fic: Call It Love (2/3)
Part One
To be sure, there will be interviews and, in only a couple-months’ time, the heartwrenching final episode, and when it airs, Bradley can already predict: Angel will call him in tears that will quickly turn into nostalgia; he and Eoin will go down to the pub afterward and retell familiar stories; and his mum will embarrass him with how proud she is, while his sisters punch him in the arm and remind him he’s still just little Bradley Gregory from Devon. Yes, the end of filming is not quite the end of Merlin, nor its effect on Bradley’s career, but in another sense, this is it.
The only comfort he has, Bradley supposes, is the fact that most everyone around him is just as nervous about the end of all this. Thrilled at the accomplishment and looking forward to new roles and challenges, but still: nervous.
Like, lately, Katie’s habit of talking wildly with her hands when nervous has gotten a bit ridiculous. When he first met her, she’d been the most poised person he knew, in spite of any insecurities, and while she’s still got that going for her, she’s become rather more jittery. Despite his worry over her, it’s oddly comforting to him, watching her slim, pale hands fluttering about in the shadows. Reminds him of one of his earliest memories: being sat on his mother’s knee, his whole world focused down to her hand as she talked to someone else in the room, its graceful arcs and jagged points being made in the air.
Tonight, the whole cast and crew is at the wrap party, a big mess of familiar faces and alcohol and the occasional raucous giggles of Tom and Eoin taking over the room, but right now Bradley is huddled in a corner with Katie, her hands winding around the air as he gets her to tell him what’s the matter.
“I don’t know how to explain it, Bradley,” Katie says, laughter a bit choked, “but I’m actually a bit frightened about what’s going to happen after this. I mean, what am I even-” She waves her hands around inarticulately again.
“Katie, you’re ace,” he says, huffing a laugh. “You can bloody well do anything you want now.”
“Bradley.” She has her little don’t-you-dare-humour-me smirk on, the one that makes her even more blindingly stunning and yet those who know her well know it means business. “It’s not like when we were on break between series. This is- everything is new now.”
Bradley spreads out his hands: see, no jokes here. “Look. So, you originally got into this whole acting thing a bit by accident. So what? You’ve proven yourself, and now you can keep going for it, or you just do those modeling gigs you’ve got lined up and figure it out from there, or- you know, you can set your devious, determined mind to something else, just as you’ve always done.”
Katie’s lips do something funny, wavering as if she doesn’t know how to react to Bradley’s earnestness, but then she reaches out a hand. Bradley flinches, sure she’s going to slap him for the hundredth time since he’s known her, but what she does instead pains him even more because good god, he’s going to miss working with this woman: She grasps his hand across the rickety table and holds on.
“You’re a bit marvelous when you’re not being utterly ridiculous,” she says. “I forget that sometimes.”
He can hear the impending tears in her voice, and it makes him a bit uncomfortable, but he’s helpless to do anything but swallow the knot in his own throat and clutch her hand even more fiercely in return.
Being at a party and not their own private corner, the moment is quickly broken when Emilia stops by (since when are any characters truly dead on this show?), and Katie squeezes his hand once more before she exclaims, "Millie! Oh come here!" and jumps up to cling to her instead.
Bradley stands up to get another drink. On his way to the bar, he accidentally catches Colin's eyes across the room where he's chatting with Richard. Colin’s eyes crinkle at the corners, and Bradley offers him a weak smile, feeling sick as this whole ending thing really starts to settle in his gut.
"Remember that time last summer,” Colin says a moment later, sneaking up beside him at the open bar, "when you drank so much tequila you wouldn't stop making all of us dance with you."
Bradley grins at his pint, feeling warm all of a sudden in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol, and the sick feeling subsides a little. "You were a good sport about it, considering you didn't want to go clubbing in the first place."
Colin knocks his shoulder against Bradley's. "You have always had a way with bullying me into things."
Bradley turns to look at him and grins at that extra layer of ease that comes out when Colin's had a few. "You say bully; I say I'm verrry persuasive."
"You are that," Colin says, nodding, and Bradley huffs a laugh.
(He remembers the way Colin had felt against him that night at the club, when he'd stolen Colin from his comfortable little world of joking on the sidelines, and literally pulled him onto the dance floor. Colin had looked at him like he was mad, and he probably was, wrapping his fingers around Colin's slim wrist and tugging him harder than he’d intended - Colin had stumbled forward, catching himself with a hand on Bradley's chest, and Bradley'd been wearing a deep v-neck top, so Colin's long fingers had pressed for a moment against Bradley's bare skin and chest hair, the contact met with sweat and the claustrophobic heat of the club.
Colin had laughed uncomfortably, but Bradley had let go of his wrist and started dancing like a madman to the M.I.A. song and Colin's laughter turned easy and familiar.
"C'mon, Col, show me your moooves," Bradley had shouted, so Colin’d pursed his lips, formed fists, and shake-shaked his arms above his head for a second, before folding back into himself from the force of embarrassed laughter.
“What on earth!” Bradley had shrieked into the blare of the music, his voice going laughterously high at the end, but Colin had just dropped his forehead to Bradley’s shoulder, the two of them laughing drunkenly against one another for the rest of the song.)
Colin looks down at Bradley's drink and goes quiet in that Colin-y way he has where it's more than just silence: It's the loudest sort of quiet Bradley knows, because the entire time Bradley's shouting inside his own head, "What are you thinking? Col? Collllinnnn. I bet the next thing you say is going to make me fall even more in love with you, Colin.” And the thing is, he's not been wrong yet.
"You wanna, ermm," Colin starts, and Bradley thinks Yes, "go outside for a bit?"
"Bit of air would be brilliant right now," Bradley says stupidly and downs the rest of his drink.
They find their jackets and go out into the cool October night, their elbows jostling each other a bit as they walk.
“So,” Bradley says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and leaning against the wall of the building.
“So.” Colin nods, as if they’d just agree on something.
“I wonder if I’ll actually get to work with a guy who speaks English on the next job I get,” Bradley says, for old times’ sake, that sort of teasing years’ gone.
Colin just rolls his eyes. “I wonder if I’ll actually get to work with a guy who isn’t so bloody English.”
“Hey, I resent that.”
“And I resent you for not being able to understand my accent for weeks,” Colin says, but Bradley can tell by the look in his eyes that he doesn’t, not really.
“Talking of you Irish,” Bradley says, grinning when Colin gives him a warning look, “you know Katie’s worried about not getting work after this.”
“What, on film?”
“On anything. Except for those high fashion shoots she’s got lined up.”
“Rubbish, she’ll be fine.”
“That’s what I said. Anything she puts her mind to, that girl.”
Colin quirks a smile at him. “How inspirational of you.”
“Oh, shut it.” He looks down at their shoes, at the strip of concrete between the possibility of their toes touching. “Can’t say I don’t blame her for worrying though, yeah.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean I’ve learned a lot these past five years, but c’mon, mate.” Bradley angles a pointed look at him. “We both know I’m not the one whose doors are being knocked down with offers.”
“What are you-” Colin starts, then goes from baffled to angry in a second flat. “My doors are just fine. And I know for a fact that you’ve gotten offers as well! What are you on about?”
“It’s only that-” Bradley snorts and looks back down at their shoes, admits in an embarrassed voice, “What if this is it and I’m only ever going to be known as Arthur? What if I won’t ever be good enough as any-”
“You!” Bradley’s head startles back to attention as Colin suddenly steps into his space, practically shouting. “You can be so full of yourself, it’s almost like you’re being bloody method about Arthur, but god, Bradley.” He looks sad all of a sudden. “Sometimes when it comes to actually having faith in how amazing you- your acting is . . .” He shakes his head.
“Col, whoa, it’s not like I’m giving it up, I- I love the process too much,” Bradley says, raising his hand toward Colin’s arm only to let it hover for a moment and drop back to his side.
“Bradley,” Colin says, furrowing his brow and lowering his voice, which is far more intimidating than if he’d gone back to the shouting. “You’re more than that. You’re passionate and growing with every take, and your joy about- about-” His hand windmills for a second. “-being in this world comes out every time you sodding move, so be a little more optimistic, yeah?”
“I,” Bradley tries, jaw working soundlessly for a moment afterward, stunned. No, no, that’s how I see you, you’ve got it reversed, he wants to say, but instead stammers, “I- okay?” Why do people keep leaving Bradley with nothing but a knot in his throat and an overwhelming sense of gratitude lately? These aren’t the sides of endings that Bradley’s accustomed to.
This certainly isn’t a side of Colin that he’s used to either. He reckons he’s seen Colin lose his temper - well and truly lost it, no filter or ounce of politeness pouring out of him - only once before: last year, when he read news reports about renewed rioting and bombing in Belfast. He’d shouted at the newspaper about peace and violence and the past never being bloody over for a solid five minutes before he put on his enormous headphones (god knows Bradley’s been holding back on “big headphones for big ears” jokes for years) and closed-in on himself for another ten. Bradley was the only other person in the room at the time, and he was left a bit shell-shocked, seeing Colin so passionate in such a furious way.
This, here, feels like that, yet different. He isn’t talking about life and death, war and religion, history and nationalism; he’s just talking about Bradley, as if that’s worth losing anything over, temper or otherwise. As if Colin believes in him just as much as he believes in a peaceful Ireland, or refraining from eating animals, or working hard for what you want out of life.
“Bradley,” Colin starts again, eyes dangerous, stepping forward, except he must’ve miscalculated how close they already were, because before he can finish, he stumbles directly into Bradley.
“Hey, hey,” Bradley murmurs, wrapping his hands firmly around Colin’s biceps to catch him.
“Sorry,” Colin murmurs back to him, his anger dissipating as soon as it’d arisen. One of his hands has pressed against a spot just below Bradley’s ribs, his warmth seeping through the peacoat. “I mean, about the clumsiness, but also.” He swallows, not breaking eye contact. “About the- rant. I’m-” He swallows and runs a hand through his hair with a little laugh. “I’m so tired.”
“I’d only ever seen you get that angry about violence in Northern Ireland,” Bradley blurts out, still a bit stunned.
Colin slowly lowers his hand from Bradley’s torso and raises his eyebrows. “Are you seriously equating the Troubles to your sorry excuse for actor’s self-esteem?”
Bradley can feel his face flush a little, then even more when he realises he’s still holding onto Colin’s arms. He drops his hands; Colin doesn’t step back. “Well, not when you put it that way. That makes me sound like an absolute wanker.”
“What other way is there to put it?” Colin asks, but he looks more amused than annoyed. “Me mam would not stand for that sort of talk. She doesn’t know you as well as I do, she’d have your ear for that.”
Bradley pauses midway through running an embarrassed hand through his hair. “Well, I suppose she does have quite a lot of experience with ears, what with your-”
“Oi!” Colin says, laughing.
Pleased that he hasn’t offended Colin so badly he can’t still make him laugh, Bradley tries to clarify. “It’s just, um, the way you reacted, it- means a lot that you-” He can’t bring himself to say the phrase believe in me without feeling so utterly soppy they’ll both end up vomiting on each other. “That you believe all of that. About- me,” he manages, awkward as a crab.
The laughter melts away from Colin’s face as if it were never there, until he’s simply looking at Bradley as if- oh bugger, Bradley knows that look: It’s the one where Colin wants to say something, but won’t let himself.
Colin has the most expressive face of anyone Bradley knows: dozens and dozens of looks and counting, whether they’re his own or bred out of the characters he’s been. Sometimes his intent is obvious, sometimes subtle, but Bradley has catalogued them all. Near the beginning of the first series, when he and Colin were still a bit unsure of each other as proper mates, even though they’d found a rhythm as castmates, Bradley often felt like he had two jobs: learning Prince Arthur and learning Colin Morgan. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s developed a Rolodex (because his brain would be that analogue regarding Colin, wouldn’t it) labeled Ways to Decipher the Subtleties of Colin Morgan, and they’re all there, one after a-flipping-nother.
What is it? What can’t you tell me? Is it what I can’t bring myself to tell you? he wants to ask Colin now, but his throat closes up, like an allergic reaction to confrontation, and the moment for opportunity ends with a tilt of Colin’s head away from their little bubble of privacy.
“Right,” Bradley says abruptly, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning to walk back inside, his face burning in frustration and embarrassment and anger that he can’t find the courage to just kiss him and find out if Colin wants this. “If we’re sorted here-”
Quite suddenly, Bradley cannot move another step - or at least not without dragging along the long-limbed idiot who’s launched himself at him.
To say Colin hugging him out of nowhere is unexpected would be the understatement of his life - it's Bradley who's embarrassingly physical with his affections, not Colin. But sure enough, Colin’s wrapped his arms around Bradley, holding him gingerly, as if he's afraid Bradley will do something crazy like object.
"Col, hey," is all Bradley can say, tone gentle as he slips his arms up around Colin’s shoulder blades, breathing into the side of his neck, right behind Colin’s ear. He smells like make-up remover and fresh earth and the history of paper, and it’s all so achingly familiar, Bradley wishes he’d never have to miss this.
"Tá mo croí istigh iota," Colin murmurs after a long moment, his breath tickling Bradley's ear, voice a bit rough at the end.
Bradley blinks. He hasn’t been this nonplussed by the things coming out of Colin’s mouth since the first couple months they were trying to find their footing with each other.
"Wh-what?" Bradley stutters, pulling apart to meet Colin's eyes, but Colin's already looking down at their feet, shaking his head. “Was that- Irish?”
"Erm, it was?” he says with a little laugh. “I don’t know what I-" He rubs his hands on his thighs and doesn’t finish the thought. When he looks back up at Bradley, he’s flushed, and Bradley can’t tell if it’s because they’ve been drinking, or from the cold weather, or that-
Colin’s mouth twists in embarrassment. Right. There’s one thing answered then.
"What are you doing talking Irish at me?" Bradley laughs a little in an attempt to lighten the mood. He doesn’t know what on earth just happened, only that the space between them feels fraught with things Bradley’s afraid to touch right now. "You know how rubbish I am at any language but English, Cols.”
"It was just nonsense.” Colin smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes one bit. “Really."
Bradley's sure he's lying; for such a brilliant actor, Colin-as-himself is the worst liar Bradley knows.
“Weirdo,” Bradley says, still afraid to push him.
“Weirdo-er,” Colin says, smile starting to reach his eyes at that.
Bradley barks a laugh.
Colin looks down at his feet again, and when he looks up his eyes look sad over his see-this-is-me-happy smile. “I just can’t believe it’s over,” he says, accent even thicker than usual, something that Bradley’s only ever heard when Colin is either very tired, very drunk, or very- well- distraught. That last one is a state that Bradley has fortunately not seen him in very often.
Bradley has to swallow a couple times before he can say, in his best impression of cheerfulness, "Hey, at least you’ll still have me, right?”
"Right, but." Colin shrugs one shoulder. "It'll be- strange. Not working together anymore, that is.”
Bradley sighs. "Yes, it will at that. But we’ll still- er, it’s not like we won’t see each other in London.”
“Of course, but,” Colin goes on, “I’m visiting Neil in the States and then I’ll be in Armagh for a bit and then, yeah, I’ll be back in London, but-” He shrugs again. “If we’re lucky, if we get a continuous flow of work, who knows where we’ll be this time next year.”
“Cheer up, mate,” Bradley says, putting on his best smile. “Maybe we’ll be unemployed by then and can hang out together whenever we please.”
“Well,” Colin says thoughtfully, mood shifting, and Bradley gets that little thrill again, that sense that whatever comes out of Colin’s mouth next is going to make Bradley fall for him even more. “If we do hit a point in our lives when no one wants us to act anymore,” he says, “we could easily turn to a life of crime.”
Bradley manfully does not lose his composure and ruin Colin’s admirably straight face. “Don’t forget the murder,” he adds without another thought, because this, right here, is what Colin Morgan has done to Bradley’s sense of humour.
“Oh, yes, I thought that was implied. Trail of bodies a mile wide between us.” Colin stretches out his arms in an approximate measurement.
Bradley rubs his chin with thumb and forefinger and purses his lips in consideration. “But what exactly would we kill them all for?”
“Oh, a few quid. Maybe a bit of gold?”
“Right, right.” Bradley snaps his fingers and points his idea. “And jewels!”
“Jewels!” Colin smacks his palm flat against his forehead. “Of course!”
“Which we’d give to Angel and Katie upon pain of death,” Bradley says, facing his palm to the sky as if to a serving dish.
“Naturally.”
“Naturally.”
Colin puts a hand on Bradley’s arm, suddenly serious. “And we can’t forget the popcorn.”
Bradley tries to ignore the warm weight of his hand. “Popcorn on a murder spree?”
“Yes,” Colin says, like it’s obvious, and retracts his hand. “We’d raid their kitchens and steal their popcorn. It’s only fair. I reckon we’d be pretty sad about all the killing.”
Bradley nods. “Popcorn does cheer us up.”
“Ay, one of the few foods we agree upon.”
Bradley sighs, long-suffering. “I suppose I’ll have to do all the driving of our murder mobile?”
“Well, yes. It’d look suspicious if I finally got my license and then disappeared and bodies started popping up all across the countryside.”
“Good point. You can navigate.”
“Ooh, maybe we should do this in America - easier to get our hands on guns there, don’t you think?”
Bradley nods. “Bit poetic: Bonnie and Clyde, Bradley and Colin.”
“Yes,” Colin says with a mischievous gleam in his eyes, “it’s our destiny to be a robbing, murdering bad-arse duo. Our destiny based on alliteration.”
“Our fans will be so disappointed in us.”
“True,” Colin says, then purses his lips and squints upward. “Maybe we should reconsider.”
“Maybe . . . for the fans. No other reason, really.”
Colin whistles a note of relief. “Good thing we have such loyal fans.”
“Or else,” Bradley says dramatically.
“Or else we’d already be on the road to destruction,” Colin agrees.
“Just a car, a gun, and some Johnny Cash,” Bradley says, turning to the side and framing his hands out like he’s envisioning this on film.
“We would’ve shot a man in Sligo just to watch him die,” Colin says, shaking his head mournfully.
Finally, Bradley gives in and lets out his built-up laughter so hard his head hits the stone wall behind him, so he’s rubbing at the back of his head and still laughing, when he sets off Colin, his body curving toward Bradley’s.
It’s one of those moments where Bradley reflects upon just how much they’ve affected each other’s sense of humour these past few years: In his first weeks of knowing Colin he would have been bemused, at best, by the mere suggestion of the elaborate dark comedy they’ve unraveled. But now, this is one of the many facets of their shared sense of humour, and Colin makes Bradley laugh more than anyone else he knows, these moments all their own.
“Hey,” Bradley says after their laughter starts to settle, realising he’s found himself another in. “Talking of road trips.”
“What about them?” Colin says.
“What ever happened to us driving back up to Mold together?” Bradley’s heart is beating so hard, you’d think he was proposing something far more meaningful than a road trip right now.
Colin raises his eyebrows. “To the Arthurian library?”
“I know we haven’t discussed it in a long time, but-”
“That could be fun,” Colin says, smiling hesitantly.
Bradley takes a small step closer to him. “We could-”
“Bradley! Colin!” Eoin shouts, breaking into their little bubble all of a sudden. He, Tom, Adetomiwa, and Rupert have come piling out the door, all in various states of undress.
“There you are,” Tom says, rubbing at his bare arms in the cold. “We’ve been looking all about for you.”
“Katie’s found a nice dark little corner and convinced us we should play Strip Top Trumps,” Rupert explains, shivering in nothing more than a scarf, a floppy-eared hat, and boxer pants.
“And we’re all losing,” Adetomiwa adds, gesturing at his bare chest and feet.
“I refuse to bare my manhood without the pair of you embarrassing yourselves at my sides,” Eoin says, himself wearing nothing but a rather flattering pair of boxer-briefs and tube socks. He grabs Bradley and Colin’s arms and attempts to haul them both inside.
“Dear god, man, I will join you in any game, as long as you never refer to your ‘manhood’ ever again,” Bradley says.
He meets Colin’s eyes, and they burst out laughing all over again as the six of them troop back inside.
Oh, well, Bradley thinks. There will be other times he can find the chance to tell Colin; there won’t be any more nights when he can sit down with all his castmates and make utter fools of each other.
________________________________________________________________
Everyone had agreed, some tearfully, to say their goodbyes at the wrap party, simultaneously trying to make it last and trying not to linger so long it felt like a final goodbye, like maybe if they treated this ending casually enough it would mean they’d actually be back here again in four months just like after every other wrap party. But Bradley had felt a rush of emotion with each and every one of them, with every “so here’s the next step in in my life” conversation, with every embrace, every clink of their pints. He knows he’ll see many of them from time to time, he knows he’ll see Eoin and the rest of his knights probably most of the bloody time, but it will never be the same outside of this situation, and it makes his chest twinge at every farewell.
In the morning, it turns out to be the original four of them who ride in the same car of the Eurostar back to London together. In the seats across from Bradley and Colin, Angel and Katie are dozing with their heads supporting one another, while Colin reads some tome of a thing and Bradley sleepily fiddles with Anthony’s pink Nintendo DS that he had finally just let Bradley have after all the times he’d stolen it. He wants to take a nap, but he also doesn’t want to lose any second of his remaining time with these people.
They’re about halfway through the trip when Colin looks up from his book and says, “So, now that I won’t be around to make you read actual books, does this mean you’ll never read again?” Colin asks it with the same sort of wistfulness as someone in a film might say never love again, and Bradley has to laugh to keep the sentimentality at bay, turning off the DS and shoving it into his pocket.
“You know me, Col,” he says, sounding more carefree than he feels at the moment.
Colin heaves his best comically long-suffering sigh. “Ay, I do.”
“Who knows,” Bradley adds, heartened by that, “maybe I’ll make you proud and give another go at Goblet of Fire. You know, for the dragons.”
Colin just chuckles, long given up on actually converting Bradley into a literary type. “Daft nutter,” he murmurs fondly, nudging Bradley’s shoulder with his own and turning back to his book.
“You wouldn’t have me any other way,” Bradley says, matter-of-fact, and slouches in his seat, letting himself slip down into a nap against Colin’s shoulder. It’s gotten a bit softer over the past year or so; Colin’s body is still angular, but where he used to be skinny and jutting bones, he’s grown a bit softer around the edges and more finely muscled, and Bradley can’t complain one bit.
“Mm,” Colin hums quietly in agreement.
A moment later, Bradley’s sure he feels Colin brush his fingers against the fringe on his forehead, but the touch only lasts for a second, and later - blinking in the empty glow of his own flat, trying to readjust to the fact that he’ll never again be Arthur and Colin will never again be Merlin at his side - Bradley supposes he’d only imagined the touch.
________________________________________________________________
Honestly, it’s not as though he’s been pining over Colin for all these years. Not really.
They’re friends. They were co-stars. He loves him. It’s simple. Except in that way where no love is ever simple, he s’poses; Bradley doesn’t really spare a ton of time for philosophising about love, okay.
What he does know is this: Before the series ended, he’d only had the occasional night of lying in bed alone, wishing for Colin beside him, but now that it’s over? God, all that pent-up yearning that used to simmer at a low ache when he got to be with Colin every day, now it takes him ages to fall asleep for the power of it.
So, okay, fine, now Bradley is pining, and he’s not sure how to deal with it.
He’s only been back in London for a few nights, but every bloody night he’s had to climb out of bed and run laps around his neighborhood in the attempt to exhaust his thoughts and body enough to be able to sleep. He weaves around people on the sidewalks, around dogs on leashes and people spilling from bars and loitering in his path, and all he can focus on is the burn of his muscles and rhythm of his breath and a clear path in front of him to keep moving.
The daytime is more difficult. Ever since he’s been home, he’s basically done nothing but crash on the couch in front of footie matches and old favourite films he can quote in their entirety (I’ll stop doing it when you stop laughing), hunched over Pot Noodle, as if he’s in uni again, not a star actor in between roles.
After a couple days, he starts to rifle through his copy of Romeo and Juliet, highlighting his Mercutio lines, figuring he should start memorising even though rehearsals don’t start until the new year. But by the time he gets to the line If love be rough with you, be rough with love, all he can think of is Colin, and he throws the book aside to go for a mid-day jog.
It’s not that he doesn’t have a life outside of Colin; it’s more like he’s momentarily forgotten how to function in it without the promise of Colin in his days to center him. Every time he picks up his phone to ring an old friend and let them know he’s back in town, he puts it back down and wonders what he’d even suggest they do together. It always works like this: takes him awhile to sink back into socialising with anyone who isn’t Merlin-related, as if his eight-months away from reality have made him somehow less receptive to the rest of the world, strangely anti-social and confused about how to relate to people who haven’t been living in the same bubble he’s been living in for the majority of each year.
________________________________________________________________
On Day Five of what he’s dubbed in his head Operation: Do Not Pine for Colin, he fails terribly at the operation and texts Eoin: Think you can translate some Irish for me? ta mo croi ith iogart - what’s that rubbish?
He doesn’t even have a flatmate to judge him for holing up in his flat all day, since Eoin decided to bugger off to Dublin to spend their first week back with family. Bradley had considered going down to Devon to recuperate by letting his mother feed him and decide on his schedule for awhile, but he’ll be back there in no time for a lengthy Christmastime visit, and he thought this would be good for him, moving back to his and Eoin’s flat in London first to try to remember who he is without Merlin taking over his life.
what on earth are you doing over there without me? Eoin texts back. my heart is yoghurty, or eating yoghurt, or... my irish is a bit rusty but whatever that is it’s nonsense.
piss off, the flat will still be here when you get back. I was just curious, he texts back.
But all he can think now is: My heart. My heart? My heart.
Colin bloody Morgan: enigma as usual.
________________________________________________________________
On Day Six of Operation: Do Not Pine for Colin, the operation’s namesake texts him with maybe I should move to New York with my brother, this city is amazing, and Bradley chokes on his tea at the thought of Colin living that far away from him.
Still coughing, he gives in to the urge to text back, You’d get overwhelmed by having too many things to do there.
...and how is that any different from London? Colin shoots back a moment later.
After that, Bradley doesn’t respond, because he honestly cannot think of an argument against Colin staying in New York City that doesn’t involve Why would you DO that? You need to stay wherever I am, and the unselfish part of him cares too much about Colin to ever wish for him to be anywhere that doesn’t make him happy.
He picks up Romeo and Juliet to distract himself instead and is actually getting somewhere with the Queen Mab monologue when, a few hours later, Colin texts him again with, Right. Never mind. Americans are even worse at understanding my accent than you were when we first met.
Bradley can’t help but feel relieved.
________________________________________________________________
On Day Seven of Operation: Do Not Pine For Colin, Bradley shakes things up a bit by sprawling on the sofa with Indian take-away instead of Pot Noodle.
Should I be worried I haven’t left my flat since we got back from shooting? he texts Georgia.
You??? Yes very worried. If you start peeing in bottles like Howard Hughes I am sending Tom over there to get your head out of your arse, Georgia texts back a few minutes later. She’s out in LA to co-star in some American indie feature, but she must be on a break right now.
What if instead of being like Howard Hughes I end up like Leonardo DiCaprio AS Howard Hughes? thus improving my acting skills and maybe even securing myself a role in the next Scorsese film? Maybe I SHOULDN’T leave my flat!
Bradleyyy, go play footie and get out of your head for a tic. I cannot be expected to learn my lines right now AND parse the bizarre workings of your brain. Don’t you have your own lines to learn?
It’s Mercutio. Come on. I was born for this role.
I hope when you get there you find out they actually cast you as Benvolio.
I HATE YOU.
Oh look at the time. Laters! GET OUT OF YOUR BLOODY FLAT x
MAYBE I WILL THEN, he texts, punching hard at the keys, but he begrudgingly adds an X of his own, because Georgia is still sort of one of his best mates, and their five-minute texting conversation was sort of the highlight of his afternoon.
“Oh, bugger,” he says to his roti. “I do need to get out of here.”
He immediately rings Tom, Rupert, and Adetomiwa - bless them for living in the same city during Bradley’s time of need and being secretly almost as terrible at rejoining the real world as Bradley has been - and spends the rest of the evening pointedly not thinking about anything but football.
________________________________________________________________
On Day Eight of Operation: Do Not Pine for Colin, Bradley is sat on his sofa, looking fondly at his Soccer Six trophies he’d just unpacked onto the mantle and congratulating himself for leaving the flat the night before, when Eoin bursts through the door.
“Honey, I’m home!” he announces in a terrible American accent.
“Mate!” Bradley grins and opens his arms in genuine joy. Eoin, of course, drops his luggage by the door, and takes this gesture as an invitation to tackle Bradley to the sofa.
“Rupert tells me that, before last night, you hadn’t even left the flat,” Eoin says, stuffing Bradley’s face into a throw pillow. “At all.”
“Hwyouvnowbt?” Bradley gurgles into the upholstery. He twists and struggles for a moment until he can shove Eoin off him. “Wanker,” he says, finally knocking Eoin across to the other side of the sofa, but they’re both breathless and laughing, and when Bradley takes a deep breath, he feels as fantastic and himself as he’d felt last night.
“So what’s with the isolation act?” Eoin says, settling into the corner of the sofa with his arms crossed, looking at home and concerned.
“How’d you even know about that?”
“Rupert heard from Tom, who heard from Georgia.”
“Bloody Georgia,” Bradley grumbles. Small wonder he’d never stayed friends with any of his other exes.
“Right. So.” Eoin raises his eyebrows, waiting.
“So nothing. What?”
“So, you don’t have to tell me why that is, but I’m here now and I refuse to have a homebody for a flatmate.”
“Right. Sorry?” Bradley swipes a hand over his face. “I don’t even know what . . .”
He trails off as his eyes catch on the Soccer Six trophies again, but this time he doesn’t think of the fun of those matches with the sun bright on the wide, green pitch, nor the camaraderie of his teammates; this time, he remembers one morning when Colin stopped by his room with tea and nearly burnt Bradley’s chest with its spillage because he’d been laughing so hard over the sight of Bradley and his trophies, all tucked into bed together the night after the match.
Bradley really needs to work on accomplishing this stupid operation. Problem is, he was always better at Operation: Insert Ridiculous Title Here when he had Colin working alongside him.
Eoin quite suddenly tackles Bradley back into a pillow, face-first.
“That’s it,” he says, before releasing him and standing up from the sofa. “You are going to stop being a pod person and be Bradley again.”
“Pardon?”
“We’re going to the pub.”
________________________________________________________________
Sometimes when Bradley goes for a run in London, he pretends he’s in a montage sequence in a movie.
With Eoin back in their flat, Bradley’s been finding it easier to return to living as the extrovert he’s always been: mornings practising his lines, afternoons catching up with old friends or playing footie, nights drinking and laughing at the pub. He doesn’t have to run himself to sleep at night any longer, but nearly every evening, before he meets up with his mates at the pub, he goes for a run anyhow. Perhaps because, now, it’s the only time of day he allows his thoughts to linger on Colin for longer than a few minutes before he purposefully distracts himself.
So, he runs, often with something ridiculous like the Chariots of Fire theme shuffling on his iPod, which frankly just makes him feel like he should be running in slow-mo. Other times, a corny ‘80s song like “Break the Ice” comes on, which really supports the movie montage feel to his run. It’s not terribly difficult to imagine in certain iconic settings, especially when he decides to branch out from his neighborhood and run along the Thames for a long, cool evening run just as the Parliament buildings and the Eye are lit up.
And as John Farnham sings something ridiculous about goin’ it alone, waiting for the one person who can break the ice inside of him, Bradley thinks about Colin. The tourists are making a racket on the riverboats, the mice are peeping about the benches, and the couples are walking hand-in-hand on their way to a night they know will turn out grand no matter what, because they have each other. It’s all happening around him, but he’s running through it, caught in his own thoughts and memories.
If this were a movie montage, his mind would be projecting all those random little moments with Colin that somehow add up: The time Colin threw Bradley a disarming grin over his shoulder as they ran recklessly through the castle corridors. The first time they realised the best way to do vocal warm-ups was to make up stupid songs together. The time they stood on a Welsh hilltop, shoulder-to-shoulder speechless at the muddy green countryside laid out before them. He wonders what Colin’s doing right now: if he’s still in New York, exploring that mad city and unwittingly charming total strangers, or if perhaps he’s back in Armagh by now, doing nothing but lying about reading on the couch while his mum spoils him with all the foods he loves to eat.
Bradley dodges another couple who’s not paying attention to where they’re walking, and he wonders what sort of couple he and Colin would be if given the chance. Would they be not all that much different from who they are now? He can imagine the pair of them walking along the river on their way to the theatre, with Bradley yammering on about nothing important and Colin smiling small and amused in all the right places. Bradley knows sometimes Colin has so much to say that he doesn’t say any of it, and he’s sure Colin knows sometimes Bradley doesn’t know what to say so he says everything. It’d be easy and familiar like that, and perhaps the only difference would be if Bradley gave in to the urge to hold his hand. Perhaps he would awkwardly fit his hand into Colin’s as their arms bumped together with the rhythm of their steps, or perhaps-
Well, that’s neither here nor there, is it? Bradley shakes his head at his soppy thoughts and picks up the pace, finding a clear path through the evening hubbub and sticking to it.
________________________________________________________________
Nearly a month to the day since the series wrapped, Bradley realises he’s slipped into his new routine like an old pair of shoes, comfortable with his fresh yet familiar life, even as he feels strangely bereft without Colin in it daily. Still, he appreciates things about his life between roles, like the freedom to have the occasional lie-in like a normal person who doesn’t need to be on set at bollocks o’clock in the morning.
“I slept ‘til half five today,” Eoin announces one evening at the pub, then sprawls himself halfway across their table to add, “Half five in the evening.”
“That’s why you didn’t show up at the flat today?” Bradley says, incredulous.
Tom whistles low. “Were you up late at whatshername’s last night?”
Eoin slouches back in his chair with a smug look.
“All I did last night was play Wii Swordfighting,” Rupert says glumly.
“Wow,” Bradley says, laughing. “I can’t decide if that’s the most depressing thing I’ve heard all week, or if I wish I’d been there to fake swordfight with you.”
“You should’ve rung us, mate,” Adetomiwa decides.
“Not me,” Eoin says with a slosh of his pint. “Was rather busy with a particularly fine lady.”
Bradley snorts. “The five of us have been coming here nearly every day for, what, a month now? And I can count on one hand the number of times you haven’t pulled.”
“I’m a charmer, what can I say,” Eoin says.
“That’s one word for it,” Adetomiwa mutters into his pint.
“Oi,” Eoin says, elbowing him, but there’s no heat in it. “Any one of your dashing young selves could just as easily be meeting people here.”
Dashing young selves? Rupert mouths across the table at Bradley with a quirked eyebrow.
“We are disgustingly handsome men, it’s true,” Bradley says with a long-suffering sigh that morphs into laughter as Rupert and Adetomiwa roll their eyes, Tom bursts out laughing, and Eoin exclaims, “Honestly, we are. Why are the rest of you not acting on that?”
“Hey, I haven’t been completely hopeless,” Tom protests, and Bradley swears he can see him flex his admittedly impressive biceps for emphasis. “I had a night or two.”
“‘Or two’? Do you not remember?” Adetomiwa says.
“I just don’t brag about it like Eoin here,” Tom says with a grin.
“Chatting up girls in pubs . . .” Rupert trails off into a grimace. “Not really my style.”
Bradley’s phone vibrates in his pocket.
“What is your style when it’s at home?” Tom says, grinning.
Just got back in London! reads the text. From Colin. Bradley goes embarrassingly warm all over. Looking forward to seeing you for Graham Norton tomorrow!
Sorry, who are you again? Bradley texts back, even though his brain has now been taken over by Colin tomorrow Colin tomorrow Colin tomorrow, the two words quickly blurring into a strange inner sound of Colntmrr, which sounds vaguely Welsh in his head. Operation: Do Not Pine for Colin never quite has been accomplished, even if he did get better at distracting himself.
He grabs blindly at his pint and takes a long gulp, eyes glued to his mobile. It doesn’t disappoint, buzzing back quickly with: Just for that, you are not getting the ridiculous NY souvenir I brought back for you.
I think I’ll survive without an I Heart NY shirt, thank you very much.
Please. Give my imagination a little more credit.
Oh oh did you get me one of those manhole cover doormats that Neil was threatening to get you as a housewarming gift?
No manholes. You are snort-giggling over that word right now aren’t you
Bradley may or may not be doing just that, but texting conversations mean he doesn’t necessarily have to admit to it. I neither confirm nor deny. What, did you find something Merrrliny?
All the shops were sold out of Statue of Liberty snowglobes in which she’s brandishing a wand and wearing a wizard’s hat.
Buggerrr. How about a tiny yellow cab with a dragon driving it?
You know, some guy was selling those by the dozen in Times Square but I didn’t even think of the great dragon.
You do know I’ve been to New York as well and that does not sound as implausible as you think it does.
How do you know I’m making that up then? Maybe there IS an old man on the corner of 45th Street with a blanket spread of dragon cabs for sale.
Your brain never stops being a strange place to see, mate
Likewise
Really, what did you get for me?
One of those subway line t-shirts
O...kay?
It’s the signs for the F M & L train lines
Bradley bursts out laughing. It’s only then that he looks up from his mobile to reach for his pint and meets four sets of amused eyes. His face twinges a bit from grinning in his own little Bradley & Colin World for the past little while, completely tuning out the conversation going on around him.
“Well, well, well,” Tom says. “Who’s the lucky bird then?”
“Hang on, what?” Eoin says, holding up a hand. “You’ve been seeing someone and I somehow don’t know about it?”
“What?” Bradley says, beyond confused, still thinking of Colin.
“You just disappeared into a texting frenzy, mate,” Tom explains. “And you were grinning like- like a dope the entire time.”
“I was n-”
“Like a lovesick dope,” Adetomiwa clarifies, not unkindly.
“I beg your- hey!”
Tom’s neatly snatched up Bradley’s phone before he can defend it.
“Wait, what? It’s just Colin,” Tom says, forehead creased.
Eoin and Adetomiwa burst out laughing, but Rupert very calmly explains, “Hopper, of course it’s Colin,” and Bradley makes a grab for his phone, quickly stuffing it back into his pocket.
“You’re shagging Colin?” Tom all but shrieks.
“Whoa, Tom.” Rupert sits up straight at that. “You really didn’t know?”
“Colin and I are not shagging!” Bradley insists, panicky.
“Well, we know that,” Rupert says. “I just meant. Er.” He glances at Eoin then Adetomiwa for help.
“We’ve seen the pair of you, Bradley,” Eoin says. “We guessed, ages ago, that you two were aiming to get together.”
“And you’re-” Bradley flaps his hand about for the right words. “You guys would be okay with that if we were?”
Rupert, Eoin, and Adetomiwa give him incredulous looks.
“Of course we’d be ‘okay’ with that,” Rupert says.
Bradley feels his shoulders relax, just a bit.
“Who’s we?” Tom says, sounding as out of the loop as Bradley feels at the moment.
Adetomiwa shoots him a look.
“No, no, not like I’d be homophobic about it,” Tom says. “I mean, why has no one told me about it before now?”
“Figured you’d noticed on your own,” Adetomiwa says, shrugging.
“Besides,” adds Rupert, “it was mostly speculation anyway.”
“Not like those two had actually sealed the deal,” Eoin says with a nod, then smirks and adds, “Didn’t think you needed a warning about receiving a wedding invitation quite yet.”
Bradley slumps to the table with a groan and hides his burning face in his arms. This, right here, is why he’s never tried to talk about his Feelings for Colin with any of his friends. Sure, there’d always been a tiny bit of worry that they’d be uncomfortable with it, but mostly he’d known they’d take the piss and he’d just embarrass himself further.
Rupert pats his shoulder with a sardonic, “There, there.”
Bradley swats at his hand and lifts his head with a scowl. “There is no me and Colin, okay?” he says, glaring around the table, trying to ignore the way his chest hurts when he says that.
Tom is beginning to look sceptical. Eoin, Adetomiwa, and Rupert look as though they flat-out don’t believe him.
“There’s not, okay? I don’t even know if he- if that’s something he can- you know what?” He downs the rest of his pint in one go and stands up. “We are not discussing this.”
“Whoa, whoa!” Eoin calls after him, the rest of them clambering out of their chairs as well.
Bradley stops and turns, swiping a hand over his face and shoulders sagging as he admits aloud, “I’ve been trying to get over this, okay?”
“Maybe you don’t have to,” Rupert offers delicately, and Bradley raises his gaze to his. Rupert gives a supportive little nod.
“Yeah, isn’t Colin coming back to London soon?” Eoin says encouragingly.
“There’s that Graham Norton thing tomorrow, yeah,” Bradley mumbles and drops back into his chair, all the fight gone out of him as soon as it had come.
“So, talk to him,” Eoin says, as the rest of them sit back down as well.
“Come on, Eoin, it can’t be that simple for him,” Adetomiwa says.
“Right,” Rupert says, turning to Eoin. “Like what if I went up to you and told you I’ve been wanting to shag you for years? Not like that wouldn’t change our relationship one way or another.”
Eoin laughs, then abruptly sobers and shoots an apologetic look at Rupert. “Wait. You don’t actually want to shag me, do you?”
“No, Eoin,” Rupert says, rolling his eyes, “I do not actually want to shag you.”
“You wanna shag me, Rupert?” Tom says, reaching across Bradley to tease Rupert’s hair.
“I don’t want to shag any of you wankers!” Rupert says, laughing and batting his hand away. “It was an example.”
“Don’t think it makes sense to use any of us as an example of how Colin would react to that,” Adetomiwa says.
“Yeah,” Tom adds, looking like this is starting to make a whole lot more sense. “He’d probably be snogging Bradley stupid by now.”
“I hate you all,” Bradley announces and slumps to the table again with his face in his arms.
“There, there,” Rupert says again, patting his shoulder.
________________________________________________________________
Bradley has only just stepped foot in the green room at Graham Norton’s show when he’s attacked by two of his former co-stars in a chorus of “Bradders!”
They smell like Katie’s old jasmine perfume and Angel’s minty shampoo, and he tangles his arms around the pair of them and feels his face split into an idiotically wide grin.
After a moment, there’s a quiet cough beside them, and Bradley turns his face out of Angel’s hair to see Colin standing in the doorway. His hair is longer in that way he always liked to grow it between series, fluffing a bit and making his ears appear normal-sized, while the scruff on his face makes him appear a bit older. It makes Bradley remembers the first time they met, how young and scruffy they both were, and how awkward Bradley felt around Colin; Colin who was so polite and strange and dedicated. And here Colin is, standing there five years later, one month after the end, and he looks well-rested and hopeful at the sight of them all, and something in Bradley just opens at the feel of him being nearby again.
The girls quickly untangle themselves from Bradley and launch toward Colin, who gives a delighted oof at the impact and wraps his long arms around them without hesitation, laughing right along with their chattering greetings.
When they all pull apart, Colin’s eyes immediately turn to Bradley. He grins a bit uncertainly and has barely reached out a hand - to, what, clap Bradley on the shoulder? shake his bloody hand? - before Bradley’s rolling his eyes and grabbing his shoulder to tug him into their own hug, one arm around his waist, one around his neck, that familiar sound of Colin momentarily getting the air knocked out of him a rush against Bradley’s ear. Colin’s arms take a second to settle, but once they do, he’s snaked one around the middle of Bradley’s back and the other over his shoulder, fingers wrapping around the nape of his neck.
“Jesus, it’s good to see you,” Colin murmurs into Bradley’s ear, and it’s so good to hear his voice, all Bradley can do is drift his hand up Colin’s neck into his hair and pull their heads closer together.
“Oh, boys,” Katie says fondly somewhere behind him, Angel giggling quietly, and Bradley just breathes and breathes, feeling like he’s finally coming home.
________________________________________________________________
“Just. Not. On,” Katie’s saying, punctuating each word with an overenthusiastic pat on Angel’s forearm.
The four of them migrated to some pub or another after the interview and have claimed a booth for the past couple hours. Katie and Angel are practically in each other’s laps by this point, but Colin is sitting a bit hunched in on himself while Bradley sprawls into his personal space as usual, arm over the back of their booth. It’s a familiar position, and relaxes Bradley in ways he didn’t even realise he’d needed relaxing.
“I know!” Angel says, nearly knocking over her pint. “How did we all go a month without seeing one another?”
“How did we survive?” Bradley says, mocking their outrage, even if he secretly does wonder the very same.
“What if we didn’t?” Colin says quietly, his front teeth peeking out in a mischievous grin as all eyes turn to him. “What if we all actually died of separation and this is our afterlife?”
“Our hearts grew fungus,” Angel says, nodding wisely, then scrunches her nose and giggles. “Or- whatsit, the absence thing.”
“Fonder,” Bradley corrects her.
“Fondle?” Katie says, brow knit together, hand pausing mid-reach for her drink.
“What the-” Bradley bursts out laughing, as beside him Colin tumbles into laughter at the nonsense he’d concocted.
“Welllll,” Katie says abruptly, slipping on her overcoat. “I’ve an early shoot tomorrow, but we must do this more often.”
“Must,” Angel repeats, glaring briefly at Bradley and Colin, before reaching for her own coat. “I should head home as well.”
“We’re still flat-hunting together on the weekend, right?” Katie says to Angel, a little thrill in her voice, as they stand up.
“Of course! We need to sort out our flat in time to host holiday parties.”
“Oh god. You’re really going through with your insane idea to live together?” Bradley mutters, slouching farther into the booth.
“Of course we are! Why aren’t you?” Katie shoots back with a piercing look between him and Colin.
“Us?” Colin startles beside him, and in his periphery Bradley can see him glance over, but Bradley’s locked his eyes on the empty glass in front of him and refuses to meet his gaze. “But Bradley still lives with Eoin, and I- erm-”
“You’re both impossible,” Angel says, and Bradley doesn’t need to be looking at her to know she’s rolling her eyes right now.
“Hey!” Katie says sharply, picking up the glass Bradley’s staring - or, rather, sulking - at and clunks it against the table a few times to get his attention.
It works. He glares up at her.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she says, her face relaxing as she looks between him and Colin.
“Right, right,” Bradley says and offers her a lopsided smile. Colin stretches up and gives her a brief hug.
Angel leans down for a Colin hug as well. She catches Bradley’s eyes over Colin’s shoulder, raises an eyebrow and tilts a suggestive glance toward the bundle of Colin in her arms then back toward Bradley, and lifts one hand to her ear in a ring-me gesture.
He scowls at her and mouths hate you, but she just grins.
Once their meddling friends have left, Bradley finds himself alone with Colin for the first time in a month. Well, as alone as one can be in a pub.
The pair of them are quiet for a while in the midst of all the conversations and music and clank-clinking around them. Bradley watches Colin’s fingers trace shapes in the condensation of his glass while trying not to look like he’s watching Colin’s fingers trace shapes in the condensation of his glass. Bradley can’t decide if it’s an uncomfortable silence or not, until he figures that if he has to question it, it’s probably not terribly comfortable.
He has the brief, absurd wish that he could text Colin right now, like he normally does in an awkward situation, but he can’t, of course, not when Colin is one half of that awkward situation.
“I should head back to mine as well,” Colin says after awhile, his thumb swooping across the rim of the glass.
Bradley swallows. “Your flat’s nearby, isn’t it?”
“Maybe twenty-minute walk,” he says, pulling on a beanie and coat.
“Right, then,” Bradley starts, honestly not knowing what he’s about to suggest until it comes out, “I’ll walk with you and just catch a cab.”
Colin turns a brilliant smile on him, and Bradley feels any unidentifiable tension dissipate between them with that simple gesture.
They walk together in the easy, quiet way Bradley had missed, elbows bumping together occasionally. Usually, with anyone else, Bradley starts to talk about anything he can think of just to fill the silence, but Colin tends to bring out a relaxed side of Bradley in moments like this.
Of course, that’s about the time a downpour hits them. One of those godawful things that always makes Bradley remember the exact moment he’d left his flat that day and thought, “Nah, I’ll be fine without an umbrella today,” and then curse his past self for being so arrogant in the face of London weather.
But he’s with Colin, so they’re laughing as Colin shouts, “It’s only a couple more blocks this way!”
He takes off running, and Bradley follows him, and for a second it feels like they’re Arthur and Merlin again, chasing or running away from something, Bradley’s not sure which. Chasing something? Definitely chasing, full sprint through Puzzlewood. And then that feeling’s gone and there’s nothing mythical about this: They’re Bradley and Colin, they’re running down a rainy street in London, they’re together again.
When Colin slows and stops, all Bradley can do is skid to halt beside him and throw his head back in a bark of laughter. They’re dripping wet beneath a small overhang that’s barely covering them both.
Colin’s laughing as well, in that scrunched-shoulder contained giggles sort of way, and Bradley indulges himself for a moment, just grins and leans against the brick wall beside the door, watching Colin’s long fingers fumble with his keys. The rain is already starting to turn to a drizzle because the sky is mad and fickle like that.
“Wanna come in for a bit and dry off?” Colin says, once he’s got the door open. There are raindrops beading on his nose.
Bradley wants to say yes, wants to stay for a completely different reason, but he says a coward’s, “Nah, rain’s letting up.”
Colin quirks a disappointed smile. “Well. Let’s, erm- we’ll do this again sometime.”
“‘Running through the rain with Colin.’ Right. I’ll add it to my calendar.”
Colin laughs. “Next time we might be running through snow. Much more treacherous, black ice and all.”
“I think we’d be up for the challenge.”
“Definitely.” Colin looks at his hand on the doorknob for a moment, swings the door minutely to-and-fro, then looks back up at Bradley. “I just meant, erm, we should spend any sort of time together again, you know?”
Bradley’s chest begins to ache. “Yeah,” he manages. “Yeah, I do. We will.”
Colin bites his lower lip and smiles at him in that way where it’s mostly with his eyes, crinkling around the edges.
The ache is spreading to Bradley’s fingers now. “Yes, well.” He glances down the street and notices the approaching orange-yellow glow of a taxi sign. “I’ll see you soon then, mate. Gonna try to catch this cab.”
And with a quick clap on Colin’s shoulder, he rushes out into the drizzle, trying not to read into the disappointment in Colin’s expression and voice when his face had dropped and called after him a confused, “Later?”
Once he’s told the cabbie his address, Bradley twists in his seat to look back at Colin’s front door, and sees Colin still standing there, head bowed, with one hand on the doorknob, the little sliver of light inside growing and closing, growing and closing, as if he’s forgotten if he’s coming or going.
________________________________________________________________
Part Three
To be sure, there will be interviews and, in only a couple-months’ time, the heartwrenching final episode, and when it airs, Bradley can already predict: Angel will call him in tears that will quickly turn into nostalgia; he and Eoin will go down to the pub afterward and retell familiar stories; and his mum will embarrass him with how proud she is, while his sisters punch him in the arm and remind him he’s still just little Bradley Gregory from Devon. Yes, the end of filming is not quite the end of Merlin, nor its effect on Bradley’s career, but in another sense, this is it.
The only comfort he has, Bradley supposes, is the fact that most everyone around him is just as nervous about the end of all this. Thrilled at the accomplishment and looking forward to new roles and challenges, but still: nervous.
Like, lately, Katie’s habit of talking wildly with her hands when nervous has gotten a bit ridiculous. When he first met her, she’d been the most poised person he knew, in spite of any insecurities, and while she’s still got that going for her, she’s become rather more jittery. Despite his worry over her, it’s oddly comforting to him, watching her slim, pale hands fluttering about in the shadows. Reminds him of one of his earliest memories: being sat on his mother’s knee, his whole world focused down to her hand as she talked to someone else in the room, its graceful arcs and jagged points being made in the air.
Tonight, the whole cast and crew is at the wrap party, a big mess of familiar faces and alcohol and the occasional raucous giggles of Tom and Eoin taking over the room, but right now Bradley is huddled in a corner with Katie, her hands winding around the air as he gets her to tell him what’s the matter.
“I don’t know how to explain it, Bradley,” Katie says, laughter a bit choked, “but I’m actually a bit frightened about what’s going to happen after this. I mean, what am I even-” She waves her hands around inarticulately again.
“Katie, you’re ace,” he says, huffing a laugh. “You can bloody well do anything you want now.”
“Bradley.” She has her little don’t-you-dare-humour-me smirk on, the one that makes her even more blindingly stunning and yet those who know her well know it means business. “It’s not like when we were on break between series. This is- everything is new now.”
Bradley spreads out his hands: see, no jokes here. “Look. So, you originally got into this whole acting thing a bit by accident. So what? You’ve proven yourself, and now you can keep going for it, or you just do those modeling gigs you’ve got lined up and figure it out from there, or- you know, you can set your devious, determined mind to something else, just as you’ve always done.”
Katie’s lips do something funny, wavering as if she doesn’t know how to react to Bradley’s earnestness, but then she reaches out a hand. Bradley flinches, sure she’s going to slap him for the hundredth time since he’s known her, but what she does instead pains him even more because good god, he’s going to miss working with this woman: She grasps his hand across the rickety table and holds on.
“You’re a bit marvelous when you’re not being utterly ridiculous,” she says. “I forget that sometimes.”
He can hear the impending tears in her voice, and it makes him a bit uncomfortable, but he’s helpless to do anything but swallow the knot in his own throat and clutch her hand even more fiercely in return.
Being at a party and not their own private corner, the moment is quickly broken when Emilia stops by (since when are any characters truly dead on this show?), and Katie squeezes his hand once more before she exclaims, "Millie! Oh come here!" and jumps up to cling to her instead.
Bradley stands up to get another drink. On his way to the bar, he accidentally catches Colin's eyes across the room where he's chatting with Richard. Colin’s eyes crinkle at the corners, and Bradley offers him a weak smile, feeling sick as this whole ending thing really starts to settle in his gut.
"Remember that time last summer,” Colin says a moment later, sneaking up beside him at the open bar, "when you drank so much tequila you wouldn't stop making all of us dance with you."
Bradley grins at his pint, feeling warm all of a sudden in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol, and the sick feeling subsides a little. "You were a good sport about it, considering you didn't want to go clubbing in the first place."
Colin knocks his shoulder against Bradley's. "You have always had a way with bullying me into things."
Bradley turns to look at him and grins at that extra layer of ease that comes out when Colin's had a few. "You say bully; I say I'm verrry persuasive."
"You are that," Colin says, nodding, and Bradley huffs a laugh.
(He remembers the way Colin had felt against him that night at the club, when he'd stolen Colin from his comfortable little world of joking on the sidelines, and literally pulled him onto the dance floor. Colin had looked at him like he was mad, and he probably was, wrapping his fingers around Colin's slim wrist and tugging him harder than he’d intended - Colin had stumbled forward, catching himself with a hand on Bradley's chest, and Bradley'd been wearing a deep v-neck top, so Colin's long fingers had pressed for a moment against Bradley's bare skin and chest hair, the contact met with sweat and the claustrophobic heat of the club.
Colin had laughed uncomfortably, but Bradley had let go of his wrist and started dancing like a madman to the M.I.A. song and Colin's laughter turned easy and familiar.
"C'mon, Col, show me your moooves," Bradley had shouted, so Colin’d pursed his lips, formed fists, and shake-shaked his arms above his head for a second, before folding back into himself from the force of embarrassed laughter.
“What on earth!” Bradley had shrieked into the blare of the music, his voice going laughterously high at the end, but Colin had just dropped his forehead to Bradley’s shoulder, the two of them laughing drunkenly against one another for the rest of the song.)
Colin looks down at Bradley's drink and goes quiet in that Colin-y way he has where it's more than just silence: It's the loudest sort of quiet Bradley knows, because the entire time Bradley's shouting inside his own head, "What are you thinking? Col? Collllinnnn. I bet the next thing you say is going to make me fall even more in love with you, Colin.” And the thing is, he's not been wrong yet.
"You wanna, ermm," Colin starts, and Bradley thinks Yes, "go outside for a bit?"
"Bit of air would be brilliant right now," Bradley says stupidly and downs the rest of his drink.
They find their jackets and go out into the cool October night, their elbows jostling each other a bit as they walk.
“So,” Bradley says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and leaning against the wall of the building.
“So.” Colin nods, as if they’d just agree on something.
“I wonder if I’ll actually get to work with a guy who speaks English on the next job I get,” Bradley says, for old times’ sake, that sort of teasing years’ gone.
Colin just rolls his eyes. “I wonder if I’ll actually get to work with a guy who isn’t so bloody English.”
“Hey, I resent that.”
“And I resent you for not being able to understand my accent for weeks,” Colin says, but Bradley can tell by the look in his eyes that he doesn’t, not really.
“Talking of you Irish,” Bradley says, grinning when Colin gives him a warning look, “you know Katie’s worried about not getting work after this.”
“What, on film?”
“On anything. Except for those high fashion shoots she’s got lined up.”
“Rubbish, she’ll be fine.”
“That’s what I said. Anything she puts her mind to, that girl.”
Colin quirks a smile at him. “How inspirational of you.”
“Oh, shut it.” He looks down at their shoes, at the strip of concrete between the possibility of their toes touching. “Can’t say I don’t blame her for worrying though, yeah.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean I’ve learned a lot these past five years, but c’mon, mate.” Bradley angles a pointed look at him. “We both know I’m not the one whose doors are being knocked down with offers.”
“What are you-” Colin starts, then goes from baffled to angry in a second flat. “My doors are just fine. And I know for a fact that you’ve gotten offers as well! What are you on about?”
“It’s only that-” Bradley snorts and looks back down at their shoes, admits in an embarrassed voice, “What if this is it and I’m only ever going to be known as Arthur? What if I won’t ever be good enough as any-”
“You!” Bradley’s head startles back to attention as Colin suddenly steps into his space, practically shouting. “You can be so full of yourself, it’s almost like you’re being bloody method about Arthur, but god, Bradley.” He looks sad all of a sudden. “Sometimes when it comes to actually having faith in how amazing you- your acting is . . .” He shakes his head.
“Col, whoa, it’s not like I’m giving it up, I- I love the process too much,” Bradley says, raising his hand toward Colin’s arm only to let it hover for a moment and drop back to his side.
“Bradley,” Colin says, furrowing his brow and lowering his voice, which is far more intimidating than if he’d gone back to the shouting. “You’re more than that. You’re passionate and growing with every take, and your joy about- about-” His hand windmills for a second. “-being in this world comes out every time you sodding move, so be a little more optimistic, yeah?”
“I,” Bradley tries, jaw working soundlessly for a moment afterward, stunned. No, no, that’s how I see you, you’ve got it reversed, he wants to say, but instead stammers, “I- okay?” Why do people keep leaving Bradley with nothing but a knot in his throat and an overwhelming sense of gratitude lately? These aren’t the sides of endings that Bradley’s accustomed to.
This certainly isn’t a side of Colin that he’s used to either. He reckons he’s seen Colin lose his temper - well and truly lost it, no filter or ounce of politeness pouring out of him - only once before: last year, when he read news reports about renewed rioting and bombing in Belfast. He’d shouted at the newspaper about peace and violence and the past never being bloody over for a solid five minutes before he put on his enormous headphones (god knows Bradley’s been holding back on “big headphones for big ears” jokes for years) and closed-in on himself for another ten. Bradley was the only other person in the room at the time, and he was left a bit shell-shocked, seeing Colin so passionate in such a furious way.
This, here, feels like that, yet different. He isn’t talking about life and death, war and religion, history and nationalism; he’s just talking about Bradley, as if that’s worth losing anything over, temper or otherwise. As if Colin believes in him just as much as he believes in a peaceful Ireland, or refraining from eating animals, or working hard for what you want out of life.
“Bradley,” Colin starts again, eyes dangerous, stepping forward, except he must’ve miscalculated how close they already were, because before he can finish, he stumbles directly into Bradley.
“Hey, hey,” Bradley murmurs, wrapping his hands firmly around Colin’s biceps to catch him.
“Sorry,” Colin murmurs back to him, his anger dissipating as soon as it’d arisen. One of his hands has pressed against a spot just below Bradley’s ribs, his warmth seeping through the peacoat. “I mean, about the clumsiness, but also.” He swallows, not breaking eye contact. “About the- rant. I’m-” He swallows and runs a hand through his hair with a little laugh. “I’m so tired.”
“I’d only ever seen you get that angry about violence in Northern Ireland,” Bradley blurts out, still a bit stunned.
Colin slowly lowers his hand from Bradley’s torso and raises his eyebrows. “Are you seriously equating the Troubles to your sorry excuse for actor’s self-esteem?”
Bradley can feel his face flush a little, then even more when he realises he’s still holding onto Colin’s arms. He drops his hands; Colin doesn’t step back. “Well, not when you put it that way. That makes me sound like an absolute wanker.”
“What other way is there to put it?” Colin asks, but he looks more amused than annoyed. “Me mam would not stand for that sort of talk. She doesn’t know you as well as I do, she’d have your ear for that.”
Bradley pauses midway through running an embarrassed hand through his hair. “Well, I suppose she does have quite a lot of experience with ears, what with your-”
“Oi!” Colin says, laughing.
Pleased that he hasn’t offended Colin so badly he can’t still make him laugh, Bradley tries to clarify. “It’s just, um, the way you reacted, it- means a lot that you-” He can’t bring himself to say the phrase believe in me without feeling so utterly soppy they’ll both end up vomiting on each other. “That you believe all of that. About- me,” he manages, awkward as a crab.
The laughter melts away from Colin’s face as if it were never there, until he’s simply looking at Bradley as if- oh bugger, Bradley knows that look: It’s the one where Colin wants to say something, but won’t let himself.
Colin has the most expressive face of anyone Bradley knows: dozens and dozens of looks and counting, whether they’re his own or bred out of the characters he’s been. Sometimes his intent is obvious, sometimes subtle, but Bradley has catalogued them all. Near the beginning of the first series, when he and Colin were still a bit unsure of each other as proper mates, even though they’d found a rhythm as castmates, Bradley often felt like he had two jobs: learning Prince Arthur and learning Colin Morgan. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s developed a Rolodex (because his brain would be that analogue regarding Colin, wouldn’t it) labeled Ways to Decipher the Subtleties of Colin Morgan, and they’re all there, one after a-flipping-nother.
What is it? What can’t you tell me? Is it what I can’t bring myself to tell you? he wants to ask Colin now, but his throat closes up, like an allergic reaction to confrontation, and the moment for opportunity ends with a tilt of Colin’s head away from their little bubble of privacy.
“Right,” Bradley says abruptly, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning to walk back inside, his face burning in frustration and embarrassment and anger that he can’t find the courage to just kiss him and find out if Colin wants this. “If we’re sorted here-”
Quite suddenly, Bradley cannot move another step - or at least not without dragging along the long-limbed idiot who’s launched himself at him.
To say Colin hugging him out of nowhere is unexpected would be the understatement of his life - it's Bradley who's embarrassingly physical with his affections, not Colin. But sure enough, Colin’s wrapped his arms around Bradley, holding him gingerly, as if he's afraid Bradley will do something crazy like object.
"Col, hey," is all Bradley can say, tone gentle as he slips his arms up around Colin’s shoulder blades, breathing into the side of his neck, right behind Colin’s ear. He smells like make-up remover and fresh earth and the history of paper, and it’s all so achingly familiar, Bradley wishes he’d never have to miss this.
"Tá mo croí istigh iota," Colin murmurs after a long moment, his breath tickling Bradley's ear, voice a bit rough at the end.
Bradley blinks. He hasn’t been this nonplussed by the things coming out of Colin’s mouth since the first couple months they were trying to find their footing with each other.
"Wh-what?" Bradley stutters, pulling apart to meet Colin's eyes, but Colin's already looking down at their feet, shaking his head. “Was that- Irish?”
"Erm, it was?” he says with a little laugh. “I don’t know what I-" He rubs his hands on his thighs and doesn’t finish the thought. When he looks back up at Bradley, he’s flushed, and Bradley can’t tell if it’s because they’ve been drinking, or from the cold weather, or that-
Colin’s mouth twists in embarrassment. Right. There’s one thing answered then.
"What are you doing talking Irish at me?" Bradley laughs a little in an attempt to lighten the mood. He doesn’t know what on earth just happened, only that the space between them feels fraught with things Bradley’s afraid to touch right now. "You know how rubbish I am at any language but English, Cols.”
"It was just nonsense.” Colin smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes one bit. “Really."
Bradley's sure he's lying; for such a brilliant actor, Colin-as-himself is the worst liar Bradley knows.
“Weirdo,” Bradley says, still afraid to push him.
“Weirdo-er,” Colin says, smile starting to reach his eyes at that.
Bradley barks a laugh.
Colin looks down at his feet again, and when he looks up his eyes look sad over his see-this-is-me-happy smile. “I just can’t believe it’s over,” he says, accent even thicker than usual, something that Bradley’s only ever heard when Colin is either very tired, very drunk, or very- well- distraught. That last one is a state that Bradley has fortunately not seen him in very often.
Bradley has to swallow a couple times before he can say, in his best impression of cheerfulness, "Hey, at least you’ll still have me, right?”
"Right, but." Colin shrugs one shoulder. "It'll be- strange. Not working together anymore, that is.”
Bradley sighs. "Yes, it will at that. But we’ll still- er, it’s not like we won’t see each other in London.”
“Of course, but,” Colin goes on, “I’m visiting Neil in the States and then I’ll be in Armagh for a bit and then, yeah, I’ll be back in London, but-” He shrugs again. “If we’re lucky, if we get a continuous flow of work, who knows where we’ll be this time next year.”
“Cheer up, mate,” Bradley says, putting on his best smile. “Maybe we’ll be unemployed by then and can hang out together whenever we please.”
“Well,” Colin says thoughtfully, mood shifting, and Bradley gets that little thrill again, that sense that whatever comes out of Colin’s mouth next is going to make Bradley fall for him even more. “If we do hit a point in our lives when no one wants us to act anymore,” he says, “we could easily turn to a life of crime.”
Bradley manfully does not lose his composure and ruin Colin’s admirably straight face. “Don’t forget the murder,” he adds without another thought, because this, right here, is what Colin Morgan has done to Bradley’s sense of humour.
“Oh, yes, I thought that was implied. Trail of bodies a mile wide between us.” Colin stretches out his arms in an approximate measurement.
Bradley rubs his chin with thumb and forefinger and purses his lips in consideration. “But what exactly would we kill them all for?”
“Oh, a few quid. Maybe a bit of gold?”
“Right, right.” Bradley snaps his fingers and points his idea. “And jewels!”
“Jewels!” Colin smacks his palm flat against his forehead. “Of course!”
“Which we’d give to Angel and Katie upon pain of death,” Bradley says, facing his palm to the sky as if to a serving dish.
“Naturally.”
“Naturally.”
Colin puts a hand on Bradley’s arm, suddenly serious. “And we can’t forget the popcorn.”
Bradley tries to ignore the warm weight of his hand. “Popcorn on a murder spree?”
“Yes,” Colin says, like it’s obvious, and retracts his hand. “We’d raid their kitchens and steal their popcorn. It’s only fair. I reckon we’d be pretty sad about all the killing.”
Bradley nods. “Popcorn does cheer us up.”
“Ay, one of the few foods we agree upon.”
Bradley sighs, long-suffering. “I suppose I’ll have to do all the driving of our murder mobile?”
“Well, yes. It’d look suspicious if I finally got my license and then disappeared and bodies started popping up all across the countryside.”
“Good point. You can navigate.”
“Ooh, maybe we should do this in America - easier to get our hands on guns there, don’t you think?”
Bradley nods. “Bit poetic: Bonnie and Clyde, Bradley and Colin.”
“Yes,” Colin says with a mischievous gleam in his eyes, “it’s our destiny to be a robbing, murdering bad-arse duo. Our destiny based on alliteration.”
“Our fans will be so disappointed in us.”
“True,” Colin says, then purses his lips and squints upward. “Maybe we should reconsider.”
“Maybe . . . for the fans. No other reason, really.”
Colin whistles a note of relief. “Good thing we have such loyal fans.”
“Or else,” Bradley says dramatically.
“Or else we’d already be on the road to destruction,” Colin agrees.
“Just a car, a gun, and some Johnny Cash,” Bradley says, turning to the side and framing his hands out like he’s envisioning this on film.
“We would’ve shot a man in Sligo just to watch him die,” Colin says, shaking his head mournfully.
Finally, Bradley gives in and lets out his built-up laughter so hard his head hits the stone wall behind him, so he’s rubbing at the back of his head and still laughing, when he sets off Colin, his body curving toward Bradley’s.
It’s one of those moments where Bradley reflects upon just how much they’ve affected each other’s sense of humour these past few years: In his first weeks of knowing Colin he would have been bemused, at best, by the mere suggestion of the elaborate dark comedy they’ve unraveled. But now, this is one of the many facets of their shared sense of humour, and Colin makes Bradley laugh more than anyone else he knows, these moments all their own.
“Hey,” Bradley says after their laughter starts to settle, realising he’s found himself another in. “Talking of road trips.”
“What about them?” Colin says.
“What ever happened to us driving back up to Mold together?” Bradley’s heart is beating so hard, you’d think he was proposing something far more meaningful than a road trip right now.
Colin raises his eyebrows. “To the Arthurian library?”
“I know we haven’t discussed it in a long time, but-”
“That could be fun,” Colin says, smiling hesitantly.
Bradley takes a small step closer to him. “We could-”
“Bradley! Colin!” Eoin shouts, breaking into their little bubble all of a sudden. He, Tom, Adetomiwa, and Rupert have come piling out the door, all in various states of undress.
“There you are,” Tom says, rubbing at his bare arms in the cold. “We’ve been looking all about for you.”
“Katie’s found a nice dark little corner and convinced us we should play Strip Top Trumps,” Rupert explains, shivering in nothing more than a scarf, a floppy-eared hat, and boxer pants.
“And we’re all losing,” Adetomiwa adds, gesturing at his bare chest and feet.
“I refuse to bare my manhood without the pair of you embarrassing yourselves at my sides,” Eoin says, himself wearing nothing but a rather flattering pair of boxer-briefs and tube socks. He grabs Bradley and Colin’s arms and attempts to haul them both inside.
“Dear god, man, I will join you in any game, as long as you never refer to your ‘manhood’ ever again,” Bradley says.
He meets Colin’s eyes, and they burst out laughing all over again as the six of them troop back inside.
Oh, well, Bradley thinks. There will be other times he can find the chance to tell Colin; there won’t be any more nights when he can sit down with all his castmates and make utter fools of each other.
________________________________________________________________
Everyone had agreed, some tearfully, to say their goodbyes at the wrap party, simultaneously trying to make it last and trying not to linger so long it felt like a final goodbye, like maybe if they treated this ending casually enough it would mean they’d actually be back here again in four months just like after every other wrap party. But Bradley had felt a rush of emotion with each and every one of them, with every “so here’s the next step in in my life” conversation, with every embrace, every clink of their pints. He knows he’ll see many of them from time to time, he knows he’ll see Eoin and the rest of his knights probably most of the bloody time, but it will never be the same outside of this situation, and it makes his chest twinge at every farewell.
In the morning, it turns out to be the original four of them who ride in the same car of the Eurostar back to London together. In the seats across from Bradley and Colin, Angel and Katie are dozing with their heads supporting one another, while Colin reads some tome of a thing and Bradley sleepily fiddles with Anthony’s pink Nintendo DS that he had finally just let Bradley have after all the times he’d stolen it. He wants to take a nap, but he also doesn’t want to lose any second of his remaining time with these people.
They’re about halfway through the trip when Colin looks up from his book and says, “So, now that I won’t be around to make you read actual books, does this mean you’ll never read again?” Colin asks it with the same sort of wistfulness as someone in a film might say never love again, and Bradley has to laugh to keep the sentimentality at bay, turning off the DS and shoving it into his pocket.
“You know me, Col,” he says, sounding more carefree than he feels at the moment.
Colin heaves his best comically long-suffering sigh. “Ay, I do.”
“Who knows,” Bradley adds, heartened by that, “maybe I’ll make you proud and give another go at Goblet of Fire. You know, for the dragons.”
Colin just chuckles, long given up on actually converting Bradley into a literary type. “Daft nutter,” he murmurs fondly, nudging Bradley’s shoulder with his own and turning back to his book.
“You wouldn’t have me any other way,” Bradley says, matter-of-fact, and slouches in his seat, letting himself slip down into a nap against Colin’s shoulder. It’s gotten a bit softer over the past year or so; Colin’s body is still angular, but where he used to be skinny and jutting bones, he’s grown a bit softer around the edges and more finely muscled, and Bradley can’t complain one bit.
“Mm,” Colin hums quietly in agreement.
A moment later, Bradley’s sure he feels Colin brush his fingers against the fringe on his forehead, but the touch only lasts for a second, and later - blinking in the empty glow of his own flat, trying to readjust to the fact that he’ll never again be Arthur and Colin will never again be Merlin at his side - Bradley supposes he’d only imagined the touch.
________________________________________________________________
Honestly, it’s not as though he’s been pining over Colin for all these years. Not really.
They’re friends. They were co-stars. He loves him. It’s simple. Except in that way where no love is ever simple, he s’poses; Bradley doesn’t really spare a ton of time for philosophising about love, okay.
What he does know is this: Before the series ended, he’d only had the occasional night of lying in bed alone, wishing for Colin beside him, but now that it’s over? God, all that pent-up yearning that used to simmer at a low ache when he got to be with Colin every day, now it takes him ages to fall asleep for the power of it.
So, okay, fine, now Bradley is pining, and he’s not sure how to deal with it.
He’s only been back in London for a few nights, but every bloody night he’s had to climb out of bed and run laps around his neighborhood in the attempt to exhaust his thoughts and body enough to be able to sleep. He weaves around people on the sidewalks, around dogs on leashes and people spilling from bars and loitering in his path, and all he can focus on is the burn of his muscles and rhythm of his breath and a clear path in front of him to keep moving.
The daytime is more difficult. Ever since he’s been home, he’s basically done nothing but crash on the couch in front of footie matches and old favourite films he can quote in their entirety (I’ll stop doing it when you stop laughing), hunched over Pot Noodle, as if he’s in uni again, not a star actor in between roles.
After a couple days, he starts to rifle through his copy of Romeo and Juliet, highlighting his Mercutio lines, figuring he should start memorising even though rehearsals don’t start until the new year. But by the time he gets to the line If love be rough with you, be rough with love, all he can think of is Colin, and he throws the book aside to go for a mid-day jog.
It’s not that he doesn’t have a life outside of Colin; it’s more like he’s momentarily forgotten how to function in it without the promise of Colin in his days to center him. Every time he picks up his phone to ring an old friend and let them know he’s back in town, he puts it back down and wonders what he’d even suggest they do together. It always works like this: takes him awhile to sink back into socialising with anyone who isn’t Merlin-related, as if his eight-months away from reality have made him somehow less receptive to the rest of the world, strangely anti-social and confused about how to relate to people who haven’t been living in the same bubble he’s been living in for the majority of each year.
________________________________________________________________
On Day Five of what he’s dubbed in his head Operation: Do Not Pine for Colin, he fails terribly at the operation and texts Eoin: Think you can translate some Irish for me? ta mo croi ith iogart - what’s that rubbish?
He doesn’t even have a flatmate to judge him for holing up in his flat all day, since Eoin decided to bugger off to Dublin to spend their first week back with family. Bradley had considered going down to Devon to recuperate by letting his mother feed him and decide on his schedule for awhile, but he’ll be back there in no time for a lengthy Christmastime visit, and he thought this would be good for him, moving back to his and Eoin’s flat in London first to try to remember who he is without Merlin taking over his life.
what on earth are you doing over there without me? Eoin texts back. my heart is yoghurty, or eating yoghurt, or... my irish is a bit rusty but whatever that is it’s nonsense.
piss off, the flat will still be here when you get back. I was just curious, he texts back.
But all he can think now is: My heart. My heart? My heart.
Colin bloody Morgan: enigma as usual.
________________________________________________________________
On Day Six of Operation: Do Not Pine for Colin, the operation’s namesake texts him with maybe I should move to New York with my brother, this city is amazing, and Bradley chokes on his tea at the thought of Colin living that far away from him.
Still coughing, he gives in to the urge to text back, You’d get overwhelmed by having too many things to do there.
...and how is that any different from London? Colin shoots back a moment later.
After that, Bradley doesn’t respond, because he honestly cannot think of an argument against Colin staying in New York City that doesn’t involve Why would you DO that? You need to stay wherever I am, and the unselfish part of him cares too much about Colin to ever wish for him to be anywhere that doesn’t make him happy.
He picks up Romeo and Juliet to distract himself instead and is actually getting somewhere with the Queen Mab monologue when, a few hours later, Colin texts him again with, Right. Never mind. Americans are even worse at understanding my accent than you were when we first met.
Bradley can’t help but feel relieved.
________________________________________________________________
On Day Seven of Operation: Do Not Pine For Colin, Bradley shakes things up a bit by sprawling on the sofa with Indian take-away instead of Pot Noodle.
Should I be worried I haven’t left my flat since we got back from shooting? he texts Georgia.
You??? Yes very worried. If you start peeing in bottles like Howard Hughes I am sending Tom over there to get your head out of your arse, Georgia texts back a few minutes later. She’s out in LA to co-star in some American indie feature, but she must be on a break right now.
What if instead of being like Howard Hughes I end up like Leonardo DiCaprio AS Howard Hughes? thus improving my acting skills and maybe even securing myself a role in the next Scorsese film? Maybe I SHOULDN’T leave my flat!
Bradleyyy, go play footie and get out of your head for a tic. I cannot be expected to learn my lines right now AND parse the bizarre workings of your brain. Don’t you have your own lines to learn?
It’s Mercutio. Come on. I was born for this role.
I hope when you get there you find out they actually cast you as Benvolio.
I HATE YOU.
Oh look at the time. Laters! GET OUT OF YOUR BLOODY FLAT x
MAYBE I WILL THEN, he texts, punching hard at the keys, but he begrudgingly adds an X of his own, because Georgia is still sort of one of his best mates, and their five-minute texting conversation was sort of the highlight of his afternoon.
“Oh, bugger,” he says to his roti. “I do need to get out of here.”
He immediately rings Tom, Rupert, and Adetomiwa - bless them for living in the same city during Bradley’s time of need and being secretly almost as terrible at rejoining the real world as Bradley has been - and spends the rest of the evening pointedly not thinking about anything but football.
________________________________________________________________
On Day Eight of Operation: Do Not Pine for Colin, Bradley is sat on his sofa, looking fondly at his Soccer Six trophies he’d just unpacked onto the mantle and congratulating himself for leaving the flat the night before, when Eoin bursts through the door.
“Honey, I’m home!” he announces in a terrible American accent.
“Mate!” Bradley grins and opens his arms in genuine joy. Eoin, of course, drops his luggage by the door, and takes this gesture as an invitation to tackle Bradley to the sofa.
“Rupert tells me that, before last night, you hadn’t even left the flat,” Eoin says, stuffing Bradley’s face into a throw pillow. “At all.”
“Hwyouvnowbt?” Bradley gurgles into the upholstery. He twists and struggles for a moment until he can shove Eoin off him. “Wanker,” he says, finally knocking Eoin across to the other side of the sofa, but they’re both breathless and laughing, and when Bradley takes a deep breath, he feels as fantastic and himself as he’d felt last night.
“So what’s with the isolation act?” Eoin says, settling into the corner of the sofa with his arms crossed, looking at home and concerned.
“How’d you even know about that?”
“Rupert heard from Tom, who heard from Georgia.”
“Bloody Georgia,” Bradley grumbles. Small wonder he’d never stayed friends with any of his other exes.
“Right. So.” Eoin raises his eyebrows, waiting.
“So nothing. What?”
“So, you don’t have to tell me why that is, but I’m here now and I refuse to have a homebody for a flatmate.”
“Right. Sorry?” Bradley swipes a hand over his face. “I don’t even know what . . .”
He trails off as his eyes catch on the Soccer Six trophies again, but this time he doesn’t think of the fun of those matches with the sun bright on the wide, green pitch, nor the camaraderie of his teammates; this time, he remembers one morning when Colin stopped by his room with tea and nearly burnt Bradley’s chest with its spillage because he’d been laughing so hard over the sight of Bradley and his trophies, all tucked into bed together the night after the match.
Bradley really needs to work on accomplishing this stupid operation. Problem is, he was always better at Operation: Insert Ridiculous Title Here when he had Colin working alongside him.
Eoin quite suddenly tackles Bradley back into a pillow, face-first.
“That’s it,” he says, before releasing him and standing up from the sofa. “You are going to stop being a pod person and be Bradley again.”
“Pardon?”
“We’re going to the pub.”
________________________________________________________________
Sometimes when Bradley goes for a run in London, he pretends he’s in a montage sequence in a movie.
With Eoin back in their flat, Bradley’s been finding it easier to return to living as the extrovert he’s always been: mornings practising his lines, afternoons catching up with old friends or playing footie, nights drinking and laughing at the pub. He doesn’t have to run himself to sleep at night any longer, but nearly every evening, before he meets up with his mates at the pub, he goes for a run anyhow. Perhaps because, now, it’s the only time of day he allows his thoughts to linger on Colin for longer than a few minutes before he purposefully distracts himself.
So, he runs, often with something ridiculous like the Chariots of Fire theme shuffling on his iPod, which frankly just makes him feel like he should be running in slow-mo. Other times, a corny ‘80s song like “Break the Ice” comes on, which really supports the movie montage feel to his run. It’s not terribly difficult to imagine in certain iconic settings, especially when he decides to branch out from his neighborhood and run along the Thames for a long, cool evening run just as the Parliament buildings and the Eye are lit up.
And as John Farnham sings something ridiculous about goin’ it alone, waiting for the one person who can break the ice inside of him, Bradley thinks about Colin. The tourists are making a racket on the riverboats, the mice are peeping about the benches, and the couples are walking hand-in-hand on their way to a night they know will turn out grand no matter what, because they have each other. It’s all happening around him, but he’s running through it, caught in his own thoughts and memories.
If this were a movie montage, his mind would be projecting all those random little moments with Colin that somehow add up: The time Colin threw Bradley a disarming grin over his shoulder as they ran recklessly through the castle corridors. The first time they realised the best way to do vocal warm-ups was to make up stupid songs together. The time they stood on a Welsh hilltop, shoulder-to-shoulder speechless at the muddy green countryside laid out before them. He wonders what Colin’s doing right now: if he’s still in New York, exploring that mad city and unwittingly charming total strangers, or if perhaps he’s back in Armagh by now, doing nothing but lying about reading on the couch while his mum spoils him with all the foods he loves to eat.
Bradley dodges another couple who’s not paying attention to where they’re walking, and he wonders what sort of couple he and Colin would be if given the chance. Would they be not all that much different from who they are now? He can imagine the pair of them walking along the river on their way to the theatre, with Bradley yammering on about nothing important and Colin smiling small and amused in all the right places. Bradley knows sometimes Colin has so much to say that he doesn’t say any of it, and he’s sure Colin knows sometimes Bradley doesn’t know what to say so he says everything. It’d be easy and familiar like that, and perhaps the only difference would be if Bradley gave in to the urge to hold his hand. Perhaps he would awkwardly fit his hand into Colin’s as their arms bumped together with the rhythm of their steps, or perhaps-
Well, that’s neither here nor there, is it? Bradley shakes his head at his soppy thoughts and picks up the pace, finding a clear path through the evening hubbub and sticking to it.
________________________________________________________________
Nearly a month to the day since the series wrapped, Bradley realises he’s slipped into his new routine like an old pair of shoes, comfortable with his fresh yet familiar life, even as he feels strangely bereft without Colin in it daily. Still, he appreciates things about his life between roles, like the freedom to have the occasional lie-in like a normal person who doesn’t need to be on set at bollocks o’clock in the morning.
“I slept ‘til half five today,” Eoin announces one evening at the pub, then sprawls himself halfway across their table to add, “Half five in the evening.”
“That’s why you didn’t show up at the flat today?” Bradley says, incredulous.
Tom whistles low. “Were you up late at whatshername’s last night?”
Eoin slouches back in his chair with a smug look.
“All I did last night was play Wii Swordfighting,” Rupert says glumly.
“Wow,” Bradley says, laughing. “I can’t decide if that’s the most depressing thing I’ve heard all week, or if I wish I’d been there to fake swordfight with you.”
“You should’ve rung us, mate,” Adetomiwa decides.
“Not me,” Eoin says with a slosh of his pint. “Was rather busy with a particularly fine lady.”
Bradley snorts. “The five of us have been coming here nearly every day for, what, a month now? And I can count on one hand the number of times you haven’t pulled.”
“I’m a charmer, what can I say,” Eoin says.
“That’s one word for it,” Adetomiwa mutters into his pint.
“Oi,” Eoin says, elbowing him, but there’s no heat in it. “Any one of your dashing young selves could just as easily be meeting people here.”
Dashing young selves? Rupert mouths across the table at Bradley with a quirked eyebrow.
“We are disgustingly handsome men, it’s true,” Bradley says with a long-suffering sigh that morphs into laughter as Rupert and Adetomiwa roll their eyes, Tom bursts out laughing, and Eoin exclaims, “Honestly, we are. Why are the rest of you not acting on that?”
“Hey, I haven’t been completely hopeless,” Tom protests, and Bradley swears he can see him flex his admittedly impressive biceps for emphasis. “I had a night or two.”
“‘Or two’? Do you not remember?” Adetomiwa says.
“I just don’t brag about it like Eoin here,” Tom says with a grin.
“Chatting up girls in pubs . . .” Rupert trails off into a grimace. “Not really my style.”
Bradley’s phone vibrates in his pocket.
“What is your style when it’s at home?” Tom says, grinning.
Just got back in London! reads the text. From Colin. Bradley goes embarrassingly warm all over. Looking forward to seeing you for Graham Norton tomorrow!
Sorry, who are you again? Bradley texts back, even though his brain has now been taken over by Colin tomorrow Colin tomorrow Colin tomorrow, the two words quickly blurring into a strange inner sound of Colntmrr, which sounds vaguely Welsh in his head. Operation: Do Not Pine for Colin never quite has been accomplished, even if he did get better at distracting himself.
He grabs blindly at his pint and takes a long gulp, eyes glued to his mobile. It doesn’t disappoint, buzzing back quickly with: Just for that, you are not getting the ridiculous NY souvenir I brought back for you.
I think I’ll survive without an I Heart NY shirt, thank you very much.
Please. Give my imagination a little more credit.
Oh oh did you get me one of those manhole cover doormats that Neil was threatening to get you as a housewarming gift?
No manholes. You are snort-giggling over that word right now aren’t you
Bradley may or may not be doing just that, but texting conversations mean he doesn’t necessarily have to admit to it. I neither confirm nor deny. What, did you find something Merrrliny?
All the shops were sold out of Statue of Liberty snowglobes in which she’s brandishing a wand and wearing a wizard’s hat.
Buggerrr. How about a tiny yellow cab with a dragon driving it?
You know, some guy was selling those by the dozen in Times Square but I didn’t even think of the great dragon.
You do know I’ve been to New York as well and that does not sound as implausible as you think it does.
How do you know I’m making that up then? Maybe there IS an old man on the corner of 45th Street with a blanket spread of dragon cabs for sale.
Your brain never stops being a strange place to see, mate
Likewise
Really, what did you get for me?
One of those subway line t-shirts
O...kay?
It’s the signs for the F M & L train lines
Bradley bursts out laughing. It’s only then that he looks up from his mobile to reach for his pint and meets four sets of amused eyes. His face twinges a bit from grinning in his own little Bradley & Colin World for the past little while, completely tuning out the conversation going on around him.
“Well, well, well,” Tom says. “Who’s the lucky bird then?”
“Hang on, what?” Eoin says, holding up a hand. “You’ve been seeing someone and I somehow don’t know about it?”
“What?” Bradley says, beyond confused, still thinking of Colin.
“You just disappeared into a texting frenzy, mate,” Tom explains. “And you were grinning like- like a dope the entire time.”
“I was n-”
“Like a lovesick dope,” Adetomiwa clarifies, not unkindly.
“I beg your- hey!”
Tom’s neatly snatched up Bradley’s phone before he can defend it.
“Wait, what? It’s just Colin,” Tom says, forehead creased.
Eoin and Adetomiwa burst out laughing, but Rupert very calmly explains, “Hopper, of course it’s Colin,” and Bradley makes a grab for his phone, quickly stuffing it back into his pocket.
“You’re shagging Colin?” Tom all but shrieks.
“Whoa, Tom.” Rupert sits up straight at that. “You really didn’t know?”
“Colin and I are not shagging!” Bradley insists, panicky.
“Well, we know that,” Rupert says. “I just meant. Er.” He glances at Eoin then Adetomiwa for help.
“We’ve seen the pair of you, Bradley,” Eoin says. “We guessed, ages ago, that you two were aiming to get together.”
“And you’re-” Bradley flaps his hand about for the right words. “You guys would be okay with that if we were?”
Rupert, Eoin, and Adetomiwa give him incredulous looks.
“Of course we’d be ‘okay’ with that,” Rupert says.
Bradley feels his shoulders relax, just a bit.
“Who’s we?” Tom says, sounding as out of the loop as Bradley feels at the moment.
Adetomiwa shoots him a look.
“No, no, not like I’d be homophobic about it,” Tom says. “I mean, why has no one told me about it before now?”
“Figured you’d noticed on your own,” Adetomiwa says, shrugging.
“Besides,” adds Rupert, “it was mostly speculation anyway.”
“Not like those two had actually sealed the deal,” Eoin says with a nod, then smirks and adds, “Didn’t think you needed a warning about receiving a wedding invitation quite yet.”
Bradley slumps to the table with a groan and hides his burning face in his arms. This, right here, is why he’s never tried to talk about his Feelings for Colin with any of his friends. Sure, there’d always been a tiny bit of worry that they’d be uncomfortable with it, but mostly he’d known they’d take the piss and he’d just embarrass himself further.
Rupert pats his shoulder with a sardonic, “There, there.”
Bradley swats at his hand and lifts his head with a scowl. “There is no me and Colin, okay?” he says, glaring around the table, trying to ignore the way his chest hurts when he says that.
Tom is beginning to look sceptical. Eoin, Adetomiwa, and Rupert look as though they flat-out don’t believe him.
“There’s not, okay? I don’t even know if he- if that’s something he can- you know what?” He downs the rest of his pint in one go and stands up. “We are not discussing this.”
“Whoa, whoa!” Eoin calls after him, the rest of them clambering out of their chairs as well.
Bradley stops and turns, swiping a hand over his face and shoulders sagging as he admits aloud, “I’ve been trying to get over this, okay?”
“Maybe you don’t have to,” Rupert offers delicately, and Bradley raises his gaze to his. Rupert gives a supportive little nod.
“Yeah, isn’t Colin coming back to London soon?” Eoin says encouragingly.
“There’s that Graham Norton thing tomorrow, yeah,” Bradley mumbles and drops back into his chair, all the fight gone out of him as soon as it had come.
“So, talk to him,” Eoin says, as the rest of them sit back down as well.
“Come on, Eoin, it can’t be that simple for him,” Adetomiwa says.
“Right,” Rupert says, turning to Eoin. “Like what if I went up to you and told you I’ve been wanting to shag you for years? Not like that wouldn’t change our relationship one way or another.”
Eoin laughs, then abruptly sobers and shoots an apologetic look at Rupert. “Wait. You don’t actually want to shag me, do you?”
“No, Eoin,” Rupert says, rolling his eyes, “I do not actually want to shag you.”
“You wanna shag me, Rupert?” Tom says, reaching across Bradley to tease Rupert’s hair.
“I don’t want to shag any of you wankers!” Rupert says, laughing and batting his hand away. “It was an example.”
“Don’t think it makes sense to use any of us as an example of how Colin would react to that,” Adetomiwa says.
“Yeah,” Tom adds, looking like this is starting to make a whole lot more sense. “He’d probably be snogging Bradley stupid by now.”
“I hate you all,” Bradley announces and slumps to the table again with his face in his arms.
“There, there,” Rupert says again, patting his shoulder.
________________________________________________________________
Bradley has only just stepped foot in the green room at Graham Norton’s show when he’s attacked by two of his former co-stars in a chorus of “Bradders!”
They smell like Katie’s old jasmine perfume and Angel’s minty shampoo, and he tangles his arms around the pair of them and feels his face split into an idiotically wide grin.
After a moment, there’s a quiet cough beside them, and Bradley turns his face out of Angel’s hair to see Colin standing in the doorway. His hair is longer in that way he always liked to grow it between series, fluffing a bit and making his ears appear normal-sized, while the scruff on his face makes him appear a bit older. It makes Bradley remembers the first time they met, how young and scruffy they both were, and how awkward Bradley felt around Colin; Colin who was so polite and strange and dedicated. And here Colin is, standing there five years later, one month after the end, and he looks well-rested and hopeful at the sight of them all, and something in Bradley just opens at the feel of him being nearby again.
The girls quickly untangle themselves from Bradley and launch toward Colin, who gives a delighted oof at the impact and wraps his long arms around them without hesitation, laughing right along with their chattering greetings.
When they all pull apart, Colin’s eyes immediately turn to Bradley. He grins a bit uncertainly and has barely reached out a hand - to, what, clap Bradley on the shoulder? shake his bloody hand? - before Bradley’s rolling his eyes and grabbing his shoulder to tug him into their own hug, one arm around his waist, one around his neck, that familiar sound of Colin momentarily getting the air knocked out of him a rush against Bradley’s ear. Colin’s arms take a second to settle, but once they do, he’s snaked one around the middle of Bradley’s back and the other over his shoulder, fingers wrapping around the nape of his neck.
“Jesus, it’s good to see you,” Colin murmurs into Bradley’s ear, and it’s so good to hear his voice, all Bradley can do is drift his hand up Colin’s neck into his hair and pull their heads closer together.
“Oh, boys,” Katie says fondly somewhere behind him, Angel giggling quietly, and Bradley just breathes and breathes, feeling like he’s finally coming home.
________________________________________________________________
“Just. Not. On,” Katie’s saying, punctuating each word with an overenthusiastic pat on Angel’s forearm.
The four of them migrated to some pub or another after the interview and have claimed a booth for the past couple hours. Katie and Angel are practically in each other’s laps by this point, but Colin is sitting a bit hunched in on himself while Bradley sprawls into his personal space as usual, arm over the back of their booth. It’s a familiar position, and relaxes Bradley in ways he didn’t even realise he’d needed relaxing.
“I know!” Angel says, nearly knocking over her pint. “How did we all go a month without seeing one another?”
“How did we survive?” Bradley says, mocking their outrage, even if he secretly does wonder the very same.
“What if we didn’t?” Colin says quietly, his front teeth peeking out in a mischievous grin as all eyes turn to him. “What if we all actually died of separation and this is our afterlife?”
“Our hearts grew fungus,” Angel says, nodding wisely, then scrunches her nose and giggles. “Or- whatsit, the absence thing.”
“Fonder,” Bradley corrects her.
“Fondle?” Katie says, brow knit together, hand pausing mid-reach for her drink.
“What the-” Bradley bursts out laughing, as beside him Colin tumbles into laughter at the nonsense he’d concocted.
“Welllll,” Katie says abruptly, slipping on her overcoat. “I’ve an early shoot tomorrow, but we must do this more often.”
“Must,” Angel repeats, glaring briefly at Bradley and Colin, before reaching for her own coat. “I should head home as well.”
“We’re still flat-hunting together on the weekend, right?” Katie says to Angel, a little thrill in her voice, as they stand up.
“Of course! We need to sort out our flat in time to host holiday parties.”
“Oh god. You’re really going through with your insane idea to live together?” Bradley mutters, slouching farther into the booth.
“Of course we are! Why aren’t you?” Katie shoots back with a piercing look between him and Colin.
“Us?” Colin startles beside him, and in his periphery Bradley can see him glance over, but Bradley’s locked his eyes on the empty glass in front of him and refuses to meet his gaze. “But Bradley still lives with Eoin, and I- erm-”
“You’re both impossible,” Angel says, and Bradley doesn’t need to be looking at her to know she’s rolling her eyes right now.
“Hey!” Katie says sharply, picking up the glass Bradley’s staring - or, rather, sulking - at and clunks it against the table a few times to get his attention.
It works. He glares up at her.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she says, her face relaxing as she looks between him and Colin.
“Right, right,” Bradley says and offers her a lopsided smile. Colin stretches up and gives her a brief hug.
Angel leans down for a Colin hug as well. She catches Bradley’s eyes over Colin’s shoulder, raises an eyebrow and tilts a suggestive glance toward the bundle of Colin in her arms then back toward Bradley, and lifts one hand to her ear in a ring-me gesture.
He scowls at her and mouths hate you, but she just grins.
Once their meddling friends have left, Bradley finds himself alone with Colin for the first time in a month. Well, as alone as one can be in a pub.
The pair of them are quiet for a while in the midst of all the conversations and music and clank-clinking around them. Bradley watches Colin’s fingers trace shapes in the condensation of his glass while trying not to look like he’s watching Colin’s fingers trace shapes in the condensation of his glass. Bradley can’t decide if it’s an uncomfortable silence or not, until he figures that if he has to question it, it’s probably not terribly comfortable.
He has the brief, absurd wish that he could text Colin right now, like he normally does in an awkward situation, but he can’t, of course, not when Colin is one half of that awkward situation.
“I should head back to mine as well,” Colin says after awhile, his thumb swooping across the rim of the glass.
Bradley swallows. “Your flat’s nearby, isn’t it?”
“Maybe twenty-minute walk,” he says, pulling on a beanie and coat.
“Right, then,” Bradley starts, honestly not knowing what he’s about to suggest until it comes out, “I’ll walk with you and just catch a cab.”
Colin turns a brilliant smile on him, and Bradley feels any unidentifiable tension dissipate between them with that simple gesture.
They walk together in the easy, quiet way Bradley had missed, elbows bumping together occasionally. Usually, with anyone else, Bradley starts to talk about anything he can think of just to fill the silence, but Colin tends to bring out a relaxed side of Bradley in moments like this.
Of course, that’s about the time a downpour hits them. One of those godawful things that always makes Bradley remember the exact moment he’d left his flat that day and thought, “Nah, I’ll be fine without an umbrella today,” and then curse his past self for being so arrogant in the face of London weather.
But he’s with Colin, so they’re laughing as Colin shouts, “It’s only a couple more blocks this way!”
He takes off running, and Bradley follows him, and for a second it feels like they’re Arthur and Merlin again, chasing or running away from something, Bradley’s not sure which. Chasing something? Definitely chasing, full sprint through Puzzlewood. And then that feeling’s gone and there’s nothing mythical about this: They’re Bradley and Colin, they’re running down a rainy street in London, they’re together again.
When Colin slows and stops, all Bradley can do is skid to halt beside him and throw his head back in a bark of laughter. They’re dripping wet beneath a small overhang that’s barely covering them both.
Colin’s laughing as well, in that scrunched-shoulder contained giggles sort of way, and Bradley indulges himself for a moment, just grins and leans against the brick wall beside the door, watching Colin’s long fingers fumble with his keys. The rain is already starting to turn to a drizzle because the sky is mad and fickle like that.
“Wanna come in for a bit and dry off?” Colin says, once he’s got the door open. There are raindrops beading on his nose.
Bradley wants to say yes, wants to stay for a completely different reason, but he says a coward’s, “Nah, rain’s letting up.”
Colin quirks a disappointed smile. “Well. Let’s, erm- we’ll do this again sometime.”
“‘Running through the rain with Colin.’ Right. I’ll add it to my calendar.”
Colin laughs. “Next time we might be running through snow. Much more treacherous, black ice and all.”
“I think we’d be up for the challenge.”
“Definitely.” Colin looks at his hand on the doorknob for a moment, swings the door minutely to-and-fro, then looks back up at Bradley. “I just meant, erm, we should spend any sort of time together again, you know?”
Bradley’s chest begins to ache. “Yeah,” he manages. “Yeah, I do. We will.”
Colin bites his lower lip and smiles at him in that way where it’s mostly with his eyes, crinkling around the edges.
The ache is spreading to Bradley’s fingers now. “Yes, well.” He glances down the street and notices the approaching orange-yellow glow of a taxi sign. “I’ll see you soon then, mate. Gonna try to catch this cab.”
And with a quick clap on Colin’s shoulder, he rushes out into the drizzle, trying not to read into the disappointment in Colin’s expression and voice when his face had dropped and called after him a confused, “Later?”
Once he’s told the cabbie his address, Bradley twists in his seat to look back at Colin’s front door, and sees Colin still standing there, head bowed, with one hand on the doorknob, the little sliver of light inside growing and closing, growing and closing, as if he’s forgotten if he’s coming or going.
________________________________________________________________
Part Three