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merlinrpf2015-02-02 03:25 pm
hyponymn.livejournal.com) wrote in merlinrpf2015-02-02 03:25 pm
fic: A Case of Mistaken Identity (Multi-Chapter, Chapter 2)
Author: 
hyponymn
Title: A Case of Mistaken Identity
Rating: R for ridiculous amounts of swearing
Pairing(s): Bradley/Colin, Bradley/Merlin
Summary:Colin Morgan is a really good actor. He doesn't just play a character, he becomes the character. He builds the world of the character, synthesizes the struggles of the character, and dreams about the character. And it just so happens that Colin’s character is exactly the type of cotton-headed ninnymuggins that would fall in love with a familiar, friendly face and a parcel of bad jokes. Bradley heroically understands; he totally recognizes his own awesomeness.
Warnings: frustrated boys (Not even UST. Just frustration.)
Word Count: 1,597
Running Word Count: 3, 360
Spoilers: Seasons 1, 2, and 3 are fair game; also video diaries and interviews (if those count as spoilers?!)
Author's Note: I'd love a beta for the rest of this fic, if anyone's game. Comment/contact me pls <3
“Shit,” Bradley says amicably. He looks up at Colin because Colin has those two extra inches on him, and Colin doesn’t look back because he’s a filthy coward.
“I don’t,” Colin croaks, and he stops to swallow before trying to talk again. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“What needs fixing?”
Colin glances up, furtive and incredulous. “Me.” There’s a flash of a smile when he sees Bradley’s reaction—Bradley’s not sure what his face is doing—and he stares back at his boots. “Title characters aren’t allowed to go looney.”
“Just to be on the safe side,” Bradley drawls,” who’s this ‘me’?”
“Colin.” Colin looks up and fixates on the other side of the set.
“That’s that, then.” Bradley gestures to the rest of the room. “You’re fixed. Bonafide actor Colin Morgan playing the hell out of the role Merlin.”
“I don’t know how to be Colin,” Colin says miserably.
“Then act,” Bradley huffs. “Seriously, Morgan. Whatever has your panties in a bunch—“
“Just give me a script.” Colin’s voice is hollow and humorless and Bradley loses his patience because they’ve been filming for a week and Julien has rejected every single reel that Colin has been in and this is bigger than some spot of embarrassment; it’s their actual careers—
“Shut the fuck up.” He can hear his inner Katie McGrath giggling about Bradley Bitch Mode Hulking out and the fact that he has an inner Katie McGrath riles him up even more. “Stop talking nonsense. You’re Colin fucking Morgan. You fucking rewrite the fucking script.” He jabs Colin in the chest with a gauntleted glove because even though Colin, unlike Bradley, bruises like a baby, he, unlike Bradley, doesn’t have a single shirtless scene this entire season and okay, maybe Bradley is mad, but he’s also trying to make an actual valid point, and right now he doesn’t really have any option except to try to punch it into Colin. “You are Merlin. Not the scripts, not the costumes. Merlin’s nothing without you.”
“I know.” Colin’s breathing hard and still not looking at Bradley which is fine because maybe Bradley doesn’t feel like looking at Colin. “And I know how to go from being Colin to being Merlin. I’m still trying to figure out how to go from being Merlin to Colin.” Bradley gives Colin a sharp look of total panic, and Colin holds up a placating hand. “I know I’m not Merlin, but I also know what Merlin thinks of you and how Merlin acts around you and I can’t find where we used to be.” He can feel Colin making the big sad eyes at him, and he hates that it’s not in jest.
Bradley lets out a mangled yell and pulls at his hair. Costume will give him hell for it, but he sees—finally—where Colin’s coming from and he feels like an idiot for not seeing it earlier. And he doesn’t know how to make it better because, although they go about acting in different ways, he is Arthur just as much as Colin is Merlin and their camaraderie is so many levels different than what Arthur and Merlin have. He had had a bloody front seat on that showboat. Colin had been pretty explicit in relaying what Merlin thought of Bradley.
“You’re an actor,” Colin repeated. The way he said “actor” reminded Bradley of the way that he had heard his extremist conservative aunt say “prostitute.”
“Yes,” Bradley confirmed. “An actor playing the role of Prince Arthur.” Colin’s lip curled into a disappointed line. Bradley raised an eyebrow in reply. If Colin was going to give him more flak than his parents had about his being an actor—
“Who are you serving?”
“My aim is to further the reign of the BBC,” Bradley said in his best robot voice. Colin loved his robot voice; even if he never admitted it, his expression always turned soft and fond whenever Bradley went Bradbot. But Colin wasn’t Colin.
“And you’re happy with that?” Colin asked, a tall glass of skeptical.
“It’s different now. Actors are the kings of this world. I’m like a lord. I’ve got an internet dukedom of followers.” Colin still looked condescending, so Bradley snapped “You’re an actor too. An off-the-deep-end actor.” Bradley was a theatre major, and of course he knew that, historically, acting wasn’t always the most respectable position. That did not mean, in any way, that he should have to put up with his career choices being questioned. Especially by Colin Morgan, the boy who acted too hard.
“You don’t think you were destined for anything greater? You don’t feel responsible for anything greater?” Colin kneeled down next to Bradley and looked up at him through with his stupid dinner plate sized eyes. “Also, you avoided my question, and that was an answer in its own way.”
“There’s no such thing as destiny!” Bradley shouted. Neil looked up from his couch, surveyed them a moment, and then refocused on his telly. “Okay,” Bradley continued at a perfectly reasonable volume. “Maybe there is destiny and fate and all that. But not the way you’re thinking. Not with the prophets and divinations. People meet, people do stuff, and people die. If they do it right, they find some happiness in the meantime.”
“Are you happy?” Colin emphasized every word as though he were trying to give them all new meanings.
“I was,” Bradley grouched. “You’re mucking things up by going all Merlin on me in the one month we have no obligations at all. But the show, the cast, especially Anthony Stewart Head, acting—it reaches people, Colin. We do that. We create people and relationships that our audiences care about and think about and talk about.” When Bradley first started acting, he felt like a puppet: the façade that was manipulated by others to show the character. But once he started getting into acting, it felt like he was raising the dead. He could take a character and bring it to life, make it blink and laugh and get frustrated and fall in love.
Colin clambered back to his feet. “We should find a way back to Camelot.”
“There is no back to Camelot. Camelot, for all sakes and purposes, is a myth. We film in France, which, if Camelot ever existed, it was most certainly never in.”
“There has to be something,” Colin said urgently. “We can find the druids.”
“You can find the nuthouse,” Bradley retorted. He pushed away from the kitchen table and stuck his head into the living room. He didn’t want to talk to Colin anymore. “Neil, I’m thinking of ordering some pizza. You want any?”
“I could eat a pie,” Neil said. “You want cash?”
“Nah, Colin’s paying.” Bradley brandished Colin’s wallet.
“Fair enough,” Neil shrugged. “Meatlovers for me.”
Bradley, in a fit of spite, ordered two meatlovers pizzas. Neil gave him an approving, apprising look and, when the pizzas arrived, they tried not to be too obvious about watching Colin eat. Colin was about to bite his first slice when Bradley whisked it out of his hand.
“What was that for?” Colin demanded. He leaned over to grab his slice back, and Bradley leaned away over Neil, and Neil demolished the piece in four bites.
“You can’t eat it,” Bradley said. Neil snorted something that sounded suspiciously like “weak.” Bradley threw a scowl at Neil before turning back to Colin’s outraged, pink face.
“Oh, but you can?”
“You don’t eat meat,” Bradley explained.
“But you and Neil do?”
“We choose to. Colin doesn’t.”
“Well, you keep saying I’m Colin, and I say I do choose to eat meat.”
“Yeah, but you also think you’re Merlin.”
Colin let out an angry huff of air. “How convenient.” His words had a bit of a bite to them, and his expression screamed that he thought that Bradley was a load of bull, and Bradley threw his head back to laugh. When Bradley had simmered down to the chortles, he turned and caught sight of Colin’s expression; he looked weirdly awed.
“What?” Bradley asked defensively.
“I’ve never seen you laugh like that,” Colin said.
“Bull,” Neil said. He prodded Bradley with his elbow. “Cols said that, between your chest and your laugh, you were probably a horse in your previous life.”
“He is a Pendragon!” Colin grabbed another slice of pizza and began assaulting Neil. “Treat him with some semblance of respect!”
Neil grunted an insincere apology, snagged Colin’s weapon of choice, and demanded silence as the footie game returned. Between bouts of yelling at the sceen, Bradley peeled off the meat-filled cheese from pizza slices and handed the remaining bread and tomato sauce to Colin; Colin glared at him suspiciously but didn’t make a move on the meaty, cheesy stuff in the box. Colin showed no sign of understanding the game but was nonetheless immensely intrigued by the television; he kept jumping whenever the camera angles changed. During an next ad break, Colin hesitantly asked if Colin was a monk and Neil tried to explain how Colin was vegetarian by choice and lactose intolerant by design. Colin asked which foods Bradley and Neil weren’t allowed to eat and how the television worked if not by magic. He wasn’t satisfied with either of their answers.
After the game ended, Colin tried—unsuccessfully—to make Neil give Bradley his bed and then insisted that Bradley take the couch. Bradley didn’t argue much; he was ready for the day to be done.
hyponymnTitle: A Case of Mistaken Identity
Rating: R for ridiculous amounts of swearing
Pairing(s): Bradley/Colin, Bradley/Merlin
Summary:Colin Morgan is a really good actor. He doesn't just play a character, he becomes the character. He builds the world of the character, synthesizes the struggles of the character, and dreams about the character. And it just so happens that Colin’s character is exactly the type of cotton-headed ninnymuggins that would fall in love with a familiar, friendly face and a parcel of bad jokes. Bradley heroically understands; he totally recognizes his own awesomeness.
Warnings: frustrated boys (Not even UST. Just frustration.)
Word Count: 1,597
Running Word Count: 3, 360
Spoilers: Seasons 1, 2, and 3 are fair game; also video diaries and interviews (if those count as spoilers?!)
Author's Note: I'd love a beta for the rest of this fic, if anyone's game. Comment/contact me pls <3
“Shit,” Bradley says amicably. He looks up at Colin because Colin has those two extra inches on him, and Colin doesn’t look back because he’s a filthy coward.
“I don’t,” Colin croaks, and he stops to swallow before trying to talk again. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“What needs fixing?”
Colin glances up, furtive and incredulous. “Me.” There’s a flash of a smile when he sees Bradley’s reaction—Bradley’s not sure what his face is doing—and he stares back at his boots. “Title characters aren’t allowed to go looney.”
“Just to be on the safe side,” Bradley drawls,” who’s this ‘me’?”
“Colin.” Colin looks up and fixates on the other side of the set.
“That’s that, then.” Bradley gestures to the rest of the room. “You’re fixed. Bonafide actor Colin Morgan playing the hell out of the role Merlin.”
“I don’t know how to be Colin,” Colin says miserably.
“Then act,” Bradley huffs. “Seriously, Morgan. Whatever has your panties in a bunch—“
“Just give me a script.” Colin’s voice is hollow and humorless and Bradley loses his patience because they’ve been filming for a week and Julien has rejected every single reel that Colin has been in and this is bigger than some spot of embarrassment; it’s their actual careers—
“Shut the fuck up.” He can hear his inner Katie McGrath giggling about Bradley Bitch Mode Hulking out and the fact that he has an inner Katie McGrath riles him up even more. “Stop talking nonsense. You’re Colin fucking Morgan. You fucking rewrite the fucking script.” He jabs Colin in the chest with a gauntleted glove because even though Colin, unlike Bradley, bruises like a baby, he, unlike Bradley, doesn’t have a single shirtless scene this entire season and okay, maybe Bradley is mad, but he’s also trying to make an actual valid point, and right now he doesn’t really have any option except to try to punch it into Colin. “You are Merlin. Not the scripts, not the costumes. Merlin’s nothing without you.”
“I know.” Colin’s breathing hard and still not looking at Bradley which is fine because maybe Bradley doesn’t feel like looking at Colin. “And I know how to go from being Colin to being Merlin. I’m still trying to figure out how to go from being Merlin to Colin.” Bradley gives Colin a sharp look of total panic, and Colin holds up a placating hand. “I know I’m not Merlin, but I also know what Merlin thinks of you and how Merlin acts around you and I can’t find where we used to be.” He can feel Colin making the big sad eyes at him, and he hates that it’s not in jest.
Bradley lets out a mangled yell and pulls at his hair. Costume will give him hell for it, but he sees—finally—where Colin’s coming from and he feels like an idiot for not seeing it earlier. And he doesn’t know how to make it better because, although they go about acting in different ways, he is Arthur just as much as Colin is Merlin and their camaraderie is so many levels different than what Arthur and Merlin have. He had had a bloody front seat on that showboat. Colin had been pretty explicit in relaying what Merlin thought of Bradley.
*
The words had barely left Bradley’s mouth when Colin’s brown furrowed unpleasantly.“You’re an actor,” Colin repeated. The way he said “actor” reminded Bradley of the way that he had heard his extremist conservative aunt say “prostitute.”
“Yes,” Bradley confirmed. “An actor playing the role of Prince Arthur.” Colin’s lip curled into a disappointed line. Bradley raised an eyebrow in reply. If Colin was going to give him more flak than his parents had about his being an actor—
“Who are you serving?”
“My aim is to further the reign of the BBC,” Bradley said in his best robot voice. Colin loved his robot voice; even if he never admitted it, his expression always turned soft and fond whenever Bradley went Bradbot. But Colin wasn’t Colin.
“And you’re happy with that?” Colin asked, a tall glass of skeptical.
“It’s different now. Actors are the kings of this world. I’m like a lord. I’ve got an internet dukedom of followers.” Colin still looked condescending, so Bradley snapped “You’re an actor too. An off-the-deep-end actor.” Bradley was a theatre major, and of course he knew that, historically, acting wasn’t always the most respectable position. That did not mean, in any way, that he should have to put up with his career choices being questioned. Especially by Colin Morgan, the boy who acted too hard.
“You don’t think you were destined for anything greater? You don’t feel responsible for anything greater?” Colin kneeled down next to Bradley and looked up at him through with his stupid dinner plate sized eyes. “Also, you avoided my question, and that was an answer in its own way.”
“There’s no such thing as destiny!” Bradley shouted. Neil looked up from his couch, surveyed them a moment, and then refocused on his telly. “Okay,” Bradley continued at a perfectly reasonable volume. “Maybe there is destiny and fate and all that. But not the way you’re thinking. Not with the prophets and divinations. People meet, people do stuff, and people die. If they do it right, they find some happiness in the meantime.”
“Are you happy?” Colin emphasized every word as though he were trying to give them all new meanings.
“I was,” Bradley grouched. “You’re mucking things up by going all Merlin on me in the one month we have no obligations at all. But the show, the cast, especially Anthony Stewart Head, acting—it reaches people, Colin. We do that. We create people and relationships that our audiences care about and think about and talk about.” When Bradley first started acting, he felt like a puppet: the façade that was manipulated by others to show the character. But once he started getting into acting, it felt like he was raising the dead. He could take a character and bring it to life, make it blink and laugh and get frustrated and fall in love.
Colin clambered back to his feet. “We should find a way back to Camelot.”
“There is no back to Camelot. Camelot, for all sakes and purposes, is a myth. We film in France, which, if Camelot ever existed, it was most certainly never in.”
“There has to be something,” Colin said urgently. “We can find the druids.”
“You can find the nuthouse,” Bradley retorted. He pushed away from the kitchen table and stuck his head into the living room. He didn’t want to talk to Colin anymore. “Neil, I’m thinking of ordering some pizza. You want any?”
“I could eat a pie,” Neil said. “You want cash?”
“Nah, Colin’s paying.” Bradley brandished Colin’s wallet.
“Fair enough,” Neil shrugged. “Meatlovers for me.”
Bradley, in a fit of spite, ordered two meatlovers pizzas. Neil gave him an approving, apprising look and, when the pizzas arrived, they tried not to be too obvious about watching Colin eat. Colin was about to bite his first slice when Bradley whisked it out of his hand.
“What was that for?” Colin demanded. He leaned over to grab his slice back, and Bradley leaned away over Neil, and Neil demolished the piece in four bites.
“You can’t eat it,” Bradley said. Neil snorted something that sounded suspiciously like “weak.” Bradley threw a scowl at Neil before turning back to Colin’s outraged, pink face.
“Oh, but you can?”
“You don’t eat meat,” Bradley explained.
“But you and Neil do?”
“We choose to. Colin doesn’t.”
“Well, you keep saying I’m Colin, and I say I do choose to eat meat.”
“Yeah, but you also think you’re Merlin.”
Colin let out an angry huff of air. “How convenient.” His words had a bit of a bite to them, and his expression screamed that he thought that Bradley was a load of bull, and Bradley threw his head back to laugh. When Bradley had simmered down to the chortles, he turned and caught sight of Colin’s expression; he looked weirdly awed.
“What?” Bradley asked defensively.
“I’ve never seen you laugh like that,” Colin said.
“Bull,” Neil said. He prodded Bradley with his elbow. “Cols said that, between your chest and your laugh, you were probably a horse in your previous life.”
“He is a Pendragon!” Colin grabbed another slice of pizza and began assaulting Neil. “Treat him with some semblance of respect!”
Neil grunted an insincere apology, snagged Colin’s weapon of choice, and demanded silence as the footie game returned. Between bouts of yelling at the sceen, Bradley peeled off the meat-filled cheese from pizza slices and handed the remaining bread and tomato sauce to Colin; Colin glared at him suspiciously but didn’t make a move on the meaty, cheesy stuff in the box. Colin showed no sign of understanding the game but was nonetheless immensely intrigued by the television; he kept jumping whenever the camera angles changed. During an next ad break, Colin hesitantly asked if Colin was a monk and Neil tried to explain how Colin was vegetarian by choice and lactose intolerant by design. Colin asked which foods Bradley and Neil weren’t allowed to eat and how the television worked if not by magic. He wasn’t satisfied with either of their answers.
After the game ended, Colin tried—unsuccessfully—to make Neil give Bradley his bed and then insisted that Bradley take the couch. Bradley didn’t argue much; he was ready for the day to be done.