fic: Call It Love (3/3)
Part One | Part Two
They’ve driven about ten blocks before something snaps in Bradley. Just- bugger this, he thinks, and perhaps a bit too desperately asks the cabbie to turn around and drop him back where they started. He gives Bradley an incredulous look in the rearview mirror but does it anyway.
When they get there, of course Colin’s not standing outside anymore, so Bradley hands over a few quid and ends up standing in front of Colin’s door trying to figure out if he’s going to be able to do this.
It’s time.
It is time, right? To stop dancing around it, stop making up fake operations in his head to get over it, stop wondering, and find out if they can be for each other what Bradley’s wanted them to be for what feels like ages now. What, apparently, their bloody friends have always thought they would be together.
He runs his hands through his damp hair a few too many times as he considers this. Yes, it’s long past time. He’d promised himself he’d tell Colin after shooting ended, but instead he’s spent the past month no less in love with Colin and no more open about it.
Your offer to come in still stand? he texts Colin before he can chicken out and hail himself another cab out of there.
Of course, as soon as he hits Send, he feels like the biggest fool on the planet. Who does this? He is not Hugh sodding Grant. It’s not like he’s going to burst in there and declare his undying love. He really wouldn’t even know how, and besides, that sort of display would make Colin feel enormously uncomfortable, and that’s kind of the opposite of what Bradley wants Colin to feel around him, ever, so-
The door opens.
Colin, wearing dry clothes with damp hair matted at odd angles, blinks comically wide at him.
"Your hair looks ridiculous,” he says after a moment.
Bradley’s laugh feels like a relief to his nerves, just a for a second. "Your hair looks ridiculous. I’m sure I look positively rakish."
Colin smiles at him crookedly and shakes his head. “C’mere, you eejit, stop dripping all over my doormat.”
“It’s just doing it’s job, Colin,” Bradley says, stepping indoors.
“Bearing the weight of soaking gits like you?” Colin says, falling back into their rhythm.
“Something’s got to do it,” Bradley says, following into the ground floor flat. It’s warm inside and smells a bit like curry. Colin shuts the door behind them, and Bradley shuffles off his shoes.
He shifts his weight from foot to foot, socks squelching on the wood-panelled floor, and watches as Colin tries and fails to suppress a smile at his awkwardness.
“I’ll go see if I have some dry clothes for you,” he says in a tone that suggests he’ll be putting Bradley out of his misery.
Bradley laughs sheepishly. “That’d be brilliant.”
“Not sure I have anything that’ll fit you, but . . .” Colin’s voice trails off into the bedroom and comes back a few moments later with another faded shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms in hand.
“Cheers,” Bradley says, taking the proffered clothing. “I’ll just-” He jabs his thumb in the direction of the toilet and quickly shuts the door behind him.
Christ, he thinks, examining himself in the mirror, he does look ridiculous.
On the other hand-he scrubs a hand towel through his hair a few times-a bit rakish as well.
He strips out of his rain-heavy clothes, hesitating with his underwear then figuring there’s no point in leaving on sodden underwear when the rest of him will be dry, so he strips them off as well and dries himself quickly with a fresh towel from the cupboard. He slips into Colin’s clothes, dry and warm and fitting a bit too snugly. The top is a familiar sight: one of Colin’s old Death Cab for Cutie shirts, as soft and love-worn as Bradley’s old Arsenal and Dolphins shirts and smelling of Colin and- and- oh god-
Bradley actually has to brace himself on the sink for a moment, his fists clenching as he takes one more look at his anxious state in the mirror, then swings open the door, hoping he’s ready to face Colin.
“So, uh, Cols,” Bradley starts when he finds Colin waiting in the living room. Oh yeah, smooth start, you wanker.
“Yeah?” Colin prompts, leaning against the arse-end of the sofa, his arms crossed loosely over his stomach.
Bradley mirrors Colin’s stance against the facing wall, and stalls. “Thanks for the dry clothes.”
Colin’s shoulders sag a little, but the teasing edge is in his voice when he says, “So what brings you back here so soon? Don’t tell me the cabbie was confused by your directions.”
“I- no, I forgot to- that is, there’s something I’ve wanted to-” Not Hugh Grant, not Hugh Grant, not Hugh Grant, he thinks frantically.
Colin looks a bit alarmed by Bradley’s stammering, his arms slowly unfolding to his sides as he takes a step away from the couch. “Hey, slow down. What’s wrong?”
Bradley laughs, perhaps a bit hysterically, and reaches out, wraps his hand around Colin’s bicep when he steps close enough their bare toes touch. His thumb slips beneath the hem of Colin’s short sleeve, and presses there, and stays.
He feels so uncomfortable trying to say what he wants aloud. It’s like when he got the job as Arthur and his mum actually burst into tears and told him how proud she was of him, and how much she loved him: She’s always been very supportive of him, no matter what he wanted to do, but that much of an open expression of emotions startled him. They’re English, for Christ’s sake. He’d hugged her, but even though he loves his mother more than anything in the world, he still felt uncomfortable hearing it, those words bald in their honesty.
This is why life does not work like a movie. Nobody is brave and articulate enough to boldly profess their love and make any sense of it. Or is that only Bradley? Do people actually go around doing this all the time, while he’s been left floundering on his own?
“Bugger,” Bradley mutters, dropping his forehead helplessly to Colin’s and shaking their heads slowly from side to side at that tenuous point of contact. “This is so stupid.”
“What is,” Colin murmurs, so quietly it’s barely even a question, and Bradley feels the words in a breath against his lips.
“I am trying-” he grinds out, then has to swallow his nerves again. “But any which way I put it in my head, it feels too . . .”
“Try a new way aloud,” Colin urges gently, raising his hand to Bradley’s arm, mirroring how Bradley’s touching him.
“Col . . .” Bradley shakes their heads again, pausing with the bridge of his nose somehow cradled in the delicate dip below Colin’s eye. It’s unbearable to be this close and still not kissing.
“I’ve missed you,” Colin says, his hand drifting farther up Bradley’s arm. He exhales one of those tiny laughs Bradley’s so enamored with. “I’ve missed you sort of a lot.” His eyelashes tickle Bradley’s skin in a blink. “Is- is that it?”
“That’s . . . part of it.” Bradley rubs his thumb over the thump of Colin’s pulse and feels closer to something than he’s ever felt before.
“Then . . . what’s all of it?” Colin’s accent has thickened, his voice suddenly rough, as he shifts imperceptibly and Bradley’s lips drag over the corner of his lips.
Colin exhales deeply, warm across Bradley’s chin. Bradley slides his own hand up Colin’s arm, up the smooth line of his neck, combs his fingers into the fine shock of hair above Colin’s ear, still a bit damp from the rain, and rests his hand there on the back of Colin’s head.
“God. Bradley,” Colin says, breathless, like it’s an answer he hadn’t expected. There’s a slight tremor in his other hand as he rests it on Bradley’s hip.
Bradley huffs a self-conscious laugh, but it’s that tremor that gives him the courage to tip back his head and look Colin in the eyes again. Damn it all. This is why he is, truthfully, not Hugh Grant: because you can write and rewrite confessions in your mind but when faced with the reality of the other person and your specific moment in time, life is the same old improvisation it always is. Preparation is, mostly, useless when it comes down to moments like these.
His lips form the beginnings of a few words - a silent I’ve wanted and Do you and Colin - before he settles upon raising his own trembling hand to Colin’s cheek and swiping his thumb once across the bone, as if to rub away the smudge of something they don’t need between them anymore.
They both, slowly, begin to grin crookedly at each other.
“You too?” Bradley finally says with a hopeful lilt in his voice.
Colin sucks his lower lip between his teeth, and Bradley feels a bit dizzy watching that stretch of skin. But when Colin nods at Bradley’s half-question, Bradley exhales a long whoosh of amazed, relieved laughter. Naturally, his head’s thrown back as he laughs, so when Colin all but tackles him, Bradley misses the look on his face - but not the kiss to his jaw, nor the wall at his back. Colin’s hands quickly reach the nape of Bradley’s neck and small of his back, sneaking warmth beneath the shirt, fingers tucking below the waistband.
Bradley inhales sharply at the contact and lets his eyes close, tilts his head forward and lets Colin find his lips, lets himself sink into the touch and newness of it all. Colin’s mouth is warm and hesitant as he fits their lips together and, quite suddenly, Bradley feels just as unsure, as if he could’ve wanted this for years but lost all desire once faced with the reality of it, as if.
He parts his lips and licks into the eager sounds Colin makes. All hesitancy forgotten, Colin reaches up with both hands and brackets Bradley’s face, delves his tongue in against Bradley’s own. Groaning at Colin’s blunt nails in his hair, Bradley loops his arms around his waist and pulls them closer together, but their bare feet stumble across one another and all at once they’re laughing against their lips even as they try to continue kissing. It’s clumsy and overwhelming in its newness and somehow exactly what Bradley’s always wanted.
Colin drops his forehead to Bradley’s shoulder, and he shivers at the feel of Colin’s breath laughing across his collarbone, his cheek dimpling against the shore of t-shirt and skin. Bradley had not anticipated this: that snogging his best friend might be, well, snogging his best friend. They’re still Bradley and Colin. How is that a such a revelation?
Bradley buries his nose in Colin’s hair and breathes him in, the rain and warmth and home of him. He kisses the shell of Colin’s ear, then feels himself blush at the gesture, perhaps too affectionate too soon. But Colin combs his fingers up into Bradley’s hair with one hand, slides his other hand down Bradley’s arm and entangles their fingers.
“Hey,” he murmurs, his lips sending little thrills through Bradley’s body all over again. They lift their heads, and Colin tugs on his hand, tilts a coy smirk toward his bedroom. “Wanna-”
“God yes,” Bradley breathes out, and Colin laughs again, that familiar nervous excitement in his expression.
Following Colin to his bed somehow feels not unlike charging hand-in-hand into any other adventure of theirs. Except for the part where they, actually, are holding hands, or the part where it is nothing like anything but what it is; Bradley’s brain may or may not be doing strange somersaults and cartwheels and taking a holiday from making sense at the moment. But oh, there’s Colin sitting down on the bed beside him, so he can absolutely be excused from sense, right?
He looks down at their hands in his lap, where Colin’s thumb is curling protectively over his knuckles.
“Bradley.”
Impulsively squeezing Colin’s hand, he looks up, and Colin’s grinning at him so- so euphorically, Bradley barely has a second to release the breath he’d been holding before Colin’s lunging across the small space between them and kissing him deeply, his hand finding the side of Bradley’s face, and all Bradley can do is kiss him and kiss him and thank like hell his worries were just worries. He lets go of Colin’s other hand and reaches for Colin’s arse, trying to bring them closer, but he only succeeds in knocking together their knees.
Colin spreads a hand across Bradley’s ribs, rucking up his shirt, so Bradley takes the hint and starts to pull off his borrowed shirt, getting only as far as bunching it up around his neck because they won’t stop kissing.
He laughs. “Col, I need to-” Pulls the shirt over his head, tosses it aside, and immediately goes for Colin’s shirt, laughing together as they try to start kissing again before it’s completely off. It feels easy and exciting, like the beginning it always should’ve been. Kissing a man feels different from kissing a woman mostly in the obvious ways: the scratch of stubble, the Adam’s apple his thumb brushes across, the flatter chest his own presses against. Kissing Colin feels different in every way, because no one had ever been this bloody dear to him before.
“How do you want to-” Bradley says as he pulls away from Colin’s mouth for a moment, not sure how to ask, much less do, what they want here, nor sure of what either of them is ready to do. He meets Colin’s eyes and sort of flutters his hand between their laps.
Colin bursts out laughing all over again. “Well, if that’s any indication of your technique, I don’t know if we should do anything,” he jokes.
Bradley tries to glare at him, but it’s difficult what with his facial muscles being too busy smiling stupidly at Colin laughing in his arms. “Seriously, Col.”
“Right, then,” he says, a bit uncertainly, sobering. “We’re both, erm, new at this. Aren’t we? I mean, with blokes, yeah?”
Bradley nods, nervously trailing his hand up and down Colin’s side, his ribs expanding and contracting within them.
Colin reaches up and folds his hand around Bradley’s jaw, thumb lingering on his bottom lip. “Let’s just start here then,” he murmurs, and they’re kissing again, deeper and more confident, and it gives Bradley the courage he needs: He reaches down and feels Colin hard beneath his jeans, and all at once everything feels impossibly more.
He curls his hand around that warm bulge and smirks into the next kiss Colin sucks on his lower lip as his hips rise up to meet Bradley’s palm. Kissing Colin more desperately, he unzips his jeans and curiously slides his hand along the front of Colin’s underwear. When he cups his hand around the weight of his cock, Colin inhales sharply through his teeth, and lets out a shuddering breath across Bradley’s jaw, clenching his hands around Bradley’s thighs.
Bradley’s about to ask again How do you want to do this? when quite suddenly Colin’s hand is in Bradley’s lap, and all Bradley can do is pant out a startled breath as he tips forward onto Colin’s shoulder. His long fingers feel warm and surprisingly sure as Colin strokes them across Bradley’s cock through the soft material.
“Col, that’s-” Brilliant, not enough, what is he even doing trying to speak right now.
“Yeah?” Colin says, and Bradley laughs about an octave higher than he normally would because the bastard sounds cheeky. Of course Colin can be cheeky in bed; what did Bradley think he’d be: polite?
Bradley shoves him down on the bed.
“Oi!” Colin practically squeaks, and they’re both laughing as Bradley tackles him onto his back and straddles his hips, only to have Colin twist and tackle him back, until they’re a flurry of limbs and laughter and trying to kiss each other through it all.
“Mm,” Bradley concludes, low in his throat as Colin kisses him soundly, his hands ruffling through Bradley’s hair. They’ve both ended up stretched out on the bed beside each other, Colin with one leg hitched over Bradley’s thigh, Bradley with his hands ineffectively trying to peel off Colin’s jeans.
“Wait,” Colin says, then pauses to suck on Bradley’s lip before adding, “Okay, wait,” and pulls away, ignoring the way Bradley blindly tries to chase his mouth with his own for a second. Bradley’s about to protest, but he opens his eyes to Colin flipping onto his back, lifting up his hips, and sliding off his jeans and underwear in one go. Colin’s all long, lean lines, and Bradley’s jaw slackens when he sees Colin’s cock: hard and perhaps a little bigger than Bradley’s, if not quite as thick.
Scrambling out of his own borrowed trousers, Bradley watches greedily as Colin’s eyes drop to Bradley’s cock, as the tip of his tongue sneaks out to swipe across his lips, as Colin’s eyes dart back up to Bradley’s, somehow darker. Bradley’s on top him without another thought, sucking Colin’s tongue into his mouth and aligning their hips.
With the first slide of their cocks against one another, they both let out the most embarrassing noises Bradley has ever heard in bed and still wanted to shag the other person stupid. It only makes them rut against each other even more, Colin’s cock heavy and smooth against his own. The blunt tip of Bradley’s cock slides behind Colin’s balls on one upstroke, then brushes across his hole on the next, and Colin moans around Bradley’s tongue, grasping Bradley’s arse cheeks.
“Bradley, I-” Colin says, voice near-breathless as he rolls his hips up into Bradley’s, their rhythm all wrong but the friction exciting and new.
Bradley licks back into his mouth, then says, “What do you-”
“I want-” Colin near-growls out, and Bradley has to hide his face in Colin’s neck at the sound of that, actually panting through the way that aggression shoots straight to his cock. “I’m not ready for, erm, everything,” Colin continues, voice dropping vulnerably at that, his hands smoothing up Bradley’s back, “but I want- whatever you’re also ready for?”
Bradley sucks a kiss on Colin’s clavicle and revels in the way Colin reacts, clenching his fingers around the soft-hard lines of Bradley’s back.
He looks up at Colin, and Colin looks back at him.
“I want to taste you,” he says, then flushes, feeling silly and exposed. He was never one for talking much in bed, communicating with bodies not words, but there’s something about the newness and importance of this thing with Colin that makes him want to be clear and do this right, however that might be. He’s pretty sure rushing them into various sexual acts they might not be ready for isn’t the way to go about it.
Colin swallows, and Bradley tracks the movement of his throat with his eyes, then licks his lips as Colin nods. Never once taking his eyes from Colin’s, Bradley raises his hips and kneels between Colin’s thighs. He slides his hands up the sides of Colin’s torso, brushing his thumbs over Colin’s nipples and taking in the hitch of breath. His eyes follow the sparse dark hair on Colin’s chest to where his cock is lying fully into the rise and fall of his stomach. He looks up to see Colin, hands clutching the bedspread, teeth sunk into his lower lip, and eyes intent as he watches Bradley propped over him, just as fully exposed, his own cock darkened and erect, his stomach tight with want.
Shifting farther down the bed, Bradley grasps Colin’s thighs, thumbs swiping over the fine hairs there, and he bows his head to nip at the little jut of Colin’s hipbones, first one then the other, careful not to give any attention to Colin’s cock quite yet. He rests his forehead against the dip of Colin’s stomach and just breathes for a moment, taking in the heady scent of Colin at this angle and the way he’s almost vibrating with the effort not to rut up against Bradley. Finally lifting one hand from Colin’s thigh to his cock, Bradley wraps his fingers around the base and holds it steady against his stomach. When he rubs his chin just barely against the head, Colin inhales sharply at the stubbly friction.
Bradley drags his forehead farther down Colin’s body and laps at the delicate slit.
“F-fuck,” Colin groans, the vowel a long rich sound coming from his throat.
Bradley’s free hand drifts to Colin’s bollocks, cupping them as he wraps his lips around the head. He takes in the soft hardness of him, the hot velvety feel against his tongue and lips, as he lowers his mouth just a bit, then pulls back up. He tries to find a rhythm, but the angle feels awkward, so he’s about to pull away and try something else, when Colin starts to fuck up into his mouth. Bradley can feel how unrestrained it is, the head of Colin’s cock bumping awkwardly against his soft pallet, but he also feels the moment Colin stops himself: His hips stutter in Bradley’s palms, and he sort of squirms between them, as if he needs more but isn’t sure how to ask for it.
Pulling his mouth off of Colin’s cock, Bradley meets Colin’s eyes where he’s propped halfway up on the pillows. Bradley lowers one hand to Colin’s bollocks, then lowers one finger further.
“Do you-” he says, brushing the pad of his finger across Colin’s hole.
“Oh fuck yes,” Colin says on a shaky exhale, and Bradley huffs a laugh, nervous and amazed and a little overwhelmed but too turned-on to stop. Colin laughs back at him, lifts a hand and combs back Bradley’s mess of hair from his forehead.
“Right then,” Bradley says, warming at the affectionate gesture, and decides to just go for it: He slides his hands beneath Colin’s thighs, and with one motion, he’s slinging them up over his shoulders and lowering his head to just lick.
“Oh,” Colin says, somewhere between a groan and an epiphany.
His body curves forward and Bradley’s tongue meets him, pressing curiously into the taut muscle of his arsehole. The more noises Colin makes, the more enthusiastically he begins lapping at it. Encouraged by those low needy sounds, he plunges his tongue inside, feeling Colin begin to relax into it and open up for him. Colin’s thighs are trembling against Bradley’s shoulders, so Bradley smooths his hands up and down the tops of them, and darts his tongue in and out.
Coming up for air, he catches his breath against Colin’s bollocks while he traces his forefinger around his arsehole, somewhat loosened and wet with his saliva. He dips the tip of his finger inside, just past the first knuckle then back out, not wanting to overwhelm Colin, unsure of how much or little experience Colin’s had with this. Bradley had tried fingering himself a few times over the past few years, but he always found the angle awkward and not enough; he’d figured the big deal would come with being with someone else who wanted to try it. It feels more awkward than fingering a woman, because the women he’s been with were generally easier to get wet: He could suck on their clits and ease them open with his fingers, and they’d be tight but slick, and just the feel of them tightening warm and wet around his fingers would make him dizzyingly hard.
And yet: Colin, although not slick inside, relaxes open for him as Bradley eases his finger in and out of him, a little bit farther each time; Bradley wonders if that’s just because Colin wants this so badly or if it’s because he’s tried it before. God, the image of Colin doing this to himself - those long fingers dragging in and out of himself - makes Bradley need to reach down with his free hand and squeeze his own cock in the attempt to stop himself from coming far too soon.
Bradley’s unbelievably turned on watching his finger slowly disappear inside Colin, then reappear, but as he feels Colin alternately tighten and relax around him, Colin squeezes his knees over Bradley’s shoulders and bends one leg over the back of his neck, trying to urge Bradley back toward his cock. Bradley meets his eyes, takes in how flushed and wrecked he looks, and can’t hold in a groan at the sight or the feel of Colin wrapped around him like this. Bowing his head, he licks from Colin’s bollocks up his cock, then tries to find a rhythm between his finger and his mouth.
Colin loses his composure again and thrusts up into Bradley’s mouth, and Bradley is aching, feeling Colin come apart like this. Not stopping his sucking, he looks up to see Colin’s tongue darting out to lick his lips, quick pants of breath between them. He’s got one hand fisted in Bradley’s hair, pulling every few seconds as if, even as he’s letting go, he’s still worried he’s going too far; as if he thinks Bradley right now wants to be anywhere else than with his mouth around Colin’s cock, watching the way his skin flushes pink below the dark hairs of his chest, over the sharpness of his clavicle and desperate curve of his throat.
Bradley suctions his lips up off the shaft and laps at the precome beading in the slit of the head. He’s moving on instinct by now, pleased he’s making Colin feel so good and so turned on himself that everything’s a hundred times more intense yet also beginning to blur around the edges, all of it focused down to the warmth of Colin’s body.
Meeting Colin’s eyes again, Bradley slips his forefinger out of Colin, licks the head of his cock once more, and raises his hand to his mouth to dribble some precome onto his thumb. Slowly, still watching Colin’s wide eyes as they track his movements, Bradley slides his thumb into Colin. He’s tight and the friction is still mostly too dry, but it’s enough apparently, because Colin’s head falls back to the pillow with a gasp and his heels dig into Bradley’s back as Bradley’s thumb slides far enough inside that his silver thumbring rests around that stretch of pink.
That must be what does it - cold metal contrast against burning skin - because as soon as Bradley begins to suck on the head of his cock again, Colin’s hips jerk forward then still, and he’s spurting hot streaks onto the roof of Bradley’s mouth. He lets the taste of Colin pool thick on his tongue and tries not to come at the feel of Colin tightening around his thumb. He tries not to let the surge of affection overwhelm him at the way Colin’s hands just hold on and on: one pulling at Bradley’s hair, the other cradled carefully around the back of his skull.
After a few moments of waiting for Colin’s breaths to even out and relax again, Bradley slowly pulls out his thumb and lets Colin’s come slip out of his mouth and down his shaft as he licks up the side of it once more. He watches it pearling along the flushed skin of Colin’s cock, before Colin groans and starts tugging him forward by his hair.
“Come up here, you,” he murmurs when their eyes meet, and Bradley licks his lips and obliges.
Something both terrifying and wonderful is careening in his chest as Colin simply wraps his arms around him and kisses him. Bradley melts into it, but still, he’s harder than he’s sure he’s ever been and every sensation is bringing him closer.
“Col, I’m gonna-” he says, gasping against Colin’s chin.
“No,” Colin says, and suddenly he’s pushing Bradley away and onto his back.
“What the-”
Colin cuts him off with a firm fist at the base of Bradley’s cock, and Bradley gasps at the sudden rush and retraction of sensation.
“You’re not coming yet,” Colin says, eyes dark but with a playful tilt to his lips as he adds, “Not ‘til I get to have at least some of the fun you just did.”
“I could get used to your demands,” Bradley says a bit hoarsely, grinning up at him.
Colin grins back and ducks down to lick one of his nipples. Bradley bites his lip as Colin lets go of his cock and lets his hands wander around Bradley’s body. He licks along his throat as Bradley tips his head back into the pillow; the shallow of his clavicle as Bradley’s nails skitter across the small of his back; the curve of his triceps as Bradley sinks his hands into Colin’s hair, mussing it about and feeling somehow lazy instead of desperate all of a sudden, ready to let Colin unravel every nerve in his body and spiral want through his gut all night.
Still, as Colin begins to shift down the bed, and his nails tickle the expanse of Bradley’s ribs, that desperate edge returns, his cock aching. Colin kisses down his stomach, and when his chin brushes across the head of Bradley’s cock, the burn of scruff against his oversensitive skin is sharp and almost too good for a moment, before it sinks into the unbearable need for relief.
“Cols,” Bradley breathes, voice bordering on a whine as he digs his nails into Colin’s shoulder blades in the attempt to hint that he should, you know, suck Bradley’s cock sometime tonight.
Colin’s having none of that though, the bastard. His tongue is a slow drag up the center of Bradley’s chest, to the base of his throat, then back down to swirl around his nipples. He tugs one between his teeth, and Bradley’s hips jerk forward, seeking the friction Colin won’t give him. His cock slides along Colin’s chest, and Colin lifts his mouth from Bradley’s chest to quirk a grin at him.
“You want my mouth?” Colin’s voice is low and teasing, accent thick, and god, not once had Bradley ever imagined Colin as someone who’d talk dirty in bed, even a little bit, but he has quite the opposite of a problem with the reality.
He inhales sharply at the way Colin’s voice and words affect him and arches off the bed again, cock brushing against Colin’s chest.
“You know I do, you arsehole,” Bradley says harshly, but Colin just grins even more widely and bends forward to kiss him, once, on the lips, before shifting farther down the bed and settling between Bradley’s legs, finally.
Bradley bends his knees and opens them wider to let him in as Colin kneels forward, running his hands up and down Bradley’s inner thighs. He presses his lips to one, sucking a bruise on the tender skin. With a rasp of stubble along his thighs, he slides his tongue onto Bradley’s bollocks. The suction of his lips around one makes Bradley instinctively reach for his cock, but Colin intercepts him with his own hand, wrapping around the shaft and giving one pull before he replaces his hand with his mouth.
Colin drags his tongue up Bradley’s cock and sucks gently, almost tenderly, on the head, eyes fluttering closed. Bradley moans into a sigh and settles both hands in Colin’s hair, the thick tufts of it soft and familiar between his fingers. When Colin lowers his mouth and takes a long, deep pull, the pressure is so perfect, Bradley’s head falls back with a groan straight from his gut. He’s panting as he looks back down at the way Colin’s upper lip furls over the head of his cock on every new pull, loving the way his cock slips wetter and wetter in and out of Colin’s mouth. Each time it feels like, that’s it: this is what his cock was made for, to fill Colin’s warm mouth then reappear wet with the evidence.
Wrapping his fingers around the shaft, Colin starts to build a rhythm between his mouth and fist, while his other fingers grip Bradley’s hip hard enough to bruise - and Bradley hopes they are, hopes that for days he’ll look in the mirror and see mottled skin around his hipbone in the shapes of Colin’s fingertips as a memento that this really happened.
Colin’s hand on his cock falters its rhythm as he lowers his mouth farther down. Bradley’s cock is nudging at the entrance to his throat, and it’s all too much and not enough, just on the edge but hoping to ride this out as long as possible. Colin slides his lips up and nearly off his cock and just rubs the smooth head across his puckered lips, back and forth before he licks just below the swell of the head, his tongue sounding sloppy and feeling even better.
When Colin opens his mouth and lowers his lips back down and up for another slow pull of Bradley’s cock, Bradley can feel his orgasm finally building in his bollocks. Colin cradles the rounded tip of his cock in his cheek, and when Bradley drags his fingers down Colin’s face, for a moment Bradley can feel that bulge of his own cock through the wall of Colin’s cheek - and it’s that, that and the vibrations of Colin humming around him, that has Bradley coming within seconds.
Bradley can’t look away as Colin drops his jaw and Bradley spills himself onto Colin’s waiting tongue, pearly white against pink. Colin stares right back at him, looking drugged and thrilled as he swallows then licks at the slit a few times, his hand still pumping strong and sure along the length of him until he’s sure Bradley’s finished.
“Fuck,” Bradley says, head thrown back, trying to catch his breath. He looks back down at Colin and swipes his thumb across his wet lips. Colin’s eyes light up as he tries to chase the movement with his tongue. “Now I just feel stupid.”
Colin laughs, happy and open, and slides both hands up Bradley’s chest, following them with his own chest as he fits their bodies back together and mouths Bradley’s jaw. “Why do you feel stupid?”
“Because,” Bradley says, rolling them onto their sides and kissing Colin’s cheekbone, the scruff of his upper lip, the fullness of his lower lip. “If I’d known we would’ve been this good together, I would’ve gotten my head out of my arse years ago.”
“‘Years’?” Colin whispers beside his nose, hands stilling on Bradley’s shoulder blades.
“Er,” Bradley says, heart thudding. He can’t meet Colin’s eyes. He hadn’t meant to- who knew how long Colin had wanted this? He didn’t need to be admitting how long he’d bloody pined over Colin after they’d just had an amazing shag they could linger after for awhile longer. But all he can say is, “Yeah.”
“Years,” Colin says again, but there’s a hint of longing in his tone this time, and when Bradley looks into his eyes, he looks nothing if not utterly amazed. “Well,” he adds softly, “I could’ve gotten my head out of my arse as well back then. But I’d say we’re pretty smart now, figuring it out at all.”
And something giddy rises in Bradley’s throat at that, something so full and grateful all he can do is kiss Colin, and hold him even more tightly, and accept the exhaustion as it pushes him into sleep.
________________________________________________________________
Bradley wakes up on his stomach with someone pressed against him in a proper snuggle: body wrapped long and warm along his side, one leg crooked over Bradley’s, one arm along his back, one morning erection hardening against Bradley’s thigh. His face is jammed between the pillow and Bradley’s shoulder, and Bradley can feel his warm, even breaths all along his side, in the rise and fall against Bradley’s ribs and the puffs of air against his neck.
In his first wakeful second, Bradley doesn’t remember who he’s with; doesn’t know anything at all except that there is another person sleeping with him and he feels comfortable; somehow right.
The thing is: When your fantasies abruptly become reality, it’s not as though you wake up and the way you’ve framed your life for years has automatically rearranged itself in your head. It takes Bradley a few seconds to remember: this is Colin snuggling into him. And then last night is rushing back to him, and he almost cannot contain the happiness that fills him, from blushing face to cold toes. It’s so fierce and pure in that moment that all he can do is lift the hand that’s resting on Colin’s hip, slide it farther up his back, and just hold on and grin into the fluff of his hair.
This is Colin, Bradley thinks, and that was Colin last night: mapping out Bradley’s body as if he’s wanted Bradley just as long as Bradley’s wanted him. That was Colin touching him in all the places he’d only seen before or never quite seen, maybe only wondered about, touching himself late at night, like Bradley used to do, exhausted and frustrated after hours of working side by side: take after take of tussles and embraces, of carrying each other and caring for each other, but only as Arthur and Merlin. Sometimes, Bradley knew, that line between actor and person could slip just a bit - not in the moment, but later on, when he was alone and thinking not of how Arthur felt to touch Merlin, but of how Bradley felt to touch Colin and how that was never enough.
Now, though, now is enough. Enough isn’t even the word for it, because this is everything, right here, in the way Colin begins to stretch against him and nuzzle the slope of Bradley’s shoulder as he makes little just-waking-up noises. Those snuffles turn into a small moan as he tightens his leg around the backs of Bradley’s thighs and his cock slips along Bradley’s skin.
“Mmmph,” Colin hums, and blinks sleepily up at Bradley.
“Hey,” Bradley whispers, turning onto his side to face Colin more properly.
“Hey,” Colin whispers back, then reaches for the nape of Bradley’s neck and reels him in.
Their kiss is sure and leisurely in a way few of their kisses last night had been. Colin lazily cards his fingers through Bradley’s hair, and Bradley’s mouth wanders to Colin’s jaw, fascinated by the still-new sensation of scruff against his lips and tongue and his own stubbly cheeks.
Colin huffs a tiny satisfied breath. “Our mouths taste like something died in them while we were sleeping,” he says, voice still thick from sleep.
“Well,” Bradley says, smirking into Colin’s neck then pulling back to look him in the eye, “for the sake of your veggie street cred, I hope no animals actually died in our mouths.”
Colin huffs a laugh. “That’s such a bizarre image. Like-” He curls his hands in front of his chest and twitches his nose. “Little rabbits just hopping about my bed at night, waiting for us to snore so they can have a nice warm grave.”
“Well, then they definitely didn’t find one, because I do not snore,” Bradley says.
Colin offers an apologetic look. “I think the rabbits would disagree.”
Bradley laughs. “If they were secretly Killer Rabbits, then they had it coming.”
Colin turns and laughs into the pillow, sliding his hand up Bradley’s side to rest against his chest.
Bradley yawns and flips onto his back, absently reaching up and draping his hand over Colin’s in the center of his own chest.
“Mmm, my kingdom for a cuppa,” he says, stretching along the length of the bed, feeling Colin's legs stretch likewise against his own. He drops his arm atop Colin’s pillow, fingers curling into the morning mess of Colin’s hair, and props himself up on his elbow. Their hands, cradled together, drop from his chest onto the bedspread.
Colin reemerges from the pillow and peers up at him through his lashes. “Sire,” he says, with an amused tilt of his lips, “your kingdom only existed on Saturday night telly.”
Bradley throws his head back into the pillow in a bark of laughter. He wonders if he’ll always feel this euphoric and relaxed from now on. It’s an irrational, fleeting thought, but one he’s never actually felt before, and that throws him a bit.
He turns his face level with Colin’s and matches the grin on his face, then wraps his arms around Colin’s neck, hooks a leg over Colin’s and rolls him on top of himself. Laughing the whole way, Colin braces his forearms on the wonderfully fluffy pillow beneath Bradley’s head.
“I, er, like your pillows, by the way,” Bradley says, wrapping his arms around Colin’s lower back.
“Well, my pillows like you,” Colin says, and his cheeks immediately colour, and he averts his eyes. Christ, Bradley loves that even after all the sexual assertiveness of last night, he can have this sort of simple effect on Colin.
“C’mere,” Bradley murmurs, heart in his throat, and Colin looks back at him.
“I’m right here,” Colin says a bit stupidly, eyes wide and searching.
“I mean-” Bradley spreads his legs a bit and relishes the slide of Colin’s body against his and the sharp intake of breath between Colin’s teeth, eyelids fluttering closed again. “Come here,” he whispers against Colin’s lips, then tilts his head up off the pillow and kisses him deeply. Colin’s reaction is immediate and thrilling, as in one graceful motion he slips his tongue into Bradley’s mouth and twists his slim hips against Bradley’s broader ones.
Bradley’s fingernails dig into Colin’s shoulder blades as they roll their hips together, seeking more friction. Their bollocks cradle each other for a moment, as Colin moans into his ear and thrusts his cock just right alongside Bradley’s. Colin sucks at the sensitive spot at the juncture of Bradley’s jaw and earlobe, then nips at his jawline. Bradley turns his head and catches Colin’s lower lip between his teeth and wraps his legs around his arse, frantically trying to ride him at this angle. It’s new, these unexpected sensations of moving against Colin: the rough hairs around the base of Colin’s cock, the smooth line where his hip meets his thigh, the heat and weight of Colin’s cock pressing against his own.
It’s so much that, as his orgasm builds, Bradley’s overwhelmed by how intimate they feel like this: chests pressed together, Bradley’s legs anchoring Colin to him, Colin breathing into his neck as he braces his arms on either side of Bradley’s head and thrusts their hips together. But then Colin raises his head and kisses him, and it centers him, and he’s coming, legs tightening around Colin’s waist as he pulses between them. Colin follows quickly, collapsing onto Bradley as he comes, muffling a groan into the crook of Bradley’s neck.
The pair of them just lie there for a good long while, breathing into each other. Bradley’s lying limp on the bed, his legs no longer wrapped around Colin, but he’s loosely wrapped his arms around his waist.
“Mm,” Colin hums after awhile, nudging Bradley’s jaw with his nose and pushing himself up on his elbows to look at him. “Think we should get up before we end up literally sticking together?”
“What, is your come made of hot-glue or something?” Bradley says, raising his eyebrows with a smirk.
Colin purses his lips and squinches them from side to side, giving a considering look. “That’d be more than a bit unsettling.”
Bradley laughs and rolls them over, feeling Colin’s lips spread into a small smile as they kiss. Curling his arms on the pillow above Colin’s head, Bradley props himself up and grins back down at him. Colin’s eyes go soft as he drapes his arms around Bradley’s back, and it feels like the most relaxed, content little world Bradley’s ever made for himself. He slips his tongue between Colin’s lips, and they roll onto their sides again, kissing leisurely. Every touch feels like I know you, every kiss feels like learning each other all over again.
“How ‘bout that cuppa?” Bradley murmurs against his lips after a good long while.
“Mm, need a piss first,” Colin says, yawning over the last word and trying to muffle it in his shoulder. He sits up and rifles around the mess of blankets at their feet and comes up with his underwear, a pair of blue plaid boxer shorts, and grabs his top from last night on his way out the door.
Bradley grunts and swings his legs over the side of the bed to look about for the trousers he’d kicked off last night, finding them pooled halfway beneath the bed and his borrowed Death Cab for Cutie shirt a little ways away. He pulls on the trousers and has just slipped the shirt over his head when he looks up and Colin’s stood in the doorway, leaning against the door frame with a fond little smirk and his arms crossed, his eyes trained on Bradley’s face.
It’s a look Bradley has noticed directed at him for years, but only when people would play back interviews for him, or he’d look at photographs of the pair of them: It seemed to be a particular look of fondness Colin only gave him when he wasn’t looking. Now, in this whole new context, Bradley wonders if he’ll be seeing a lot more of it face to face.
“Tea?” he says, voice a little rough, unable to look away.
“Tea.” Colin nods once and turns to the kitchen, and Bradley follows him.
It’s strange how not strange it is to quietly do such a mundane task as make tea with Colin after it feels their world has been flipped on its back and taught new tricks for them over the course of the night: Bradley pours the water into the electric kettle, while Colin hops onto the counter and reaches for the teabags and mugs.
When Bradley looks up and meets his eyes, Colin’s sat on the countertop with his arms crossed, watching Bradley’s hands as he plugs in the kettle, plucks out two teabags from the tin and drops them into their mugs. Bradley feels his face glow and moves to shove his hands into his pockets but, forgetting these trousers have no pockets, his hands just slide awkwardly down his thighs.
Colin grins and wraps his arms around Bradley’s neck to pull him up into a kiss, as if they’ve already gone too long without touching in the past few minutes. Bradley’s lips spread into a smile against Colin’s as he shuffles between Colin’s legs where they’re dangling off the counter. Opening up for him, Colin hooks his ankles around the backs of Bradley’s thighs and anchors Bradley’s hips to him with his knees.
“You know,” Colin says thoughtfully, watching his own fingers brush delicately across Bradley’s throat, “when I was giving Richard a goodbye hug back at the wrap party last month? He, erm, he gave me advice about you.”
“He what?” Bradley said, laughing.
Colin laughs a bit as well; Bradley can feel it rumble beneath his hands on Colin’s back.
“I was only wishing him all the best with his partner, and he-” Colin laughs again and meets Bradley’s eyes now. “It was practically Great Dragon advice, honestly.”
Bradley laughs. “That cryptic, was it?”
“Not quite, but it was a bit out of nowhere,” Colin says, eyes crinkling. “He told me that I shouldn’t worry about, erm, straying from the sexual identity I’m accustomed to and just focus on caring for whomever I care about.” Colin snorts and adds, “Then he said I should knock that into your thick skull as well.”
Bradley barks a laugh. “He did not say that!”
Colin smirks slyly. “Maybe not verbatim, but that was the gist of it.”
“Well,” Bradley starts, but the kettle whistle interrupts him.
He reaches over and unplugs it, loving the way Colin’s legs tighten around him as he shifts over. Colin picks up the kettle and pours them each a cup to steep.
“I do like that way of thinking about it,” Bradley says, watching Colin carefully pour the boiling water beside them.
“Yeah?” Colin says, setting down the kettle and turning his attention back to Bradley. “I thought so. No need for labels. Only have to, I don’t know-” He shrugs one shoulder and, fluttering a hand against Bradley’s neck, says half-mockingly, half seriously, “-trust how we feel. I mean, attraction has got to be more fluid, right?”
“Apparently?” Bradley says, and gestures over his shoulder toward Colin’s bedroom.
Colin smiles. “Maybe we’re like Jack Harkness, or some-”
“I am not Jack Harkness.”
“Hmm.” Colin pulls a considering look up and down Bradley. “Pity.”
“Oi!” Bradley laughs and pokes him in the stomach.
“No, no, I know,” Colin says, squirming backward and laughing. “We are not Jack Harkness- es. Harknesses? I still mostly fancy girls. It’s just that-” He tilts his head and he looks a bit wondering. “Well. There’s you.”
“Yeah,” Bradley says, voice low and a bit wondering himself. He swallows and raises his voice back to a teasing tone, “Although I must admit, I also fancied Santiago the first time I met him. Just a bit.”
“Don’t blame you. Does anyone not have a thing for Santiago at some point?”
“I think it’s a requirement for being a living, breathing human being.”
Colin looks as though he’s stifling a laugh. “Is there a way to be a living human being minus the breathing part?”
“Well, yes. Not being a part of the Santiago Cabrera fan club, for one. Not much heavy breathing if you don’t fancy that man.”
Colin laughs and wraps his arms around Bradley’s neck again. “I’ve no idea why I’m so fond of you.”
Bradley pokes him in the side. “Hey, look who’s talking. You’re bonkers, you are.”
Colin only lowers his eyelids and hovers closer to Bradley, lips full and nose bumping Bradley’s, until Bradley takes the hint and kisses him, another lingering press that feels like coming home. He runs his palms up and down Colin’s thighs thoughtfully, and Colin hums a little as he pulls away.
He looks down at Bradley with sleepy eyes. “Mm, I like you in my clothes,” he says, reaching down to tug on the hem of the shirt he’d loaned Bradley last night.
Bradley catches his fingers in his own for a moment. “That’s funny, I like you out of your clothes.”
Colin groans and rolls his eyes, but he wraps both arms around Bradley’s waist and laughs, and Bradley’s name tumbles out in the midst of it - not that he says Bradley’s name, but literally breathes out the syllables in laughter.
Bradley grins and a thought occurs to him, something that’d been niggling at the back of his mind ever since they’d last seen each other. “So, tell me something.”
Colin raises his eyebrows.
“Why’d you tell me that your heart likes eating yoghurt?”
“That my-” Colin’s eyebrows scrunch together. “What on earth are you on about?”
“Back at the wrap party,” Bradley says, smoothing his thumb over Colin’s forehead and combing his fingers back in his hair. “You said something to me in Irish then, and I, er, might have asked Eoin to translate, but I guess I didn’t remember the sounds of the words as well as I’d thought because he said it was a load of nonsense.”
“Did he,” Colin says, starting to blush.
“Yes, something about yoghurty hearts.”
The blush reaches the tips of Colin’s ears as he ducks his head. “Oh, erm. That.” A little, embarrassed laugh escapes from his mouth. “Don’t know how Eoin got ‘yoghurt’ from that.”
“Well, then what did you actually say to me?”
“It’s- I’m not sure why I even-” Colin shakes his head, still blushing. He won’t look at Bradley, but he won’t let go of him either.
“Hey.” Bradley says gently, and kisses his jaw.
Colin turns back to him with a bashful smile. It’s a rare one; Bradley usually sees him look so unashamedly himself, honest and generous, but rarely this vulnerable. Here he is, this close with Bradley, and Bradley’s not sure he can breathe for a moment.
“It’s, erm,” Colin says quietly. “It means ‘my heart is at home in you.’”
Oh- oh wait, no, now Bradley can’t breathe.
“It’s one of the many ways in Irish,” Colin goes on, “to say-”
“God, I love you,” Bradley says, words all a rush, and oh fuck. Fuck buggering fuck, now he can feel why he’s never just said that before. Even when he’d been in love before, he was never the first one to say it. Because it’s terrifying, those bloody words are too much, why are they too much.
And Colin just stares, eyes wide, his jaw working up and down soundlessly for a moment, as if he were about to finish his sentence, and Bradley feels more vulnerable than he can remember ever feeling. His gut is churning, there’s a knot in his throat, and some annoying bits of popular love songs are stuck, unwelcome, in his head. All he can do is swallow past the knot and hold Colin’s stare and keep one arm firmly around Colin’s shoulders, the other hand fumbling nervously with the hem of Colin’s shirt. Colin’s skin is warm and sure beneath his knuckles.
Then the smile starts, slowly. Colin looks down again and slips one hand between them to reach for Bradley’s wrist. Cradling it in his hand, Colin’s touch is so gentle, it’s almost unbearable, his thumb pressing against the pulse point and its delicate veins.
When Colin looks back up at him, he’s beaming, and Bradley can breathe again.
“Yeah, Bradley,” Colin says, voice thick with something possibly as ridiculous and wonderful and terrifying as Bradley’s feeling right now as well. “That’s exactly what it means.” He lets go of Bradley’s wrist and brackets his face instead.
Bradley closes his eyes and wobbles a bit on the soles of his feet, overwhelmed. It feels like winning the World Cup and coming home and being more loved and in love than he’s sure he’s ever been. He sinks into the way Colin anchors them together more securely, sliding his hands down to Bradley’s ribs and hitching his legs higher around Bradley’s hips. And it’s not the end of anything when Colin kisses him, because their kiss is tender and present and the taste of what Bradley hopes his future has been saving up for him.
They’ve driven about ten blocks before something snaps in Bradley. Just- bugger this, he thinks, and perhaps a bit too desperately asks the cabbie to turn around and drop him back where they started. He gives Bradley an incredulous look in the rearview mirror but does it anyway.
When they get there, of course Colin’s not standing outside anymore, so Bradley hands over a few quid and ends up standing in front of Colin’s door trying to figure out if he’s going to be able to do this.
It’s time.
It is time, right? To stop dancing around it, stop making up fake operations in his head to get over it, stop wondering, and find out if they can be for each other what Bradley’s wanted them to be for what feels like ages now. What, apparently, their bloody friends have always thought they would be together.
He runs his hands through his damp hair a few too many times as he considers this. Yes, it’s long past time. He’d promised himself he’d tell Colin after shooting ended, but instead he’s spent the past month no less in love with Colin and no more open about it.
Your offer to come in still stand? he texts Colin before he can chicken out and hail himself another cab out of there.
Of course, as soon as he hits Send, he feels like the biggest fool on the planet. Who does this? He is not Hugh sodding Grant. It’s not like he’s going to burst in there and declare his undying love. He really wouldn’t even know how, and besides, that sort of display would make Colin feel enormously uncomfortable, and that’s kind of the opposite of what Bradley wants Colin to feel around him, ever, so-
The door opens.
Colin, wearing dry clothes with damp hair matted at odd angles, blinks comically wide at him.
"Your hair looks ridiculous,” he says after a moment.
Bradley’s laugh feels like a relief to his nerves, just a for a second. "Your hair looks ridiculous. I’m sure I look positively rakish."
Colin smiles at him crookedly and shakes his head. “C’mere, you eejit, stop dripping all over my doormat.”
“It’s just doing it’s job, Colin,” Bradley says, stepping indoors.
“Bearing the weight of soaking gits like you?” Colin says, falling back into their rhythm.
“Something’s got to do it,” Bradley says, following into the ground floor flat. It’s warm inside and smells a bit like curry. Colin shuts the door behind them, and Bradley shuffles off his shoes.
He shifts his weight from foot to foot, socks squelching on the wood-panelled floor, and watches as Colin tries and fails to suppress a smile at his awkwardness.
“I’ll go see if I have some dry clothes for you,” he says in a tone that suggests he’ll be putting Bradley out of his misery.
Bradley laughs sheepishly. “That’d be brilliant.”
“Not sure I have anything that’ll fit you, but . . .” Colin’s voice trails off into the bedroom and comes back a few moments later with another faded shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms in hand.
“Cheers,” Bradley says, taking the proffered clothing. “I’ll just-” He jabs his thumb in the direction of the toilet and quickly shuts the door behind him.
Christ, he thinks, examining himself in the mirror, he does look ridiculous.
On the other hand-he scrubs a hand towel through his hair a few times-a bit rakish as well.
He strips out of his rain-heavy clothes, hesitating with his underwear then figuring there’s no point in leaving on sodden underwear when the rest of him will be dry, so he strips them off as well and dries himself quickly with a fresh towel from the cupboard. He slips into Colin’s clothes, dry and warm and fitting a bit too snugly. The top is a familiar sight: one of Colin’s old Death Cab for Cutie shirts, as soft and love-worn as Bradley’s old Arsenal and Dolphins shirts and smelling of Colin and- and- oh god-
Bradley actually has to brace himself on the sink for a moment, his fists clenching as he takes one more look at his anxious state in the mirror, then swings open the door, hoping he’s ready to face Colin.
“So, uh, Cols,” Bradley starts when he finds Colin waiting in the living room. Oh yeah, smooth start, you wanker.
“Yeah?” Colin prompts, leaning against the arse-end of the sofa, his arms crossed loosely over his stomach.
Bradley mirrors Colin’s stance against the facing wall, and stalls. “Thanks for the dry clothes.”
Colin’s shoulders sag a little, but the teasing edge is in his voice when he says, “So what brings you back here so soon? Don’t tell me the cabbie was confused by your directions.”
“I- no, I forgot to- that is, there’s something I’ve wanted to-” Not Hugh Grant, not Hugh Grant, not Hugh Grant, he thinks frantically.
Colin looks a bit alarmed by Bradley’s stammering, his arms slowly unfolding to his sides as he takes a step away from the couch. “Hey, slow down. What’s wrong?”
Bradley laughs, perhaps a bit hysterically, and reaches out, wraps his hand around Colin’s bicep when he steps close enough their bare toes touch. His thumb slips beneath the hem of Colin’s short sleeve, and presses there, and stays.
He feels so uncomfortable trying to say what he wants aloud. It’s like when he got the job as Arthur and his mum actually burst into tears and told him how proud she was of him, and how much she loved him: She’s always been very supportive of him, no matter what he wanted to do, but that much of an open expression of emotions startled him. They’re English, for Christ’s sake. He’d hugged her, but even though he loves his mother more than anything in the world, he still felt uncomfortable hearing it, those words bald in their honesty.
This is why life does not work like a movie. Nobody is brave and articulate enough to boldly profess their love and make any sense of it. Or is that only Bradley? Do people actually go around doing this all the time, while he’s been left floundering on his own?
“Bugger,” Bradley mutters, dropping his forehead helplessly to Colin’s and shaking their heads slowly from side to side at that tenuous point of contact. “This is so stupid.”
“What is,” Colin murmurs, so quietly it’s barely even a question, and Bradley feels the words in a breath against his lips.
“I am trying-” he grinds out, then has to swallow his nerves again. “But any which way I put it in my head, it feels too . . .”
“Try a new way aloud,” Colin urges gently, raising his hand to Bradley’s arm, mirroring how Bradley’s touching him.
“Col . . .” Bradley shakes their heads again, pausing with the bridge of his nose somehow cradled in the delicate dip below Colin’s eye. It’s unbearable to be this close and still not kissing.
“I’ve missed you,” Colin says, his hand drifting farther up Bradley’s arm. He exhales one of those tiny laughs Bradley’s so enamored with. “I’ve missed you sort of a lot.” His eyelashes tickle Bradley’s skin in a blink. “Is- is that it?”
“That’s . . . part of it.” Bradley rubs his thumb over the thump of Colin’s pulse and feels closer to something than he’s ever felt before.
“Then . . . what’s all of it?” Colin’s accent has thickened, his voice suddenly rough, as he shifts imperceptibly and Bradley’s lips drag over the corner of his lips.
Colin exhales deeply, warm across Bradley’s chin. Bradley slides his own hand up Colin’s arm, up the smooth line of his neck, combs his fingers into the fine shock of hair above Colin’s ear, still a bit damp from the rain, and rests his hand there on the back of Colin’s head.
“God. Bradley,” Colin says, breathless, like it’s an answer he hadn’t expected. There’s a slight tremor in his other hand as he rests it on Bradley’s hip.
Bradley huffs a self-conscious laugh, but it’s that tremor that gives him the courage to tip back his head and look Colin in the eyes again. Damn it all. This is why he is, truthfully, not Hugh Grant: because you can write and rewrite confessions in your mind but when faced with the reality of the other person and your specific moment in time, life is the same old improvisation it always is. Preparation is, mostly, useless when it comes down to moments like these.
His lips form the beginnings of a few words - a silent I’ve wanted and Do you and Colin - before he settles upon raising his own trembling hand to Colin’s cheek and swiping his thumb once across the bone, as if to rub away the smudge of something they don’t need between them anymore.
They both, slowly, begin to grin crookedly at each other.
“You too?” Bradley finally says with a hopeful lilt in his voice.
Colin sucks his lower lip between his teeth, and Bradley feels a bit dizzy watching that stretch of skin. But when Colin nods at Bradley’s half-question, Bradley exhales a long whoosh of amazed, relieved laughter. Naturally, his head’s thrown back as he laughs, so when Colin all but tackles him, Bradley misses the look on his face - but not the kiss to his jaw, nor the wall at his back. Colin’s hands quickly reach the nape of Bradley’s neck and small of his back, sneaking warmth beneath the shirt, fingers tucking below the waistband.
Bradley inhales sharply at the contact and lets his eyes close, tilts his head forward and lets Colin find his lips, lets himself sink into the touch and newness of it all. Colin’s mouth is warm and hesitant as he fits their lips together and, quite suddenly, Bradley feels just as unsure, as if he could’ve wanted this for years but lost all desire once faced with the reality of it, as if.
He parts his lips and licks into the eager sounds Colin makes. All hesitancy forgotten, Colin reaches up with both hands and brackets Bradley’s face, delves his tongue in against Bradley’s own. Groaning at Colin’s blunt nails in his hair, Bradley loops his arms around his waist and pulls them closer together, but their bare feet stumble across one another and all at once they’re laughing against their lips even as they try to continue kissing. It’s clumsy and overwhelming in its newness and somehow exactly what Bradley’s always wanted.
Colin drops his forehead to Bradley’s shoulder, and he shivers at the feel of Colin’s breath laughing across his collarbone, his cheek dimpling against the shore of t-shirt and skin. Bradley had not anticipated this: that snogging his best friend might be, well, snogging his best friend. They’re still Bradley and Colin. How is that a such a revelation?
Bradley buries his nose in Colin’s hair and breathes him in, the rain and warmth and home of him. He kisses the shell of Colin’s ear, then feels himself blush at the gesture, perhaps too affectionate too soon. But Colin combs his fingers up into Bradley’s hair with one hand, slides his other hand down Bradley’s arm and entangles their fingers.
“Hey,” he murmurs, his lips sending little thrills through Bradley’s body all over again. They lift their heads, and Colin tugs on his hand, tilts a coy smirk toward his bedroom. “Wanna-”
“God yes,” Bradley breathes out, and Colin laughs again, that familiar nervous excitement in his expression.
Following Colin to his bed somehow feels not unlike charging hand-in-hand into any other adventure of theirs. Except for the part where they, actually, are holding hands, or the part where it is nothing like anything but what it is; Bradley’s brain may or may not be doing strange somersaults and cartwheels and taking a holiday from making sense at the moment. But oh, there’s Colin sitting down on the bed beside him, so he can absolutely be excused from sense, right?
He looks down at their hands in his lap, where Colin’s thumb is curling protectively over his knuckles.
“Bradley.”
Impulsively squeezing Colin’s hand, he looks up, and Colin’s grinning at him so- so euphorically, Bradley barely has a second to release the breath he’d been holding before Colin’s lunging across the small space between them and kissing him deeply, his hand finding the side of Bradley’s face, and all Bradley can do is kiss him and kiss him and thank like hell his worries were just worries. He lets go of Colin’s other hand and reaches for Colin’s arse, trying to bring them closer, but he only succeeds in knocking together their knees.
Colin spreads a hand across Bradley’s ribs, rucking up his shirt, so Bradley takes the hint and starts to pull off his borrowed shirt, getting only as far as bunching it up around his neck because they won’t stop kissing.
He laughs. “Col, I need to-” Pulls the shirt over his head, tosses it aside, and immediately goes for Colin’s shirt, laughing together as they try to start kissing again before it’s completely off. It feels easy and exciting, like the beginning it always should’ve been. Kissing a man feels different from kissing a woman mostly in the obvious ways: the scratch of stubble, the Adam’s apple his thumb brushes across, the flatter chest his own presses against. Kissing Colin feels different in every way, because no one had ever been this bloody dear to him before.
“How do you want to-” Bradley says as he pulls away from Colin’s mouth for a moment, not sure how to ask, much less do, what they want here, nor sure of what either of them is ready to do. He meets Colin’s eyes and sort of flutters his hand between their laps.
Colin bursts out laughing all over again. “Well, if that’s any indication of your technique, I don’t know if we should do anything,” he jokes.
Bradley tries to glare at him, but it’s difficult what with his facial muscles being too busy smiling stupidly at Colin laughing in his arms. “Seriously, Col.”
“Right, then,” he says, a bit uncertainly, sobering. “We’re both, erm, new at this. Aren’t we? I mean, with blokes, yeah?”
Bradley nods, nervously trailing his hand up and down Colin’s side, his ribs expanding and contracting within them.
Colin reaches up and folds his hand around Bradley’s jaw, thumb lingering on his bottom lip. “Let’s just start here then,” he murmurs, and they’re kissing again, deeper and more confident, and it gives Bradley the courage he needs: He reaches down and feels Colin hard beneath his jeans, and all at once everything feels impossibly more.
He curls his hand around that warm bulge and smirks into the next kiss Colin sucks on his lower lip as his hips rise up to meet Bradley’s palm. Kissing Colin more desperately, he unzips his jeans and curiously slides his hand along the front of Colin’s underwear. When he cups his hand around the weight of his cock, Colin inhales sharply through his teeth, and lets out a shuddering breath across Bradley’s jaw, clenching his hands around Bradley’s thighs.
Bradley’s about to ask again How do you want to do this? when quite suddenly Colin’s hand is in Bradley’s lap, and all Bradley can do is pant out a startled breath as he tips forward onto Colin’s shoulder. His long fingers feel warm and surprisingly sure as Colin strokes them across Bradley’s cock through the soft material.
“Col, that’s-” Brilliant, not enough, what is he even doing trying to speak right now.
“Yeah?” Colin says, and Bradley laughs about an octave higher than he normally would because the bastard sounds cheeky. Of course Colin can be cheeky in bed; what did Bradley think he’d be: polite?
Bradley shoves him down on the bed.
“Oi!” Colin practically squeaks, and they’re both laughing as Bradley tackles him onto his back and straddles his hips, only to have Colin twist and tackle him back, until they’re a flurry of limbs and laughter and trying to kiss each other through it all.
“Mm,” Bradley concludes, low in his throat as Colin kisses him soundly, his hands ruffling through Bradley’s hair. They’ve both ended up stretched out on the bed beside each other, Colin with one leg hitched over Bradley’s thigh, Bradley with his hands ineffectively trying to peel off Colin’s jeans.
“Wait,” Colin says, then pauses to suck on Bradley’s lip before adding, “Okay, wait,” and pulls away, ignoring the way Bradley blindly tries to chase his mouth with his own for a second. Bradley’s about to protest, but he opens his eyes to Colin flipping onto his back, lifting up his hips, and sliding off his jeans and underwear in one go. Colin’s all long, lean lines, and Bradley’s jaw slackens when he sees Colin’s cock: hard and perhaps a little bigger than Bradley’s, if not quite as thick.
Scrambling out of his own borrowed trousers, Bradley watches greedily as Colin’s eyes drop to Bradley’s cock, as the tip of his tongue sneaks out to swipe across his lips, as Colin’s eyes dart back up to Bradley’s, somehow darker. Bradley’s on top him without another thought, sucking Colin’s tongue into his mouth and aligning their hips.
With the first slide of their cocks against one another, they both let out the most embarrassing noises Bradley has ever heard in bed and still wanted to shag the other person stupid. It only makes them rut against each other even more, Colin’s cock heavy and smooth against his own. The blunt tip of Bradley’s cock slides behind Colin’s balls on one upstroke, then brushes across his hole on the next, and Colin moans around Bradley’s tongue, grasping Bradley’s arse cheeks.
“Bradley, I-” Colin says, voice near-breathless as he rolls his hips up into Bradley’s, their rhythm all wrong but the friction exciting and new.
Bradley licks back into his mouth, then says, “What do you-”
“I want-” Colin near-growls out, and Bradley has to hide his face in Colin’s neck at the sound of that, actually panting through the way that aggression shoots straight to his cock. “I’m not ready for, erm, everything,” Colin continues, voice dropping vulnerably at that, his hands smoothing up Bradley’s back, “but I want- whatever you’re also ready for?”
Bradley sucks a kiss on Colin’s clavicle and revels in the way Colin reacts, clenching his fingers around the soft-hard lines of Bradley’s back.
He looks up at Colin, and Colin looks back at him.
“I want to taste you,” he says, then flushes, feeling silly and exposed. He was never one for talking much in bed, communicating with bodies not words, but there’s something about the newness and importance of this thing with Colin that makes him want to be clear and do this right, however that might be. He’s pretty sure rushing them into various sexual acts they might not be ready for isn’t the way to go about it.
Colin swallows, and Bradley tracks the movement of his throat with his eyes, then licks his lips as Colin nods. Never once taking his eyes from Colin’s, Bradley raises his hips and kneels between Colin’s thighs. He slides his hands up the sides of Colin’s torso, brushing his thumbs over Colin’s nipples and taking in the hitch of breath. His eyes follow the sparse dark hair on Colin’s chest to where his cock is lying fully into the rise and fall of his stomach. He looks up to see Colin, hands clutching the bedspread, teeth sunk into his lower lip, and eyes intent as he watches Bradley propped over him, just as fully exposed, his own cock darkened and erect, his stomach tight with want.
Shifting farther down the bed, Bradley grasps Colin’s thighs, thumbs swiping over the fine hairs there, and he bows his head to nip at the little jut of Colin’s hipbones, first one then the other, careful not to give any attention to Colin’s cock quite yet. He rests his forehead against the dip of Colin’s stomach and just breathes for a moment, taking in the heady scent of Colin at this angle and the way he’s almost vibrating with the effort not to rut up against Bradley. Finally lifting one hand from Colin’s thigh to his cock, Bradley wraps his fingers around the base and holds it steady against his stomach. When he rubs his chin just barely against the head, Colin inhales sharply at the stubbly friction.
Bradley drags his forehead farther down Colin’s body and laps at the delicate slit.
“F-fuck,” Colin groans, the vowel a long rich sound coming from his throat.
Bradley’s free hand drifts to Colin’s bollocks, cupping them as he wraps his lips around the head. He takes in the soft hardness of him, the hot velvety feel against his tongue and lips, as he lowers his mouth just a bit, then pulls back up. He tries to find a rhythm, but the angle feels awkward, so he’s about to pull away and try something else, when Colin starts to fuck up into his mouth. Bradley can feel how unrestrained it is, the head of Colin’s cock bumping awkwardly against his soft pallet, but he also feels the moment Colin stops himself: His hips stutter in Bradley’s palms, and he sort of squirms between them, as if he needs more but isn’t sure how to ask for it.
Pulling his mouth off of Colin’s cock, Bradley meets Colin’s eyes where he’s propped halfway up on the pillows. Bradley lowers one hand to Colin’s bollocks, then lowers one finger further.
“Do you-” he says, brushing the pad of his finger across Colin’s hole.
“Oh fuck yes,” Colin says on a shaky exhale, and Bradley huffs a laugh, nervous and amazed and a little overwhelmed but too turned-on to stop. Colin laughs back at him, lifts a hand and combs back Bradley’s mess of hair from his forehead.
“Right then,” Bradley says, warming at the affectionate gesture, and decides to just go for it: He slides his hands beneath Colin’s thighs, and with one motion, he’s slinging them up over his shoulders and lowering his head to just lick.
“Oh,” Colin says, somewhere between a groan and an epiphany.
His body curves forward and Bradley’s tongue meets him, pressing curiously into the taut muscle of his arsehole. The more noises Colin makes, the more enthusiastically he begins lapping at it. Encouraged by those low needy sounds, he plunges his tongue inside, feeling Colin begin to relax into it and open up for him. Colin’s thighs are trembling against Bradley’s shoulders, so Bradley smooths his hands up and down the tops of them, and darts his tongue in and out.
Coming up for air, he catches his breath against Colin’s bollocks while he traces his forefinger around his arsehole, somewhat loosened and wet with his saliva. He dips the tip of his finger inside, just past the first knuckle then back out, not wanting to overwhelm Colin, unsure of how much or little experience Colin’s had with this. Bradley had tried fingering himself a few times over the past few years, but he always found the angle awkward and not enough; he’d figured the big deal would come with being with someone else who wanted to try it. It feels more awkward than fingering a woman, because the women he’s been with were generally easier to get wet: He could suck on their clits and ease them open with his fingers, and they’d be tight but slick, and just the feel of them tightening warm and wet around his fingers would make him dizzyingly hard.
And yet: Colin, although not slick inside, relaxes open for him as Bradley eases his finger in and out of him, a little bit farther each time; Bradley wonders if that’s just because Colin wants this so badly or if it’s because he’s tried it before. God, the image of Colin doing this to himself - those long fingers dragging in and out of himself - makes Bradley need to reach down with his free hand and squeeze his own cock in the attempt to stop himself from coming far too soon.
Bradley’s unbelievably turned on watching his finger slowly disappear inside Colin, then reappear, but as he feels Colin alternately tighten and relax around him, Colin squeezes his knees over Bradley’s shoulders and bends one leg over the back of his neck, trying to urge Bradley back toward his cock. Bradley meets his eyes, takes in how flushed and wrecked he looks, and can’t hold in a groan at the sight or the feel of Colin wrapped around him like this. Bowing his head, he licks from Colin’s bollocks up his cock, then tries to find a rhythm between his finger and his mouth.
Colin loses his composure again and thrusts up into Bradley’s mouth, and Bradley is aching, feeling Colin come apart like this. Not stopping his sucking, he looks up to see Colin’s tongue darting out to lick his lips, quick pants of breath between them. He’s got one hand fisted in Bradley’s hair, pulling every few seconds as if, even as he’s letting go, he’s still worried he’s going too far; as if he thinks Bradley right now wants to be anywhere else than with his mouth around Colin’s cock, watching the way his skin flushes pink below the dark hairs of his chest, over the sharpness of his clavicle and desperate curve of his throat.
Bradley suctions his lips up off the shaft and laps at the precome beading in the slit of the head. He’s moving on instinct by now, pleased he’s making Colin feel so good and so turned on himself that everything’s a hundred times more intense yet also beginning to blur around the edges, all of it focused down to the warmth of Colin’s body.
Meeting Colin’s eyes again, Bradley slips his forefinger out of Colin, licks the head of his cock once more, and raises his hand to his mouth to dribble some precome onto his thumb. Slowly, still watching Colin’s wide eyes as they track his movements, Bradley slides his thumb into Colin. He’s tight and the friction is still mostly too dry, but it’s enough apparently, because Colin’s head falls back to the pillow with a gasp and his heels dig into Bradley’s back as Bradley’s thumb slides far enough inside that his silver thumbring rests around that stretch of pink.
That must be what does it - cold metal contrast against burning skin - because as soon as Bradley begins to suck on the head of his cock again, Colin’s hips jerk forward then still, and he’s spurting hot streaks onto the roof of Bradley’s mouth. He lets the taste of Colin pool thick on his tongue and tries not to come at the feel of Colin tightening around his thumb. He tries not to let the surge of affection overwhelm him at the way Colin’s hands just hold on and on: one pulling at Bradley’s hair, the other cradled carefully around the back of his skull.
After a few moments of waiting for Colin’s breaths to even out and relax again, Bradley slowly pulls out his thumb and lets Colin’s come slip out of his mouth and down his shaft as he licks up the side of it once more. He watches it pearling along the flushed skin of Colin’s cock, before Colin groans and starts tugging him forward by his hair.
“Come up here, you,” he murmurs when their eyes meet, and Bradley licks his lips and obliges.
Something both terrifying and wonderful is careening in his chest as Colin simply wraps his arms around him and kisses him. Bradley melts into it, but still, he’s harder than he’s sure he’s ever been and every sensation is bringing him closer.
“Col, I’m gonna-” he says, gasping against Colin’s chin.
“No,” Colin says, and suddenly he’s pushing Bradley away and onto his back.
“What the-”
Colin cuts him off with a firm fist at the base of Bradley’s cock, and Bradley gasps at the sudden rush and retraction of sensation.
“You’re not coming yet,” Colin says, eyes dark but with a playful tilt to his lips as he adds, “Not ‘til I get to have at least some of the fun you just did.”
“I could get used to your demands,” Bradley says a bit hoarsely, grinning up at him.
Colin grins back and ducks down to lick one of his nipples. Bradley bites his lip as Colin lets go of his cock and lets his hands wander around Bradley’s body. He licks along his throat as Bradley tips his head back into the pillow; the shallow of his clavicle as Bradley’s nails skitter across the small of his back; the curve of his triceps as Bradley sinks his hands into Colin’s hair, mussing it about and feeling somehow lazy instead of desperate all of a sudden, ready to let Colin unravel every nerve in his body and spiral want through his gut all night.
Still, as Colin begins to shift down the bed, and his nails tickle the expanse of Bradley’s ribs, that desperate edge returns, his cock aching. Colin kisses down his stomach, and when his chin brushes across the head of Bradley’s cock, the burn of scruff against his oversensitive skin is sharp and almost too good for a moment, before it sinks into the unbearable need for relief.
“Cols,” Bradley breathes, voice bordering on a whine as he digs his nails into Colin’s shoulder blades in the attempt to hint that he should, you know, suck Bradley’s cock sometime tonight.
Colin’s having none of that though, the bastard. His tongue is a slow drag up the center of Bradley’s chest, to the base of his throat, then back down to swirl around his nipples. He tugs one between his teeth, and Bradley’s hips jerk forward, seeking the friction Colin won’t give him. His cock slides along Colin’s chest, and Colin lifts his mouth from Bradley’s chest to quirk a grin at him.
“You want my mouth?” Colin’s voice is low and teasing, accent thick, and god, not once had Bradley ever imagined Colin as someone who’d talk dirty in bed, even a little bit, but he has quite the opposite of a problem with the reality.
He inhales sharply at the way Colin’s voice and words affect him and arches off the bed again, cock brushing against Colin’s chest.
“You know I do, you arsehole,” Bradley says harshly, but Colin just grins even more widely and bends forward to kiss him, once, on the lips, before shifting farther down the bed and settling between Bradley’s legs, finally.
Bradley bends his knees and opens them wider to let him in as Colin kneels forward, running his hands up and down Bradley’s inner thighs. He presses his lips to one, sucking a bruise on the tender skin. With a rasp of stubble along his thighs, he slides his tongue onto Bradley’s bollocks. The suction of his lips around one makes Bradley instinctively reach for his cock, but Colin intercepts him with his own hand, wrapping around the shaft and giving one pull before he replaces his hand with his mouth.
Colin drags his tongue up Bradley’s cock and sucks gently, almost tenderly, on the head, eyes fluttering closed. Bradley moans into a sigh and settles both hands in Colin’s hair, the thick tufts of it soft and familiar between his fingers. When Colin lowers his mouth and takes a long, deep pull, the pressure is so perfect, Bradley’s head falls back with a groan straight from his gut. He’s panting as he looks back down at the way Colin’s upper lip furls over the head of his cock on every new pull, loving the way his cock slips wetter and wetter in and out of Colin’s mouth. Each time it feels like, that’s it: this is what his cock was made for, to fill Colin’s warm mouth then reappear wet with the evidence.
Wrapping his fingers around the shaft, Colin starts to build a rhythm between his mouth and fist, while his other fingers grip Bradley’s hip hard enough to bruise - and Bradley hopes they are, hopes that for days he’ll look in the mirror and see mottled skin around his hipbone in the shapes of Colin’s fingertips as a memento that this really happened.
Colin’s hand on his cock falters its rhythm as he lowers his mouth farther down. Bradley’s cock is nudging at the entrance to his throat, and it’s all too much and not enough, just on the edge but hoping to ride this out as long as possible. Colin slides his lips up and nearly off his cock and just rubs the smooth head across his puckered lips, back and forth before he licks just below the swell of the head, his tongue sounding sloppy and feeling even better.
When Colin opens his mouth and lowers his lips back down and up for another slow pull of Bradley’s cock, Bradley can feel his orgasm finally building in his bollocks. Colin cradles the rounded tip of his cock in his cheek, and when Bradley drags his fingers down Colin’s face, for a moment Bradley can feel that bulge of his own cock through the wall of Colin’s cheek - and it’s that, that and the vibrations of Colin humming around him, that has Bradley coming within seconds.
Bradley can’t look away as Colin drops his jaw and Bradley spills himself onto Colin’s waiting tongue, pearly white against pink. Colin stares right back at him, looking drugged and thrilled as he swallows then licks at the slit a few times, his hand still pumping strong and sure along the length of him until he’s sure Bradley’s finished.
“Fuck,” Bradley says, head thrown back, trying to catch his breath. He looks back down at Colin and swipes his thumb across his wet lips. Colin’s eyes light up as he tries to chase the movement with his tongue. “Now I just feel stupid.”
Colin laughs, happy and open, and slides both hands up Bradley’s chest, following them with his own chest as he fits their bodies back together and mouths Bradley’s jaw. “Why do you feel stupid?”
“Because,” Bradley says, rolling them onto their sides and kissing Colin’s cheekbone, the scruff of his upper lip, the fullness of his lower lip. “If I’d known we would’ve been this good together, I would’ve gotten my head out of my arse years ago.”
“‘Years’?” Colin whispers beside his nose, hands stilling on Bradley’s shoulder blades.
“Er,” Bradley says, heart thudding. He can’t meet Colin’s eyes. He hadn’t meant to- who knew how long Colin had wanted this? He didn’t need to be admitting how long he’d bloody pined over Colin after they’d just had an amazing shag they could linger after for awhile longer. But all he can say is, “Yeah.”
“Years,” Colin says again, but there’s a hint of longing in his tone this time, and when Bradley looks into his eyes, he looks nothing if not utterly amazed. “Well,” he adds softly, “I could’ve gotten my head out of my arse as well back then. But I’d say we’re pretty smart now, figuring it out at all.”
And something giddy rises in Bradley’s throat at that, something so full and grateful all he can do is kiss Colin, and hold him even more tightly, and accept the exhaustion as it pushes him into sleep.
________________________________________________________________
Bradley wakes up on his stomach with someone pressed against him in a proper snuggle: body wrapped long and warm along his side, one leg crooked over Bradley’s, one arm along his back, one morning erection hardening against Bradley’s thigh. His face is jammed between the pillow and Bradley’s shoulder, and Bradley can feel his warm, even breaths all along his side, in the rise and fall against Bradley’s ribs and the puffs of air against his neck.
In his first wakeful second, Bradley doesn’t remember who he’s with; doesn’t know anything at all except that there is another person sleeping with him and he feels comfortable; somehow right.
The thing is: When your fantasies abruptly become reality, it’s not as though you wake up and the way you’ve framed your life for years has automatically rearranged itself in your head. It takes Bradley a few seconds to remember: this is Colin snuggling into him. And then last night is rushing back to him, and he almost cannot contain the happiness that fills him, from blushing face to cold toes. It’s so fierce and pure in that moment that all he can do is lift the hand that’s resting on Colin’s hip, slide it farther up his back, and just hold on and grin into the fluff of his hair.
This is Colin, Bradley thinks, and that was Colin last night: mapping out Bradley’s body as if he’s wanted Bradley just as long as Bradley’s wanted him. That was Colin touching him in all the places he’d only seen before or never quite seen, maybe only wondered about, touching himself late at night, like Bradley used to do, exhausted and frustrated after hours of working side by side: take after take of tussles and embraces, of carrying each other and caring for each other, but only as Arthur and Merlin. Sometimes, Bradley knew, that line between actor and person could slip just a bit - not in the moment, but later on, when he was alone and thinking not of how Arthur felt to touch Merlin, but of how Bradley felt to touch Colin and how that was never enough.
Now, though, now is enough. Enough isn’t even the word for it, because this is everything, right here, in the way Colin begins to stretch against him and nuzzle the slope of Bradley’s shoulder as he makes little just-waking-up noises. Those snuffles turn into a small moan as he tightens his leg around the backs of Bradley’s thighs and his cock slips along Bradley’s skin.
“Mmmph,” Colin hums, and blinks sleepily up at Bradley.
“Hey,” Bradley whispers, turning onto his side to face Colin more properly.
“Hey,” Colin whispers back, then reaches for the nape of Bradley’s neck and reels him in.
Their kiss is sure and leisurely in a way few of their kisses last night had been. Colin lazily cards his fingers through Bradley’s hair, and Bradley’s mouth wanders to Colin’s jaw, fascinated by the still-new sensation of scruff against his lips and tongue and his own stubbly cheeks.
Colin huffs a tiny satisfied breath. “Our mouths taste like something died in them while we were sleeping,” he says, voice still thick from sleep.
“Well,” Bradley says, smirking into Colin’s neck then pulling back to look him in the eye, “for the sake of your veggie street cred, I hope no animals actually died in our mouths.”
Colin huffs a laugh. “That’s such a bizarre image. Like-” He curls his hands in front of his chest and twitches his nose. “Little rabbits just hopping about my bed at night, waiting for us to snore so they can have a nice warm grave.”
“Well, then they definitely didn’t find one, because I do not snore,” Bradley says.
Colin offers an apologetic look. “I think the rabbits would disagree.”
Bradley laughs. “If they were secretly Killer Rabbits, then they had it coming.”
Colin turns and laughs into the pillow, sliding his hand up Bradley’s side to rest against his chest.
Bradley yawns and flips onto his back, absently reaching up and draping his hand over Colin’s in the center of his own chest.
“Mmm, my kingdom for a cuppa,” he says, stretching along the length of the bed, feeling Colin's legs stretch likewise against his own. He drops his arm atop Colin’s pillow, fingers curling into the morning mess of Colin’s hair, and props himself up on his elbow. Their hands, cradled together, drop from his chest onto the bedspread.
Colin reemerges from the pillow and peers up at him through his lashes. “Sire,” he says, with an amused tilt of his lips, “your kingdom only existed on Saturday night telly.”
Bradley throws his head back into the pillow in a bark of laughter. He wonders if he’ll always feel this euphoric and relaxed from now on. It’s an irrational, fleeting thought, but one he’s never actually felt before, and that throws him a bit.
He turns his face level with Colin’s and matches the grin on his face, then wraps his arms around Colin’s neck, hooks a leg over Colin’s and rolls him on top of himself. Laughing the whole way, Colin braces his forearms on the wonderfully fluffy pillow beneath Bradley’s head.
“I, er, like your pillows, by the way,” Bradley says, wrapping his arms around Colin’s lower back.
“Well, my pillows like you,” Colin says, and his cheeks immediately colour, and he averts his eyes. Christ, Bradley loves that even after all the sexual assertiveness of last night, he can have this sort of simple effect on Colin.
“C’mere,” Bradley murmurs, heart in his throat, and Colin looks back at him.
“I’m right here,” Colin says a bit stupidly, eyes wide and searching.
“I mean-” Bradley spreads his legs a bit and relishes the slide of Colin’s body against his and the sharp intake of breath between Colin’s teeth, eyelids fluttering closed again. “Come here,” he whispers against Colin’s lips, then tilts his head up off the pillow and kisses him deeply. Colin’s reaction is immediate and thrilling, as in one graceful motion he slips his tongue into Bradley’s mouth and twists his slim hips against Bradley’s broader ones.
Bradley’s fingernails dig into Colin’s shoulder blades as they roll their hips together, seeking more friction. Their bollocks cradle each other for a moment, as Colin moans into his ear and thrusts his cock just right alongside Bradley’s. Colin sucks at the sensitive spot at the juncture of Bradley’s jaw and earlobe, then nips at his jawline. Bradley turns his head and catches Colin’s lower lip between his teeth and wraps his legs around his arse, frantically trying to ride him at this angle. It’s new, these unexpected sensations of moving against Colin: the rough hairs around the base of Colin’s cock, the smooth line where his hip meets his thigh, the heat and weight of Colin’s cock pressing against his own.
It’s so much that, as his orgasm builds, Bradley’s overwhelmed by how intimate they feel like this: chests pressed together, Bradley’s legs anchoring Colin to him, Colin breathing into his neck as he braces his arms on either side of Bradley’s head and thrusts their hips together. But then Colin raises his head and kisses him, and it centers him, and he’s coming, legs tightening around Colin’s waist as he pulses between them. Colin follows quickly, collapsing onto Bradley as he comes, muffling a groan into the crook of Bradley’s neck.
The pair of them just lie there for a good long while, breathing into each other. Bradley’s lying limp on the bed, his legs no longer wrapped around Colin, but he’s loosely wrapped his arms around his waist.
“Mm,” Colin hums after awhile, nudging Bradley’s jaw with his nose and pushing himself up on his elbows to look at him. “Think we should get up before we end up literally sticking together?”
“What, is your come made of hot-glue or something?” Bradley says, raising his eyebrows with a smirk.
Colin purses his lips and squinches them from side to side, giving a considering look. “That’d be more than a bit unsettling.”
Bradley laughs and rolls them over, feeling Colin’s lips spread into a small smile as they kiss. Curling his arms on the pillow above Colin’s head, Bradley props himself up and grins back down at him. Colin’s eyes go soft as he drapes his arms around Bradley’s back, and it feels like the most relaxed, content little world Bradley’s ever made for himself. He slips his tongue between Colin’s lips, and they roll onto their sides again, kissing leisurely. Every touch feels like I know you, every kiss feels like learning each other all over again.
“How ‘bout that cuppa?” Bradley murmurs against his lips after a good long while.
“Mm, need a piss first,” Colin says, yawning over the last word and trying to muffle it in his shoulder. He sits up and rifles around the mess of blankets at their feet and comes up with his underwear, a pair of blue plaid boxer shorts, and grabs his top from last night on his way out the door.
Bradley grunts and swings his legs over the side of the bed to look about for the trousers he’d kicked off last night, finding them pooled halfway beneath the bed and his borrowed Death Cab for Cutie shirt a little ways away. He pulls on the trousers and has just slipped the shirt over his head when he looks up and Colin’s stood in the doorway, leaning against the door frame with a fond little smirk and his arms crossed, his eyes trained on Bradley’s face.
It’s a look Bradley has noticed directed at him for years, but only when people would play back interviews for him, or he’d look at photographs of the pair of them: It seemed to be a particular look of fondness Colin only gave him when he wasn’t looking. Now, in this whole new context, Bradley wonders if he’ll be seeing a lot more of it face to face.
“Tea?” he says, voice a little rough, unable to look away.
“Tea.” Colin nods once and turns to the kitchen, and Bradley follows him.
It’s strange how not strange it is to quietly do such a mundane task as make tea with Colin after it feels their world has been flipped on its back and taught new tricks for them over the course of the night: Bradley pours the water into the electric kettle, while Colin hops onto the counter and reaches for the teabags and mugs.
When Bradley looks up and meets his eyes, Colin’s sat on the countertop with his arms crossed, watching Bradley’s hands as he plugs in the kettle, plucks out two teabags from the tin and drops them into their mugs. Bradley feels his face glow and moves to shove his hands into his pockets but, forgetting these trousers have no pockets, his hands just slide awkwardly down his thighs.
Colin grins and wraps his arms around Bradley’s neck to pull him up into a kiss, as if they’ve already gone too long without touching in the past few minutes. Bradley’s lips spread into a smile against Colin’s as he shuffles between Colin’s legs where they’re dangling off the counter. Opening up for him, Colin hooks his ankles around the backs of Bradley’s thighs and anchors Bradley’s hips to him with his knees.
“You know,” Colin says thoughtfully, watching his own fingers brush delicately across Bradley’s throat, “when I was giving Richard a goodbye hug back at the wrap party last month? He, erm, he gave me advice about you.”
“He what?” Bradley said, laughing.
Colin laughs a bit as well; Bradley can feel it rumble beneath his hands on Colin’s back.
“I was only wishing him all the best with his partner, and he-” Colin laughs again and meets Bradley’s eyes now. “It was practically Great Dragon advice, honestly.”
Bradley laughs. “That cryptic, was it?”
“Not quite, but it was a bit out of nowhere,” Colin says, eyes crinkling. “He told me that I shouldn’t worry about, erm, straying from the sexual identity I’m accustomed to and just focus on caring for whomever I care about.” Colin snorts and adds, “Then he said I should knock that into your thick skull as well.”
Bradley barks a laugh. “He did not say that!”
Colin smirks slyly. “Maybe not verbatim, but that was the gist of it.”
“Well,” Bradley starts, but the kettle whistle interrupts him.
He reaches over and unplugs it, loving the way Colin’s legs tighten around him as he shifts over. Colin picks up the kettle and pours them each a cup to steep.
“I do like that way of thinking about it,” Bradley says, watching Colin carefully pour the boiling water beside them.
“Yeah?” Colin says, setting down the kettle and turning his attention back to Bradley. “I thought so. No need for labels. Only have to, I don’t know-” He shrugs one shoulder and, fluttering a hand against Bradley’s neck, says half-mockingly, half seriously, “-trust how we feel. I mean, attraction has got to be more fluid, right?”
“Apparently?” Bradley says, and gestures over his shoulder toward Colin’s bedroom.
Colin smiles. “Maybe we’re like Jack Harkness, or some-”
“I am not Jack Harkness.”
“Hmm.” Colin pulls a considering look up and down Bradley. “Pity.”
“Oi!” Bradley laughs and pokes him in the stomach.
“No, no, I know,” Colin says, squirming backward and laughing. “We are not Jack Harkness- es. Harknesses? I still mostly fancy girls. It’s just that-” He tilts his head and he looks a bit wondering. “Well. There’s you.”
“Yeah,” Bradley says, voice low and a bit wondering himself. He swallows and raises his voice back to a teasing tone, “Although I must admit, I also fancied Santiago the first time I met him. Just a bit.”
“Don’t blame you. Does anyone not have a thing for Santiago at some point?”
“I think it’s a requirement for being a living, breathing human being.”
Colin looks as though he’s stifling a laugh. “Is there a way to be a living human being minus the breathing part?”
“Well, yes. Not being a part of the Santiago Cabrera fan club, for one. Not much heavy breathing if you don’t fancy that man.”
Colin laughs and wraps his arms around Bradley’s neck again. “I’ve no idea why I’m so fond of you.”
Bradley pokes him in the side. “Hey, look who’s talking. You’re bonkers, you are.”
Colin only lowers his eyelids and hovers closer to Bradley, lips full and nose bumping Bradley’s, until Bradley takes the hint and kisses him, another lingering press that feels like coming home. He runs his palms up and down Colin’s thighs thoughtfully, and Colin hums a little as he pulls away.
He looks down at Bradley with sleepy eyes. “Mm, I like you in my clothes,” he says, reaching down to tug on the hem of the shirt he’d loaned Bradley last night.
Bradley catches his fingers in his own for a moment. “That’s funny, I like you out of your clothes.”
Colin groans and rolls his eyes, but he wraps both arms around Bradley’s waist and laughs, and Bradley’s name tumbles out in the midst of it - not that he says Bradley’s name, but literally breathes out the syllables in laughter.
Bradley grins and a thought occurs to him, something that’d been niggling at the back of his mind ever since they’d last seen each other. “So, tell me something.”
Colin raises his eyebrows.
“Why’d you tell me that your heart likes eating yoghurt?”
“That my-” Colin’s eyebrows scrunch together. “What on earth are you on about?”
“Back at the wrap party,” Bradley says, smoothing his thumb over Colin’s forehead and combing his fingers back in his hair. “You said something to me in Irish then, and I, er, might have asked Eoin to translate, but I guess I didn’t remember the sounds of the words as well as I’d thought because he said it was a load of nonsense.”
“Did he,” Colin says, starting to blush.
“Yes, something about yoghurty hearts.”
The blush reaches the tips of Colin’s ears as he ducks his head. “Oh, erm. That.” A little, embarrassed laugh escapes from his mouth. “Don’t know how Eoin got ‘yoghurt’ from that.”
“Well, then what did you actually say to me?”
“It’s- I’m not sure why I even-” Colin shakes his head, still blushing. He won’t look at Bradley, but he won’t let go of him either.
“Hey.” Bradley says gently, and kisses his jaw.
Colin turns back to him with a bashful smile. It’s a rare one; Bradley usually sees him look so unashamedly himself, honest and generous, but rarely this vulnerable. Here he is, this close with Bradley, and Bradley’s not sure he can breathe for a moment.
“It’s, erm,” Colin says quietly. “It means ‘my heart is at home in you.’”
Oh- oh wait, no, now Bradley can’t breathe.
“It’s one of the many ways in Irish,” Colin goes on, “to say-”
“God, I love you,” Bradley says, words all a rush, and oh fuck. Fuck buggering fuck, now he can feel why he’s never just said that before. Even when he’d been in love before, he was never the first one to say it. Because it’s terrifying, those bloody words are too much, why are they too much.
And Colin just stares, eyes wide, his jaw working up and down soundlessly for a moment, as if he were about to finish his sentence, and Bradley feels more vulnerable than he can remember ever feeling. His gut is churning, there’s a knot in his throat, and some annoying bits of popular love songs are stuck, unwelcome, in his head. All he can do is swallow past the knot and hold Colin’s stare and keep one arm firmly around Colin’s shoulders, the other hand fumbling nervously with the hem of Colin’s shirt. Colin’s skin is warm and sure beneath his knuckles.
Then the smile starts, slowly. Colin looks down again and slips one hand between them to reach for Bradley’s wrist. Cradling it in his hand, Colin’s touch is so gentle, it’s almost unbearable, his thumb pressing against the pulse point and its delicate veins.
When Colin looks back up at him, he’s beaming, and Bradley can breathe again.
“Yeah, Bradley,” Colin says, voice thick with something possibly as ridiculous and wonderful and terrifying as Bradley’s feeling right now as well. “That’s exactly what it means.” He lets go of Bradley’s wrist and brackets his face instead.
Bradley closes his eyes and wobbles a bit on the soles of his feet, overwhelmed. It feels like winning the World Cup and coming home and being more loved and in love than he’s sure he’s ever been. He sinks into the way Colin anchors them together more securely, sliding his hands down to Bradley’s ribs and hitching his legs higher around Bradley’s hips. And it’s not the end of anything when Colin kisses him, because their kiss is tender and present and the taste of what Bradley hopes his future has been saving up for him.