Merlin RPS Fic: We All Write Our Own Endings 1/3 (Bradley/Colin) NC-17
Title: We All Write Our Own Endings
Pairing: Bradley/Colin, Bradley/OMCs, Bradley/OFC, background Colin/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 23516
Summary: Five years ago after Merlin ended, Bradley headed for LA and success. Homesick and dissatisfied, he returns to the UK and a challenging film project, but he hadn't banked on having to work with the last person he wanted to see: Colin.
Warnings: Futurefic, character bleed.
Notes: Everlasting thanks to my amazing betas: hermette and destina. Also thanks to katie_andrew for audiencing and encouragement.
Also on AO3
It doesn't snow in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, when he first moved there, Bradley discovered by googling "snow in LA" that the greatest snowfall ever recorded was only 1.96 inches back in 1932. He doesn't know how the world survived before Google was able to tell them everything they never needed to know.
Bradley likes being able to spout random facts. It gives him an edge over the people he meets at mundane dinner parties in the Hollywood Hills, given the only facts they seem to be able to spout are which surgeon they prefer for a quick non-surgical nosejob and whose batch of coke is the best that week.
This is the time of the year that he misses the snow the most. Christmas in the UK was always bitter cold and figgy pudding and the Royal Variety Performance on the telly. He could always go to New York for a week or so - at least there'd be snow - but it wouldn't be the same. After nearly five years, he feels himself getting pulled inexorably towards the mother country, feels the ache of homesickness in his gut every day.
It feels like forever since he's been home. His mum teases him every time they talk that he should change his name to Brad officially because Bradley just isn't American enough for a blond-haired Hollywood boy like him. He laughs and shrugs it off and knows she's just joking, but something stings in his chest when she says it, like she expects him to not be him anymore.
Not that he can blame her; some days he feels like there's nothing left of who he was before he left for Hollywood, leaving Merlin behind like it had never existed. Bradley's always been fond of compartmentalisation. It keeps him sane, and while he knows some people called him a cold, heartless bastard for just up and leaving the way he did, it was the only way for him to really move on.
It doesn't mean he doesn't regret it though, on the occasions that he lets himself think about it.
Blond hair, blue eyes and a decent American accent made Bradley a marketable commodity when he arrived in LA four months after Merlin wrapped. On the days when he feels maudlin, it almost makes him bitter to think about it, which is ridiculous really, because who ever complained about being able to get work in an iron-tough industry like he has? If Eoin could see him now, he'd be shoulderbarging him and accusing him of being a "fucking Hollywood princess, it's so hard to be you, isn't it, mate?" and he'd be right, too.
He was damn lucky, booking a successful pilot the first time out, helped largely by the fact that Nick had more than a few similarities to Arthur. Bradley wondered at the time if he'd ever play a bloke who wasn't posh and snarky with daddy issues ever again, but apparently the ladies loved it, just like they did in the days of Merlin.
Hopkins Med, the NBC mid-season replacement, continues in its ratings annilihation. The freshman show, following a group of final-year med students at Johns Hopkins, succeeds due to strong writing and superb casting, particularly noticeable in the will-they won't-they pairing of troubled party boy Nick Wood (played by British import Bradley James) and studious, up-tight Brenda Andrews (played by Lily Collins.) The undeniable chemistry between James and Collins sizzles and reminds us of such classic couples as George Clooney and Julianna Margulies in ER's first season.
"See?" Cynthia had thrust the Entertainment Weekly review in his face over breakfast at DuPars, "They love you, sweetheart. Undeniable chemistry!"
"Yeah," Bradley had said, staring out the window. It hadn't been the first time he'd heard that, and he had dug his fingernails into his palms, a life-long habit that always worked when he needed to distract himself from thoughts and memories that were best left untouched.
He dated Lily for two years. She was the perfect girlfriend in public and a great friend in private and when they broke up the fans were horribly upset, except for those special ones who truly believed they were destined to be her replacement.
Bradley wonders if they'd still want him so much if they knew. Maybe. Perhaps they'd think they had the power to turn him straight.
The show went for three and a half seasons, and Bradley got three Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and two People's Choice Awards before they got cancelled due to dwindling ratings. In the four months since the cancellation, he's already been sent scripts for an indie film, a Judd Apatow comedy, and a new pilot being developed by Bad Robot.
It's ridiculous even entertaining the notion of being dissatisfied with his life when he has pretty much everything he's ever wanted: a gorgeous beachfront home, celebrity friends, and a job that most blokes would have killed for. And if he has to fake it 24/7, then that's the price he pays for all the shiny things.
He tries to shake off the malaise with a party in Malibu, a couple of lines, and a bottle of Patron he shares with a lean little dirty-blond twink who sucks him off in his car afterwards. None of it works, though, it just makes him more empty. Bradley's so sick of feeling numb and he knows that he can't be here for Christmas. Not again.
He wants to go home. Needs to.
"I don't know how long for," Bradley tells Cynthia in her office on Wilshire Boulevard. "And I know it's not a good time to be out of sight, but -"
"Oh honey," she says, hands steepled under her chin, "anyone could see you've been homesick for months now, you poor thing. I'll give the London office a call and we'll see what we can do, hmmm?"
Considering the practice he's had at it, Bradley wonders why he is still so utterly terrible at keeping most things from everyone around him.
***
His mum is ecstatic to see him of course, and thoroughly spoils him with cranberry-glazed turkey served with sage and chestnut stuffing, the hugest ham he has ever seen, three different puddings and more champagne than he can drink. She ignores his completely weak protests of the amount of carbs he's consuming, because while he thinks he probably should care about putting on a stone over Christmas, he really doesn't.
It feels normal, safe - like he isn't missing a large chunk of himself.
They watch the Queen's Christmas Message together, and Bradley falls asleep on the settee, full of food and alcohol and feeling happier than he has in years.
He moves into a flat in Westminster in the new year. It's insanely expensive, but it's gorgeous: a huge master bedroom and a decently-sized spare room both with ensuites and an enormous kitchen. It's a far cry from the apartments he used to stay in when he was last in the UK - it's much more grown up. Most importantly, it's secure. The last thing he needs is for the tabloids to start hanging around, waiting for a glimpse of anything that they can speculate about.
He remembers someone once told him that if he cared a great deal less about what everyone else thought, then maybe he'd be happy. Maybe.
He closes his eyes to try and quiet the ghosts.
***
William Morris calls him a few weeks later. His new rep there is a bloke by the name of Andy Morecombe and while he's young and energetic and quite pleasant in person, on the phone he sounds like a used car salesman.
"Look, I know you're just getting settled in, son, but I thought you might want to jump on this." He pauses. "I'll send the script over and then you come in and see me so we can chat. They asked for you personally, so I'd say it's a fairly sure bet once you've met with them. If you want to, that is."
"Sure." Bradley yawns. "That sounds pretty promising. Maybe." He's seen so many awful scripts in the weeks he's been back that he's not exactly jumping out of his skin to read this one. And if he gets one more that's a fucking period drama, he’s going to have a nervous breakdown.
"Who's directing?" he asks, drumming his fingers on the glass tabletop.
"Michael Magee," Andy says, and when Bradley grunts his approval, he laughs. "Approve, do we?"
"Uh, yeah, ever so slightly." Bradley grins. "Saw his last film at the TriBeCa festival last year, really great stuff."
Raw, emotional, fearless - that's what Bradley would have said if he hadn't been so gobsmacked.
"Great. It's a wonderful script from what I've seen, Bradley," Andy says. "Just - Just keep an open mind, alright?"
Oh god, it is another period drama. Fantastic.
When the courier arrives that day, Bradley settles down with a cuppa and a couple of gingernuts, and rips open the packet. The working title of the film is Blood and Daffodils and when he flicks to the first page Bradley exhales audibly. Not period, thank christ. Not that he would've expected Magee to be involved with your stock-standard period drama, anyway.
The role they want him for is a detective inspector with Scotland Yard. Bradley smiles; his ten-year-old self would be jumping for joy right now. Then he gets six pages in and he chokes on his tea.
10. INT: BAR - NIGHT
Ben sits alone, a glass of scotch in front of him. Steven, a slim brunette of around twenty-five, sits down next to him.
STEVEN: Anyone sitting here?
Ben looks up. His eyes travel up and down Steven's body. He's tempted.
BEN: It seems you are (gestures for Steven to sit down).
STEVEN: I'm...
BEN (INTERRUPTS): No names, if you don't mind.
STEVEN (GRINNING): I don't mind at all. So would you like to get out of here?
BEN: I would.
11. INT: STEVEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT
Steven moves in to kiss Ben, who pushes him away.
BEN: I don't kiss.
STEVEN (LAUGHING): Of course you don't.
BEN (EXPRESSIONLESS): Turn around.
Steven turns and faces the wall, undoes his trousers. Ben bites his lip and palms Steven's arse, slowly.
STEVEN (GROANING): You closet cases are always the hottest.
BEN (GROWLING): Shut up.
They fuck.
Bradley's mouth is completely dry and he’s pretty sure he’s going to faint.
Open mind indeed. If only Andy knew.
If you want to go, then go, Bradley. Go to LA and be a star, long as you can stay in that closet just a little longer, yeah?
Fuck. He shuts his eyes tight and spends a few minutes trying to clear his mind. He really does not need to be hearing Colin's voice in his head, not now. He walks over to the wet bar and pours himself a couple of fingers of scotch, lifts it to his lips and thinks better of it, slamming it back down and filling the tumbler almost to the top.
He sits back down with the script, taking a huge gulp before reading on.
It unfolds that Ben's sister dies in suspicious circumstances, so he takes a leave of absence and goes back home to Templeton for the funeral. When he gets there, he discovers his first clandestine boyfriend, Toby, has returned to Templeton and has been teaching at the local primary school along with his late sister. Toby becomes targeted by the killer and Ben decides to stay in Templeton after the funeral, conducting his own investigation of the case while keeping an eye on Toby.
Unfortunately, the writing is really fucking good. The two leads are particularly meaty roles and there's an emotional rawness to his character that Bradley's been dying for his whole career. With Magee's direction, it will be an amazing project.
It would be perfect, if it wasn't for the fact that Bradley's character is a self-hating closet case. The irony, it burns. And okay, Bradley doesn't exactly hate himself because he happens to be bent, he doesn't hate himself at all actually, and he isn't exactly copping off with nameless blokes in bars on a regular basis or anything - well, not often, anyway. It's just - well he had to make a choice and he chose his career. It was his choice to make, after all. Nobody else's. The more he tells himself that the more he believes it, too.
Lately though, he's been questioning whether it was worth it at all. Bradley can barely remember when everything was simple and he was happy. That seems like another lifetime now, and after years of being more famous than he ever anticipated, he wants his life back. It's not like he's going to suddenly become a walking London Pride advertisement or anything. He's definitely not ready for that, but he's also thoroughly tired of all the bullshit in LA and maybe this project is just what he needs to reestablish himself as a serious actor, not just a heartthrob doctor on the telly.
It's a risk, no doubt, but it's a risk that could pay off. Even if it doesn't, he asks himself if he really cares that much, and the truth is that he really doesn't know. He's completely exhausted from faking it most days and Bradley's not even sure if he has it in him anymore. After everything he's given up, he wonders whether it would really be the worst thing, to be forced to tell the truth.
If he's really honest with himself, it's why he left LA in the first place.
***
Stuart, the film's producer, is so passionate that Bradley's instantly charmed when he meets him and Michael Magee for lunch the following week at Hakkasan.
"So Bradley, you've read the script. What are your thoughts?" Stuart asks, practically bouncing in his seat.
Bradley takes a mouthful of Szechuan Wagyu and washes it down with a hearty sip of Riesling before saying, "Well, Stuart, I was blown away you asked for me, pretty chuffed actually. I'm a big fan of Michael's here and the script was -"
"Confronting?" Michael asks, grinning. "I hope it was, anyway."
Bradley's stomach ties itself in knots. He nods slowly. "Yeah, I'd say confronting is a pretty appropriate word to use."
"Good." Michael leans forward. "The thing is, I think we've reached a point where we're still very careful about showing anything explicitly gay on film. Which is a little ridiculous really, given how attitudes have changed in the last few years. We thought turning your classic British romance-murder-mystery on its head might be a fun thing to play with. If you've seen my work, you know I love working with actors who're willing to take risks and this role is definitely not safe."
"That's an understatement," Bradley says, his voice slightly uneven.
"Too risky?" Michael asks.
Bradley finishes his glass of wine and thinks - really thinks about it for a minute. On the one hand, he'd be immersing himself in a role that has quite stark similarities to him and confronting doesn't even begin to cover it. On the other hand, this is the kind of role he's been dreaming of playing his whole life: dark, broken and real, and he knows it would be devastating to see another actor play a role that he turned down because he couldn't separate himself from the character. At the end of the day, it's just a job, it doesn't have to mean more than that.
"No," he says, firmly. "I can do this. I... I want to do this."
Lunch lasts four hours. They talk in-depth about Ben, asking Bradley his thoughts and by the end of it, Bradley is excited about the vision Michael has for the film.
"We've wanted you for Ben ever since we started talking about this project, Bradley, I'm so thrilled we're all on the same page." Stuart wraps Bradley in a hug that nearly suffocates him, "Just think about how much this is going to change things for you."
Bradley thinks that might be the biggest understatement he's ever heard.
The next morning, the courier arrives with the contract. He signs it almost straight away, afraid he'll change his mind if he spends too long thinking about it.
***
Bradley heads to Paris the next day for a week. His heart races at the thought of being there again after 5 years. He spends the first day being horribly maudlin, sitting on the terrace of the Cafe de la Nouvelle Marie with an espresso and a pain aux chocolat. He pictures himself almost 7 years ago, at the same table, laughing with them all at the passers-by and remarking on just how ridiculously French everyone was, before leaving for Compeigne.
He hasn't called any of them since he's been back, not even the knights.
He misses them. All of them.
He calls Rupert immediately, figures that if he doesn't it'll slip his mind again and it'll be another month before he knows it.
"Bloody hell, we all thought you'd died!" Rupert's never quite learned how not to project whilst on the telephone. "What's been going on? Where are you?"
"I'm in Paris, actually. At that old cafe we used to go to with Angel and Katie."
If Rupert catches the omission, he doesn't say anything.
"Is the girl with the eyepatch still there?"
Bradley roars with laughter. "God, I'd forgotten about her. No, I gather she's long gone."
"Do you want some company?"
Rupert barely gets the question out before Bradley is interrupting him with, "Yes. God, yes."
Bradley isn't at all surprised when Rupert arrives at his hotel room with Eoin and Tom in tow.
"Oh wonderful," he drawls, "the whole gang of miscreants is here. Has anyone told all the farmers to lock up their sheep?"
He stands there and allows himself to be almost bowled over by the three of them, and he hugs them back, fiercely.
They don't even leave the hotel room, opting instead to sit on the soft carpet and call room service, gorging themselves on chateaubriand and three bottles of Chateau Cantemerle Bordeaux.
"Sorry I've been such a crap friend," Bradley says. "I'm really - there's no excuse."
"'s alright," Eoin says, swigging the last drop of wine from the bottle. "We all know you're Mr. Popular Hollywood Arsehole these days, we don't expect you to descend from on-high too often to join the rest of us plebs."
"Bite me," Bradley says, kicking him in the ribs.
"Seriously though, you'd better call Angel," Rupert manages to get out between belches. "She's much scarier than we are, and significantly more pissed off at you."
"I'll call her," Bradley promises. It's only half a lie, because he will call her eventually, but right now he can think of only one person he wants to talk to less than Angel.
The next night they all go out clubbing at Rex. Rupert and Tom pike early, and Bradley's sure that at least part of that is because they're both married now and Eoin being terminally single makes him the worst possible influence when it comes to picking up random girls.
Bradley's pretty sure Eoin is going to use the Merlin card to pull till he's sixty.
They end up in the VIP room with two girls, a blonde and a brunette who speak very little English. They sit on the couch and Eoin and the blonde kiss wet and open-mouthed while the brunette straddles Bradley's lap and feeds him Cristal from the bottle. It's easy enough for Bradley, he's good at faking this, especially when he's drunk on good champagne. He pulls her in, one hand on her back and the other in her hair, kisses her deep and thorough and pretends she is someone else entirely.
***
Three weeks later, Bradley gets a call from Tamara, Stuart's assistant at Crashed, asking if he'd have time to come into the studio that week for a reading.
"They've narrowed the actors auditioning for Toby down to two, Mr. James, and both the studio and Michael thought it might be a good idea to get you in for the recalls, see how everything clicks."
Bradley's throat constricts and his palms start to sweat as they always do when he's nervous. He's come to grips with the fact that he's playing someone not completely dissimilar to himself, and the whole simulated sex part - that's easy, he's done that before, albeit with girls. The intimacy though, the completely raw emotional connection, that's entirely different.
"Mr. James? Are you still there?"
"Sorry, Tamara, a million miles away. And please do call me Bradley." Hearing a girl probably 10 years his junior calling him Mr. James makes Bradley feel horribly old.
She giggles. "Yes. Of course. Bradley. Well. Uh. Sorry, what day would you be free?"
"Any day'll be good for me," he says, phone under his ear as he stirs a sugarcube into his tea. “Oh and by the way, Tamara, who will I be reading with, out of interest?"
He tries for mild interest rather than desperation, but he doesn't think his nonchalance is very convincing.
"Oh, sure." She hesitates, obviously looking down at her list. "They've called back Jeremy Anthony and Henry Whitworth. You know them?"
"I know of them." He's not sure he can picture either one of them as Toby, but he knows he shouldn't be drawing his own conclusions before he's even read with them, and at the end of the day it isn't his call to make anyway. It would potentially ruin the film however if whoever gets Toby isn't someone Bradley has a strong connection with. They both really need to be able to trust each other implicitly.
He hasn't allowed himself to trust anyone like that in a very long time.
Thursday morning, he wakes at 5am and hits the gym. He runs on the treadmill until beads of perspiration start hitting the display. It's been several days since he's gone so hard with the exercise. He's going to have to be much more disciplined with his workout routine in the coming months. Given the amount of time he'll be spending onscreen in various states of undress, fucked if he isn't making sure his arse looks as spectacular as possible.
With that thought fresh in his mind, he wipes himself down with his sweat towel and settles into his lower body circuit, performing squat after squat with form that would make his LA trainer proud. His quads and glutes ache and burn and perhaps it’s slightly masochistic of him, but it feels good; it blocks out everything else and quiets all the noise in his head that he can't seem to suppress.
He showers and changes into more appropriate clothes for the studio: jeans, a black pullover, and motorcycle boots, and throws his workout clothes into his gym bag. He takes the Tube to Tottenham Court Road, his nerves wound tight.
He's missed out on his own audition process this time and there's just a tinge of regret about that, which is probably quite sick and twisted because who would miss putting themselves through the hell of laying it all on the line only to be rejected? But there's that part of it that's a drug, an adrenaline rush. Today though, that's different for him. It's more like a first read when he doesn't know his castmates, with no idea of how things are going to pan out, but he throws himself into the uncertainty of it all anyway.
Given how much fear Bradley's swallowing down, he thinks he needn't be worried about any lack of adrenaline.
***
Within minutes of Bradley meeting Jeremy Anthony, he wants to yell, "See? I was right, hah!" because there is no way in hell that this actor is even remotely right for Toby. He's too smooth, too sure of himself, and it shows in his line reading. Bradley's thankful that they aren't covering any of the later scenes because he'd rather gargle acid than have to kiss this absolute tosser.
Henry Whitworth is due at 2 o'clock, but according to Stuart, his agent called that morning to let them know that he wouldn't be available.
"I think," Stuart says, a tinge of something like smugness in his voice, "that he suddenly became unavailable when he realised just how real the sex scenes would be."
"You know," Michael says, pulling apart a croissant with his fingers, "I'm surprised. I thought he was gutsier than that. Good that we found out now and not later. So we're back to square one, then." Michael drops his head down and rubs his temples.
"Not exactly." Stuart taps his pen on the table. "Bradley, how would you be placed to come back at 4 o'clock? We've a couple of options we need to talk through. Does that work for you?"
"Yeah, sure."
He sits in the cafe across the road, catching up on emails on his Blackberry. There's one from Eoin clearly written in some state of drunkenness, because all it says is sorry i haven't and Bradley writes back with Sorry you haven't what, you Irish git? PS: It's only 2 in the bloody afternoon, why are you embarrassingly pissed already? Oh I know, because you're breathing!
He opens up his script and goes through it line-by-line, making sub-text notes in the margins with his pencil while he eats an egg sandwich and drinks a cup of horribly watery tea. Before he knows it, it's 3.45pm and time to head back.
When he gets back to the studio, Tamara is sitting outside Stuart's office, painting her nails.
"Hello, Bradley." She blushes and lowers her eyelashes.
"They ready for me?" he asks, leaning forward on her desk and giving his most dazzling smile back at her. He's always enjoyed flirting, no matter what the outcome. It's part of why no one has ever suspected he's anything other than 100 percent straight.
Almost no one.
"Yeah, they've got an actor in with them right now, but they'd like you to pop in and read if you're ready."
"Course. Anyone I know?"
She grins. "Oh yes."
He can hear voices chattering and he picks them out: Stuart, Michael and another voice that sounds so familiar to him. When he opens the door, his skin prickles and he's unsteady on his feet.
Colin.
For a moment, Bradley’s world stops and he’s thinking slow like treacle. His breathing is hitched and awkward and his heart is pounding so hard that he can feel it in his throat. Everything’s frozen and the only person aware of it is him.
It doesn't seem real, seeing Colin like this, here of all places. It's wrong to have him this close, after years of trying to forget him. Bradley's vaguely aware that there are other people in the room, but he can't bring himself to break the awkward silence, his tongue thick and useless in his mouth, his gut twisting with anxiety.
"Bradley. Good to see you." Colin is the first to speak. Of course. It just figures. Perfect Colin with his utterly unflappable professionalism. But Bradley can hear the tension in his voice. Nobody else would probably even notice, but Bradley knows him far too well to ignore the thin, clipped tone of his voice.
"Cols."
Stuart clears his throat. "Sorry to spring this on you, Bradley. We didn't even know if Colin would be able to make it in today, he's only just got back from -"
"Home, actually. Armagh."
Bradley's gut clenches tight. He doesn't want to think about Armagh and Colin in the same breath. The last time they were there things were very different. Bradley was different.
He never says Colin’s name aloud, tries not to even think it most days. Yet here he is, standing in front of Bradley, and it's like he never left Bradley's consciousness. He notes the laughlines around Colin's eyes, the hint of grey in his sideburns and stubble. He looks more serious, pensive almost. But he's so familiar too, his deep blue eyes, full mouth and sharp cheekbones and not even Bradley's memories measure up to the sight of him. It makes Bradley want to get away, to just walk out. It also makes him not want to, which is an even scarier thought.
God, I've missed you, he wants to say, you have no idea how much.
Colin always had a way of getting in through Bradley's barriers and making him honest, especially when Bradley didn't want to be.
"Yes, Armagh." Stuart's voice cuts through the uncomfortable silence, "and we had Colin in mind some time ago but we thought it wasn't going to work out, but, well, here we are."
Of course they thought of him. Why wouldn't they? How easy for them to headline two actors that have a history, established chemistry and what have you. It's a no-brainer, really. That doesn't stop Bradley from feeling like the ground just fell out from under him.
"Yes." Bradley says, carefully keeping his voice level. "Sorry if I seemed a bit caught off-guard. Just, like you said, a mite surprised."
"Of course." Michael opens his notebook. "Whenever you're both ready, we'd love you to take scene 20, if you don't mind."
Colin nods. Bradley inhales slow and steady. He grabs a seat and plants himself opposite Colin, trying very hard not to let his eyes linger on Colin's long, slender fingers flicking through the script to the right page.
20. INT: TOBY'S CLASSROOM AT TEMPLETON COMMUNITY PRIMARY SCHOOL - EVENING
Toby is sitting at his desk, marking. Ben walks in and stands in the doorframe, watching him for a moment, before Toby looks up and catches him.
TOBY: What are you doing here?
BEN: Lovely. I suppose a polite 'hello' would be out of the question.
TOBY: Hello. (BEAT) What exactly are you doing here, Detective Inspector?
BEN: You know bloody well what I'm doing here, Toby. I came to bury my sister, remember?
TOBY: I know that, and I'm - you know how sorry I am about Liz. I didn't mean to - but what are you doing here, Ben? In my classroom?
BEN: Just checking in on an old friend.
TOBY: Ah. Checking up on me?
BEN: Someone has to, Toby, you're taking risks.
TOBY: I think I can take care of myself.
BEN: That's debatable. (BEAT) Are you still getting those phone calls?
TOBY: Christ, how is it you've been back in my life for less than 12 hours and you're already trying to control it?
BEN: Oh for fuck's sake, Toby, I'm just trying to do my job.
TOBY: Ah, I see. So you're on duty here, are you? I'm sure that's completely above board, not a conflict of interest at all
BEN: Just let me help you, Toby.
TOBY: No thank you. I don't need a bodyguard and I have assignments to mark, so if you'll excuse me -
BEN: I'd forgotten...
TOBY: What?
BEN: Just how gorgeous you look when you're indignant.
TOBY: (He softens, smiles a little) You haven't changed a bit.
BEN: Would you rather I had?
TOBY: I didn't say that. (BEAT) Goodnight, Detective Inspector Farrow.
BEN: Goodnight, Toby.
It's electric. The transitions in the scene from anger to flirting, the subtext with such weight behind it, such tightly wound tension. Bradley's shaking with the anticipation of not knowing what's going to happen next. God, he's missed this, the feeling of just losing himself in a scene with Colin. He and Colin have moved in closer, leaning forward in their chairs, occupying each other's space. Bradley isn't aware of how or when it happened, but their faces are so close now he can count Colin's eyelashes. The room is silent, so heavy with tension that he's scared to breathe and break this thing that's between them.
"That was," Stuart breathes. "Absolutely -"
"Perfect," Michael says, sounding amazed. "Thank you, Colin. Bradley."
This is what he'd been dreading from the moment he got the script, really. This kind of connection was what the material called for; and it's almost as if it had to be Colin. Not that he ever would have allowed himself to think it.
He remembers their first table read together for Merlin. The exhilaration in his gut at the way they bounced off each other, the push and pull. He'd never had anything like it with another actor before and no-one else has even come close to it since.
"Bradley, could you give us a moment?" Stuart asks.
"Course." Bradley leaves, closing the door behind him. He looks around and sees that Tamara's gone and the office is deserted. Only then does he dare to let it all hit him. He falls into a nearby chair and mutters "fuckfuckfuck" under his breath.
Colin. Here. It's the first time in years that Bradley regrets ever giving up smoking, because he needs something right now to take the edge off.
Ten minutes with Colin is enough to bring it all rushing back and no matter how successful Bradley's been at shoving his memories of Colin into boxes and locking them away, it's futile now. He's here and all-too-familiar, and Bradley remembers everything like it was yesterday.
The first time they kissed was at the Season Four wrap party. It had been in full swing when Bradley arrived, all his knights in tow. They'd already been drinking for a couple of hours, with Eoin insisting on shots of something hideously alcoholic that in all honesty tasted like paint stripper.
They'd all piled into the photo booth, too many of them all at once and Eoin had decided to bare his arse for the camera. Tom and Rupert had both made girly squeaking noises and Ade had just looked a bit sick, though Bradley had thought that was probably more to do with the booze and not Eoin's arse. Eoin did have a rather spectacular arse, after all.
Then it had been the four of them: Bradley, Katie, Angel, and Colin. Colin had been wearing that leather jacket and his hair was all dishevelled like he'd just had someone's hands in it and Bradley couldn't look away. Bradley had never been particularly good at hiding anything and well, Colin hadn't exactly discouraged it. Born flirt he was, and it used to drive Bradley absolutely fucking mental seeing Colin hanging off Eoin or the make-up girls or even fucking Johnny, for god's sake.
Then, just as the camera went off, the little minx leaned in and whispered, "You look good. Then again, you always look good. Fucking great, actually," and Bradley had been forced to cover his crotch with his hands in case he had scared the girls and anyone who looked at the photos afterward.
After the photos were all done and the crew and Rupert were making idiots of themselves on the dance floor, Colin had dragged Bradley into one of the empty rooms and stroked Bradley's cheek with his hand. When Bradley had leaned into it, Colin had lowered his head and kissed him, just brushed his lips over Bradley's, softly. Bradley had been fairly drunk so it took him a while to respond and to register the fact in his brain that Colin Morgan was kissing him. But finally he had kissed him back, had licked Colin's lips and pushed him up against the wall, snogging him relentlessly. Bradley hadn't kissed like that since he was in high school and he had Natalie Chartwell on his Mum's settee. Colin was a much better kisser than she was and he had tasted like gin and cigarettes and Bradley had instantly wanted more.
"Sorry,” Colin had said, after Bradley had stepped back. “I've just been waiting for that for years, James, got a bit impatient waiting for you to make a move."
Bradley had laughed, muttered, "I didn't even know you cared," then dropped to his knees and spent long, long minutes learning what Colin's cock felt like, tasted like in his mouth. Colin had come with a fist shoved in his mouth and his hand clutched in Bradley's hair.
It's a memory that he really doesn't need right now. Bradley's tried so hard to forget, but hearing Colin's voice curling around his ears: the tone and timbre of it is so familiar it aches. He's forgotten nothing.
Colin gets under his skin, always has, and in a short time he feels like he's back to where he was ten years ago: stupidly besotted and unable to think about anything but Colin fucking Morgan.
He hears the door to the room open and he tries not to look, but he's always had a morbid sense of curiosity. When his eyes flick up, Colin’s walking toward him, wiping his hands on his jeans. Colin immediately looks away, and it's such a marked change from the way he was inside the audition room. Colin always did seem so in control, so cool and professional when he was focused on the work, but afterwards was often quite a different story.
"Hi," Colin says, his voice tight. "They, uh, offered me the part."
"Of course they did, you idiot. You were great, and Jeremy Anthony was appallingly bad. His breath was foul, too. Seriously rancid. Your Welsh accent still sucks, though."
Colin laughs, but it sounds hollow.
"You're going to take it, right? You'd be a fool not to."
"Yeah. I'm going to... going to take it." Colin pauses, biting his lip like he always does when he's trying to think of what to say. "So what are we going to do? I mean, how are we -"
Bradley wants to be an adult, wants to be honest and lay it all out and then maybe they can both get past what happened that week in late January when everything came crumbling down. He wants to tell Colin just how much he's missed him.
But he isn't ready for that, doesn't know how to even begin, so he just shrugs and says, "We'll be alright, Cols. It's not like we haven't done this before."
Colin smiles a little, and says, "Yeah. It's - it's good to see you, Bradley. Been too long."
Bradley stands up and grips Colin's shoulder. "Yeah. This'll be great."
If Colin notices the waver in Bradley's voice he doesn't say anything, he just waves and walks down the corridor.
Bradley gets home around 6 o'clock, heats up some leftover Thai food and turns on the telly. There's nothing on, but he keeps flicking through channels while he shovels Pad Thai into his mouth. He settles on an old episode of Fawlty Towers which never fails to make him laugh, but it isn't working this evening. The riotous antics of Basil Fawlty just aren't enough to distract him from how fucking good Colin looked: the shadow of his eyelashes against his skin and how perfect they were together, the way they fit just like they always did.
He catches the tube to Charing Cross and heads to Heaven. The VIP room's already packed when he gets there and he downs a tequila shot to get him on his way. The bloke he eyes next to him at the bar has black, messy hair and deep blue eyes.
"Drink's on me," he says, throwing down a tenner.
"Thanks." The guy looks up at him and raises his glass, slams it back. The mouth is all wrong, but it'll do. He'll do.
Bradley fucks him in the toilets with his face pushed into the cubicle wall and Bradley's fingers gripped tight on his slim hips. He tries not to think about the little differences, like his voice and his accent or the fact that he's shorter than Bradley is and Bradley has to bend his knees to fuck him. It's easier to focus on the similarities when he can't see his face. Bradley buries his nose in the guy's hair which is curly and lush and smells like Tea Tree shampoo.
***
He arranges to meet Angel for lunch the next day and steels himself for the onslaught.
"Nice of you to finally call," she says, eyebrow raised. "I thought you'd forgotten I existed. Oh no, hang on, that would make me Colin."
Bradley flinches as he picks at his naan bread. "Angel, please. I'd really love it if we could talk about anything but Colin today. Do you think you can save the mum lecture for another time?"
It's the main reason he'd avoided talking to her for so long, truth be told. Katie and Angel had been the only ones he'd trusted with his and Colin's secret and in Angel's case she'd found out in the most embarrassing way possible, catching him and Colin at it in the make-up trailer when they thought everyone had gone home.
She'd been so angry when it all fell apart, and that, Bradley knew, was his fault. He hadn't exactly denied the rumours flying about in regards to him and Angel; in fact he'd encouraged them. She'd always felt hurt that he used her as a cover, and him taking off to the US and cutting off all contact with her, with all of them, had made it so much worse.
"I'm sorry," he says, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. "I shouldn't have been such a giant coward. I didn't really know what to do and now - now I don't know what to do to make it okay."
She looks at him with such fondness that it breaks Bradley's heart. "It's alright. Really. I'm just - I missed you."
"Missed you too."
She puts her hand out and squeezes his arm. "I just want you to be happy. Both of you."
That's what I want too, he wants to say, but instead he just shovels chicken korma into his mouth and avoids her eyes.
***
A month later, Bradley's in Harvey Nicks looking for a good bottle of Chardonnay when his mobile rings. It's a number he hasn't seen before. Bradley doesn't ever pick up calls from numbers he doesn't recognise; it could be anyone after all - old hook-up, tabloid journalist, some nutter who thinks it’s her destiny to marry Arthur Pendragon - the possibilities are endless. He lets it go to voicemail and forgets about it.
He checks his messages when he gets home. There's one from his mum checking if he remembered his cousin's birthday was next Friday, one from Tamara at Crashed reminding him of the date and time for the first table read, and the call he missed that morning.
"Erm, Bradley? Yeah, it's me. Colin."
Bradley flinches. It's unconscionable that he'd ever forget what Colin sounds like and the fact that Colin even thought for a second that he did, stings.
"So I was thinking we should - if you're interested, maybe we could get together? Run some lines and do some work breaking down the script? That is, if you want to."
Colin's voice is deep and rich and that accent that used to curl itself around Bradley's ear always made him absolutely fucking crazy. He remembers what it was like those first months in LA, praying every time the phone rang that it'd be Colin, calling him to say "I've changed my mind, please just - can we start again?" but Bradley knew he was fooling himself. Colin's like fucking ice when he's hurt; he never rages, never even raises his voice, just walks away.
It took Bradley three months to delete Colin's number from his phone, and god knows how long to stop wishing he hadn't.
It takes him two hours of sitting there, finger hovering over the call button, before he manages to bite the bullet and call.
"Cols - Colin, it's me."
There's a breathy pause on the other end, and a half-whispered, "Hey. How's it going?"
"Y'know," Bradley tries to sound matter-of-fact and light, but he's sure Colin sees right through it. "Got your message. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, just -"
"Been busy. Yeah."
"So - Uh - I was thinking that it's definitely a good idea. Getting together, I mean." Bradley's shaking now. He digs his fingernails into his palm and the twinge of pain takes the edge off a little.
"That'd be great." Colin says, voice shakier than Bradley's heard it in a long time
"Maybe Saturday? I'm free all day and you could come over here. If that works for you, that is."
"Yeah, that's - that'd be grand. What's your address?"
"It's 6 Ennismore Gardens Mews."
Colin laughs and it makes Bradley bristle. "Something funny?"
"Sorry," Colin says. "It's just that sometimes, I guess I forget how differently our lives turned out."
"Yeah," Bradley says, softening a little. "Me too."
Colin turns up on Saturday morning around 11, his hair all messed up from the wind. His cheeks are rosy and he's wearing a hoodie that looks about two sizes too large for him. He looks gorgeous, and Bradley hates that he notices that.
"So this is the old flat," Bradley says, closing the door behind him. "I'll give you the tour."
"It's pretty awesome," Colin remarks as they walk through the living room to the master bedroom, and Bradley is suddenly very uncomfortable. He hasn't been alone with Colin in a bedroom since -
"Yeah, it's alright," he says quickly, guiding Colin back out to the living room and briefly showing him the guest bedroom and the kitchen area. "Bit of a rip-off of course, but what can you do? You want a drink or something?"
God. It's so awkward. They used to know how to be with each other, they used to laugh and joke and know how to sit for hours not even having to say a thing but now Bradley feels like he has to fill every silence, just like when they first met. It's so foreign to him, being strangers with Colin.
"Yeah, tea'd be great. Thanks." Colin sits down on the couch, rummages around in his backpack, and pulls out his script - along with a pen, a pencil, and an exercise book.
Bradley boils the kettle, all the while trying not to stare at Colin, mapping out the differences in his face and body. He's broader now, especially through the chest and shoulders, and Bradley wonders what it would feel like to wrap his arms around him, to feel the resistance of hard muscle against his hands. He wasn't skinny that last year they were together, but he wasn't built like this either, and Bradley thinks Colin could pin him down without any effort whatsoever. And that thought isn't welcome at all, not when Colin's right there. He has more lines on his face too, and Bradley wants to see him smile, see if his eyes crinkle more than they used to.
He makes the tea whilst Colin, face pinched in concentration, flips through his exercise book.
"So," Bradley starts, placing both cups of tea on coasters on the glass table-top in front Colin, "where did you want to start?"
Colin looks up. "I just wanted to say something about before. It's not - I didn't mean to sound like I was judging you or anything, y'know?"
"I know. I know you didn't mean it like that, mate. Hell, we can't all work with Jean-Luc Picard or be bloody Puck, can we? Some of us are just happy to get a hefty pay packet." Bradley grins and punches Colin in the shoulder.
"You knew that I -? I always thought the last thing you would've wanted was to keep a track of what I was doing."
Of course, you complete wanker, he wants to say. Do you know me at all? But Bradley can't blame Colin for thinking that he had no idea; most days Bradley kept him from his mind for his own sanity, after all. But there'd always be that moment where he slipped, and that's when he'd end up poring over reviews and pictures and YouTube clips for hours. Colin looking drop-dead fucking gorgeous in leather pants, black tank top and glitter everywhere as a Puck who looked like he belonged on a float at London Pride. Alongside Sir Patrick Stewart in the TV adaptation of Noises Off, and owning the role that he won the Olivier Award for, Katurian in Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman.
"Oh y'know," Bradley says, shrugging. "It was hard to miss, really."
Colin grins. "Well, I may have caught a bit of you on the telly from time to time."
He blushes then, staring down at the floor, and all Bradley can think about is how ridiculous his cheekbones still are.
Bradley swallows around the lump in his throat and manages to choke out: "So - shall we start?"
Two hours later, they're both cross-legged on the floor, reading through the first scene they have together for the tenth time and Bradley's twitching.
"Bored?" Colin asks.
It's not that Bradley doesn't get the importance of script analysis, he does, but he's starving and besides, he doesn't quite get off on technique like Colin does. At the end of the day, he's always been more of an organic actor.
"How about some food?" Bradley asks, trying to ignore the way Colin grins like he knows Bradley so well that he could predict that's what he was going to say next.
"I could definitely eat. Pizza?"
And this is all too familiar. Kicking back and reading lines, discussing their characters over a beer and pizza. Long days that turned into nights when they were both too drunk to stand, holding each other up and getting so close that it felt like they were breathing the same air.
It's so easy, slipping back into this easy way that the two of them have, unlike the awkwardness before and Bradley wonders if Colin's feeling the same way he is. Whether he remembers everything just as clearly as Bradley does.
"Pizza it is. One with extra pepperoni for me and one with tofu, mung beans and hummus for you." Bradley grins, ignoring Colin's eye roll and he feels like it might be the first time he's smiled like that in years.
Part Two
Pairing: Bradley/Colin, Bradley/OMCs, Bradley/OFC, background Colin/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 23516
Summary: Five years ago after Merlin ended, Bradley headed for LA and success. Homesick and dissatisfied, he returns to the UK and a challenging film project, but he hadn't banked on having to work with the last person he wanted to see: Colin.
Warnings: Futurefic, character bleed.
Notes: Everlasting thanks to my amazing betas: hermette and destina. Also thanks to katie_andrew for audiencing and encouragement.
Also on AO3
It doesn't snow in downtown Los Angeles. In fact, when he first moved there, Bradley discovered by googling "snow in LA" that the greatest snowfall ever recorded was only 1.96 inches back in 1932. He doesn't know how the world survived before Google was able to tell them everything they never needed to know.
Bradley likes being able to spout random facts. It gives him an edge over the people he meets at mundane dinner parties in the Hollywood Hills, given the only facts they seem to be able to spout are which surgeon they prefer for a quick non-surgical nosejob and whose batch of coke is the best that week.
This is the time of the year that he misses the snow the most. Christmas in the UK was always bitter cold and figgy pudding and the Royal Variety Performance on the telly. He could always go to New York for a week or so - at least there'd be snow - but it wouldn't be the same. After nearly five years, he feels himself getting pulled inexorably towards the mother country, feels the ache of homesickness in his gut every day.
It feels like forever since he's been home. His mum teases him every time they talk that he should change his name to Brad officially because Bradley just isn't American enough for a blond-haired Hollywood boy like him. He laughs and shrugs it off and knows she's just joking, but something stings in his chest when she says it, like she expects him to not be him anymore.
Not that he can blame her; some days he feels like there's nothing left of who he was before he left for Hollywood, leaving Merlin behind like it had never existed. Bradley's always been fond of compartmentalisation. It keeps him sane, and while he knows some people called him a cold, heartless bastard for just up and leaving the way he did, it was the only way for him to really move on.
It doesn't mean he doesn't regret it though, on the occasions that he lets himself think about it.
Blond hair, blue eyes and a decent American accent made Bradley a marketable commodity when he arrived in LA four months after Merlin wrapped. On the days when he feels maudlin, it almost makes him bitter to think about it, which is ridiculous really, because who ever complained about being able to get work in an iron-tough industry like he has? If Eoin could see him now, he'd be shoulderbarging him and accusing him of being a "fucking Hollywood princess, it's so hard to be you, isn't it, mate?" and he'd be right, too.
He was damn lucky, booking a successful pilot the first time out, helped largely by the fact that Nick had more than a few similarities to Arthur. Bradley wondered at the time if he'd ever play a bloke who wasn't posh and snarky with daddy issues ever again, but apparently the ladies loved it, just like they did in the days of Merlin.
Hopkins Med, the NBC mid-season replacement, continues in its ratings annilihation. The freshman show, following a group of final-year med students at Johns Hopkins, succeeds due to strong writing and superb casting, particularly noticeable in the will-they won't-they pairing of troubled party boy Nick Wood (played by British import Bradley James) and studious, up-tight Brenda Andrews (played by Lily Collins.) The undeniable chemistry between James and Collins sizzles and reminds us of such classic couples as George Clooney and Julianna Margulies in ER's first season.
"See?" Cynthia had thrust the Entertainment Weekly review in his face over breakfast at DuPars, "They love you, sweetheart. Undeniable chemistry!"
"Yeah," Bradley had said, staring out the window. It hadn't been the first time he'd heard that, and he had dug his fingernails into his palms, a life-long habit that always worked when he needed to distract himself from thoughts and memories that were best left untouched.
He dated Lily for two years. She was the perfect girlfriend in public and a great friend in private and when they broke up the fans were horribly upset, except for those special ones who truly believed they were destined to be her replacement.
Bradley wonders if they'd still want him so much if they knew. Maybe. Perhaps they'd think they had the power to turn him straight.
The show went for three and a half seasons, and Bradley got three Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and two People's Choice Awards before they got cancelled due to dwindling ratings. In the four months since the cancellation, he's already been sent scripts for an indie film, a Judd Apatow comedy, and a new pilot being developed by Bad Robot.
It's ridiculous even entertaining the notion of being dissatisfied with his life when he has pretty much everything he's ever wanted: a gorgeous beachfront home, celebrity friends, and a job that most blokes would have killed for. And if he has to fake it 24/7, then that's the price he pays for all the shiny things.
He tries to shake off the malaise with a party in Malibu, a couple of lines, and a bottle of Patron he shares with a lean little dirty-blond twink who sucks him off in his car afterwards. None of it works, though, it just makes him more empty. Bradley's so sick of feeling numb and he knows that he can't be here for Christmas. Not again.
He wants to go home. Needs to.
"I don't know how long for," Bradley tells Cynthia in her office on Wilshire Boulevard. "And I know it's not a good time to be out of sight, but -"
"Oh honey," she says, hands steepled under her chin, "anyone could see you've been homesick for months now, you poor thing. I'll give the London office a call and we'll see what we can do, hmmm?"
Considering the practice he's had at it, Bradley wonders why he is still so utterly terrible at keeping most things from everyone around him.
***
His mum is ecstatic to see him of course, and thoroughly spoils him with cranberry-glazed turkey served with sage and chestnut stuffing, the hugest ham he has ever seen, three different puddings and more champagne than he can drink. She ignores his completely weak protests of the amount of carbs he's consuming, because while he thinks he probably should care about putting on a stone over Christmas, he really doesn't.
It feels normal, safe - like he isn't missing a large chunk of himself.
They watch the Queen's Christmas Message together, and Bradley falls asleep on the settee, full of food and alcohol and feeling happier than he has in years.
He moves into a flat in Westminster in the new year. It's insanely expensive, but it's gorgeous: a huge master bedroom and a decently-sized spare room both with ensuites and an enormous kitchen. It's a far cry from the apartments he used to stay in when he was last in the UK - it's much more grown up. Most importantly, it's secure. The last thing he needs is for the tabloids to start hanging around, waiting for a glimpse of anything that they can speculate about.
He remembers someone once told him that if he cared a great deal less about what everyone else thought, then maybe he'd be happy. Maybe.
He closes his eyes to try and quiet the ghosts.
***
William Morris calls him a few weeks later. His new rep there is a bloke by the name of Andy Morecombe and while he's young and energetic and quite pleasant in person, on the phone he sounds like a used car salesman.
"Look, I know you're just getting settled in, son, but I thought you might want to jump on this." He pauses. "I'll send the script over and then you come in and see me so we can chat. They asked for you personally, so I'd say it's a fairly sure bet once you've met with them. If you want to, that is."
"Sure." Bradley yawns. "That sounds pretty promising. Maybe." He's seen so many awful scripts in the weeks he's been back that he's not exactly jumping out of his skin to read this one. And if he gets one more that's a fucking period drama, he’s going to have a nervous breakdown.
"Who's directing?" he asks, drumming his fingers on the glass tabletop.
"Michael Magee," Andy says, and when Bradley grunts his approval, he laughs. "Approve, do we?"
"Uh, yeah, ever so slightly." Bradley grins. "Saw his last film at the TriBeCa festival last year, really great stuff."
Raw, emotional, fearless - that's what Bradley would have said if he hadn't been so gobsmacked.
"Great. It's a wonderful script from what I've seen, Bradley," Andy says. "Just - Just keep an open mind, alright?"
Oh god, it is another period drama. Fantastic.
When the courier arrives that day, Bradley settles down with a cuppa and a couple of gingernuts, and rips open the packet. The working title of the film is Blood and Daffodils and when he flicks to the first page Bradley exhales audibly. Not period, thank christ. Not that he would've expected Magee to be involved with your stock-standard period drama, anyway.
The role they want him for is a detective inspector with Scotland Yard. Bradley smiles; his ten-year-old self would be jumping for joy right now. Then he gets six pages in and he chokes on his tea.
10. INT: BAR - NIGHT
Ben sits alone, a glass of scotch in front of him. Steven, a slim brunette of around twenty-five, sits down next to him.
STEVEN: Anyone sitting here?
Ben looks up. His eyes travel up and down Steven's body. He's tempted.
BEN: It seems you are (gestures for Steven to sit down).
STEVEN: I'm...
BEN (INTERRUPTS): No names, if you don't mind.
STEVEN (GRINNING): I don't mind at all. So would you like to get out of here?
BEN: I would.
11. INT: STEVEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT
Steven moves in to kiss Ben, who pushes him away.
BEN: I don't kiss.
STEVEN (LAUGHING): Of course you don't.
BEN (EXPRESSIONLESS): Turn around.
Steven turns and faces the wall, undoes his trousers. Ben bites his lip and palms Steven's arse, slowly.
STEVEN (GROANING): You closet cases are always the hottest.
BEN (GROWLING): Shut up.
They fuck.
Bradley's mouth is completely dry and he’s pretty sure he’s going to faint.
Open mind indeed. If only Andy knew.
If you want to go, then go, Bradley. Go to LA and be a star, long as you can stay in that closet just a little longer, yeah?
Fuck. He shuts his eyes tight and spends a few minutes trying to clear his mind. He really does not need to be hearing Colin's voice in his head, not now. He walks over to the wet bar and pours himself a couple of fingers of scotch, lifts it to his lips and thinks better of it, slamming it back down and filling the tumbler almost to the top.
He sits back down with the script, taking a huge gulp before reading on.
It unfolds that Ben's sister dies in suspicious circumstances, so he takes a leave of absence and goes back home to Templeton for the funeral. When he gets there, he discovers his first clandestine boyfriend, Toby, has returned to Templeton and has been teaching at the local primary school along with his late sister. Toby becomes targeted by the killer and Ben decides to stay in Templeton after the funeral, conducting his own investigation of the case while keeping an eye on Toby.
Unfortunately, the writing is really fucking good. The two leads are particularly meaty roles and there's an emotional rawness to his character that Bradley's been dying for his whole career. With Magee's direction, it will be an amazing project.
It would be perfect, if it wasn't for the fact that Bradley's character is a self-hating closet case. The irony, it burns. And okay, Bradley doesn't exactly hate himself because he happens to be bent, he doesn't hate himself at all actually, and he isn't exactly copping off with nameless blokes in bars on a regular basis or anything - well, not often, anyway. It's just - well he had to make a choice and he chose his career. It was his choice to make, after all. Nobody else's. The more he tells himself that the more he believes it, too.
Lately though, he's been questioning whether it was worth it at all. Bradley can barely remember when everything was simple and he was happy. That seems like another lifetime now, and after years of being more famous than he ever anticipated, he wants his life back. It's not like he's going to suddenly become a walking London Pride advertisement or anything. He's definitely not ready for that, but he's also thoroughly tired of all the bullshit in LA and maybe this project is just what he needs to reestablish himself as a serious actor, not just a heartthrob doctor on the telly.
It's a risk, no doubt, but it's a risk that could pay off. Even if it doesn't, he asks himself if he really cares that much, and the truth is that he really doesn't know. He's completely exhausted from faking it most days and Bradley's not even sure if he has it in him anymore. After everything he's given up, he wonders whether it would really be the worst thing, to be forced to tell the truth.
If he's really honest with himself, it's why he left LA in the first place.
***
Stuart, the film's producer, is so passionate that Bradley's instantly charmed when he meets him and Michael Magee for lunch the following week at Hakkasan.
"So Bradley, you've read the script. What are your thoughts?" Stuart asks, practically bouncing in his seat.
Bradley takes a mouthful of Szechuan Wagyu and washes it down with a hearty sip of Riesling before saying, "Well, Stuart, I was blown away you asked for me, pretty chuffed actually. I'm a big fan of Michael's here and the script was -"
"Confronting?" Michael asks, grinning. "I hope it was, anyway."
Bradley's stomach ties itself in knots. He nods slowly. "Yeah, I'd say confronting is a pretty appropriate word to use."
"Good." Michael leans forward. "The thing is, I think we've reached a point where we're still very careful about showing anything explicitly gay on film. Which is a little ridiculous really, given how attitudes have changed in the last few years. We thought turning your classic British romance-murder-mystery on its head might be a fun thing to play with. If you've seen my work, you know I love working with actors who're willing to take risks and this role is definitely not safe."
"That's an understatement," Bradley says, his voice slightly uneven.
"Too risky?" Michael asks.
Bradley finishes his glass of wine and thinks - really thinks about it for a minute. On the one hand, he'd be immersing himself in a role that has quite stark similarities to him and confronting doesn't even begin to cover it. On the other hand, this is the kind of role he's been dreaming of playing his whole life: dark, broken and real, and he knows it would be devastating to see another actor play a role that he turned down because he couldn't separate himself from the character. At the end of the day, it's just a job, it doesn't have to mean more than that.
"No," he says, firmly. "I can do this. I... I want to do this."
Lunch lasts four hours. They talk in-depth about Ben, asking Bradley his thoughts and by the end of it, Bradley is excited about the vision Michael has for the film.
"We've wanted you for Ben ever since we started talking about this project, Bradley, I'm so thrilled we're all on the same page." Stuart wraps Bradley in a hug that nearly suffocates him, "Just think about how much this is going to change things for you."
Bradley thinks that might be the biggest understatement he's ever heard.
The next morning, the courier arrives with the contract. He signs it almost straight away, afraid he'll change his mind if he spends too long thinking about it.
***
Bradley heads to Paris the next day for a week. His heart races at the thought of being there again after 5 years. He spends the first day being horribly maudlin, sitting on the terrace of the Cafe de la Nouvelle Marie with an espresso and a pain aux chocolat. He pictures himself almost 7 years ago, at the same table, laughing with them all at the passers-by and remarking on just how ridiculously French everyone was, before leaving for Compeigne.
He hasn't called any of them since he's been back, not even the knights.
He misses them. All of them.
He calls Rupert immediately, figures that if he doesn't it'll slip his mind again and it'll be another month before he knows it.
"Bloody hell, we all thought you'd died!" Rupert's never quite learned how not to project whilst on the telephone. "What's been going on? Where are you?"
"I'm in Paris, actually. At that old cafe we used to go to with Angel and Katie."
If Rupert catches the omission, he doesn't say anything.
"Is the girl with the eyepatch still there?"
Bradley roars with laughter. "God, I'd forgotten about her. No, I gather she's long gone."
"Do you want some company?"
Rupert barely gets the question out before Bradley is interrupting him with, "Yes. God, yes."
Bradley isn't at all surprised when Rupert arrives at his hotel room with Eoin and Tom in tow.
"Oh wonderful," he drawls, "the whole gang of miscreants is here. Has anyone told all the farmers to lock up their sheep?"
He stands there and allows himself to be almost bowled over by the three of them, and he hugs them back, fiercely.
They don't even leave the hotel room, opting instead to sit on the soft carpet and call room service, gorging themselves on chateaubriand and three bottles of Chateau Cantemerle Bordeaux.
"Sorry I've been such a crap friend," Bradley says. "I'm really - there's no excuse."
"'s alright," Eoin says, swigging the last drop of wine from the bottle. "We all know you're Mr. Popular Hollywood Arsehole these days, we don't expect you to descend from on-high too often to join the rest of us plebs."
"Bite me," Bradley says, kicking him in the ribs.
"Seriously though, you'd better call Angel," Rupert manages to get out between belches. "She's much scarier than we are, and significantly more pissed off at you."
"I'll call her," Bradley promises. It's only half a lie, because he will call her eventually, but right now he can think of only one person he wants to talk to less than Angel.
The next night they all go out clubbing at Rex. Rupert and Tom pike early, and Bradley's sure that at least part of that is because they're both married now and Eoin being terminally single makes him the worst possible influence when it comes to picking up random girls.
Bradley's pretty sure Eoin is going to use the Merlin card to pull till he's sixty.
They end up in the VIP room with two girls, a blonde and a brunette who speak very little English. They sit on the couch and Eoin and the blonde kiss wet and open-mouthed while the brunette straddles Bradley's lap and feeds him Cristal from the bottle. It's easy enough for Bradley, he's good at faking this, especially when he's drunk on good champagne. He pulls her in, one hand on her back and the other in her hair, kisses her deep and thorough and pretends she is someone else entirely.
***
Three weeks later, Bradley gets a call from Tamara, Stuart's assistant at Crashed, asking if he'd have time to come into the studio that week for a reading.
"They've narrowed the actors auditioning for Toby down to two, Mr. James, and both the studio and Michael thought it might be a good idea to get you in for the recalls, see how everything clicks."
Bradley's throat constricts and his palms start to sweat as they always do when he's nervous. He's come to grips with the fact that he's playing someone not completely dissimilar to himself, and the whole simulated sex part - that's easy, he's done that before, albeit with girls. The intimacy though, the completely raw emotional connection, that's entirely different.
"Mr. James? Are you still there?"
"Sorry, Tamara, a million miles away. And please do call me Bradley." Hearing a girl probably 10 years his junior calling him Mr. James makes Bradley feel horribly old.
She giggles. "Yes. Of course. Bradley. Well. Uh. Sorry, what day would you be free?"
"Any day'll be good for me," he says, phone under his ear as he stirs a sugarcube into his tea. “Oh and by the way, Tamara, who will I be reading with, out of interest?"
He tries for mild interest rather than desperation, but he doesn't think his nonchalance is very convincing.
"Oh, sure." She hesitates, obviously looking down at her list. "They've called back Jeremy Anthony and Henry Whitworth. You know them?"
"I know of them." He's not sure he can picture either one of them as Toby, but he knows he shouldn't be drawing his own conclusions before he's even read with them, and at the end of the day it isn't his call to make anyway. It would potentially ruin the film however if whoever gets Toby isn't someone Bradley has a strong connection with. They both really need to be able to trust each other implicitly.
He hasn't allowed himself to trust anyone like that in a very long time.
Thursday morning, he wakes at 5am and hits the gym. He runs on the treadmill until beads of perspiration start hitting the display. It's been several days since he's gone so hard with the exercise. He's going to have to be much more disciplined with his workout routine in the coming months. Given the amount of time he'll be spending onscreen in various states of undress, fucked if he isn't making sure his arse looks as spectacular as possible.
With that thought fresh in his mind, he wipes himself down with his sweat towel and settles into his lower body circuit, performing squat after squat with form that would make his LA trainer proud. His quads and glutes ache and burn and perhaps it’s slightly masochistic of him, but it feels good; it blocks out everything else and quiets all the noise in his head that he can't seem to suppress.
He showers and changes into more appropriate clothes for the studio: jeans, a black pullover, and motorcycle boots, and throws his workout clothes into his gym bag. He takes the Tube to Tottenham Court Road, his nerves wound tight.
He's missed out on his own audition process this time and there's just a tinge of regret about that, which is probably quite sick and twisted because who would miss putting themselves through the hell of laying it all on the line only to be rejected? But there's that part of it that's a drug, an adrenaline rush. Today though, that's different for him. It's more like a first read when he doesn't know his castmates, with no idea of how things are going to pan out, but he throws himself into the uncertainty of it all anyway.
Given how much fear Bradley's swallowing down, he thinks he needn't be worried about any lack of adrenaline.
***
Within minutes of Bradley meeting Jeremy Anthony, he wants to yell, "See? I was right, hah!" because there is no way in hell that this actor is even remotely right for Toby. He's too smooth, too sure of himself, and it shows in his line reading. Bradley's thankful that they aren't covering any of the later scenes because he'd rather gargle acid than have to kiss this absolute tosser.
Henry Whitworth is due at 2 o'clock, but according to Stuart, his agent called that morning to let them know that he wouldn't be available.
"I think," Stuart says, a tinge of something like smugness in his voice, "that he suddenly became unavailable when he realised just how real the sex scenes would be."
"You know," Michael says, pulling apart a croissant with his fingers, "I'm surprised. I thought he was gutsier than that. Good that we found out now and not later. So we're back to square one, then." Michael drops his head down and rubs his temples.
"Not exactly." Stuart taps his pen on the table. "Bradley, how would you be placed to come back at 4 o'clock? We've a couple of options we need to talk through. Does that work for you?"
"Yeah, sure."
He sits in the cafe across the road, catching up on emails on his Blackberry. There's one from Eoin clearly written in some state of drunkenness, because all it says is sorry i haven't and Bradley writes back with Sorry you haven't what, you Irish git? PS: It's only 2 in the bloody afternoon, why are you embarrassingly pissed already? Oh I know, because you're breathing!
He opens up his script and goes through it line-by-line, making sub-text notes in the margins with his pencil while he eats an egg sandwich and drinks a cup of horribly watery tea. Before he knows it, it's 3.45pm and time to head back.
When he gets back to the studio, Tamara is sitting outside Stuart's office, painting her nails.
"Hello, Bradley." She blushes and lowers her eyelashes.
"They ready for me?" he asks, leaning forward on her desk and giving his most dazzling smile back at her. He's always enjoyed flirting, no matter what the outcome. It's part of why no one has ever suspected he's anything other than 100 percent straight.
Almost no one.
"Yeah, they've got an actor in with them right now, but they'd like you to pop in and read if you're ready."
"Course. Anyone I know?"
She grins. "Oh yes."
He can hear voices chattering and he picks them out: Stuart, Michael and another voice that sounds so familiar to him. When he opens the door, his skin prickles and he's unsteady on his feet.
Colin.
For a moment, Bradley’s world stops and he’s thinking slow like treacle. His breathing is hitched and awkward and his heart is pounding so hard that he can feel it in his throat. Everything’s frozen and the only person aware of it is him.
It doesn't seem real, seeing Colin like this, here of all places. It's wrong to have him this close, after years of trying to forget him. Bradley's vaguely aware that there are other people in the room, but he can't bring himself to break the awkward silence, his tongue thick and useless in his mouth, his gut twisting with anxiety.
"Bradley. Good to see you." Colin is the first to speak. Of course. It just figures. Perfect Colin with his utterly unflappable professionalism. But Bradley can hear the tension in his voice. Nobody else would probably even notice, but Bradley knows him far too well to ignore the thin, clipped tone of his voice.
"Cols."
Stuart clears his throat. "Sorry to spring this on you, Bradley. We didn't even know if Colin would be able to make it in today, he's only just got back from -"
"Home, actually. Armagh."
Bradley's gut clenches tight. He doesn't want to think about Armagh and Colin in the same breath. The last time they were there things were very different. Bradley was different.
He never says Colin’s name aloud, tries not to even think it most days. Yet here he is, standing in front of Bradley, and it's like he never left Bradley's consciousness. He notes the laughlines around Colin's eyes, the hint of grey in his sideburns and stubble. He looks more serious, pensive almost. But he's so familiar too, his deep blue eyes, full mouth and sharp cheekbones and not even Bradley's memories measure up to the sight of him. It makes Bradley want to get away, to just walk out. It also makes him not want to, which is an even scarier thought.
God, I've missed you, he wants to say, you have no idea how much.
Colin always had a way of getting in through Bradley's barriers and making him honest, especially when Bradley didn't want to be.
"Yes, Armagh." Stuart's voice cuts through the uncomfortable silence, "and we had Colin in mind some time ago but we thought it wasn't going to work out, but, well, here we are."
Of course they thought of him. Why wouldn't they? How easy for them to headline two actors that have a history, established chemistry and what have you. It's a no-brainer, really. That doesn't stop Bradley from feeling like the ground just fell out from under him.
"Yes." Bradley says, carefully keeping his voice level. "Sorry if I seemed a bit caught off-guard. Just, like you said, a mite surprised."
"Of course." Michael opens his notebook. "Whenever you're both ready, we'd love you to take scene 20, if you don't mind."
Colin nods. Bradley inhales slow and steady. He grabs a seat and plants himself opposite Colin, trying very hard not to let his eyes linger on Colin's long, slender fingers flicking through the script to the right page.
20. INT: TOBY'S CLASSROOM AT TEMPLETON COMMUNITY PRIMARY SCHOOL - EVENING
Toby is sitting at his desk, marking. Ben walks in and stands in the doorframe, watching him for a moment, before Toby looks up and catches him.
TOBY: What are you doing here?
BEN: Lovely. I suppose a polite 'hello' would be out of the question.
TOBY: Hello. (BEAT) What exactly are you doing here, Detective Inspector?
BEN: You know bloody well what I'm doing here, Toby. I came to bury my sister, remember?
TOBY: I know that, and I'm - you know how sorry I am about Liz. I didn't mean to - but what are you doing here, Ben? In my classroom?
BEN: Just checking in on an old friend.
TOBY: Ah. Checking up on me?
BEN: Someone has to, Toby, you're taking risks.
TOBY: I think I can take care of myself.
BEN: That's debatable. (BEAT) Are you still getting those phone calls?
TOBY: Christ, how is it you've been back in my life for less than 12 hours and you're already trying to control it?
BEN: Oh for fuck's sake, Toby, I'm just trying to do my job.
TOBY: Ah, I see. So you're on duty here, are you? I'm sure that's completely above board, not a conflict of interest at all
BEN: Just let me help you, Toby.
TOBY: No thank you. I don't need a bodyguard and I have assignments to mark, so if you'll excuse me -
BEN: I'd forgotten...
TOBY: What?
BEN: Just how gorgeous you look when you're indignant.
TOBY: (He softens, smiles a little) You haven't changed a bit.
BEN: Would you rather I had?
TOBY: I didn't say that. (BEAT) Goodnight, Detective Inspector Farrow.
BEN: Goodnight, Toby.
It's electric. The transitions in the scene from anger to flirting, the subtext with such weight behind it, such tightly wound tension. Bradley's shaking with the anticipation of not knowing what's going to happen next. God, he's missed this, the feeling of just losing himself in a scene with Colin. He and Colin have moved in closer, leaning forward in their chairs, occupying each other's space. Bradley isn't aware of how or when it happened, but their faces are so close now he can count Colin's eyelashes. The room is silent, so heavy with tension that he's scared to breathe and break this thing that's between them.
"That was," Stuart breathes. "Absolutely -"
"Perfect," Michael says, sounding amazed. "Thank you, Colin. Bradley."
This is what he'd been dreading from the moment he got the script, really. This kind of connection was what the material called for; and it's almost as if it had to be Colin. Not that he ever would have allowed himself to think it.
He remembers their first table read together for Merlin. The exhilaration in his gut at the way they bounced off each other, the push and pull. He'd never had anything like it with another actor before and no-one else has even come close to it since.
"Bradley, could you give us a moment?" Stuart asks.
"Course." Bradley leaves, closing the door behind him. He looks around and sees that Tamara's gone and the office is deserted. Only then does he dare to let it all hit him. He falls into a nearby chair and mutters "fuckfuckfuck" under his breath.
Colin. Here. It's the first time in years that Bradley regrets ever giving up smoking, because he needs something right now to take the edge off.
Ten minutes with Colin is enough to bring it all rushing back and no matter how successful Bradley's been at shoving his memories of Colin into boxes and locking them away, it's futile now. He's here and all-too-familiar, and Bradley remembers everything like it was yesterday.
The first time they kissed was at the Season Four wrap party. It had been in full swing when Bradley arrived, all his knights in tow. They'd already been drinking for a couple of hours, with Eoin insisting on shots of something hideously alcoholic that in all honesty tasted like paint stripper.
They'd all piled into the photo booth, too many of them all at once and Eoin had decided to bare his arse for the camera. Tom and Rupert had both made girly squeaking noises and Ade had just looked a bit sick, though Bradley had thought that was probably more to do with the booze and not Eoin's arse. Eoin did have a rather spectacular arse, after all.
Then it had been the four of them: Bradley, Katie, Angel, and Colin. Colin had been wearing that leather jacket and his hair was all dishevelled like he'd just had someone's hands in it and Bradley couldn't look away. Bradley had never been particularly good at hiding anything and well, Colin hadn't exactly discouraged it. Born flirt he was, and it used to drive Bradley absolutely fucking mental seeing Colin hanging off Eoin or the make-up girls or even fucking Johnny, for god's sake.
Then, just as the camera went off, the little minx leaned in and whispered, "You look good. Then again, you always look good. Fucking great, actually," and Bradley had been forced to cover his crotch with his hands in case he had scared the girls and anyone who looked at the photos afterward.
After the photos were all done and the crew and Rupert were making idiots of themselves on the dance floor, Colin had dragged Bradley into one of the empty rooms and stroked Bradley's cheek with his hand. When Bradley had leaned into it, Colin had lowered his head and kissed him, just brushed his lips over Bradley's, softly. Bradley had been fairly drunk so it took him a while to respond and to register the fact in his brain that Colin Morgan was kissing him. But finally he had kissed him back, had licked Colin's lips and pushed him up against the wall, snogging him relentlessly. Bradley hadn't kissed like that since he was in high school and he had Natalie Chartwell on his Mum's settee. Colin was a much better kisser than she was and he had tasted like gin and cigarettes and Bradley had instantly wanted more.
"Sorry,” Colin had said, after Bradley had stepped back. “I've just been waiting for that for years, James, got a bit impatient waiting for you to make a move."
Bradley had laughed, muttered, "I didn't even know you cared," then dropped to his knees and spent long, long minutes learning what Colin's cock felt like, tasted like in his mouth. Colin had come with a fist shoved in his mouth and his hand clutched in Bradley's hair.
It's a memory that he really doesn't need right now. Bradley's tried so hard to forget, but hearing Colin's voice curling around his ears: the tone and timbre of it is so familiar it aches. He's forgotten nothing.
Colin gets under his skin, always has, and in a short time he feels like he's back to where he was ten years ago: stupidly besotted and unable to think about anything but Colin fucking Morgan.
He hears the door to the room open and he tries not to look, but he's always had a morbid sense of curiosity. When his eyes flick up, Colin’s walking toward him, wiping his hands on his jeans. Colin immediately looks away, and it's such a marked change from the way he was inside the audition room. Colin always did seem so in control, so cool and professional when he was focused on the work, but afterwards was often quite a different story.
"Hi," Colin says, his voice tight. "They, uh, offered me the part."
"Of course they did, you idiot. You were great, and Jeremy Anthony was appallingly bad. His breath was foul, too. Seriously rancid. Your Welsh accent still sucks, though."
Colin laughs, but it sounds hollow.
"You're going to take it, right? You'd be a fool not to."
"Yeah. I'm going to... going to take it." Colin pauses, biting his lip like he always does when he's trying to think of what to say. "So what are we going to do? I mean, how are we -"
Bradley wants to be an adult, wants to be honest and lay it all out and then maybe they can both get past what happened that week in late January when everything came crumbling down. He wants to tell Colin just how much he's missed him.
But he isn't ready for that, doesn't know how to even begin, so he just shrugs and says, "We'll be alright, Cols. It's not like we haven't done this before."
Colin smiles a little, and says, "Yeah. It's - it's good to see you, Bradley. Been too long."
Bradley stands up and grips Colin's shoulder. "Yeah. This'll be great."
If Colin notices the waver in Bradley's voice he doesn't say anything, he just waves and walks down the corridor.
Bradley gets home around 6 o'clock, heats up some leftover Thai food and turns on the telly. There's nothing on, but he keeps flicking through channels while he shovels Pad Thai into his mouth. He settles on an old episode of Fawlty Towers which never fails to make him laugh, but it isn't working this evening. The riotous antics of Basil Fawlty just aren't enough to distract him from how fucking good Colin looked: the shadow of his eyelashes against his skin and how perfect they were together, the way they fit just like they always did.
He catches the tube to Charing Cross and heads to Heaven. The VIP room's already packed when he gets there and he downs a tequila shot to get him on his way. The bloke he eyes next to him at the bar has black, messy hair and deep blue eyes.
"Drink's on me," he says, throwing down a tenner.
"Thanks." The guy looks up at him and raises his glass, slams it back. The mouth is all wrong, but it'll do. He'll do.
Bradley fucks him in the toilets with his face pushed into the cubicle wall and Bradley's fingers gripped tight on his slim hips. He tries not to think about the little differences, like his voice and his accent or the fact that he's shorter than Bradley is and Bradley has to bend his knees to fuck him. It's easier to focus on the similarities when he can't see his face. Bradley buries his nose in the guy's hair which is curly and lush and smells like Tea Tree shampoo.
***
He arranges to meet Angel for lunch the next day and steels himself for the onslaught.
"Nice of you to finally call," she says, eyebrow raised. "I thought you'd forgotten I existed. Oh no, hang on, that would make me Colin."
Bradley flinches as he picks at his naan bread. "Angel, please. I'd really love it if we could talk about anything but Colin today. Do you think you can save the mum lecture for another time?"
It's the main reason he'd avoided talking to her for so long, truth be told. Katie and Angel had been the only ones he'd trusted with his and Colin's secret and in Angel's case she'd found out in the most embarrassing way possible, catching him and Colin at it in the make-up trailer when they thought everyone had gone home.
She'd been so angry when it all fell apart, and that, Bradley knew, was his fault. He hadn't exactly denied the rumours flying about in regards to him and Angel; in fact he'd encouraged them. She'd always felt hurt that he used her as a cover, and him taking off to the US and cutting off all contact with her, with all of them, had made it so much worse.
"I'm sorry," he says, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. "I shouldn't have been such a giant coward. I didn't really know what to do and now - now I don't know what to do to make it okay."
She looks at him with such fondness that it breaks Bradley's heart. "It's alright. Really. I'm just - I missed you."
"Missed you too."
She puts her hand out and squeezes his arm. "I just want you to be happy. Both of you."
That's what I want too, he wants to say, but instead he just shovels chicken korma into his mouth and avoids her eyes.
***
A month later, Bradley's in Harvey Nicks looking for a good bottle of Chardonnay when his mobile rings. It's a number he hasn't seen before. Bradley doesn't ever pick up calls from numbers he doesn't recognise; it could be anyone after all - old hook-up, tabloid journalist, some nutter who thinks it’s her destiny to marry Arthur Pendragon - the possibilities are endless. He lets it go to voicemail and forgets about it.
He checks his messages when he gets home. There's one from his mum checking if he remembered his cousin's birthday was next Friday, one from Tamara at Crashed reminding him of the date and time for the first table read, and the call he missed that morning.
"Erm, Bradley? Yeah, it's me. Colin."
Bradley flinches. It's unconscionable that he'd ever forget what Colin sounds like and the fact that Colin even thought for a second that he did, stings.
"So I was thinking we should - if you're interested, maybe we could get together? Run some lines and do some work breaking down the script? That is, if you want to."
Colin's voice is deep and rich and that accent that used to curl itself around Bradley's ear always made him absolutely fucking crazy. He remembers what it was like those first months in LA, praying every time the phone rang that it'd be Colin, calling him to say "I've changed my mind, please just - can we start again?" but Bradley knew he was fooling himself. Colin's like fucking ice when he's hurt; he never rages, never even raises his voice, just walks away.
It took Bradley three months to delete Colin's number from his phone, and god knows how long to stop wishing he hadn't.
It takes him two hours of sitting there, finger hovering over the call button, before he manages to bite the bullet and call.
"Cols - Colin, it's me."
There's a breathy pause on the other end, and a half-whispered, "Hey. How's it going?"
"Y'know," Bradley tries to sound matter-of-fact and light, but he's sure Colin sees right through it. "Got your message. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, just -"
"Been busy. Yeah."
"So - Uh - I was thinking that it's definitely a good idea. Getting together, I mean." Bradley's shaking now. He digs his fingernails into his palm and the twinge of pain takes the edge off a little.
"That'd be great." Colin says, voice shakier than Bradley's heard it in a long time
"Maybe Saturday? I'm free all day and you could come over here. If that works for you, that is."
"Yeah, that's - that'd be grand. What's your address?"
"It's 6 Ennismore Gardens Mews."
Colin laughs and it makes Bradley bristle. "Something funny?"
"Sorry," Colin says. "It's just that sometimes, I guess I forget how differently our lives turned out."
"Yeah," Bradley says, softening a little. "Me too."
Colin turns up on Saturday morning around 11, his hair all messed up from the wind. His cheeks are rosy and he's wearing a hoodie that looks about two sizes too large for him. He looks gorgeous, and Bradley hates that he notices that.
"So this is the old flat," Bradley says, closing the door behind him. "I'll give you the tour."
"It's pretty awesome," Colin remarks as they walk through the living room to the master bedroom, and Bradley is suddenly very uncomfortable. He hasn't been alone with Colin in a bedroom since -
"Yeah, it's alright," he says quickly, guiding Colin back out to the living room and briefly showing him the guest bedroom and the kitchen area. "Bit of a rip-off of course, but what can you do? You want a drink or something?"
God. It's so awkward. They used to know how to be with each other, they used to laugh and joke and know how to sit for hours not even having to say a thing but now Bradley feels like he has to fill every silence, just like when they first met. It's so foreign to him, being strangers with Colin.
"Yeah, tea'd be great. Thanks." Colin sits down on the couch, rummages around in his backpack, and pulls out his script - along with a pen, a pencil, and an exercise book.
Bradley boils the kettle, all the while trying not to stare at Colin, mapping out the differences in his face and body. He's broader now, especially through the chest and shoulders, and Bradley wonders what it would feel like to wrap his arms around him, to feel the resistance of hard muscle against his hands. He wasn't skinny that last year they were together, but he wasn't built like this either, and Bradley thinks Colin could pin him down without any effort whatsoever. And that thought isn't welcome at all, not when Colin's right there. He has more lines on his face too, and Bradley wants to see him smile, see if his eyes crinkle more than they used to.
He makes the tea whilst Colin, face pinched in concentration, flips through his exercise book.
"So," Bradley starts, placing both cups of tea on coasters on the glass table-top in front Colin, "where did you want to start?"
Colin looks up. "I just wanted to say something about before. It's not - I didn't mean to sound like I was judging you or anything, y'know?"
"I know. I know you didn't mean it like that, mate. Hell, we can't all work with Jean-Luc Picard or be bloody Puck, can we? Some of us are just happy to get a hefty pay packet." Bradley grins and punches Colin in the shoulder.
"You knew that I -? I always thought the last thing you would've wanted was to keep a track of what I was doing."
Of course, you complete wanker, he wants to say. Do you know me at all? But Bradley can't blame Colin for thinking that he had no idea; most days Bradley kept him from his mind for his own sanity, after all. But there'd always be that moment where he slipped, and that's when he'd end up poring over reviews and pictures and YouTube clips for hours. Colin looking drop-dead fucking gorgeous in leather pants, black tank top and glitter everywhere as a Puck who looked like he belonged on a float at London Pride. Alongside Sir Patrick Stewart in the TV adaptation of Noises Off, and owning the role that he won the Olivier Award for, Katurian in Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman.
"Oh y'know," Bradley says, shrugging. "It was hard to miss, really."
Colin grins. "Well, I may have caught a bit of you on the telly from time to time."
He blushes then, staring down at the floor, and all Bradley can think about is how ridiculous his cheekbones still are.
Bradley swallows around the lump in his throat and manages to choke out: "So - shall we start?"
Two hours later, they're both cross-legged on the floor, reading through the first scene they have together for the tenth time and Bradley's twitching.
"Bored?" Colin asks.
It's not that Bradley doesn't get the importance of script analysis, he does, but he's starving and besides, he doesn't quite get off on technique like Colin does. At the end of the day, he's always been more of an organic actor.
"How about some food?" Bradley asks, trying to ignore the way Colin grins like he knows Bradley so well that he could predict that's what he was going to say next.
"I could definitely eat. Pizza?"
And this is all too familiar. Kicking back and reading lines, discussing their characters over a beer and pizza. Long days that turned into nights when they were both too drunk to stand, holding each other up and getting so close that it felt like they were breathing the same air.
It's so easy, slipping back into this easy way that the two of them have, unlike the awkwardness before and Bradley wonders if Colin's feeling the same way he is. Whether he remembers everything just as clearly as Bradley does.
"Pizza it is. One with extra pepperoni for me and one with tofu, mung beans and hummus for you." Bradley grins, ignoring Colin's eye roll and he feels like it might be the first time he's smiled like that in years.
Part Two