Archive of Our Own

Three days before the end of filming the fifth and final series of Merlin, Bradley dreams that he's Arthur. Not acting as Arthur; is Arthur.

At first, it is as though he is watching himself from above: His body lies asleep on the dirt floor of a cave, and his chainmail and armour have rusted so thoroughly around him in the damp that he's nearly rusted shut, as if he could be caught in the same position for all eternity. All he knows is that Merlin will save him, somehow.

When Bradley wakes within the dream, as Arthur, in the same position but without rusted armor, there is Colin, crouched above him. Except, to Arthur he is Merlin, tipping Arthur's throat back for a drink of water, his gaze reverent, as if amazed that Arthur has lived at all.

"I knew you'd come for me," Arthur says, lifting a weakened arm to cup one side of Merlin's face.

"Erm. That's not your line," Colin says, cracking a smile and starting to stand as if to leave.

"I've waited for you all these years," Arthur says earnestly, making a desperate grab for Colin's tunic. "Allow me no more waiting! Let us be together as the stars have writ us."

"Okay, that's really not in the script," Colin says, laughing now, but his brow furrows a bit as he stares down at Arthur's whitened knuckles.

"Why will you not kiss me, Merlin?”

Colin's eyes widen. “Wait. Did you think it’d be funny if we added a love potion to the script?”

"Come closer,” Arthur demands, tugging harder on Colin’s tunic.

"Bradley," Colin says slowly, "you need to wake up now."

"I am awake, Merlin," Bradley mumbles. "I've never been more awake."

Colin chuckles. "You really aren't, Bradley. C'mon, you wanna get told off by Clarisse for being late for make-up again?"

Bradley feels a tickle at the back of his neck. He swats at it blindly and makes contact with a wrist, which he grabs, and blinks open his eyes. His other hand is clutched tightly in the fluff of his pillow where he’s lying face-first.

"Col?" he mutters, mucking about the sleep taste in his mouth.

"Oh good, at least you remember who I am now," Colin teases, and Bradley realises he's still holding onto Colin's wrist. He lets go and rubs at his own eyes instead, giving a great yawn and flopping onto his back to squint up at Colin, who's nursing a mug of tea and gazing bleary-eyed down at him. Jesus, he's never seen Colin so tired; he’s usually a morning natural.

Colin gestures at a mug set on the bedside table. “Brought you some tea. Wake up for real now, c’mon.”

"Was having a weird dream," Bradley says, more vulnerable to rambling truths immediately after waking than during any other sober time of day. He picks up the tea and takes a long, warm gulp. "I was Arthur, and I thought you were Merlin but really you were just you."

"Mm," Colin hums, sipping his tea, as if that made any sense. Bradley tries (and fails) not to stare as his throat bobs on the swallow. "Anything interesting happen?"

"I think Merlin— er, you— well, Merlin? Anyways, you saved me— well, Arthur— from a not-so-eternal sleep and then—" He stutters, remembering himself all of a sudden.

"And then?" Colin says.

"And— and then I don't really remember what happened," he lies, then adds to compensate, "but I don't think you were very happy with me."

"Well, no difference here — if we don't get going soon we'll be late." All Bradley can think is that makeup's going to give Colin hell for the dark circles beneath his eyes. Not even Merlin at this point in the series is supposed to appear so thoroughly unrested.

"Are you having nightmares as well? Looks like you barely slept a wink, mate."

"It's—" He shrugs, a painfully slow shift of his shoulders, and doesn't continue, just stares blankly down at his tea.

"Buck up, only three more days and then you can sleep all you want," Bradley says in the cheeriest voice he can muster this soon after waking.

If anything though, it makes Colin look even more miserable. "Ay, three days." His voice sounds hollow and it breaks Bradley's heart a little, drenched in the vulnerable emotions of post-dreamtime.

He levers himself out of bed and gives Colin what he hopes is a heartening pat on the shoulder but it’s a little more Arthur than he’d intended, knocking Colin forward on his toes. "We'll make the most of it, yeah?"

Colin summons a weak smile. “Go nip in the shower, and I'll meet you downstairs in ten, you great goon."

Bradley smiles for real and nods, but when Colin moves to leave him to it, Bradley's can't quite make the hand on his shoulder move yet. Colin hesitates for a moment, looking at Bradley with something like a question on his face.

"All right?" he checks after a moment, but Bradley's suddenly been hit with how it felt to be Arthur in his dream just moments ago: utterly certain that Merlin would be there for him, even if he had to wait for an age.

He snatches his hand away from Colin and gives a quick nod and his best smile, knowing Colin can see right through it but not knowing what else to do right now. “Cheers. Down in ten." And he flees to the shower.

Scheduling is even more of a whirlwind than usual this year, which finds them scrabbling together their final month at Pierrefonds, instead of back in the Cardiff studios.

Is it mad that I already sort of miss shouting at a green screen? Colin texts him that evening.

Bradley snorts a laugh at his mobile where he’s lounging against his favourite pillar in a shadowy nook off the steps of the castle. He should be emotionally preparing for his next scene, but since when does he ever deny himself any sort of interaction with Colin?

Cheer up, mate, he texts back. Maybe you’ll get loads of offers from people typecasting you as a top class master of green screen work.

He immediately updates his Twitter: Hello Merlin fans! Have you a green screen & a challenging script? Contact Colin Morgan’s agent ASAP #lifeaftermerlin

You’d better not be tweeting about that, Colin texts a moment later, like he’s a bloody psychic. Bradley would assume he’s noticed the tweet already, except for the fact that Colin avoids Twitter like a very unpleasant rash.

Ah... oops

I hate you

Your thumbs say you hate me but I bet that wherever you are in the castle you’re laughing your arse off at my usual wit.

A few extra seconds later, Bradley receives a picture message of Colin’s face looking distinctly Not Amused. He can tell that Colin had been laughing just a moment before, though, in the way his eyes are crinkled at the corners.

“Ten more minutes, Bradley!” Gareth calls, and Bradley gives a thumbs up over his head as he grins distractedly at Colin’s photo.

“Bradley,” says a very familiar voice above him.

He looks up at Tony, who’s standing there in full Uther regalia, blowing gently on a cup of tea. Seriously, it’s a delicate porcelain teacup and saucer with little flower patterns rung around them. One of the new people in the crew this series got a bit too enthusiastic about bringing tea to Anthony Stewart Head and she thought it needed a posh presentation. Of course, Tony didn’t give a damn how his tea got delivered so long as it did, but he was so fond of the cup and saucer treatment that he never bothered correcting it, just graciously accepted his tea periodically throughout the day.

“Anthony!” Bradley stands up and grins at him. The set has felt even more like their original little Merlin family ever since Tony’s returned for a guest spot as the spirit of the late king, come to reassure Arthur in a time of need.

“Are you prepared for our final scene together, my son?” Tony says in his best forbidding Uther voice.

“Can’t be as tough as when we shot the scene where you actually all but died in the arms of your only son,” Bradley says, then with a thoughtful tilt of his head adds, “although we will be walking down those cloisters of doom.”

“Ah, yes.” Tony giggles a little, and god, Bradley never quite got used to how lucky he is to know this warm, wise man as something more than just a national treasure and, you know, Giles. “Isn’t that where your back almost gave out whilst trying to drag me through there a few years back?”

“It did not almost give out, old man,” Bradley teases.

“Oh, I’ll ‘old man’ you,” Tony says, aiming a punch in the shoulder, carefully balancing his tea saucer in one hand, and Bradley dances to the side out of range, laughing. Calmly, still smiling, Tony goes back to sipping his tea, then abruptly changes the subject. “Is it true you’ve earned a part in Romeo and Juliet at The Globe this upcoming spring?”

The question startles Bradley; he hadn’t told many people yet, really only his family and Colin and Eoin. “I have, yes,” he says. Then, brightening, adds, “I’ve finally got Mercutio! I am well excited to get back on the stage — at the bloody Globe no less.”

Tony turns a full smile on him. “You’ll do just fine there, Bradley.” He takes another sip of his tea, as Bradley tries to work past the embarrassing flush of emotion that praise from Tony has ignited, which gets even worse when Tony adds, “Sarah and I would love to stop by for one of your performances. Perhaps even opening night?”

“Tony, that’s.” Bradley feels his mouth move up and down like a fish for a second, his gratitude getting stuck in his throat. “That’ll mean a lot to me,” he finally finishes.

Patting him on the arm, Tony gives him a stern Utherly look. “Merlin is but the beginning, son,” he says, then smiles in that full, eye-crinkling joyful way of his and wanders off without waiting for Bradley to regain control of his usual talkative self.

Why is Tony STILL able to turn me into an awestruck fanboy sometimes? he texts Colin, leaning back against the pillar and coughing out his embarrassed laughter.

His phone vibrates with a response seconds later: Because he’ll always be a little bit Giles in your head?

Bradley sighs. true

A moment later: I think it’s good, that occasional reaction to Tony and Richard, like we’re still fans and students, not colleagues. Means we’ve not let this thing get to our heads too badly.

What a perfectly, endearingly Colin thing to say, Bradley thinks. Always one to remind them to be grateful for this career, that fame doesn’t mean a thing if they’re not still working in some meaningful way.

“Bradley! One minute!” Gareth shouts from several yards away, and Bradley looks up to give him a nod.

Gotta get back on set. Destiny calls, Merlin, he texts, then spontaneously snaps a picture of the Pendragon crest on his tunic and attaches it before he hits send and joins Tony in the dreaded cloisters.

Much later, after he’s finished his scene with Tony and they’ve shook hands (laughingly doing a Camelot handshake in place of a contemporary one, grips firm on each other’s forearms), he checks his phone and grins at a message from Colin: a photo of the Pendragon crest on Colin’s own courtly tunic, with the cheeky caption Two sides of the same text message, Arthur.

It wasn’t until shooting series three that Bradley realised what he felt for Colin was much bigger and wilder than friendship.

Honestly, until then he’d figured all he had was a friend-crush, like he’d harbored for one of the neighborhood boys when he was a kid; the sort of thing where you think about your friend all the time and he makes you feel almost giddily excited when you do something that impresses him and you never, ever tire of his company, but you certainly don’t fantasise about snogging him or anything. Bradley had just chalked up his infatuation to the fact that Colin was so different from most of Bradley’s mates, all loud drama school classmates or even louder footie blokes. But it wasn’t until he was in bloody Paris of all places that it hit him what was actually there, at least on his side, and it was so simple: one of those moments where all the information was something he’d already known but, suddenly, really knew.

It had been one of their last weekends off while filming in France that series when he, Colin, Angel, and Katie had gone down to Paris for the day. After a bit of mid-day wine at a wobbly sidewalk table, Katie and Angel had disappeared into the narrow winding streets for dress-shopping, and Colin had dragged him along the Seine to Shakespeare & Company.

“C’mon, I’ve never gotten the chance to spend some time in here before,” Colin said when Bradley acts put-upon for the sake of appearances; he secretly would take part in anything that makes Colin as nerdily excited as a good bookshop does.

Bradley browsed the theatre section for a bit, but when he found Colin engrossed in about five different books, somehow at the same time, it became clear that they’d be there for a good long while. So, he decided there was no other way he’d rather experience a bookshop than through the curious eyes of Colin Morgan. Cramped together in dusty sunlight and dim corners, he started bothering Colin, casually leaning against shelves and nagging him about everything he was reading. It reminded him a bit of those long afternoons at school with his first girlfriend, who he used to distract from studying by pressing her up against the stacks and snogging her until a librarian turned them shame-facedly out of there.

He watched as Colin’s fingers fluttered over the illustrated pages of the only book about Arthurian legend they could find in the shop, and wondered why being with Colin of all people made him think of snogging in the stacks.

Quickly looking away, he spotted the stairs leading to the next floor and said, “Hey, let’s check out the upstairs.”

Bradley was already making his way up the creaky, worn steps before he could hear Colin follow him.

Upstairs was almost unsettlingly quiet but for a fan humming at the entryway between a rare books reading room and a separate room lined with shelves and, inexplicably, a typewriter, a small bed, and a piano.

“Oh, I love this,” Colin said softly, taking it all in, the big Arthurian book still clutched in his arms.

Bradley laughed. “Check out the toy dinosaurs outside the window.” He slouched onto the bed and made a tiny-armed t-rex rawr motion with his hands.

Colin huffed one of those quiet laughs of his, just air through his nostrils, and leaned over the bed to drag his fingers tenderly over the spines of old books. His body was so warm and close to Bradley’s, it felt more intimate than he’d expected in public, this section of the shop all their own at the moment.

“Think we could figure out how to play the Merlin theme?” Bradley said, breathing deeply into his quickened heartbeat, and pointed at the piano.

“I bet we could figure out how to get kicked out of here just in the attempt,” Colin said with a tilt of his head as he sat carefully on the bed beside Bradley. He bounced a little, as if testing that it was actually a bed.

Bradley laughed and pushed off it. “You’re on, Morgan.”

“That wasn’t an actual dare!” Colin protested, but he followed, laughing along with Bradley as they settled onto the bench and started tapping away at the piano keys.

“No, no, no, that is not the opening credits,” Colin said.

“Well, whatever rubbish you’re playing isn’t it either.” Bradley elbowed Colin away from his side of the keys. “I thought you knew how to play this thing!”

“Not with you mucking about in the upper octaves,” Colin said, elbowing him back.

Their shared laughter overlapping with the failing notes they hit might’ve been the best thing Bradley’d heard in a long, long time.

“I do still wish we’d’ve had time to see that Arthurian library in Wales,” Colin said, abruptly lifting his fingers from the keys and picking up the book again.

“Not again, Morgan,” Bradley said, rolling his eyes and tink-tinking a couple more high notes. It was not the first time Colin had bemoaned the fact that they’d missed out on that library during their road trip. “If it’ll make you shut up about it, I’ll take you to the bloody library sometime.”

Colin gave him a startled look. “I wouldn’t want to put you through that. I’d end up spending the entire day in Mold, just reading in a small dusty room.”

“Yes, I figured as much. Not like there’s a whole lot else to do with a library.”

“But you’d be bored out of your skull, whinging every ten minutes that you’re missing a match or something.”

Bradley shrugged. “If you say so.”

Honestly, if spending the day in a library with Colin would be anything like spending an afternoon in this bookshop with him, then Bradley didn’t think he’d be bored at all. He’d never really been bored when it was just him and Colin, reacting to whatever came their way.

Colin lowered his head, then lifted his gaze back to Bradley’s. “You really want to go with me sometime?”

“Sure I do,” Bradley said, swallowing, embarrassed to meet Colin’s gaze, realising he’d just offered to take them on a road trip all on their own — no BBC, no one else as a buffer between them — just so he and Colin could sit in a library in Wales. Trying not to think of why that thought made him nervous, he pretended to be engrossed in a new pattern of notes and added, “Obviously you’d need someone to drive you there, you lazy license-less lug.”

“Oi,” Colin said indignantly, leaning closer to elbow him. But when Bradley stopped playing and looked up at him, Colin was smiling — a small hesitant thing, where his front teeth peeked out in a hint of shiny white — and their faces were much closer than Bradley had expected.

I want to kiss you, he thought, looking into Colin’s fond eyes, as his own pulse thrummed faster all of a sudden. Only it was not as crystalline a thought as that; it was more like a split-second whoosh of recognition, like he was finally recognising every feeling from the previous few years for what they truly were — that tug in his chest when he’d make Colin laugh, those lingering looks at Colin’s lips, throat, eyelashes, hands — and it all focused into the feeling of I want to kiss you. It was a sense of home mingled with want so dizzying Bradley couldn’t look at Colin that closely anymore without doing something he was sure he’d regret right then.

He turned away and stood up from the bench.

“So, are you buying that book or what?” he said sharply, running a hand would-be casually through his hair and pretending to examine the shelves in front of him.

Colin didn’t say or do anything in his periphery for a moment, but then: “Erm, I think I will, yeah.”

“Great, I’m famished, let’s get out of here,” Bradley said, and it was all Arthur, the brusque way he said it, and he immediately wanted to kick himself for the character bleed, for acting like a prat all of a sudden for no good reason except that he wanted what he was too much of a coward to try to take. He had never wanted a man this way before. Hell, forget that sexual epiphany — he had never so badly wanted his best friend, his colleague, his partner in crime, his—

There was more at stake than there ever had been when Bradley’d fancied someone, and oh god, he was pretty sure he’d fancied Colin for quite awhile without fully recognising that feeling for what it was.

“You ate not two hours ago,” Colin said with a snort, taking the Arthur-ness in stride.

“Yes, well,” Bradley said, feeling like an arse. He rubbed at the back of his neck and locked his gaze on the dinosaurs outside the window, trying to quell the panic in his chest. None of this was convenient, but god it felt true. It was true in the way that he felt true things deep in his muscles, how everything tensed and relaxed all at once: relaxed, because it was a relief to sort out what that buzzing under his skin had been all that time, and tensed, because what on earth could he even do with that revelation?

Colin, certainly not aware of Bradley’s sudden realisation about how stupid he was for him, simply trailed back downstairs, and instead of leaving like Bradley had suggested, he lingered in the science fiction and fantasy section.

“Aha!” he said, brandishing The Once and Future King. “I knew we had to find something else Arthurian here.”

Bradley took the battered paperback from him and made a show of scanning the blurb on the back. “You know,” he said, relieved at how normal his voice sounded, “obviously I know the story of The Sword in the Stone, but I really should read the rest of this after being Arthur for this long.”

When he looked up, Colin was giving him a vaguely horrified look. “Honestly. How could you’ve been Arthur for this long and still not actually have read everything you can get your hands on?”

“How could you have known me for this long and still not actually get the fact that I hardly ever read entire books for fun?” Bradley shot back.

“That’s it,” Colin said with finality, snatching the book from Bradley’s hands. “I’m going to start reading it to you. Quite a lot of it is good fun, I promise.”

“You’re going to read it to me? Colin,” he said, laughing, “I’m not actually illiterate, you do realise.”

Colin rolled his eyes. “If I don’t read it to you, you’ll never get around to reading it yourself.”

“Fair point,” Bradley said with a tilt of his head, and followed Colin to the cashier.

So, Colin had bought the book, and he’d come back to Bradley’s room that same night and started to read it to him.

Bradley had stretched out on the bed, propped up on a couple pillows, while Colin perched in a chair beside him, legs kicked onto the bed. The soles of his feet pressed into the side of Bradley’s thigh, bare feet against worn denim — it was such a casual touch, but it drew all of Bradley’s attention until Colin began to read in a low, steady voice. Soon enough, he was picking up on different characters’ ways of speaking, taking on their roles, and becoming so absorbed in it all that Bradley couldn’t help but be absorbed in him. Bradley’s focus on the actual story shifted in and out, split between his genuine interest in the book and his genuine interest in Colin.

He did find himself laughing along with Colin at the book’s humour enough, though, especially once dotty old Merlyn appeared, so when Colin left that night, he picked the book right back up and re-read what Colin had read to him, going over the things he’d missed while he’d been paying more attention to the way Colin’s lips moved, or the warmth of Colin’s feet against his thigh.

The Wart found that, although he was frightened of the danger of the forest before it happened, once he was in it he was not frightened any more, Bradley read, Colin’s voice in his head as he turned another page, half inside the story and half trying to figure out what to do with this newfound knowledge about himself and Colin.

It’s been, roughly, two years since Bradley realised he wanted Colin, one year and three-hundred sixty-four days since he figured from the way it makes his stomach ache that it’s probably something like love, and one year and three-hundred sixty-three days since he decided not to share any of that with Colin.

Well, “decided” is probably the wrong word for it. More like “the very thought of talking about his Feelings for Colin makes his stomach ache even more.”

So, he didn’t, and he doesn’t, but he knows he should. Because Bradley shares an awful lot of himself with Colin, and whatever this is Bradley feels for him has grown to be as much a part of Bradley as anything else, as if loving Colin is little more than a fact that cannot be denied about himself. If he were to stand up at a meeting for Lovesick Sods Anonymous, he might say, “Hullo, my name is Bradley. I’m a mediocre actor, an even more-iocre footballer, and I am properly mad about my best mate.”

Since no such support group exists, to his knowledge, all Bradley has done is accepted it like anything else about himself. Mostly, this means occasionally making an enormous fool of himself, but when it comes to fancying people, Bradley's been making a fool of himself since his balls dropped. Honestly, once at drama school he tried to chat up a girl at a costume party whilst dressed as Jareth the Goblin King because he’d hoped the prominent bulge in his tight trousers would make her amorous, when really it just made her laugh uproariously and point out that the paired-socks he’d stuffed down there had somehow shifted down to his right knee.

Fortunately, he has not done anything quite as ridiculous as that in an attempt to impress Colin, but Bradley has been at his side for the better part of five years, and Colin has witnessed, taken part in, or heard tell of most any embarrassing thing Bradley has done. The funny thing is, he still looks at Bradley sometimes like— god, like Bradley’s important somehow. Bradley knows that Colin puts one-hundred percent into everything he does professionally, but he holds his inner life so close to his chest, it feels like a gift each time he offers a new piece of himself to Bradley, and each one of those looks feels like another piece of puzzling him out.

Even after the cast expanded in the fourth series, the pair of them remained closer than ever — their chemistry specific and unique to any other — and Bradley remained just as hopelessly fond, without a clue if Colin could or would feel anything of the sort in return.

It’s like the dream he used to have as a kid, the one about the World Cup. He’d daydream for hours — during class, in his bed late at night, while bicycling to the shops — an elaborate fantasy that built and built each time he dreamt it: who his team members would be, how he’d score the winning goal for England, and how he’d get to trade shirts with an utterly defeated (somehow time-traveled) Pelé. He was fourteen when he finally accepted that playing in the Cup wasn’t terribly realistic, nor was playing in any sort of professional club, but that was okay, because by then, he’d turned to another unrealistic dream that somehow seemed more within reach: acting. And ever since he’s been content to play footie any chance he can get without doing it as a career.

Bradley’s always figured he could hold off on trying something more with Colin, as long as he had Colin in his life at all. Trouble is, with the series ending now, he’s not sure how much longer he can live without making a move or moving on.

Tonight, sore and knackered from a long day of filming — he’d had plenty of sword-fighting and one more knock-out for old times’ sake early on in the day — Bradley’s kicked back on his bed to read one of the last chapters of that old copy of The Once and Future King when there’s a quick knock on his door.

Colin peers in. He looks a bit peaky, truth be told, but his face cracks into a grin when he notices what Bradley’s doing.

“You’re almost done then? I can’t believe it’s taken you more than two years to finish that.” He steps into the room and closes the door, leaning against it with his arms and script folded tightly across his chest.

“I can’t believe you convinced me to read anything in the first place. I was perfectly happy only having Harry Potter and little else under my belt.”

Colin’s lips tighten in the attempt to hold back laughter. His eyes dart down Bradley’s body then back up to his eyes. “Really, Bradley? Little else under your belt?”

“Oh, shut your—” Bradley says, voice edging into a higher pitch, as he chucks the book at Colin, who dodges it neatly, laughing.

“Well,” Colin says, sitting down on the bed, “to be fair, I did read about half that book to you, so it almost doesn’t count.”

“Almost,” Bradley says, rolling his eyes.

“Reckon you can pull yourself away for a bit to run lines with me one more time?” Colin holds up his script, then glances over at the book now lying on the floor and adds dryly, “Or do you want to stop throwing that book and finish it?”

Bradley tries to ignore the way his chest clenches at one more time. Tomorrow, he’s filming mostly with Angel and Colin. The day after tomorrow, he’s got his final scenes with his knights and Colin. And then— well, then he’s not sure when he’ll be able to end his workday with “and Colin” ever again.

“Nah, c’mon, mate.” He grabs his own copy of the script off his bedside table and shifts on the bed so he’s sitting cross-legged in the middle.

Colin turns partway toward him where he’s perched on the edge of the bed.

They sit in silence for a moment.

Bradley clears his throat.

“Merlin,” Bradley-as-Arthur orders, ignoring the actual script in favor of getting into character their usual way: bantering and bullying. “Go dust my medieval telly.”

Without missing a beat, Colin-as-Merlin gamely walks over and mimes just that, with a cheeky grin. “Technically, I’m your Court Advisor now, sire. You are going to have to hire a new manservant.”

“Well, in that case,” Bradley says, affecting his old David Bowie impersonation, “why don’t you use that secret voodoo of yours and conjure me a turkey sandwich.”

Colin loses his composure at that. “You haven’t read in your Bowie voice in ages,” he says, laughing, and perches back on the edge of the bed. His hand lands close to Bradley’s ankle. “It’s even more awful than I remember.”

Bradley grins and nudges Colin’s arm with his ankle. “Remember that time, last series, when I—”

“When you wouldn’t stop crooning to Angel that falsetto part of ‘Golden Years’?”

“’Don’t let me hear you say life’s taking you nooowhere, Annnngellll,’” Bradley sings, and they start laughing again.

God, Bradley loves watching Colin laugh: all that contained energy and glee radiating from him as his shoulders curl inward, as if it’s too much to laugh it all loose into the world. It complements Bradley’s laughter, how he splays outward, throwing his head back (knocking against the headboard this time), his body an explosion of sound and joy.

“And then,” Colin says after a moment, scooting up a bit closer on the bed, “we realised that our ‘You’re the Voice’ choreography sort of matched up with ‘Modern Love.’”

“‘Church on time,’” Bradley sings, then both of them slap their palms over their eyes and sing, “‘Terrifies me!’”

“‘Church on time,’” Colin laughs more than sings, and both of them take their hands away from their eyes and do jazz hands to “‘Makes me par-tay!’”

“And— and then,” Bradley says, starting to feel a bit sick from nostalgia and laughter, “Tony was so pleased that I wasn’t singing anything from the Buffy musical to him on set anymore—”

Colin snorts. “Yeah, finally, after over three years.”

“You know my love of that musical has been matched by little else,” Bradley says, only half-serious.

“I know that my own tastes in music have done little to help yours,” Colin says with a melodramatic sigh.

Bradley rolls his eyes. “Well, at least we agree on David Bowie.”

Colin smirks. “And the time Tony put ‘Heroes’ on our iPods?”

“Precisely.”

“I still don’t get why you wouldn’t stop singing to me ‘I will be king and you, you will be queen,’ even though it would’ve made far more sense for you to sing that to Angel, as I’m sure Tony intended.”

“Well,” Bradley waggles his eyebrows. “Merlin has always been loyal to Arthur.”

“What, you finally think all those fans have a point about that homoerotic tension they’ve been going on about since series one?”

Bradley laughs, but it’s a little forced this time, and he looks back down at the script. “Come on, let’s be Arthur and Merlin while we still can.”

Colin is quiet. When Bradley looks up, it’s to see Colin staring back at him, head cocked a little and a sad expression on his face. He quickly looks down at his script when Bradley catches his eye.

“Yeah, let’s,” Colin murmurs, and when he looks back up a moment later, he’s Merlin and Bradley is his King Arthur, all laughter gone out of the room.

Earlier this year, during the muggy peak of August in France, the air conditioning in their hotel had broken. Of course it happened right as Bradley had been enjoying a lie-in on one of their precious days off from filming. Instead of going out somewhere cooler, Bradley had been too exhausted and weighed down by the heat to do anything but roll out of bed, pull on a pair of trousers, and shuffle over to Colin’s room to see if he was any more motivated to do something fun.

Colin greeted him in a similar state of dress, sections of his hair sticking to his forehead and the nape of his neck, a couple of books and scripts tossed open across his bed.

“Makes you wish we were back in Cardiff, doesn’t it?” Colin says, stepping aside to let him in.

“I like Cardiff. I miss Cardiff,” Bradley said, walking past him and ignoring the familiar pang of lust that jolted through him at the sight of Colin all rumpled and flushed like that. “At least soggy Welsh weather doesn’t make me feel like I can’t even move without dying. How do entire parts of the world actually do things with their lives in this sort of heat?”

He flopped dramatically onto the floor by the open balcony door and stretched out on his back in hopes of catching a breeze.

“Great mystery of the twenty-first century,” Colin said, joining Bradley on the floor, close enough to feel his body heat without actually touching.

Bradley laughed, and they’d just lain there in a pleasant, albeit sweaty, silence.

“I wish we had some ice cream,” Bradley said after a while.

“Don’t really like ice cream,” Colin said.

“Oh right! Did you have a traumatic experience with it or something?”

“Yeah,” Colin said dryly, “this madman named Bradley tried to force-feed it to me and I almost died from an ice cream headache.”

“Events that have happened in an alternate timeline do not affect this one, Colin. How many times does Katie have to remind you?”

Colin laughed. “No, honestly, I just don’t like it. Sort of like how you just don’t like peas.”

“They’re peas,” Bradley said, horrified. “Nothing healthy for you should be allowed to be that downright weird. They’re these slimy little pebbles that squish in strange places, and when you mash them it ruins the whole plate because I still know they used to be slimy little squish pebbles.”

“Right,” Colin said, mock-seriously. “Can’t un-know that.”

“I can’t,” Bradley insists, but he can tell they’re both holding back laughter.

“So, did your mum force-feed you mushy peas as a child one time too often?”

“Yes, and it ruined them forever,” Bradley said, then a moment later adds, “By all rights though, I should have an aversion to ice cream like you.”

“How’s that?”

“When I was a kid — maybe seven or eight? — I used to share ice cream cones with my dog out in the garden, and one time my sisters caught me. They’re still not through taking the mickey.”

“What, were you and the dog both, like—” Colin mimed holding an ice cream cone and poked out his tongue to lap at the top of it. “—licking at the same cone? At the same time?”

Bradley coughed and took a moment to answer, because it certainly just looked like Colin was miming and licking something distinctly not a cone, and Bradley felt even warmer all of a sudden. “Er, maybe? Ludo might have been my best mate that summer.”

Colin grinned at him like Bradley was his favourite loser. “My dog and I used to share a plate of mushy peas.”

“You d— you did not.”

“I did not,” Colin admitted, laughing, but he brushed his knuckles across Bradley’s as if to say, Your weird childhood secret is safe with me. Or maybe his hand just moved and Bradley’s was there. Whichever.

That was about when Angel and Katie popped in with a few chilled bottles of wine and glasses and suggested they all get sloshed.

Actually, what Katie said was, “Woohoo, just in time for shirtless blokes!”

Colin huffed an embarrassed laugh beside him, and Bradley couldn’t stop himself from watching the deepening flush that crept up Colin’s chest at that. He wanted Colin to touch him again, even just that light, fleeting brush of hands.

“Why are you two weirdos just lying about with your tops off?” Angel asked, as she and Katie sat down at their feet and lounged against the foot of the bed.

“I don’t know, why are you two sitting there in too many clothes?” Bradley shot back, rising up on his elbows to avoid looking at Colin.

“If that’s your method of attempting to seduce women, it’s no wonder you’re still single,” Angel said dryly. She and Katie were wearing rather low-cut sun dresses, which Bradley appreciated even if he never really saw Katie as anything more than, well, Katie, and Angel as anything more than a good mate who he sometimes kissed for money.

Wait, that didn’t sound quite right, even in his head.

“I’ll have you know,” Bradley said, glaring at Angel, “I am excellent at wooing women.”

“By ‘excellent’ do you mean you humiliate yourself in the hopes they’ll find you charming and shag you out of pity?” Katie said with a leer, uncorking a bottle.

Colin started laughing beside him.

Bradley poked him in the shoulder. “Hey! Women find me revoltingly attractive, I’ve been told,” he protested.

Angel giggled and rolled her eyes. “Women find you endearing, like an overenthusiastic puppy.”

“A golden retriever,” Katie stage-whispered to Angel.

Bradley mock-huffed. “I have never bullied either of you even half as much as you do about my love life."

Katie and Angel exchanged incredulous looks then turned them on Bradley.

"Oh bugger off," he said and reached for the open bottle of wine. “Aren’t you even going to back me up on this, Col?” he said over his shoulder.

Colin pulled a considering face. “Nah, you are pretty terrible.”

Bradley nearly spluttered his swig of wine. “Where is this even coming from? When was the last time any of you even saw me with a woman?”

“Last weekend,” Katie said immediately.

“At that club you dragged me to,” put in Colin, waving a hand in front of him from where he was still lying on his back. “That leggy ginger girl in the little green dress. Looked like Amy Pond.”

“That was just—” Bradley waved a hand about. “Flirting. I wasn’t actually trying to get a leg over. Believe me, if I were—”

Angel interrupted him with a groan. “Oh god, please, you’re not going to start telling us more stories about all the women you’ve wronged, are you?”

Bradley turned an indignant look on her. “I have not wronged—”

“It’s like," Colin cut in, sitting up at Bradley’s level, "you meet a pretty girl and your brain flatlines.”

“That doesn’t even make medical sense!” Bradley said.

“Your face doesn’t even make medical sense,” Colin shot back, grinning crookedly at him.

“Wait, what are we even talking about?” Bradley said, trying not to grin back at him and failing.

“Oh just the fact that you’re not the most sensitive bloke when it comes to relationships,” Katie said, snatching the bottle from him.

“Oi!”

“You are a bit oblivious at times,” Colin said.

“Oi.” Bradley glared. “Like you’re any better?”

Colin shrugged and dropped his gaze. “I usually keep myself too busy to have time for a relationship.”

“See! That!” Bradley said to Katie and Angel, pointing at Colin. “He hasn’t really dated a single person since we’ve known him and I’ve dated loads, even dated Georgia for months, and I’m the one you’re criticising?”

“Oh, Bradley,” Angel said, half fond, half amazed at how thick he can be. “Everyone could tell you and Georgia were going to end up better as mates, so that barely even counts.”

“So true,” Katie said, neatly topping off her glass, then turning back to Bradly and Colin. “Frankly, the pair of you are rather awful at this in your own ways, so it’s not really a competition.”

“Hey!” he and Colin said at the same time.

“It’s okay,” Angel said, patting them each on the knee. “You’re both lovely. I’m sure you’ll figure things out.”

Bradley could feel his face warm in a way that had nothing to do with the weather and avoided looking at Colin.

The last few girls he’d tried going out with had been fun but ultimately a reminder of what he didn’t have with Colin — or, rather, what he did have with Colin but wasn’t going in the direction he wished it would go. The only relationship that had come even close had been his months with Georgia. She had been so easy to be with, by all rights they should have made a perfect relationship, but they truly had ended up far better off as long-distance mates who reunited in bursts of good times. Funny how Bradley and Colin should’ve been nothing more than colleagues, but they’ve always been so much more than that to Bradley. Becoming friends with someone usually makes sense; falling for someone, on the other hand, rarely makes enough of it.

Angel passed him the wine bottle with an apologetic look, and Bradley had decided right then and there that it was long past time: He either had to get over Colin or make a move.

Right. He’d wait until they’d finished working together, and then one way or another, he would move on.

It’s their second-to-last day of filming Merlin, and hopefully the last time they’ll ever have to wait for the crew to set up all over again so the scene appears to have taken place in dry weather.

Bradley seriously starts to consider looking for work somewhere that rarely ever rains.

“You say that every time this happens,” Colin replies when Bradley tells him as much, then in the same breath adds, “Here, listen to this song with me,” and hands Bradley one of his earbuds, the other secured in his own ear.

Bradley scowls but accepts the offering. Colin has gotten better at showing Bradley when he needs to tone it down a bit and let Colin just focus on preparing for the next scene. Even if he’s still too polite to tell Bradley outright.

The two of them are huddled side by side in their fold-out chairs with an enormous umbrella sheltering them. It’s their last scene together for the day and— what on earth, Colin’s tunes are depressing. The song they’re sharing is some of Colin’s favourite atmospheric stuff, low on the lyrics and high on the bizarre twists of musical landscapes.

He turns to ask if Colin thought this would put them into a moody mindset for the scene or what, but he quiets when sees Colin’s eyes are closed, his lips pursed slightly, most likely focusing on preparing for the rather pivotal scene ahead of them. But, now, all Bradley can focus on is Colin, and how strange the thought is that soon Colin will no longer be a constant in his day. For years now, they’ve found each other when they’re bored, when they’re excited, or tired, or just because they can; because laughing with Colin has somehow always been one of the top aspects of Bradley’s job. Okay, the sword-fighting might beat falling in love: At least with the sword-fighting, he knows all the moves are choreographed; nobody’s charging at his chest with a sharp, painful thing, blindly aiming for all the places in Bradley that can hurt him the most.

Uh. That metaphor sort of got away from him.

It’s just that the simple fact of Colin’s presence makes Bradley feel rooted and right, positive that things will be okay just by nature of Colin being there with him, and it worries him that Colin won’t simply be there anymore. He brings out more of Bradley than most anyone else.

Quite suddenly Colin slumps down onto Bradley’s shoulder, his breathing evening and deepening, the hand on his iPod going limp against Bradley’s knee where it’s pressed against Colin’s.

In all five years Bradley has worked with him, he’s never before seen Colin fall asleep on set. Bradley’s torn between wanting to tease him mercilessly for this and worrying over Colin’s health. Oh, bollocks: no man or woman is safe from the urge to take care of Colin Morgan, no matter how much Bradley complains about it.

Consummate professionals that they are, Bradley knows he should wake him — Colin’s hair is probably flattening to one side in this position, and Make-up will fuss over him for it and probably blame Bradley somehow. Plus, if Bradley knows Post-Nap Colin — which he does, quite well, albeit off-set — the rejuvenation he’ll feel will be overshadowed by how disoriented he’ll be, waking up only to be thrown into an intense scene, and it’ll take him those extra few takes to fall back into Merlin’s skin.

But bugger it all. Colin needs all the rest he can get these days, and Bradley selfishly wants to hold onto this moment of Colin dozing softly against him for as long as he can.

Long after it’s stopped raining (which of course happened almost as soon as Bradley did not need to film outside), he and Angel have just finished up their final scenes together as Arthur and Guinevere when she suggests they climb to the top of the castle.

“One more climb for luck, Bradders?” she says with a playful nudge to his ribs.

Bradley shoots her a sidelong look. “If by ‘climb’ you mean ‘race,’ then—” He takes off toward the nearest staircase, keeping an ear out for her giggling breaths at his heels.

When they reach the top, it’s as magnificent a view as the first time.

“We never really got tired of all the perks of this job, did we?” Angel says, reading his mind. She steps up to the edge and leans on her forearms, her curls rustling in the wind.

“Naw, we were a lucky bunch,” Bradley says in one of his silly voices, sidling up beside her.

Angel laughs easily, pressing her face into his shoulder for a moment, her breath a welcome warmth against the wind this high up above the world, and Bradley smiles. She shivers a bit, pulls up the hood of her jacket, and Bradley drapes his arm around her shoulders and pulls her alongside him for warmth, the two of them huddled together like conspirators.

“You know,” Angel says after a long companionable silence, nothing but them and the wind and the setting horizon all the way up here, “Katie and I have been thinking about splitting a flat together when we get back to London.”

“Are you mad? Don’t you two want some space from each other after we’ve lived in each other’s laps for the better part of the past five years?”

“Oh come on, you live with Eoin, how is that any different?”

He tips his head to the side. “Point.”

“And it’s not like you and Colin won’t be at each other’s doorstep every week, doing god knows what.”

Bradley snorts.

“Will Katie and I have to issue a restraining order so you boys won’t play pranks on us in our own home?” she half-jokes.

Bradley pulls an indignant face. “Pranks? The nerve! I am appalled you would think us so low to play pranks on our dear friends like that.”

Angel rolls her eyes. “Right, innocent, that’s you and Colin in a nutshell.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

“Seriously though,” Angel continues, lightly nudging him in the ribs. “Just ‘cos our characters stopped getting on, didn’t change the fact that Katie had already become one of my best friends. It only makes sense. Won’t you and Colin ever consider living together?”

“Living together?” Bradley’s eyes go so wide he’s sure it must look comical to her from this angle as he pulls apart just enough to meet her eyes. “Myself and Colin would never survive being flatmates. He’d kill me within the week just to get some peace and quiet.”

Angel studies him for a moment, her brow furrowed. “Bradley, you must know that’s not true.”

“No, you’re right. Colin’s much too polite to kill me that quickly.” Bradley turns toward the horizon for a moment, feeling anxious and impossibly wrong all of a sudden. “He’d wait at least a month.”

“Bradley.” She’s using her voice that he secretly refers to as her schoolmarm voice. It doesn’t come out very often but when it does, Governess Coulby means business.

He looks back at her. “Angel.”

“You’re not joking, are you.”

“‘Course I’m joking.”

“Well, I mean, you are, but you really aren’t.”

“Oh now that’s clear, thank you.”

“You and Colin get on like—” She looks out at the horizon, shaking her head. “It’s a rare sort of friendship, Bradley. Don’t sell yourself short — it’s out of character.”

“Your arse is out of character,” he mutters, which earns him a good smack on the back of his head.

“Ow,” he emphasizes, elongating the sound into two syllables and rubbing at the spot.

“Are you even listening to me?” She sounds genuinely exasperated, which isn’t a tone he hears from Angel very often. It must be that, the thing that makes him sober.

He squints out at the sun that’s almost set, thankful the view is there as an excuse not to look Angel in the eye when he admits, “It won’t be the same. Colin and I, we’re not obligated to be, well, anything to each other anymore.”

“Colin’s never felt obligated to be friends with you.” She sounds appalled. “I know you two don’t have all that much in common, on the surface of things, but it never struck me as a— I don’t know, a situational friendship.”

“Okay, no, I’m not saying—” He takes a breath. “Of course Col and I will still be friends. But he’s going to need space. Colin’s always wanted more space than I can give him.”

“Don’t sell him short either, Bradley.”

“I’m not, Angel. I’m just saying.” He shrugs. “Colin likes his space and quiet.”

“But Colin also likes you.” She pokes him hard in the bicep, and he spares a thought for bruises; how they’re one thing he certainly will not miss about this job, whether they’re inflicted by his friends or fencing practice.

But then what Angel’s actually said sinks in, and he can’t think of a single retort. All he can think is: One more day of this, of bruises and Camelot and castmates who’ve been at the center of his life for half a bloody decade. Only one more day, and then he’ll be back in London, stepping back into a life that’s both the same and completely different from how he left it before Merlin.

Only one more day, and then he needs to keep his promise to himself and figure out how to tell Colin.

Bradley remembers the first time he and Colin ventured to the top of Pierrefonds together, how Bradley had leaned over the edge and gestured enthusiastically at various recognisable points he’d found on his first trip up here, when it was just him and his camera for the video diaries meant for fans he’d not yet wooed. But Colin had stood back a bit, taking it all in: that beautiful illusion of the whole wide world before them, their bodies that much closer to the sky.

“It’s amazing, innit,” Colin had said when he’d finally joined Bradley at the ledge, “that this is our job — coming to France, filming knights and wizards in a castle—” He’d peered over his shoulder at Bradley, his smile glorious. “—this.”

Bradley had beamed at him, utterly unafraid, because what was there to be afraid of back then? He had brilliant, steady work and fun—if sometimes baffling—colleagues. He had not yet fallen in love with his best friend who was not yet his best friend.

“Amazing is definitely what it is,” Bradley had said, pressing his shoulder against Colin’s in the fresh spring air. They’d stayed like that for a long while, simply looking out across what Bradley had secretly been referring to as his kingdom, but only to Angel and only because it made her laugh.

More than once Bradley'd had the absurd urge to lean his head against Colin’s, as if their fledgling bond even allowed for that, as if a part of him was already drawn to Colin without even knowing what that meant yet. He just knew that he was glad they hadn't brought their camcorders up here for this; it could be a moment shared by them alone.

When they finally moved to return to the lower world, Bradley backed away from the mossy stone ledge first. In the brief moment before Colin turned to follow him, he caught a glimpse of Colin’s tiny silhouette hunched against the overcast French sky, turrets and crenelations and countryside before him.

And the thing is, he's never forgotten that one quiet moment early on in their friendship: the look of nervous excitement on Colin’s face, the surge of nervous affection in his own chest.

At lunch on their last day of filming, Bradley picks up the camcorder with which he’s actually been allowed to gallivant around set again (“fine, yes, only because it’s the last series”) and aims it across the table at Colin.

“In a bowl of salad,” Bradley says, putting on his poor impression of John Hurt’s Great Dragon voice, “and a time of lunch—”

Colin puts on a mischievous Merlin face for the camera and holds up his fork.

“—the destiny of a great meal rests in the hands of a young actor. His name? Colin.”

Colin points the fork at his salad and screws up his face into a determined Merlin-doing-magic expression.

“What’d you do to the salad, mate?” Bradley says in his Bradley voice.

“Set it on fire,” Colin says casually, shrugging. “They’ll add it in post-production.”

Bradley laughs, the camera shaking with him. “What’d that salad ever do to you?”

Colin scrunches his nose and says a bit sheepishly. “I didn’t notice ‘til I sat down that the dressing’s got bits of bacon in.”

“Right.” Bradley pushes his bowl across the table. “Take mine, it’s not got any meaty dressing.”

Colin gives him an unexpectedly soft smile. “Cheers.”

Bradley coughs and refocuses the camera as he’d let it drift down to Colin’s hand where it rests on the table. “So, Colin. Inquiring Merlin fans want to know: What was your favourite thing about working on the show over the past five years?”

Colin takes a bite of Bradley’s salad and chews thoughtfully for a moment. “Oh definitely the people.”

“Yeah? Any people in particular?” Bradley asks, swinging the camera around to himself for a moment, gesturing his thumb at his chest and nodding conspiratorially into the lens.

“Richard, definitely,” Colin says after he swallows a bite of salad and Bradley’s turned the camera back on him. Colin takes another thoughtful bite, adds, “And Eoin is a blast. Never dull, that one.”

“Richard and Eoin?” Bradley says incredulously. “No one else? Such as, perhaps, your dashing co-star?”

“Nah.” Another bite from Bradley’s salad, then he pauses the fork mid-air. “Wait. Co-star? You mean Katie, right?” He squints and purses his lips in a considering look. “Who’re you again?”

“Oh, I work with, uh . . . catering.”

“Right.” Colin pushes his rejected bowl of salad across the table and says, not unkindly, “Could you not put bacon in all the dressing next time, please?”

“Sure thing, Monsieur Morgan.”

Colin smiles crookedly at him and ducks back to his salad.

After they’ve been dressed and made-up for their final scene together as Arthur and Merlin, Bradley steps up alongside Colin, who’s been staring out at the Pierrefonds courtyard where their stand-ins are waiting for the crew to finish setting up the scene.

“Right, then.” He claps a hand on Colin’s shoulder and turns to him with his best brave smile, memorising the feel of the old Merlin tunic beneath his fingers. “Once more unto the breach?”

Colin quirks a grin and reaches up to pat Bradley’s hand a bit condescendingly. “Or close the wall up with your English mead,” he says in all earnestness.

Bradley throws back his head in a laugh and slings his arm around Colin’s shoulders, feeling Arthur’s chainmail weighing down his own shoulders one last time.

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.

They’ve driven about ten blocks before something snaps in Bradley. Just— bugger this, he thinks, and perhaps a bit too desperately asks the cabbie to turn around and drop him back where they started. He gives Bradley an incredulous look in the rearview mirror but does it anyway.

When they get there, of course Colin’s not standing outside anymore, so Bradley hands over a few quid and ends up standing in front of Colin’s door trying to figure out if he’s going to be able to do this.

It’s time.

It is time, right? To stop dancing around it, stop making up fake operations in his head to get over it, stop wondering, and find out if they can be for each other what Bradley’s wanted them to be for what feels like ages now. What, apparently, their bloody friends have always thought they would be together

He runs his hands through his damp hair a few too many times as he considers this. Yes, it’s long past time. He’d promised himself he’d tell Colin after shooting ended, but instead he’s spent the past month no less in love with Colin and no more open about it.

Your offer to come in still stand? he texts Colin before he can chicken out and hail himself another cab out of there.

Of course, as soon as he hits Send, he feels like the biggest fool on the planet. Who does this? He is not Hugh sodding Grant. It’s not like he’s going to burst in there and declare his undying love. He really wouldn’t even know how, and besides, that sort of display would make Colin feel enormously uncomfortable, and that’s kind of the opposite of what Bradley wants Colin to feel around him, ever, so—

The door opens.

Colin, wearing dry clothes with damp hair matted at odd angles, blinks comically wide at him.

"Your hair looks ridiculous,” he says after a moment.

Bradley’s laugh feels like a relief to his nerves, just a for a second. "Your hair looks ridiculous. I’m sure I look positively rakish."

Colin smiles at him crookedly and shakes his head. “C’mere, you eejit, stop dripping all over my doormat.”

“It’s just doing it’s job, Colin,” Bradley says, stepping indoors.

“Bearing the weight of soaking gits like you?” Colin says, falling back into their rhythm.

“Something’s got to do it,” Bradley says, following into the ground floor flat. It’s warm inside and smells a bit like curry. Colin shuts the door behind them, and Bradley shuffles off his shoes.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, socks squelching on the wood-panelled floor, and watches as Colin tries and fails to suppress a smile at his awkwardness.

“I’ll go see if I have some dry clothes for you,” he says in a tone that suggests he’ll be putting Bradley out of his misery.

Bradley laughs sheepishly. “That’d be brilliant.”

“Not sure I have anything that’ll fit you, but . . .” Colin’s voice trails off into the bedroom and comes back a few moments later with another faded shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms in hand.

“Cheers,” Bradley says, taking the proffered clothing. “I’ll just—” He jabs his thumb in the direction of the toilet and quickly shuts the door behind him.

Christ, he thinks, examining himself in the mirror, he does look ridiculous.

On the other hand—he scrubs a hand towel through his hair a few times—a bit rakish as well.

He strips out of his rain-heavy clothes, hesitating with his underwear then figuring there’s no point in leaving on sodden underwear when the rest of him will be dry, so he strips them off as well and dries himself quickly with a fresh towel from the cupboard. He slips into Colin’s clothes, dry and warm and fitting a bit too snugly. The top is a familiar sight: one of Colin’s old Death Cab for Cutie shirts, as soft and love-worn as Bradley’s old Arsenal and Dolphins shirts and smelling of Colin and— and— oh god—

Bradley actually has to brace himself on the sink for a moment, his fists clenching as he takes one more look at his anxious state in the mirror, then swings open the door, hoping he’s ready to face Colin.

“So, uh, Cols,” Bradley starts when he finds Colin waiting in the living room. Oh yeah, smooth start, you wanker.

“Yeah?” Colin prompts, leaning against the arse-end of the sofa, his arms crossed loosely over his stomach.

Bradley mirrors Colin’s stance against the facing wall, and stalls. “Thanks for the dry clothes.”

Colin’s shoulders sag a little, but the teasing edge is in his voice when he says, “So what brings you back here so soon? Don’t tell me the cabbie was confused by your directions.”

“I— no, I forgot to— that is, there’s something I’ve wanted to—” Not Hugh Grant, not Hugh Grant, not Hugh Grant, he thinks frantically.

Colin looks a bit alarmed by Bradley’s stammering, his arms slowly unfolding to his sides as he takes a step away from the couch. “Hey, slow down. What’s wrong?”

Bradley laughs, perhaps a bit hysterically, and reaches out, wraps his hand around Colin’s bicep when he steps close enough their bare toes touch. His thumb slips beneath the hem of Colin’s short sleeve, and presses there, and stays.

He feels so uncomfortable trying to say what he wants aloud. It’s like when he got the job as Arthur and his mum actually burst into tears and told him how proud she was of him, and how much she loved him: She’s always been very supportive of him, no matter what he wanted to do, but that much of an open expression of emotions startled him. They’re English, for Christ’s sake. He’d hugged her, but even though he loves his mother more than anything in the world, he still felt uncomfortable hearing it, those words bald in their honesty.

This is why life does not work like a movie. Nobody is brave and articulate enough to boldly profess their love and make any sense of it. Or is that only Bradley? Do people actually go around doing this all the time, while he’s been left floundering on his own?

“Bugger,” Bradley mutters, dropping his forehead helplessly to Colin’s and shaking their heads slowly from side to side at that tenuous point of contact. “This is so stupid.”

“What is,” Colin murmurs, so quietly it’s barely even a question, and Bradley feels the words in a breath against his lips.

“I am trying—” he grinds out, then has to swallow his nerves again. “But any which way I put it in my head, it feels too . . .”

“Try a new way aloud,” Colin urges gently, raising his hand to Bradley’s arm, mirroring how Bradley’s touching him.

“Col . . .” Bradley shakes their heads again, pausing with the bridge of his nose somehow cradled in the delicate dip below Colin’s eye. It’s unbearable to be this close and still not kissing.

“I’ve missed you,” Colin says, his hand drifting farther up Bradley’s arm. He exhales one of those tiny laughs Bradley’s so enamored with. “I’ve missed you sort of a lot.” His eyelashes tickle Bradley’s skin in a blink. “Is— is that it?”

“That’s . . . part of it.” Bradley rubs his thumb over the thump of Colin’s pulse and feels closer to something than he’s ever felt before.

“Then . . . what’s all of it?” Colin’s accent has thickened, his voice suddenly rough, as he shifts imperceptibly and Bradley’s lips drag over the corner of his lips.

Colin exhales deeply, warm across Bradley’s chin. Bradley slides his own hand up Colin’s arm, up the smooth line of his neck, combs his fingers into the fine shock of hair above Colin’s ear, still a bit damp from the rain, and rests his hand there on the back of Colin’s head.

“God. Bradley,” Colin says, breathless, like it’s an answer he hadn’t expected. There’s a slight tremor in his other hand as he rests it on Bradley’s hip.

Bradley huffs a self-conscious laugh, but it’s that tremor that gives him the courage to tip back his head and look Colin in the eyes again. Damn it all. This is why he is, truthfully, not Hugh Grant: because you can write and rewrite confessions in your mind but when faced with the reality of the other person and your specific moment in time, life is the same old improvisation it always is. Preparation is, mostly, useless when it comes down to moments like these.

His lips form the beginnings of a few words — a silent I’ve wanted and Do you and Colin — before he settles upon raising his own trembling hand to Colin’s cheek and swiping his thumb once across the bone, as if to rub away the smudge of something they don’t need between them anymore.

They both, slowly, begin to grin crookedly at each other.

“You too?” Bradley finally says with a hopeful lilt in his voice.

Colin sucks his lower lip between his teeth, and Bradley feels a bit dizzy watching that stretch of skin. But when Colin nods at Bradley’s half-question, Bradley exhales a long whoosh of amazed, relieved laughter. Naturally, his head’s thrown back as he laughs, so when Colin all but tackles him, Bradley misses the look on his face — but not the kiss to his jaw, nor the wall at his back. Colin’s hands quickly reach the nape of Bradley’s neck and small of his back, sneaking warmth beneath the shirt, fingers tucking below the waistband.

Bradley inhales sharply at the contact and lets his eyes close, tilts his head forward and lets Colin find his lips, lets himself sink into the touch and newness of it all. Colin’s mouth is warm and hesitant as he fits their lips together and, quite suddenly, Bradley feels just as unsure, as if he could’ve wanted this for years but lost all desire once faced with the reality of it, as if.

He parts his lips and licks into the eager sounds Colin makes. All hesitancy forgotten, Colin reaches up with both hands and brackets Bradley’s face, delves his tongue in against Bradley’s own. Groaning at Colin’s blunt nails in his hair, Bradley loops his arms around his waist and pulls them closer together, but their bare feet stumble across one another and all at once they’re laughing against their lips even as they try to continue kissing. It’s clumsy and overwhelming in its newness and somehow exactly what Bradley’s always wanted.

Colin drops his forehead to Bradley’s shoulder, and he shivers at the feel of Colin’s breath laughing across his collarbone, his cheek dimpling against the shore of t-shirt and skin. Bradley had not anticipated this: that snogging his best friend might be, well, snogging his best friend. They’re still Bradley and Colin. How is that a such a revelation?

Bradley buries his nose in Colin’s hair and breathes him in, the rain and warmth and home of him. He kisses the shell of Colin’s ear, then feels himself blush at the gesture, perhaps too affectionate too soon. But Colin combs his fingers up into Bradley’s hair with one hand, slides his other hand down Bradley’s arm and entangles their fingers.

“Hey,” he murmurs, his lips sending little thrills through Bradley’s body all over again. They lift their heads, and Colin tugs on his hand, tilts a coy smirk toward his bedroom. “Wanna—”

“God yes,” Bradley breathes out, and Colin laughs again, that familiar nervous excitement in his expression.

Following Colin to his bed somehow feels not unlike charging hand-in-hand into any other adventure of theirs. Except for the part where they, actually, are holding hands, or the part where it is nothing like anything but what it is; Bradley’s brain may or may not be doing strange somersaults and cartwheels and taking a holiday from making sense at the moment. But oh, there’s Colin sitting down on the bed beside him, so he can absolutely be excused from sense, right?

He looks down at their hands in his lap, where Colin’s thumb is curling protectively over his knuckles.

“Bradley.”

Impulsively squeezing Colin’s hand, he looks up, and Colin’s grinning at him so— so euphorically, Bradley barely has a second to release the breath he’d been holding before Colin’s lunging across the small space between them and kissing him deeply, his hand finding the side of Bradley’s face, and all Bradley can do is kiss him and kiss him and thank like hell his worries were just worries. He lets go of Colin’s other hand and reaches for Colin’s arse, trying to bring them closer, but he only succeeds in knocking together their knees.

Colin spreads a hand across Bradley’s ribs, rucking up his shirt, so Bradley takes the hint and starts to pull off his borrowed shirt, getting only as far as bunching it up around his neck because they won’t stop kissing.

He laughs. “Col, I need to—” Pulls the shirt over his head, tosses it aside, and immediately goes for Colin’s shirt, laughing together as they try to start kissing again before it’s completely off. It feels easy and exciting, like the beginning it always should’ve been. Kissing a man feels different from kissing a woman mostly in the obvious ways: the scratch of stubble, the Adam’s apple his thumb brushes across, the flatter chest his own presses against. Kissing Colin feels different in every way, because no one had ever been this bloody dear to him before.

“How do you want to—” Bradley says as he pulls away from Colin’s mouth for a moment, not sure how to ask, much less do, what they want here, nor sure of what either of them is ready to do. He meets Colin’s eyes and sort of flutters his hand between their laps.

Colin bursts out laughing all over again. “Well, if that’s any indication of your technique, I don’t know if we should do anything,” he jokes.

Bradley tries to glare at him, but it’s difficult what with his facial muscles being too busy smiling stupidly at Colin laughing in his arms. “Seriously, Col.”

“Right, then,” he says, a bit uncertainly, sobering. “We’re both, erm, new at this. Aren’t we? I mean, with blokes, yeah?”

Bradley nods, nervously trailing his hand up and down Colin’s side, his ribs expanding and contracting within them.

Colin reaches up and folds his hand around Bradley’s jaw, thumb lingering on his bottom lip. “Let’s just start here then,” he murmurs, and they’re kissing again, deeper and more confident, and it gives Bradley the courage he needs: He reaches down and feels Colin hard beneath his jeans, and all at once everything feels impossibly more.

He curls his hand around that warm bulge and smirks into the next kiss Colin sucks on his lower lip as his hips rise up to meet Bradley’s palm. Kissing Colin more desperately, he unzips his jeans and curiously slides his hand along the front of Colin’s underwear. When he cups his hand around the weight of his cock, Colin inhales sharply through his teeth, and lets out a shuddering breath across Bradley’s jaw, clenching his hands around Bradley’s thighs.

Bradley’s about to ask again How do you want to do this? when quite suddenly Colin’s hand is in Bradley’s lap, and all Bradley can do is pant out a startled breath as he tips forward onto Colin’s shoulder. His long fingers feel warm and surprisingly sure as Colin strokes them across Bradley’s cock through the soft material.

“Col, that’s—” Brilliant, not enough, what is he even doing trying to speak right now.

“Yeah?” Colin says, and Bradley laughs about an octave higher than he normally would because the bastard sounds cheeky. Of course Colin can be cheeky in bed; what did Bradley think he’d be: polite?

Bradley shoves him down on the bed.

“Oi!” Colin practically squeaks, and they’re both laughing as Bradley tackles him onto his back and straddles his hips, only to have Colin twist and tackle him back, until they’re a flurry of limbs and laughter and trying to kiss each other through it all.

“Mm,” Bradley concludes, low in his throat as Colin kisses him soundly, his hands ruffling through Bradley’s hair. They’ve both ended up stretched out on the bed beside each other, Colin with one leg hitched over Bradley’s thigh, Bradley with his hands ineffectively trying to peel off Colin’s jeans.

“Wait,” Colin says, then pauses to suck on Bradley’s lip before adding, “Okay, wait,” and pulls away, ignoring the way Bradley blindly tries to chase his mouth with his own for a second. Bradley’s about to protest, but he opens his eyes to Colin flipping onto his back, lifting up his hips, and sliding off his jeans and underwear in one go. Colin’s all long, lean lines, and Bradley’s jaw slackens when he sees Colin’s cock: hard and perhaps a little bigger than Bradley’s, if not quite as thick.

Scrambling out of his own borrowed trousers, Bradley watches greedily as Colin’s eyes drop to Bradley’s cock, as the tip of his tongue sneaks out to swipe across his lips, as Colin’s eyes dart back up to Bradley’s, somehow darker. Bradley’s on top him without another thought, sucking Colin’s tongue into his mouth and aligning their hips.

With the first slide of their cocks against one another, they both let out the most embarrassing noises Bradley has ever heard in bed and still wanted to shag the other person stupid. It only makes them rut against each other even more, Colin’s cock heavy and smooth against his own. The blunt tip of Bradley’s cock slides behind Colin’s balls on one upstroke, then brushes across his hole on the next, and Colin moans around Bradley’s tongue, grasping Bradley’s arse cheeks.

“Bradley, I—” Colin says, voice near-breathless as he rolls his hips up into Bradley’s, their rhythm all wrong but the friction exciting and new.

Bradley licks back into his mouth, then says, “What do you—”

“I want—” Colin near-growls out, and Bradley has to hide his face in Colin’s neck at the sound of that, actually panting through the way that aggression shoots straight to his cock. “I’m not ready for, erm, everything,” Colin continues, voice dropping vulnerably at that, his hands smoothing up Bradley’s back, “but I want— whatever you’re also ready for?”

Bradley sucks a kiss on Colin’s clavicle and revels in the way Colin reacts, clenching his fingers around the soft-hard lines of Bradley’s back.

He looks up at Colin, and Colin looks back at him.

“I want to taste you,” he says, then flushes, feeling silly and exposed. He was never one for talking much in bed, communicating with bodies not words, but there’s something about the newness and importance of this thing with Colin that makes him want to be clear and do this right, however that might be. He’s pretty sure rushing them into various sexual acts they might not be ready for isn’t the way to go about it.

Colin swallows, and Bradley tracks the movement of his throat with his eyes, then licks his lips as Colin nods. Never once taking his eyes from Colin’s, Bradley raises his hips and kneels between Colin’s thighs. He slides his hands up the sides of Colin’s torso, brushing his thumbs over Colin’s nipples and taking in the hitch of breath. His eyes follow the sparse dark hair on Colin’s chest to where his cock is lying fully into the rise and fall of his stomach. He looks up to see Colin, hands clutching the bedspread, teeth sunk into his lower lip, and eyes intent as he watches Bradley propped over him, just as fully exposed, his own cock darkened and erect, his stomach tight with want.

Shifting farther down the bed, Bradley grasps Colin’s thighs, thumbs swiping over the fine hairs there, and he bows his head to nip at the little jut of Colin’s hipbones, first one then the other, careful not to give any attention to Colin’s cock quite yet. He rests his forehead against the dip of Colin’s stomach and just breathes for a moment, taking in the heady scent of Colin at this angle and the way he’s almost vibrating with the effort not to rut up against Bradley. Finally lifting one hand from Colin’s thigh to his cock, Bradley wraps his fingers around the base and holds it steady against his stomach. When he rubs his chin just barely against the head, Colin inhales sharply at the stubbly friction.

Bradley drags his forehead farther down Colin’s body and laps at the delicate slit.

“F—fuck,” Colin groans, the vowel a long rich sound coming from his throat.

Bradley’s free hand drifts to Colin’s bollocks, cupping them as he wraps his lips around the head. He takes in the soft hardness of him, the hot velvety feel against his tongue and lips, as he lowers his mouth just a bit, then pulls back up. He tries to find a rhythm, but the angle feels awkward, so he’s about to pull away and try something else, when Colin starts to fuck up into his mouth. Bradley can feel how unrestrained it is, the head of Colin’s cock bumping awkwardly against his soft pallet, but he also feels the moment Colin stops himself: His hips stutter in Bradley’s palms, and he sort of squirms between them, as if he needs more but isn’t sure how to ask for it.

Pulling his mouth off of Colin’s cock, Bradley meets Colin’s eyes where he’s propped halfway up on the pillows. Bradley lowers one hand to Colin’s bollocks, then lowers one finger further.

“Do you—” he says, brushing the pad of his finger across Colin’s hole.

“Oh fuck yes,” Colin says on a shaky exhale, and Bradley huffs a laugh, nervous and amazed and a little overwhelmed but too turned-on to stop. Colin laughs back at him, lifts a hand and combs back Bradley’s mess of hair from his forehead.

“Right then,” Bradley says, warming at the affectionate gesture, and decides to just go for it: He slides his hands beneath Colin’s thighs, and with one motion, he’s slinging them up over his shoulders and lowering his head to just lick.

“Oh,” Colin says, somewhere between a groan and an epiphany.

His body curves forward and Bradley’s tongue meets him, pressing curiously into the taut muscle of his arsehole. The more noises Colin makes, the more enthusiastically he begins lapping at it. Encouraged by those low needy sounds, he plunges his tongue inside, feeling Colin begin to relax into it and open up for him. Colin’s thighs are trembling against Bradley’s shoulders, so Bradley smooths his hands up and down the tops of them, and darts his tongue in and out.

Coming up for air, he catches his breath against Colin’s bollocks while he traces his forefinger around his arsehole, somewhat loosened and wet with his saliva. He dips the tip of his finger inside, just past the first knuckle then back out, not wanting to overwhelm Colin, unsure of how much or little experience Colin’s had with this. Bradley had tried fingering himself a few times over the past few years, but he always found the angle awkward and not enough; he’d figured the big deal would come with being with someone else who wanted to try it. It feels more awkward than fingering a woman, because the women he’s been with were generally easier to get wet: He could suck on their clits and ease them open with his fingers, and they’d be tight but slick, and just the feel of them tightening warm and wet around his fingers would make him dizzyingly hard.

And yet: Colin, although not slick inside, relaxes open for him as Bradley eases his finger in and out of him, a little bit farther each time; Bradley wonders if that’s just because Colin wants this so badly or if it’s because he’s tried it before. God, the image of Colin doing this to himself — those long fingers dragging in and out of himself — makes Bradley need to reach down with his free hand and squeeze his own cock in the attempt to stop himself from coming far too soon.

Bradley’s unbelievably turned on watching his finger slowly disappear inside Colin, then reappear, but as he feels Colin alternately tighten and relax around him, Colin squeezes his knees over Bradley’s shoulders and bends one leg over the back of his neck, trying to urge Bradley back toward his cock. Bradley meets his eyes, takes in how flushed and wrecked he looks, and can’t hold in a groan at the sight or the feel of Colin wrapped around him like this. Bowing his head, he licks from Colin’s bollocks up his cock, then tries to find a rhythm between his finger and his mouth.

Colin loses his composure again and thrusts up into Bradley’s mouth, and Bradley is aching, feeling Colin come apart like this. Not stopping his sucking, he looks up to see Colin’s tongue darting out to lick his lips, quick pants of breath between them. He’s got one hand fisted in Bradley’s hair, pulling every few seconds as if, even as he’s letting go, he’s still worried he’s going too far; as if he thinks Bradley right now wants to be anywhere else than with his mouth around Colin’s cock, watching the way his skin flushes pink below the dark hairs of his chest, over the sharpness of his clavicle and desperate curve of his throat.

Bradley suctions his lips up off the shaft and laps at the precome beading in the slit of the head. He’s moving on instinct by now, pleased he’s making Colin feel so good and so turned on himself that everything’s a hundred times more intense yet also beginning to blur around the edges, all of it focused down to the warmth of Colin’s body.

Meeting Colin’s eyes again, Bradley slips his forefinger out of Colin, licks the head of his cock once more, and raises his hand to his mouth to dribble some precome onto his thumb. Slowly, still watching Colin’s wide eyes as they track his movements, Bradley slides his thumb into Colin. He’s tight and the friction is still mostly too dry, but it’s enough apparently, because Colin’s head falls back to the pillow with a gasp and his heels dig into Bradley’s back as Bradley’s thumb slides far enough inside that his silver thumbring rests around that stretch of pink.

That must be what does it — cold metal contrast against burning skin — because as soon as Bradley begins to suck on the head of his cock again, Colin’s hips jerk forward then still, and he’s spurting hot streaks onto the roof of Bradley’s mouth. He lets the taste of Colin pool thick on his tongue and tries not to come at the feel of Colin tightening around his thumb. He tries not to let the surge of affection overwhelm him at the way Colin’s hands just hold on and on: one pulling at Bradley’s hair, the other cradled carefully around the back of his skull.

After a few moments of waiting for Colin’s breaths to even out and relax again, Bradley slowly pulls out his thumb and lets Colin’s come slip out of his mouth and down his shaft as he licks up the side of it once more. He watches it pearling along the flushed skin of Colin’s cock, before Colin groans and starts tugging him forward by his hair.

“Come up here, you,” he murmurs when their eyes meet, and Bradley licks his lips and obliges.

Something both terrifying and wonderful is careening in his chest as Colin simply wraps his arms around him and kisses him. Bradley melts into it, but still, he’s harder than he’s sure he’s ever been and every sensation is bringing him closer.

“Col, I’m gonna—” he says, gasping against Colin’s chin.

“No,” Colin says, and suddenly he’s pushing Bradley away and onto his back.

“What the—”

Colin cuts him off with a firm fist at the base of Bradley’s cock, and Bradley gasps at the sudden rush and retraction of sensation.

“You’re not coming yet,” Colin says, eyes dark but with a playful tilt to his lips as he adds, “Not ‘til I get to have at least some of the fun you just did.”

“I could get used to your demands,” Bradley says a bit hoarsely, grinning up at him.

Colin grins back and ducks down to lick one of his nipples. Bradley bites his lip as Colin lets go of his cock and lets his hands wander around Bradley’s body. He licks along his throat as Bradley tips his head back into the pillow; the shallow of his clavicle as Bradley’s nails skitter across the small of his back; the curve of his triceps as Bradley sinks his hands into Colin’s hair, mussing it about and feeling somehow lazy instead of desperate all of a sudden, ready to let Colin unravel every nerve in his body and spiral want through his gut all night.

Still, as Colin begins to shift down the bed, and his nails tickle the expanse of Bradley’s ribs, that desperate edge returns, his cock aching. Colin kisses down his stomach, and when his chin brushes across the head of Bradley’s cock, the burn of scruff against his oversensitive skin is sharp and almost too good for a moment, before it sinks into the unbearable need for relief.

“Cols,” Bradley breathes, voice bordering on a whine as he digs his nails into Colin’s shoulder blades in the attempt to hint that he should, you know, suck Bradley’s cock sometime tonight.

Colin’s having none of that though, the bastard. His tongue is a slow drag up the center of Bradley’s chest, to the base of his throat, then back down to swirl around his nipples. He tugs one between his teeth, and Bradley’s hips jerk forward, seeking the friction Colin won’t give him. His cock slides along Colin’s chest, and Colin lifts his mouth from Bradley’s chest to quirk a grin at him.

“You want my mouth?” Colin’s voice is low and teasing, accent thick, and god, not once had Bradley ever imagined Colin as someone who’d talk dirty in bed, even a little bit, but he has quite the opposite of a problem with the reality.

He inhales sharply at the way Colin’s voice and words affect him and arches off the bed again, cock brushing against Colin’s chest.

“You know I do, you arsehole,” Bradley says harshly, but Colin just grins even more widely and bends forward to kiss him, once, on the lips, before shifting farther down the bed and settling between Bradley’s legs, finally.

Bradley bends his knees and opens them wider to let him in as Colin kneels forward, running his hands up and down Bradley’s inner thighs. He presses his lips to one, sucking a bruise on the tender skin. With a rasp of stubble along his thighs, he slides his tongue onto Bradley’s bollocks. The suction of his lips around one makes Bradley instinctively reach for his cock, but Colin intercepts him with his own hand, wrapping around the shaft and giving one pull before he replaces his hand with his mouth.

Colin drags his tongue up Bradley’s cock and sucks gently, almost tenderly, on the head, eyes fluttering closed. Bradley moans into a sigh and settles both hands in Colin’s hair, the thick tufts of it soft and familiar between his fingers. When Colin lowers his mouth and takes a long, deep pull, the pressure is so perfect, Bradley’s head falls back with a groan straight from his gut. He’s panting as he looks back down at the way Colin’s upper lip furls over the head of his cock on every new pull, loving the way his cock slips wetter and wetter in and out of Colin’s mouth. Each time it feels like, that’s it: this is what his cock was made for, to fill Colin’s warm mouth then reappear wet with the evidence.

Wrapping his fingers around the shaft, Colin starts to build a rhythm between his mouth and fist, while his other fingers grip Bradley’s hip hard enough to bruise — and Bradley hopes they are, hopes that for days he’ll look in the mirror and see mottled skin around his hipbone in the shapes of Colin’s fingertips as a memento that this really happened.

Colin’s hand on his cock falters its rhythm as he lowers his mouth farther down. Bradley’s cock is nudging at the entrance to his throat, and it’s all too much and not enough, just on the edge but hoping to ride this out as long as possible. Colin slides his lips up and nearly off his cock and just rubs the smooth head across his puckered lips, back and forth before he licks just below the swell of the head, his tongue sounding sloppy and feeling even better.

When Colin opens his mouth and lowers his lips back down and up for another slow pull of Bradley’s cock, Bradley can feel his orgasm finally building in his bollocks. Colin cradles the rounded tip of his cock in his cheek, and when Bradley drags his fingers down Colin’s face, for a moment Bradley can feel that bulge of his own cock through the wall of Colin’s cheek — and it’s that, that and the vibrations of Colin humming around him, that has Bradley coming within seconds.

Bradley can’t look away as Colin drops his jaw and Bradley spills himself onto Colin’s waiting tongue, pearly white against pink. Colin stares right back at him, looking drugged and thrilled as he swallows then licks at the slit a few times, his hand still pumping strong and sure along the length of him until he’s sure Bradley’s finished.

“Fuck,” Bradley says, head thrown back, trying to catch his breath. He looks back down at Colin and swipes his thumb across his wet lips. Colin’s eyes light up as he tries to chase the movement with his tongue. “Now I just feel stupid.”

Colin laughs, happy and open, and slides both hands up Bradley’s chest, following them with his own chest as he fits their bodies back together and mouths Bradley’s jaw. “Why do you feel stupid?”

“Because,” Bradley says, rolling them onto their sides and kissing Colin’s cheekbone, the scruff of his upper lip, the fullness of his lower lip. “If I’d known we would’ve been this good together, I would’ve gotten my head out of my arse years ago.”

“‘Years’?” Colin whispers beside his nose, hands stilling on Bradley’s shoulder blades.

“Er,” Bradley says, heart thudding. He can’t meet Colin’s eyes. He hadn’t meant to— who knew how long Colin had wanted this? He didn’t need to be admitting how long he’d bloody pined over Colin after they’d just had an amazing shag they could linger after for awhile longer. But all he can say is, “Yeah.”

“Years,” Colin says again, but there’s a hint of longing in his tone this time, and when Bradley looks into his eyes, he looks nothing if not utterly amazed. “Well,” he adds softly, “I could’ve gotten my head out of my arse as well back then. But I’d say we’re pretty smart now, figuring it out at all.”

And something giddy rises in Bradley’s throat at that, something so full and grateful all he can do is kiss Colin, and hold him even more tightly, and accept the exhaustion as it pushes him into sleep.

Bradley wakes up on his stomach with someone pressed against him in a proper snuggle: body wrapped long and warm along his side, one leg crooked over Bradley’s, one arm along his back, one morning erection hardening against Bradley’s thigh. His face is jammed between the pillow and Bradley’s shoulder, and Bradley can feel his warm, even breaths all along his side, in the rise and fall against Bradley’s ribs and the puffs of air against his neck.

In his first wakeful second, Bradley doesn’t remember who he’s with; doesn’t know anything at all except that there is another person sleeping with him and he feels comfortable; somehow right.

The thing is: When your fantasies abruptly become reality, it’s not as though you wake up and the way you’ve framed your life for years has automatically rearranged itself in your head. It takes Bradley a few seconds to remember: this is Colin snuggling into him. And then last night is rushing back to him, and he almost cannot contain the happiness that fills him, from blushing face to cold toes. It’s so fierce and pure in that moment that all he can do is lift the hand that’s resting on Colin’s hip, slide it farther up his back, and just hold on and grin into the fluff of his hair.

This is Colin, Bradley thinks, and that was Colin last night: mapping out Bradley’s body as if he’s wanted Bradley just as long as Bradley’s wanted him. That was Colin touching him in all the places he’d only seen before or never quite seen, maybe only wondered about, touching himself late at night, like Bradley used to do, exhausted and frustrated after hours of working side by side: take after take of tussles and embraces, of carrying each other and caring for each other, but only as Arthur and Merlin. Sometimes, Bradley knew, that line between actor and person could slip just a bit — not in the moment, but later on, when he was alone and thinking not of how Arthur felt to touch Merlin, but of how Bradley felt to touch Colin and how that was never enough.

Now, though, now is enough. Enough isn’t even the word for it, because this is everything, right here, in the way Colin begins to stretch against him and nuzzle the slope of Bradley’s shoulder as he makes little just-waking-up noises. Those snuffles turn into a small moan as he tightens his leg around the backs of Bradley’s thighs and his cock slips along Bradley’s skin.

“Mmmph,” Colin hums, and blinks sleepily up at Bradley.

“Hey,” Bradley whispers, turning onto his side to face Colin more properly.

“Hey,” Colin whispers back, then reaches for the nape of Bradley’s neck and reels him in.

Their kiss is sure and leisurely in a way few of their kisses last night had been. Colin lazily cards his fingers through Bradley’s hair, and Bradley’s mouth wanders to Colin’s jaw, fascinated by the still-new sensation of scruff against his lips and tongue and his own stubbly cheeks.

Colin huffs a tiny satisfied breath. “Our mouths taste like something died in them while we were sleeping,” he says, voice still thick from sleep.

“Well,” Bradley says, smirking into Colin’s neck then pulling back to look him in the eye, “for the sake of your veggie street cred, I hope no animals actually died in our mouths.”

Colin huffs a laugh. “That’s such a bizarre image. Like—” He curls his hands in front of his chest and twitches his nose. “Little rabbits just hopping about my bed at night, waiting for us to snore so they can have a nice warm grave.”

“Well, then they definitely didn’t find one, because I do not snore,” Bradley says.

Colin offers an apologetic look. “I think the rabbits would disagree.”

Bradley laughs. “If they were secretly Killer Rabbits, then they had it coming.”

Colin turns and laughs into the pillow, sliding his hand up Bradley’s side to rest against his chest.

Bradley yawns and flips onto his back, absently reaching up and draping his hand over Colin’s in the center of his own chest.

“Mmm, my kingdom for a cuppa,” he says, stretching along the length of the bed, feeling Colin's legs stretch likewise against his own. He drops his arm atop Colin’s pillow, fingers curling into the morning mess of Colin’s hair, and props himself up on his elbow. Their hands, cradled together, drop from his chest onto the bedspread.

Colin reemerges from the pillow and peers up at him through his lashes. “Sire,” he says, with an amused tilt of his lips, “your kingdom only existed on Saturday night telly.”

Bradley throws his head back into the pillow in a bark of laughter. He wonders if he’ll always feel this euphoric and relaxed from now on. It’s an irrational, fleeting thought, but one he’s never actually felt before, and that throws him a bit.

He turns his face level with Colin’s and matches the grin on his face, then wraps his arms around Colin’s neck, hooks a leg over Colin’s and rolls him on top of himself. Laughing the whole way, Colin braces his forearms on the wonderfully fluffy pillow beneath Bradley’s head.

“I, er, like your pillows, by the way,” Bradley says, wrapping his arms around Colin’s lower back.

“Well, my pillows like you,” Colin says, and his cheeks immediately colour, and he averts his eyes. Christ, Bradley loves that even after all the sexual assertiveness of last night, he can have this sort of simple effect on Colin.

“C’mere,” Bradley murmurs, heart in his throat, and Colin looks back at him.

“I’m right here,” Colin says a bit stupidly, eyes wide and searching.

“I mean—” Bradley spreads his legs a bit and relishes the slide of Colin’s body against his and the sharp intake of breath between Colin’s teeth, eyelids fluttering closed again. “Come here,” he whispers against Colin’s lips, then tilts his head up off the pillow and kisses him deeply. Colin’s reaction is immediate and thrilling, as in one graceful motion he slips his tongue into Bradley’s mouth and twists his slim hips against Bradley’s broader ones.

Bradley’s fingernails dig into Colin’s shoulder blades as they roll their hips together, seeking more friction. Their bollocks cradle each other for a moment, as Colin moans into his ear and thrusts his cock just right alongside Bradley’s. Colin sucks at the sensitive spot at the juncture of Bradley’s jaw and earlobe, then nips at his jawline. Bradley turns his head and catches Colin’s lower lip between his teeth and wraps his legs around his arse, frantically trying to ride him at this angle. It’s new, these unexpected sensations of moving against Colin: the rough hairs around the base of Colin’s cock, the smooth line where his hip meets his thigh, the heat and weight of Colin’s cock pressing against his own.

It’s so much that, as his orgasm builds, Bradley’s overwhelmed by how intimate they feel like this: chests pressed together, Bradley’s legs anchoring Colin to him, Colin breathing into his neck as he braces his arms on either side of Bradley’s head and thrusts their hips together. But then Colin raises his head and kisses him, and it centers him, and he’s coming, legs tightening around Colin’s waist as he pulses between them. Colin follows quickly, collapsing onto Bradley as he comes, muffling a groan into the crook of Bradley’s neck.

The pair of them just lie there for a good long while, breathing into each other. Bradley’s lying limp on the bed, his legs no longer wrapped around Colin, but he’s loosely wrapped his arms around his waist.

“Mm,” Colin hums after awhile, nudging Bradley’s jaw with his nose and pushing himself up on his elbows to look at him. “Think we should get up before we end up literally sticking together?”

“What, is your come made of hot-glue or something?” Bradley says, raising his eyebrows with a smirk.

Colin purses his lips and squinches them from side to side, giving a considering look. “That’d be more than a bit unsettling.”

Bradley laughs and rolls them over, feeling Colin’s lips spread into a small smile as they kiss. Curling his arms on the pillow above Colin’s head, Bradley props himself up and grins back down at him. Colin’s eyes go soft as he drapes his arms around Bradley’s back, and it feels like the most relaxed, content little world Bradley’s ever made for himself. He slips his tongue between Colin’s lips, and they roll onto their sides again, kissing leisurely. Every touch feels like I know you, every kiss feels like learning each other all over again.

“How ‘bout that cuppa?” Bradley murmurs against his lips after a good long while.

“Mm, need a piss first,” Colin says, yawning over the last word and trying to muffle it in his shoulder. He sits up and rifles around the mess of blankets at their feet and comes up with his underwear, a pair of blue plaid boxer shorts, and grabs his top from last night on his way out the door.

Bradley grunts and swings his legs over the side of the bed to look about for the trousers he’d kicked off last night, finding them pooled halfway beneath the bed and his borrowed Death Cab for Cutie shirt a little ways away. He pulls on the trousers and has just slipped the shirt over his head when he looks up and Colin’s stood in the doorway, leaning against the door frame with a fond little smirk and his arms crossed, his eyes trained on Bradley’s face.

It’s a look Bradley has noticed directed at him for years, but only when people would play back interviews for him, or he’d look at photographs of the pair of them: It seemed to be a particular look of fondness Colin only gave him when he wasn’t looking. Now, in this whole new context, Bradley wonders if he’ll be seeing a lot more of it face to face.

“Tea?” he says, voice a little rough, unable to look away.

“Tea.” Colin nods once and turns to the kitchen, and Bradley follows him.

It’s strange how not strange it is to quietly do such a mundane task as make tea with Colin after it feels their world has been flipped on its back and taught new tricks for them over the course of the night: Bradley pours the water into the electric kettle, while Colin hops onto the counter and reaches for the teabags and mugs.

When Bradley looks up and meets his eyes, Colin’s sat on the countertop with his arms crossed, watching Bradley’s hands as he plugs in the kettle, plucks out two teabags from the tin and drops them into their mugs. Bradley feels his face glow and moves to shove his hands into his pockets but, forgetting these trousers have no pockets, his hands just slide awkwardly down his thighs.

Colin grins and wraps his arms around Bradley’s neck to pull him up into a kiss, as if they’ve already gone too long without touching in the past few minutes. Bradley’s lips spread into a smile against Colin’s as he shuffles between Colin’s legs where they’re dangling off the counter. Opening up for him, Colin hooks his ankles around the backs of Bradley’s thighs and anchors Bradley’s hips to him with his knees.

“You know,” Colin says thoughtfully, watching his own fingers brush delicately across Bradley’s throat, “when I was giving Richard a goodbye hug back at the wrap party last month? He, erm, he gave me advice about you.”

“He what?” Bradley said, laughing.

Colin laughs a bit as well; Bradley can feel it rumble beneath his hands on Colin’s back.

“I was only wishing him all the best with his partner, and he—” Colin laughs again and meets Bradley’s eyes now. “It was practically Great Dragon advice, honestly.”

Bradley laughs. “That cryptic, was it?”

“Not quite, but it was a bit out of nowhere,” Colin says, eyes crinkling. “He told me that I shouldn’t worry about, erm, straying from the sexual identity I’m accustomed to and just focus on caring for whomever I care about.” Colin snorts and adds, “Then he said I should knock that into your thick skull as well.”

Bradley barks a laugh. “He did not say that!”

Colin smirks slyly. “Maybe not verbatim, but that was the gist of it.”

“Well,” Bradley starts, but the kettle whistle interrupts him.

He reaches over and unplugs it, loving the way Colin’s legs tighten around him as he shifts over. Colin picks up the kettle and pours them each a cup to steep.

“I do like that way of thinking about it,” Bradley says, watching Colin carefully pour the boiling water beside them.

“Yeah?” Colin says, setting down the kettle and turning his attention back to Bradley. “I thought so. No need for labels. Only have to, I don’t know—” He shrugs one shoulder and, fluttering a hand against Bradley’s neck, says half-mockingly, half seriously, “—trust how we feel. I mean, attraction has got to be more fluid, right?”

“Apparently?” Bradley says, and gestures over his shoulder toward Colin’s bedroom.

Colin smiles. “Maybe we’re like Jack Harkness, or some—”

“I am not Jack Harkness.”

“Hmm.” Colin pulls a considering look up and down Bradley. “Pity.”

“Oi!” Bradley laughs and pokes him in the stomach.

“No, no, I know,” Colin says, squirming backward and laughing. “We are not Jack Harkness— es. Harknesses? I still mostly fancy girls. It’s just that—” He tilts his head and he looks a bit wondering. “Well. There’s you.”

“Yeah,” Bradley says, voice low and a bit wondering himself. He swallows and raises his voice back to a teasing tone, “Although I must admit, I also fancied Santiago the first time I met him. Just a bit.”

“Don’t blame you. Does anyone not have a thing for Santiago at some point?”

“I think it’s a requirement for being a living, breathing human being.”

Colin looks as though he’s stifling a laugh. “Is there a way to be a living human being minus the breathing part?”

“Well, yes. Not being a part of the Santiago Cabrera fan club, for one. Not much heavy breathing if you don’t fancy that man.”

Colin laughs and wraps his arms around Bradley’s neck again. “I’ve no idea why I’m so fond of you.”

Bradley pokes him in the side. “Hey, look who’s talking. You’re bonkers, you are.”

Colin only lowers his eyelids and hovers closer to Bradley, lips full and nose bumping Bradley’s, until Bradley takes the hint and kisses him, another lingering press that feels like coming home. He runs his palms up and down Colin’s thighs thoughtfully, and Colin hums a little as he pulls away.

He looks down at Bradley with sleepy eyes. “Mm, I like you in my clothes,” he says, reaching down to tug on the hem of the shirt he’d loaned Bradley last night.

Bradley catches his fingers in his own for a moment. “That’s funny, I like you out of your clothes.”

Colin groans and rolls his eyes, but he wraps both arms around Bradley’s waist and laughs, and Bradley’s name tumbles out in the midst of it — not that he says Bradley’s name, but literally breathes out the syllables in laughter.

Bradley grins and a thought occurs to him, something that’d been niggling at the back of his mind ever since they’d last seen each other. “So, tell me something.”

Colin raises his eyebrows.

“Why’d you tell me that your heart likes eating yoghurt?”

“That my—” Colin’s eyebrows scrunch together. “What on earth are you on about?”

“Back at the wrap party,” Bradley says, smoothing his thumb over Colin’s forehead and combing his fingers back in his hair. “You said something to me in Irish then, and I, er, might have asked Eoin to translate, but I guess I didn’t remember the sounds of the words as well as I’d thought because he said it was a load of nonsense.”

“Did he,” Colin says, starting to blush.

“Yes, something about yoghurty hearts.”

The blush reaches the tips of Colin’s ears as he ducks his head. “Oh, erm. That.” A little, embarrassed laugh escapes from his mouth. “Don’t know how Eoin got ‘yoghurt’ from that.”

“Well, then what did you actually say to me?”

“It’s— I’m not sure why I even—” Colin shakes his head, still blushing. He won’t look at Bradley, but he won’t let go of him either.

“Hey.” Bradley says gently, and kisses his jaw.

Colin turns back to him with a bashful smile. It’s a rare one; Bradley usually sees him look so unashamedly himself, honest and generous, but rarely this vulnerable. Here he is, this close with Bradley, and Bradley’s not sure he can breathe for a moment.

“It’s, erm,” Colin says quietly. “It means ‘my heart is at home in you.’”

Oh— oh wait, no, now Bradley can’t breathe.

“It’s one of the many ways in Irish,” Colin goes on, “to say—”

“God, I love you,” Bradley says, words all a rush, and oh fuck. Fuck buggering fuck, now he can feel why he’s never just said that before. Even when he’d been in love before, he was never the first one to say it. Because it’s terrifying, those bloody words are too much, why are they too much.

And Colin just stares, eyes wide, his jaw working up and down soundlessly for a moment, as if he were about to finish his sentence, and Bradley feels more vulnerable than he can remember ever feeling. His gut is churning, there’s a knot in his throat, and some annoying bits of popular love songs are stuck, unwelcome, in his head. All he can do is swallow past the knot and hold Colin’s stare and keep one arm firmly around Colin’s shoulders, the other hand fumbling nervously with the hem of Colin’s shirt. Colin’s skin is warm and sure beneath his knuckles.

Then the smile starts, slowly. Colin looks down again and slips one hand between them to reach for Bradley’s wrist. Cradling it in his hand, Colin’s touch is so gentle, it’s almost unbearable, his thumb pressing against the pulse point and its delicate veins.

When Colin looks back up at him, he’s beaming, and Bradley can breathe again.

“Yeah, Bradley,” Colin says, voice thick with something possibly as ridiculous and wonderful and terrifying as Bradley’s feeling right now as well. “That’s exactly what it means.” He lets go of Bradley’s wrist and brackets his face instead.

Bradley closes his eyes and wobbles a bit on the soles of his feet, overwhelmed. It feels like winning the World Cup and coming home and being more loved and in love than he’s sure he’s ever been. He sinks into the way Colin anchors them together more securely, sliding his hands down to Bradley’s ribs and hitching his legs higher around Bradley’s hips. And it’s not the end of anything when Colin kisses him, because their kiss is tender and present and the taste of what Bradley hopes his future has been saving up for him.