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Greg doesn't know how to read Alex.
Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. Alex isn't the same onstage as he is offstage, but neither is Greg. Offstage Alex is friendlier, warmer. He doesn't take Greg's shit, although Greg doesn't throw nearly as much of it. Greg actually likes the Alex offstage and genuinely hates the one onstage.
It could be that gulf between the two of them that makes him not really trust Alex. Alex is brilliant, but Greg keeps wanting there to be more, ulterior motives on ulterior motives, something other than Alex being a nice guy all the way down.
Whether this is because Greg feels like he himself is about seven layers removed some days is completely immaterial.
What's making all of this happen is that they've just wrapped for the day, after Alex told him he loved him, in one of the most uncomfortable ways he's ever been told it. He's had that said to him by people he wasn't in love with, and he either lied or lied by omission. In a romantic setting, it's very easy to just kiss somebody and let them assume what they want to assume. It was less of an option in the middle of a television show, when, for the life of him, he could not tell whether Alex was serious or not.
Because again, he can't read Alex at all.
Greg is thinking this while he's halfway inside a cabinet in his dressing room; long story short, he knocked a coat hanger behind a shelf, and he really hates turning things in to Wardrobe with anything missing. It's just a coat hanger, but what's next? A rip in his jacket? Doesn't bear thinking about.
There's a knock on his dressing room door, and it opens before he can say anything.
"Hey," Alex says, completely calmly, like nothing is wrong.
Greg swears under his breath and doesn't turn around. "Hey," he says vaguely.
"Are you having trouble with something?" Alex says, as Greg wishes for a way to climb into the cabinet and hide.
"It's nothing," Greg says. Just then he liberates the coat hanger, and he very nearly puts it back. Instead he sighs, turning around like an adult, which is bollocks.
Alex has already gotten dressed to go home, a jumper with a picture of Donald Duck on it; Greg has no idea how he finds these things. It makes him look so different, removed from the whole enterprise of Taskmaster in general. It means nothing. Does it mean nothing? Greg wants a drink and a lie down.
"Andy wanted me to relay some things for tomorrow," Alex says, not hearing Greg's inner turmoil. He doesn't have his clipboard or his iPad, reading from his phone instead. "Call is half an hour earlier for me and you, there's a thing for the final task that we need to be prepped for. I was actually a little afraid Health and Safety would nix it at the last minute, but I guess not."
"Uh huh," Greg says.
"There's also someone coming round to do a set visit for an article about pandemic restrictions and filming," Alex continues. "It won't go out until after episode eight airs, so I don't see how-" He looks up, finding Greg looking back at him, probably not how he expects him to be looking. "Greg, are you alright?"
"Do you love me?" Greg asks, because he can't do anything else. "Genuinely?"
Alex frowns. "Why would it matter?"
Greg feels it hit him in the stomach, physically painful. It knocks the breath out of him, so much so that when Alex waits for a response, Greg cannot say anything.
"Right," Alex says slowly. "We'll go over all this tomorrow, shall we? Remember, early call."
And Alex just leaves. He just turns and walks out the door, leaving Greg staring after him.
The closing of the door jolts Greg out of it. Alex just walked in here and had the audacity to say something like that to what had been a heartfelt question, and what did it even mean? Where does it leave anything, and how is Greg supposed to behave when all he has to go on is some cryptic bullshit?
"I'm not fuckin' having that," Greg mutters, going over and throwing the door open.
Alex is disappearing down the hallway, but Greg catches him easy as anything. He clamps both hands on Alex's shoulders, turns him, and walks him back to his dressing room, shoving him inside a little harder than he means to. He slams the door behind him, locking it.
"Where do you get off, you fucking heartless calculator?" Greg demands. "You make me genuinely uncomfortable in front of everyone, you won't answer my question, you hand me something I don't know how to fucking deal with, then you fuck off?"
"Oh, I-" Alex stammers. "I- what I meant was-"
"It's a simple fucking question, Alex," Greg snaps. "Your choices are 'No, I said that to fuck with you,' and the opposite. Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but it matters to me."
"That's not what I said," Alex protests.
"Number one, go fuck yourself, you know what you said," Greg says. "Number two, I don't give a fuck what you say until you answer my question."
"I'm not usually scared of you-" Alex says, jokey, like he's trying to defuse the situation.
"Well, you've never pissed me off this much," Greg says, not letting him. "Congratulations, since that seems to be what you want me for."
"Yes, alright?" Alex says, more defeated than defiant. "If it'll stop you yelling at me, yes."
Greg feels bad for half a second, then remembers that he's in every way the wronged party. "Then why the hell doesn't it matter?"
"Because you don't love me," Alex says, and Greg's struck by how there's no sadness in it, just irritation. "I made it a joke because I know you don't love me. I'm sorry I made it weird. I'm sorry if you felt like it was too much. I thought you could handle it, since you don't have any stake in it."
"Why do you think I don't love you?" Greg says, frowning.
"Now you're being deliberately cruel," Alex says, and he turns to leave.
Greg puts a hand on his shoulder, much gentler this time. "Sorry, I don't think you heard that like I said it." Alex turns back, looking at him warily. "Probably it should have been more like 'why do you think I don't love you even though I do?'"
Alex looks puzzled. "I'm fairly sure you don't."
"No, I checked," Greg says.
"But you always say you don't," Alex insists.
"I think I've mostly said we're not having sex, and we can definitely agree that that's never happened," Greg says.
"Shit," Alex says, which is how Greg knows he's really lost.
"Going in for the cuddle now," Greg says, so Alex can't mistake him. Alex doesn't move, so Greg puts his arms around him, holding him close, his chin on the top of Alex's head. After a moment, Alex's arms come up, his hands resting on Greg's back.
"Alex," Greg says gently. "Please don't do that to yourself again. I know I'm the last person on earth to give advice about self-deprication, but there's a difference between that and torture."
"I really don't know what I could say that would be worse than that," Alex says.
"If you do find something, keep it in until you're offstage," Greg says.
"I never would have said it if I'd known you felt anything," Alex says. "You just kept saying you didn't."
Greg sighs. "I could have said yes-and and made it into a joke, but it wasn't, so I couldn't. You don't go around telling people you have feelings for a married man, for a lot of reasons, not least of all because I thought you were kidding."
"How is you dealing with it by telling everyone you don't want me any different from me saying I do?" Alex says.
"It's totally-" Greg starts. "Hm. That's uncomfortable."
"Yes, it is," Alex says.
"I think we need to be nicer to each other," Greg says, and he holds Alex tighter.
"You say that every season," Alex says.
"And you almost always shoot me down," Greg points out. "But that's really not what I meant." He lets Alex go. "Of course, it's not like this does matter. You're not any less married than you were when you came in here."
"Let me-" Alex says. "I mean, if you're actually serious, I'll see what I can do."
"You'd do something like that for me?" Greg asks, almost alarmed.
"Greg, I'm in love with you," Alex says, and he sounds wholly different than he did earlier. He sounds tired, matter-of-fact, almost like he's annoyed with Greg for it. That feels real, like the day-to-day love that Greg thinks he is almost forgetting.
"I love you too," Greg says. "Sorry, I don't think I ever actually said it."
"I appreciate it," Alex says, looking amused. He sighs. "Look, I'm sorry, I won't fuck up like that again and make it any weirder than it has to be."
"Thanks," Greg says, even though he probably should have said that it was fine.
"I'll talk to Rachel, alright?" Alex says. "Maybe this ends here, but I don't think it does."
Greg feels like he ought to make some physical gesture, but he can't kiss Alex on the mouth, and kissing him on the cheek seems sort of dismissive somehow, so he tries to think of something else. He doesn't, panics, and ends up taking Alex's hand and kissing his knuckles. It's ridiculous, but Alex's face is soft when Greg pulls away.
"Um, text me whatever it is you were supposed to tell me," Greg says. "I won't remember."
"Sure," Alex says. "I'll let you get changed."
"See you tomorrow," Greg says, which now holds a kind of promise that he wasn't expecting. Alex just smiles and leaves.
Greg stares at the door for a moment, then locks it.
"What the fuck was that," Greg says under his breath, unbuttoning his waistcoat. He thinks he probably knows, but it makes him feel better.