Cartoons and Forever Plans - R - for staraflur and help_haiti
Title: Cartoons and Forever Plans
Pairing: Bradley/Colin
Rating: R for brief sexual mentions
Summary: "And did you know I can't do this without laughing/And did you know no matter where it takes us now/And did you know our love will never die."
Notes: Once upon a time, I was bid on by a lovely lass named staraflur for the help_haiti auction, only instead of saying "I WANT THIS", she said "Uh, write me whatever, or don't write me anything, I don't really care" and I went "that is totally unhelpful" and she was all "I just wanted an excuse to give money to Haiti or whatever".
THAT ALTRUISTIC WHORE.
So I decided that I don't write NEARLY enough of Colin being the smit one (even though he clearly is, bless his face), and I also wanted to experiment a little with a much sparser, choppy style. I'm both fond of this and totally petrified this sucks, but lots of love goes to ella_bane and ninja_orange, for assuring me it didn't.
Also, unintentionally, this semi-perfectly goes along with a song I absolutely adore by Maria Taylor, so I suggest this be your soundtrack as you read:
It's what the fic is named for, after all.
- - -
Everything about Bradley is different.
Colin's never dated anyone who worked in theatre, let alone a co-worker, before. It hadn't even been an option or consideration. In uni everyone was so dramatic, and Colin thought that he'd never date someone in the same field as him, because it was like a magnet to people too loud to be contained to reality. He'd preferred people from other schools, or people who'd graduated. Steady, solid sorts with their feet on the ground and a good head on their shoulders. Not the type to post drunken pictures to facebook or text him lewd messages.
And then, when everyone had grown up a little, Colin was in London, at work all the time, too busy to have anything but a few one-night stands with people whose eyes he'd caught across the crowded pub - boys, girls, nothing serious, just a little bit of fun.
And then there was Bradley. Amazing, bewildering, perfectly imperfect Bradley, who insinuated himself into Colin's life without notice. And the second Colin had raised his head above water after series one and thought right, I can handle this and a bit of fun on the side, there was no room for anyone else in Colin's world, no option remotely palatable, not even for a night.
Colin thinks, often, that Bradley came too soon, that he's too much, that Colin's not ready too look at someone and think yes, him and be done with the whole business.
But the world didn't ask Colin's opinion, so it's not like it matters anyway.
- - -
Colin is grateful that while every interviewer under the sun needs re-assurance that yes, he and Bradley are mates, none of them go on to ask "Why?" or "What do you like about him, then?"
Were Colin asked that, he'd probably say something about how Bradley makes him laugh, because it's a good, friendly, look-at-us, two-friendly-blokes sort of answer, but it's not really the first thing Colin thinks of when he thinks what do I like about Bradley James, which he thinks about a lot when Bradley's doing stuff like shoving his camcorder in Colin's face at seven in the morning and demanding he smile and be witty.
So first off, he thinks, there are the really obvious things he likes about Bradley. Like Bradley's kind of ridiculously fit, with his tousled golden hair (smells really good, that hair) and crooked grin and big blue eyes. He's got really nice lips, too. Not thin like some guys. He thinks the things that might not be so attractive about Bradley are also sort of attractive, like that the crooked teeth make him look sort of roguish and touchable instead of a little too perfect, and his nose is kind of big and strong, but it adds dignity, so long as Bradley doesn't open his mouth.
He likes how Bradley moves, too, always decisive and intent. He gets a look on his face of blazing focus that Colin recognizes as the face of a man who's doing what he loves. He loves swinging around a sword, throwing his body into a complex dance, shooting the winning goal, knowing his body, watching it have purpose. It's the most mesmerizing and commanding Bradley ever is, in motion, and Colin's never learned to tear his eyes away.
And then there are the things so secret they can only be gotten out of Colin through intensive torture, like how Bradley's eyelashes tickle Colin's cheek when they kiss, the funny little irritated way Bradley shakes his sweaty fringe out of his eyes, his strong hands that can span most of Colin's stomach when one rests on top of it, notching each finger between a rib, how his voice cracks like he's pre-pubescent when he's really drunk and goes deep when he's tired. The way he mixes up a bunch of smells - clean boyish sweat, the spice and musk of soap and shampoo and deodorant and shaving cream, sugar (always, inexplicably, even if he hasn't had sweets all day), laundry detergent - and makes them mean Bradley. Or how when Bradley's with him he sleeps greedily, splaying all over Colin even when there's enough room for another whole person in the bed, like a a snoring electric blanket, or how he gives Colin a toothpaste-y kiss and whispers "night, Cols, love you," before he turns out the lights.
He goes over these points nervously, ritualistically, while Bradley drives them to a television interview, playing them in his head over Bradley blasting David Bowie's Greatest Hits for the billionth time and warbling loudly that time may change him, but he can't change time. He thinks out every scenario where someone might turn to him and go "that co-star of yours, really fit, isn't he?", just so he can see it coming, should it come.
But it never comes.
- - -
"You drive me crazy," Bradley had said on the last night of the Wales trip. He'd been quiet since tramping around the ley lines, and his voice was like a whisper.
"Crazy like Father Christmas back there? Or crazy like..."
Bradley's fingers had drummed on the steering wheel while they sat in the hushed, cold parking space outside the hotel.
"Like it's making me mad," Bradley had finally said. "Like I'm spending all this time around you knowing you're going to leave me in a few days, like I look over at you and I think I want that, and then I think, well, what's keeping me from it? Because maybe I'm already mad, but I don't think you don't want it, Col."
Colin had stared into the darkness, silent.
"I don't know what's keeping you," Bradley went on. "But God, you've got to tell me so I can get some of it."
Bradley's jaw had been tight when Colin turned to look at it, so beautiful that Colin's chest gave a familiar throb of longing. "Don't really know," he said. Bradley turned his head, then had leaned in so they were straining across the console towards each other. Two magnets pulled by a long-ignored force. His eyes tracked Bradley's throat as he swallowed thickly.
"Are you gonna stop me?" Bradley had asked, a breath away from Colin, so close Colin couldn't see anything of him but the tip of his nose and the shapes his mouth made.
"No," Colin had whispered.
The first time they kissed, Bradley tasted like an old grape lolly they'd found in the glove compartment and smelled like his soapy leather coat, and the place that ached in his chest when he'd looked at Bradley a moment ago had felt full to bursting in a way it never had before.
It's never stopped since.
- - -
They'd talked about it and agreed - the relationship stayed out of their professional lives. There had been a half-done conversation with all the necessary J's, where everyone agreed that the relationship and the show would be kept separate. Yes, everyone knew and winked around it, but so long as Bradley and Colin were professional, their relationship didn't matter any more than when a runner got a call from his pregnant and emotional girlfriend and had to make himself scarce for a few minutes, because that's life, having relationships, sometimes. And when it came down to it, Bradley and Colin's relationship just wasn't that exciting. They worked and worked and ate lunch together and worked some more, sometimes they slipped and their hands would link together between their chairs while they waited for the next take, or Bradley would kiss Colin's cheek before he left for the day, but that's that.
No one cared.
It was kind of anti-climactic, to be honest.
- - -
Bradley calls him sweetheart.
In public he's Colin or Cols or sometimes even Merlin, except for when Bradley's feeling silly and then Angel's the sunshine of my life and Katie's my divine, worshipful goddess, and Colin's my buttered Irish lovecrumpet. He pinches Colin when he walks past and when they're alone, calls him studmuffin or sugarcakes, or makes wolf-whistles when Colin comes out of the shower.
"That Colin Morgan is so fit," he likes to trill in a falsetto, batting his eyelashes and clutching his chest like he's having a heart attack. "His cheekbones are just dreamy." Colin usually throws things at him until Bradley bursts into laughter and walks away.
But when Bradley comes back from a long day of filming, or Colin ambles in late after yelling spells into nothing, he always holds Colin's face in his hands and presses a long, gentle kiss to his forehead.
"Hey, sweetheart," he always says. "Missed you."
He calls Colin sweetheart when Colin brings him tea, when they curl up on the couch to watch an old movie and Colin falls asleep in the middle, during sex and after, under Colin's ears and up and down his neck. Sometimes he slips on set and turns bright pink while the crew catcalls and Colin goes back and forth between being secretly pleased and mortified.
But it's the sweetheart when he says hello that's Colin's favorite. He likes to say "me, too," as he crawls next to wherever Bradley is and closes his eyes, likes to let the feeling linger in the air.
- - -
Bradley always says he fell in love with Colin the second he was able to understand what Colin was saying through his accent, which is close enough to love at first sight. Love at first listen, he calls it.
Colin never says when he fell in love with Bradley, because he doesn't remember a time when he wasn't, a little, when Bradley clapping him on the shoulder during a read-through and saying "I think we'll be good, yeah?" didn't make his heart stutter, when he didn't look at Bradley and think like me, like me, notice me, please notice me.
But he remembers a lazy morning a few months into dating, one of those mornings where they were too lazy to do anything but fuck, sleep, or drift somewhere in between the two. He remembers about an hour after they'd fucked for the first time that morning, how the almost-midday sunlight was slanting in the window and lighting up the back of Bradley's head like a halo. He remembers the slow rumble of Bradley's voice and his barely-open eyes and how warm his hands were. He remembers how easy it was to slip back into Bradley where he'd been before, to fill him up and kiss him until he was practically purring under the attention, remembers how Bradley kept mumbling, love you, love you over and over like they were the only two words he knew.
Colin remembers all this because somewhere in between morning-breath kisses, with the clarity granted only to those who had recent come their brains out, he knew this was it, and he wasn't afraid, not one little bit.
- - -
When Bradley's not around for press, Colin pretends to be him. Bradley loves interviews. He loves blathering away to people who care about what he's saying, he loves making them laugh by exaggerating his stories and movements, he loves their fans no matter how crazy and weird they get. He sulks when he misses conventions or can't make it to signings because of scheduling or transportation. If Bradley's there he lets him be the life of the party, and when he's not, Colin plays his role, winking and nodding and hamming it up for the audience. And when he's done, he's exhausted down to his very bones.
When Colin was little, he'd get notes on his report card like "keeps to himself in class", or his mum would come home from a parent-teacher conference all concerned and bubbling with new ways to bring him out of his shell. Colin had always shrugged off his mum's questions about why didn't he want to play with the other boys and girls more and gone back to building with Legos, or reading his book, or staging a war between his army men and The Hulk. Colin's few friends were the other kids like him - the weird ones, the ones who were all a little off - so that way, if Colin lapsed in pretending that he wasn't weird and quiet and poky, they wouldn't be so unforgiving.
Colin doesn't really know how to do interviews and conferences and all sorts of press stuff without Bradley. There was never really a learning period, a time between I'm a big TV star and sometimes Bradley isn't going to be here and I have to pretend I'm interesting on my own. He just sort of blinked one day and there he was, giving interviews to people from all over the UK - all over the world - and Bradley's not there. It's like that recurring nightmare where you realize you have a test that's worth all of your grade that term only you haven't studied for it and don't know any of the answers, except it's real.
The times when Bradley is around, everything's better, because Colin can relax. Bradley's charming and Colin's insightful, and together they make an unbreakable pair.
One day, he won't be Merlin and Bradley won't be Arthur and they won't be doing interviews together, ever again. One day Colin's going to be all alone. The thought terrifies him more than anything else ever has. When he crawls into Bradley's arms after he gets back from being charming for people and just lets himself finally breathe, he thinks about all the sharp bits of himself he smooths down to make more palatable for the camera, about the secrets he keeps - don't give up the plot, don't have an opinion on this, don't agree too much with that.
And he thinks, what a fucking waste, to find the person who makes you feel like you don't have to do that with, to find that someone who fills in all your cracks the way you fill in theirs, and not tell anyone.
- - -
"I think I want us to, you know, come out," Colin says fake-casually while they're curled up thumbing through edits and half-watching a World Cup match between two teams Bradley hates equally.
Bradley looks up from scribbling questions for Johnny in the margins. ("Can we make Arthur look like less of a knob?" Colin reads before Bradley closes the packet.)
"Yeah, you're going to have to repeat that," he says after a bit of uncomfortable silence. "Because I thought you just said you wanted to come out."
Colin shrugs. "Ehm. Thinking about it. Maybe."
"Is this for me or because of me?" Bradley asks after Colin can practically see the gears turning in his head.
"What's it matter? Since when are you interested in prepositions?"
"Since the difference became actually important," Bradley says carefully. "If you're doing it because of me, that's all fine and fantastic, but if you're doing it for me out of some, I don't know, sense of self-sacrifice and nobility, then yeah, I've got a few objections."
"It's not!" Colin insists. "It's like... ripping off a plaster, you know, it's got to be done, and I've been going about it all slowly, and it's better if I just, you know, rip."
Bradley blinks at him for a few seconds. "Did you just compare me to a dirty, bloody plaster?" He finally asks.
"Er, yes?" Colin asks. "I mean. No. That was a terrible metaphor."
"Yes," Bradley agrees. "Yes it was."
"I just..." Colin fidgets, pretends to be fascinated with the utterly boring game on. "Look, when I wasn't sure if it was just going to be, like, a thing or a thing, you know? So I didn't want to go telling anyone, but it's been, like, a while. And I don't know, I thought, you know, if this is a thing, it's just going to keep hanging over our heads and I'd rather just... do it. Since it's a thing. So I, ehm, I plan on being around, unless, you know, you object. Which you can, I just thought..." he trails off a little helplessly. Bradley's still looking at him like he's started speaking Tagalog.
"So what you're saying is, you want me to stick around, and if I'm sticking around, you want to get this whole business done with so we can get along with the whole being together part of being together."
"Roughly. Yes. Unless you have any objec-mmph!" Colin's cut off by Bradley tackling him to the bed and kissing him hard enough to bruise.
"You're an idiot," Bradley pants when he pulls away for air and a chance to attack Colin's trousers. "Next time, don't use metaphors."
"Yes," Colin says vaguely. "Okay. Yes."
- - -
They come out, and Colin is pleasantly surprised when the universe doesn't explode around them.
"The universe is exploding around us," Bradley moans, staring at the screen of his laptop with something akin to horror.
"Don't be so melodramatic," Colin says around a yawn. "We did, what, two extra interviews about it? I hardly count that as an explosion. We're not being followed by paparazzi or anything. The last convention wasn't even that much worse than usual. We only got one weird personal question."
"Have you been on the internet?" Bradley asks. "Because I think we broke it."
"No." Colin opens one eye from where he's resting his head at Bradley's hip so he can see the screen. Bradley's got Google open. Google and fansites. "Why are you looking at that? You're going to drive yourself crazy."
"I'm not the crazy one!" Bradley insists. "These people are! They're going insane!"
"Want me to make it stop?" Colin reaches up and pushes Bradley's laptop closed and off the bed. "Look, they're all gone."
"Colin."
Colin throws his arm around Bradleys waist, but Bradley doesn't lie down. "Really. Haven't I told you I'm a little magical?"
"You're very magical," Bradley agrees. "But that doesn't mean you can ignore that shit forever."
"Watch me," Colin mumbles. "It's working really well so far."
- - -
"I'll be disgusting when I'm old," Bradley says, apropos of nothing.
"You will not."
"Will too - I'll be fat and balding, and you'll be all distinguished. A knight of the realm..."
Colin raises his eyebrows to show Bradley exactly what his opinion of this is.
"My point is, you'll still be famous and I'll have faded into obscurity the second I pack on a bit. Probably be teaching people to beat each other up for film. Andreas will teach me his craft. But you'll take me to premieres and people will go 'who's that ridiculous bloke standing next to Colin Morgan?'"
"You'll be lovely," Colin insists, reaching over to coax Bradley into a smile, his thumb running along the delicate skin at the corner of his eye. There will be laugh lines there, deep and wonderful. He loves them already. "You'll look amazing and everyone's going to wonder how I landed someone like you."
"What'll you tell them, then?"
"Magic powers," Colin says solemnly. "Terrible burden. I've been wracked with guilt ever since I abused them seducing you."
"As you should be."
Colin chuckles and leans in for what he intends to be a small kiss, a little hint of affection, but Bradley tangles his fingers in Colin's t-shirt and won't let go. He feels desperate, and Colin thinks with a pang that maybe Bradley's not just joking around, maybe he really thinks all this. Maybe he really thinks when he's old he'll be useless, or if he gains a few stone Colin will stop wanting him.
"You know, even if it's true, it's gonna be good, you and me," he says. "I think we'll be pretty brilliant."
"Do you really?" Bradley asks.
"Of course I do." Colin rubs a few slow circles where Bradley's ear and jaw meet, scratchy because he always forgets to shave there. "I've always had a feeling about you, Bradley James."
"A good one?"
"Yes," Colin says. "An excellent one."
Pairing: Bradley/Colin
Rating: R for brief sexual mentions
Summary: "And did you know I can't do this without laughing/And did you know no matter where it takes us now/And did you know our love will never die."
Notes: Once upon a time, I was bid on by a lovely lass named staraflur for the help_haiti auction, only instead of saying "I WANT THIS", she said "Uh, write me whatever, or don't write me anything, I don't really care" and I went "that is totally unhelpful" and she was all "I just wanted an excuse to give money to Haiti or whatever".
THAT ALTRUISTIC WHORE.
So I decided that I don't write NEARLY enough of Colin being the smit one (even though he clearly is, bless his face), and I also wanted to experiment a little with a much sparser, choppy style. I'm both fond of this and totally petrified this sucks, but lots of love goes to ella_bane and ninja_orange, for assuring me it didn't.
Also, unintentionally, this semi-perfectly goes along with a song I absolutely adore by Maria Taylor, so I suggest this be your soundtrack as you read:
Click to viewIt's what the fic is named for, after all.
- - -
Everything about Bradley is different.
Colin's never dated anyone who worked in theatre, let alone a co-worker, before. It hadn't even been an option or consideration. In uni everyone was so dramatic, and Colin thought that he'd never date someone in the same field as him, because it was like a magnet to people too loud to be contained to reality. He'd preferred people from other schools, or people who'd graduated. Steady, solid sorts with their feet on the ground and a good head on their shoulders. Not the type to post drunken pictures to facebook or text him lewd messages.
And then, when everyone had grown up a little, Colin was in London, at work all the time, too busy to have anything but a few one-night stands with people whose eyes he'd caught across the crowded pub - boys, girls, nothing serious, just a little bit of fun.
And then there was Bradley. Amazing, bewildering, perfectly imperfect Bradley, who insinuated himself into Colin's life without notice. And the second Colin had raised his head above water after series one and thought right, I can handle this and a bit of fun on the side, there was no room for anyone else in Colin's world, no option remotely palatable, not even for a night.
Colin thinks, often, that Bradley came too soon, that he's too much, that Colin's not ready too look at someone and think yes, him and be done with the whole business.
But the world didn't ask Colin's opinion, so it's not like it matters anyway.
- - -
Colin is grateful that while every interviewer under the sun needs re-assurance that yes, he and Bradley are mates, none of them go on to ask "Why?" or "What do you like about him, then?"
Were Colin asked that, he'd probably say something about how Bradley makes him laugh, because it's a good, friendly, look-at-us, two-friendly-blokes sort of answer, but it's not really the first thing Colin thinks of when he thinks what do I like about Bradley James, which he thinks about a lot when Bradley's doing stuff like shoving his camcorder in Colin's face at seven in the morning and demanding he smile and be witty.
So first off, he thinks, there are the really obvious things he likes about Bradley. Like Bradley's kind of ridiculously fit, with his tousled golden hair (smells really good, that hair) and crooked grin and big blue eyes. He's got really nice lips, too. Not thin like some guys. He thinks the things that might not be so attractive about Bradley are also sort of attractive, like that the crooked teeth make him look sort of roguish and touchable instead of a little too perfect, and his nose is kind of big and strong, but it adds dignity, so long as Bradley doesn't open his mouth.
He likes how Bradley moves, too, always decisive and intent. He gets a look on his face of blazing focus that Colin recognizes as the face of a man who's doing what he loves. He loves swinging around a sword, throwing his body into a complex dance, shooting the winning goal, knowing his body, watching it have purpose. It's the most mesmerizing and commanding Bradley ever is, in motion, and Colin's never learned to tear his eyes away.
And then there are the things so secret they can only be gotten out of Colin through intensive torture, like how Bradley's eyelashes tickle Colin's cheek when they kiss, the funny little irritated way Bradley shakes his sweaty fringe out of his eyes, his strong hands that can span most of Colin's stomach when one rests on top of it, notching each finger between a rib, how his voice cracks like he's pre-pubescent when he's really drunk and goes deep when he's tired. The way he mixes up a bunch of smells - clean boyish sweat, the spice and musk of soap and shampoo and deodorant and shaving cream, sugar (always, inexplicably, even if he hasn't had sweets all day), laundry detergent - and makes them mean Bradley. Or how when Bradley's with him he sleeps greedily, splaying all over Colin even when there's enough room for another whole person in the bed, like a a snoring electric blanket, or how he gives Colin a toothpaste-y kiss and whispers "night, Cols, love you," before he turns out the lights.
He goes over these points nervously, ritualistically, while Bradley drives them to a television interview, playing them in his head over Bradley blasting David Bowie's Greatest Hits for the billionth time and warbling loudly that time may change him, but he can't change time. He thinks out every scenario where someone might turn to him and go "that co-star of yours, really fit, isn't he?", just so he can see it coming, should it come.
But it never comes.
- - -
"You drive me crazy," Bradley had said on the last night of the Wales trip. He'd been quiet since tramping around the ley lines, and his voice was like a whisper.
"Crazy like Father Christmas back there? Or crazy like..."
Bradley's fingers had drummed on the steering wheel while they sat in the hushed, cold parking space outside the hotel.
"Like it's making me mad," Bradley had finally said. "Like I'm spending all this time around you knowing you're going to leave me in a few days, like I look over at you and I think I want that, and then I think, well, what's keeping me from it? Because maybe I'm already mad, but I don't think you don't want it, Col."
Colin had stared into the darkness, silent.
"I don't know what's keeping you," Bradley went on. "But God, you've got to tell me so I can get some of it."
Bradley's jaw had been tight when Colin turned to look at it, so beautiful that Colin's chest gave a familiar throb of longing. "Don't really know," he said. Bradley turned his head, then had leaned in so they were straining across the console towards each other. Two magnets pulled by a long-ignored force. His eyes tracked Bradley's throat as he swallowed thickly.
"Are you gonna stop me?" Bradley had asked, a breath away from Colin, so close Colin couldn't see anything of him but the tip of his nose and the shapes his mouth made.
"No," Colin had whispered.
The first time they kissed, Bradley tasted like an old grape lolly they'd found in the glove compartment and smelled like his soapy leather coat, and the place that ached in his chest when he'd looked at Bradley a moment ago had felt full to bursting in a way it never had before.
It's never stopped since.
- - -
They'd talked about it and agreed - the relationship stayed out of their professional lives. There had been a half-done conversation with all the necessary J's, where everyone agreed that the relationship and the show would be kept separate. Yes, everyone knew and winked around it, but so long as Bradley and Colin were professional, their relationship didn't matter any more than when a runner got a call from his pregnant and emotional girlfriend and had to make himself scarce for a few minutes, because that's life, having relationships, sometimes. And when it came down to it, Bradley and Colin's relationship just wasn't that exciting. They worked and worked and ate lunch together and worked some more, sometimes they slipped and their hands would link together between their chairs while they waited for the next take, or Bradley would kiss Colin's cheek before he left for the day, but that's that.
No one cared.
It was kind of anti-climactic, to be honest.
- - -
Bradley calls him sweetheart.
In public he's Colin or Cols or sometimes even Merlin, except for when Bradley's feeling silly and then Angel's the sunshine of my life and Katie's my divine, worshipful goddess, and Colin's my buttered Irish lovecrumpet. He pinches Colin when he walks past and when they're alone, calls him studmuffin or sugarcakes, or makes wolf-whistles when Colin comes out of the shower.
"That Colin Morgan is so fit," he likes to trill in a falsetto, batting his eyelashes and clutching his chest like he's having a heart attack. "His cheekbones are just dreamy." Colin usually throws things at him until Bradley bursts into laughter and walks away.
But when Bradley comes back from a long day of filming, or Colin ambles in late after yelling spells into nothing, he always holds Colin's face in his hands and presses a long, gentle kiss to his forehead.
"Hey, sweetheart," he always says. "Missed you."
He calls Colin sweetheart when Colin brings him tea, when they curl up on the couch to watch an old movie and Colin falls asleep in the middle, during sex and after, under Colin's ears and up and down his neck. Sometimes he slips on set and turns bright pink while the crew catcalls and Colin goes back and forth between being secretly pleased and mortified.
But it's the sweetheart when he says hello that's Colin's favorite. He likes to say "me, too," as he crawls next to wherever Bradley is and closes his eyes, likes to let the feeling linger in the air.
- - -
Bradley always says he fell in love with Colin the second he was able to understand what Colin was saying through his accent, which is close enough to love at first sight. Love at first listen, he calls it.
Colin never says when he fell in love with Bradley, because he doesn't remember a time when he wasn't, a little, when Bradley clapping him on the shoulder during a read-through and saying "I think we'll be good, yeah?" didn't make his heart stutter, when he didn't look at Bradley and think like me, like me, notice me, please notice me.
But he remembers a lazy morning a few months into dating, one of those mornings where they were too lazy to do anything but fuck, sleep, or drift somewhere in between the two. He remembers about an hour after they'd fucked for the first time that morning, how the almost-midday sunlight was slanting in the window and lighting up the back of Bradley's head like a halo. He remembers the slow rumble of Bradley's voice and his barely-open eyes and how warm his hands were. He remembers how easy it was to slip back into Bradley where he'd been before, to fill him up and kiss him until he was practically purring under the attention, remembers how Bradley kept mumbling, love you, love you over and over like they were the only two words he knew.
Colin remembers all this because somewhere in between morning-breath kisses, with the clarity granted only to those who had recent come their brains out, he knew this was it, and he wasn't afraid, not one little bit.
- - -
When Bradley's not around for press, Colin pretends to be him. Bradley loves interviews. He loves blathering away to people who care about what he's saying, he loves making them laugh by exaggerating his stories and movements, he loves their fans no matter how crazy and weird they get. He sulks when he misses conventions or can't make it to signings because of scheduling or transportation. If Bradley's there he lets him be the life of the party, and when he's not, Colin plays his role, winking and nodding and hamming it up for the audience. And when he's done, he's exhausted down to his very bones.
When Colin was little, he'd get notes on his report card like "keeps to himself in class", or his mum would come home from a parent-teacher conference all concerned and bubbling with new ways to bring him out of his shell. Colin had always shrugged off his mum's questions about why didn't he want to play with the other boys and girls more and gone back to building with Legos, or reading his book, or staging a war between his army men and The Hulk. Colin's few friends were the other kids like him - the weird ones, the ones who were all a little off - so that way, if Colin lapsed in pretending that he wasn't weird and quiet and poky, they wouldn't be so unforgiving.
Colin doesn't really know how to do interviews and conferences and all sorts of press stuff without Bradley. There was never really a learning period, a time between I'm a big TV star and sometimes Bradley isn't going to be here and I have to pretend I'm interesting on my own. He just sort of blinked one day and there he was, giving interviews to people from all over the UK - all over the world - and Bradley's not there. It's like that recurring nightmare where you realize you have a test that's worth all of your grade that term only you haven't studied for it and don't know any of the answers, except it's real.
The times when Bradley is around, everything's better, because Colin can relax. Bradley's charming and Colin's insightful, and together they make an unbreakable pair.
One day, he won't be Merlin and Bradley won't be Arthur and they won't be doing interviews together, ever again. One day Colin's going to be all alone. The thought terrifies him more than anything else ever has. When he crawls into Bradley's arms after he gets back from being charming for people and just lets himself finally breathe, he thinks about all the sharp bits of himself he smooths down to make more palatable for the camera, about the secrets he keeps - don't give up the plot, don't have an opinion on this, don't agree too much with that.
And he thinks, what a fucking waste, to find the person who makes you feel like you don't have to do that with, to find that someone who fills in all your cracks the way you fill in theirs, and not tell anyone.
- - -
"I think I want us to, you know, come out," Colin says fake-casually while they're curled up thumbing through edits and half-watching a World Cup match between two teams Bradley hates equally.
Bradley looks up from scribbling questions for Johnny in the margins. ("Can we make Arthur look like less of a knob?" Colin reads before Bradley closes the packet.)
"Yeah, you're going to have to repeat that," he says after a bit of uncomfortable silence. "Because I thought you just said you wanted to come out."
Colin shrugs. "Ehm. Thinking about it. Maybe."
"Is this for me or because of me?" Bradley asks after Colin can practically see the gears turning in his head.
"What's it matter? Since when are you interested in prepositions?"
"Since the difference became actually important," Bradley says carefully. "If you're doing it because of me, that's all fine and fantastic, but if you're doing it for me out of some, I don't know, sense of self-sacrifice and nobility, then yeah, I've got a few objections."
"It's not!" Colin insists. "It's like... ripping off a plaster, you know, it's got to be done, and I've been going about it all slowly, and it's better if I just, you know, rip."
Bradley blinks at him for a few seconds. "Did you just compare me to a dirty, bloody plaster?" He finally asks.
"Er, yes?" Colin asks. "I mean. No. That was a terrible metaphor."
"Yes," Bradley agrees. "Yes it was."
"I just..." Colin fidgets, pretends to be fascinated with the utterly boring game on. "Look, when I wasn't sure if it was just going to be, like, a thing or a thing, you know? So I didn't want to go telling anyone, but it's been, like, a while. And I don't know, I thought, you know, if this is a thing, it's just going to keep hanging over our heads and I'd rather just... do it. Since it's a thing. So I, ehm, I plan on being around, unless, you know, you object. Which you can, I just thought..." he trails off a little helplessly. Bradley's still looking at him like he's started speaking Tagalog.
"So what you're saying is, you want me to stick around, and if I'm sticking around, you want to get this whole business done with so we can get along with the whole being together part of being together."
"Roughly. Yes. Unless you have any objec-mmph!" Colin's cut off by Bradley tackling him to the bed and kissing him hard enough to bruise.
"You're an idiot," Bradley pants when he pulls away for air and a chance to attack Colin's trousers. "Next time, don't use metaphors."
"Yes," Colin says vaguely. "Okay. Yes."
- - -
They come out, and Colin is pleasantly surprised when the universe doesn't explode around them.
"The universe is exploding around us," Bradley moans, staring at the screen of his laptop with something akin to horror.
"Don't be so melodramatic," Colin says around a yawn. "We did, what, two extra interviews about it? I hardly count that as an explosion. We're not being followed by paparazzi or anything. The last convention wasn't even that much worse than usual. We only got one weird personal question."
"Have you been on the internet?" Bradley asks. "Because I think we broke it."
"No." Colin opens one eye from where he's resting his head at Bradley's hip so he can see the screen. Bradley's got Google open. Google and fansites. "Why are you looking at that? You're going to drive yourself crazy."
"I'm not the crazy one!" Bradley insists. "These people are! They're going insane!"
"Want me to make it stop?" Colin reaches up and pushes Bradley's laptop closed and off the bed. "Look, they're all gone."
"Colin."
Colin throws his arm around Bradleys waist, but Bradley doesn't lie down. "Really. Haven't I told you I'm a little magical?"
"You're very magical," Bradley agrees. "But that doesn't mean you can ignore that shit forever."
"Watch me," Colin mumbles. "It's working really well so far."
- - -
"I'll be disgusting when I'm old," Bradley says, apropos of nothing.
"You will not."
"Will too - I'll be fat and balding, and you'll be all distinguished. A knight of the realm..."
Colin raises his eyebrows to show Bradley exactly what his opinion of this is.
"My point is, you'll still be famous and I'll have faded into obscurity the second I pack on a bit. Probably be teaching people to beat each other up for film. Andreas will teach me his craft. But you'll take me to premieres and people will go 'who's that ridiculous bloke standing next to Colin Morgan?'"
"You'll be lovely," Colin insists, reaching over to coax Bradley into a smile, his thumb running along the delicate skin at the corner of his eye. There will be laugh lines there, deep and wonderful. He loves them already. "You'll look amazing and everyone's going to wonder how I landed someone like you."
"What'll you tell them, then?"
"Magic powers," Colin says solemnly. "Terrible burden. I've been wracked with guilt ever since I abused them seducing you."
"As you should be."
Colin chuckles and leans in for what he intends to be a small kiss, a little hint of affection, but Bradley tangles his fingers in Colin's t-shirt and won't let go. He feels desperate, and Colin thinks with a pang that maybe Bradley's not just joking around, maybe he really thinks all this. Maybe he really thinks when he's old he'll be useless, or if he gains a few stone Colin will stop wanting him.
"You know, even if it's true, it's gonna be good, you and me," he says. "I think we'll be pretty brilliant."
"Do you really?" Bradley asks.
"Of course I do." Colin rubs a few slow circles where Bradley's ear and jaw meet, scratchy because he always forgets to shave there. "I've always had a feeling about you, Bradley James."
"A good one?"
"Yes," Colin says. "An excellent one."