we went through all this before you accepted the job. How closely you guys would have to work together; how important it was for the success of this film that you could put aside-”

“Ahem,” the wardrobe assistant cleared her throat noisily as she pushed the door open and ushered Colin inside.

Bradley stood, legs apart, in the centre of the room. A woman was applying pliers to the chain mail at his shoulder, while another knelt at his feet, stitching the hem of his trouser leg.

Johnny was perched on a stool to one side of the room, his back to the door. He glanced over his shoulder. “Shit,” he muttered, jumping up and making his way over to Colin. “Hi, Colin, look...sorry. Bradley’s just a bit tired-”

“Don’t make excuses for me, Johnny,” Bradley snapped, tugging himself free from the two women making alterations to his costume. Out of the corner of his eye, Colin caught the swift look of irritation they exchanged.

“Bradley’s right, Johnny,” Colin said quietly, looking straight at his castmate. “He’s the one acting like an ignorant git. Let him apologise.”

Johnny’s eyes widened. “Colin, please...”

Colin held up his hand. “Why don’t you just give us a few minutes, hmm? Then we can all get on with what we’re here to do.”

He heard Johnny sigh, registered the movement of the costumiers as they slipped past him, and the sound of the door closing behind them. Still he stood, eyes locked with Bradley’s, searching for something...anything...beneath the contempt written all over the blonde man’s face.

“I thought I was supposed to be the one who couldn’t handle this? They’re all just trying to do their jobs, Bradley.”

“Don’t you dare lecture me about making it impossible for someone to do their job!” Bradley snarled and turned away from him, pacing the room like a trapped animal. “It’s like some nightmarish version of 2007 all over again. ‘Poor Colin, sweet Colin, let’s all support Colin.’ If only they knew what you’re really like.”

“Then why don’t you tell them? You said you didn’t care what they think but you obviously do. So tell them.” Colin stepped into the other man’s path. “Tell them it was me who led you on, who lured the straight boy into bed and then abandoned him, went back to my sordid gay lifestyle.  Tell them it was me who drove you away and never gave you a second thought after you left. Why don’t you tell them Bradley?”

“Shut up!” Bradley grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him. “Shut up, you bastard. You know that’s not how it was!”

The profanity, coming from Bradley and directed at him, rattled Colin more than the shaking. “Tell them anyway,” he choked. “It’s no more of a lie than what they believe now, is it?”

“Oh, no,” Bradley’s eyes glittered like steel, “I won’t give you the satisfaction.  You think you can...atone...somehow for what you did to me by getting me to paint you as a heartless monster and me as the victim? Dream on. I want you to live with the truth, because that’s much harder to bear. I loved you, and that scared you shitless.” Bradley shoved him backwards against the wall, crowding against him. The hardness stabbing Colin’s thigh was an obscene echo of their past and the smell of Bradley’s heated skin, the feel of chainmail under his fingers, flashed through Colin’s blood like a drug. “And now I despise you.” Bradley thrust himself away. “Let them have their fantasies - we know the truth. I’m nobody’s victim...and you’re the loser here, Morgan.”

Colin sagged against the wall.  “What do you want from me?” he rasped.  “You don’t want me to apologise. You don’t want to hear me out or have me explain to anyone else what really happened. So how are we going to do this?”  He gestured around. “How the fuck are we going to spend the next four months working every hour god sends together when you can’t even stand to be in the same room as me?”

Bradley’s shoulders heaved as he fought to get his breathing under control. And then he straightened and, when he turned around, a tiny spot of colour high on each cheek was the only evidence of their exchange.

“We’re going to do it the same way I got over you, Colin,” Bradley whispered, and Colin shivered, “one minute, one hour and one day at a time - starting right now.” He marched over to the door and flung it open. “Ladies, I believe we have a costume fitting to finish?”

4  INT.  REHEARSAL ROOM. PINEWOOD STUDIOS.  EARLY JUNE 2013. DAY.

A plainly decorated space dominated by a large, circular table, around which all our PRINCIPALS are seated - ANGEL next to BRADLEY; KATIE beside COLIN; TONY with RICHARD. Seated next to COLIN are two other familiar faces - a stocky, blue eyed MAN (JOE WRIGHT) and a slighter, curly-haired MAN (RUFUS SEWELL) whose intense green eyes are taking in everything going on around him. Sunlight pours into the room through a wall of semi-tinted windows. There’s some low level conversation between people seated next to one another, but COLIN and BRADLEY are notably silent.

As JOE begins to speak, the room falls quiet.

JOE

Welcome, everyone.  Obviously we’re not going to be shooting in sequence, but I thought starting at the top for our first read-through made sense, because we’ve got a nice dramatic opening scene here, which involves all our main players.

JOE glances around, smiling, meeting everyone’s eyes in turn.

JOE

So, let’s give it a go and see what happens, and then we can talk about it some more. OK?

Joe fucking Wright, Colin marvelled, still overwhelmed at the thought of this man directing them. It was awesome...and he and Bradley were in deep shit.

Because it wasn’t so much a truce as a cold war that had got them through the pre-production circus. And if stills came over a tad formal, or an interview a bit stiff, it wasn’t ideal but they could live with it. But Colin knew the way Joe worked, the way he broke through defensive tics to draw out intense performances.  Sure, he could deliver the big action sequences, the special effects - but he was only interested in those things as a backdrop to the human story. Which was why Colin wasn’t entirely surprised, after the ‘final’ shooting script had been delivered to him late yesterday, to find himself spending the evening studying the most emotionally-charged Merlin storyline he’d ever read.

Despite the rising temperature in the room, he shivered as Joe’s gaze settled on him, then bounced across to Bradley and back again.

“Colin, Bradley, it’ll be easier if you two sit together. I want to see the interaction during this reveal and the aftermath. Angel, would you mind swapping places with Colin, please?”

“No, of course.” Colin clocked the momentary glance Angel gave Bradley, the fleeting touch of her hand to his before she rose and made her way around the table.  She was almost at Colin’s chair before he remembered to stand and step aside to let her take his place. Bradley’s gaze remained firmly on the pages in front of him as Colin walked the corresponding curve. He knew it wasn’t a co-incidence that this table was round - any more than it was that, when he assumed his new place to Bradley’s right, they were positioned directly opposite Joe.

“OK, great,” Joe said brightly, “I realise it’s a while since you were all last here, but we’re in Camelot, the banqueting hall.”  Bradley’s fingers were worrying at the corner of his script, folding and unfolding the tip of paper.  “It’s crowded, colourful and noisy - a feast in full swing.  Uther’s presiding, Arthur to his right, and chatting to a man we don’t recognise - that’s you Rufus - on his left. Everyone’s pretty tanked up, relaxed...” The corner of the page came adrift, and Colin bit his lip when he saw Bradley’s hand tremble before he laid it flat on the table. “...Uther rises to his feet and a hush falls over the room...”

It wasn’t the way Bradley had wanted it to happen, but Colin thought it made a hell of an opening scene:  Morgana’s dramatic appearance at the feast and her magical attack on Uther, which forced Merlin to react the only way possible to save the king’s life. The fans would be stunned - they’d waited four long years for Merlin’s magic to be revealed and now it would happen inside the first four minutes of the movie. And within ten, Merlin would be gone from Camelot - broken out of the dungeons by a devastated Arthur, forced to say goodbye and flee in fear of his life.

It would be spectacular - if only he and Bradley could look at one another, if only Bradley could bear to touch him in something other than the clinical fashion with which he now laid that same, trembling hand on Colin’s arm.  And all the while Colin knew Joe was watching, seeing, realising that there was far more than actors’ tics to break down here, before this movie could get made to his satisfaction.

By the afternoon, the read through was down to just him and Bradley - and proving harder than the counselling sessions Colin had finally forced himself through six months after Bradley left for the States. At four o’clock, Joe finally abandoned his attempt to ignore the version of Colin/Bradley history with which he’d obviously been acquainted.

“OK, stop.” Joe raised his hand and then rubbed his forehead with it before staring at them across the polished surface of the table. “I’m done for today,” he sighed and gathered up his notes, “but you aren’t. You’ve got two hours of rehearsal left. I suggest you forget the script and use the time to have the conversation you evidently should have had before you started on this project.” He stood. “And then, perhaps, tomorrow we can get on with developing Arthur and Merlin’s relationship, rather than observing Colin and Bradley’s lack of one.”

When the door closed behind their director, Colin dropped his head into his hands. “Fuck,” he muttered quietly, “fuck.” He looked to his side. Bradley’s head was bent, his knuckles white where they gripped his script. “Bradley, we ha-”

“I will not...” Bradley forced the words out past gritted teeth, had to stop and breathe and start over. “I will not allow you to ruin my life again. Jesus Christ!” His chair grated jarringly against the floor as he leapt to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Colin twisted around, following the other man’s distracted progress towards the door. “We have-”

“Nothing,” Bradley breathed, “we have nothing.” He paused, head still turned away. “There is no more you and me.” Colin’s throat closed in sympathy with the tightness in the other man’s voice. “Tomorrow, when I speak to you, touch you - it’ll be Arthur...only Arthur. Remember that.”

bbc merlin, nc17, real person fiction, fanfiction, bradley/colin

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