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moogingI just, I don't even know, okay? Here is this thing. (somehow it is the longest thing I can remember writing recently, and I just hope it isn't awful)
Title: We Will Become Silhouettes
Fandom: Merlin (RPF)
Pairing: Colin/Bradley
Rating: PG to PG-13 (language only)
Disclaimer: Er, this did not happen and I have neither met these people nor claim that this is real. No profit involved; no slander intended. Also, title from the song of the same name by The Postal Service.
Word Count: ~ 2600
Summary: Bradley is not Arthur, Colin is confused and both of them end up in a lake. For this prompt at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thisissirius Colin and Bradley (and Katie and Angel etc) comment fest party, which you should all go and see.
The thing about acting is, how can you really know when something is real and when it is only imaginary? There may be a difference between real emotion and the work of a skilled actor but it all looks the same on screen.
Colin has never come across this problem before.
*
Once, near the beginning of the shoot in France, he dreamed that he was Merlin, and that he was dressing Arthur for battle. He laced up a shirt, and pulled on the chainmail and handed him a sword, and Arthur looked at him to say, “I didn’t know you were into method acting,” in Bradley’s voice. When Colin woke up, early, with strands of insipid light straining to crack through the curtains, he couldn’t remember any of this.
It seems easier for the girls: Katie has the same air of glacial competence as Morgana; Angel is just as naturally sweet as Gwen. Katie has taken to sticking post-it notes on the back of Bradley’s costume and waiting for him to notice. She has devised a point system. It goes like this: 1 point if Bradley takes it off himself, 2 points if someone else removes it for him, 5 points if he shoots a scene without realising and 10 points if it actually gets caught in the shot by the camera. The last one said something that succeeded in making even Bradley blush, and Katie looked smug for the rest of the day. Colin thinks this might be the modern day equivalent of Morgana testing the boundaries of Arthur’s chivalry; then again, what does he know?
*
He and Bradley write ‘Je m’appelle Angel, je suis LOSER’ on a piece of paper and hang it on Angel’s door. It is, without doubt, very, very funny.
*
Shooting scenes out of sequence has always seemed wrong to Colin. Somehow, try as he might, he can never be sure that what he is doing is exactly conducive to what he has done, or what he might do. When Merlin arrives in Camelot, Colin has already saved Arthur’s life. It is hard, he finds, to re-capture the sense of innocence, of walking into somewhere so new, somewhere that will redefine who you are. He imagines starting this job again, putting on the red neckerchief and the baggy blue shirt for the first time, and then, on camera, Merlin is smiling broad and naïve.
*
He and Bradley are sitting in Colin’s trailer. Bradley, with his usual lack of regard for anyone else’s personal space, property or levels of propriety, has slung himself over Colin’s bed. Arthur’s boots are still on his feet: he is hiding from the costume department (“But I like them,” he protested to Colin, earlier, and he was pouting, and Colin weakened despite his better judgement, and said, “All right, but if they find you I am selling you out as a boot-stealer extraordinaire.”).
“I’m cold,” says Bradley in a whine. Colin has recently found himself noticing that Bradley has an extremely pretty mouth. Bradley continues, “I want my jacket.”
Colin looks out of the little trailer window. Miraculously, despite being neither on the bed nor actively wanting to be near the bed, he is being weighed down by Bradley’s legs, which are lying across Colin’s knees without shame or, it seems, scruples. Colin says, “You can’t go out there in those boots. You will be hunted down by zealous wardrobe people.”
Bradley makes a face in Colin’s general direction. His very blue eyes look very big. “But I like these boots,” he says, again. “I’m not leaving them with you. You will take them back to their proper home and I will only ever see them on set. I will miss them. They will miss me. There will be so much missing going on.” He sighs hugely. “You will be responsible for the tragedy of an age.”
Colin swats Bradley’s shin. “God,” he says. “Fine. Would you like me to go and fetch your jacket?”
Bradley smiles; his teeth seem to take up half of his face.
*
Merlin says, “You’ll die if you go out there,” sounding every bit as desperate as he feels, and then there is a crash to his left, and someone swears and calls an apology. Bradley turns to the noise, grinning, shouting, “What was that then?” and suddenly Colin is standing in Merlin’s clothes and feeling completely out of place.
*
Slowly, as ‘Colin-and-Bradley: cast-mates’ becomes ‘Colin-and-Bradley: friends’, Colin learns that it is often just plain easier to do what Bradley asks when he asks it rather than enduring the lengthy and frequently shameless pleading and cajoling that follows.
One night sees the four of them languishing around Angel’s room with a giant bucket of Maltesers and very little inclination to actually do anything. Colin thinks that maybe Katie and Bradley are a tiny bit drunk: Bradley keeps roaring about something; Katie keeps giggling. Angel rolls her eyes discreetly at Colin but she is smiling. Bradley chucks a Malteser at Colin’s chest: Colin says, “Ow.”
“Wimp,” says Bradley, and Katie lets out a fresh cackle of merriment. “I want a drink. Get us some drinks, won’t you, Colin?”
When Colin returns, clutching four sizable coffees, there is an odd sort of silence in the room for the briefest of moments, like someone was talking about him, like someone knows something he doesn’t, but then Bradley rolls off the bed and lands on his face, and everyone laughs, and Colin forgets.
*
Colin dreams of Arthur and Merlin entwined in Arthur’s bedclothes. Arthur says, “Colin, you snore,” and Colin wakes up.
*
As they wait for a shot to be set up, Bradley is turning around and around on the spot, making Arthur’s red cloak rise and fall in sweeps and eddies. Colin laces his fingers together as he watches. Bradley says, “Do you think this scene is working?” and he sounds so much like Arthur, worried and disdainful, that Colin laughs.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Why don’t you ask Uther?”
Bradley gives him an odd look. “Colin,” he says, “you do know that you’re only pretending to be Merlin, don’t you?”
“Yes,” says Colin, quickly, embarrassed, and afterwards neither of them think that particular scene was one of their best.
*
“God, Merlin,” drawls Bradley, after Colin bumps into him in the hotel corridor. “Watch where you’re going.”
Colin smiles and hits him on the shoulder. Bradley pretends to frown, saying, “Oi, you can’t hit the crown prince.”
“Want to bet?” asks Colin, and the two of them tumble into Colin’s room, slapping at any parts of each other they can reach and causing far too much disturbance for that early in the morning. The play-fight makes them both late to set and Anthony, who has clearly been ready for quite some time, looks so tired and severe that Bradley pulls a face.
“Looks like Dad’s upset again,” he says, and Colin shoves him through the door into the make-up room.
*
In training for one of the seemingly endless scenes in which Arthur demonstrates his physical prowess by systematically beating up Merlin under the guise of ‘practising for combat’, Colin drops his sword. And then he drops it again.
The third time Colin drops his damned sword, Bradley calls, “Watch this,” and launches into an attack, darting and rolling impressively across the open green field. His sword never leaves his hand: Colin can even hear that specific sword noise he thought the foly people had to make up later. It is, he thinks, stooping to pick up his weapon, decidedly unfair.
*
“If I had to pick someone to like me more than you,” Bradley tells Colin over his shoulder in the line for lunch, “it would be the catering people.”
Colin glares at his back. Of all the people to distrust his obviously angelic Irish face, it would have to the people responsible for a large part of his daily nutrition. It’ll be a wonder if he doesn’t starve.
“There you go, dear,” chirps the lady with the ladle, dolloping something warm and nice-smelling onto Bradley’s plate. “Mind you eat it all now; we don’t want you wasting away.”
“We most certainly do not,” says Bradley, in what Colin considers to be an obsequiously charming voice. “You have a nice day.” He winks at Colin as he goes to sit down: Colin wants to hit him.
It is his turn at the counter. “What he had,” he tries hopefully, smiling as flatteringly as he can.
“That’s all we’ve got left,” says the woman, handing him a plate, and Colin says, “Thanks,” glumly, and joins Bradley at his table.
Bradley guffaws.
“Shut up,” says Colin, determined to make the best of it. “I like salad.”
*
It is now the fifth take of this scene. Bradley has to put his hand on Colin’s shoulder, look into his eyes and deliver his line with deep sincerity and meaning. It is the single gayest moment Colin has filmed so far. Neither he nor Bradley have yet been able to keep a straight face.
“Merlin, I,” says Bradley, his fingers digging tight into Colin’s skin. He glances down. His mouth is making a shape suspiciously close to a smirk. He tries again: “Merlin, I –“ but this time Colin smiles, and Bradley smiles because Colin is smiling, and then they both go to pieces.
“Cut!” calls the director, exasperated, and Bradley and Colin hoot like idiots.
“This is ridiculously homosexual,” sniggers Colin, like a schoolboy, and Bradley chokes out, “Dude, I know.”
*
One day, waiting together while a scene that is proving particularly awkward to light in the midday sun is being set up, Bradley says, “You know, there’s a lake nearby.”
What Colin should do is: say, “Yes, there is,” and end the conversation there.
Another option would be to say, “Oh, really?” and thus invite Bradley to tell him more about it.
What he really should not do, and, ironically, what he does do, is look at Bradley askance from the corner of his eye until he is sure that they are both thinking the same thing and then, simultaneously, they both bolt forward. It turns out, Bradley cheats in races by tripping up his opponents.
“I’d have got here first if you hadn’t pushed a fruit cart under my feet,” Colin protests as he arrives at the edge of the lake, sweating and breathing hard and being very jealous of Bradley, who is already recumbent and smug in the cold, still water.
“Shut up,” says Bradley, and splashes him. Colin gasps: Bradley, beaming, scoffs, “God, you are such a girl,” and drags him by the wrist into the lake. Bradley’s fingers are icy and clammy as they close around Colin’s skin, and Colin squeals and shivers until Bradley dunks him fully under the water and swims away, plainly sensationally amused.
They both get a bollocking when they trudge back to the set, dripping lake water and plant-life with every footfall. The words ‘irresponsible’ and ‘hooligans’ are used in direct connection with each other. No-one is very impressed by their behaviour (excepting, of course, Anthony, who makes a thumbs-up sign in their direction when no-one else is looking, and who then schools his face back into implacability when the director rounds on him). Katie sniffs at them; Bradley shakes his hair as she passes and then looks innocent when she gives him one of her patented Glares. Colin bows his head and tries to look penitent, but it is difficult when Bradley is fidgeting by his side like the miscreant Colin imagines he was at school, and, anyway, it doesn’t really matter because even after they’ve been chewed up and spat out by various people, including the director, the producer and someone from wardrobe, the bloody scene still isn’t ready for them to shoot.
*
“I’m using your shower tonight,” Bradley informs Colin. “Mine has no hot water.”
“If yours doesn’t, neither will mine,” says Colin. He hopes he will not have to explain the intricacies of plumbing to Bradley: it is exactly the sort of thing he will ask endless inane questions about until he has driven the other person beyond the point of distraction and to the border of exceptionally irritated, thank you, Bradley, will you kindly desist – and Colin knows with the inevitability of ages that Bradley will just ultimately shrug and say, “I suppose it’s not important,” before leaping headlong into his next passing whim.
Bradley says, “All right, but I’m still using your shower. And your towels.”
Colin flounders ineptly and fruitlessly for a moment. “Bradley,” he says, “it really will not be any different from showering in your own shower.”
“Yes, it will,” Bradley insists. “This way, I’m annoying you.”
There are days when Colin will genuinely not miss filming this godforsaken show.
*
“Arthur,” says Merlin, like the word is being torn out of his throat, and Arthur does nothing but lie before him, bloodless and pale, and Merlin feels like his world is folding in on him. He mutters something dark and old that itches on his tongue, and when this does not work, it is Colin that finds himself on the point of tears, Bradley in his arms.
This dream, Colin remembers.
*
At the end of filming in France, they have a small party. Colin is standing with Bradley when Katie walks over.
“Colin,” she greets him, warmly; she also says, “Bradley,” but that is in a different tone of voice.
Bradley, who is clearly not quite sober, licks her up one side of her face.
“Oh my God,” says Colin, mortified. “Katie, I –“
“Do you know,” she says, remarkably unruffled, “it really doesn’t matter. He’s drunk. I might be drunk. You should be drunk. See you later, all right?” She touches Colin’s arm affectionately; she has a perfect smile. Colin says something warm and memorable that sounds an awful lot like, “ajkbdhbbsmmph,” and shuffles his feet. Katie says, “Take care,” and glides away to bestow her presence upon someone, who, Colin is painfully aware, is probably more worthy of it.
Bradley says, “She didn’t say goodbye to me.”
Colin turns to him and slides the drink he is holding out of his hand. “Come on,” he says. “You should probably lie down now.”
“All right,” Bradley agrees, placidly, and Colin has never been more thankful that Bradley can, on occasion, be a peaceful drunk.
He makes sure Bradley is at least on his bed, as under the covers seems to be asking a bit too much. As he is easing out of Bradley’s hotel room, trying to shut the door as quietly as possible, he bumps into Richard.
“Art imitating life?” he asks. “Or is it the other way around?”
*
Why has Colin not noticed this before?
*
Colin and Merlin, Bradley and Arthur; Arthur and Merlin and their great big destiny. None of it quite makes any sense now, not to Colin.
He dreams of dreaming about a memory: Arthur is Bradley, or maybe Bradley is just in Arthur’s clothes, and Merlin is kissing him. A fire in the grate is hissing fiercely nearby and the light bounces off both their faces.
“Are you happy?” says Bradley, and Merlin says –
*
Merlin says –
*
Colin doesn’t really care what Merlin says.
He is not Merlin, after all: what matters is that Colin is happy and he thinks, perhaps, that he is.
*
Title: We Will Become Silhouettes
Fandom: Merlin (RPF)
Pairing: Colin/Bradley
Rating: PG to PG-13 (language only)
Disclaimer: Er, this did not happen and I have neither met these people nor claim that this is real. No profit involved; no slander intended. Also, title from the song of the same name by The Postal Service.
Word Count: ~ 2600
Summary: Bradley is not Arthur, Colin is confused and both of them end up in a lake. For this prompt at
thisissirius Colin and Bradley (and Katie and Angel etc) comment fest party, which you should all go and see.The thing about acting is, how can you really know when something is real and when it is only imaginary? There may be a difference between real emotion and the work of a skilled actor but it all looks the same on screen.
Colin has never come across this problem before.
*
Once, near the beginning of the shoot in France, he dreamed that he was Merlin, and that he was dressing Arthur for battle. He laced up a shirt, and pulled on the chainmail and handed him a sword, and Arthur looked at him to say, “I didn’t know you were into method acting,” in Bradley’s voice. When Colin woke up, early, with strands of insipid light straining to crack through the curtains, he couldn’t remember any of this.
It seems easier for the girls: Katie has the same air of glacial competence as Morgana; Angel is just as naturally sweet as Gwen. Katie has taken to sticking post-it notes on the back of Bradley’s costume and waiting for him to notice. She has devised a point system. It goes like this: 1 point if Bradley takes it off himself, 2 points if someone else removes it for him, 5 points if he shoots a scene without realising and 10 points if it actually gets caught in the shot by the camera. The last one said something that succeeded in making even Bradley blush, and Katie looked smug for the rest of the day. Colin thinks this might be the modern day equivalent of Morgana testing the boundaries of Arthur’s chivalry; then again, what does he know?
*
He and Bradley write ‘Je m’appelle Angel, je suis LOSER’ on a piece of paper and hang it on Angel’s door. It is, without doubt, very, very funny.
*
Shooting scenes out of sequence has always seemed wrong to Colin. Somehow, try as he might, he can never be sure that what he is doing is exactly conducive to what he has done, or what he might do. When Merlin arrives in Camelot, Colin has already saved Arthur’s life. It is hard, he finds, to re-capture the sense of innocence, of walking into somewhere so new, somewhere that will redefine who you are. He imagines starting this job again, putting on the red neckerchief and the baggy blue shirt for the first time, and then, on camera, Merlin is smiling broad and naïve.
*
He and Bradley are sitting in Colin’s trailer. Bradley, with his usual lack of regard for anyone else’s personal space, property or levels of propriety, has slung himself over Colin’s bed. Arthur’s boots are still on his feet: he is hiding from the costume department (“But I like them,” he protested to Colin, earlier, and he was pouting, and Colin weakened despite his better judgement, and said, “All right, but if they find you I am selling you out as a boot-stealer extraordinaire.”).
“I’m cold,” says Bradley in a whine. Colin has recently found himself noticing that Bradley has an extremely pretty mouth. Bradley continues, “I want my jacket.”
Colin looks out of the little trailer window. Miraculously, despite being neither on the bed nor actively wanting to be near the bed, he is being weighed down by Bradley’s legs, which are lying across Colin’s knees without shame or, it seems, scruples. Colin says, “You can’t go out there in those boots. You will be hunted down by zealous wardrobe people.”
Bradley makes a face in Colin’s general direction. His very blue eyes look very big. “But I like these boots,” he says, again. “I’m not leaving them with you. You will take them back to their proper home and I will only ever see them on set. I will miss them. They will miss me. There will be so much missing going on.” He sighs hugely. “You will be responsible for the tragedy of an age.”
Colin swats Bradley’s shin. “God,” he says. “Fine. Would you like me to go and fetch your jacket?”
Bradley smiles; his teeth seem to take up half of his face.
*
Merlin says, “You’ll die if you go out there,” sounding every bit as desperate as he feels, and then there is a crash to his left, and someone swears and calls an apology. Bradley turns to the noise, grinning, shouting, “What was that then?” and suddenly Colin is standing in Merlin’s clothes and feeling completely out of place.
*
Slowly, as ‘Colin-and-Bradley: cast-mates’ becomes ‘Colin-and-Bradley: friends’, Colin learns that it is often just plain easier to do what Bradley asks when he asks it rather than enduring the lengthy and frequently shameless pleading and cajoling that follows.
One night sees the four of them languishing around Angel’s room with a giant bucket of Maltesers and very little inclination to actually do anything. Colin thinks that maybe Katie and Bradley are a tiny bit drunk: Bradley keeps roaring about something; Katie keeps giggling. Angel rolls her eyes discreetly at Colin but she is smiling. Bradley chucks a Malteser at Colin’s chest: Colin says, “Ow.”
“Wimp,” says Bradley, and Katie lets out a fresh cackle of merriment. “I want a drink. Get us some drinks, won’t you, Colin?”
When Colin returns, clutching four sizable coffees, there is an odd sort of silence in the room for the briefest of moments, like someone was talking about him, like someone knows something he doesn’t, but then Bradley rolls off the bed and lands on his face, and everyone laughs, and Colin forgets.
*
Colin dreams of Arthur and Merlin entwined in Arthur’s bedclothes. Arthur says, “Colin, you snore,” and Colin wakes up.
*
As they wait for a shot to be set up, Bradley is turning around and around on the spot, making Arthur’s red cloak rise and fall in sweeps and eddies. Colin laces his fingers together as he watches. Bradley says, “Do you think this scene is working?” and he sounds so much like Arthur, worried and disdainful, that Colin laughs.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Why don’t you ask Uther?”
Bradley gives him an odd look. “Colin,” he says, “you do know that you’re only pretending to be Merlin, don’t you?”
“Yes,” says Colin, quickly, embarrassed, and afterwards neither of them think that particular scene was one of their best.
*
“God, Merlin,” drawls Bradley, after Colin bumps into him in the hotel corridor. “Watch where you’re going.”
Colin smiles and hits him on the shoulder. Bradley pretends to frown, saying, “Oi, you can’t hit the crown prince.”
“Want to bet?” asks Colin, and the two of them tumble into Colin’s room, slapping at any parts of each other they can reach and causing far too much disturbance for that early in the morning. The play-fight makes them both late to set and Anthony, who has clearly been ready for quite some time, looks so tired and severe that Bradley pulls a face.
“Looks like Dad’s upset again,” he says, and Colin shoves him through the door into the make-up room.
*
In training for one of the seemingly endless scenes in which Arthur demonstrates his physical prowess by systematically beating up Merlin under the guise of ‘practising for combat’, Colin drops his sword. And then he drops it again.
The third time Colin drops his damned sword, Bradley calls, “Watch this,” and launches into an attack, darting and rolling impressively across the open green field. His sword never leaves his hand: Colin can even hear that specific sword noise he thought the foly people had to make up later. It is, he thinks, stooping to pick up his weapon, decidedly unfair.
*
“If I had to pick someone to like me more than you,” Bradley tells Colin over his shoulder in the line for lunch, “it would be the catering people.”
Colin glares at his back. Of all the people to distrust his obviously angelic Irish face, it would have to the people responsible for a large part of his daily nutrition. It’ll be a wonder if he doesn’t starve.
“There you go, dear,” chirps the lady with the ladle, dolloping something warm and nice-smelling onto Bradley’s plate. “Mind you eat it all now; we don’t want you wasting away.”
“We most certainly do not,” says Bradley, in what Colin considers to be an obsequiously charming voice. “You have a nice day.” He winks at Colin as he goes to sit down: Colin wants to hit him.
It is his turn at the counter. “What he had,” he tries hopefully, smiling as flatteringly as he can.
“That’s all we’ve got left,” says the woman, handing him a plate, and Colin says, “Thanks,” glumly, and joins Bradley at his table.
Bradley guffaws.
“Shut up,” says Colin, determined to make the best of it. “I like salad.”
*
It is now the fifth take of this scene. Bradley has to put his hand on Colin’s shoulder, look into his eyes and deliver his line with deep sincerity and meaning. It is the single gayest moment Colin has filmed so far. Neither he nor Bradley have yet been able to keep a straight face.
“Merlin, I,” says Bradley, his fingers digging tight into Colin’s skin. He glances down. His mouth is making a shape suspiciously close to a smirk. He tries again: “Merlin, I –“ but this time Colin smiles, and Bradley smiles because Colin is smiling, and then they both go to pieces.
“Cut!” calls the director, exasperated, and Bradley and Colin hoot like idiots.
“This is ridiculously homosexual,” sniggers Colin, like a schoolboy, and Bradley chokes out, “Dude, I know.”
*
One day, waiting together while a scene that is proving particularly awkward to light in the midday sun is being set up, Bradley says, “You know, there’s a lake nearby.”
What Colin should do is: say, “Yes, there is,” and end the conversation there.
Another option would be to say, “Oh, really?” and thus invite Bradley to tell him more about it.
What he really should not do, and, ironically, what he does do, is look at Bradley askance from the corner of his eye until he is sure that they are both thinking the same thing and then, simultaneously, they both bolt forward. It turns out, Bradley cheats in races by tripping up his opponents.
“I’d have got here first if you hadn’t pushed a fruit cart under my feet,” Colin protests as he arrives at the edge of the lake, sweating and breathing hard and being very jealous of Bradley, who is already recumbent and smug in the cold, still water.
“Shut up,” says Bradley, and splashes him. Colin gasps: Bradley, beaming, scoffs, “God, you are such a girl,” and drags him by the wrist into the lake. Bradley’s fingers are icy and clammy as they close around Colin’s skin, and Colin squeals and shivers until Bradley dunks him fully under the water and swims away, plainly sensationally amused.
They both get a bollocking when they trudge back to the set, dripping lake water and plant-life with every footfall. The words ‘irresponsible’ and ‘hooligans’ are used in direct connection with each other. No-one is very impressed by their behaviour (excepting, of course, Anthony, who makes a thumbs-up sign in their direction when no-one else is looking, and who then schools his face back into implacability when the director rounds on him). Katie sniffs at them; Bradley shakes his hair as she passes and then looks innocent when she gives him one of her patented Glares. Colin bows his head and tries to look penitent, but it is difficult when Bradley is fidgeting by his side like the miscreant Colin imagines he was at school, and, anyway, it doesn’t really matter because even after they’ve been chewed up and spat out by various people, including the director, the producer and someone from wardrobe, the bloody scene still isn’t ready for them to shoot.
*
“I’m using your shower tonight,” Bradley informs Colin. “Mine has no hot water.”
“If yours doesn’t, neither will mine,” says Colin. He hopes he will not have to explain the intricacies of plumbing to Bradley: it is exactly the sort of thing he will ask endless inane questions about until he has driven the other person beyond the point of distraction and to the border of exceptionally irritated, thank you, Bradley, will you kindly desist – and Colin knows with the inevitability of ages that Bradley will just ultimately shrug and say, “I suppose it’s not important,” before leaping headlong into his next passing whim.
Bradley says, “All right, but I’m still using your shower. And your towels.”
Colin flounders ineptly and fruitlessly for a moment. “Bradley,” he says, “it really will not be any different from showering in your own shower.”
“Yes, it will,” Bradley insists. “This way, I’m annoying you.”
There are days when Colin will genuinely not miss filming this godforsaken show.
*
“Arthur,” says Merlin, like the word is being torn out of his throat, and Arthur does nothing but lie before him, bloodless and pale, and Merlin feels like his world is folding in on him. He mutters something dark and old that itches on his tongue, and when this does not work, it is Colin that finds himself on the point of tears, Bradley in his arms.
This dream, Colin remembers.
*
At the end of filming in France, they have a small party. Colin is standing with Bradley when Katie walks over.
“Colin,” she greets him, warmly; she also says, “Bradley,” but that is in a different tone of voice.
Bradley, who is clearly not quite sober, licks her up one side of her face.
“Oh my God,” says Colin, mortified. “Katie, I –“
“Do you know,” she says, remarkably unruffled, “it really doesn’t matter. He’s drunk. I might be drunk. You should be drunk. See you later, all right?” She touches Colin’s arm affectionately; she has a perfect smile. Colin says something warm and memorable that sounds an awful lot like, “ajkbdhbbsmmph,” and shuffles his feet. Katie says, “Take care,” and glides away to bestow her presence upon someone, who, Colin is painfully aware, is probably more worthy of it.
Bradley says, “She didn’t say goodbye to me.”
Colin turns to him and slides the drink he is holding out of his hand. “Come on,” he says. “You should probably lie down now.”
“All right,” Bradley agrees, placidly, and Colin has never been more thankful that Bradley can, on occasion, be a peaceful drunk.
He makes sure Bradley is at least on his bed, as under the covers seems to be asking a bit too much. As he is easing out of Bradley’s hotel room, trying to shut the door as quietly as possible, he bumps into Richard.
“Art imitating life?” he asks. “Or is it the other way around?”
*
Why has Colin not noticed this before?
*
Colin and Merlin, Bradley and Arthur; Arthur and Merlin and their great big destiny. None of it quite makes any sense now, not to Colin.
He dreams of dreaming about a memory: Arthur is Bradley, or maybe Bradley is just in Arthur’s clothes, and Merlin is kissing him. A fire in the grate is hissing fiercely nearby and the light bounces off both their faces.
“Are you happy?” says Bradley, and Merlin says –
*
Merlin says –
*
Colin doesn’t really care what Merlin says.
He is not Merlin, after all: what matters is that Colin is happy and he thinks, perhaps, that he is.
*
