042.
Title: Choking On Your Alibi
Pairing: Bradley/Colin
Rating: PG
Warning/Spoiler: Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health. ;)
Note: Beta read by the lovely lovely lemniciate ! Thank you, bb. So much love for you. <333 This is also for chaosmaka , new-ish friend and I love her a lot already. For inspiring this fic with Parked flailing and the image of Colin smoking. Also, uhm. Title is from the song Mr. Brightside by The Killers. Jsyk.
Summary: Colin smokes and Bradley silently disapproves.
Disclaimer: Bradders and Magic Man Colin are their own persons. If I owned them, well, I wouldn't be writing, would I? :P
Word Count: 1200 words
“Hey,” shouts Bradley over the loud pop music coming from the speakers scattered all over the room. Katie turns to him. “Have you seen Colin?”
“What?” she shouts back, her brows creasing as she tries to hear over the noise.
“Have you seen Colin?” he repeats, slower and louder this time.
“No, sorry. Did you check the kitchen or outside?”
“He’s not in the kitchen but I’ll check out back,” he says. “Thanks.”
Katie smiles at him and nods before turning away and dancing to the music once again. They are at a party hosted by one of Katie’s friends in France. Between filming on set and the hotel, they don’t really get to go out very often so all four of them jumped at the chance to go out for one night when the invitation came; even if it means drinking cheap French alcohol and dancing to shitty loud music.
Bradley has been looking for Colin for some time. One minute they are talking with different people, Bradley occasionally glancing to where Colin is, next minute he is nowhere in sight. Bradley weaves past grinding bodies, sweaty and loose, and mumbles his apologies when he collides with a few of them.
He manages to get out of the house and looks around the back garden. On a spring evening like this he can get away with just wearing a t-shirt, but he still shivers as a gentle wind blows past him. He rubs his arms up and down to warm up a bit.
“Col?” he calls out.
“Back here.” Bradley turns to where he thinks the voice is coming from. He walks to the side of the house and he sees the dark form of Colin sitting in a small cabana. Bradley goes over to him and sits on the white cushioned deck chair next to Colin’s. It’s dark and the only light is coming from inside the house.
“What are you doing here?” Bradley asks. Colin only raises his right hand, a lit cigarette between his pointer and middle finger, the red-orange flame seemingly dancing against the black backdrop. “I see. And since when do you smoke?”
Colin shrugs. “Habit I picked up from one of my friends back home.”
“Maybe you should choose your friends more carefully,” Bradley jokes (only he really means it).
Colin turns to him and puts the fag between his lips. He takes a long, deep drag before turning away to blow out the smoke. Bradley just watches him intently, storing the look on Colin’s face as he breathes in smoke that could kill him for later perusing, even as wank material; because damn, this man makes smoking look so fucking sexy.
“Yeah.” Colin chuckles. “I chose you, didn’t I?” He breaks into a grin, eyes crinkling as he laughs. Bradley laughs with him. Colin offers him the packet and Bradley declines, telling Colin of his grandfather who was a chainsmoker and died of lung cancer when Bradley was 10 years old.
“I have nothing against people who smoke,” Bradley explains. “I just wouldn’t do it myself.”
Colin looks at him and he stares back. When it all gets too much, they both look away. Colin takes another drag.
They sit there in silence for a while, Colin smoking and Bradley occasionally watching him, as Colin’s long pale fingers move ever so slightly to tap the ash off the fag into the ashtray, as Colin wraps his lips around the small cylinder of death and breathes in. He feels hypnotised.
“You okay, mate?” Colin asks him and he looks away.
“Yeah, fine.”
Colin stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray and stands up. “Come on. Let’s get back inside.”
-
The next time Bradley sees Colin, he is sitting in one of the directors’ chair in the make-up trailer.
“Hey,” Bradley greets.
“Hey,” Colin says with a smile. He looks at Bradley from the mirror in front of him.
Bradley sits on the chair next to Colin. He’s just about to put in his earphones when he glances down and notices that Colin’s hands are shaking.
“You okay?” Bradley asks.
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re shaking.”
Colin looks away and rubs his hands on his thighs before standing up. “No, I’m fine,” he says and leaves.
“Hey,” Bradley calls out but Colin doesn’t stop or look back. Bradley frowns.
-
It takes Bradley a week before he finally finds out what is happening. He’s lying on Colin’s bed, head hanging upside down over the edge of the bed as he waits for Colin to finish getting dressed. It’s Eoin’s last filming day and they have decided to take him out for dinner as a farewell gesture. Bradley has been ready for over half an hour but it takes a bit more time for Colin to do that.
“Col,” he calls out to the bathroom, his voice strained by the added pressure on his throat and blood rushing down to his head. “Are you ready?”
Colin comes out of the bathroom with just a pair of low-slung and slightly ill fitting jeans on. His hair is wet and dishevelled, and he’s holding up two collared shirts.
“Which one?” he asks. Bradley rights himself, feeling dizzy as blood drains back down to different parts of his body again. He shakes his head a bit before inspecting the apparels.
“That one,” he says, pointing to a striped blue collared shirt. Colin looks at it briefly before turning to go back to the bathroom. “Hey,” Bradley calls out again and Colin looks back at him questioningly. “What is that?”
“What?”
“That,” Bradley says, pointing. “That thing sticking to your arm.”
Colin bends his arm to examine whatever Bradley’s pointing at. “Oh this. It’s uhm,” he hesitates, “it’s a nicotine patch.”
Bradley raises his eyebrows. “What do you need a nicotine patch for?”
“It helps with the withdrawal.”
“Huh?”
Colin looks at him incredulously and mumbles something incoherent.
“What?” Bradley asks him, straining to hear what Colin is saying.
Colin sighs and repeats, “I stopped smoking.”
“Oh.”
Colin shrugs.
“That’s-that’s great!”
“Yeah. I reckon I want to live a little bit longer, eh?”
They both laugh at that but something warm spreads from Bradley’s stomach to the rest of his body. He feels giddy all of a sudden. Colin rolls his eyes at the goofy smile and goes to continue dressing.
He hasn’t stopped grinning even after Colin comes back out of the bathroom and is ready to leave.
“What?” Colin asks him, an eyebrow raised as he looks Bradley up and down as though something is wrong with him.
“Nothing,” Bradley replies, not quite able to wipe off the smile on his face.
fin.
+ comments are much appreciated.