If We Sleep Together (Will You Be My Friend Forever) - R - (2/2)
Colin and Bradley are generally very good at communicating with each other, except for when they actually have something important that needs saying. Then, apparently, it all goes to shit.
"So -" Bradley says awkwardly into the phone at the same time as Colin goes "I was thinking that -" and then stops and gives an awkward laugh.
"You first," he says.
"I just..." Bradley runs a hand through his hair. "Christ, Colin, what are we going to do from here?"
"Well," Colin says, ever-practical, "there are usually two options. One, we date, two, we go on as is and pretend it never happened."
"I don't really like either plan," Bradley sighs.
"I know, right?" Colin laughs, sounding relieved. "Can you imagine the two of us on a proper date? It would be a disaster." Bradley refrains from pointing out that they've been to plenty of meals and movies and museums and such, just the two of them, that they bloody went on vacation together, because that's not really the point right now, and saying it would probably imply that Bradley wants something he doesn't.
"There is a third option, you know," he goes with instead. "We could be friends, who, you know. Do these things. Sometimes. As a friendly thing. But you can have lots of friends, you know. I mean, I'm not saying I have other friends I do this with but..."
"Casual, like," Colin finishes for him, sounding thoughtful. "I like that. It... it would work for us, yeah?"
"We'd be good at it," Bradley agrees. He feels suddenly giddy, and the lightning-fast flip of emotion makes him a little nauseous.
"What do the call, that, though?" Colin asks. "Shag buddies? Friends with benefits?"
"I called it bromance," Bradley says, "but when I asked Angel if I should try for that sort of thing with you, she called me a prick."
"Well, you are a prick," Colin says, back in their familiar rhythm. "It's just one of your many charms, Bradley James."
- - -
Bradley tries to figure out a million times if he should or shouldn't go pick Colin up at the airport. It's one of those things where Colin insists he shouldn't, but since they're all - all whatever, he feels like he really, secretly should. But he doesn't want to, because the anticipatory dreams and fantasies he's pretty much got permission to have have been getting entirely out of hand and if he saw Colin in the flesh, he'd probably react by doing a lot of inappropriate things to him. Of course, this is also the reason he wants to go, and desperately.
He's still pacing and trying to make up his mind when the door of his flat clicks open and Colin's standing there, a little flight-mussed and smiling shyly at him.
"Colin, I, I," Bradley is at a loss for words. "I was going to pick you up."
"A bit late for that," Colin says. His voice is quiet, almost tired-sounding. They stand there in silence awkwardly before Colin goes, "Oh, fuck it," and then he's taking three strides forward and slamming Bradley against the wall, kissing the everloving life out of him, nipping and hungry, which Bradley only objects to because he didn't get to do it first.
Bradley's kissed a handful of men, but he's only slept with two before Colin, and Colin is nothing like either of them. For one thing, he's dreadfully skinny, not hard and muscled like the other two were. Instead he's sleek and almost eel-like, squirming and dancing beneath Bradley's curious touches. He kisses better than anyone, male or female, has ever kissed Bradley, because he knows Bradley, somehow, or maybe he's been thinking about it too. They've been around each other so long that everything feels instinctive and easy. Bradley knows that Colin's got ticklish ribs and rubbing them makes him shivery, he knows that Colin's neck is sensitive because costume had to make extra-soft neckerchiefs so Colin didn't spend every take itching and squirming. Colin knows that Bradley likes to be physical, enjoys being handled and touched, because that's how Bradley is in normal life, too. Colin smells familiar and feels familiar and sounds familiar, and Bradley feels like he's drowning in well-worn care and regard. All he wants to do is to make Colin feel the same way, to let Colin know that he's wanted this, that it's only a little horny opportunism and a lot because it's Colin, his best mate who happens to be an excellent kisser to boot, and Colin is the only person he'd risk this much of his life and career for.
It takes what feels like a year's worth of struggling out of clothes and stumbling to the bedroom, Bradley's finally laying down, pinned to his comforter at the wrists by Colin,who's watching him with bright eyes.
"You're brilliant,"Colin smiles, his face soft. "This is brilliant. Everything."
"And we're not even naked yet," Bradley says, looking at Colin pointedly. "Imagine if I had a hand free to do that."
Colin laughs and loosens his grip on Bradley's wrists enough so that Bradley can free his hands, and then clothes start going missing and everything becomes very fuzzy and pleasurable and amazing.
- - -
Bradley's a bloke, so he obviously loves sleeping with girls, because that is what blokes do. But, like all respectable blokes, he doesn't like that part after where a lot of them become like human octopi. He just had sex with them, and he wants his space, thank you very much. This is one of the things he prefers about other guys - other guys understand. Other guys leave when you're done and call you again if it was particularly good.
On the plus side, Colin's bloke-y in the sense that he doesn't want to cuddle. Like Bradley, he just wants to sort of flop for a while. Bradley appreciates that. He's never understood how some people can just get right up out of bed and act like they were not just steamrolled by an orgasm. It makes him feel self-conscious, almost, like he's not quite performed to their standards and now they must run away.
The problem is, while there may exist somewhere a super-extra-large bed capable of fitting two full grown men lying spread-eagle next to each other, Bradley does not own it. Bradley owns a queen-sized bed like a normal human being, and that means that he and Colin have to engage in some limb negotiation, which ends up in a mutual decision to overlap a little, Colin spread like a starfish on his back and Bradley flopping face-first into the mattress. Yes, Bradley's leg and arm are over Colin's, and yes, Colin's hand is right over his head, which means that Colin's idly fussing with his hair, but it is totally and completely not cuddling.
"This was a brilliant idea," Colin says finally. "I mean it, really genius."
"I can't believe I let Angel talk me out of it," Bradley agrees. "I should never have doubted my genius."
Colin snorts. "I can think of a fair number of times your genius should be called into question."
"Yes, fine," Bradley admits, "but not about this."
"Never about this,"Colin agrees.
- - -
The extraordinary thing about Colin is that he has about a million different smiles, ranging from the way he quirks just the corners up, close-mouthed when he's shy, to the one that crinkles his entire face and makes his eyes into sideways parenthesis. He's got a smile for every occasion, every person, nuanced and special and perfectly appropriate. It's an entire language, and being around Colin this much has made Bradley an expert at reading them.
Bradley has had sole property over several of those smiles for quite some time now. There's the crooked "you're being a prat, but an amusing one" smile, the one just with Colin's eyes that says Colin's making fun of Bradley in his head, and the shy quarter-smile he gets when he's trying to be sneaky and pull a prank .
But Bradley's favorite is the one Colin gets when they're having sex, the one where his lips are just barely curled up to see the hint of teeth and his eyes are closed and still,as if all he can concentrate on anything but this feeling, right there building between their sweaty bodies.
Sometimes, Bradley wonders how many other people have seen that smile, or if Colin only makes it when he's having sex with him. He doesn't know which answer scares him less.
- - -
When Bradley's filming, he longs for breaks. Not because he doesn't love filming, but because he misses things like a full night's sleep and privacy and seeing somebody who isn't part of the show. But when he gets breaks, he feels lost, at odds with himself and everyone around him. He's not used to not knowing everybody, and it's throwing him off. Every time he goes out, he mistakes someone on the street for Phil the sound guy or Roxy the PA or some other familiar face.
At a loss for what to do, he bothers Katie and Angel or whoever he can think of near-constantly.
"I'm busy, Bradley," Angel says kindly. "I've a million people to catch up with. Don't you?"
Katie is not so kind. "Go make other friends," she suggests. "There must be someone else in all of London who can bear to put up with you besides us."
Bradley tries to visit with his friends from school, his family, but it's off, somehow. They all want to hear about where he's been, what he's done, and while he doesn't begrudge them, it feels like too big a part of his life to share, too large a chasm to try and cross. He leaves every encounter exhausted simply from the act of catching up, and he's sick of that feeling. He wants things to be easy again, to have somebody he doesn't have to try with.
This, he decides, is why he's spending so much time around Colin and having sex with him. Because it's easy. Because when he's with Colin, when he's kissing him and rutting against him and hears Colin's voice around him, he feels like he's home again, wherever that is.
- - -
For casual shag buddies, the amount of time he and Colin spend actually having sex is shockingly low. They play a lot of Wii sports (Colin is aggravatingly superior at Wii fencing, which Bradley does not appreciate the irony of) and catch up on movies and experiment with cooking and eating the new curry place around the corner from Colin's flat (which, they discover, makes the world's best samosas).
Even when they're more on the "benefits" portion of the whole "friends-with-benefits" deal, there's a lot of kissing. A lot of kissing. Colin likes to pin Bradley to the couch or the kitchen counter and just spend a half an hour mapping his jaw, or he'll pounce on Bradley when he's just about to beat a song on Rock Band and kiss him until he makes the audience boo and then run away, laughing. Bradley has long since decided that the best defense to Colin being a snogging ninja is a strong offense. He'll pull Colin towards him whenever Colin makes him watch a long, stupid, boring, pretentious movie again. He seeks Colin out around his flat and pulls him in when he's just had meat to be a jerk, because he knows Colin can taste it on him. He likes how Colin grumbles and makes unhappy noises against Bradley's mouth at first, and he likes to try and time how long it takes before he gives up and kisses back. It doesn't usually take very long.
"You really like kissing, don't you," Bradley mumbles against Colin's mouth after Colin has given up protesting in a record thirteen seconds after Bradley assaults him post-ham sandwich.
"I guess," Colin looks confused. "What makes you say that?"
"You start it, like, all the fucking time," Bradley says.
Colin starts laughing. "Because I thought you liked it."
"Oh." Bradley pulls back. "Does that mean we should stop?"
"I don't know," Colin says, drawing his brows together. "I mean, I do like it."
"Me too," Bradley says. "Now I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"Maybe we should kiss more and talk less, since we're generally rubbish at that," Colin suggests.
Bradley thinks this is an excellent idea, so he pulls Colin back in and keeps on doing what he was doing before he opened his big, stupid mouth and said some big, stupid things. He plans on eating a lot of meat and playing a lot of Rock Band and never discussing this with Colin ever again.
- - -
Just because everyone isn't on the set anymore does not mean that the show's gossip machine doesn't still run with frightening efficiency. There are cell phones, after all, and e-mail and facebook and whatever other method people use now to keep in near-constant contact. Bradley knows,for instance, that Dennis, who does some stuntwork, just had a baby boy, and that Angel's seeing a bartender (but it's nothing serious), and about a million other things that he probably did not need to know since he's not living in these people's back pockets for the time being.
It's late afternoon on some disgustingly gray day in late November, and Bradley is trying to find anything to watch on the telly and utterly, utterly failing. He's bored out of his mind and would try and distract Colin from the book he's reading, except he'd already tried that and Colin had gotten kind of peeved, though not too peeved, because he's letting Bradley use one of his shoulders as a pillow. He's seriously considering listen to some newscasters on the Beeb analyze the stock market when his cell phone rings from the coffee table and lights up with the name "Katie". He reaches for it immediately.
"Katie, thank God," he says, "please tell me you're free, because I'm bored off my tit and Colin's being an arse and reading instead of being any fun and..."
"What? No, Bradley," Katie sounds rushed and annoyed."Listen, Olivia and her fiance just broke up, she was doing my makeup for this interview I've got in ten - she caught him cheating with one of his nurses."
"What?" Bradley yelps. "No. Absolutely no way."
"I swear, she wasn't wearing her ring, hold on - " Katie says something to someone else in the room, Bradley thinks it's her coffee order. "Sorry, Bradley, anyways, it's pretty new, just last month."
"Wow." Bradley isn't sure what the proper response to this is. "So what do you want me to do about it? Run him through with a sword?"
"God, no," Katie laughs. "Colin's told me about your Wii fencing skills."
"Colin is a filthy liar," Bradley says promptly. "Also, horribly jealous."
"Whatever," Katie says. Bradley would bet a million pounds she's waving her hand at him dismissively. "Look, I know you like her, so I thought since she's been really down you could maybe take her out for a round of drinks, cheer her up a little."
"Katie McGrath, are you suggesting I take advantage of a woman in an inebriated and emotionally vulnerable state?" Bradley says in his best disapproving voice,which makes him sound disturbingly like Richard when he's playing Gaius.
"No I - " Katie begins, but she's cut off by a voice in the background. "Look," she says. "Think what you like, but I have to go." And then she hangs up on him.
"Huh," Bradley says, looking down at his phone. "So, that was Katie."
"Oh?" Colin actually puts his book down, one long finger marking the page, and Bradley is bizarrely honored that he has Colin's attention, and then annoyed that he only gets it when he mentions Katie.
"Olivia caught her fiance cheating, so that's over," Bradley informs him. "There's a creepily well-run gossip machine on this show, you know."
"There's one on every show," Colin shrugs.
"Yes, but this one's run by Katie McGrath," Bradley reminds him. Katie McGrath should probably be let loose on terror detainees. One hour with her and they'd be spilling secrets left and right. She makes the SIS look like a bunch of pansy schoolgirls. "I'm honestly shocked no one's figured out about us yet."
"Maybe it's because we spent all of our time together even before we were shagging," Colin suggests, going back to his book. "I don't see how Katie would know, unless she'd installed secret cameras."
"Would you honestly put it past her?" Bradley asks, raising one eyebrow. "I mean, really, Colin. It's Katie. She'd do it."
"Shut up and watch your telly," Colin says vaguely, ignoring Bradley again. Bradley thinks that maybe the reason no one's figured out about them is because no one would believe he's hooked up with Colin Morgan on account of the fact that he is the most boring person on the planet.
- - -
No one would ever know it looking at him, but Colin cleans up well. Once he's in a proper button-down and banned from his normal wardrobe of weird t-shirts, poorly-fitting jeans, too-wide hoodies, and knit hats that Bradley would very much like to burn, he's actually quite handsome. They're at the Merlin Christmas party and Colin's got on this navy button-down shirt on that Bradley's never seen before but already loves. It stands out against Colin's pale skin and makes his eyes bluer, and Colin's undone the top button so Bradley can see the line of his collarbone, where his mouth was two hours before. The only thing Bradley dislikes about the shirt is that it makes everyone else notice Colin too.
"Colin looks lovely," Angel says to him conversationally while they mingle. "He's got some meat on his bones again. The break's really agreeing with him."
"I think it's agreeing with all of us," Bradley says. It may be the beer,and it may be the dim Christmas lights, but everyone really looks extra-beautiful tonight. "You look nice too." It's true, even though it's weird to have Angel in a dress that isn't a costume. He doesn't think he's ever seen her wear one that shows off her legs before, which is a great loss to humanity - Angel has fantastic legs.
"Look!" Angel says, nodding over at Colin."He's talking to Olivia. And cheering her up, bless him. That poor girl. Can you imagine finding out like that? After..." Angel keeps nattering on about poor, abused Olivia, but Bradley tunes her out in favor of watching Colin like a hawk. It could either be the Corona he's sipping or Olivia, but Colin's flushed, not all-over, but two spots high on his cheekbones, and he's smiling down at Olivia and her low-cut top with a goofy version of what Bradley abruptly recognizes as his sex smile, just enough to show teeth.
Abruptly, Bradley feels a flash of heat and irrational anger. The whole point of this casual arrangement was to not be serious, to not feel this way, but for all his freedom to sleep with someone else, Bradley never expected Colin actually would. The idea of him touching anyone else, especially some woman who's looking to use him as a rebound, makes him feel hot all over and possessive. Colin is his, and Bradley's earned him by learning to cook vegetarian and putting up with his disgusting, holy socks. He's spent months and months learning every nuance of Colin's body, of his speech, how to make him smile and how to make him desperate beneath Bradley's hands, looking upwards hazily with something that had scared Bradley as much as it thrilled him, because at the time he'd thought it was very close to love. It shows what he knows.
"...Bradley. Bradley." Angel snaps her fingers in front of his face. "Have you listened to a word I said?"
"Spaced out, sorry," Bradley gives her his most charming apologetic smile. "I'm actually going to head out a bit early - promised one of my drama school mates I'd go shopping with him bright and early - he's got no clue what to get his new girlfriend." It's stretching the truth, because he and Sam made plans to leave after lunch, but Angel doesn't need to know the real reason why he's running out with his tail between his legs.
- - -
"Budge over," Colin's voice wakes him. Bradley had collapsed pointedly, selfishly in the middle of the bed in case Colin came over in an act of pure pettiness. He doubted Colin actually would come over so as not to cause talk, but it had made Bradley feel better at the time.
"Why are you here?" He grumbles, only scooting enough for Colin to have the smallest sliver of room.
"They're doing that plumbing work at mine, remember?" Colin says. "Didn't want to be woken early by clanging and not be able to take a hot shower on top of it all."
Bradley vaguely remembers something of the sort, now that Colin mentions it, so he gives a semi-affirmative grunt.
"Like your bed better anyway," Colin says. He leans over to give Bradley's cheek a sloppy kiss. He smells like tequila and Olivia's perfume. It makes Bradley's stomach churn. "You've a nicer mattress."
"You've got enough money to do something about that, you know," Bradley says.
Colin sighs and settles down, spooned against Bradley's back probably, Bradley realizes, because he'd fall off the bed otherwise. "Maybe I will," Colin says.
Bradley spends a lot of time awake that night, listening to Colin's tipsy snoring and trying not to think about the fact that if Colin had a new mattress, he'd probably stop coming to Bradley's. He tries not to think about Colin and Olivia on a new mattress, laughing at him, or about how miserable and too large his bed would be without Colin.
- - -
Colin had been planning on going back to Armagh a week earlier than Bradley was going to Devon for ages, which Bradley decides is all for the best. Colin has been too busy packing and doing truly ridiculous amounts of shopping to notice, but Bradley's been wrestling with this strange new influx of feelings as far as Colin's concerned, which leaves him irritable, needy, and stand-offish by turns. Colin's flight home is at an ungodly hour in the morning, so he spends his last night in London at Bradley's, since it 's closer to the airport.
That night Bradley lets himself do things to Colin he swore he'd never do. He groans Colin's name and clutches him close and lets his hands wander everywhere, mapping, memorizing. He kisses Colin in places he'd been wanting to kiss for forever, the insides of his wrists, the pulse fluttering against Bradley's mouth, up his elbow, a ring across his hips that he hopes acts as a barrier, a bookmark, a sign that says Bradley's property from here downwards. He fucks Colin so slow he barely knows his own name and he's cursing and begging when he comes.
When they're done, Bradley keeps running his mouth over his favorite places to kiss - where the bones jut out of Colin's shoulders in an endearing little knob, behind his ears, that spot where the stubble grows thickest under his chin because Colin always forgets to shave there.
"Gonna miss this," Colin murmurs sleepily while Bradley's still kissing up and down his neck.
"Yeah," Bradley says, throat tight. "Yeah, I already do."
- - -
Bradley gets his Christmas package from Colin on Boxing Day, a vegetarian cookbook and an apron that says "King of the Kitchen". The i's are dotted with little crowns and there's a card at the bottom of the box.
Sorry this is late, reads Colin's familiar scrawl. It took me forever to hunt down the apron. Enjoy the cookbook! Maybe this way we'll have fewer disasters, or at least I can eat more of them. Love, Colin.
The "love" is probably a reflex or matter of habit, but Bradley still spends a long time sitting on his bed, staring it while he swipes his thumb back and forth over the word, trying to absorb it. Back and forth, back and forth, until he smudges it, makes it unreadable.
- - -
Bradley spends the month Colin's in Ireland teaching himself how not to act like he's fallen completely and inappropriately in love with him. He goes to pubs with his mates, lets himself be set up on a few blind dates, hangs out with Angel and Katie, and teaches himself how to make three different dinners from the cookbook that he actually enjoys eating. His practice is enough that he can keep his composure when he picks Colin up from the airport and not jump him immediately. In fact, he makes a point of not jumping Colin at all unless he asks for it - with or without words, and then when he does Bradley goes into each encounter realizing, for the first time, how delicate this entire situation is.
This is the last time you will ever see this, he tells himself, undressing Colin. This will never happen again. And yet every time, he squeezes his eyes shut, because watching the last time go by is too beautiful and painful to bear.
- - -
As Bradley knew he would, Colin gets a date. Her name is Emily and she's a stage manager at a new play Anthony had read for but decided he was too busy to do. Bradley goes around for a while feeling betrayed by Anthony for introducing them and then betrayed by his own sentimentality when he spent so many hours trying to save himself from this.
One date turns into two, and the next thing Bradley knows Colin's sitting on his couch asking for third date recommendations because, as he so charmingly puts it, "it's the big one".
"I just want to set the mood, you know?" Colin asks Bradley, who is frozen with a salt and vinegar crisp halfway to his mouth.
"Don't go," Bradley blurts out.
"What?"
"Don't date Emily," Bradley says.
"Why?" Colin laughs, "Is there something I should know?"
"I'm in love with you." Once it's out there it's out there, hanging in the air between them. Bradley's tried to choke it back and not even think it and he can't anymore, he just can't, not when Colin's going to go sleep with a girl and everything will be ruined. Colin's eyes are comically huge and he's blinking slowly. Bradley imagines he can hear each one like a cartoon - plink, plink, plink while Colin tries to figure out what's going on.
"How long?" Colin asks finally.
Since maybe before I had that stupid fucking dream about kissing you, I don't know, Bradley thinks. "About two months."
"Oh, Bradley," Colin sighs, rising from the couch and coming towards him. There's a look in his eye that Bradley's afraid to examine, because he would bet it's awfully close to pity.
"Look, you don't have to say anything," Bradley says. "I know, it's my own fault with the bromance and the buddies who shag thing and I should have told you and stopped it sooner I just couldn't - "
"Shut up," Colin says fiercely, and then grabs Bradley's face and kisses him gently, soothingly. Distantly Bradley can feel himself dropping the crisps packet and the one halfway to his mouth in favor of grabbing onto Colin to stay upright. "You idiot," Colin whispers, pressing too-quick kisses against Bradley's upper lip, under his eye. "I can't believe you didn't know. I swear you are the most dense man alive."
"Do you..." Bradley can't even let himself finish the thought.
"The entire time," Colin says, smiling, but just with his eyes. He's making fun of Bradley in his head.
"But then why, but you didn't want to, you wanted casual. When this started you said you wanted casual."
"You'd have broken my heart any other way," Colin says. He's not smiling anymore. "You weren't in love and I was. It was the only way to get what I wanted."
"Emily?"
"I'd given up." Colin sighs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I -"
"Shut up, Colin," Bradley says. This confessing and discussion of missed signals and signs they both should have noticed could go on forever, or they could be kissing and then probably naked. Bradley likes the idea of that better, and he's guessing Colin probably does too, if the eagerness he's using to try and maneuver Bradley onto the couch is any indication. He only pulls away when there's a loud crunch and the crisps start grinding into the carpet under their stocking feet.
"Do we need to vacuum that?" Colin pants.
"Only if you want me to kill you," Bradley says, latching onto the long, thin line of Colin's neck. The idea of ever having to give Colin up again to vacuum, of all things, is utterly ridiculous.
"Yeah, okay," Colin says, pushing Bradley down onto the couch. "That's fair."
- - -
Filming starts in France three weeks later and Bradley is convinced that everyone will figure out that he and Colin are together by then. They're not all touchy-feely and gross, because they've got dignity, but he feels like the fact that they've always got an arm around the other or that Colin likes to use Bradley as either a footrest or back pillow is bound to cause some talk. Plus, he feels like all this warmth and affection must be spilling out of his eyes uncontrollably, like sometimes it does out of Colin's when Bradley impresses him with his eggplant pasta sauce or Colin catches him singing along and doing a little dance to "Sergent Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" when he's trying to beat it on Rock Band. (No matter what Colin says, it absolutely helps him concentrate.)
The gossip mill, however, is completely silent when it comes to them. Instead, people are discussing Angel and the bartender (status: who the fuck knows?) and Olivia's systematic working through each and every attractive French stuntman that comes on set.
"This is bullocks," Bradley grumbles to Colin while they're running lines in bed.
"Yeah, they're going to need to re-write that section," Colin says through the pen he's chewing on thoughtfully. "It makes no sense for Merlin to - "
"I mean, no one's gossiping about us!" Bradley exclaims, throwing down his script harder than probably necessary. "It's ridiculous! We're completely obvious!"
"You want people to be gossiping about us?" Colin asks, raising his eyebrows. "Didn't you call Katie and Angel 'soul-sucking harpies' when they were going on about the new sound guy's hair plugs?"
"We're a hot item, you know," Bradley says, pushing Colin back onto the pillows and taking his pen away. "Just look on the internet."
"You should never look on the internet," Colin reminds him. "It only leads to further madness."
"I mean, we're touching and in and out of each other's rooms all the time," Bradley goes on, kicking their scripts off the bed. They can deal with them later.
"I think we already did that, you know, before all this," Colin points out, smiling at Bradley as he reaches up to comb through his hair. He's got his new smile on, the crooked one with soft eyes that means I love you. It battles with the sex smile on a regular basis for Bradley's affections. "Maybe we're the idiots here, not them."
Bradley considers this for a bit, letting himself drift as Colin's magical fingers methodically work along his scalp, so much nicer than the makeup girls who are constantly fussing with his hair all day. He doubts it's very authentic to have Arthur's hair always so perfectly tousled, but he knows better than to argue with anyone whose job it is to make him look good. "You know," he says, "I liked it better when they were the idiots, not us."
"We could all be idiots?" Colin suggests.
"Very egalitarian of you," Bradley agrees.
- - -
Neil has a conference in Paris in April, so he takes a week off after to come visit. They all watch jousting and take Neil to the highest tower and get him outfitted like a citizen of Camelot. They even let him be the one to throw rotten food at Colin during a scene where Colin's in the stocks, which Neil declares the greatest thing he's done the entire trip.
It's not that Colin and Bradley have meant to keep their relationship from Neil (or any of their family, really), but it just always seems like the wrong time to tell them, so they've never quite gotten around to it. But it's sort of taken out of their hands when Neil walks into their trailer one day while they're making out on the couch.
"Um," Colin says, turning bright red and peeking out behind Bradley's arm. "Hi, Neil."
"They told me to get you for your scene," Neil says. "And after your scene, you're going to be explaining a few things to me."
"If I leave, will you kill Bradley?" Colin asks. "Because I wouldn't be okay with that, and I'm a very powerful sorcerer, you know."
"And I have a sword," Bradley pipes up. "It's fake, but it's really heavy and hurts if it hits you."
"I promise not to kill Bradley," Neil says, rolling his eyes as he hands Colin a cup of tea. "Here, take this, it's freezing out there. And hurry up."
Colin gives Bradley a sort of brace up smile and kisses him quickly on the temple before grabbing his down jacket and bolting out the door. Bradley can hear him yelping and swearing in the frigid wind.
"So," Neil says after a long, uncomfortable silence. "You and Colin, then."
"It's, uh, yeah," Bradley scratches the back of his neck. "Me and Colin."
"Not so much with the bromance anymore?" Neil asks. His eyes are twinkling, like maybe he's smiling with them and making fun of Bradley in his head, which is when Bradley realizes that the smile-language may not be Colin-specific, but in fact apply to his entire family.
"That b was a bit of a pain, really," he says. "We got rid of it a few weeks back."
"I was wondering when you would," Neil chuckles. "I always thought the term was rather gay, you know."
"Believe me," Bradley says. "I know."
"So -" Bradley says awkwardly into the phone at the same time as Colin goes "I was thinking that -" and then stops and gives an awkward laugh.
"You first," he says.
"I just..." Bradley runs a hand through his hair. "Christ, Colin, what are we going to do from here?"
"Well," Colin says, ever-practical, "there are usually two options. One, we date, two, we go on as is and pretend it never happened."
"I don't really like either plan," Bradley sighs.
"I know, right?" Colin laughs, sounding relieved. "Can you imagine the two of us on a proper date? It would be a disaster." Bradley refrains from pointing out that they've been to plenty of meals and movies and museums and such, just the two of them, that they bloody went on vacation together, because that's not really the point right now, and saying it would probably imply that Bradley wants something he doesn't.
"There is a third option, you know," he goes with instead. "We could be friends, who, you know. Do these things. Sometimes. As a friendly thing. But you can have lots of friends, you know. I mean, I'm not saying I have other friends I do this with but..."
"Casual, like," Colin finishes for him, sounding thoughtful. "I like that. It... it would work for us, yeah?"
"We'd be good at it," Bradley agrees. He feels suddenly giddy, and the lightning-fast flip of emotion makes him a little nauseous.
"What do the call, that, though?" Colin asks. "Shag buddies? Friends with benefits?"
"I called it bromance," Bradley says, "but when I asked Angel if I should try for that sort of thing with you, she called me a prick."
"Well, you are a prick," Colin says, back in their familiar rhythm. "It's just one of your many charms, Bradley James."
- - -
Bradley tries to figure out a million times if he should or shouldn't go pick Colin up at the airport. It's one of those things where Colin insists he shouldn't, but since they're all - all whatever, he feels like he really, secretly should. But he doesn't want to, because the anticipatory dreams and fantasies he's pretty much got permission to have have been getting entirely out of hand and if he saw Colin in the flesh, he'd probably react by doing a lot of inappropriate things to him. Of course, this is also the reason he wants to go, and desperately.
He's still pacing and trying to make up his mind when the door of his flat clicks open and Colin's standing there, a little flight-mussed and smiling shyly at him.
"Colin, I, I," Bradley is at a loss for words. "I was going to pick you up."
"A bit late for that," Colin says. His voice is quiet, almost tired-sounding. They stand there in silence awkwardly before Colin goes, "Oh, fuck it," and then he's taking three strides forward and slamming Bradley against the wall, kissing the everloving life out of him, nipping and hungry, which Bradley only objects to because he didn't get to do it first.
Bradley's kissed a handful of men, but he's only slept with two before Colin, and Colin is nothing like either of them. For one thing, he's dreadfully skinny, not hard and muscled like the other two were. Instead he's sleek and almost eel-like, squirming and dancing beneath Bradley's curious touches. He kisses better than anyone, male or female, has ever kissed Bradley, because he knows Bradley, somehow, or maybe he's been thinking about it too. They've been around each other so long that everything feels instinctive and easy. Bradley knows that Colin's got ticklish ribs and rubbing them makes him shivery, he knows that Colin's neck is sensitive because costume had to make extra-soft neckerchiefs so Colin didn't spend every take itching and squirming. Colin knows that Bradley likes to be physical, enjoys being handled and touched, because that's how Bradley is in normal life, too. Colin smells familiar and feels familiar and sounds familiar, and Bradley feels like he's drowning in well-worn care and regard. All he wants to do is to make Colin feel the same way, to let Colin know that he's wanted this, that it's only a little horny opportunism and a lot because it's Colin, his best mate who happens to be an excellent kisser to boot, and Colin is the only person he'd risk this much of his life and career for.
It takes what feels like a year's worth of struggling out of clothes and stumbling to the bedroom, Bradley's finally laying down, pinned to his comforter at the wrists by Colin,who's watching him with bright eyes.
"You're brilliant,"Colin smiles, his face soft. "This is brilliant. Everything."
"And we're not even naked yet," Bradley says, looking at Colin pointedly. "Imagine if I had a hand free to do that."
Colin laughs and loosens his grip on Bradley's wrists enough so that Bradley can free his hands, and then clothes start going missing and everything becomes very fuzzy and pleasurable and amazing.
- - -
Bradley's a bloke, so he obviously loves sleeping with girls, because that is what blokes do. But, like all respectable blokes, he doesn't like that part after where a lot of them become like human octopi. He just had sex with them, and he wants his space, thank you very much. This is one of the things he prefers about other guys - other guys understand. Other guys leave when you're done and call you again if it was particularly good.
On the plus side, Colin's bloke-y in the sense that he doesn't want to cuddle. Like Bradley, he just wants to sort of flop for a while. Bradley appreciates that. He's never understood how some people can just get right up out of bed and act like they were not just steamrolled by an orgasm. It makes him feel self-conscious, almost, like he's not quite performed to their standards and now they must run away.
The problem is, while there may exist somewhere a super-extra-large bed capable of fitting two full grown men lying spread-eagle next to each other, Bradley does not own it. Bradley owns a queen-sized bed like a normal human being, and that means that he and Colin have to engage in some limb negotiation, which ends up in a mutual decision to overlap a little, Colin spread like a starfish on his back and Bradley flopping face-first into the mattress. Yes, Bradley's leg and arm are over Colin's, and yes, Colin's hand is right over his head, which means that Colin's idly fussing with his hair, but it is totally and completely not cuddling.
"This was a brilliant idea," Colin says finally. "I mean it, really genius."
"I can't believe I let Angel talk me out of it," Bradley agrees. "I should never have doubted my genius."
Colin snorts. "I can think of a fair number of times your genius should be called into question."
"Yes, fine," Bradley admits, "but not about this."
"Never about this,"Colin agrees.
- - -
The extraordinary thing about Colin is that he has about a million different smiles, ranging from the way he quirks just the corners up, close-mouthed when he's shy, to the one that crinkles his entire face and makes his eyes into sideways parenthesis. He's got a smile for every occasion, every person, nuanced and special and perfectly appropriate. It's an entire language, and being around Colin this much has made Bradley an expert at reading them.
Bradley has had sole property over several of those smiles for quite some time now. There's the crooked "you're being a prat, but an amusing one" smile, the one just with Colin's eyes that says Colin's making fun of Bradley in his head, and the shy quarter-smile he gets when he's trying to be sneaky and pull a prank .
But Bradley's favorite is the one Colin gets when they're having sex, the one where his lips are just barely curled up to see the hint of teeth and his eyes are closed and still,as if all he can concentrate on anything but this feeling, right there building between their sweaty bodies.
Sometimes, Bradley wonders how many other people have seen that smile, or if Colin only makes it when he's having sex with him. He doesn't know which answer scares him less.
- - -
When Bradley's filming, he longs for breaks. Not because he doesn't love filming, but because he misses things like a full night's sleep and privacy and seeing somebody who isn't part of the show. But when he gets breaks, he feels lost, at odds with himself and everyone around him. He's not used to not knowing everybody, and it's throwing him off. Every time he goes out, he mistakes someone on the street for Phil the sound guy or Roxy the PA or some other familiar face.
At a loss for what to do, he bothers Katie and Angel or whoever he can think of near-constantly.
"I'm busy, Bradley," Angel says kindly. "I've a million people to catch up with. Don't you?"
Katie is not so kind. "Go make other friends," she suggests. "There must be someone else in all of London who can bear to put up with you besides us."
Bradley tries to visit with his friends from school, his family, but it's off, somehow. They all want to hear about where he's been, what he's done, and while he doesn't begrudge them, it feels like too big a part of his life to share, too large a chasm to try and cross. He leaves every encounter exhausted simply from the act of catching up, and he's sick of that feeling. He wants things to be easy again, to have somebody he doesn't have to try with.
This, he decides, is why he's spending so much time around Colin and having sex with him. Because it's easy. Because when he's with Colin, when he's kissing him and rutting against him and hears Colin's voice around him, he feels like he's home again, wherever that is.
- - -
For casual shag buddies, the amount of time he and Colin spend actually having sex is shockingly low. They play a lot of Wii sports (Colin is aggravatingly superior at Wii fencing, which Bradley does not appreciate the irony of) and catch up on movies and experiment with cooking and eating the new curry place around the corner from Colin's flat (which, they discover, makes the world's best samosas).
Even when they're more on the "benefits" portion of the whole "friends-with-benefits" deal, there's a lot of kissing. A lot of kissing. Colin likes to pin Bradley to the couch or the kitchen counter and just spend a half an hour mapping his jaw, or he'll pounce on Bradley when he's just about to beat a song on Rock Band and kiss him until he makes the audience boo and then run away, laughing. Bradley has long since decided that the best defense to Colin being a snogging ninja is a strong offense. He'll pull Colin towards him whenever Colin makes him watch a long, stupid, boring, pretentious movie again. He seeks Colin out around his flat and pulls him in when he's just had meat to be a jerk, because he knows Colin can taste it on him. He likes how Colin grumbles and makes unhappy noises against Bradley's mouth at first, and he likes to try and time how long it takes before he gives up and kisses back. It doesn't usually take very long.
"You really like kissing, don't you," Bradley mumbles against Colin's mouth after Colin has given up protesting in a record thirteen seconds after Bradley assaults him post-ham sandwich.
"I guess," Colin looks confused. "What makes you say that?"
"You start it, like, all the fucking time," Bradley says.
Colin starts laughing. "Because I thought you liked it."
"Oh." Bradley pulls back. "Does that mean we should stop?"
"I don't know," Colin says, drawing his brows together. "I mean, I do like it."
"Me too," Bradley says. "Now I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"Maybe we should kiss more and talk less, since we're generally rubbish at that," Colin suggests.
Bradley thinks this is an excellent idea, so he pulls Colin back in and keeps on doing what he was doing before he opened his big, stupid mouth and said some big, stupid things. He plans on eating a lot of meat and playing a lot of Rock Band and never discussing this with Colin ever again.
- - -
Just because everyone isn't on the set anymore does not mean that the show's gossip machine doesn't still run with frightening efficiency. There are cell phones, after all, and e-mail and facebook and whatever other method people use now to keep in near-constant contact. Bradley knows,for instance, that Dennis, who does some stuntwork, just had a baby boy, and that Angel's seeing a bartender (but it's nothing serious), and about a million other things that he probably did not need to know since he's not living in these people's back pockets for the time being.
It's late afternoon on some disgustingly gray day in late November, and Bradley is trying to find anything to watch on the telly and utterly, utterly failing. He's bored out of his mind and would try and distract Colin from the book he's reading, except he'd already tried that and Colin had gotten kind of peeved, though not too peeved, because he's letting Bradley use one of his shoulders as a pillow. He's seriously considering listen to some newscasters on the Beeb analyze the stock market when his cell phone rings from the coffee table and lights up with the name "Katie". He reaches for it immediately.
"Katie, thank God," he says, "please tell me you're free, because I'm bored off my tit and Colin's being an arse and reading instead of being any fun and..."
"What? No, Bradley," Katie sounds rushed and annoyed."Listen, Olivia and her fiance just broke up, she was doing my makeup for this interview I've got in ten - she caught him cheating with one of his nurses."
"What?" Bradley yelps. "No. Absolutely no way."
"I swear, she wasn't wearing her ring, hold on - " Katie says something to someone else in the room, Bradley thinks it's her coffee order. "Sorry, Bradley, anyways, it's pretty new, just last month."
"Wow." Bradley isn't sure what the proper response to this is. "So what do you want me to do about it? Run him through with a sword?"
"God, no," Katie laughs. "Colin's told me about your Wii fencing skills."
"Colin is a filthy liar," Bradley says promptly. "Also, horribly jealous."
"Whatever," Katie says. Bradley would bet a million pounds she's waving her hand at him dismissively. "Look, I know you like her, so I thought since she's been really down you could maybe take her out for a round of drinks, cheer her up a little."
"Katie McGrath, are you suggesting I take advantage of a woman in an inebriated and emotionally vulnerable state?" Bradley says in his best disapproving voice,which makes him sound disturbingly like Richard when he's playing Gaius.
"No I - " Katie begins, but she's cut off by a voice in the background. "Look," she says. "Think what you like, but I have to go." And then she hangs up on him.
"Huh," Bradley says, looking down at his phone. "So, that was Katie."
"Oh?" Colin actually puts his book down, one long finger marking the page, and Bradley is bizarrely honored that he has Colin's attention, and then annoyed that he only gets it when he mentions Katie.
"Olivia caught her fiance cheating, so that's over," Bradley informs him. "There's a creepily well-run gossip machine on this show, you know."
"There's one on every show," Colin shrugs.
"Yes, but this one's run by Katie McGrath," Bradley reminds him. Katie McGrath should probably be let loose on terror detainees. One hour with her and they'd be spilling secrets left and right. She makes the SIS look like a bunch of pansy schoolgirls. "I'm honestly shocked no one's figured out about us yet."
"Maybe it's because we spent all of our time together even before we were shagging," Colin suggests, going back to his book. "I don't see how Katie would know, unless she'd installed secret cameras."
"Would you honestly put it past her?" Bradley asks, raising one eyebrow. "I mean, really, Colin. It's Katie. She'd do it."
"Shut up and watch your telly," Colin says vaguely, ignoring Bradley again. Bradley thinks that maybe the reason no one's figured out about them is because no one would believe he's hooked up with Colin Morgan on account of the fact that he is the most boring person on the planet.
- - -
No one would ever know it looking at him, but Colin cleans up well. Once he's in a proper button-down and banned from his normal wardrobe of weird t-shirts, poorly-fitting jeans, too-wide hoodies, and knit hats that Bradley would very much like to burn, he's actually quite handsome. They're at the Merlin Christmas party and Colin's got on this navy button-down shirt on that Bradley's never seen before but already loves. It stands out against Colin's pale skin and makes his eyes bluer, and Colin's undone the top button so Bradley can see the line of his collarbone, where his mouth was two hours before. The only thing Bradley dislikes about the shirt is that it makes everyone else notice Colin too.
"Colin looks lovely," Angel says to him conversationally while they mingle. "He's got some meat on his bones again. The break's really agreeing with him."
"I think it's agreeing with all of us," Bradley says. It may be the beer,and it may be the dim Christmas lights, but everyone really looks extra-beautiful tonight. "You look nice too." It's true, even though it's weird to have Angel in a dress that isn't a costume. He doesn't think he's ever seen her wear one that shows off her legs before, which is a great loss to humanity - Angel has fantastic legs.
"Look!" Angel says, nodding over at Colin."He's talking to Olivia. And cheering her up, bless him. That poor girl. Can you imagine finding out like that? After..." Angel keeps nattering on about poor, abused Olivia, but Bradley tunes her out in favor of watching Colin like a hawk. It could either be the Corona he's sipping or Olivia, but Colin's flushed, not all-over, but two spots high on his cheekbones, and he's smiling down at Olivia and her low-cut top with a goofy version of what Bradley abruptly recognizes as his sex smile, just enough to show teeth.
Abruptly, Bradley feels a flash of heat and irrational anger. The whole point of this casual arrangement was to not be serious, to not feel this way, but for all his freedom to sleep with someone else, Bradley never expected Colin actually would. The idea of him touching anyone else, especially some woman who's looking to use him as a rebound, makes him feel hot all over and possessive. Colin is his, and Bradley's earned him by learning to cook vegetarian and putting up with his disgusting, holy socks. He's spent months and months learning every nuance of Colin's body, of his speech, how to make him smile and how to make him desperate beneath Bradley's hands, looking upwards hazily with something that had scared Bradley as much as it thrilled him, because at the time he'd thought it was very close to love. It shows what he knows.
"...Bradley. Bradley." Angel snaps her fingers in front of his face. "Have you listened to a word I said?"
"Spaced out, sorry," Bradley gives her his most charming apologetic smile. "I'm actually going to head out a bit early - promised one of my drama school mates I'd go shopping with him bright and early - he's got no clue what to get his new girlfriend." It's stretching the truth, because he and Sam made plans to leave after lunch, but Angel doesn't need to know the real reason why he's running out with his tail between his legs.
- - -
"Budge over," Colin's voice wakes him. Bradley had collapsed pointedly, selfishly in the middle of the bed in case Colin came over in an act of pure pettiness. He doubted Colin actually would come over so as not to cause talk, but it had made Bradley feel better at the time.
"Why are you here?" He grumbles, only scooting enough for Colin to have the smallest sliver of room.
"They're doing that plumbing work at mine, remember?" Colin says. "Didn't want to be woken early by clanging and not be able to take a hot shower on top of it all."
Bradley vaguely remembers something of the sort, now that Colin mentions it, so he gives a semi-affirmative grunt.
"Like your bed better anyway," Colin says. He leans over to give Bradley's cheek a sloppy kiss. He smells like tequila and Olivia's perfume. It makes Bradley's stomach churn. "You've a nicer mattress."
"You've got enough money to do something about that, you know," Bradley says.
Colin sighs and settles down, spooned against Bradley's back probably, Bradley realizes, because he'd fall off the bed otherwise. "Maybe I will," Colin says.
Bradley spends a lot of time awake that night, listening to Colin's tipsy snoring and trying not to think about the fact that if Colin had a new mattress, he'd probably stop coming to Bradley's. He tries not to think about Colin and Olivia on a new mattress, laughing at him, or about how miserable and too large his bed would be without Colin.
- - -
Colin had been planning on going back to Armagh a week earlier than Bradley was going to Devon for ages, which Bradley decides is all for the best. Colin has been too busy packing and doing truly ridiculous amounts of shopping to notice, but Bradley's been wrestling with this strange new influx of feelings as far as Colin's concerned, which leaves him irritable, needy, and stand-offish by turns. Colin's flight home is at an ungodly hour in the morning, so he spends his last night in London at Bradley's, since it 's closer to the airport.
That night Bradley lets himself do things to Colin he swore he'd never do. He groans Colin's name and clutches him close and lets his hands wander everywhere, mapping, memorizing. He kisses Colin in places he'd been wanting to kiss for forever, the insides of his wrists, the pulse fluttering against Bradley's mouth, up his elbow, a ring across his hips that he hopes acts as a barrier, a bookmark, a sign that says Bradley's property from here downwards. He fucks Colin so slow he barely knows his own name and he's cursing and begging when he comes.
When they're done, Bradley keeps running his mouth over his favorite places to kiss - where the bones jut out of Colin's shoulders in an endearing little knob, behind his ears, that spot where the stubble grows thickest under his chin because Colin always forgets to shave there.
"Gonna miss this," Colin murmurs sleepily while Bradley's still kissing up and down his neck.
"Yeah," Bradley says, throat tight. "Yeah, I already do."
- - -
Bradley gets his Christmas package from Colin on Boxing Day, a vegetarian cookbook and an apron that says "King of the Kitchen". The i's are dotted with little crowns and there's a card at the bottom of the box.
Sorry this is late, reads Colin's familiar scrawl. It took me forever to hunt down the apron. Enjoy the cookbook! Maybe this way we'll have fewer disasters, or at least I can eat more of them. Love, Colin.
The "love" is probably a reflex or matter of habit, but Bradley still spends a long time sitting on his bed, staring it while he swipes his thumb back and forth over the word, trying to absorb it. Back and forth, back and forth, until he smudges it, makes it unreadable.
- - -
Bradley spends the month Colin's in Ireland teaching himself how not to act like he's fallen completely and inappropriately in love with him. He goes to pubs with his mates, lets himself be set up on a few blind dates, hangs out with Angel and Katie, and teaches himself how to make three different dinners from the cookbook that he actually enjoys eating. His practice is enough that he can keep his composure when he picks Colin up from the airport and not jump him immediately. In fact, he makes a point of not jumping Colin at all unless he asks for it - with or without words, and then when he does Bradley goes into each encounter realizing, for the first time, how delicate this entire situation is.
This is the last time you will ever see this, he tells himself, undressing Colin. This will never happen again. And yet every time, he squeezes his eyes shut, because watching the last time go by is too beautiful and painful to bear.
- - -
As Bradley knew he would, Colin gets a date. Her name is Emily and she's a stage manager at a new play Anthony had read for but decided he was too busy to do. Bradley goes around for a while feeling betrayed by Anthony for introducing them and then betrayed by his own sentimentality when he spent so many hours trying to save himself from this.
One date turns into two, and the next thing Bradley knows Colin's sitting on his couch asking for third date recommendations because, as he so charmingly puts it, "it's the big one".
"I just want to set the mood, you know?" Colin asks Bradley, who is frozen with a salt and vinegar crisp halfway to his mouth.
"Don't go," Bradley blurts out.
"What?"
"Don't date Emily," Bradley says.
"Why?" Colin laughs, "Is there something I should know?"
"I'm in love with you." Once it's out there it's out there, hanging in the air between them. Bradley's tried to choke it back and not even think it and he can't anymore, he just can't, not when Colin's going to go sleep with a girl and everything will be ruined. Colin's eyes are comically huge and he's blinking slowly. Bradley imagines he can hear each one like a cartoon - plink, plink, plink while Colin tries to figure out what's going on.
"How long?" Colin asks finally.
Since maybe before I had that stupid fucking dream about kissing you, I don't know, Bradley thinks. "About two months."
"Oh, Bradley," Colin sighs, rising from the couch and coming towards him. There's a look in his eye that Bradley's afraid to examine, because he would bet it's awfully close to pity.
"Look, you don't have to say anything," Bradley says. "I know, it's my own fault with the bromance and the buddies who shag thing and I should have told you and stopped it sooner I just couldn't - "
"Shut up," Colin says fiercely, and then grabs Bradley's face and kisses him gently, soothingly. Distantly Bradley can feel himself dropping the crisps packet and the one halfway to his mouth in favor of grabbing onto Colin to stay upright. "You idiot," Colin whispers, pressing too-quick kisses against Bradley's upper lip, under his eye. "I can't believe you didn't know. I swear you are the most dense man alive."
"Do you..." Bradley can't even let himself finish the thought.
"The entire time," Colin says, smiling, but just with his eyes. He's making fun of Bradley in his head.
"But then why, but you didn't want to, you wanted casual. When this started you said you wanted casual."
"You'd have broken my heart any other way," Colin says. He's not smiling anymore. "You weren't in love and I was. It was the only way to get what I wanted."
"Emily?"
"I'd given up." Colin sighs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I -"
"Shut up, Colin," Bradley says. This confessing and discussion of missed signals and signs they both should have noticed could go on forever, or they could be kissing and then probably naked. Bradley likes the idea of that better, and he's guessing Colin probably does too, if the eagerness he's using to try and maneuver Bradley onto the couch is any indication. He only pulls away when there's a loud crunch and the crisps start grinding into the carpet under their stocking feet.
"Do we need to vacuum that?" Colin pants.
"Only if you want me to kill you," Bradley says, latching onto the long, thin line of Colin's neck. The idea of ever having to give Colin up again to vacuum, of all things, is utterly ridiculous.
"Yeah, okay," Colin says, pushing Bradley down onto the couch. "That's fair."
- - -
Filming starts in France three weeks later and Bradley is convinced that everyone will figure out that he and Colin are together by then. They're not all touchy-feely and gross, because they've got dignity, but he feels like the fact that they've always got an arm around the other or that Colin likes to use Bradley as either a footrest or back pillow is bound to cause some talk. Plus, he feels like all this warmth and affection must be spilling out of his eyes uncontrollably, like sometimes it does out of Colin's when Bradley impresses him with his eggplant pasta sauce or Colin catches him singing along and doing a little dance to "Sergent Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" when he's trying to beat it on Rock Band. (No matter what Colin says, it absolutely helps him concentrate.)
The gossip mill, however, is completely silent when it comes to them. Instead, people are discussing Angel and the bartender (status: who the fuck knows?) and Olivia's systematic working through each and every attractive French stuntman that comes on set.
"This is bullocks," Bradley grumbles to Colin while they're running lines in bed.
"Yeah, they're going to need to re-write that section," Colin says through the pen he's chewing on thoughtfully. "It makes no sense for Merlin to - "
"I mean, no one's gossiping about us!" Bradley exclaims, throwing down his script harder than probably necessary. "It's ridiculous! We're completely obvious!"
"You want people to be gossiping about us?" Colin asks, raising his eyebrows. "Didn't you call Katie and Angel 'soul-sucking harpies' when they were going on about the new sound guy's hair plugs?"
"We're a hot item, you know," Bradley says, pushing Colin back onto the pillows and taking his pen away. "Just look on the internet."
"You should never look on the internet," Colin reminds him. "It only leads to further madness."
"I mean, we're touching and in and out of each other's rooms all the time," Bradley goes on, kicking their scripts off the bed. They can deal with them later.
"I think we already did that, you know, before all this," Colin points out, smiling at Bradley as he reaches up to comb through his hair. He's got his new smile on, the crooked one with soft eyes that means I love you. It battles with the sex smile on a regular basis for Bradley's affections. "Maybe we're the idiots here, not them."
Bradley considers this for a bit, letting himself drift as Colin's magical fingers methodically work along his scalp, so much nicer than the makeup girls who are constantly fussing with his hair all day. He doubts it's very authentic to have Arthur's hair always so perfectly tousled, but he knows better than to argue with anyone whose job it is to make him look good. "You know," he says, "I liked it better when they were the idiots, not us."
"We could all be idiots?" Colin suggests.
"Very egalitarian of you," Bradley agrees.
- - -
Neil has a conference in Paris in April, so he takes a week off after to come visit. They all watch jousting and take Neil to the highest tower and get him outfitted like a citizen of Camelot. They even let him be the one to throw rotten food at Colin during a scene where Colin's in the stocks, which Neil declares the greatest thing he's done the entire trip.
It's not that Colin and Bradley have meant to keep their relationship from Neil (or any of their family, really), but it just always seems like the wrong time to tell them, so they've never quite gotten around to it. But it's sort of taken out of their hands when Neil walks into their trailer one day while they're making out on the couch.
"Um," Colin says, turning bright red and peeking out behind Bradley's arm. "Hi, Neil."
"They told me to get you for your scene," Neil says. "And after your scene, you're going to be explaining a few things to me."
"If I leave, will you kill Bradley?" Colin asks. "Because I wouldn't be okay with that, and I'm a very powerful sorcerer, you know."
"And I have a sword," Bradley pipes up. "It's fake, but it's really heavy and hurts if it hits you."
"I promise not to kill Bradley," Neil says, rolling his eyes as he hands Colin a cup of tea. "Here, take this, it's freezing out there. And hurry up."
Colin gives Bradley a sort of brace up smile and kisses him quickly on the temple before grabbing his down jacket and bolting out the door. Bradley can hear him yelping and swearing in the frigid wind.
"So," Neil says after a long, uncomfortable silence. "You and Colin, then."
"It's, uh, yeah," Bradley scratches the back of his neck. "Me and Colin."
"Not so much with the bromance anymore?" Neil asks. His eyes are twinkling, like maybe he's smiling with them and making fun of Bradley in his head, which is when Bradley realizes that the smile-language may not be Colin-specific, but in fact apply to his entire family.
"That b was a bit of a pain, really," he says. "We got rid of it a few weeks back."
"I was wondering when you would," Neil chuckles. "I always thought the term was rather gay, you know."
"Believe me," Bradley says. "I know."