fic - merlin rpf - accented
Title: Accented
Pairing: Bradley/Colin (Merlin RPF)
Rating: R
Length: c.3,300 words
Disclaimer: This is a completely fictional story written about fictional constructs of real people. I make no profit; I do not know these people; and I intend no disrespect whatsoever.
Notes: This is unbeta'd, and the first piece of my fanfiction that anything sentient that isn't also my cat has seen. I am torn between warning you to read at your own peril, and whimpering piteously for you to come pat my head and feed me biscuits. Take from that what you will.
It starts when Bradley goes to get lunch from craft services.
Okay, well, it start-starts when Bradley first meets Colin, but the first time Bradley has to do something other than nod sagely, as though he perfectly comprehends what Colin's just incomprehensibly rattled off when he truly has no idea, is when Bradley goes to get lunch from craft services.
He's been running lines with Colin, so as he's halfway stood up, he asks if he can get Colin anything to eat while he's over there. Bradley's mum raised him with manners, even if the Colin-coddling crew think he's a bit of a boor. He's quite polite, sod them very much.
Colin says -- well. Colin replies, that much is certain. But Bradley couldn't really say how he replies, as such. It's that bloody accent, it's -- very melodic, he's heard Cynthia in costumes say, in rapturous tones. Yes, yes, carry on swooning, he thinks acidly, but what good is melody when he can hardly understand a word out of the man's mouth?
So, he's fairly certain that Colin said, "I'll have turkey, thanks." He's not going to ask Colin to repeat, fat lot of good that ever did him, and get the piss taken out of him for it (funny, how Bradley's never had to understand Colin's words to understand when that's happening). "Fairly certain" will have to do, then.
He makes his way to catering, ducking booms and sidestepping piles of chain mail, and grabs two rather massive sandwiches, corned beef for himself and turkey for Colin, who hopefully has nothing against mayo, because the turkey to condiment ratio seems a little skewed.
But apparently the caterers could have dumped a vat of salsa verde -- wasabi, even -- on it for all Colin cares, because Colin obviously has no interest in eating.
He slants Bradley an incredulous look, raised eyebrows and quirked mouth, when he sees both sandwiches, but just turns back to his heavily annotated script without showing any interest in poultry.
Bradley sits back down on the bench heavily. It occurs to him that "I'll have turkey, thanks" might, in certain Irish dialects, be code for "None for me, thanks." He considers just owning to the misunderstanding, because Jesus, the sandwiches are truly monstrous, but then he hears McGrath's tinkly little laugh, and she can't be far out of range. The last thing she needs is more ammo against him.
Incredulity has slid into a sly amusement on Colin's face, there in the glances he darts in Bradley's direction from underneath his eyelashes. A twitch to the corner of his mouth probably means he's imagining Bradley trying to unhinge his jaw wide enough to bite into the sandwiches.
Bradley sighs explosively before tucking in. He hates mayonnaise.
*
Bradley should have known, though, that he couldn't keep his linguistic difficulties a secret for long. It's somewhat ironic, considering the tag line for the show; but while Arthur might be oblivious, Colin is decidedly not.
It comes out maybe two weeks after the Mayo Incident, the duration of which Bradley has spent muddling through softened vowels and hardened consonants and replying nearly universally with hm or yeah? or right, okay. Possibly he agreed to sign away his first born or even, say, deposit a rodent in Anthony's bed linens. But he was an unwitting accomplice who didn't know what Colin was wrangling him into; that's his defence, and he will stick to it no matter what gently reproving faces Angel pulls in attempts to manipulate him into admissions of guilt.
He's sitting down to unlace his boots, which pinch his toes something fierce, after a day of mostly standing around while Katie-as-Morgana angsts very prettily, and Colin's standing over him, gesticulating wildly. Bradley's only listening with half an ear because the more emphatically Colin gestures, the less comprehensible he sounds, so it's a bit of a lost cause. It's possible that Colin just said something about working on knocking, which makes no sense at all. It's not as though Bradley barges into other people's rooms at inconvenient hours without notice.
Working on the reasonable assumption that that was what Colin'd said, Bradley says indignantly, "That was once! One time!"
Colin blinks and furrows his brow, and that -- that right there -- is why he's the on-set darling. He looks like a baby animal, for Merli -- for Christ's sake. A piteous, vacant one.
Bradley scowls.
He can't think what else Colin might've meant, though it's obvious it wasn't "knock." Mentally, Bradley scans through rhymes -- knock, dock, stock, cock -- he chokes a little -- block, flock -- oh.
Oh. Colin probably wants to work on blocking. He would, the industrious little arse-kisser.
The industrious little arse-kisser who is also, not incidentally, laughing hard enough he might rupture something. It would serve him right, Bradley thinks viciously.
"I thought--" Colin gasps -- "you were just--" that was definitely a giggle -- "a bit simple. All that--" he's practically crying now -- "hmming and grunting when ordinary people reply to queries in full sentences."
Bradley rolls his eyes and resigns himself to running the gauntlet with everyone on set.
*
A few months later, Bradley's gotten much better at deciphering Colin-speak. He hardly ever blunders anymore, and this has made him, he thinks in blastedly clear hindsight, unfortunately complacent.
They're walking back to the trailers to fine tune the details of their latest prank campaign, but Bradley freezes, brain and body in tandem, at something Colin's said. He'd swear that that record needle scratch sound effect plays, he balks so suddenly.
"Wait," he blurts. "Do I want a lap dance?" The words completely bypass whatever of his brain-to-mouth filter still exists, which is just not on. Those are invaluable, like alarm clocks and -- and smoke detectors, and if he'd stopped to think he'd have realised what a preposterous, un-Colin-like question to ask that was. Colin is sneaky and, okay, maybe a little dirty with his humour, but he's not Bradley-dirty. Not -- not give-Bradley-a-lap-dance dirty. Right. Okay, he thinks.
Colin's eyes grow cartoonishly wide, victims of the same shock that disabled Bradley's filter. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again, shuts it again. He's blushing furiously. Bradley has never seen him look so far from making a cheeky aside or plotting some mischief.
Finally, after a while of them staring at each other -- probably, Bradley ruefully acknowledges in some not-tundra-frozen corner of his mind, mutually gaping -- Colin says in a choked voice, "I think Freud might have something to say about that." His eyes dart to the side and he laughs a little strangled laugh; he's probably, Bradley thinks desperately, horrified. "I was just, ehm, wondering," Colin says with an obviously concerted effort at articulation, "if you'd seen those black pants. From the costume department?"
"Oh. Oh, no," Bradley manages. One-syllable words, baby steps, are all he can do, though. His feet are moving again, but brain has informed him it might be a while before it's wholly back online.
*
The problem is that when his brain does come back online, it's been...refreshed. Data has changed.
Bradley realises that little details about Colin and quirks of Colin's that he'd noticed in what he supposed was a casual, coworkerly fashion are actually things that people who are genuinely casual and coworkerly about someone don't notice at all.
Things like the shape of his mouth and the dexterity of his hands. The line of his jaw. How he takes his tea. How to make him laugh on a shite day. The sweep of his eyelashes. The exasperated set of his shoulders as he yells at the football players on the telly as though they could really hear him. His favourite music and books and sweets, his idols.
What really clinches it, though, is that -- well.
He can picture it.
Colin settled nimbly on Bradley's lap, grinding in truly filthy circles. Kissing him, deep and wet and lewd, making Colin's hips involuntarily stutter and jerk forward instead of in a circle, desperate instead of teasing. His mind unravels a bit from the possibilities that spool out from that point -- Bradley blowing Colin, making it slow and slick and tortuous, getting him to make little noises, quiet moans; Colin fucking Bradley, lying underneath him and arching up to meet him; mutual rough, twisting handjobs; hell, just both of them rutting and kissing until they couldn't stand it any longer.
The thing is, no matter what he does --
He can't stop thinking about it.
*
Not a day later, Angel and he are sprawled in director's chairs, with cushions wedged between their sides and the armrests, collaborating to finish the Guardian crossword. Bradley has a potentially very lucrative bet going with McGrath that says he can finish it before she does, and Angel is positively genius at this. And they never specifically stipulated against outside assistance, so he's not cheating, not really.
"Insignificant cartoon character, eleven letters," he mutters under his breath, chewing on his lip. "Insignificant."
He looks up from the paper to switch to chewing on his biro and to stare into contemplative space, which, say what you will, does too help increase the generation of thoughts. Of course, just his luck, this is the exact moment that Colin, changed out of costume now that the day's winding to a close, walks by with his t-shirt rucked up as he tugs on a belt.
Bradley would swear that for a minute his mind blanks of everything except hips. The hips he thought of only the other night in very unchaste ways. Really, on Colin the dip and swell on each side is so tiny that it couldn't even qualify as a hip, just an extension of his skinny waist, which is just an extension of his skinny torso, but -- God help him -- Bradley suddenly wants to trace the bone, rub his thumb across a demi-hip to see if he can feel it curve at all.
That's really not a good place for him to go, not at all, because that leads him to thinking that his hands could easily span, practically engulf Colin's hip...region. And he's imagining himself pressed back-to-front with Colin, Colin's neck tilted sideways and his collarbones exposed.
"Bradley!" Angel says sharply, jolting him, and that means she must have called his name numerous times without his realising, because Angel so rarely gets sharp with anyone at all.
When he snaps out of it he realises Colin is looking at him out of the corner of his eye, probably wondering why the fuck Bradley was staring at him so stupidly.
"Right, sorry," he says miserably, and scolds his traitor brain. Crosswords and insignificant cartoon characters, good; Morgan's collarbones and hips, bad.
Right.
*
From there it only gets worse. Colin brings him a chocolate croissant in the morning like he sometimes does, from the baker who sold her soul for the ability to create pastries that mere mortals cannot resist, and Bradley can't even look him in the eye.
To say that Bradley's never had a crush on someone he works with would be a wretched, wretched lie, but they've always been fun, safe crushes -- unattainable girls, straight boys, people he doesn't really know and probably wouldn't like half so much if he did.
Colin is his friend.
He likes Colin.
This is uncharted territory.
*
Bradley deals with it in the time-tested way of all tube-riding Britons: he doesn't look it in the eye, reads the Sun, and hopes it won't bother him.
But apparently his English teacher had the right of it and mixing metaphors does one no good, because Lily Allen's feud with Katy Perry and Kate Moss's latest adventures in fashion and cocaine-snorting can't stop him thinking of all the nasty things he wants to do with Colin. They also don't seem to stop or even slow his alarming slide down the slippery slope into the Soft Touch for Colin Morgan Club.
So Bradley takes it a step further and skips riding the subway altogether, so to speak. He avoids Colin at all costs, makes excuses when he wants to run lines or talk character development and even lamer ones when he wants to hang out outside work. He basically turns into the Colin of the project's earliest days, determinedly quiet, focused, and retreated just far enough that no one can reach him but no one can legitimately call him on it either.
He didn't bargain, however, on Katie McGrath.
"All right," she says decisively, stalking up to him as he's just getting out of makeup and grabbing his arm in a grip that a Chinese finger trap would envy.
"What," she continues, forcing him into a chair and settling across from him, "did you do to Colin." It's not even a question, just an order. The woman belongs in the bloody service.
"Nothing!" he yelps, and rubs gingerly at the angry red finger imprints on his arm.
She raises an eyebrow, which always heralds a change of tactics, Bradley knows from months of verbal sparring and one ill-fated pillow fight.
"He's absolutely miserable," Katie says, and oh, that's not fair play.
"I don't know what you're talking about." He hopes he doesn't sound too shifty, or at least that he'll soon be needed on set.
"Fine," she huffs, cuffing him on the side of his head as she walks away. "God, you're a prat and an idiot." That part she mutters, but it's probably a strategic mutter, calculated to make him feel worse because she "didn't mean for him to hear it."
While he waits for the crew to finish setting up, he thinks about it, though, and well.
The idiot part is rubbish, but.
Maybe he has been a bit of a prat to Colin lately. He just doesn't know how to not be a prat to him and also not jump his bones, which is, he thinks, mildly problematic.
*
After a good bit of thought, he comes to the conclusion that having more plausible excuses for ignoring Colin might help keep the tally down in the prat column. The problem is that, other than the truth, there really isn't a good reason for him to steer clear of his costar after spending months pestering him to hang out all the time.
He finally decides on a book. People with books shoved in front of their faces don't exactly have people queuing up to talk with them, do they?
*
The next morning on set, he's drinking tea, eating toast, and reading The Worst Witch Strikes Again.
It's riveting, really. The pictures are lovely as well.
Colin walks over -- which, damnit, Bradley isn't supposed to notice. Stupid peripheral vision, what did he ever do to it -- and flops down next to Bradley.
"Hello," he says, and Bradley feels awful because he sounds so tentative. Awful enough that when Colin reaches out to steal a piece of toast off Bradley's plate, he lets him have it without protest.
They sit in silence through four page turns.
"Okay," Colin says finally. The tentativeness is gone from his voice but he's tapping a tattoo on his jittering thigh, so he's nervous even though he's also clearly determined to talk despite Bradley's conspicuous enjoyment of fine literature. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Hey, it worked with Katie, he thinks a little desperately.
"I mean," a note of frustration creeps into Colin's voice, "you've not properly talked to me in nearly a week. You let me eat off your plate. You never let anyone eat off your plate. You'd bat the Pope's hand away if he tried to nick your food. What did I do?"
"Nothing," Bradley says weakly.
The silence reigns once more.
And this time, after six page turns, Colin doesn't bother breaking it. He just sighs and -- Bradley peeks over the page top -- scrubs a hand over his face. He looks tired.
As soon as Colin's a respectable distance away, Bradley gives up on Mildred Hubble's bumbling and focuses on his own.
He's tired too, and he's not being fair. Colin's a good person; he should just come out with it. Confess. Promise that he's fine, practically over it already, and hope that things between them won't get weird.
It's not a bad idea, he concedes, because at the very least they can't get much worse than they already are.
He gives himself one more night to -- to plan carefully his confessional speech, and think thoughts of moving on, and not wallow at all.
All right, maybe wallow a little.
*
The next evening he approaches Colin after work and speaks the loaded phrase that's shorthand everywhere for you're probably really not going to like this but you're also not getting out of it, and neither am I: "We need to talk."
Colin doesn't make a joke like he would if they were still solidly mates; he looks resigned and maybe a little sad.
"I think I know what you're going to say," Colin interjects right as Bradley takes a deep breath to launch his spiel.
It takes the wind out of his sails. "I -- really?"
"Well, if I think logically, this all started with the whole --" he makes some kind of hand gesture that could either signify "washing machine" or "lap dance," but Bradley gets the idea.
"Right. It's just --"
"I guess it was kind of obvious, after that?" Colin's leg is bouncing compulsively again, Bradley notes.
"Wait. What?" Bradley frowns. "What was obvious?"
"I mean, it slotted into place, yeah? You had the right idea, I mean, when you --"
Bradley keeps frowning. This is not the conversation he expected to have.
"I --" Colin sighs. "Don't make me say it, come on."
But he eventually continues, probably because Bradley continues to look blank. "When you thought that I wanted to -- offer you a lap dance. I mean, obviously not that exactly, but the general concept is sound. I mean, people who -- they -- I mean, it's not unheard of --" He cuts himself off a little angrily. "The power of suggestion. Like if --" he pauses -- "Arthur thought Merlin mentioned having magic, even if Merlin really hadn't, he might start to think about it in earnest, as a theory to explain a data set. It might start to make sense."
"Are you --" Bradley laughs a little. "Are you serious?" He says it mostly to himself.
Now Colin frowns.
"No, I just mean -- well, for one thing you just compared us to the characters we play, which I think says something about how much you rely on me to ensure that you have a life outside of acting. For another, you thought I panicked because I thought you were queer for me, and I panicked because I fancied you."
"I -- oh."
"Well," Bradley says brightly, "this was resolved with a great deal less awkwardness than I thought it would be." He pauses to grip Colin's shoulders and look him directly in the eyes; Colin looks a little alarmed and a lot relieved, which is an odd mix. "Would you like for me to kiss you now?" He's careful to speak clearly and loudly.
"Oh, God, James, get a room," McGrath shouts.
Maybe, on second thought, a little too loudly.
But at least it's only Katie, and at least it appears the point has gotten across, because Colin is flushed but grinning. He tugs Bradley closer and brushes their lips together lightly.
"We'll spare you the details," he says to Katie in an utterly filthy voice as he pulls Bradley along with him, presumably to find somewhere private, and wow, Bradley might just get that lap dance after all.
Pairing: Bradley/Colin (Merlin RPF)
Rating: R
Length: c.3,300 words
Disclaimer: This is a completely fictional story written about fictional constructs of real people. I make no profit; I do not know these people; and I intend no disrespect whatsoever.
Notes: This is unbeta'd, and the first piece of my fanfiction that anything sentient that isn't also my cat has seen. I am torn between warning you to read at your own peril, and whimpering piteously for you to come pat my head and feed me biscuits. Take from that what you will.
It starts when Bradley goes to get lunch from craft services.
Okay, well, it start-starts when Bradley first meets Colin, but the first time Bradley has to do something other than nod sagely, as though he perfectly comprehends what Colin's just incomprehensibly rattled off when he truly has no idea, is when Bradley goes to get lunch from craft services.
He's been running lines with Colin, so as he's halfway stood up, he asks if he can get Colin anything to eat while he's over there. Bradley's mum raised him with manners, even if the Colin-coddling crew think he's a bit of a boor. He's quite polite, sod them very much.
Colin says -- well. Colin replies, that much is certain. But Bradley couldn't really say how he replies, as such. It's that bloody accent, it's -- very melodic, he's heard Cynthia in costumes say, in rapturous tones. Yes, yes, carry on swooning, he thinks acidly, but what good is melody when he can hardly understand a word out of the man's mouth?
So, he's fairly certain that Colin said, "I'll have turkey, thanks." He's not going to ask Colin to repeat, fat lot of good that ever did him, and get the piss taken out of him for it (funny, how Bradley's never had to understand Colin's words to understand when that's happening). "Fairly certain" will have to do, then.
He makes his way to catering, ducking booms and sidestepping piles of chain mail, and grabs two rather massive sandwiches, corned beef for himself and turkey for Colin, who hopefully has nothing against mayo, because the turkey to condiment ratio seems a little skewed.
But apparently the caterers could have dumped a vat of salsa verde -- wasabi, even -- on it for all Colin cares, because Colin obviously has no interest in eating.
He slants Bradley an incredulous look, raised eyebrows and quirked mouth, when he sees both sandwiches, but just turns back to his heavily annotated script without showing any interest in poultry.
Bradley sits back down on the bench heavily. It occurs to him that "I'll have turkey, thanks" might, in certain Irish dialects, be code for "None for me, thanks." He considers just owning to the misunderstanding, because Jesus, the sandwiches are truly monstrous, but then he hears McGrath's tinkly little laugh, and she can't be far out of range. The last thing she needs is more ammo against him.
Incredulity has slid into a sly amusement on Colin's face, there in the glances he darts in Bradley's direction from underneath his eyelashes. A twitch to the corner of his mouth probably means he's imagining Bradley trying to unhinge his jaw wide enough to bite into the sandwiches.
Bradley sighs explosively before tucking in. He hates mayonnaise.
*
Bradley should have known, though, that he couldn't keep his linguistic difficulties a secret for long. It's somewhat ironic, considering the tag line for the show; but while Arthur might be oblivious, Colin is decidedly not.
It comes out maybe two weeks after the Mayo Incident, the duration of which Bradley has spent muddling through softened vowels and hardened consonants and replying nearly universally with hm or yeah? or right, okay. Possibly he agreed to sign away his first born or even, say, deposit a rodent in Anthony's bed linens. But he was an unwitting accomplice who didn't know what Colin was wrangling him into; that's his defence, and he will stick to it no matter what gently reproving faces Angel pulls in attempts to manipulate him into admissions of guilt.
He's sitting down to unlace his boots, which pinch his toes something fierce, after a day of mostly standing around while Katie-as-Morgana angsts very prettily, and Colin's standing over him, gesticulating wildly. Bradley's only listening with half an ear because the more emphatically Colin gestures, the less comprehensible he sounds, so it's a bit of a lost cause. It's possible that Colin just said something about working on knocking, which makes no sense at all. It's not as though Bradley barges into other people's rooms at inconvenient hours without notice.
Working on the reasonable assumption that that was what Colin'd said, Bradley says indignantly, "That was once! One time!"
Colin blinks and furrows his brow, and that -- that right there -- is why he's the on-set darling. He looks like a baby animal, for Merli -- for Christ's sake. A piteous, vacant one.
Bradley scowls.
He can't think what else Colin might've meant, though it's obvious it wasn't "knock." Mentally, Bradley scans through rhymes -- knock, dock, stock, cock -- he chokes a little -- block, flock -- oh.
Oh. Colin probably wants to work on blocking. He would, the industrious little arse-kisser.
The industrious little arse-kisser who is also, not incidentally, laughing hard enough he might rupture something. It would serve him right, Bradley thinks viciously.
"I thought--" Colin gasps -- "you were just--" that was definitely a giggle -- "a bit simple. All that--" he's practically crying now -- "hmming and grunting when ordinary people reply to queries in full sentences."
Bradley rolls his eyes and resigns himself to running the gauntlet with everyone on set.
*
A few months later, Bradley's gotten much better at deciphering Colin-speak. He hardly ever blunders anymore, and this has made him, he thinks in blastedly clear hindsight, unfortunately complacent.
They're walking back to the trailers to fine tune the details of their latest prank campaign, but Bradley freezes, brain and body in tandem, at something Colin's said. He'd swear that that record needle scratch sound effect plays, he balks so suddenly.
"Wait," he blurts. "Do I want a lap dance?" The words completely bypass whatever of his brain-to-mouth filter still exists, which is just not on. Those are invaluable, like alarm clocks and -- and smoke detectors, and if he'd stopped to think he'd have realised what a preposterous, un-Colin-like question to ask that was. Colin is sneaky and, okay, maybe a little dirty with his humour, but he's not Bradley-dirty. Not -- not give-Bradley-a-lap-dance dirty. Right. Okay, he thinks.
Colin's eyes grow cartoonishly wide, victims of the same shock that disabled Bradley's filter. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again, shuts it again. He's blushing furiously. Bradley has never seen him look so far from making a cheeky aside or plotting some mischief.
Finally, after a while of them staring at each other -- probably, Bradley ruefully acknowledges in some not-tundra-frozen corner of his mind, mutually gaping -- Colin says in a choked voice, "I think Freud might have something to say about that." His eyes dart to the side and he laughs a little strangled laugh; he's probably, Bradley thinks desperately, horrified. "I was just, ehm, wondering," Colin says with an obviously concerted effort at articulation, "if you'd seen those black pants. From the costume department?"
"Oh. Oh, no," Bradley manages. One-syllable words, baby steps, are all he can do, though. His feet are moving again, but brain has informed him it might be a while before it's wholly back online.
*
The problem is that when his brain does come back online, it's been...refreshed. Data has changed.
Bradley realises that little details about Colin and quirks of Colin's that he'd noticed in what he supposed was a casual, coworkerly fashion are actually things that people who are genuinely casual and coworkerly about someone don't notice at all.
Things like the shape of his mouth and the dexterity of his hands. The line of his jaw. How he takes his tea. How to make him laugh on a shite day. The sweep of his eyelashes. The exasperated set of his shoulders as he yells at the football players on the telly as though they could really hear him. His favourite music and books and sweets, his idols.
What really clinches it, though, is that -- well.
He can picture it.
Colin settled nimbly on Bradley's lap, grinding in truly filthy circles. Kissing him, deep and wet and lewd, making Colin's hips involuntarily stutter and jerk forward instead of in a circle, desperate instead of teasing. His mind unravels a bit from the possibilities that spool out from that point -- Bradley blowing Colin, making it slow and slick and tortuous, getting him to make little noises, quiet moans; Colin fucking Bradley, lying underneath him and arching up to meet him; mutual rough, twisting handjobs; hell, just both of them rutting and kissing until they couldn't stand it any longer.
The thing is, no matter what he does --
He can't stop thinking about it.
*
Not a day later, Angel and he are sprawled in director's chairs, with cushions wedged between their sides and the armrests, collaborating to finish the Guardian crossword. Bradley has a potentially very lucrative bet going with McGrath that says he can finish it before she does, and Angel is positively genius at this. And they never specifically stipulated against outside assistance, so he's not cheating, not really.
"Insignificant cartoon character, eleven letters," he mutters under his breath, chewing on his lip. "Insignificant."
He looks up from the paper to switch to chewing on his biro and to stare into contemplative space, which, say what you will, does too help increase the generation of thoughts. Of course, just his luck, this is the exact moment that Colin, changed out of costume now that the day's winding to a close, walks by with his t-shirt rucked up as he tugs on a belt.
Bradley would swear that for a minute his mind blanks of everything except hips. The hips he thought of only the other night in very unchaste ways. Really, on Colin the dip and swell on each side is so tiny that it couldn't even qualify as a hip, just an extension of his skinny waist, which is just an extension of his skinny torso, but -- God help him -- Bradley suddenly wants to trace the bone, rub his thumb across a demi-hip to see if he can feel it curve at all.
That's really not a good place for him to go, not at all, because that leads him to thinking that his hands could easily span, practically engulf Colin's hip...region. And he's imagining himself pressed back-to-front with Colin, Colin's neck tilted sideways and his collarbones exposed.
"Bradley!" Angel says sharply, jolting him, and that means she must have called his name numerous times without his realising, because Angel so rarely gets sharp with anyone at all.
When he snaps out of it he realises Colin is looking at him out of the corner of his eye, probably wondering why the fuck Bradley was staring at him so stupidly.
"Right, sorry," he says miserably, and scolds his traitor brain. Crosswords and insignificant cartoon characters, good; Morgan's collarbones and hips, bad.
Right.
*
From there it only gets worse. Colin brings him a chocolate croissant in the morning like he sometimes does, from the baker who sold her soul for the ability to create pastries that mere mortals cannot resist, and Bradley can't even look him in the eye.
To say that Bradley's never had a crush on someone he works with would be a wretched, wretched lie, but they've always been fun, safe crushes -- unattainable girls, straight boys, people he doesn't really know and probably wouldn't like half so much if he did.
Colin is his friend.
He likes Colin.
This is uncharted territory.
*
Bradley deals with it in the time-tested way of all tube-riding Britons: he doesn't look it in the eye, reads the Sun, and hopes it won't bother him.
But apparently his English teacher had the right of it and mixing metaphors does one no good, because Lily Allen's feud with Katy Perry and Kate Moss's latest adventures in fashion and cocaine-snorting can't stop him thinking of all the nasty things he wants to do with Colin. They also don't seem to stop or even slow his alarming slide down the slippery slope into the Soft Touch for Colin Morgan Club.
So Bradley takes it a step further and skips riding the subway altogether, so to speak. He avoids Colin at all costs, makes excuses when he wants to run lines or talk character development and even lamer ones when he wants to hang out outside work. He basically turns into the Colin of the project's earliest days, determinedly quiet, focused, and retreated just far enough that no one can reach him but no one can legitimately call him on it either.
He didn't bargain, however, on Katie McGrath.
"All right," she says decisively, stalking up to him as he's just getting out of makeup and grabbing his arm in a grip that a Chinese finger trap would envy.
"What," she continues, forcing him into a chair and settling across from him, "did you do to Colin." It's not even a question, just an order. The woman belongs in the bloody service.
"Nothing!" he yelps, and rubs gingerly at the angry red finger imprints on his arm.
She raises an eyebrow, which always heralds a change of tactics, Bradley knows from months of verbal sparring and one ill-fated pillow fight.
"He's absolutely miserable," Katie says, and oh, that's not fair play.
"I don't know what you're talking about." He hopes he doesn't sound too shifty, or at least that he'll soon be needed on set.
"Fine," she huffs, cuffing him on the side of his head as she walks away. "God, you're a prat and an idiot." That part she mutters, but it's probably a strategic mutter, calculated to make him feel worse because she "didn't mean for him to hear it."
While he waits for the crew to finish setting up, he thinks about it, though, and well.
The idiot part is rubbish, but.
Maybe he has been a bit of a prat to Colin lately. He just doesn't know how to not be a prat to him and also not jump his bones, which is, he thinks, mildly problematic.
*
After a good bit of thought, he comes to the conclusion that having more plausible excuses for ignoring Colin might help keep the tally down in the prat column. The problem is that, other than the truth, there really isn't a good reason for him to steer clear of his costar after spending months pestering him to hang out all the time.
He finally decides on a book. People with books shoved in front of their faces don't exactly have people queuing up to talk with them, do they?
*
The next morning on set, he's drinking tea, eating toast, and reading The Worst Witch Strikes Again.
It's riveting, really. The pictures are lovely as well.
Colin walks over -- which, damnit, Bradley isn't supposed to notice. Stupid peripheral vision, what did he ever do to it -- and flops down next to Bradley.
"Hello," he says, and Bradley feels awful because he sounds so tentative. Awful enough that when Colin reaches out to steal a piece of toast off Bradley's plate, he lets him have it without protest.
They sit in silence through four page turns.
"Okay," Colin says finally. The tentativeness is gone from his voice but he's tapping a tattoo on his jittering thigh, so he's nervous even though he's also clearly determined to talk despite Bradley's conspicuous enjoyment of fine literature. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Hey, it worked with Katie, he thinks a little desperately.
"I mean," a note of frustration creeps into Colin's voice, "you've not properly talked to me in nearly a week. You let me eat off your plate. You never let anyone eat off your plate. You'd bat the Pope's hand away if he tried to nick your food. What did I do?"
"Nothing," Bradley says weakly.
The silence reigns once more.
And this time, after six page turns, Colin doesn't bother breaking it. He just sighs and -- Bradley peeks over the page top -- scrubs a hand over his face. He looks tired.
As soon as Colin's a respectable distance away, Bradley gives up on Mildred Hubble's bumbling and focuses on his own.
He's tired too, and he's not being fair. Colin's a good person; he should just come out with it. Confess. Promise that he's fine, practically over it already, and hope that things between them won't get weird.
It's not a bad idea, he concedes, because at the very least they can't get much worse than they already are.
He gives himself one more night to -- to plan carefully his confessional speech, and think thoughts of moving on, and not wallow at all.
All right, maybe wallow a little.
*
The next evening he approaches Colin after work and speaks the loaded phrase that's shorthand everywhere for you're probably really not going to like this but you're also not getting out of it, and neither am I: "We need to talk."
Colin doesn't make a joke like he would if they were still solidly mates; he looks resigned and maybe a little sad.
"I think I know what you're going to say," Colin interjects right as Bradley takes a deep breath to launch his spiel.
It takes the wind out of his sails. "I -- really?"
"Well, if I think logically, this all started with the whole --" he makes some kind of hand gesture that could either signify "washing machine" or "lap dance," but Bradley gets the idea.
"Right. It's just --"
"I guess it was kind of obvious, after that?" Colin's leg is bouncing compulsively again, Bradley notes.
"Wait. What?" Bradley frowns. "What was obvious?"
"I mean, it slotted into place, yeah? You had the right idea, I mean, when you --"
Bradley keeps frowning. This is not the conversation he expected to have.
"I --" Colin sighs. "Don't make me say it, come on."
But he eventually continues, probably because Bradley continues to look blank. "When you thought that I wanted to -- offer you a lap dance. I mean, obviously not that exactly, but the general concept is sound. I mean, people who -- they -- I mean, it's not unheard of --" He cuts himself off a little angrily. "The power of suggestion. Like if --" he pauses -- "Arthur thought Merlin mentioned having magic, even if Merlin really hadn't, he might start to think about it in earnest, as a theory to explain a data set. It might start to make sense."
"Are you --" Bradley laughs a little. "Are you serious?" He says it mostly to himself.
Now Colin frowns.
"No, I just mean -- well, for one thing you just compared us to the characters we play, which I think says something about how much you rely on me to ensure that you have a life outside of acting. For another, you thought I panicked because I thought you were queer for me, and I panicked because I fancied you."
"I -- oh."
"Well," Bradley says brightly, "this was resolved with a great deal less awkwardness than I thought it would be." He pauses to grip Colin's shoulders and look him directly in the eyes; Colin looks a little alarmed and a lot relieved, which is an odd mix. "Would you like for me to kiss you now?" He's careful to speak clearly and loudly.
"Oh, God, James, get a room," McGrath shouts.
Maybe, on second thought, a little too loudly.
But at least it's only Katie, and at least it appears the point has gotten across, because Colin is flushed but grinning. He tugs Bradley closer and brushes their lips together lightly.
"We'll spare you the details," he says to Katie in an utterly filthy voice as he pulls Bradley along with him, presumably to find somewhere private, and wow, Bradley might just get that lap dance after all.