RPF: It's Always Funny Kissing Your Mates (Except When It's Not)
Title: It's Always Funny Kissing Your Mates (Except When It's Not)
Summary: "One day," Katie declares, "I swear, one day, Angel and I will personally engineer your comeuppance. And it'll be epic. Epic."
Rating: light NC-17
Word Count: ~ 8,100
Disclaimer: Everything contained herein is purely fictional, and should be taken seriously by absolutely no one.
Notes: Many, many thanks to my dear the_muppet for letting me coerce her into beta reading this for me. Title is paraphrased from an Angel Coulby quote in Secrets & Magic 02.
"Hello, Merlin fans!" Bradley bellows into his camcorder, mostly because there's a bit of a gale going on, and even more so where they've climbed up to the top of a turret. "As you can see --" the focus swings off his face and onto the scenery, of lush treetops and a glittering lake "-- we have a gorgeous day, but it's quite -- quite windy up here at the moment."
There's a scraping sound out of frame, and Colin comes into view, dragging a metal folding chair from the luncheon tent, a length of USB cord looped and hanging off one arm, and Katie's hot water bottle tiger clutched in the crook of the other.
Colin looks pained at the camera. "I have to do all the work."
"Quiet, Colin. You'll do as I tell you," says Bradley, and mimics the sound of a whip, but it's mostly lost, carried away on a coil of wind.
He switches the camera off then, because hog-tying Hugo to a chair and leaving him to the mercy of the elements suddenly seems like a bad idea, and judging by the set of Colin's lips as he contemplates the paraphernalia he's hauled up, Colin's having second thoughts as well. They sort of shrug at each other silently, smiling, and Bradley hoists the folding chair under an arm, before pattering down the stairs.
"Where can we put him, then?" Colin wonders, while they wind their way down.
"Well, anywhere, really. S'long as we keep him relatively safe. How about your room?"
"Ehh," says Colin, peering at him dubiously. "Why not yours?"
"Because," Bradley says pointedly, "Katie still thinks the phone thing was entirely my doing."
Colin chortles, and it's either the mark of a good friend who allows others to share credit for his ideas or that of a true mastermind all too willing to let someone else take the fall. It had been a two-man job, one to distract Katie and the other to steal away into the night with her mobile, but Bradley will go to his grave swearing that Colin had been the brains behind replacing all of Katie's ringtones with the sentimental classics of Chris De Burgh and then password-protecting the folder.
"Think I'll text her now," Bradley says, and sends her a smiley face, mirrored in his own expression as he imagines her giving him a two-fingered salute, wherever she is.
Hair and make-up let Colin stash the tiger in their trailer for reasons Bradley can only ascribe to that special brand of beguiling charm Colin possesses almost unwittingly; he could be the most successful swindler in the history of the world if only he weren't so decent inside.
For the rest of the day they forget about the tiger since they have to check out all sorts of shenanigans going on in Camelot's marketplace and look concerned about it from several different angles and varying degrees of close-ups, but after dinner, when Bradley finds Colin again back at the hotel, Hugo's propped on his side on top of the nightstand and enjoying a bit of French television.
"Someone's tried to smother Simon in his hospital bed," Colin informs him.
Bradley gasps, though he has no idea what nonsense Colin's been watching. "Probably deserved it, the bastard," he says, coming round to look at the screen. "Oh, no, too good-looking to die."
Colin smiles up at him, thinking some secret thought, and then holds his hand out for the newspaper Bradley's brought with him, which he'd only just grabbed from the lobby's front desk minutes ago, but it's all creased and rolled up into a cylinder because Bradley can't have something in his hands and not fiddle with it, and he smacks it into Colin's outstretched palm like a baton.
"Excellent," says Colin, once he's flattened it out again, and goes to rummage around the pile of mess on the desk until he comes up with a ballpoint pen, making a dark, insistent ring around the publication date. "Do you think," he asks, inspecting his work, "sometimes we put too much effort into these things?"
"That's loser talk," says Bradley, grabbing Hugo off the nightstand and pitching it at Colin's chest. "We're dedicated to our craft, is the phrase you're looking for."
"Just checking." Colin pats the tiger's head and sits it properly on the desk chair, and then winds a USB cord across its middle and around the back of the chair.
Bradley flips his camcorder on, because their very first kidnapping attempt ought to be documented for posterity's sake. "We have absconded," he narrates, steadying the shot, "with Katie's pet tiger and are holding him hostage, until such time as Katie surrenders the delicious contents of her latest care package."
They don't actually have any intention of depriving Katie of whatever her mum's lovingly baked and sent her from home, but the idea to abduct Hugo had come before that of the ransom, and having a ransom just seems like one of those things kidnappers should do, if they're to be proper kidnappers. Bradley zooms in on the process of strapping poor Hugo to the chair, on Colin's hands, with their long, clever fingers made for magic, tying a series of complicated knots to thwart any potential escape attempts.
He suddenly becomes aware that he's been a bit too quiet for a bit too long, watching Colin, and clears his throat. "So, erm. Colin Morgan. Doing some impressive knotwork there."
"Boys' Brigade," says Colin in an incongruously flirty voice, and raises a lazy salute to the camera. He smiles widely, pleased, when Bradley puffs out a breathy laugh.
Colin's just got the newspaper set in place when there's a delicate knock at the door, and Bradley jogs over to open it.
"Thought I'd find you here," Angel says brightly. She peers past Bradley to wave hello to Colin. "I've just come to -- What are you doing?"
"Nothing," says Colin.
"Nothing," says Bradley.
She purses her lips at them suspiciously, but because she's Angel and infinitely more sensible than the two of them combined, she decides, "Never mind, I don't want to know."
Bradley grins at her. "How can we help you?"
"I've come for my script back. You do still have it?"
"Oh, yeah," says Bradley, and has to retreat into the inner recesses of the room to retrieve the script from his bag, while Angel rocks on her heels under the doorway, trying not to look equal parts inquisitive and amused. He passes her the pages. "There you are."
"You didn't mess about with it, did you?" she asks, flipping through the pages rapidly with a critical eye, apparently not keen on an encore of the time she'd lent Bradley her script and then spent half the table read trying not to crack up in front of everyone at the slightly dirty mediaeval limericks he and Colin had scribbled in the margins.
"Can't imagine what you're talking about," says Bradley, even though he'd devoted most of his afternoon break to drawing tiny, old man stick figures in a balcony riffing on the big romantic scene between Gwen and Lancelot.
"Mm," says Angel, narrowing her eyes at him. "See you tomorrow, guys."
They chorus a goodbye; a beat passes before there's a faint cry of "Bradley!" from the corridor, and they break into matching grins.
Colin rearranges the newspaper at the precise angle that it doesn't flop over, and quickly photographs it, the circled date clear against the backdrop of Hugo's smiling muzzle. A giggle squeaks out Colin's throat, a soft, hiccupy sound, and he uploads the picture to his laptop and emails it to himself.
"Ready?" he says.
"Always," Bradley declares.
The business centre just off the side of the lobby is cramped, possibly converted from a janitorial cupboard. Between two massive computer monitors, a fax machine and an ancient printer that jams more often than prints anything, Bradley and Colin barely have room to stand, but they both squish in there anyway like idiots in a telephone booth stunt.
The printer seems agreeable to their plotting today and, with a stiff, stuttering rhythm, slowly but surely disgorges their picture. Elbows on the narrow table, Colin bends over to draw a speech bubble over Hugo's head, spells out 'HELP ME, KATIE' in large letters, and Bradley, ever the documentarian, whips his camcorder out, except the only way he can get a good view of the rounded, boyish printing is to prop one arm over Colin's back so he can get an over-the-shoulder shot.
It's not exactly the most natural angle at which to stand, but Colin doesn't seem to mind, and he continues the message to Katie to 'await further instructions', reading it out loud as he writes it for the benefit of the camera. He smells faintly of hotel soap, and huffs silent, gleeful laughter at the ridiculousness of their plan, the light shake of his shoulders a soft friction along the length of Bradley's arm.
Leaning forward to get a better squint at the picture, Bradley murmurs, next to Colin's ear, "The date didn't print so clearly there, on the newspaper."
Colin just blinks for a few moments, like Bradley's words haven't registered. "Mm, I'll fill it in," he offers after a while. With short, deliberate strokes, he traces the numbers and letters along the top of the photographed newspaper, except he forgets it's a French publication and spells the month out in English instead.
There's a sweeping view of the ceiling and walls as Colin slowly straightens and Bradley's arm slides away, and then the viewscreen finds Colin again, brandishing his handiwork, which looks more like a child's failed art project than a menacing note. He beams sweetly, eye-line just slightly above frame where it meets Bradley's.
"Well done," says Bradley.
"We are so professional," Colin agrees.
Bradley films their progress back up the stairs with a hushed voice, the camera trained on his own face. "We're now headed to Katie's room --" A wide arc across the wallpaper to establish her room number and back to Bradley again. "Going to leave the -- the ransom note underneath her door."
Dutifully, Colin feeds the paper through the narrow gap between door and carpet, a scratchy whisper as it slides under, until it's disappeared to the other side.
They don't knock since they aren't sure whether Katie's turned in early, but because she has instincts like a hawk, Katie yanks the door open, startling them both.
Colin, still on his knees from delivering the note, falls over.
Bradley extends a hand toward Colin and hauls him to his feet, brushes invisible dirt off him, and Colin's mouth pulls into a smile full of deep warmth that reaches right inside him.
The camera's still running and Katie's got her head cocked to one side with a look on her face like she's squirrelling away something endlessly interesting, and there's a silence that's clamouring to be filled, so Bradley falls behind the safety of the camera and says, "Hi. Katie. It's Katie McGrath, everyone. Katie McGrath, who apparently lurks behind doors just waiting to scare somebody."
Katie's eyes are dancing, but she's good at playing along so there's an affect of disapproval to her voice when she holds up the paper and demands, "What is this?"
Off screen, Colin contributes a soft snicker.
"We've got the tiger," rasps Bradley in his most villainous voice, which suddenly develops a weird French lilt to it. "And if you want to see him alive again, you'll do exactly as we say."
Colin and Katie are both laughing now, so Bradley turns the camera off.
"You know, I thought with you drawing in Angel's script I'd be safe today," she says, as they walk down the hallway together. When they've all converged on Colin's room and Colin's set to work untying Hugo, she adds, "Oh, look what you've done to the poor thing. Poor little baby."
Bradley raises an eyebrow at her pout. "It's a hot water bottle with fur, Katie."
"Yes, well, he's my hot water bottle with fur," she says, a little girl's insistence.
Colin ruffles the newly freed tiger's fur where the cords have made little indented furrows, until it's fluffy again, and hands it to Katie. "Good as new."
"Won't even need therapy or anything," Bradley says, ever helpful.
"Oh, the two of you are unbelievable," Katie declares, hugging the ill-treated tiger to her chest. "One day, I swear, one day Angel and I will personally engineer your comeuppance. And it'll be epic. Epic."
"That -- was actually kind of frightening," says Bradley, impressed.
"I'm terrified," Colin agrees cheerfully.
Bradley's fingers feel around for the on/off button, and he nods at Katie. "You want to say that again for the camera?"
She laughs. "Yes. Let's have it on record." Setting Hugo down, Katie flips her hair off her shoulders. Within half a second she's channelling her inner evil Morgana, formidable, glaring into the lens. "I'll never forgive this. You'll pay for what you've done, James. And Morgan," she adds, breaking character with a little crack of a smile. "One day, when you least expect it, I shall have my revenge."
Bradley lowers the camera. "I liked it better the first time."
Katie grins and swats him across the arm. Scooping Hugo up, she breezes out the room. "Goodnight, boys. Sweet dreams," she trills, but there's a wry note to her voice like she knows something she's not supposed to.
"Bye, Katie," says Colin, and closes the door behind her, leans against the panel. "What do you think she's going to do?"
"Knowing her and Angel? Probably nothing," says Bradley. "They're all empty threats. They wish they were as magnificent a team as we are."
Colin chuckles his agreement, his chin tucking downward. Under the single dim, yellowy light overhead, his lashes spill long shadows over his cheeks, and Bradley's struck by how Colin can look so razor-sharp and butter-soft at the same time. He's seen it a thousand times, on screen, off screen, close up and from a distance, but it still makes his breath catch a little.
He picks up his bag to leave because it's getting a bit late and they both have a pretty early call tomorrow, and shuffles awkwardly at the door as if there's something important he's meant to do, if only he could remember. It's small, the entryway, nothing as crowded as the business centre earlier, but the space between him and Colin now seems simultaneously wide as the yawning void of the universe and narrower than a splinter, like the simple flick of a switch could trip them into a different existence.
"Night, Col," he says, with all the nonchalance in the world he can muster, heading out into the hallway.
"See you later," Colin says. A smile, and then the click of the latch in its strikeplate, and silence.
Bradley trudges back to his own room, where it's small and quiet and empty, and, under the shower stream, tries so hard to think of nothing that he doesn't even notice when the hot water runs out.
*
They find out over a long weekend that Angel is in possession of some serious stealth skills when she trounces everybody at paintball, which becomes a little worrisome, since their threatened comeuppance seems at hand as she and Katie keep giving them identically mysterious looks and secret smirks like a pair of old biddies smacking their lips over a salacious bit of gossip.
But by the time they're all back in Cardiff to do the next block of episodes, the promised vengeance still hasn't materialised. In the meanwhile, he and Colin have already chalked up three more victories, and Bradley's convinced the girls will never strike.
And then even when they finally do, towards the end of the block, it isn't exactly a master class in practical jokes.
Bradley's lounging in his hotel room, sitting on the end of the bed, shoulder to shoulder with Colin for extra leverage at sabotage, and demolishing the latter at Mario Kart when the script changes come in, slid unobtrusively under the door. Priorities firmly in place, he fires a red turtle shell in Princess Peach's direction, smirks in response to Colin's groan at the unavoidable hit and crosses the finish line to great fanfare, before striding to the door to pick up the new pages.
Neither he nor Colin is particularly lacking in the brains department (half the cast and crew may claim otherwise, but clearly they are not to be trusted), so when Bradley shows Colin the revised script and the new scene to be slotted between scenes 9 and 10, they only grin at each other.
It's patently obvious that the show's actual writers would never go down this route, no matter how deeply Angel and Katie try to camouflage it within the parameters of the episode, in which Morgana's prophesying powers go completely haywire and the misinformation she gives her druid friends about Camelot makes them seriously question her loyalties. Bradley thinks it's actually quite a good script (minus the girls' blatant meddling) and is excited to see Katie get a chance at some really heavy lifting, but there's no way, not a snowflake's chance in hell, that the writers would have suddenly decided that the belated and necessary cherry on the sundae is a dream sequence where Arthur and Merlin kiss.
"I think I'm insulted," says Bradley, while Colin flips through the pages, looking amused. "After all the hard work and trouble we go through to come up with new and inventive ways to prank them, this is the best thing they can come up with?"
Colin waves a hand at him. "Here, listen, they included stage directions: 'Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one leaves them all behind.'" His laughter's punctuated with a snort. "That's from The Princess Bride."
"Plagiarism!" Bradley exclaims hotly, and fishes his mobile phone from his pocket.
Amateurs, scoff his thumbs. You besmirch the good name of pranking.
Did you accidentally text the wrong person? This is Katie, flashes the reply a minute later.
"Oh, of course, denial," says Bradley, and can just imagine the wide-eyed innocence she's perfected so well. He types a colon and a p to Katie so her phone will make her listen to the Air Supply ringtone she still hasn't figured out how to get rid of.
Colin stretches and picks up his DS again. "They just don't have the kind of finesse we do."
"Too right," says Bradley. He handily snatches his console out of the air when Colin tosses it to him, and raises an eyebrow at the circuit Colin's chosen to race him. "Oh, you are so dead, Morgan. When will you learn?" he asks airily, and settles himself in elbow's reach of Colin's ribs.
They both get off to a good start, but halfway through Bradley loses his concentration to an errant image that rattles around in his mind's eye and won't let up, and accidentally drops off the edge of the Rainbow Road. He swears, loudly. By the time he's got Toad back on the circuit, Colin's already too far ahead, and there's no catching up to him.
Colin crows with delight, jostling Bradley with his shoulder as he is declared the winner.
They go a few more rounds, with Bradley posting shameful losses in all but one game, because as hard as he tries to maintain his focus on the controls, on the animation and action and flashy colours, it keeps steering over to where Colin's sat beside him instead, keeps analysing each movement and sound with all the meticulous, buoyant scrutiny of a researcher on the verge of a breakthrough. It's preposterous that an obviously doctored script can make him forget to cheat and poke Colin into skidding off the track, but it does all the same (and it says something about Colin's gluttony for punishment that he still hasn't learned to sit far away from Bradley when they race).
It isn't that he hasn't thought about it before, but only in a sort of abstract sense, in the way he thinks of what his reaction will be when he wins an Olivier Award, or scores England the World Cup. The idea of kissing Colin, it's the kind of flight of fancy he keeps in a neat mental box along with the rest of the what-if thoughts that just aren't meant to happen. Only now, having been set in official Courier typeface as part of his script, however shoddily done, the idea won't stay locked where it belongs; it pings around his brain like a jittery pinball, building in his veins an anticipation that hasn't a hope of being fulfilled.
Bradley crashes into a fence.
"All right?" Colin asks suddenly, abandoning the game.
"Hm?" says Bradley, startled, freakishly aware of how close Colin's voice is to his ear.
"You haven't tried to push me off the track for the last ten minutes."
There isn't a good place to start even if he wanted to, which he most definitely doesn't, and when all else fails, a smirk. "Just trying to be charitable, what with you losing all the time."
"I don't need your pity," Colin laughs, and aims an ineffectual kick at Bradley's shin with the side of his foot. It barely makes contact -- they aren't anywhere near as hands-on with each other in real life as they are when they're Arthur and Merlin, but it doesn't take a genius to understand this is Colin's way of saying that they are mates and he is here, up for anything, on Bradley's side.
They share a broad smile, and that's nothing unusual, but for the briefest moment it feels like there's something more, buried in the earth, space, sky between them.
Bradley shrinks away from it. Unearthed, there would be too many unfettered words he can't put back again, so instead he smothers it with the easiest excuse he can pick out of the air.
"Getting a bit tired, actually," he says, and just narrowly escapes doing the fake yawn and stretch. "Might have an early night."
"I'll leave you to it, then," says Colin, moving towards the door, and if there's something else he's wanting to say, he doesn't say it.
When the door clicks shut, Bradley flops backwards onto the duvet. He thinks what if, lets himself savour the almost-taste of it for a moment. Then, under layers and layers of sensibility and rationality and prudence, he carefully locks it away.
*
By morning, whatever spell weaving its sinuous threads between him and Colin has dissipated into the light, and by lunchtime, Bradley can't even think why he'd imagined there had been something there to begin with. He reckons it's one of those weird power of suggestion things gone horribly wrong, and what lingering dissatisfaction there is from that explanation he crams back down with a large helping of beef stew.
They're near the end of their lunch break when Bradley's trying to convince Colin that tofu is a vast hippie conspiracy, and Colin's subsequent prediction that Bradley will die at age thirty-five from clogged arteries sparks off a gruesome round of 'Would You Rather'. Bradley's in the midst of debating whether he'd rather get stuck in a locked studio set with a serial killer or velociraptor when the director strolls by, tapping his fingers on the table in greeting.
"Hi, guys," he says, nodding when they chorus a hello in unison. "Listen, you got the new pages, yeah? I'll need the two of you tomorrow afternoon for a bit so we can work out the blocking for the kissing scene, all right?"
Both boys just blink at him, which he takes as affirmation and ambles away, sipping casually at a little paper cup of coffee.
"That can't be --"
"There's no way --"
Bradley and Colin both stop talking at the same time.
"He's bluffing," says Colin, eyeing the director's receding back.
"He's in on it. Of course he is. Katie's got everyone on set wrapped round her finger; I bet she put him up to it," Bradley says, though he wonders how Jeremy managed such a straight face on something as silly as this.
Colin swings his gaze back to Bradley. "I think he used to be a stage actor," he says mildly, which either means that his brain's gone off on an untraceable tangent or he's mastered Legilimency; Bradley's not too fussed either way.
Everyone's coming to order now, so they return their dirty plates and silverware to catering and head off in different directions for their respective scenes.
On Bradley's docket for the afternoon is a scene in Uther's chambers with Tony and Richard. They're all standing around on the set, waiting for the lights to be positioned correctly; Tony's off at one corner regaling a couple of the cameramen with some hilarious story that requires a lot of gesturing, and Richard's looking mellow while a stylist makes sure the strands on his wig sit properly. Bradley swishes his sword around to stave off boredom, which he has to halt mid-swing when Richard meanders towards him.
Conversationally, in his understated and urbane way, Richard suddenly says, "Have you seen the script revisions they passed round yesterday? An interesting move, that."
Bradley opens his mouth and closes it again, grips the hilt of his sword for reassurance. Richard can't possibly be talking about the same thing Bradley's thinking about, or not thinking about, as might be the case, because there's nothing there to think about. It's only a stupid joke the girls are trying -- and failing, failing very badly -- to play on him and Colin, and that obviously warrants no further consideration.
"Er, no?" he says, hoping his esteemed co-star will elucidate the matter so he can stop thinking about the thing he's definitely not thinking about.
"Oh, well, then I won't spoil the surprise for you," Richard says, smiling, avuncular, but there is a gleam in his eye that's got Bradley a little suspicious. "It's about time, though," he murmurs to himself, although, as is his way, his words are still clear and deliberate. "Ease some of that UST."
"UST?" Bradley repeats cautiously.
Richard looks delighted that he knows an acronym young Bradley doesn't. "Unresolved sexual tension," he confides in his crisp accent. Before Bradley can come up with an appropriate response to this, Richard utters a small exclamation and claps his hands together. "Ah, we're ready."
The lights are up, and Jeremy's beckoning everyone into place, ready to give notes, so Bradley shoves all the extraneous rubbish out of his mind and sets to work.
It's a particularly talky scene, big chunks of expository dialogue that carry the filming through to early evening, and Bradley's glad for it, as it requires pretty much every last shred of his concentration to stay in the scene and pronounce unwieldy names correctly.
Johnny has been hanging around the set for the past half hour, which isn't anything new; he likes being on top of things and has commandeered his own golf cart to shuttle him around the studio lot so he can check up on each unit's progress throughout the day. His presence doesn't faze Bradley, who's long gotten used to it, but when the scene wraps and Johnny motions him over, looking a bit serious, Bradley has to douse a little, irrational flare of fear that something horrible's happened to Colin (because the last time Colin had gone to hospital, nobody told Bradley about it and he'd had to find out from eavesdropping on a group of runners. He'd pitched a monstrous, silent fit in a bathroom stall and sulked for the rest of the day until good news had come back, which Angel assured him everyone had noticed).
"Johnny," says Bradley, jogging over and trying not to look distressed.
"Great scene there," Johnny says reassuringly, as if he knows. "Well, I already spoke to Colin earlier, but I just wanted to make sure you're comfortable with your scene with him on Monday. I know the script revision was a bit short notice."
"My scene with Colin on Monday," Bradley repeats flatly.
Johnny consults his clipboard. "Yeah, scene 9A? You did get the revisions, didn't you?"
"Ye-es," Bradley says, the word stretching out as his dubiousness grows. He tries to give Johnny a sly, 'I-see-what-you-did-there' look, but Johnny's not really having it. Bradley remembers that the producer also writes a fair number of episodes, including the one in question, and wonders if it would be career suicide to call him out on being a part of a very elaborate and childish joke.
"Great. So, any problems, then?"
It takes a fair bit of willpower to muscle his good sense to the fore, but Bradley manages it in the end. "... No. None," he ekes out, probably saving himself from early retirement.
After Johnny claps him on the shoulder and goes off to be busy and important elsewhere, Bradley reconsiders the situation. There are obviously only two possible scenarios: one, that Katie and Angel have conceived a surprisingly complex prank and used their womanly influence to get everyone else on set in on the whole plan and to keep quiet about it; or two, that the writers have actually decided it's within the realm of reasonability for Arthur and Merlin to kiss when previously they've shown no romantic interest in one another.
And even if it's only for a dream sequence to illustrate how crazy Morgana's psyche has gone, surely the show's powers that be know what a maelstrom of shrieking madness the scene will cause amongst viewers. Even Bradley, who'd stopped Googling himself and the show well before the end of series one, is still all too aware of the ridiculous number of fans who think Arthur and Merlin are destined for True Love.
Which is possibly his own fault. And Colin's. Definitely also Colin's. But mostly it's the fault of whoever gets last say in post-production editing, because although he and Colin have both occasionally been told to tone down the affection and intensity of the looks they share on screen, more often than not, it's those looks that wind up making the final cut and getting broadcast across the world.
So, clearly, not his fault. Except sometimes he just can't help himself when he catches Colin's eye and they instinctively click into agreement on how to play the scene; as an actor, that's rare enough, and as friends, he can't remember when he ever felt that comfortable with another person who wasn't family.
They weave and mould to each other's patterns and temperaments like the twine of a perfect double helix; it's almost as though they've known and loved each other for a hundred years. With Colin, it's so easy to be in the moment he doesn't have to think.
It's when he's without Colin, when he inexplicably misses Colin's presence even though they've only just seen each other an hour ago, that his thoughts have to be extra careful, that he has to keep himself from imagining what could be, that he has to make sure he doesn't fuck everything up just because he thinks he feels some stupid feelings.
Whatever he has with Colin -- call it friendship or chemistry or solidarity or, and he hates this word now, bromance -- it is what it is, and that has to be good enough.
*
Colin's obviously gone out and equipped himself with Bradley-specific radar gear, because he pokes his head out of his hotel room and peers down the corridor as soon as Bradley sets foot on the landing.
"Morgan," Bradley says, tilting his chin in greeting to the expectant, anticipatory look Colin's wearing.
"Has today," says Colin, "been weird?"
A litany of events Bradley's filed under 'weird, varying degrees of' scrolls through his head, neat and ordered like items on a marquee. Johnny had come to have a chat with him about kissing Colin; the boom mic hadn't got into shot once all day; he'd spent most of dinner trying to erase the memory of Richard talking to him about sexual tension; he'd skipped dessert; Angel had been distressingly normal when they'd crossed paths; he'd thought about kissing Colin.
Bradley cocks his head, makes his face go blank. "You'll have to be more specific."
"Er," says Colin. He waves Bradley inside and shuts the door behind them, but not before narrowing his eyes at the brown paisley wallpaper in the hallway, like it's on to him.
Lying open on Colin's rumpled bedspread are the script revisions, mocking them in cheery goldenrod. Bradley scoops them up as he sits, rereads the scene. It still seems ludicrous, but somehow less so than before, which is also ludicrous.
"Did Johnny come and talk to you about that?" Colin asks, pointing with his nose at the pages. He fingers the fraying edges of his sweatshirt sleeve like a calming touchstone.
"Yes," Bradley says, nearly shouting, filled with an odd sense of relief. At least they're in this bout of insanity together. "Johnny, for god's sake."
"I saw Anna working on new call sheets," Colin blurts. "And the lighting guys have Jeremy's notes for the scene, and --"
"Richard," Bradley announces. "He talked to me about UST."
Colin's eyes widen slightly and his eyebrows pull together. "UST?"
"Don't make me explain it to you, Morgan."
"I know what it is; it's just -- I can't believe -- Richard," says Colin, incredulously, and a burst of laughter bubbles from his throat, spills like light into the room.
Colin has a brilliant laugh when he really gets going.
When they've both managed to settle themselves, Bradley asks, "So -- so, you think it's real, then?"
Colin nods. "Not that it's a problem, you know," he says hastily. "I mean, we've done it before. Er, I mean, we've both done screen kisses before."
"Yeah, yeah, of course," says Bradley. It's true, he's had to go through plenty of screen kisses; hell, he'd filmed a sex scene in a bathroom stall set once for Dis/Connected and that had been fine -- technical, cramped and a little painful (he'd bruised an elbow on the cistern), but fine. For Merlin alone, he's had to kiss Angel plenty of times, plus a revolving door of guest stars, and that's also been fine. So kissing Colin will, logically, present absolutely no problem at all.
Except it's fucking Colin. Not -- not fucking Colin, he thinks, and winces internally, because there's a mental door that he'll never be able to close again.
Assuming he wants to. Which he should, for the sake of his own mental wellbeing, if nothing else. Bradley swallows a knot of guilt.
"It won't be weird, right?" says Colin with a laugh that wobbles on its feet, like it's not sure it's come to the right place. "I mean, anyway, what's the worst that could happen?"
You could break my heart, is the unbidden thought that wisps across Bradley's mind, and it's all he can do to remain silent and calm while a dam ruptures inside him. It's taken his best efforts to keep his feelings hidden away; he's put them in a box, locked it, destroyed the key, and still they keep finding him. They gnaw at his toes, whisper soundlessly in the middle of the night things he doesn't want to hear, only they're shouting at him now, and what they're shouting is, You're in love with Colin.
"Right," says Bradley instead, because he's an actor, for god's sake, and a bloody grown-up besides. He can deal with this, and nobody ever has to know.
"Do you think maybe we should, er --" Colin gestures vaguely, which to the untrained eye could mean anything from Do you think maybe we should bake a dozen cupcakes to Do you think maybe we should take over the world. But Bradley gets it; he always does.
"On three?" Bradley suggests from somewhere outside himself.
He can't take it back, though he wants to. But perhaps it's best to get this kiss out of the way now under the agreed guise of pre-tape rehearsal, so he can assess just how much of a challenge it's going to be, having to kiss Colin for take after take and pretend it's nothing but all in a day's work. It could be his greatest feat as an actor yet. Maybe he deserves that Olivier after all.
Colin fidgets with his sleeves. "Yeah, okay."
"Right, then," says Bradley, and even he is surprised at how marvellously normal and unperturbed he sounds. He and Colin shuffle towards each other. "One, two --"
And this is why he needs to stop thinking that he and Colin are always perfectly in sync with one another, because Colin clearly does not belong to the school of thought Bradley ascribes to for the exact meaning of 'on three'.
Colin's lips are soft and hesitant against his, dry and chaste, but there is a shiver of arousal that snakes down Bradley's body anyway, and he shouldn't feel this, he shouldn't, because they are colleagues, and more importantly, they are friends, and most importantly, it's Colin. Colin, who is bright and kind and breathtaking, and whose mouth is warm and sweet, and whose hands are spread over Bradley's heartbeat and winding their way slowly across his back and the nape of his neck and pulling him forward until he can feel the faint heat of Colin's body meeting his.
He's fond of his overlarge sweatshirts, Colin is, the ones that swallow his frame in thick, bright cotton, and for the moment Bradley can't think of anything he likes less, wants to touch his fingertips to the pale skin buried underneath, see if Colin burns as he does, because there is nothing about the way Colin is kissing him that could ever be scripted.
It's not what he's used to, the form and angle, and having to crane his neck up for once, since, begrudgingly, he has to admit Colin's taller, but that doesn't matter so much as the feeling of being exactly where he's supposed to be, of having gotten something unassailably right.
A juddery sigh fans across his mouth, and it's Colin drawing away from him, a little afraid, a little wary, but the stark honesty splayed over Colin's face is enough for Bradley to realise that they've both been kind of stupid for each other for a while now, and both ridiculous and cagey about it. Bradley laughs, inappropriately, like catching a sudden rash of giggles during the sermon, but he doesn't have to worry about it because Colin gets it; he always does.
And then there's no longer a question of whether he should or shouldn't, but whether he wants. And he wants.
He aches with it, with the months, maybe years, of keeping it pent up and secreted away, and it swells inside him like the roil of a twisting undercurrent. He pulls Colin to him, kisses him hard.
The sweatshirt's the first thing to go.
It's all a tangle of shed clothing and limbs after that, and Colin's back shoved up against the wall. Bradley slides downward, sinks to his knees. He presses a kiss to Colin's hipbone, moves inward; there is a bead of pre-come at the tip of Colin's cock and Bradley licks it away, his mouth watering at the sudden saltiness. Colin flattens his palms against the wall.
He hasn't done this for anyone before, but he's had it done to him, so Bradley figures he's got the general idea down, maybe minus a few points for finesse. And he doesn’t really hear any complaints when he sucks the head of Colin's cock into his mouth, runs his tongue along the line of the slight ridge there. Above him, he can hear Colin's breath shortening into harsh huffs, and he lowers his head to take as much into his mouth as he can, closing his fist around the base of the length, smooth and hard underneath his fingers.
His own erection is almost painful, straining for release, and he nearly loses himself when Colin rasps out his name in a chanting string, thick with want and tipping into a soft moan.
With his free hand, Bradley grips Colin's hip for support and draws his mouth upward, releasing Colin's cock with a soft pop, letting his hand take over, pumping and stroking a hard rhythm, while he presses his face into Colin's skin and tries to get himself back under control. Bradley kisses the scent of soap and sweat, paints a wet line across white skin.
Colin's looking down at him with glazed eyes, lips parted, waiting, wanting, and, slowing his strokes, Bradley kisses and drags his tongue up his cock, and Colin's hands tense and tighten along the light, textured walls, desperately seeking a purchase that isn't there. He licks his lips, and takes Colin fully into his mouth now, feels the rest of Colin's body go high and taut like kite strings suddenly seized to life on a gust of wind, and watches Colin soar.
Bradley holds him by the hips to the wall, sucks him off with a relentless pulse matching the beat pounding in his own ears, and there's a barked cry as Colin comes, spilling into Bradley's mouth a lightly bitter tang. Bradley keeps them both in place, his lips still wrapped around Colin's cock until Colin floats back down and sags with a slight sigh, just barely able to keep himself standing.
Sitting back on his haunches to make way for Colin, who's given up and is sliding down the wall and to the floor, Bradley can't help but feel accomplished, a smugness that Colin kisses away almost at once.
Colin tumbles him onto his back, and he foresees carpet burn in his future, but Colin's settling himself onto his knees between Bradley's legs and leaning his weight onto his left hand and touching Bradley's cock with the other, and then Bradley can't see anything but bursting stars and fire and colours that don't exist anywhere on the visible spectrum and, always, always, Colin.
They manage to drag themselves to the bed after, lying on top of the bedcovers side by side, naked and sticky, smiling stupidly at each other with the lazy cheeriness of the slightly drunk.
Bradley's relaxed and still for once, but Colin's foot, wiping an imaginary windshield, keeps bumping into his, and they leg-wrestle pointlessly for a little while, the novelty of touching each other just because they can nowhere near worn thin.
A sudden chortle erupts from Colin's side of the bed. "Don't think they really had that in mind for the scene," he says, eyes crinkling with amusement. "Not so appropriate for a Saturday night family show."
"Mm," Bradley agrees, and walks his fingers over Colin's palm. "It'd make a hell of a DVD extra, though."
Colin laughs loudly, beautifully, and it's brilliant.
*
There's a local pub they go to at the weekends whenever they're in Cardiff, because the beer is good, and the regulars either don't recognise them from the telly or just don't care. Angel and Katie are already sat in a booth near the back, waiting for them, and Colin offers to get everyone's drinks, squeezing Bradley's hand affectionately as he passes, smiling, to get to the bar.
Bradley's afforded at least enough time to take off his jacket and sit down before Katie starts in on him.
"I saw that, I saw that, I saw that!" she squeals, the ostinato higher and shriller on each succession. She whips her head round to face Angel. "Tell me you saw that."
"Oh, yes," says Angel, grinning like an idiot. "Oh, yes, Bradley. We saw."
Draped upon their shoulders like wool cloaks is a combined smugness so thick as to almost be tangible; it could probably generate its own force field if it tried hard enough. Katie and Angel touch their palms together in an elegant, haughty high five.
Bradley's not an actor for nothing, and he arranges his face into an expression of condescension. "All right," he says, flavouring the words with a tone of voice that clearly conveys the kind of noble sacrifice he puts himself through hanging out with two complete lunatics.
"Don't 'all right' us, James," says Katie, jabbing a finger at him, and her face might well split in two from smiling so hard. "Admit it, our plan worked."
"Mm," says Bradley, shaking his head. "Don't know what you're talking about."
Angel just looks at him like a patient mother standing before a child who won't admit he's used the kitchen wall as his personal canvas despite the rainbow of evidence before them. "If it helps to jog your memory, you don't really have a new scene with Colin on Monday."
"We knew that was you all along; we figured it out straight away," Bradley says. "It was a crap prank."
"Really?" Katie asks, stretching the word out exaggeratedly. "So, it's total coincidence that you and Colin just got together, what, yesterday? Hooked up?" Her attempt at euphemistic slang is amusing, but more so is her insistent use of air quotes.
"Is he a good kisser, Bradley?" Angel wheedles.
"Look, look, he's blushing!" Katie announces joyously, and dissolves into a loud giggle.
"There are barely any lights on in here; you can't possibly tell," Bradley protests.
"Bet you are now, though," says Angel, who has not deserved her name a day in her life.
"Also, I can't help but notice that you're not denying it, that you and Colin…" says Katie, pulling her fingertips into points like little beaks, and miming a kiss. "And still not admitting how fantastically our plotting turned out, as we knew it would."
"Never mind," says Angel. "Put us in your wedding and we'll call it even."
"Oh!" Katie exclaims, leaning forward. "Can we help plan it?"
Bradley casts a swift glance at the bar, where Colin's having a friendly chat with the bartender. "First of all, you're both insane and ought to be sectioned. Second, you're telling me that the two of you, what, masterminded this whole thing, scripted the scene, roped everybody in the cast and crew into it -- bloody Johnny -- just so Colin and I would --" He waves a hand vaguely.
"We're very good," says Angel, paragon of modesty. "Anyway, you clearly needed a bit of a nudge. Everyone knows you two've been mooning after each other since, I don't know, series one?"
"Mmhm," Katie affirms. After a pause she adds helpfully, "Mooning."
Bradley laughs. This is what comes of having friends; they know what makes you happy, give you a little boost to get there, and then never shut up about it.
Colin returns with four pint glasses clutched between his fingers, liquid sloshing a little over the rims and making the handles slippery. He sets the pints quickly on the table before he can drop them, wipes his hands off on his jeans and happily announces, "Drinks!" He slides into the booth next to Bradley, an inch closer than he normally would have done before, and hides a smile when, under the table, Bradley catches his hand and twines their fingers together. And because they're still Colin and Bradley, they have a surreptitious thumb war.
"So, what are we talking about?" Colin asks.
"Nothing," says Angel, sweetly.
"Nothing," Katie echoes, beaming like she can't help herself.
Colin shoots them all a quizzical look, but is sufficiently distracted when Angel asks how much money he's willing to waste tonight on the fruit machine that constantly beats the pants off them all.
Bradley leans back, drapes an arm over the top of Colin's seat, and Katie winks at him; the smug air is gone and now she's just happy, and Bradley supposes that having friends who can't be counted on to mind their own business might occasionally be a blessing.
They talk about nothing and everything, as they've always done, sitting in the same arrangement they always do, the girls next to each other and Colin next to him; only difference now is, when they all get tired and go back to bed at the hotel, Colin will still be at his side.
Bradley figures he'll buy Katie and Angel's next few rounds; he thinks he owes them that much, at least.
Summary: "One day," Katie declares, "I swear, one day, Angel and I will personally engineer your comeuppance. And it'll be epic. Epic."
Rating: light NC-17
Word Count: ~ 8,100
Disclaimer: Everything contained herein is purely fictional, and should be taken seriously by absolutely no one.
Notes: Many, many thanks to my dear the_muppet for letting me coerce her into beta reading this for me. Title is paraphrased from an Angel Coulby quote in Secrets & Magic 02.
"Hello, Merlin fans!" Bradley bellows into his camcorder, mostly because there's a bit of a gale going on, and even more so where they've climbed up to the top of a turret. "As you can see --" the focus swings off his face and onto the scenery, of lush treetops and a glittering lake "-- we have a gorgeous day, but it's quite -- quite windy up here at the moment."
There's a scraping sound out of frame, and Colin comes into view, dragging a metal folding chair from the luncheon tent, a length of USB cord looped and hanging off one arm, and Katie's hot water bottle tiger clutched in the crook of the other.
Colin looks pained at the camera. "I have to do all the work."
"Quiet, Colin. You'll do as I tell you," says Bradley, and mimics the sound of a whip, but it's mostly lost, carried away on a coil of wind.
He switches the camera off then, because hog-tying Hugo to a chair and leaving him to the mercy of the elements suddenly seems like a bad idea, and judging by the set of Colin's lips as he contemplates the paraphernalia he's hauled up, Colin's having second thoughts as well. They sort of shrug at each other silently, smiling, and Bradley hoists the folding chair under an arm, before pattering down the stairs.
"Where can we put him, then?" Colin wonders, while they wind their way down.
"Well, anywhere, really. S'long as we keep him relatively safe. How about your room?"
"Ehh," says Colin, peering at him dubiously. "Why not yours?"
"Because," Bradley says pointedly, "Katie still thinks the phone thing was entirely my doing."
Colin chortles, and it's either the mark of a good friend who allows others to share credit for his ideas or that of a true mastermind all too willing to let someone else take the fall. It had been a two-man job, one to distract Katie and the other to steal away into the night with her mobile, but Bradley will go to his grave swearing that Colin had been the brains behind replacing all of Katie's ringtones with the sentimental classics of Chris De Burgh and then password-protecting the folder.
"Think I'll text her now," Bradley says, and sends her a smiley face, mirrored in his own expression as he imagines her giving him a two-fingered salute, wherever she is.
Hair and make-up let Colin stash the tiger in their trailer for reasons Bradley can only ascribe to that special brand of beguiling charm Colin possesses almost unwittingly; he could be the most successful swindler in the history of the world if only he weren't so decent inside.
For the rest of the day they forget about the tiger since they have to check out all sorts of shenanigans going on in Camelot's marketplace and look concerned about it from several different angles and varying degrees of close-ups, but after dinner, when Bradley finds Colin again back at the hotel, Hugo's propped on his side on top of the nightstand and enjoying a bit of French television.
"Someone's tried to smother Simon in his hospital bed," Colin informs him.
Bradley gasps, though he has no idea what nonsense Colin's been watching. "Probably deserved it, the bastard," he says, coming round to look at the screen. "Oh, no, too good-looking to die."
Colin smiles up at him, thinking some secret thought, and then holds his hand out for the newspaper Bradley's brought with him, which he'd only just grabbed from the lobby's front desk minutes ago, but it's all creased and rolled up into a cylinder because Bradley can't have something in his hands and not fiddle with it, and he smacks it into Colin's outstretched palm like a baton.
"Excellent," says Colin, once he's flattened it out again, and goes to rummage around the pile of mess on the desk until he comes up with a ballpoint pen, making a dark, insistent ring around the publication date. "Do you think," he asks, inspecting his work, "sometimes we put too much effort into these things?"
"That's loser talk," says Bradley, grabbing Hugo off the nightstand and pitching it at Colin's chest. "We're dedicated to our craft, is the phrase you're looking for."
"Just checking." Colin pats the tiger's head and sits it properly on the desk chair, and then winds a USB cord across its middle and around the back of the chair.
Bradley flips his camcorder on, because their very first kidnapping attempt ought to be documented for posterity's sake. "We have absconded," he narrates, steadying the shot, "with Katie's pet tiger and are holding him hostage, until such time as Katie surrenders the delicious contents of her latest care package."
They don't actually have any intention of depriving Katie of whatever her mum's lovingly baked and sent her from home, but the idea to abduct Hugo had come before that of the ransom, and having a ransom just seems like one of those things kidnappers should do, if they're to be proper kidnappers. Bradley zooms in on the process of strapping poor Hugo to the chair, on Colin's hands, with their long, clever fingers made for magic, tying a series of complicated knots to thwart any potential escape attempts.
He suddenly becomes aware that he's been a bit too quiet for a bit too long, watching Colin, and clears his throat. "So, erm. Colin Morgan. Doing some impressive knotwork there."
"Boys' Brigade," says Colin in an incongruously flirty voice, and raises a lazy salute to the camera. He smiles widely, pleased, when Bradley puffs out a breathy laugh.
Colin's just got the newspaper set in place when there's a delicate knock at the door, and Bradley jogs over to open it.
"Thought I'd find you here," Angel says brightly. She peers past Bradley to wave hello to Colin. "I've just come to -- What are you doing?"
"Nothing," says Colin.
"Nothing," says Bradley.
She purses her lips at them suspiciously, but because she's Angel and infinitely more sensible than the two of them combined, she decides, "Never mind, I don't want to know."
Bradley grins at her. "How can we help you?"
"I've come for my script back. You do still have it?"
"Oh, yeah," says Bradley, and has to retreat into the inner recesses of the room to retrieve the script from his bag, while Angel rocks on her heels under the doorway, trying not to look equal parts inquisitive and amused. He passes her the pages. "There you are."
"You didn't mess about with it, did you?" she asks, flipping through the pages rapidly with a critical eye, apparently not keen on an encore of the time she'd lent Bradley her script and then spent half the table read trying not to crack up in front of everyone at the slightly dirty mediaeval limericks he and Colin had scribbled in the margins.
"Can't imagine what you're talking about," says Bradley, even though he'd devoted most of his afternoon break to drawing tiny, old man stick figures in a balcony riffing on the big romantic scene between Gwen and Lancelot.
"Mm," says Angel, narrowing her eyes at him. "See you tomorrow, guys."
They chorus a goodbye; a beat passes before there's a faint cry of "Bradley!" from the corridor, and they break into matching grins.
Colin rearranges the newspaper at the precise angle that it doesn't flop over, and quickly photographs it, the circled date clear against the backdrop of Hugo's smiling muzzle. A giggle squeaks out Colin's throat, a soft, hiccupy sound, and he uploads the picture to his laptop and emails it to himself.
"Ready?" he says.
"Always," Bradley declares.
The business centre just off the side of the lobby is cramped, possibly converted from a janitorial cupboard. Between two massive computer monitors, a fax machine and an ancient printer that jams more often than prints anything, Bradley and Colin barely have room to stand, but they both squish in there anyway like idiots in a telephone booth stunt.
The printer seems agreeable to their plotting today and, with a stiff, stuttering rhythm, slowly but surely disgorges their picture. Elbows on the narrow table, Colin bends over to draw a speech bubble over Hugo's head, spells out 'HELP ME, KATIE' in large letters, and Bradley, ever the documentarian, whips his camcorder out, except the only way he can get a good view of the rounded, boyish printing is to prop one arm over Colin's back so he can get an over-the-shoulder shot.
It's not exactly the most natural angle at which to stand, but Colin doesn't seem to mind, and he continues the message to Katie to 'await further instructions', reading it out loud as he writes it for the benefit of the camera. He smells faintly of hotel soap, and huffs silent, gleeful laughter at the ridiculousness of their plan, the light shake of his shoulders a soft friction along the length of Bradley's arm.
Leaning forward to get a better squint at the picture, Bradley murmurs, next to Colin's ear, "The date didn't print so clearly there, on the newspaper."
Colin just blinks for a few moments, like Bradley's words haven't registered. "Mm, I'll fill it in," he offers after a while. With short, deliberate strokes, he traces the numbers and letters along the top of the photographed newspaper, except he forgets it's a French publication and spells the month out in English instead.
There's a sweeping view of the ceiling and walls as Colin slowly straightens and Bradley's arm slides away, and then the viewscreen finds Colin again, brandishing his handiwork, which looks more like a child's failed art project than a menacing note. He beams sweetly, eye-line just slightly above frame where it meets Bradley's.
"Well done," says Bradley.
"We are so professional," Colin agrees.
Bradley films their progress back up the stairs with a hushed voice, the camera trained on his own face. "We're now headed to Katie's room --" A wide arc across the wallpaper to establish her room number and back to Bradley again. "Going to leave the -- the ransom note underneath her door."
Dutifully, Colin feeds the paper through the narrow gap between door and carpet, a scratchy whisper as it slides under, until it's disappeared to the other side.
They don't knock since they aren't sure whether Katie's turned in early, but because she has instincts like a hawk, Katie yanks the door open, startling them both.
Colin, still on his knees from delivering the note, falls over.
Bradley extends a hand toward Colin and hauls him to his feet, brushes invisible dirt off him, and Colin's mouth pulls into a smile full of deep warmth that reaches right inside him.
The camera's still running and Katie's got her head cocked to one side with a look on her face like she's squirrelling away something endlessly interesting, and there's a silence that's clamouring to be filled, so Bradley falls behind the safety of the camera and says, "Hi. Katie. It's Katie McGrath, everyone. Katie McGrath, who apparently lurks behind doors just waiting to scare somebody."
Katie's eyes are dancing, but she's good at playing along so there's an affect of disapproval to her voice when she holds up the paper and demands, "What is this?"
Off screen, Colin contributes a soft snicker.
"We've got the tiger," rasps Bradley in his most villainous voice, which suddenly develops a weird French lilt to it. "And if you want to see him alive again, you'll do exactly as we say."
Colin and Katie are both laughing now, so Bradley turns the camera off.
"You know, I thought with you drawing in Angel's script I'd be safe today," she says, as they walk down the hallway together. When they've all converged on Colin's room and Colin's set to work untying Hugo, she adds, "Oh, look what you've done to the poor thing. Poor little baby."
Bradley raises an eyebrow at her pout. "It's a hot water bottle with fur, Katie."
"Yes, well, he's my hot water bottle with fur," she says, a little girl's insistence.
Colin ruffles the newly freed tiger's fur where the cords have made little indented furrows, until it's fluffy again, and hands it to Katie. "Good as new."
"Won't even need therapy or anything," Bradley says, ever helpful.
"Oh, the two of you are unbelievable," Katie declares, hugging the ill-treated tiger to her chest. "One day, I swear, one day Angel and I will personally engineer your comeuppance. And it'll be epic. Epic."
"That -- was actually kind of frightening," says Bradley, impressed.
"I'm terrified," Colin agrees cheerfully.
Bradley's fingers feel around for the on/off button, and he nods at Katie. "You want to say that again for the camera?"
She laughs. "Yes. Let's have it on record." Setting Hugo down, Katie flips her hair off her shoulders. Within half a second she's channelling her inner evil Morgana, formidable, glaring into the lens. "I'll never forgive this. You'll pay for what you've done, James. And Morgan," she adds, breaking character with a little crack of a smile. "One day, when you least expect it, I shall have my revenge."
Bradley lowers the camera. "I liked it better the first time."
Katie grins and swats him across the arm. Scooping Hugo up, she breezes out the room. "Goodnight, boys. Sweet dreams," she trills, but there's a wry note to her voice like she knows something she's not supposed to.
"Bye, Katie," says Colin, and closes the door behind her, leans against the panel. "What do you think she's going to do?"
"Knowing her and Angel? Probably nothing," says Bradley. "They're all empty threats. They wish they were as magnificent a team as we are."
Colin chuckles his agreement, his chin tucking downward. Under the single dim, yellowy light overhead, his lashes spill long shadows over his cheeks, and Bradley's struck by how Colin can look so razor-sharp and butter-soft at the same time. He's seen it a thousand times, on screen, off screen, close up and from a distance, but it still makes his breath catch a little.
He picks up his bag to leave because it's getting a bit late and they both have a pretty early call tomorrow, and shuffles awkwardly at the door as if there's something important he's meant to do, if only he could remember. It's small, the entryway, nothing as crowded as the business centre earlier, but the space between him and Colin now seems simultaneously wide as the yawning void of the universe and narrower than a splinter, like the simple flick of a switch could trip them into a different existence.
"Night, Col," he says, with all the nonchalance in the world he can muster, heading out into the hallway.
"See you later," Colin says. A smile, and then the click of the latch in its strikeplate, and silence.
Bradley trudges back to his own room, where it's small and quiet and empty, and, under the shower stream, tries so hard to think of nothing that he doesn't even notice when the hot water runs out.
*
They find out over a long weekend that Angel is in possession of some serious stealth skills when she trounces everybody at paintball, which becomes a little worrisome, since their threatened comeuppance seems at hand as she and Katie keep giving them identically mysterious looks and secret smirks like a pair of old biddies smacking their lips over a salacious bit of gossip.
But by the time they're all back in Cardiff to do the next block of episodes, the promised vengeance still hasn't materialised. In the meanwhile, he and Colin have already chalked up three more victories, and Bradley's convinced the girls will never strike.
And then even when they finally do, towards the end of the block, it isn't exactly a master class in practical jokes.
Bradley's lounging in his hotel room, sitting on the end of the bed, shoulder to shoulder with Colin for extra leverage at sabotage, and demolishing the latter at Mario Kart when the script changes come in, slid unobtrusively under the door. Priorities firmly in place, he fires a red turtle shell in Princess Peach's direction, smirks in response to Colin's groan at the unavoidable hit and crosses the finish line to great fanfare, before striding to the door to pick up the new pages.
Neither he nor Colin is particularly lacking in the brains department (half the cast and crew may claim otherwise, but clearly they are not to be trusted), so when Bradley shows Colin the revised script and the new scene to be slotted between scenes 9 and 10, they only grin at each other.
It's patently obvious that the show's actual writers would never go down this route, no matter how deeply Angel and Katie try to camouflage it within the parameters of the episode, in which Morgana's prophesying powers go completely haywire and the misinformation she gives her druid friends about Camelot makes them seriously question her loyalties. Bradley thinks it's actually quite a good script (minus the girls' blatant meddling) and is excited to see Katie get a chance at some really heavy lifting, but there's no way, not a snowflake's chance in hell, that the writers would have suddenly decided that the belated and necessary cherry on the sundae is a dream sequence where Arthur and Merlin kiss.
"I think I'm insulted," says Bradley, while Colin flips through the pages, looking amused. "After all the hard work and trouble we go through to come up with new and inventive ways to prank them, this is the best thing they can come up with?"
Colin waves a hand at him. "Here, listen, they included stage directions: 'Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one leaves them all behind.'" His laughter's punctuated with a snort. "That's from The Princess Bride."
"Plagiarism!" Bradley exclaims hotly, and fishes his mobile phone from his pocket.
Amateurs, scoff his thumbs. You besmirch the good name of pranking.
Did you accidentally text the wrong person? This is Katie, flashes the reply a minute later.
"Oh, of course, denial," says Bradley, and can just imagine the wide-eyed innocence she's perfected so well. He types a colon and a p to Katie so her phone will make her listen to the Air Supply ringtone she still hasn't figured out how to get rid of.
Colin stretches and picks up his DS again. "They just don't have the kind of finesse we do."
"Too right," says Bradley. He handily snatches his console out of the air when Colin tosses it to him, and raises an eyebrow at the circuit Colin's chosen to race him. "Oh, you are so dead, Morgan. When will you learn?" he asks airily, and settles himself in elbow's reach of Colin's ribs.
They both get off to a good start, but halfway through Bradley loses his concentration to an errant image that rattles around in his mind's eye and won't let up, and accidentally drops off the edge of the Rainbow Road. He swears, loudly. By the time he's got Toad back on the circuit, Colin's already too far ahead, and there's no catching up to him.
Colin crows with delight, jostling Bradley with his shoulder as he is declared the winner.
They go a few more rounds, with Bradley posting shameful losses in all but one game, because as hard as he tries to maintain his focus on the controls, on the animation and action and flashy colours, it keeps steering over to where Colin's sat beside him instead, keeps analysing each movement and sound with all the meticulous, buoyant scrutiny of a researcher on the verge of a breakthrough. It's preposterous that an obviously doctored script can make him forget to cheat and poke Colin into skidding off the track, but it does all the same (and it says something about Colin's gluttony for punishment that he still hasn't learned to sit far away from Bradley when they race).
It isn't that he hasn't thought about it before, but only in a sort of abstract sense, in the way he thinks of what his reaction will be when he wins an Olivier Award, or scores England the World Cup. The idea of kissing Colin, it's the kind of flight of fancy he keeps in a neat mental box along with the rest of the what-if thoughts that just aren't meant to happen. Only now, having been set in official Courier typeface as part of his script, however shoddily done, the idea won't stay locked where it belongs; it pings around his brain like a jittery pinball, building in his veins an anticipation that hasn't a hope of being fulfilled.
Bradley crashes into a fence.
"All right?" Colin asks suddenly, abandoning the game.
"Hm?" says Bradley, startled, freakishly aware of how close Colin's voice is to his ear.
"You haven't tried to push me off the track for the last ten minutes."
There isn't a good place to start even if he wanted to, which he most definitely doesn't, and when all else fails, a smirk. "Just trying to be charitable, what with you losing all the time."
"I don't need your pity," Colin laughs, and aims an ineffectual kick at Bradley's shin with the side of his foot. It barely makes contact -- they aren't anywhere near as hands-on with each other in real life as they are when they're Arthur and Merlin, but it doesn't take a genius to understand this is Colin's way of saying that they are mates and he is here, up for anything, on Bradley's side.
They share a broad smile, and that's nothing unusual, but for the briefest moment it feels like there's something more, buried in the earth, space, sky between them.
Bradley shrinks away from it. Unearthed, there would be too many unfettered words he can't put back again, so instead he smothers it with the easiest excuse he can pick out of the air.
"Getting a bit tired, actually," he says, and just narrowly escapes doing the fake yawn and stretch. "Might have an early night."
"I'll leave you to it, then," says Colin, moving towards the door, and if there's something else he's wanting to say, he doesn't say it.
When the door clicks shut, Bradley flops backwards onto the duvet. He thinks what if, lets himself savour the almost-taste of it for a moment. Then, under layers and layers of sensibility and rationality and prudence, he carefully locks it away.
*
By morning, whatever spell weaving its sinuous threads between him and Colin has dissipated into the light, and by lunchtime, Bradley can't even think why he'd imagined there had been something there to begin with. He reckons it's one of those weird power of suggestion things gone horribly wrong, and what lingering dissatisfaction there is from that explanation he crams back down with a large helping of beef stew.
They're near the end of their lunch break when Bradley's trying to convince Colin that tofu is a vast hippie conspiracy, and Colin's subsequent prediction that Bradley will die at age thirty-five from clogged arteries sparks off a gruesome round of 'Would You Rather'. Bradley's in the midst of debating whether he'd rather get stuck in a locked studio set with a serial killer or velociraptor when the director strolls by, tapping his fingers on the table in greeting.
"Hi, guys," he says, nodding when they chorus a hello in unison. "Listen, you got the new pages, yeah? I'll need the two of you tomorrow afternoon for a bit so we can work out the blocking for the kissing scene, all right?"
Both boys just blink at him, which he takes as affirmation and ambles away, sipping casually at a little paper cup of coffee.
"That can't be --"
"There's no way --"
Bradley and Colin both stop talking at the same time.
"He's bluffing," says Colin, eyeing the director's receding back.
"He's in on it. Of course he is. Katie's got everyone on set wrapped round her finger; I bet she put him up to it," Bradley says, though he wonders how Jeremy managed such a straight face on something as silly as this.
Colin swings his gaze back to Bradley. "I think he used to be a stage actor," he says mildly, which either means that his brain's gone off on an untraceable tangent or he's mastered Legilimency; Bradley's not too fussed either way.
Everyone's coming to order now, so they return their dirty plates and silverware to catering and head off in different directions for their respective scenes.
On Bradley's docket for the afternoon is a scene in Uther's chambers with Tony and Richard. They're all standing around on the set, waiting for the lights to be positioned correctly; Tony's off at one corner regaling a couple of the cameramen with some hilarious story that requires a lot of gesturing, and Richard's looking mellow while a stylist makes sure the strands on his wig sit properly. Bradley swishes his sword around to stave off boredom, which he has to halt mid-swing when Richard meanders towards him.
Conversationally, in his understated and urbane way, Richard suddenly says, "Have you seen the script revisions they passed round yesterday? An interesting move, that."
Bradley opens his mouth and closes it again, grips the hilt of his sword for reassurance. Richard can't possibly be talking about the same thing Bradley's thinking about, or not thinking about, as might be the case, because there's nothing there to think about. It's only a stupid joke the girls are trying -- and failing, failing very badly -- to play on him and Colin, and that obviously warrants no further consideration.
"Er, no?" he says, hoping his esteemed co-star will elucidate the matter so he can stop thinking about the thing he's definitely not thinking about.
"Oh, well, then I won't spoil the surprise for you," Richard says, smiling, avuncular, but there is a gleam in his eye that's got Bradley a little suspicious. "It's about time, though," he murmurs to himself, although, as is his way, his words are still clear and deliberate. "Ease some of that UST."
"UST?" Bradley repeats cautiously.
Richard looks delighted that he knows an acronym young Bradley doesn't. "Unresolved sexual tension," he confides in his crisp accent. Before Bradley can come up with an appropriate response to this, Richard utters a small exclamation and claps his hands together. "Ah, we're ready."
The lights are up, and Jeremy's beckoning everyone into place, ready to give notes, so Bradley shoves all the extraneous rubbish out of his mind and sets to work.
It's a particularly talky scene, big chunks of expository dialogue that carry the filming through to early evening, and Bradley's glad for it, as it requires pretty much every last shred of his concentration to stay in the scene and pronounce unwieldy names correctly.
Johnny has been hanging around the set for the past half hour, which isn't anything new; he likes being on top of things and has commandeered his own golf cart to shuttle him around the studio lot so he can check up on each unit's progress throughout the day. His presence doesn't faze Bradley, who's long gotten used to it, but when the scene wraps and Johnny motions him over, looking a bit serious, Bradley has to douse a little, irrational flare of fear that something horrible's happened to Colin (because the last time Colin had gone to hospital, nobody told Bradley about it and he'd had to find out from eavesdropping on a group of runners. He'd pitched a monstrous, silent fit in a bathroom stall and sulked for the rest of the day until good news had come back, which Angel assured him everyone had noticed).
"Johnny," says Bradley, jogging over and trying not to look distressed.
"Great scene there," Johnny says reassuringly, as if he knows. "Well, I already spoke to Colin earlier, but I just wanted to make sure you're comfortable with your scene with him on Monday. I know the script revision was a bit short notice."
"My scene with Colin on Monday," Bradley repeats flatly.
Johnny consults his clipboard. "Yeah, scene 9A? You did get the revisions, didn't you?"
"Ye-es," Bradley says, the word stretching out as his dubiousness grows. He tries to give Johnny a sly, 'I-see-what-you-did-there' look, but Johnny's not really having it. Bradley remembers that the producer also writes a fair number of episodes, including the one in question, and wonders if it would be career suicide to call him out on being a part of a very elaborate and childish joke.
"Great. So, any problems, then?"
It takes a fair bit of willpower to muscle his good sense to the fore, but Bradley manages it in the end. "... No. None," he ekes out, probably saving himself from early retirement.
After Johnny claps him on the shoulder and goes off to be busy and important elsewhere, Bradley reconsiders the situation. There are obviously only two possible scenarios: one, that Katie and Angel have conceived a surprisingly complex prank and used their womanly influence to get everyone else on set in on the whole plan and to keep quiet about it; or two, that the writers have actually decided it's within the realm of reasonability for Arthur and Merlin to kiss when previously they've shown no romantic interest in one another.
And even if it's only for a dream sequence to illustrate how crazy Morgana's psyche has gone, surely the show's powers that be know what a maelstrom of shrieking madness the scene will cause amongst viewers. Even Bradley, who'd stopped Googling himself and the show well before the end of series one, is still all too aware of the ridiculous number of fans who think Arthur and Merlin are destined for True Love.
Which is possibly his own fault. And Colin's. Definitely also Colin's. But mostly it's the fault of whoever gets last say in post-production editing, because although he and Colin have both occasionally been told to tone down the affection and intensity of the looks they share on screen, more often than not, it's those looks that wind up making the final cut and getting broadcast across the world.
So, clearly, not his fault. Except sometimes he just can't help himself when he catches Colin's eye and they instinctively click into agreement on how to play the scene; as an actor, that's rare enough, and as friends, he can't remember when he ever felt that comfortable with another person who wasn't family.
They weave and mould to each other's patterns and temperaments like the twine of a perfect double helix; it's almost as though they've known and loved each other for a hundred years. With Colin, it's so easy to be in the moment he doesn't have to think.
It's when he's without Colin, when he inexplicably misses Colin's presence even though they've only just seen each other an hour ago, that his thoughts have to be extra careful, that he has to keep himself from imagining what could be, that he has to make sure he doesn't fuck everything up just because he thinks he feels some stupid feelings.
Whatever he has with Colin -- call it friendship or chemistry or solidarity or, and he hates this word now, bromance -- it is what it is, and that has to be good enough.
*
Colin's obviously gone out and equipped himself with Bradley-specific radar gear, because he pokes his head out of his hotel room and peers down the corridor as soon as Bradley sets foot on the landing.
"Morgan," Bradley says, tilting his chin in greeting to the expectant, anticipatory look Colin's wearing.
"Has today," says Colin, "been weird?"
A litany of events Bradley's filed under 'weird, varying degrees of' scrolls through his head, neat and ordered like items on a marquee. Johnny had come to have a chat with him about kissing Colin; the boom mic hadn't got into shot once all day; he'd spent most of dinner trying to erase the memory of Richard talking to him about sexual tension; he'd skipped dessert; Angel had been distressingly normal when they'd crossed paths; he'd thought about kissing Colin.
Bradley cocks his head, makes his face go blank. "You'll have to be more specific."
"Er," says Colin. He waves Bradley inside and shuts the door behind them, but not before narrowing his eyes at the brown paisley wallpaper in the hallway, like it's on to him.
Lying open on Colin's rumpled bedspread are the script revisions, mocking them in cheery goldenrod. Bradley scoops them up as he sits, rereads the scene. It still seems ludicrous, but somehow less so than before, which is also ludicrous.
"Did Johnny come and talk to you about that?" Colin asks, pointing with his nose at the pages. He fingers the fraying edges of his sweatshirt sleeve like a calming touchstone.
"Yes," Bradley says, nearly shouting, filled with an odd sense of relief. At least they're in this bout of insanity together. "Johnny, for god's sake."
"I saw Anna working on new call sheets," Colin blurts. "And the lighting guys have Jeremy's notes for the scene, and --"
"Richard," Bradley announces. "He talked to me about UST."
Colin's eyes widen slightly and his eyebrows pull together. "UST?"
"Don't make me explain it to you, Morgan."
"I know what it is; it's just -- I can't believe -- Richard," says Colin, incredulously, and a burst of laughter bubbles from his throat, spills like light into the room.
Colin has a brilliant laugh when he really gets going.
When they've both managed to settle themselves, Bradley asks, "So -- so, you think it's real, then?"
Colin nods. "Not that it's a problem, you know," he says hastily. "I mean, we've done it before. Er, I mean, we've both done screen kisses before."
"Yeah, yeah, of course," says Bradley. It's true, he's had to go through plenty of screen kisses; hell, he'd filmed a sex scene in a bathroom stall set once for Dis/Connected and that had been fine -- technical, cramped and a little painful (he'd bruised an elbow on the cistern), but fine. For Merlin alone, he's had to kiss Angel plenty of times, plus a revolving door of guest stars, and that's also been fine. So kissing Colin will, logically, present absolutely no problem at all.
Except it's fucking Colin. Not -- not fucking Colin, he thinks, and winces internally, because there's a mental door that he'll never be able to close again.
Assuming he wants to. Which he should, for the sake of his own mental wellbeing, if nothing else. Bradley swallows a knot of guilt.
"It won't be weird, right?" says Colin with a laugh that wobbles on its feet, like it's not sure it's come to the right place. "I mean, anyway, what's the worst that could happen?"
You could break my heart, is the unbidden thought that wisps across Bradley's mind, and it's all he can do to remain silent and calm while a dam ruptures inside him. It's taken his best efforts to keep his feelings hidden away; he's put them in a box, locked it, destroyed the key, and still they keep finding him. They gnaw at his toes, whisper soundlessly in the middle of the night things he doesn't want to hear, only they're shouting at him now, and what they're shouting is, You're in love with Colin.
"Right," says Bradley instead, because he's an actor, for god's sake, and a bloody grown-up besides. He can deal with this, and nobody ever has to know.
"Do you think maybe we should, er --" Colin gestures vaguely, which to the untrained eye could mean anything from Do you think maybe we should bake a dozen cupcakes to Do you think maybe we should take over the world. But Bradley gets it; he always does.
"On three?" Bradley suggests from somewhere outside himself.
He can't take it back, though he wants to. But perhaps it's best to get this kiss out of the way now under the agreed guise of pre-tape rehearsal, so he can assess just how much of a challenge it's going to be, having to kiss Colin for take after take and pretend it's nothing but all in a day's work. It could be his greatest feat as an actor yet. Maybe he deserves that Olivier after all.
Colin fidgets with his sleeves. "Yeah, okay."
"Right, then," says Bradley, and even he is surprised at how marvellously normal and unperturbed he sounds. He and Colin shuffle towards each other. "One, two --"
And this is why he needs to stop thinking that he and Colin are always perfectly in sync with one another, because Colin clearly does not belong to the school of thought Bradley ascribes to for the exact meaning of 'on three'.
Colin's lips are soft and hesitant against his, dry and chaste, but there is a shiver of arousal that snakes down Bradley's body anyway, and he shouldn't feel this, he shouldn't, because they are colleagues, and more importantly, they are friends, and most importantly, it's Colin. Colin, who is bright and kind and breathtaking, and whose mouth is warm and sweet, and whose hands are spread over Bradley's heartbeat and winding their way slowly across his back and the nape of his neck and pulling him forward until he can feel the faint heat of Colin's body meeting his.
He's fond of his overlarge sweatshirts, Colin is, the ones that swallow his frame in thick, bright cotton, and for the moment Bradley can't think of anything he likes less, wants to touch his fingertips to the pale skin buried underneath, see if Colin burns as he does, because there is nothing about the way Colin is kissing him that could ever be scripted.
It's not what he's used to, the form and angle, and having to crane his neck up for once, since, begrudgingly, he has to admit Colin's taller, but that doesn't matter so much as the feeling of being exactly where he's supposed to be, of having gotten something unassailably right.
A juddery sigh fans across his mouth, and it's Colin drawing away from him, a little afraid, a little wary, but the stark honesty splayed over Colin's face is enough for Bradley to realise that they've both been kind of stupid for each other for a while now, and both ridiculous and cagey about it. Bradley laughs, inappropriately, like catching a sudden rash of giggles during the sermon, but he doesn't have to worry about it because Colin gets it; he always does.
And then there's no longer a question of whether he should or shouldn't, but whether he wants. And he wants.
He aches with it, with the months, maybe years, of keeping it pent up and secreted away, and it swells inside him like the roil of a twisting undercurrent. He pulls Colin to him, kisses him hard.
The sweatshirt's the first thing to go.
It's all a tangle of shed clothing and limbs after that, and Colin's back shoved up against the wall. Bradley slides downward, sinks to his knees. He presses a kiss to Colin's hipbone, moves inward; there is a bead of pre-come at the tip of Colin's cock and Bradley licks it away, his mouth watering at the sudden saltiness. Colin flattens his palms against the wall.
He hasn't done this for anyone before, but he's had it done to him, so Bradley figures he's got the general idea down, maybe minus a few points for finesse. And he doesn’t really hear any complaints when he sucks the head of Colin's cock into his mouth, runs his tongue along the line of the slight ridge there. Above him, he can hear Colin's breath shortening into harsh huffs, and he lowers his head to take as much into his mouth as he can, closing his fist around the base of the length, smooth and hard underneath his fingers.
His own erection is almost painful, straining for release, and he nearly loses himself when Colin rasps out his name in a chanting string, thick with want and tipping into a soft moan.
With his free hand, Bradley grips Colin's hip for support and draws his mouth upward, releasing Colin's cock with a soft pop, letting his hand take over, pumping and stroking a hard rhythm, while he presses his face into Colin's skin and tries to get himself back under control. Bradley kisses the scent of soap and sweat, paints a wet line across white skin.
Colin's looking down at him with glazed eyes, lips parted, waiting, wanting, and, slowing his strokes, Bradley kisses and drags his tongue up his cock, and Colin's hands tense and tighten along the light, textured walls, desperately seeking a purchase that isn't there. He licks his lips, and takes Colin fully into his mouth now, feels the rest of Colin's body go high and taut like kite strings suddenly seized to life on a gust of wind, and watches Colin soar.
Bradley holds him by the hips to the wall, sucks him off with a relentless pulse matching the beat pounding in his own ears, and there's a barked cry as Colin comes, spilling into Bradley's mouth a lightly bitter tang. Bradley keeps them both in place, his lips still wrapped around Colin's cock until Colin floats back down and sags with a slight sigh, just barely able to keep himself standing.
Sitting back on his haunches to make way for Colin, who's given up and is sliding down the wall and to the floor, Bradley can't help but feel accomplished, a smugness that Colin kisses away almost at once.
Colin tumbles him onto his back, and he foresees carpet burn in his future, but Colin's settling himself onto his knees between Bradley's legs and leaning his weight onto his left hand and touching Bradley's cock with the other, and then Bradley can't see anything but bursting stars and fire and colours that don't exist anywhere on the visible spectrum and, always, always, Colin.
They manage to drag themselves to the bed after, lying on top of the bedcovers side by side, naked and sticky, smiling stupidly at each other with the lazy cheeriness of the slightly drunk.
Bradley's relaxed and still for once, but Colin's foot, wiping an imaginary windshield, keeps bumping into his, and they leg-wrestle pointlessly for a little while, the novelty of touching each other just because they can nowhere near worn thin.
A sudden chortle erupts from Colin's side of the bed. "Don't think they really had that in mind for the scene," he says, eyes crinkling with amusement. "Not so appropriate for a Saturday night family show."
"Mm," Bradley agrees, and walks his fingers over Colin's palm. "It'd make a hell of a DVD extra, though."
Colin laughs loudly, beautifully, and it's brilliant.
*
There's a local pub they go to at the weekends whenever they're in Cardiff, because the beer is good, and the regulars either don't recognise them from the telly or just don't care. Angel and Katie are already sat in a booth near the back, waiting for them, and Colin offers to get everyone's drinks, squeezing Bradley's hand affectionately as he passes, smiling, to get to the bar.
Bradley's afforded at least enough time to take off his jacket and sit down before Katie starts in on him.
"I saw that, I saw that, I saw that!" she squeals, the ostinato higher and shriller on each succession. She whips her head round to face Angel. "Tell me you saw that."
"Oh, yes," says Angel, grinning like an idiot. "Oh, yes, Bradley. We saw."
Draped upon their shoulders like wool cloaks is a combined smugness so thick as to almost be tangible; it could probably generate its own force field if it tried hard enough. Katie and Angel touch their palms together in an elegant, haughty high five.
Bradley's not an actor for nothing, and he arranges his face into an expression of condescension. "All right," he says, flavouring the words with a tone of voice that clearly conveys the kind of noble sacrifice he puts himself through hanging out with two complete lunatics.
"Don't 'all right' us, James," says Katie, jabbing a finger at him, and her face might well split in two from smiling so hard. "Admit it, our plan worked."
"Mm," says Bradley, shaking his head. "Don't know what you're talking about."
Angel just looks at him like a patient mother standing before a child who won't admit he's used the kitchen wall as his personal canvas despite the rainbow of evidence before them. "If it helps to jog your memory, you don't really have a new scene with Colin on Monday."
"We knew that was you all along; we figured it out straight away," Bradley says. "It was a crap prank."
"Really?" Katie asks, stretching the word out exaggeratedly. "So, it's total coincidence that you and Colin just got together, what, yesterday? Hooked up?" Her attempt at euphemistic slang is amusing, but more so is her insistent use of air quotes.
"Is he a good kisser, Bradley?" Angel wheedles.
"Look, look, he's blushing!" Katie announces joyously, and dissolves into a loud giggle.
"There are barely any lights on in here; you can't possibly tell," Bradley protests.
"Bet you are now, though," says Angel, who has not deserved her name a day in her life.
"Also, I can't help but notice that you're not denying it, that you and Colin…" says Katie, pulling her fingertips into points like little beaks, and miming a kiss. "And still not admitting how fantastically our plotting turned out, as we knew it would."
"Never mind," says Angel. "Put us in your wedding and we'll call it even."
"Oh!" Katie exclaims, leaning forward. "Can we help plan it?"
Bradley casts a swift glance at the bar, where Colin's having a friendly chat with the bartender. "First of all, you're both insane and ought to be sectioned. Second, you're telling me that the two of you, what, masterminded this whole thing, scripted the scene, roped everybody in the cast and crew into it -- bloody Johnny -- just so Colin and I would --" He waves a hand vaguely.
"We're very good," says Angel, paragon of modesty. "Anyway, you clearly needed a bit of a nudge. Everyone knows you two've been mooning after each other since, I don't know, series one?"
"Mmhm," Katie affirms. After a pause she adds helpfully, "Mooning."
Bradley laughs. This is what comes of having friends; they know what makes you happy, give you a little boost to get there, and then never shut up about it.
Colin returns with four pint glasses clutched between his fingers, liquid sloshing a little over the rims and making the handles slippery. He sets the pints quickly on the table before he can drop them, wipes his hands off on his jeans and happily announces, "Drinks!" He slides into the booth next to Bradley, an inch closer than he normally would have done before, and hides a smile when, under the table, Bradley catches his hand and twines their fingers together. And because they're still Colin and Bradley, they have a surreptitious thumb war.
"So, what are we talking about?" Colin asks.
"Nothing," says Angel, sweetly.
"Nothing," Katie echoes, beaming like she can't help herself.
Colin shoots them all a quizzical look, but is sufficiently distracted when Angel asks how much money he's willing to waste tonight on the fruit machine that constantly beats the pants off them all.
Bradley leans back, drapes an arm over the top of Colin's seat, and Katie winks at him; the smug air is gone and now she's just happy, and Bradley supposes that having friends who can't be counted on to mind their own business might occasionally be a blessing.
They talk about nothing and everything, as they've always done, sitting in the same arrangement they always do, the girls next to each other and Colin next to him; only difference now is, when they all get tired and go back to bed at the hotel, Colin will still be at his side.
Bradley figures he'll buy Katie and Angel's next few rounds; he thinks he owes them that much, at least.